2020 Learning Business Trends

2020 is now upon us and, in this new year – and decade – there are certainly some key topics that all learning businesses need to make sure they are paying attention to.

In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, we are practicing what we preach by repurposing content from a recent Webinar and sharing six specific trends set to impact learning businesses in the new year, and beyond.

To tune in, just click below. To make sure you catch all of the future episodes, be sure to subscribe by RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, iHeartRadio, PodBean, or any podcatcher service you may use (e.g., Overcast). And, if you like the podcast, be sure to give it a tweet!

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2020 Learning Business Trends

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[00:18] – We wanted to let you know that we’re taking our own advice, practicing what we preach, and doing a little repurposing of content. The discussion of the six trends that you’re about to hear is the audio from a Webinar, which we also streamed using Facebook Live, at the end of December. And we thought podcast listeners would benefit from hearing about the six trends.

We also think you would benefit from an infographic we put together to highlight what learning businesses told us at the end of 2018 were their six most important focus areas for 2019.

To develop the infographic, we reached out to a small, but diverse group of practitioners, experts, and service providers working in learning businesses to get their perspectives.

This resulted in a list of 15 areas that we asked about in a broadly distributed online survey to which more than 200 organizations responded. The six trends we highlight from that survey are all still relevant—and several of them actually tie in to the six we talk about for 2020. Access the 2019 trends post and the infographic >>

Here, also, is the video from the Webinar on which this episode is based:

Reflection Question

[02:05] – You might consider the reflections questions below on your own after listening to an episode, and/or you might pull the team together, using part or all of the podcast episode for a group discussion.

Which of the six trends we discuss for 2020 are most relevant for and most likely to impact your learning business?
Are you prepared for their impact and to capitalize on those most-relevant-to-you trends? How might you better prepare?

6 Learning Business Trends of 2020

[02:45] – We’re going to talk about trends today and we’ll say at the very beginning that we’re not going to talk about some of the things that have been usual suspects in recent years. Things like microlearning and digital badging and personalization.

Those all continue to be trends, but we’ve talked about them quite a bit. We think they’ll continue to mature in the next year. Hopefully we’ll continue to see better definitions, maybe the emergence of some standards, some real practices around those. So those will pop up in our trends today, but we’re not going to focus on those specifically as trends.

What we’re going to do is talk about the six trends we’re seeing right now just based on our experience, what we’re hearing from people, and what we’re seeing out there.

1. Learning Experience Design

[05:12] – The first trend we’re going to highlight is learning experience design. And this is one that’s not a new trend. You’ve probably heard this term before, but we feel like it’s becoming much more of a thing now, particularly with learning businesses and the types of organizations that we tend to work with.

In general, the word “experience” is big right now—we’re hearing about customer experience and marketing. We’ve heard about user experience for a long time in the world of Web design. This is really picking up on that from those disciplines and focusing in on the experience of the person who is doing the learning.

There are a couple things going on here. One is just the growing recognition that some of our traditional approaches to education that can be kind of codified and formalized into courses and classes. Those aren’t how we’ve ever really learned and they’re certainly not how we learn now.

So how do we get more into the flow of life, the flow of work, or the actual experience of the learner, and blend that learning experience into what they’re doing in life?

There’s also sort of a critique in there of traditional instructional design, which has tended to be very focused on methodology—and sometimes too focused on methodology, getting a little too strict about checking the boxes and going through the steps.

This is, again, focusing more on the human being, the learner, rather than on the instructional methods. And it’s also very goal oriented, because very often instructional design is about checking those boxes. It doesn’t necessarily keep in mind that larger experience that the learner is engaged in.

Learning is definitely an ongoing process. It’s not a single event and we need to stop treating it like that. And that’s kind of at the heart of learning experience design.

It’s basically a mindset shift. You kind of have to rethink and really put that learner front and center rather than the methodology or the process. We also know how powerful mindset is and so shifting mindset can really change things quite a lot.

