Data continues to be a hot topic in L&D. The options for collecting data continue to grow, along with the potential for finding new insights for learning design. But in conversations with L&D professionals about the need for better data, it’s become clear that good design is not only about designing for data, but also designing from data.

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology revolution is about to explode in L&D. While still not commonplace, it has the potential to resemble the stunning uptake of the smartphone—technology that went from new to everywhere in just 10 years. It also has the capability to redefine the learning landscape. In the age of IoT, learning will no longer be about ownership of information; it will be about presence, context, and experience.

Consumer experiences with YouTube, Snapchat, Netflix, console games, and virtual and augmented reality are shaping demand for a new generation of corporate digital learning. How do you develop a generation of learners who may have spent more time with video games than in school? How do you leverage the explosion of screens and devices to change behavior? How can augmented and virtual reality bring immersion, engagement, and presence to new levels?

On the footsteps of the dot-com and Y2K craze, the first web-based learning management system (LMS) OLAT debuted in 1999 as a free, open-source platform to support adult learning. It was also the same year that TiVo and Unix were released, Napster was sued by the music industry, and Amazon.com became the leading seller of books. In the almost 20 years since “LMS” entered the vernacular of learning professionals, much has changed in technology and the world at large. However, the LMS remains the central learning technology of any organization. L&D is long overdue for a change.

Creating great online learning experiences for Americans with disabilities involves more than just adhering to US government Section 508 standards. The ability for people to navigate learning management systems (LMSs) efficiently, find course content quickly, and consume learning material goes beyond supporting screen readers alone. One strong approach is to focus on user experience (UX) design. Good UX design tactics will not only expand the accessibility of your content but also benefit all your users. Best of all, good UX design can simplify your content.

Microlearning is everywhere. Your clients or L&D leaders may be pressuring you to use it everywhere. For everything. Oh, and by the way, for cheap. But when should it be used—and when should it not be used? Microlearning is a small and powerful tool, but it may not be the answer to every learning dilemma.

In many cases, the conceptual part of the instructional design process is neglected. Designers don’t have time; they don’t have tools; they don’t know how to ideate learning solutions in an efficient way. As a result, they end up with a routine solution aligned tightly with their own knowledge, skills, biases, and comfort zone. It is very hard to design great training based on such an approach.

Like many roles, the world of slot machine technicians is growing more complicated and more technical every day. They have dozens of games, signs, and controllers to install and support and have several cases to address a day. How can people in situations like this keep track of it all? With their smartphone! In their hand they have access to an easy-to-use mobile tool for performance support and continuous learning.

In 2001, Kent Beck and others created the Agile Manifesto to address the high failure rate of projects. Since then, many companies have adopted agile principles but have struggled with the real-world challenges. Despite this change, a large number of projects still fail. The reality is, many companies talk agile, but application varies—standard techniques exist but may not be followed for good business reasons. It may be cool to be “doing agile,” but it’s just not that easy to transition.

As the lines between marketing, communication, and training are blurring, L&D is being asked to think “like a marketer” and develop or promote creative new learning solutions. So how do marketers engage their audience and change people’s behavior despite changing technology and consumer preferences? The secret is their strategy. How can L&D professionals apply these strategies to change learner behavior and engage participants?

When you visualize abstract ideas, you make the ideas easier for people to understand. When you use visual metaphors, you make content seem familiar. An important skill in L&D is the ability to make meaning through visuals—and diagrams, charts, graphs, and timelines can help.

Today’s learners are faced with an ever-growing surplus of content to learn, process, and employ in their careers. Companies have terabytes of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and standard work required for successful day-to-day operations. They need to empower their employees with a system for efficiently building on or augmenting the capabilities each person brings to the organization. Intelligence augmentation is one possible solution.

