We’re in a pivotal moment for learning and development. But is the industry ready for what comes next?
In this episode of The Visual Lounge, Matt sits down with Donald Taylor to unpack the latest findings from the Global Sentiment Survey, one of the longest-running studies tracking trends in L&D, which he co-authored.
With nearly 3,800 responses from over 100 countries, this year’s survey reveals how the conversation around AI is changing. The rapid rise hasn’t stopped, but it has slowed, and what’s emerging in its place is quite complex.
AI still leads as the top trend, but the conversation is shifting. Concerns around job security, ethics, and long-term impact are becoming harder to ignore, while the pressure to prove value is rising fast. At the same time, areas like learning analytics are starting to slip.
Throughout the discussion, Matt and Donald unpack what’s driving both the excitement and the uncertainty, from that growing need to demonstrate impact, to why some of the most traditionally important areas are also the ones being left behind.
They also dig into what this moment means in practice. Not just how AI is being used day to day, but how it’s starting to reshape the role of L&D itself.
Learning points from the episode include:
Important links and mentions:
This is a seminal moment, and it's an exciting moment
Speaker:as well. I wish I was in my 20s or 30s again, able to start
Speaker:anew. I can't, but I can support you in doing what you're doing, and I
Speaker:wish you the best of luck in this exciting new adventure.
Speaker:Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My
Speaker:name is Matt Pearce. Today we're going to be talking with Donald Taylor about the
Speaker:Global Sentiment Survey. Now, we did this last year, but there's a new survey,
Speaker:new information, and new results. So with that said, we're going to go ahead and
Speaker:dive in. So Donald, welcome to the Visual Lounge.
Speaker:Matt, great to be here. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you first of
Speaker:all for coming back. We love to hear about the Global Survey
Speaker:because honestly, it's chock-full with so many great pieces of
Speaker:information. It's one of those things like as I read through, it's like, oh, that's
Speaker:interesting. Then I get a little further and I go, that's even more interesting. So
Speaker:lots, lots of good stuff here. But for those who may not be initiated or
Speaker:familiar with the sentiment survey, Give us a little bit of the background
Speaker:and what are we looking at? The survey
Speaker:has been running for 13 years. We look at the
Speaker:pulse of how learning and development feels about what's
Speaker:happening. Typically about 3,500 people answer the
Speaker:survey. This year it's nearly 3,800 from over 100 countries.
Speaker:There are 3 key questions. What do you think will be hot in the
Speaker:year ahead? What's your challenge for the year ahead in learning and development?
Speaker:And new this year, what have you done in the past 12 months
Speaker:that's new in learning and development? About half of the respondents come from
Speaker:workplace learning and development. The rest are consultants, vendors,
Speaker:they come from the education space, or it's something else.
Speaker:Okay, so a good mix. And a little bit later, I think
Speaker:I want to talk about that mix and how it might be influencing things, which
Speaker:is in the report this year. So you mentioned
Speaker:the one question that's new, which Is there
Speaker:anything else that's maybe new or stood out to you this year from that maybe
Speaker:just wildly different from past years? Well, one
Speaker:thing I'm very relieved about is that artificial intelligence,
Speaker:which has topped the table and has been going through a meteoric rise
Speaker:in terms of what people think is hot, has finally leveled off. So that's a
Speaker:relief more than a surprise. I am— I was
Speaker:surprised this year by how many people responded and
Speaker:how much they wrote. In answer to the question, what are your challenges for this
Speaker:year ahead? So I'll talk about the challenges
Speaker:question later on, but it was more than we've ever had. And it left
Speaker:me with a slight problem of how do I read 41,000
Speaker:words, which is like a book, and make sense of it all in the
Speaker:short time I have to write the report. In the end, I had to use
Speaker:AI to assist me. It turned out to be incredibly useful. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, I mean, that is a massive amount. And I think it does
Speaker:beg a little bit of the question of Is it the fact that there's just
Speaker:greater volume, or is it that people are trying new things, or
Speaker:what, what maybe prompted that kind of level of response?
