2008-01-28

Vision for Learning & Development

I was asked to participate in developing a Vision Statement for a training department, but I just couldn't get started without feeling I was just "dreaming up stuff in a vacuum." My head was overflowing with assumptions I couldn't possibly validate, so I had to shrink the scope of my personal vision for a possible upcoming presentation...
The video below is a Vision, not a Vision Statement. This way I've hopefully limited assumptions about the Business to just one: "The Business needs SPEED TO PERFORMANCE."



The one political risk in the message behind the video is the classroom instructors' potential fear of exclusion/extinction. I wanted to highlight and maximize the difference between the slowest way and the quickest toward business performance, so obvously the classroom clip was required in front and a sci-fi clip was required at the back. Truth be told, I'm neither a classroom-hater nor a technology-lover. ;)
I'm certinaly not implying that classroom learning per se is outmoded; I still strongly believe that the classroom environment is a must for certain types of learning. If we had the budget, I'm wagering we'd be rolling out 3-5 times more classroom training, but the business reality I'm seeing is very different. Classroom training's just... very slow!
Okay, Learning Professionals out there: Any questions/comments/ideas? I wanna know please! :D

Video clips were extracted from two highly-entertaining movies below. Rent them again! I enjoyed them both thoroughly. :)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off* [Copyright 1986 Paramount Pictures]
The Matrix [Copyright 1999 Warner Bros Pictures]
*The movie's in color. I just made the clip here b/w to give the 2nd clip more dramatic contrast.