The L&D landscape is a complicated space: There are dozens of genres of software, including LMSs, LRSs, authoring tools, analytical tools, etc. Yet few people understand what function their software is actually meant to accomplish. Given this fundamental misunderstanding of software’s “jobs to be done,” it’s no wonder that companies struggle to make the right purchasing decisions, often ending up with software that is not the right fit for their needs.

How do you take a traditional learning experience like new-hire training and radically reimagine it for today’s learner? More importantly, why should you want to change your approach? There’s a growing consensus in the L&D industry that new employees learn more on the job than they do through formal learning events. Nonetheless, L&D is in a unique position to shape the experience of new employees from day one, which presents a prime opportunity to create a lasting impact as they begin their new roles.

Workplace learning is a two-way relationship between a company’s desire to stay competitive and employees’ need for information to engage job functions. With the struggle for competitive advantage expected to only accelerate, it pays dividends to create a flexible and technology-enabled learning ecosystem that can foster the future generations in the workforce.

Patient safety and compliance are major issues in hospitals today. One organization’s challenge was how to keep 7,000 professionals up to date and compliant regarding patient safety tasks and medical equipment. The issue was that formal learning wasn’t proving to be effective enough as medical equipment was changing with software updates on a regular basis.

A carefully executed eLearning scenario can pull people into a real-world application of new concepts and skills. Yet it’s rare that instructional designers have the time to create immersive scenarios with complicated branching and feedback. Under a tight deadline to redesign an online course in practical ethics, Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences still wanted to give students practice making realistic decisions before they began working with real patients.

Adults learn by doing what they’re being taught. As a virtual trainer, it’s your job to get them “doing.” But sometimes you may find your audience multitasking instead of engaging with the content, and as a result, their learning suffers. How can you keep people actively “doing” within the confines of your virtual platform?

Designing learning for a global workforce is challenging at the best of times. However, when you factor in that this learning must be virtual, mobile ready, and accessible to over 80,000 employees, the challenge becomes substantially more complex. This is the dilemma SAP faced when asked to develop a global diversity and inclusion program for its employees to boost awareness of the value of an inclusive work environment.

Back by popular demand, Hyperdrive returns to DevLearn this fall. This year’s Hyperdrive competition focuses on innovation, showcasing projects that are using technology and solutions to create new and exciting opportunities for learning and performance support.

Many businesses’ success depends on their customers and partners being skilled users of those businesses’ products and services. But sometimes those products and services are complex or otherwise challenging to learn. Unfortunately, the more people struggle to understand them, the less likely they are to use them effectively to unlock value (and come back for more).

Spoken words carry information far beyond what is found in the words themselves. Written words cannot convey inflection, tone, and true meaning, so it is not surprising that a voice-over recording can sound very different than what scriptwriters originally intended. What if there was a simple way to write scripts for voice narration that increases readability, leading to improved accuracy in delivery and minimizing (even eliminating) time-consuming retake sessions?

The airline industry is highly regulated. As a result, Alaska Airlines’ employees were tasked with completing numerous hours of training each year. With limited resources and time, they needed an innovative method to make this annual training feel fresh to their audience. For the first time in years, they decided that eLearning might not be the answer to the age-old problem of how to make a learning experience truly memorable. Their alternative: comics!

L&D is increasingly using video to address workplace needs, but where should you turn to learn how to make these videos engaging and effective? Hollywood, of course! For more than 100 years, the film industry has mastered the art of engagement, with good films keeping audiences riveted for hours. While not every workplace video needs to be a major production, there are many simple lessons from Hollywood that you can apply in your work to make better videos.

Graphics in the world of learning have been generally stuck in two dimensions. This limitation can get in the way of your ability to immerse the audience in a story or explain how complex models or processes work. Being able to add a third dimension would do more than just add flash to the content—it could actually make a real impact by making the content more understandable and engaging. But how can you create and add 3-D objects to your work, particularly when you don’t have the budget to hire specialty developers or buy expensive software?