To learn more about learning experience design (LXD), check out descriptions of the related sessions to be held at our upcoming Learning • Technology • Design™ event:

We’re All Learning Experience Designers Now: LXD 101 (facilitated by Micène Fontaine)
Crafting Learning Experiences With Design Thinking Techniques (facilitated by Connie Malamed)

Also check out our related episode, Designing Smarter Learning Experiences with Connie Malamed.

2. Sustainability and Conferences

[07:27] – The second trend is around sustainability and conferences. In 2020 the environmental impact of conferences, particularly big place-based conferences, is going to become a more common concern.

We’re already hearing talk about eco-friendly and green, more sustainable events. We think in the year ahead and beyond, more organizations are going to continue thinking or begin thinking really hard about what steps they need to take to make sure that their events are more sustainable.

It might be things like eliminating use of plastic water bottles, but it might also be things like choosing a lead-certified venue. But, there are some environmental impacts of big conferences that are hard to mitigate.

If you haven’t the word “flygskam”, it’s a Swedish word that’s been coined to describe the guilt that some people feel when they have to travel. They know that air travel produces a lot of CO2 emissions and so they feel guilty about that. A lot of people are looking for different approaches and different ways to travel because of that.

That’s why we have the great Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who sailed to and from the U.S. this year, and that’s because she didn’t want to contribute those CO2 emissions to “walk-the-walk”—or rather, “sail-the-sail”.

So we have flygskam and we have flight shaming, which could maybe sound a little bit flippant and we don’t want to sound too flippant, because we really do believe that climate change is a serious issue.

See “Flight-Shaming Is Now A Thing – Will It Keep You From Traveling?”.

Just last month, the United Nations released their latest emissions gap report, which paints a pretty dire picture if we don’t change behavior, and of course, one of those behaviors that we could change is eliminating or reducing our use of air travel.

Because of that, we think we’re going to see a growth in virtual events and virtual conferences in 2020 and beyond because of course, the easiest way to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of flying is to not fly.

However, so many big conferences, particularly those with national or international audiences, basically have flying baked in. But if you go virtual, you can eliminate that impact.

And to go along with that, virtual also has the benefit of helping your organization potentially broaden its reach. We know that historically so many organizations only reach a fraction of their audience, a fraction of their membership, with whatever annual place-based event they might have.

By going virtual, you can potentially reach more of your audience, just make that event available to people who would never have the budget or the sort of family situation that might let them leave for several days at a time. And going virtual allows you to tap into that and to do so in a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way.

We’ll note that currently, we are not suffering from flygskam because we do in fact hold our own virtual conference , Learning • Technology • Design™ (LTD), which be held this year on February 25 & 27, 2020.

To learn more about sustainability and conferences check out a description of the related session to be held at our upcoming Learning • Technology • Design event:

Virtual-Only Convert: A Seminar Case Study (facilitated by Nora Potter)

For additional resources related to sustainability and conference, see:

3. Pathways

[12:13] – Moving on to the third trend, this is what we’re just calling pathways. There’s always been a lot of desire by organizations to create some learning paths within, say, their learning management systems so they can kind of connect the dots together. We’re talking kind of bigger than that.

This connects to the whole learner experience thing and it’s the recognition that the world of work changes out there, life changes out there very quickly now. Often, it’s not helpful to access a big catalog of courses. You need to know what you need to do, what path you need to take in learning in order to be able to take the path that you want to take in your career and in your life.

We’re hearing more and more organizations that are focusing on this—how do they, not just create courses, not even just connect courses together, but really articulate the vision for the path and the particular field profession that they serve for different parts, different phases and different stages of careers.

In fact, we’ve got a description from the NIGP, the Institute for Governmental Purchasing Public Procurement, that they’ve got a new pathways program. They describe it as competency-based learning and credentialing pathways and it can be personalized and customized for every phase and every stage of your working life in public procurement.

