business

Six Important Disciplines for Using AI in Learning & Development [Cavalier]

On 03/16/2023, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, experimentation, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Six Important Disciplines for Using AI in Learning & Development — from linkedin.com by Josh Cavalier

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

In practice, L&D professionals must responsibly use AI-based tools. AI outputs that introduce bias or falsehoods may adversely affect the learning process of individual associates as well as the company’s overall efficiency. A human must review all content before being implemented in a learning solution.
…
AI will revolutionize corporate learning and development because of the ability to analyze and process large amounts of data. These capabilities will enable learners to acquire knowledge and skills more efficiently while providing personalized learning pathways customized to their current skill levels and goals.

For example, AI-powered chatbots can provide immediate feedback to front-line sales looking for specific client solutions or trying to learn about new products. By fine-tuning models, AI can ingest vendor opportunities and dynamically priced products at scale, allowing a sales team to focus on data-driven solutions for their customers.

The creation of educational media will be automated through generative AI, including training videos, podcasts, and, eventually, eLearning courses. This new reality will level the playing field for instructional designers needing more media creation skills, ultimately allowing Learning & Development to create personalized, immersive learning experiences representing the entire learning journey.

Also relevant/see:

How artificial intelligence can support knowledge management in organizations — from realkm.com by Bruce Boyes

Examples of use cases:

Forecast sales probabilities
Discover organization inefficiencies by analyzing CRM records
Organize and summarize legal precedents relevant to a new case
Retrieve dispersed nuggets of information related to a troubleshooting situation
Facilitate feedback and peer review on communication systems (e.g., Slack)
Facilitate real-time smart sharing between marketing channels and sales pipelines
Find and apply question-answer pairs in online manuals to manage service knowledge
Provide more human-centered and accessible applications of knowledge through chatbots

Deuteronomy 7:9 and Leviticus 19:35-36

On 03/11/2023, in business, faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

Deuteronomy 7:9 — from biblegateway.com

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

Leviticus 19:35-36 NIV — from bible.com

Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.

You are not a parrot — from nymag.com by Elizabeth Weil and Emily M. Bender

Excerpts:

A handful of companies control what PricewaterhouseCoopers called a “$15.7 trillion game changer of an industry.” Those companies employ or finance the work of a huge chunk of the academics who understand how to make LLMs. This leaves few people with the expertise and authority to say, “Wait, why are these companies blurring the distinction between what is human and what’s a language model? Is this what we want?”
…
Bender knows she’s no match for a trillion-dollar game changer slouching to life. But she’s out there trying. Others are trying too. LLMs are tools made by specific people — people who stand to accumulate huge amounts of money and power, people enamored with the idea of the singularity. The project threatens to blow up what is human in a species sense. But it’s not about humility. It’s not about all of us. It’s not about becoming a humble creation among the world’s others. It’s about some of us — let’s be honest — becoming a superspecies. This is the darkness that awaits when we lose a firm boundary around the idea that humans, all of us, are equally worthy as is.

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve [tfsx.com]

On 03/03/2023, in business, business side of he, future, innovation, leadership, organizational change, pace of change, skills, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve — from tfsx.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

According to famed futurist Richard Slaughter, foresight (also known as futures thinking or futuring) is “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways.”² In other words, foresight is a way to examine the paths the future might take, using qualitative and quantitative metrics, and then use the insights gained from this analysis to navigate our uncertain and changing world with purpose.

“The art and science of futuring is fast becoming a necessary skill, where we read signals, see trends and ruthlessly test our own assumptions…Like the ability to make a budget or think critically, it’s a skill that anyone who has to make long-range decisions should, and can, acquire.”³

From DSC:
The development of these futuring skills needs to begin in K-12 and continue into vocational programs as well as in college.

Also relevant/see:

The future isn’t what it used to be: Here’s how strategic foresight can help — from weforum.org

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Three-quarters (75%) of organizations are not prepared for the pace of change in and around their industry.
Across sectors, we all need to rethink how we operate to both survive and thrive in the future.
Foresight can help individuals and organizations be more future prepared, innovative and agile.

