Social Business strategist, podcaster, blogger, founder of Social Connections and conference speaker
I’ve long been a huge fan of Louis Richardson’s presentation and story-telling style, and therefore it’s no surprise that delivers the most persuasive explanation of how collaboration and communication networks can be infused with cognitive/AI abilities to stimulate learning, mentoring and personal development
Interesting post on the Conferences That Work blog:
Research indicates that informal learning—experiential, social, and self-directed—makes up about 90% of the learning modalities that professionals use today. Only 10% of adult learning uses formal classroom or meeting presentation learning formats. This ratio of experiential:peer/self-directed:formal learning is known as the 70:20:10 rule. Here’s a quick overview by Charles Jennings:
I’m giving this a lot of thought in the context of IBM Connect and our own Social Connections events. If we forget over 50% of the content we’re taught in formal sessions within an hour, then surely there must be a way to improve those learning experiences? Could we make them more interactive?
Perhaps we could give materials to the session attendees to complete during and after the session? Give them direct access to demo environments from their laptops and tablets whilst listening to the speakers etc.
I definitely want to explore how when we meet next time at a Social Connections conference we can maximise the retention of information and leave attendees with a far better learning experience!
Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, writes on the correct way to deal with competition:
Reacting well to competition requires critical analysis of your own product and its shortcomings, and a complete, open-minded understanding of why people might choose your competitors.
They’re not fanboys. They’re not brainwashed by “marketing”. Your competitors’ customers aren’t passing on your product because they’re stupid or irrational.
They’re choosing your competitors for good reasons, and denying the existence of such good reasons will only ensure that your product never overcomes them.
He goes on to discuss why Microsoft’s recent reaction to the threat of iOS is more constructive than Google’s.
It’s a fascinating reflection, and bears great relevance to the way in which we see some Collaboration and Social Business vendors react.
Customers are not irrational, users are not stupid. If you want them to choose to buy your solution, or even more importantly, to desire to use it, you had better go focus your attention and resources on making yours significantly better than the opposition, not on dissing the opposition or those that buy or use their products!