ETD 2009 Barcelona, designed to deliver knowledge on a range of implementations for measures in e-learning strategy, reducing costs through new technologies, trends for online training and how to invest and manage talent in a downturn!

Having attended many of the presentations from leading HR experts and e-learning professionals, I returned knowing more or less what I knew already.

The answers, I amongst many felt were not forthcoming, so is this sector attempting anything  promising to combat what is essentially a real issue in todays marketplace!

I heard stories from some of the top blue chip companies that ROI was not an area they were too concerned about or seeking out future trends in training & development! Two very contrasting issues!!

How about training in relation to market barriers? driving performance in a developing global environment? Gaining new skills? Creating networks as a part of company culture? I really wanted to know more....

Take employee orientation, what happens when they start?  Does it create an impact on how they are retained in the future? How about gaining the value of learning about cultures? Forming and developing the relationships necessary to deliver productive work in the first months? Formal group training? Performance management today? Career management and management development? Just the tip of what every ongoing HR process has to deliver on their strategies.  But what are the vehicles carrying this process!

‘PEOPLE’

Research has shown that talents entering the market today are the generation of ‘video gamers’ but only a few corporations have embraced this interactive media to win the engagement of their workers. Predictably video games since the 1970’s have gone from strength and encompasses a multibillion dollar business platform. The so called next generation of workers will continue to show organisations their powerful shifts and attitudes towards learning and training.

Employees entering the marketplace today show an aptitude for global team work and collaboration but lacking the necessary business skills. Delivering e-learning solutions to them via click ‘next’ bottom will do little to inspire or be cost effective.  UPS undertook a survey recently, discovering under 25’s took 3 times longer to learn basic business skills required! How do organisations resolve this so called problem? Ignore it and bottom line becomes more accountable!

Serious games  in the corporate world will see a growth no doubt, but the message has to be delivered from the academic findings and land itself on the business networks. Immersive and engaging are often related to the language of gaming, when transferred to to a pedagogical design they can quickly adopt to be a serious contender for 'next generation learning'. 

Understanding how games can add value can often be steeped in misconception, lack of acknowledgment or resistance to new innovations and complexity of understanding technology, to deliver best practice. I heard this time and time again at the conference about the objective of ‘don’t want to take away the face to face communication’ so when does face to face teaching stop becoming a teaching aid and video games take over?

Of course games won’t resolve some of the skills needed in a work place, as the complexity of many organisations, is a given, especially when you are looking at building leadership through a team or furthering executive education, MBA schools will be happy to aid in that. But if the understating is there among and the future of training needs, then to not only stand alone as a business unit, be accountable, deliver good ROI and be competitive then measures in every form of e-learning, video gaming, serious learning need to be explored.

An example from Clomedia below, it shows that video games have been delivering in the entertainment form, most of what is required for sound business skills and by adding this theory to serious games and e-learnng knowledge base, it can create a powerful and diverse source of training.