Speaker:If you look at the responses to this question since we started running
Speaker:it, and we've run it, as I say, for 5 years, and if we look
Speaker:back to how people have responded to it, in
Speaker:2022, when we started it,
Speaker:40% of people responded. And that was about 14,000
Speaker:words. In 2023, again,
Speaker:40% and roughly the same number of words. The following
Speaker:year, 2024, was the first year, because we run the survey at the end of
Speaker:the year, so it was people's reaction to the year 2023.
Speaker:At that point, the response rate leapt up
Speaker:to 95%, and the number of words written was
Speaker:about 25,000, 26,000.
Speaker:So that was a huge jump. It hasn't gone back since. The
Speaker:proportion dropped a bit last year, got back to 95% this year. The number
Speaker:of words written, as I say, went up to 41,000.
Speaker:So I think what's happening, and reading through the
Speaker:responses, I get the view that the
Speaker:world of learning and development has fundamentally changed with the introduction of
Speaker:AI. And it's not just what you can do with it, but it's how people
Speaker:feel about our profession and
Speaker:what we do. And underlying it all, there
Speaker:is a base of uncertainty,
Speaker:which is tinged on the one hand with excitement, and the other
Speaker:with fear. Yeah, and I, as
Speaker:I go out to different events and shows and talk to different people, I feel
Speaker:like that's a very, like, solid take on the theme
Speaker:that people are feeling. There's a lot of unknown. Now, let's, let's talk
Speaker:about AI in the report, because last year, AI had like sky skyrocketed
Speaker:in terms of its appearance on the report. And this year, like you said,
Speaker:it leveled out a little bit. So from your perspective,
Speaker:you know, you get to prognosticate a little bit here about like, hey,
Speaker:you know, you're making your best guesses as we know.
Speaker:Why do we think maybe it's peaked here? Is it— is this a
Speaker:result that things are changing with AI, or is there
Speaker:something, maybe something else that we should be looking at in terms of how
Speaker:L&D is using AI? Just to be quite clear about
Speaker:what I mean when I say it's peaked, what I mean is that the
Speaker:responses to the question, what's going to be hot in L&D this year, have
Speaker:topped out. It's 0.1 of a percent, very small
Speaker:drop from last year, down from last year. It does not
Speaker:mean that AI is done. It does not mean
Speaker:the excitement and the hype is over. It doesn't even mean
Speaker:that we have an idea of how to use it. What it means is that
Speaker:the acceleration of interest
Speaker:has finally slowed. It's a bit like saying, yeah, well,
Speaker:we hit the freeway, we're now at 70 miles an hour, we're still
Speaker:driving at 70 miles an hour. The last 3 years we've been speeding up, we're
Speaker:there now, we haven't reached our destination. So that's what I mean
Speaker:when I say it's peaked. Now, there's still an awful lot
Speaker:going on. I don't have to guess about how AI is being used because in
Speaker:the report AI in L&D, The Race for Impact, that was the
Speaker:annual report on AI and L&D that Egle Vinarskait��, my co-author, and
Speaker:I brought out in September last year. In that, we look
Speaker:at 20 pages of case studies. We interviewed a lot of people, got a
Speaker:tremendous amount of information back, and we look at what people are really doing with
Speaker:AI. And I would say there's two levels of change
Speaker:here. And then I'll briefly sketch
Speaker:that and then you can come back at me. There's the tactical change. How am
Speaker:I using AI? To do things. And there's the strategic
Speaker:change. How is AI altering how learning and
Speaker:development in my organization, and perhaps the organization itself,
Speaker:is run? There's two very different levels. We're seeing both,
Speaker:absolutely. Yeah, and I love the
Speaker:analogy of the— we've been on the freeway. In
Speaker:your probably reading of the comments and the challenges people
Speaker:are facing, do you get the sense that part of
Speaker:that may be that, hey, we've got up to speed. That is there pushback
Speaker:towards AI in L&D versus— I know there's
Speaker:excitement because I see it like, you know, as someone who stands at a trade
Speaker:show booth occasionally with a tool that has some AI, I see the
Speaker:excitement. I also get the sense that there's kind of this other
Speaker:side of the coin, that there's L&D, as you said, uncertainty.
