Imagine a conference where every attendee was learning, a world where what the attendee wondered was more interesting than what the expert presenter knew, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge. (With nods to a quote from The Cluetrain Manifesto.) I don't know about you. I certainly want to attend a conference where what the attendee wonders is considered at least as important as what the expert presenter knows. What a profound affect if we rewarded and applauded curiosity about … [Read more...]
We Are The Problem: We Are Selling Conference Snake Oil
80 percent of what we learn comes from informal learning.* Ironically, 60% to 80% of a conference attendee's time is spent in formal learning, passively listening to a presenter. Unfortunately, 14 days later we only recall 20% of what we hear in those presentations. (John Medina, Brain Rules; E. Dale, Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching). 30 days later, attendees have forgotten 90% of what they learned in the session (German psychologist and memory researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus). Most of what we … [Read more...]
The Conference Session Is Dead
The conference session is not the appropriate shell for most learning experiences. The sixty- or ninety-minute presentation was created for the convenience of the institution, not the learner. The conference session is a triumph of standardization and it is so ingrained in our thinking we still buy and sell seat time rather than performance improvement. It's the industrial revolution model, which puts a higher value of efficiency than on effectiveness. It clearly was not designed for the brain … [Read more...]
