Design, Thinking, Learning, Feedforward, & Predictions

The essence of strategy for design - Adaptive Path

When I think of strategy in the context of our design work, I think of three things:

• Philosophy: What are you about? What do you stand for, what is your approach?
• Vision: Where are you headed? How will you know you're successful?
• Planning: How will you get there?

Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker - Scientific American

Your learners are more likely to remember something if the place or situation in which they are trying to recall the information bears some resemblance - color or smell, for example - to where they originally learned it.

I know from my own experience that there is much more to "intelligence" than an IQ number. In fact, I hesitate to believe that any system could really reflect the complexity and uniqueness of one person's mind, or meaningfully describe the nature of his or her potential.

The bell curve distribution for IQ scores tells us that two thirds of the world's population have an IQ somewhere between 85 and 115. This means that some four and a half billion people around the globe share just 31 numerical values ("He's a 94," "You're a 110," "I'm a 103"), equivalent to 150 million people worldwide sharing the same IQ score. This sounds a lot to me like astrology, which lumps everyone into one of twelve signs of the zodiac.

As I have already mentioned, numbers to me have their own shapes, colors and textures. Various studies have long demonstrated that being able to visualize information makes it easier to remember.

You Can Look -- But Don't Touch - Science Daily

Can your learners actually "touch" want they need to learn? Perhaps one of the reasons that some learning programs end in failure is that the learners simply view it as a far-off distance object that provides no real ownership.

Previous research had documented that many people begin to feel ownership of an item long before they actually acquire it. But this is the first study to demonstrate that strong feelings of ownership can begin in as little as 30 seconds after initial contact if they are allowed to touch and handle it.

Try Feedforward instead of Feedback - Leaders Values

Participants are each asked to play two roles. In one role, they are asked provide feedforward - that is, to give someone else suggestions for the future and help as much as they can. In the second role, they are asked to accept feedforward - that is, to listen to the suggestions for the future and learn as much as they can.

My Prediction

With all the predictions taking place, I might as well get on the bandwagon. . . There has been some comforting news than in many organizations, the Training/Learning Departments have not been axed as hard as they were in the past. The chiefs of these organizations are beginning to realize the importance of training and learning to get them out of hard economic times. Thus, while it will still be some years before Training/Learning will be invited to have a seat at most corporate tables, we are beginning to be seen as important business-linkages that enable the business units to achieve their goals.

We will not jump as we have in the past with seeing every new shiny toy, such as programmed learning, video-tapes, and elearning as the next silver-bullet, but rather we will examine new technologies with critical, but open eyes so that we may best determine how they can be used to help our customers meet their goals.

Our learning platforms will be transparent to both learners and business units in that the former will know how to use it effectively to master a difficult task or subject, while the latter will see it as the most efficient means for achieving their business goals.

Our learning platforms will be more like matrixes that not only support formal, nonformal, and informal learning that help to pull the learners towards success, but also flexible in that they support a wide variety of business needs.