Speaker:So what would you tell us about what's maybe going on under there in
Speaker:terms of the uncertainty or just comfort, anything
Speaker:else you would add to that? There's a whole range of different answers to
Speaker:that, Matt. I'll try to be concise. Firstly,
Speaker:people are concerned about AI's impact on their
Speaker:jobs if their job is creating materials, learning content,
Speaker:and they're right. They're right, not because AI can automatically create
Speaker:material which is better than what they can create, but because it can do it
Speaker:so much cheaper. It can do it at 1/10th, 1/100th of the cost. If
Speaker:it's doing that, the people who pay the bills, who write the checks for
Speaker:L&D, are going to ask themselves, why do we pay this team? And I'm
Speaker:just being brutally honest about this. It doesn't mean everyone's going to lose their
Speaker:jobs. I do know, and the numbers are there showing there
Speaker:has been L&D slowdowns, that people who are out of work
Speaker:are finding it more difficult to secure a new job than they were in the
Speaker:past. It's taking much longer. And that's true in recent countries I've talked
Speaker:to, UK, US, Philippines, Australia. New Zealand.
Speaker:So that's across the board as far as I can see. So there's a real
Speaker:concern there. At a higher level, there's concerns about,
Speaker:and this is geographically focused differently. So if you look at
Speaker:Italy, the focus is on the quality of materials that can be created. If you
Speaker:look at US, there's concern about the
Speaker:guardrails, the implementation being done in a
Speaker:way that is responsible. If you look at the UK, look at
Speaker:Europe generally, actually, there are concerns about representation
Speaker:in AI. Are we serving our communities properly? So
Speaker:there's, if you like, there's ethical concerns.
Speaker:Beyond that, I think there's a fundamental question which sort
Speaker:of seeps through in the responses to the question,
Speaker:what's your challenge? And when people talk about AI,
Speaker:I talk about that survey running, the question running for 5 years. In 2022 and
Speaker:2023, The word human wasn't mentioned at all.
Speaker:Since the launch of ChatGPT, it has
Speaker:increased each year. This year it was mentioned 68 times.
Speaker:So that's pretty extraordinary that a word that wasn't in our vocabulary at
Speaker:all suddenly becomes part of what we're talking about.
Speaker:And I think that's two things. I think firstly, it's people saying, well,
Speaker:we want to make sure that we don't lose the human side of learning. But
Speaker:I think underneath that, there's something else, which is people in L&D
Speaker:feeling an identification, a human identification with this and what
Speaker:they're doing, and feeling that AI risks
Speaker:ripping that away from them. So there's a lot of concern about AI, and
Speaker:I think most of it is well-founded, but it takes different flavors according to
Speaker:where you are in the world and what your job is.
Speaker:Yeah, well, and I know that, and AI just seems to be the hot
Speaker:topic and we could continue talking, but I want, and as much as I
Speaker:think people can go read the report, they can get their, take their own sense
Speaker:of what's happening with AI and L&D, I do want to look at something else
Speaker:that was in the report that stood out to me. When I looked at the
Speaker:list, one of the things that had changed, that had a seemingly big
Speaker:significant change comparatively, was the learning analytics. The focus
Speaker:on what's hot is learning analytics. It had a, I think, what,
Speaker:1.2% drop. Um, you know, now that's, you
Speaker:know, the top 16, which was, I think, the largest one.
Speaker:Um, but the other kind of contrast to that was showing value was
Speaker:up like 0.7%. So help me understand the
Speaker:juxtaposition here because I, I guess maybe inappropriately or
Speaker:maybe not with clarity, said, oh gosh, I want to show value.
Speaker:I need to show my analytics, like my analytics are going to be important. So
Speaker:tell us a little bit about any insights on those two changes there.
Speaker:And just to be clear for people who are listening and saying, well, these sound
Speaker:like small numbers. I mean, they are small numbers, but
Speaker:they, in the scope of the survey, these are big numbers. So showing value went
Speaker:up 0.7% and learning analytics was easily the biggest drop this year,
Speaker:1.2%. 2%. And what this means
Speaker:is that for me, the interpretation
Speaker:I get talking to people about this and listening to them,
Speaker:if I ask people, what is the
Speaker:reason for value, showing value rising so much this
Speaker:year? People say one of two things,
Speaker:either, well, it's because we can use AI to show value.
