Elliott Masie’s Learning 2011 conference was held November 6-9, in Orlando, Florida. This year a record 2000+ learning professionals gathered to learn from each other – showing that even in uncertain economic times, organizations are keeping a focus on learning, training, and development.

As this was my fourth Masie Learning conference, I know that Elliott and his organization (The Masie Center) always do a great job before, during, and after the conference. Of particular value, for both attendees and those who were not able to attend, are the photo galleries and the videos of many of the general sessions provided in the conference Learning Wiki. This site also provides the full program, with pages for some of the general sessions (including mine) providing slides, handouts, in-session notes, and additional content – making it a robust resource, and an effective snapshot of the state of the Learning and Development field circa November, 2011.

Every year the Masie conference boasts a massive program – the paper version this year was exactly 100 pages long. Each time slot for breakout sessions had over 25 options to choose from, making coming up with a game plan critical. As I’ve done previously, while choosing my itinerary I’ve also categorized every session into broad topic areas to determine what the hottest topics are, and to compare the results with years past. Any individual doing the same would no doubt come up with slightly different results, and several dozen sessions were beginner sessions, general L&D best practice or case study sessions, or were otherwise hard to categorize (many of which no doubt incorporated some of the topics below). That said, here is what I found when I analyzed the program:

  
Such results mostly reaffirm my views on what is hot and current in the L&D field. Social Learning, and the use of Social Media to further enable it in organizations, remains a hot topic – definitely a trend, rather than a fad. As just about every talent management survey of CHROs, TM VPs, and CLOs indicates, leadership development remains of critical importance in these tough economic times. Using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for learning in organizations is another hot technology area – and some of these sessions were filled to capacity (one on tablets had to be repeated to accommodate the overflow attendees). Sessions on IT and Learning are popular because the use of technology in learning is expanding in several directions at once. This is leading to IT challenges and opportunities, whether from organizations pursuing the benefits of cloud computing, the effects of the “consumerization of IT,” and more organizations implementing a BYOD policy – bring your own device. Also, as organizations continue the evolution from a focus on training to a focus on learning to a focus on the real goal – performance and ultimately business results – better use of performance support becomes critical.

In comparing these results with the similar tracking I’ve done for this same conference in years’ past, I’ll first note that changes and trends move slowly from year to year. But comparing 2011 with 2008, a few significant differences are clear. By my reckoning, sessions on social media, social learning, and collaboration are up 60%. Ditto for sessions on leadership development and performance support.

As hot as mobile learning is, there were about the same number of sessions in this area three years ago as there were this year. I would argue that mobile learning is an area where there has been strong thought leadership, and certainly some solid early adopters going back several years, but that we are still waiting for mass adoption (see my recent post for what might help trigger this in 2012). Similar to mobile, the number of sessions focusing on the use of simulations and gaming concepts in learning initiatives seem to have remained fairly steady, even while the term “gamification” has reached cringe-inducing jargon levels.

Not surprisingly there wee more sessions this year than in 2008 on the use of video for learning (7 vs. 3), and the same for the use of Virtual Classroom technologies (6 vs. 2), but fewer focused on the fad of Second Life and other immersive virtual worlds (1 vs. 4). There has also been a dramatic cut in the number of sessions focused on learning management systems per se, although no doubt the role of the LMS is covered in many of the general case studies and best practice sessions not tallied above.

With such a large program to choose from, my Taleo colleagues and I used a divide and conquer strategy to attend as many sessions as we could. I attended sessions in a few areas, including two on mobile learning (one on tablets shown at right). On the last day of the conference, word of Adobe’s announcement regarding Flash and mobile devices was shared from the main stage, as this news clearly impacted many who were in attendance (Again, for more on this see my post “Adobe’s Flash Announcement: A Tipping Point for Mobile Learning in 2012?”)

My own session was titled “The Big Picture: Beyond Social Learning, Think Social Talent Management” (slides and a handout are available for download at the Learning Wiki). To understand the importance of this topic, it is helpful to consider remarks made recently by VP of Yum! University Rob Lauber in an interview by Qualcomm CLO Tamar Elkeles, in the October issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine. When asked “What do you think are the two biggest trends in the learning industry right now?,” Lauber responded:

“I would say the first is how learning fits into talent management, and the second is the impact of social media on structured learning. I believe learning is complementary to talent management. The notion of talent management is about making sure you have the right people in the right jobs in the right place in your organization. Organizations need employees to have skills and capabilities to be able to execute their roles effectively. Learning has to play a part in preparing and enabling people to be successful in their roles as they move through an organization.”

