Ribbons, Awards & 15 Minutes of Fame

Guild master? Me?

Last week was the eLearning Guild's 2016 Learning Solutions Conference. I love going to this conference because it consists of kindred spirits; people who get learning, what works, and are passionate to share those ideas. It's a community of practice that gathers in Orlando to learn. Yeah, I'm a learning junkie. I fly to Orlando and sit in hotels to learn about learning and love every minute of it.  

During this year's second day opening session, the 2016 Guild Masters were announced. I was stuck in Orlando traffic, so I missed the announcement. In reading the back channel Twitter feed, I saw that the late Jay Cross was honored with this title and that made me cry. Jay is credited with inventing the term elearning, and taught us that most of the learning occurs outside of training - informally. He was truly one of my heros. 

Then the feed started congratulating me. For what? All day long people were congratulating me for who knows what. It wasn't until late in the day that David Kelly presented me with my award as 2016 Guild Master. Apparently he handled that great awkward silence when I didn't pop up by asking everyone to have some fun with me and congratulate me without sharing what as they saw me throughout the day. That was fun. I suppose there is some irony in having the two 2016 Guild Masters presented in absentia this year. After all, we are about the virtual thing in elearning. 

I was astounded, humbled and honored to be included with the likes of those who have taught ME so much: Clark Quinn, Jane Bozarth, Chad Udell, Michael Allen, Mark Rosenberg, Allison Rossett, Joe Ganci, Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher. All I know in this business I have learned from those who have been willing to share what they know with others. 

Go figure. My 15 minutes of fame and I missed it stuck in traffic.

So what does a guild Master do, anyway?

Today is the first day back to work after receiving this award, and I'm sitting here wondering what the heck a Guild Master is supposed to do, anyway, when it hit me. More of the same. For me, that's sharing what I know with others. It's not about being the professorial sage on the stage. It's about learning together. Noodling with others on the best way to do things. Mentoring other IDs on dealing with the SME who can't meet deadlines, who don't get this learning thing at all and want to dump more content than any human can absorb in a few days into a 15 minute elearning module. I have loved developing the IDs on my teams, watching the lightbulbs go off, and seeing them move into better learning for their clients. I've also watched them carry that mission forward. (My husband calls that the cult of Jean Marrapodi. )

It's reminding people that the goal of your learning must be able to be encapsulated in one high level sentence. In the end, what do you want them to KNOW and DO? then finding a way to assess that. It's about assessing the right things. Not vocabulary. It's about making things look good so people aren't distracted and the information is organized. It's about listening and learning from others. It's about tweeting new ideas. Retweeting great ideas of others. Taking scissors to red tape. Documenting processes to see how convoluted they are. Challenging "because we've always done it that way".  

It's about always learning. Not just what we do for a living, but applying tangential thinking to what we do to make it better. This year I've been working on human computer interface design and learned a ton from the world of design thinking, and interface design, and the way they explore people's needs to solve problems. We don't do that enough.

It's about attending conferences, sharing workshops and learning from others. I leave on such a high from a conference and can't wait to try out the new discoveries. It's also about connecting with those who are in the trenches making a difference to continue to learn from them.

It's also about encouraging every individual to leverage their strengths; to learn from their mistakes and hear the voice of Abilene telling YOU what she told Mae on a regular basis: You is kind, you is smart, you is important.

Cause you is.
​Now..... what have YOU learned today?