Speaker:But most people say it's fear. We're concerned about our job loss, our job
Speaker:and what will happen to them. And there's
Speaker:one of the quotes in the survey absolutely deals with this.
Speaker:You ask people, what's your greatest
Speaker:fear for the future? And one of the— or what's your greatest challenge for the
Speaker:year ahead? And one of the comments, all the person
Speaker:wrote was, I need to provide value to avoid redundancy. And so
Speaker:the idea is you're going to provide value because if you don't, you'd lose your
Speaker:job. But why is analytics on the way down? It
Speaker:makes perfect sense that you use the power of AI to
Speaker:manipulate the data to show value and to
Speaker:prove the learning analytics. And the concern is
Speaker:not that it's not an important thing, but that people
Speaker:are seduced by the power of AI to personalize
Speaker:rather than being, rather
Speaker:than wanting to grab the opportunity to get in there
Speaker:and look at the learning analytics.
Speaker:And I think for me, this tells a story about learning and development as a
Speaker:whole, which is that we are focused typically on content creation
Speaker:distribution. So personalization is an easy, quick win with AI.
Speaker:But in contrast, learning analytics requires not just the use
Speaker:of technology, this new technology, but also a leap into doing
Speaker:something we don't normally do, which is looking at data,
Speaker:analyzing it, making correlations, explaining them. That is
Speaker:something so far beyond the normal role of L&D
Speaker:that people would rather not think about it. And so the learning analytics has gone
Speaker:into what some people I was talking to recently called the too-hard
Speaker:bucket. It's just is a bit too much to do. We'd rather concentrate
Speaker:on the personalization. And I think that's dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker:it feels especially dangerous. And I can imagine with the
Speaker:added pressures that L&D teams have that they're also
Speaker:feeling, if we're trying to already ramp up and scale because AI is making it
Speaker:faster and cheaper to do, then if I have to say, well, I need
Speaker:more time to go and get these things to show
Speaker:analytics, oh, too hard, too much time. I could do the more,
Speaker:I could do 5 more courses, right? 10 more courses. And people are maxed out.
Speaker:Look, people are maxed out. This is, it's a real thing. I'm not trying to
Speaker:make out people are being lazy. People are super maxed out just trying to get
Speaker:the day job done and creating content takes time.
Speaker:And if you're working on creating a course, you know, you've got to create
Speaker:it, edit it, go through an iterative process.
Speaker:You don't have any more hours in the day to do this new complicated thing
Speaker:of learning analytics. But I think
Speaker:what makes this such a seminal moment for learning and development is the
Speaker:fact that we don't have a choice about it. AI is going
Speaker:to undermine the
Speaker:proposition, the value proposition of us as content
Speaker:creators, because it's so easy to create content and anybody can do it
Speaker:now that it's very difficult to say, well, mine's better
Speaker:than his or hers because Well, why?
Speaker:Well, because I'm an instructional designer. Yeah, okay. But the person writing the
Speaker:checks doesn't see that. They just see the price tag.
Speaker:The content's going to become commoditized. Faced with that,
Speaker:even if it is difficult, even if it's something that's unusual, we have
Speaker:to start doing things which are new to us, but still fall
Speaker:within the remit of learning and development, and which provide value to the organization.
Speaker:We can talk a bit more about that a bit later on. But I think
Speaker:that's the crucial thing about this time right now. Is that
Speaker:we have no option to stay as
Speaker:we are. We've got to change. Yeah,
Speaker:well, I appreciate the, the blunt and directness there, because
Speaker:I think it— well, I think it's important, right? As someone who has, you know,
Speaker:grown up in this industry and been part of it for a long time,
Speaker:it is, it is true that we need to change. And there's things that are
Speaker:going to continue to change. And there's, there's definitely a lot of uncertainty uncertainty.