To learn more about pathways, check out a description of the related session to be held at our upcoming Learning • Technology • Design event:

Aligning Career Paths With An Emerging Talent Pool (facilitated by Veronica Diaz)

Also check out our episode, Microcredentials and Mentoring with Veronica Diaz.

4. Quantum Computing and 5G

[14:10] – For the fourth trend, we want to touch on two emerging technologies: quantum computing and 5G.

In early 2019, Google’s quantum computer solved an equation in 200 seconds that Summit, the world’s fastest traditional super computer, said it could solve in 10,000 years. So, 200 seconds versus 10,000 years, which is absolutely astonishing. It’s going to be amazing to see what happens when we have that kind of rapid processing power very widely and readily available.

And then in 2020 we should also begin to be able to use 5G, the next generation wireless network technology. It’s meant to be much faster than what we have access to currently, faster than 4G by, maybe, 50 to 100 times and faster than the broadband that we can access as consumers in our homes today.

But not only is it faster, it’s also supposed to have less latency built-ins. That means we’re going to get faster responses to our requests. And it also is going to expand capacity, because it’s going to tap into other spectrum like the millimeter wave.

So we’re going to have faster access, more readily available, and more consistent. Even as we’re walking or driving around with our mobile devices, that access is going to be smooth across the entire process.

With quantum computing and 5G, we don’t actually find them all that interesting in and of themselves—and we also don’t understand the technology behind them all that well. But, what we find interesting about these two emerging technologies is what they will enable.

Once we have the power and the ubiquity and the speed of quantum computing and 5G readily available, just think about what we’re going to be able to do in terms of really making use of big data. Also, what it’s going to make possible with the internet of things and self-driving cars, things that really require that real time data from sensors.

All that’s going to become much more viable and it’s going to impact then how we work and how we live. Of course, anytime how we work and how we live changes, then how we learn and what we need to learn changes too. It should be really interesting to see over the years ahead what learning businesses do to harness quantum computing and 5G and how they impact what we deliver.

And the availability of 5G could have a big impact on virtual reality and the ability to use virtual reality both to create and deliver it. But then probably more importantly for the end user to really have the kind of experiences that we hope to have out of virtual reality. So many learning businesses that are already interested in what they’re going to be able to do with virtual reality haven’t really latched onto it yet and we think things will start to shift with 5G, in particular, and quantum computing.

To learn more about quantum computing and 5G, check out a description of the related session to be held at our upcoming Learning • Technology • Design event:

The Lay Of The Land For Digital Learning: The Practical Implications Of AI, Quantum Computing, At-Scale Degrees, And More (facilitated by Ray Schroeder)

Also check out our episode, Online Learning and the Future of Education with Ray Schroeder.

5. A Movement Towards Marketing Maturity

[20:04] – The fifth item we’re characterizing as a movement towards marketing maturity. We always talk about marketing a lot—it’s sort of one of the main things to help learning businesses be able to market themselves effectively from strategy on up.

But we feel like we’re now really starting to hear more organizations both talk about it and take action around better understanding their market and figuring out new ways to engage with their market more effectively from the promotional techniques to their pricing.

There are at least a couple of drivers here. One of course is it is getting more competitive out there day by day, more people entering the whole learning business. The barriers are down for doing that and we’ve talked about that for years.

And then also the fragmentation of the channels for reaching your customers. You can’t just print the mailer and send it out or do the email blast these days and expect that to get the results for you. You have to be able to reach your learners in multiple channels.

It kind of connects back to that customer experience and learner experience design as well.

How are you designing your marketing engagements in ways that you really are meeting your learners where they are and engaging them in different ways at the right times to pull them in?