The exponential pace of change

Employment of people with disabilities surges to a record high amid remote work policies [thenationalnews.com]

On 03/02/2023, in Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, career development, corporate / business world, neurodivergent/special needs, society, sociology, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Employment of people with disabilities surges to a record high amid remote work policies — from thenationalnews.com; with thanks to Robert Gibson on LinkedIn for this resource
Employment among disabled people in the US rose to 21.3% in 2022

Excerpt:

Daily tasks such as commuting and navigating an office space can be difficult for people depending on their disabilities. As companies adopted remote and hybrid work arrangements, more disabled people applied for and landed jobs — sometimes for the first time in years.

The recent push by companies urging workers to return to the office may threaten the gains made by disabled people, who comprise about 12 per cent of the population, according to the bureau. A report by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company published last June estimated that 35 per cent of companies offered a fully remote option.

Overall, disabled people are still less likely to be employed than their counterparts who don’t have disabilities, and they are twice as likely to be employed part-time, the BLS report said. They’re also more likely to be self-employed.

The Top 10 In-Demand Skills For 2030 [Marr]

On 03/01/2023, in 21st century, business, career development, communications, corporate / business world, creativity, data related items, Emotion, leadership, lifelong learning, skills, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The Top 10 In-Demand Skills For 2030 — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpt:

Digital Literacy
According to the WEF, more than half of the jobs that we do in 2030 will require an understanding of digital technology. This means that people who are able to effectively use digital tools and platforms to solve problems and create value will be increasingly in demand. I would go as far as saying that those who lack digital literacy will be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to competing for jobs and business opportunities by 2030, whatever career path they decide to follow.

Donald Clark’s recent thoughts regarding how ChatGPT is and will impact the Learning & Development world

On 02/28/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, business, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Donald Clark’s recent thoughts regarding how ChatGPT is and will impact the Learning & Development world — from linkedin.com by Donald Clark

Excerpts:

Fascinating chat with three people heading up L&D in a major international company. AI has led them to completely re-evaluate their strategy. Key concepts were performance, process and data. What I liked was their focus on that oft-quoted issue of aligning L&D with the business goals – unlike most, they really meant it.

The technology that puts that in the hands of learners has arrived. Performance support will be a teacher or trainer at your fingertips.

We also talked about prompting, the need to see it as ‘CHAT’gpt, an iterative process, where you need to understand how to speak to the tech. It’s a bit like speaking to an alien from space, as it has no comprehension or consciousness but it is still competent and smart. We have put together 100 prompt tips for learning professionals and taking it out on the road soon. All good in the hood.

Also from Donald Clark, see:

OpenAI releases massive wave of innovation — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com

Excerpt:

With LLMs, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, based on GPT 3.5, started a race where:

AI is integrated into mainstream tools like Teams
Larger LLMs are being built
LLMs are changing ‘search’
LLMs are being used on a global scale in real businesses
Real businesses are being built on the back of LLMs
LLMs as part of ensembes of other tools are being researched to solve accuracy, updatability & provenance issues
Open, transparent LLMs (Bloom) are being built

Eliminate a Degree of Difficulty: Hire for Skills, Not School [Lischwe, Noether, Gordian, D’Arcy, & Barfield]

On 02/24/2023, in business, career development, change, corporate / business world, skills, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Eliminate a Degree of Difficulty: Hire for Skills, Not School — from bain.com by Joe Lischwe, Alex Noether, Maria Gordian, Andrea D’Arcy, and Jon Barfield; resource via GSV
Too many jobs require college degrees, locking out qualified Black talent. Skills-first hiring helps companies rethink what really matters.