Speaker:I also, I also wonder, like, when it comes to showing value, and I
Speaker:think about, like, just in my own experiences— and I, I mostly sit in a
Speaker:marketing department now versus the time that I spent, you know, a decade
Speaker:in L&D directly— that the, the mechanisms I have
Speaker:as a marketer to look at analytics, to tie data together,
Speaker:is greatly and vastly superior
Speaker:to anything I ever had access to, even when I started adding
Speaker:in like an LMS or other pieces that could
Speaker:potentially provide data. And so I do wonder if some of the— this
Speaker:new world is figuring out, hey, we need systems that are
Speaker:going to allow us to do what we need to do to show much
Speaker:better and much more clearly than, than I think most
Speaker:average L&D person will have access to. I think you're 100%
Speaker:right. I think marketing is a very good analogy to draw with L&D
Speaker:because we know that marketing has been transformed. In two ways
Speaker:in, let's say, the last two decades. Firstly, it's been transformed
Speaker:not just by the internet, but largely by the use of the web, from a
Speaker:solely creative endeavor to something with strong numbers attached to it.
Speaker:And the idea of madmen sitting around drinking whiskey sours
Speaker:and considering what advert they should put up with what tagline
Speaker:is just gone. Yes, you still need the creativity, but there's a whole
Speaker:swathe of statistics behind it. The
Speaker:same thing is going to be happening to L&D with this additional
Speaker:concern that, by the way, the stuff you used to do, which was your bread
Speaker:and butter, creating courses, yeah, almost certainly within
Speaker:5 years, I would say the soup-to-nuts course
Speaker:will be dead, with some exceptions. So the idea that everyone has to come
Speaker:in and do a course that begins here and finishes there, I don't think it's
Speaker:going to be happening in the future. It doesn't mean content's dead, But the
Speaker:old way of doing things is dead. We have to change with it. There's lots
Speaker:of things we can do, but we have to change. And you're absolutely right, we
Speaker:can take a steer from marketing. We also need to ask
Speaker:ourselves, why haven't we done it before? Part of the reason we haven't done it
Speaker:before is that L&D, it's a good feeling
Speaker:to sit down and create something that's a good product. You know, we like that.
Speaker:We have to get away from that and be much more in contact with the
Speaker:business Having relationships with parts of the business where we can say, look,
Speaker:I want to check something, can I get your data just so I can see
Speaker:that what we're doing here is making sense? That very simple
Speaker:request is something that relies on a
Speaker:relationship with that department so that you can go to them knowing that they know
Speaker:who you are, knowing that they take you seriously, and knowing that they are likely
Speaker:to say yes when you ask them for their data. If you're in
Speaker:L&D, ask yourself, can you do that right now? How would sales
Speaker:think about you if you knocked on their door and said, can I have your
Speaker:sales data for the last quarter? Some might say yes, other people might just say,
Speaker:who are you? And I think we talk a lot about technology,
Speaker:but the future for L&D relies on analytics,
Speaker:yes, data, yes, but ultimately having the relationship with the business
Speaker:that you can go in and ask for the data and be
Speaker:trusted to receive it. Yeah.
Speaker:Gosh, so many, so many thoughts that I will save for another time.
Speaker:But because I do, I do want to ask, going down this value
Speaker:kind of road already, I want to ask you quickly on page 13 of the
Speaker:report, it talks about the role that maybe impact
Speaker:vendors have had on the research. I believe it's that
Speaker:vendors are potentially driving up this issue of showing value.
Speaker:And I just want to get your take. Is that, is that a concern that
Speaker:you have? Is that like And someone as a vendor, right? Like,
Speaker:obviously I have my own kind of take and perception of the world
Speaker:versus maybe someone who's truly sitting in an L&D department who
Speaker:has no care about anything other than I want to do a good job
Speaker:in L&D. Um, any thoughts about— was like, it was
Speaker:enough to be mentioned that there's this potential there. Obviously, uh, research
Speaker:data, you know, you got to look at the numbers, you got to kind of—
Speaker:you're reading between the lines a little bit. So I was just curious
Speaker:before we leave the value topic, if there's something there.
