Informal Learning enthusiasts: the Learning & Development profession can't afford you no more

Learning & Development professionals on the web, who are you trying to persuade? Can you try to sound a little less, erm, bonkers? - a letter to myself.

A tale of sound and fairies
Here's how I've lost work in the past. I go to a company and meet some middle managers. They want me to design a training programme. I say, "Yes, I can do that." And I can.

"But," I say.

And I begin to talk about alternatives. Have you thought about embedding this learning into a sim or a business development project? Have you consider a social learning or Knowledge Management approach? What about doing bits of this online? We all get excited. And, possibly, a little carried away.

When we part, the middle managers are beaming. We can't wait to start working with you, they say. This has been a real eye-opener. The people here are going to love this.

Throw me a bone, here. . .
It's easy to criticise Senior Managers as the pointy-head bosses from Dilbert. But, in my experience, they're not (always? often?) like that. So when they see the middle managers' excitement, they're pleased and possibly a little proud. Look, see how they've grown up and grabbed that initiative just like I've coached them to!

I live and breathe this stuff. So my thoughts about informal learning are relatively coherent. My enthusiasm is tempered with reason because my it stems from my own experiences. I've had the good fortune to work on training projects that went wrong. I've listened to learners tell me how they got more out of the lunch break than the PowerPoint presentation. I've sensed the impatience of the group summoned to compulsory training too long before/way past the time it's needed.

I've made informal learning work because I couldn't think of another way to do what I needed to do. To misquote Karl Weick, my enthusiasm is compressed expertise.

Die, heretic!
But the middle managers I spoke to ended up sounding like they've been indoctrinated into a cult. Not because they're naive or gullible. But because their enthusiasm is just that - enthusiasm. It's no wonder that their Senior Managers have expressed doubts. The stories I told at the meeting didn't survive retelling because I managed to whip up more enthusiasm than understanding.

For me, and lots of people I speak to on the web and on Twitter and around, it's time to curb my enthusiasm. To cut down on the Learning Theory. To stop thinking about how wonderful informal learning is - and, by extension, how wonderful I am.

Four things (for me) to remember:

• Formal training is not all bad. We're members of the richest societies the planet has ever seen. (Despite the Econopalypse.) We must have been doing something right. To say otherwise is disingenuous.
• Get your story straight and get good at telling it from the the perspective of customers and learners. My story is simple: informal learning is about learning coming to the learner rather than the other way round. It's about harnessing your interstitial time.
• Your informal learning stories don't need to stand up to intellectual scrutiny. They need to stand up to retelling at the water cooler and in the stairwell and during casual conversations with pointy-haired bosses.
• Learning & Development professionals separate their marketing from their actual work. In this case, perhaps we should think about the overlap? It's time to start educating our customers not selling to them.

The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.

Who's been good at talking about Learning 2.0 from the perspective of learners and organisations rather than a theoretical or practitioner's perspective? Who manages to embrace the cutting edge but avoid demagoguery? I can't think of that many who have managed both. . .


The Karl Weick (mis)quote comes from the always enthusiastic Irmeli Aro. You should follow Irmeli Aro on Twitter. She's @connectlrmeli.