On a side note – somehow I missed “2013, the world” and was terrified that I missed your announcement about the grandchild ))

You have gotten me thinking about what the difference might be between buy in and acceptance. Can you say more please? Is this the recognition that changing from training to learning requires that deeper organizational shift you write about?

And like you, I would echo the call for stories about how people deal with this fundamental difference in way of life around learning. I’ll think about a post that shares some of the experiences I’ve had — and there are cases where change is happening. Not a total transition, but a shift!!

Finally, thanks for the very thoughtful comment, Nick.

The change is not least due to the affordances of new technology,and example of online interaction you describe is everyday in my world and in the worlds of most of the people I work with, and I would guess, most of the readers of this blog.

However, there is a world outside this rarefied world. How many read your blog? In some ways there is a sense in the educational blogosphere that as Neil Young (yes him) said “If we think real hard, maybe we can stop this rain”. Unfortunately the rain isnt listening.

The idea is mature, and some early adopters are working on it, we like to think of them as the groundswell of the wave that will change everything. It is just over the horizon, we say. Or think. Or hope. I bet we have all dreamed often enough of that. But it never happens. What are we doing wrong.

I think this post is excellent, succinct, to the point. But after five years working on these ideas with companies I know how hard it is to get people to accept the idea (not “buy-in”, I mean accepting the idea).

The problem perhaps is that although the impulse is often commercial; people want to improve training in their organisation, returns etc, the change is not possible without reorganising your epistemological understandings. It is a hard word, epistemology, but I would suggest that without staring it in the face we are all preaching to the converted here. Most do not understand learning as a way of life and resist attemptds to change what they understand as their way of life. And very often they argue that listening outside your network, strategic thinking, giving space to explore, trust, networking, being prepared are all key ideas for their business. As long as they dont cost money. Lip service is easy, but the fundamental change that these ideas imply goes very deep.

So I would be interested in hearing how people deal with these issues, not in their own lives as much as when they explain it to others.