Speaker:So I divide the audience up between 5
Speaker:different, what I call, work groups. Half of them are in
Speaker:workplace learning development. The rest is split across being a consultant,
Speaker:being a vendor, being in education, or something else. Now,
Speaker:there are something like 305, so about 10% of the responses,
Speaker:slightly less, are vendors. But
Speaker:Whereas the L&D people ranked showing value as 6th on their
Speaker:overall results, for vendors, it was the 2nd most important thing after
Speaker:AI. And I think we have to ask ourselves why. And I think that
Speaker:for the vendors, it's important on 2 levels. Firstly, they have
Speaker:to show value themselves. But secondly, they
Speaker:recognize what's going on here. They recognize that it's crucial for learning
Speaker:and development to show value in the organizations L&D
Speaker:being their customers, if L&D isn't showing value, there's a risk to the
Speaker:vendor. So I think it's not altruistic, but
Speaker:the vendors recognize there's an issue here that needs to be tackled. And
Speaker:they see this and they raise it as an issue.
Speaker:They can't necessarily do much about it, although some vendors I know will
Speaker:be supporting the L&D workplace people in
Speaker:actually showing value. Yeah,
Speaker:I love that perspective, right? Because I do think if your
Speaker:audience is L&D and you're selling to L&D and L&D doesn't see—
Speaker:continues to exist, you're going to want them to show all the—
Speaker:Yeah, big problem. Your whole market dries up pretty quickly that way.
Speaker:The other thing I want to talk about from an audience perspective, you mentioned, I
Speaker:think this was— I don't know if this is the first year you did, but
Speaker:it seemed like it was new to me that you split the audience in kind
Speaker:of like new people that were coming into the report this year versus returning.
Speaker:And there were some differences in the way they ranked kind
Speaker:of what they thought was going to be the hot thing that they're going to
Speaker:focus on. Any, any insights into like, why
Speaker:are new people maybe seemingly so different than what the
Speaker:returning folks said? Is it that returning folks have like maybe context of
Speaker:insight of the report, or maybe something else? It's a
Speaker:really good question, Matt. And it comes down to who's answering this
Speaker:survey. So there are
Speaker:people out there who have never heard of the survey, will never answer it, they're
Speaker:not interested, fine. The people who do answer the
Speaker:survey, there are a number of things they have to be. They have to be
Speaker:online, they have to have heard about it, they have to be probably
Speaker:interested enough in new stuff, probably technology,
Speaker:to respond. Okay, so that's a subset.
Speaker:Now within that, there are at least two groups. One group is the group that
Speaker:knows about the survey, is interested in the topics that are being raised, is
Speaker:keen to come and share their views. And actually, we identified this group back in
Speaker:2018, but it was, it was very difficult to know who they were. It's much
Speaker:easier now. Now I've got people, now I know if people are coming back or
Speaker:not. So we've got people who know about it and are
Speaker:responding quickly to it. Usually they respond to social media. And then
Speaker:you've got the other people we send an email to, and they hear about it,
Speaker:and they probably it's the first time and they respond to it. So the difference
Speaker:between these two groups is that the people who are familiar with
Speaker:the survey and are coming in ready with an opinion that they want
Speaker:to share, and interestingly, the people who are
Speaker:coming back, who are
Speaker:coming for the first time, say less in terms of venturing
Speaker:new opinions than the people who have been on the survey before. So the
Speaker:people who come in who've done the survey before typically are keen to share
Speaker:their views, and they are keen to talk about the stuff
Speaker:they've been immersed in during the year on social media.
Speaker:I think that's the key thing. They feel themselves to be part of a conversation.
Speaker:They want to continue that conversation. What that means is that they
Speaker:are almost the
Speaker:embodiment of the current conversation on
Speaker:steroids. So are they interested in AI? Yes, they absolutely are.
Speaker:More so than anybody else. So they are like 3% higher
Speaker:on artificial intelligence than the new people.
Speaker:They are also very keen on showing value because this is a topic that is
Speaker:relentlessly pushed online in conversation.
Speaker:But they're much less interested in learning experience platforms, for example,
Speaker:because for them, that's business as usual, done and dusted.