At a Glance

Black Americans are 30% less likely than white Americans to have jobs that pay family-sustaining wages—a key factor in the income and family wealth gaps between Black and white Americans.
One key barrier to Black talent obtaining these jobs is that 70% to 80% require a four-year college degree, which 75% of Black Americans do not have.
Requiring four-year degrees is not the only way to assess talent or identify the best candidates, and skills-first hiring can mitigate this credentials barrier, making the process fairer for all job applicants.
The business case is strong: Skills-first hiring criteria are 5 times more predictive of future job performance than educational background and 2.5 times more predictive than work experience.
While the transition to skills-first hiring—particularly the shift in culture and mindset it entails—is challenging, there are proven steps companies can take to make the switch successfully, as illustrated by the example of companies in the OneTen coalition such as Merck.

What ChatGPT And Generative AI Mean For Your Business? [Press]

On 02/24/2023, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, copyright/ownership/NFTs, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, innovation, legislatures / government / legal, workplace, by Daniel Christian

What ChatGPT And Generative AI Mean For Your Business? — from forbes.com by Gil Press [behind a paywall]

Excerpt:

Challenges abound with deploying AI in general but when it comes to generative AI, businesses face a “labyrinth of problems,” according to Forrester: Generating coherent nonsense; recreating biases; vulnerability to new security challenges and attacks; trust, reliability, copyright and intellectual property issues. “Any fair discussion of the value of adopting generative AI,” says Forrester, “must acknowledge its considerable costs. Training and re-training models takes time and money, and the GPUs required to run these workloads remain expensive.”

As is always the case with the latest and greatest enterprise technologies, tools and techniques, the answer to “what’s to be done?” boils down to one word: Learn. Study what your peers have been doing in recent years with generic AI. A good starting point is the just-published All-in On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence.

Also relevant/see:

Generative AI is here, along with critical legal implications — from venturebeat.com by Nathaniel Bach, Eric Bergner, and Andrea Del-Carmen Gonzalez

Excerpt:

With that promise comes a number of legal implications. For example, what rights and permissions are implicated when a GAI user creates an expressive work based on inputs involving a celebrity’s name, a brand, artwork, and potentially obscene, defamatory or harassing material? What might the creator do with such a work, and how might such use impact the creator’s own legal rights and the rights of others?

This article considers questions like these and the existing legal frameworks relevant to GAI stakeholders.

7 ways to think and act strategically in your organisation about AI in learning [Clark]

On 02/23/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, strategy, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

7 ways to think and act strategically in your organisation about AI in learning — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Excerpt:

Above all, you need to see it strategically. There is no imperative to use this tech but there is an imperative to consider its use. Sure, it’s OK to say no but you should have a reason for saying no, as this is the technology of the age. I’ve been saying this in three books, lots of articles and a ton of keynotes for 7 years and it is now happening. This is the new internet, only smarter.

Why Faculty Must Learn to Swim in Other Waters — from insidehighered.com by Rachel Toor, professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University in Spokane.

Excerpts:

Academics, even with the best intentions, and especially if we’ve never left school, don’t realize that we’re all swimming in our own little pond.

Most faculty members continue to teach how they were taught. We focus on our disciplines. We indoctrinate students into academic conventions and genres. We sling jargon like short-order cooks. We ask students to write 20-page research papers—the likes of which few professions would ever require.

But how often do faculty members require students to create final projects that will help them get a job?

How many professors are adept at writing a one-page job cover letter? Or a one-page résumé?

From DSC:
I appreciate these great thoughts here from Rachel Toor. Besides helping students learn about networking (and actually putting those skills into practice), applying their research skills to finding good job/organization fits, write effective cover letters, etc., I think such real-world skill development needs to be integrated into the very core of what they are teaching. It needs to be integrated into the curriculum.

Reflections on “Why The Education Economy Is The Next Big Thing For The American Workforce” [Busteed]

On 02/22/2023, in business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, Design Thinking, education, education reform, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, motivation, participation, passions, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Why The Education Economy Is The Next Big Thing For The American Workforce — from fastcompany.com by Brandon Busteed
How can integrating our educational system, our employers, and our job creators affect our modern economy?

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Though the economy and education have long been topics of top concern to Americans, we haven’t created strong linkages between the two.

