Happy New Year From Norm Corp.

Perhaps I’ve been in the business world a bit too long. When New Year’s Day 2012 loomed on the horizon, I found myself forsaking the usual soul-searching and personal resolution making so common this time of year for a more corporate approach. I started thinking in terms of measuring my progress, benchmarking my performance against my peers, setting stretch goals and drawing up a fresh strategic plan for the future.

To some, that might sound like simply substituting popular business jargon for a more touchy-feely type of vocabulary. But to me, the process felt more productive and the results more likely to reach fruition than the traditionally hollow New Year’s promises most of us make to start exercising, lose weight or stop watching so much reality TV. Something about treating my life like a business and taking a more structured and measured approach to self-improvement struck a chord.

Something else struck me, too. I realized just how much the learning and development industry has changed since practitioners began doing the same thing. Since the term ROI first entered the learning lexicon, we’ve made great progress toward quantifying what we do and applying meaningful metrics to the workforce development function. Providing compelling evidence of the business value and bottom-line benefits of a strong learning culture is one of the most significant and noticeable ways enterprise education has continued to evolve.

I’m sure you can think of many more examples of how the industry has experienced — and continues to experience — major growth and change. For starters, there’s the actual way workers learn and become more effective and proficient. We’ve come a long way since the days when the majority of workforce learning was strictly formal, classroom-based training. Blended learning is now de rigueur for any enterprise serious about aligning development initiatives with both day-to-day business realities and dynamic, competitive strategies. With increased scrutiny on productivity in most organizations, e-learning, informal learning, social learning, coaching, mentoring and other flexible alternatives have risen astronomically in importance and usage.

Next, I only needed to look at the technology that’s become commonplace to recognize what a strong influence it has within the industry. By enabling anytime access, as well as remarkable speed, scale and reach, the latest technologies make learning and development not only a continuous opportunity but a constant possibility.

Consider the rapid emergence of mobile learning. According to a recent Bersin & Associates research study, “M-Learning: Mobile Learning Is Finally Going Mainstream — And It Is Bigger Than You Might Think,” the sheer availability of easy-to-use and relatively inexpensive smartphones, e-book readers, netbooks, tablets and user-friendly applications is contributing to the rapid adoption of mobile learning in the workplace. Such deep penetration is prompting more companies — in excess of 20 percent in 2010, according to the study — to offer mobile learning as a complement to their more traditional learning and development options.

The evolution of learning delivery methodologies and the proliferation of exciting new technologies are just two obvious reminders of the dynamism of our industry. There are plenty of other signs that this process of change is not about to stop any time soon. That’s a promise and a prediction I can make with certainty. How effective learning organizations will be in capitalizing on this inevitable evolution, however, will no doubt depend on how well they understand and anticipate what’s coming.

This naturally brings me back to where I started: reflection. The learning leaders who will be in the best position to positively impact the business performance of their organizations will be those who engage in the same kind of critical, outcome-focused thought process I used to get off to the right start in 2012. They will insist on measuring the progress of their learning initiatives with business-focused metrics. They will be driven to enhance effectiveness by benchmarking their performance via rigorous programs like the Chief Learning Officer LearningElite. They will set stretch goals for their people and their learning organization, and make certain workforce development efforts are fully aligned with the concrete business strategies they need to support.

I hope you are among them. Happy new year!

Norm Kamikow

Editor in Chief

norm@CLOmedia.com