Speaker:So if you imagine the Everett Rogers diffusion of innovation
Speaker:curve, The people who respond to the survey are right at one
Speaker:end of it, but probably the people who
Speaker:come back are the innovators, and the people who
Speaker:are coming for the first time are more like the early
Speaker:adopters. So they're both at one end of the curve,
Speaker:but the people who come back year after year are the people
Speaker:who are really at the cutting edge talking about this
Speaker:stuff. Whether they're doing it, I can't tell. It's a piece of further research I
Speaker:need to do in the future. Yeah. So I guess just looking
Speaker:ahead, you know, let's say we get 5 years down the road, we get
Speaker:a chance to talk again. We've done— well, that would be— let's see, we'd be
Speaker:at what, 19 years? Let's say we get to the 20th year of the report,
Speaker:whether you want to do it or not. I don't know. Hopefully it keeps going.
Speaker:But like, would you hope— what would you hope to see from the audience? Would
Speaker:you want to see, you know, if you're thinking about that curve, you want to
Speaker:see kind of more people coming from different parts of the curve to maybe more
Speaker:accurately represent? Do you want to keep it kind of where it is?
Speaker:What would you hope for? I don't think there's any way of changing that
Speaker:composition. I think the people who choose to respond, because it's voluntary, will always be
Speaker:people typically that part of the curve. I would like to do other surveys
Speaker:and other research where I talk not to L&D at all, but to
Speaker:operations and the executive suite, ask them, what's their view on all this? And it
Speaker:will be, I can guarantee, completely different. But what I do plan
Speaker:to do over time is to look at this business of the new
Speaker:voters and the returning voters and see if there is a shift
Speaker:in the pattern. So that if one year the
Speaker:new voters are particularly excited about something, for me that
Speaker:shows that it's something that's been talked about online a lot. Does that
Speaker:then lead to, in the following year or the year
Speaker:after, the new people also finding it
Speaker:exciting? Does that excitement transfer, or are
Speaker:the new people largely talking in a bubble? Oh, sorry, are the existing people
Speaker:largely talking in a bubble, or is it between the two? Are there some topics
Speaker:which will never get widespread exposure, and are there other topics which
Speaker:have what it takes to go wide?
Speaker:Yeah, I almost wonder if you could take that and then correlate it with
Speaker:various conference sessions that are submitted and
Speaker:accepted at conferences and see Because my guess is there's some influence there,
Speaker:right? I'll tell you what you can do. With reskilling
Speaker:and upskilling, for example, it is very easy to see that everything
Speaker:kicked off with the January 2020 report from the
Speaker:World Economic Forum talking about reskilling and upskilling. You look at the Google
Speaker:Trends on that, bang, there's a huge kick afterwards to
Speaker:that curve, and it gets reflected in the survey.
Speaker:2016, there was a huge input of
Speaker:VC funds into companies selling microlearning in the States, which led
Speaker:to increased spending on marketing, which led to a 2017 increase in
Speaker:microlearning being a big thing on the
Speaker:survey. So there are some times where we absolutely can measure something.
Speaker:I don't think I've got the willpower to go and track every conference
Speaker:session though, Matt. Somebody else can do that one. Well, maybe that is a
Speaker:perfect use for AI to go and let it do the research, right?
Speaker:Well, Donald, I do want to ask one more question before we wrap up, and
Speaker:I want to read a little bit from the report about the
Speaker:conclusion, because I do think we've talked about a lot of things. We've talked about
Speaker:kind of the anxiety and fear I think that the industry is
Speaker:feeling, the challenges that they're facing, not just with AI, but just
Speaker:across the board. I think it's— we're in it again, as I think as we
Speaker:started our show, may you be cursed to live in interesting times. So here's Here's
Speaker:what it says. It says, for L&D, this transformation is already here.
Speaker:AI is making new things possible with content creation, personalization,
Speaker:skills management, simulations, and more. Combine this with
Speaker:uncertainty around the economy and job security, and it seems that the old norms are
Speaker:breaking down. The new norms are yet to emerge. And
Speaker:it's in this chaos that the future will be decided. Inevitably,
Speaker:there's no clear route map for navigating this new world.
Speaker:Instead, L&D will have to draw from it, draw its own
Speaker:charting a course through experimentation, pivoting when things don't
Speaker:work, redoubling efforts when they do. So
Speaker:you've, you've been in the industry for quite a while and you've seen a lot
Speaker:of the trends and understand, I think, maybe better than most,
Speaker:the directions that we're headed, the challenges that are faced.