The topics are more like two castles with a large moat between them. Yet there is nothing more important we can do as a country than to build the world’s most effective “educonomy,” which would seamlessly integrate our educational system, our employers, and our job creators.
…
All told, we collected the voices of close to 1 million Americans on this subject in the past year alone. And what we’ve learned is alarming:

Student engagement in school drops precipitously from 5th grade through 12th grade. About three quarters of elementary school kids (76%) are engaged in school, while only 44% of high school kids are engaged. The longer students stay in school, the less engaged they become. If we were doing this right, the trend would be going in the exact opposite direction.

From DSC:
I appreciated the imagery of the economy and education being like two castles with a large moat between them. I, like many others, also use the term siloed to describe our various learning ecosystems — PreK-12, higher education and vocational programming, and the corporate/business world (I realize I could also include those who work in other areas such as the government, but hopefully folks get the gist of what I’m trying to say).

But here’s the most disturbing part (albeit likely not a surprise to those working within K-12 environments):

About seven in 10 K-12 teachers are not engaged in their work (69%), and as a profession, teachers are dead last among all professions Gallup studied in saying their “opinions count” at work and their “supervisors create an open and trusting environment.” We also found that teacher engagement is the most important driver of student engagement. We’ll never improve student engagement until we boost teachers’ own workplace engagement first.

Our older daughter works in an elementary school where several of the teachers left prior to Christmas and more have announced that they are leaving after this academic year. For teachers to leave halfway through the year, you know something is majorly wrong!

I think that legislators are part of the problem, as they straight-jacket teachers, principals, and administrators with all kinds of standardized testing.

Standardized testing is like a wrecking ball on our educational systems -- impacting things like our students' and teachers' sense of joy, play, wonder, and motivation

I would think that such testing dictates the pace and the content and the overall agendas out there. I don’t recall taking nearly as many standardized tests as our youth do today. Looking back, each of my teachers was engaged and seemed to be happy and enthusiastic. I don’t think that’s the case any longer. Let’s ask the teachers — not the legislators — why that is the case and what they would recommend to change things (before it’s too late).

The Broken Higher Education System: Addressing Stakeholder Needs for a More Adaptive Model — from educationoneducation.substack.com

Excerpt:

Higher education Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) must shift their perspective and strive to increase customer satisfaction to ensure the highest quality of educational products. A recent survey by Higher Education found that only 25% of customers were satisfied with the results higher education provided, contradicting the satisfaction differences of 99% of CAOs. Clearly, a disconnect exists between what higher education leaders deliver and what students, employers, and the changing labor market requirements are. To bridge this gap, higher education must develop products focusing on stakeholder feedback in product design, job requirements, and practical skills development.

From DSC:
So in terms of Design Thinking for reinventing lifelong learning, it seems to me that we need much more collaboration between the existing siloes. That is, we need students, educators, administrators, employers, and other stakeholders at the (re)design table. More experiments and what I call TrimTab Groups are needed.

But I think that the culture of many institutions of traditional higher education will prevent this from occurring. Many in academia shy away from (to put it politely) the world of business (even though they themselves ARE a business). I know, it’s not fair nor does it make sense. But many faculty members lean towards much more noble purposes, while never seeing the mounting gorillas of debt that they’ve heaped upon their students’/graduates’ backs. Those in academia shouldn’t be so quick to see themselves as being so incredibly different from those working in the corporate/business world.

The following quote seems appropriate to place here:

Along the lines of other items in the higher education space, see:

New Data Shows Emergency Pandemic Aid Helped Keep 18 Million Students Enrolled — from forbes.com by Edward Conroy

Excerpt:

The Department of Education (ED) has released new data showing that 18 million students were helped by emergency aid for colleges and universities throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of which was used to provide emergency grants to students. These funds were provided through three rounds of Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds (HEERF) In total, $76.2 billion was provided, with half of those funds going to support students directly. Unusually for funding in higher education, the money was not heavily means-tested, and was distributed very quickly.