We generally talk about five key components/pillars around marketing. These are all areas where we expect to see further development (some more than others) in the coming year:

Acquiring and leveraging meaningful data. This will be one of the biggest ones. That applies to learning and the design of learning, but it applies to understanding your market in general and being able to market effectively.
Brand is going to be increasingly important. It’s getting harder and harder to be found on just generic searches around the topic or a training need and Google. It’s much more effective if somebody is going to search for you, for your organization, by name.
Having an omnichannel approach (to the extent that you don’t already) and getting much more sophisticated about it if you do. And this means that yes, you need to have email as a marketing channel. That’s not going to go away, that’s still effective, but it’s not as effective. It’s harder and harder to get into the inbox and get people to click. You need to make sure you know how to leverage search well, what’s working, what’s not with search. You need to make sure you understand how to leverage social media well. You need to understand things like using messengers, using chat bots, using push notifications on websites, etc. You need to have this portfolio of approaches to be able to reach your learners and pull them in.
Content marketing. Our feeling is that learning businesses in general tended to lag behind on content marketing because they’re so focused on the content that people actually register for or paid for. But you’ve got to provide that value up front to get them there in the first place to hook them. That goes back to that customer experience, that customer journey, learner experience, learner journey. Before they pay, before they are enrolling, you’re engaging with them as learners and providing that value and doing that even better on going forward.
Copywriting. This has always been sort of an Achilles heel for so many learning businesses. You send out those email blasts, you put together those conference flyers, but the copy that’s written for it just isn’t hooking people and pulling them in.

To learn more about marketing maturity, check out a description of the related session to be held at our upcoming Learning • Technology • Design event:

How To Get More Visitors To Click The “Buy” Button (facilitated by Tony Paille)

6. Artificial Intelligence

[25:38] – The sixth and final trend that we wanted to touch on is artificial intelligence. AI is of course a bit predictable perhaps as a trend for 2020 but we also felt like we couldn’t not talk about.

Especially because in light of what we talked about as the fourth trend that with quantum computing and 5G, we think a big part of what they will enable is artificial intelligence.

Quantum computing coupled with artificial intelligence is going to make it possible to finally truly, deliver on personalized learning. We’re going to be able to, with much more accuracy and better than ever before, match learners and prospective customers with our offerings and help them make use of them in the ways that are most beneficial to their particular situation and their particular needs.

Artificial intelligence is also going to help us to much more accurately and predictively look at the job market. What jobs and professions will wane, what new jobs and professions might evolve? Where are we going to see growth?

We’ll note too that with AI, we’re talking about it as a trend, but it really is already here. It’s built into so many of the services and tools that we already use. Think about a Google search. You just type in the first few letters and it’s auto filling for you and suggesting search terms. If you use Gmail and you’re responding to a message, it’ll give you some prescriptive answers to choose from.

Those are just a few quick, simple examples of how AI is already baked into to what we’re doing on a daily basis and that’s just going to continue to grow in 2020 and beyond.

As it grows, AI really has the potential to impact pretty much every dimension and aspect of what a learning business does.

It’s going to impact how we understand our market, how we go about market assessment and market research. It’s going to change how we develop and design learning experiences. The tools that we use for developing those are going to have more and more AI baked into them.

As we mentioned with personalized learning, it’s going to help us match up learners with the appropriate offerings and help them use them in the most meaningful ways for them. And it’s going to help us see impact and outcomes because we’re going to be looking at some of that data after learners leave whatever learning experience we’re providing and how they go back and apply it and being able to see more of that.

Learning • Technology • Design

[29:23] – We’ll note again that Learning • Technology • Design™ (LTD), our annual virtual conference coming up February 25 & 27, 2020 and registration is open right now.

This is really the only virtual conference that’s designed specifically for professionals in the business of continuing education, professional development, and lifelong learning. If that describes you (which it probably does since you’re reading this), please do consider joining us for that. We’ve got a really great program this year and you can check that out here.

[30:23] – Q&A/Chat from the original Webinar

[33:43] – Wrap-Up

Reflection Questions

Which of the six trends we discuss for 2020 are most relevant for and most likely to impact your learning business?
Are you prepared for their impact and to capitalize on those most-relevant-to-you trends? How might you better prepare?

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[35:39] – Sign off