Hey, It’s me, Dave. You may not have heard from me in a while. I promised I would have a Year of FOCUS, and then I fell off the map. Where did I go? Well, I have been working on my podcast, but also… I think the Muse left town for a while. and that’s OK. that is how the Muse do.
Charged
I have been making recordings on GAMELAYER RADIO, as I mentioned above, and the last two have included creative writing. Here is a player with the episode that has been published:
I think that put a bug under me a bit… but then I got a nudge from a thought leader named David Kelly because I commented on one of his posts. Then he shared that he started a thing called Amplify. I read his opening statement, and it resonated so well that the article below just fell off my fingers. So now, I want to share both of them.
Learning is Still Learning
Now more than ever, we are flooded with too much information and too many buzzwords. But it is still the same game. If you find a way to really help someone do something better—if you find them a solution worth sharing—then you are in the game. I really like the concept of curating content that is high on value and low on noise.
Is this a Fork in the Road?
Just yesterday, I had a meeting with the VP of Member Engagement of the company I work for, and we were discussing my career path. Sales? Nope. Marketing? Warmer… Creating videos at live events for the marketing and conferences team? Now… that could work!
Wait… but do I still get to keep my Learning and Development hat? Will I ever have time to wear it? It feels like our industry is built on shifting sands, and AI is shaking things up. It is the MP3/Napster phase of learning—the democratization of the learning industry; And yet, just as having a sword doesn’t make you a warrior, having a shiny new automatic content-creation tool doesn’t make you a seasoned learning artifact designer.
But Does Learning and Development Love Me Back?
I love working in Learning and Development, and I dare say I’ve been doing it long enough that I know what I’m doing. A master’s degree doesn’t hurt, but the time in the trenches is where the real value comes from. The hours spent standing on stage with a live group of learners. That is the secret sauce. A new tool or an LLM cannot replace that.
We can beat that drum all we want, but the fact of the matter is that the deck space on our boat is shrinking. Organizations are cutting their learning teams because we have traditionally been the first to go. We are the amphibians of the workforce—the indicator species. When the frogs die, you know your water has gone bad.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So what is the solution? Are you looking at me? Are you still reading? The answer is in the AGILE. The solution is in being nimble. Or to be fatalist… adapt or die.
If I can still add value (and draw a paycheck) by traveling to conferences and generating high-quality video content organized by secretive learning objects and edited against a learning goal… then that’s what I will do. Work begets work, and action brings good fortune. The only ones in Learning and Development who will be thrown out with the bathwater are those who latch on to what the learning industry was. Those of us who survive will embrace the new sunrise. My plan is to be walking out in the cold dew before it arrives.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
~Pablo Picasso
Improvement Dave 