Donald H Taylor – Enterprise Learning Technology and the Changing Role of L&D

by Peter Gillis

December 18, 2013

The final 2013 seminar in the Learnovate Lunchtime Series turned out to be a very successful event. The Neil Hoey Theatre in the Trinity Long Room Hub provided an excellent contemporary space for members and associates of members to take in the presentations of the three speakers.

Lynda Donovon, Prof. Vinny Wade, Don Taylor and Martyn Farrows during the Q&A session
Prof. Vinny Wade, the Academic Director for the Learnovate Centre gave a short introductory presentation to famliarise the audience with the growth in membership at the centre (40+ members), and the work we do. He went on to discuss the strong, world-class academic research arsenal available to the centre and the current research themes being investigated. Vinny also gave insight to Learnovate’s position as part of the larger research initiatives within Trinity College, Dublin.

Don Taylor, chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI) was the keynote for the day, all enjoyed his insightful presentation. Don’s presentation included interactive sessions with the audience and saw the birth of a new L&D phrase “learning on the hoof”!
Don talked about three emerging themes for 2014 based on research from the recent LPI report “The LPI Capability Map”.
1. The maturing and widening of delivery methods including the proliferation of video and mobile.
2. The rise of the networked individual, the cloud, personalised delivery and open access are all features of employees’ connectivity now. This means L&D need to have the “Netflix” approach, available and personalized across all different formats.
3. The demanding business, Human Capital is one of the biggest global challenges across the world, yet HR Departments are seen as one of the most inflexible areas in organisations. The writing is on the wall, to succeed L&D departments will need to get out of what Don calls the Training Ghetto and become a lot more agile.
A copy of The LPI Capability Map can downloaded here.

The final presentation was from Lynda Donovan, Pedagogical Lead at the centre. Lynda’s presentation complemented Don’s, bringing a grounded aspect to the proceedings, by demonstrating the work both completed and planned by Learnovate, and how it related to current L&D thinking.
In twenty minutes Lynda gave an insightful overview of the current and emerging challenges facing HR and L&D departments, and how technological/pedagogical innovations can assist.
The presentation looked at the lifecycle of employees over five stages; Recruitment, Onboarding, Performance Support, Performance Management/Succession Planning and Development. By way of illustration Lynda matched each of the five stages to projects and research outputs from the Learnovate Centre, concluding with reference to two of the year three projects from Learnovate that will further focus on corporate learning and development. Lynda’s presentation can be downloaded here.

After the presentations and a Q&A session hosted by Jonny Parkes, Chairman of Learnovate, the audience retired upstairs to the informal meeting space in the Hub. Here the discussions and networking continued over light lunch. All in all we have received very positive feedback on the event and look forward to developing it as an annual event.