Speaker:What advice or wisdom would you give to someone who's
Speaker:reading this and saying, oh my gosh, I just, I don't know,
Speaker:I don't know if I— where, how am I going to navigate
Speaker:this, this current day circumstances that we're in?
Speaker:I'd say don't look backwards, look forwards. Because
Speaker:right now, the past is not an accurate guide to the future. The past
Speaker:was great. And I grew up writing and
Speaker:delivering classroom courses in the 1980s. Great, still exists, that
Speaker:business. But it's a smaller proportion of what L&D can do.
Speaker:There will always be a role for courses, there'll always be a role for content,
Speaker:they will both change. Now, with new
Speaker:technologies, there is a vast new series of things
Speaker:that we can do, which we haven't had the ability to
Speaker:do before because it just took too much effort.
Speaker:Simulations, skills practice, surfacing and sharing
Speaker:implicit knowledge, Understanding the skills of the organization,
Speaker:providing coaching and mentoring as a combination of human and
Speaker:machine activity. There's a whole range of things which
Speaker:previously were just beyond our reach,
Speaker:but now we can do. So don't look backwards
Speaker:to a world of content, look forwards and find which of these things
Speaker:we can experiment with that you are good at and
Speaker:which work for the business. I think the phrase I use in the
Speaker:report is, we do not have a map, but we do have
Speaker:a direction. The direction stays the same. The direction is we need
Speaker:to get to that point where we are helping individuals as part of the
Speaker:organization. Fine. We just find a new way to do it.
Speaker:And you find that by trying things out. As I say,
Speaker:if it works, continue. If it doesn't, stop. But also,
Speaker:and this is important, by sharing that with other people.
Speaker:So, if we all work together and we share with our networks
Speaker:what's working, we're in a much better position to
Speaker:build great stuff for the future than everybody running a series of experiments
Speaker:replicating each other's failures. Let's support each other and
Speaker:let's work towards the future much faster and more efficiently.
Speaker:Yeah, of all the industries, I feel like that is a great
Speaker:call, right? Like, because The things that we're learning and work well,
Speaker:we can transfer. And it's not— Absolutely. You know, it's not necessarily
Speaker:proprietary. Some technology, some ideas are proprietary, but hey, this
Speaker:is good for learning. That's good for all of us. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:100%. Well, well, Donald, this has been a fantastic
Speaker:conversation. I don't know if my listeners care or not, but I have enjoyed
Speaker:it greatly. I hope they did. But so, you know, if people
Speaker:want to learn more about the Global Sentiment Survey, they want to learn more
Speaker:from you, connect with you, where should they go? I'm
Speaker:Donald H. Taylor everywhere. So online,
Speaker:LinkedIn in particular, just find me on LinkedIn, Donald H. Taylor, or my
Speaker:website is donaldhtaylor.co.uk.
Speaker:Would be great to hear from you. Absolutely. Well, Donald,
Speaker:as we wrap up the show, we like to ask our guests for their kind
Speaker:of final view and final take. So Donald Taylor, what is your final
Speaker:take? I'm in my 60s now. I've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker:I can say with certainty, This is a seminal moment,
Speaker:and it's an exciting moment as well. I wish I was in my
Speaker:20s or 30s again, able to start anew. I can't, but I can support you
Speaker:in doing what you're doing, and I wish you the best of luck in this
Speaker:exciting new adventure. All right, well,
Speaker:Donald, thank you so much for joining me in the Visual Lounge. It's great to
Speaker:be here. Thanks, Matt. You bet. Well, everybody, you heard it.
Speaker:We are in times that are changing quickly. There's lots
Speaker:going on. A couple things I want to just highlight: make sure you're sharing what
Speaker:you're learning about learning, sharing what's working, what's not working, and
Speaker:look for the new opportunities that are going to lead you to success.
Speaker:Don't, don't keep focusing on the things that don't work, but look for the things
Speaker:that are. Look for ways that you can continue to grow those skill sets. There's—
Speaker:the world abounds in opportunity if you look for it. So with that
Speaker:said, we're grateful for you listening to the show. If you got comments, feedback you'd
Speaker:like to connect with us. You can always reach out at thevisuallounge@techsmith.com.
Speaker:And as always, take a little time to level up every single day.