David Kelly’s Curated L&D Content for the Week of 10/7/19

David Kelly, Executive Director, The eLearning Guild

This week’s curated content includes links exploring the following:

• A list of activities that can boost your creativity
• An example of A.I. being used as a content creator
• Where senior leaders think companies go wrong with L&D
• A real-world example of AR being used to enhance workforce productivity and learning
• How to incorporate micro-interactions in your designs
• A comprehensive look at xAPI adoption in 2019

28 Ways to Fire-up a Creative Mindset by Francesca Elisia
Creativity doesn’t just happen. I look at creativity as a muscle. Exercise it and it gets stronger; ignore it and it gets weaker. I’m always looking for ways to flex my creative muscles, and posts like this help fuel that engine.

These AI-generated people are coming to kill stock photography by Mark Wilson
Artificial Intelligence is going to change our lives in countless ways, some of which we may never expect. This is one such example. Stock photography is a valuable resource for content creators, but the licensing of images and videos can be expensive due to copyrights. This post explores how A.I. could disrupt that paradigm, as it explores a new website that features thousands of images of people that can be used for free, because none of them are real; all the images were generated by artificial intelligence. It’s a fascinating example of artificial intelligence creating content, and a good resource to book for your own work.

Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development by Steve Glaveski
While I tend to lean away from posts with the negative theme of “What we do wrong” (I prefer posts with more positive narratives), I share this post for two reasons. First, it does highlight a number of things that our industry – as a whole – can do better with. More importantly, I share it because of the source of the post: Harvard Business Review. HBR is the type of periodical senior management professionals are reading, so its articles like this on that can shape their perspective on L&D. If you want to get a glimpse into what senior leaders thing about learning and training, look at what the publications they are reading are saying about it.

Augmented Reality is making industrial work more productive by Jim Salter
The best way to see the real promise of augmented reality in the workplace is to see use cases in practice. This post highlights one of the early emerging use cases where AR is having real success: virtual support. In this article, which is supported but images and videos, you see how AR is being used as a powerful tool to help people receive support and learn while in the process of doing their jobs.

Micro-interactions: why, when and how to use them to improve the user experience by Vamsi Batchu
This post explores micro-interactions and how they can enhance the experiences you design. What I found interesting is while I wasn’t familiar with the term “micro-interactions” before, I was very familiar with these types of interactions; I just never really took notice of them. It’s that lens that really hooked me with this article; seeing something I’ve seen thousands of times in a whole new way, and discovering how that can influence my views on design in the future.

2019: The State of xAPI Adoption by Megan Torrance
The Experience API (xAPI) has been emerging and evolving for a number of years now. The latest Guild Research report examines what the current state of xAPI adoption is, exploring these complex questions from the viewpoint of three critical perspectives: Those already adopting xAPI, those who have not yet adopted it, and the perspectives of the providers of the tools and applications learning professionals use every day. It’s a report that goes into great detail examining the current xAPI landscape, concluding with insightful recommendations for professionals in our field. Reminder: This valuable report is available as part of a FREE eLearning Guild Membership.

How to Overcome the Challenges Facing Today’s Senior Learning Leaders

One of the biggest challenges senior learning leaders face today is keeping their organization’s learning strategy ahead of the advancing technology curve. And the reality is, it’s only going to get harder.

Today’s senior learning leaders need to connect with people and resources that can help them stay ahead of changes in technology, and to help build context on what each technology means to their organization.

I recently shared a post that explores 3 specific things all senior leaders should be doing every day:

• Actively Connect with other Senior Learning Leaders
• Become Conversant in Emerging Technologies
• Engage in Discussions that Put Technology into Context

It’s these three tentpoles around which our Executive Forum has been built. You’ll meet senior leaders dealing with the same challenges you are, gain the knowledge needed to engage in emerging technologies, and participate in discussions that will help you and your organization grow.

If you are responsible for driving your organizational learning strategy, consider joining us for the Executive Forum, co-located with the DevLearn Conference and Expo.