The report indicates that the funds were used for several essential purposes, including student basic needs, keeping staff employed, and helping keep students enrolled. For example, students used funds to cover things like food and housing at a time when employment was drying up for many students, ensuring that the Pandemic did not plunge students who already had limited funds deeper into basic needs insecurity.

Flagships prosper, while regionals suffer — from chronicle.com by Lee Gardner
Competition is getting fierce, and the gap is widening

Excerpts:

Some key numbers are moving in the right direction at the University of Oregon. The flagship institution enrolled 5,338 freshmen in the fall of 2022, its largest entering class ever. First-year enrollment increased 16 percent over 2021, which was also a record year. Meanwhile, Western Oregon University, a regional public institution an hour’s drive north, just outside Salem, lost nearly 7 percent of its enrollment over the same period.
…
In 28 states, flagships have seen enrollment rise between 2010 to 2021, while regionals have trended down, according to a Chronicle analysis of U.S. Education Department data. Across all states, enrollment at 78 public flagships rose 12.3 percent from 2010 to 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. Enrollment at 396 public regional universities slumped more than 4 percent during the same period.

A Chronicle analysis of federal data showed, for example, that in Michigan, a state being hit hard by demographic shifts and with no central higher-ed authority, the flagship University of Michigan at Ann Arbor saw undergraduate enrollment rise 16 percent between 2010 and 2020. Over the same period, it fell at 11 of the state’s 12 other four-year public campuses.

Making Change: How America’s Workforce is Responding to Rising Costs [guildeducation.com]

On 02/21/2023, in adult learning, business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, economics, funding / grants, future, reinvent, society, staying relevant, surviving, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Making Change: How America’s Workforce is Responding to Rising Costs — from insights.guildeducation.com

Taken together, the results show an American workforce focused on the long-term. Workers are managing to costs, but more than that, they’re making down payments on their future. This is a workforce motivated more than ever by a path to career growth and economic stability.

What the workforce wants in 2023 -- looking for more education, training, and long-term stability

Digital credentials’ appeal is strong, while corporate upskilling moves at a ‘snail’s pace’ [Ashburn]

On 02/20/2023, in business, career development, colleges, communities of practice, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, IBM, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, skills, staying relevant, student-related, training / L&D, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Digital credentials’ appeal is strong, while corporate upskilling moves at a ‘snail’s pace’ — from by Elyse Ashburn; with thanks to Paul Fain for this resource
Surveys out this week from IBM and LinkedIn take a closer look at the role of digital credentials and other forms upskilling in education and on the job.

Excerpt:

Interest in upskilling and short-term credentials, either as an alternative or an add-on to college, has grown steadily over the past few years. And a couple of surveys out this week take a closer look at the role digital credentials and other forms upskilling can play in bridging the gap between formal education and work.

A major IBM survey fielded in 13 countries, including the United States, found that almost half of students, job seekers, and career changers are interested in jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)—but more than 61% think they aren’t qualified because they lack the right degrees.

75% of respondents thought that digital credentials were a good way to supplement traditional education, but only 47% were actually familiar with such credentialing programs.
Among those who’d earned a digital credential, 86% said that it helped them achieve their career goals.

Eight in 10 people surveyed said they planned to upgrade their skills in the next two years—but time, cost, or simply not knowing how to begin were major barriers. Among both students and job seekers, 40% said that they don’t know where to start in developing new professional or technical skills.

Learning Ecosystems

Deuteronomy 7:9 and Leviticus 19:35-36

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve [tfsx.com]

Employment of people with disabilities surges to a record high amid remote work policies [thenationalnews.com]

Donald Clark’s recent thoughts regarding how ChatGPT is and will impact the Learning & Development world

Eliminate a Degree of Difficulty: Hire for Skills, Not School [Lischwe, Noether, Gordian, D’Arcy, & Barfield]

7 ways to think and act strategically in your organisation about AI in learning [Clark]

Making Change: How America’s Workforce is Responding to Rising Costs [guildeducation.com]

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