Most organizations’ vision of digital learning solutions starts and ends with a focus on creating learning resources for staff on the corporate LMS. One organization wanted to go beyond that to implement a strategy that addressed the full range of digital learning in all aspects of people’s work, from organizational development through staff skills and support.

Traditional LMSs are not always the simplest of tools to work with. They can, in some cases, be more complicated, limited in their capabilities, or expensive than what you actually need. But if this is the case, you don’t need to settle for an LMS solution that doesn’t actually fit your needs. What you need instead may be found in an unexpected place: WordPress.

The value of virtual reality and 360-degree video content for L&D is quite promising, as the immersive nature of these technologies has the potential to make a major impact on learning and retention when used strategically. However, the actual development of VR and 360-degree video content can at first glance seem daunting, complicated, costly, and even out of reach to most learning organizations. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Virtual reality has been a hot topic in the L&D space recently. Its use in the field is growing, and you can now move past talking about it in theory and explore real examples of VR for training projects. You can see the real-world experience of a learning solution that incorporates VR, and find out what exactly you need to do to create a meaningful learning experience with it.

Significant learning occurs on the job, but how do you manage and track it? Despite a robust eLearning curriculum, on-the-job training of a geographically dispersed workforce was inconsistent and untamed. The existing LMS lacked the ability to track real-world learning activities, which were too extensive for a paper-based system. Empowering Performance forged a customizable, cutting-edge technology solution that could grow and evolve with the organization.

Leadership development programs come in numerous shapes and sizes. At many companies, though, logistical constraints limit the scope of these programs to just employees at headquarters, which limits the opportunity for people at other locations to build their leadership skills. World Wide Technology wanted to open its leadership program to employees who were located in remote offices. But how could the company give these employees the same learning experience as those at headquarters?

eLearning has a satisfactory set of options if your goal is information delivery or procedural training, but what about creating meaningful eLearning for complex skill development or for the not-so-procedural kinds of problems that show up more and more in the workplace? What about creating learning for those situations where your SME can’t tell you what good performance looks like except to say, “Well, you know it when you see it”?

Selling mobile performance support can be challenging. Your clients or business partners may be unfamiliar with these solutions, lack knowledge of mobile technologies, and think they don’t have the resources (developers, time, money) to support these activities. These obstacles can prevent your clients from seeing mobile performance support as a viable solution. But this kind of solution can be much simpler, more budget-friendly, and easier to support than they expect—at least, it is when you know the right tools.

Losing a skilled employee can cost your organization up to twice the employee’s annual salary, making retention a critical cost-saving metric. In today’s economy, people expect more growth out of their jobs, which is evident in the mobility of workers between firms and industries. Giving employees the ability to expand their skills within a company is critical to not only attracting but also retaining the best talent.

Why do so many companies struggle to optimize the impact and ROI of learning management systems? One problem is that people’s learning preferences have moved beyond what most LMS experiences allow. Another issue is that companies can’t afford to invest in tools that don’t add value to their business priorities. A team at InsideView needed to resolve this dilemma quickly.

You’ve heard you should be making videos, but the reality is that there are barriers to starting and barriers to improving. What factors will most influence audio? What type of microphone or camera should you use? Can a training professional really use a cellphone to make a video? And what about adding lighting? What are the steps and tools you need to create effective and impactful learning videos?

As the workplace becomes more virtual and distributed, soft skills training is more important than ever. Also, as artificial intelligence automates basic technical skills and work processes, many occupations increasingly require strong interpersonal skills for new roles and responsibilities. However, when it comes to soft skills, traditional online learning programs may do a good job teaching what to do, but they don’t always give opportunities for learners to apply how to do it, especially in “true to life” situations.

The corporate training industry is awakening to the need for significantly better reporting and improved accountability across all organizational divisions. The advanced data enabled by a new generation of training development tools will allow businesses to make smarter decisions and formulate competitive strategies based on highly credible and timely insights.