My presentation was on the intersection of exactly these two top trends: social media’s use in talent management and the fit of L&D into the broader world of organizational talent management. I began by defining some key terms, and then gave an overview of social learning backed by powerful examples. I then noted that just as social media technologies enable greater social learning, they can do the same for other areas of talent management. I proceeded to make this case by giving examples of social performance management, social recruiting, and social onboarding – all further enabled by the use of social media tools. I want to thank everyone who participated in this session with me – I hope it was helpful in expanding your thinking on the power of social talent management and social business.

As for the conference’s general sessions, Masie again brought in big-name headliners – indeed, they don’t get much bigger than former President Bill Clinton. His speech covered a lot of ground, providing some inspiring moments while also being a bit more political than some of us were expecting. His presentation was followed by a more personal interview with Elliott that I think everyone really enjoyed.

One of the other two headliners was Dean Kamen, who is not just a brilliant inventor (the Segway, prosthetic limbs for returning soldiers, and much more), but also is quite witty and can tell a good story. In addition to his interview with Elliott (see the six brief videos), I also attended a session he gave where he was promoting his FIRST program, which targets students ages 6-18 and promotes the learning of science and technology through innovative projects and robotics competitions, all while providing valuable employment and life skills. Regarding science, technology, engineering, and the competitions that highlight these areas, Kamen likes to note that unlike basketball or football, “Every kid can turn pro in this sport.”

The third headliner was actor John Lithgow, who was of course funny, charming, and in addition to his interview with Masie, gave a great one-man storytelling performance. Masie’s conference always provides a good mix of learning and entertainment, and Lithgow’s performance actually managed to combine both.

Other general sessions included insightful interviews between Elliott and thought leaders on a range of subjects including learning leaders from the likes of McDonalds, Starbucks, Disney, Apple, and Facebook; Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School; Sharon Begley of Newsweek; Cathy Casserly of Creative Commons; Ken Zolot of MIT; Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University; Dana Oblinger of EDUCAUSE; Stephen Lambert who is a producer for the show Undercover Boss; and many others. Videos from many of these general sessions are available at the Learning Wiki.

Taleo was one of a few dozen Learning 2011 Sponsors, and on behalf of my Taleo colleagues who also attended the event I’d like to thank everyone who came by our sponsor stand to discuss your L&D challenges and learn more about our Taleo Learn offering.

The conference had a strong Twitter backchannel, and my friend David Kelly did us all a favor (again!) by curating the resources shared – see his posting at Misadventures in Learning. Here also are a dozen of the key insights I captured from the conference Twitter-stream:

• “Interesting to think we spend more time and effort hiring managers than we do developing them  – Peter Cappelli
• “Take human capital as seriously as your most important product component.” – Peter Capelli
• “More data, worse decisions. Need curation in learning as in everything else.” – Nigel Paine
• “Work is becoming fragmented, crowd-sourced.” – Elliott Masie
• “A company is too big when they have a place for poor performers to hide.” – from a Facebook employee.
• “Create a culture of superstars of things that matter.” – Dean Kamen
• “The problem with well-run companies is that they are too well run. Need room for innovation.” – Ken Zolot
• “LMSes can be wonderful or frustrating.” – Elliott Masie
• “Mobile Learning is not about being cool but about… can the learning be faster, cheaper and better for the learn!” – from mobile learning session
• “Tablets are important because of affordances – like R2D2 plugging into death star to get info needed.” – Tom King
• “Learners need to be taught at an early age that everything isn’t important. Off-loading of memorization will take time.” – Bob Mosher
• “We need to stop telling people what to do, but teach them how to think!” – conference attendee

I’ve seen a few other event recap blog postings, so for more perspectives see Harrison Whithers at Media1, Marianna Noll at Ancile Solutions, and Claire at Dashe and Thomson.

It’s not clear to me how Elliott will be able to top this event next year — perhaps it will be well enough to simply try to equal it? What do you think? I look forward to hearing your thoughts from this conference or responses to what I just wrote – please use the comments feature below.

(Note: All photos in this post are from the public conference galleries, and are credited to the conference staff photographer, Ed Burke.)