Ten Industrial-Strength Awesome Trends Poised To Disrupt Your Conference Education Part 1

They are unusually strong and potent.

They are more durable than your current conference education strategies. And they are highly-concentrated ready to improve your attendees’ learning ROI.

That is assuming that you are open to understanding, adopting and applying them.

The choice is yours. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is convincing your superiors and your conference volunteer team that now is the time to invest in them.

The First Five Industrial-Strength Education Trends

Here are the first five awesome education trends. The next five will be in tomorrow’s post.

1. Transformational Learning Instead Of Informational Learning

Informational learning increases the mastery of specialized content. It is an increase in statistics, data, facts, figures and knowledge about a specific subject matter. It increases what we know. Informational learning is out! Attendees want transformational conference education sessions where they can reflect, discuss, examine, explore and discover practical ways to apply the content with like-minded peers. It’s about improving skills, strategies and applications back in the office. Not just increasing our facts and memorization of content.

2. A Focus On Adaptable Challenges Not Technical Challenges

Too often conferences schedule speakers and sessions that provide black and white answers to technical challenges. However, we live in a VUCA World and the challenges the work force faces today do not usually have clear, black and white answers. Adaptable challenges are those that deal with the mix of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general conditions and situations. Just providing sessions about 20th Century technical challenges in a predictable world no longer cuts it.

3. Lossless Learning

Lossless learning is a rethinking of the traditional method of transmission and reception of information. Research shows that the traditional lecture leads to a loss in learning. We know that effective education sessions require some type of feedback to know if the audience understands the topic and has identified smart wise applications of it. Lossless learning is a pursuit of perfect feedback loops between learners and speakers. Canvas is a tech tool in the K-12 market that is leading the way between education and technology to promote lossless learning. Watch for the jump to adult education and conferences!

4. Appointment Learning Mixed With Just-In-Need Opportunities

In times past, the majority of learning was appointment based. We had to show up on a specific date, at a specific time at a specific location to listen to a scheduled speaker share their knowledge. Today, attendees want to time-shift learning opportunities. They want a mix of scheduled and available just-when-they-need-it opportunities. This means conferences need to repurpose some education sessions into smaller chunks of time, tag them appropriately for SEO and then make them available online. Some conference sessions are recorded and scheduled for a replay where attendees can interact with each other about the content with the speaker.

5. Micro-Learning Opportunities Before, During And After The Conference

Micro-Learning is small units, micro-perspectives, contextual content nuggets and small capsules of facts or information that attendees can find quickly when needed to solve their problems. These formal and informal content bites and activities run on all mobile devices and are delivered before, during and after the conference.

Which of these trends is your organization ready to adopt and apply? Which of these trends do you think you will research more to discuss with your conference team and committee members and why do you think they are important?