Corporate Education and Talent Acquisition

Penelope Trunk

2007-09-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

Penelope Trunk is a fresh face joining the discussions about the Generations and what they want/expect from the workplace. Her blog is plain fun to read and her views are candid, bold and right on.

She believes we are facing a transformation - she calls it The Great Transformation-- as we move to a world of freelancers, consultants and part-time workers. She see market forces driving salary and also rating the quality of work.

She sees:

The end of gender based pay disparity
The end of the glass ceiling
The end of the grind
The end of consulting
The end of the stay-at-home parents
The end of hierarchy

I encourage you to read her blog (maybe even buy her book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success ).

Habits, Frameworks and the Corporate University

2006-08-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

We all know how to learn - it's built into our genetic makeup- but we struggle to articulate and explain how we do it. Piaget developed his constructionist theory of learning by watching and studying how children learn. In his theory, children acquire information and then, by testing it with experience, add to it. If for any reason the higher level of learning cannot be used, they revert to lower levels. I believe this is the way we all learn at every stage of maturity. It is by a mixing observation, experience, facts, procedures and other knowledge that we move up a learning hierarchy.

Our traditional school and corporate training systems primarily impart facts, information and procedures in an attempt to build these higher levels of learning. This is an incomplete model for fostering learning, yet it has become our framework for thinking about it. Learning is always personal and can only be learner-centered by that definition. To think we can impart learning to others is mistaken. We can only create learning environments and frameworks. We can motivate, guide and excite.

Our current teacher-centered, teacherer-knows-all framework is hard to challenge because it is familiar and because we are all products of what it delivers. But it prevents change and inhibits new architectures. It limits creativity by confining behavior to established norms.

I believe we need to deliberately create frameworks where experimentation, non-verbal communication systems, social networks, learn-by-doing, and other tools and concepts enhance our learning.

This is happening in some places. The Idea Lab and other innovation centers practice much of what I am talking about. The corporate university has an opportunity to resist the "develop-a- curriculum" challenge, break the habits and frameworks of traditional learning, and create a more complete and complex learning architecture.

By creating learning environments that encourage dialogue and that motivatedated people together to solve problems, overcome challenges, or develop new approaches they could actually become important to the business success of the organization.

These environments seem to need several components and are based on two assumptions:

The assumptions:
-People learn best through interaction with others and when focused on doing something meaningful to themselves.
-People adapt behavior (learn) as needs arise and only rarely learn much prior to a need arising.

The components:
1. Robust links to technology of all kinds: e.g., the Internet, networking software, collaborative tools, email and anything else that brings people together no matter where they are.
2. A facilitator (not a teacher) who provokes and stimulates individuals to reach out and explore by using technology and by engaging others in the process. Any individual can be this facilitator.
3. A loose process/structure/framework that can be modifed and ammended as the need arises. This structure serves as the simplest level of glue to hold people to a common theme and keep them focused until they consciously decide not work on the issue anymore.

Corporate Universities and South Africa

2006-03-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

For the past week I have been in South Africa giving a seminar at the University of South Africa (UNISA) on corporate universities. Organized by Thinyane Molelle (center of photo), a government education official as well as a budding entrepreneur, it was attended by government officials, educators and a few executives from the corporate world.

The need for a variety of flexible educational sources is critical for the future success of South Africa. South Africa has an unemployment rate exceeding 25%. This was caused both by apartheid and by an changing economy. Corporations need skilled staff - people with advanced skills in reading, languages, math, and science. This economy has skipped the manufacturing phase where people with lesser skills can find basic employment. Apartheid also left most middle-aged black Africans uneducated and unskilled.

The question this government faces is how to rapidly educate (or re-educate) these 8 million people for work in corporations, government offices, and in tourism and retail services.

Corporate universities offer a way to accomplish that, especially when they can be funded and operate under a group of companies representing an industry segment or a region. If these can be established successfully, they may provide a bridge between the formal academic world and the world of on-the-job training.

Putting these together is a challenge when formal academic institutions are afraid of the competition and no one knows if CUs can produce the kind of worker needed. A few experiments about to get underway by Thiayane may help prove that one way or the other.

I think it is from emerging economies that have talent pain that we will begin to develop new ways of developing people using both the vast array of technology we have (that is, by the way, still not "here" in South Africa in an affordable way) and more traditional methods wielded differently.

Marconi Center - Setting for the "Future of Talent" Think Tank

2005-07-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

When we meet in the Fall, it will be at the gorgeous Marconi Center on the edge of Tomales Bay. This is an inlet from the sea which is protected from the full force of the Pacific Ocean by Point Reyes.

The Marconi Center is located in the town of Marshall which is about an hour's drive from San Francsico along the scenic highways of Marin county. This map shows it in relation to the Pacific Ocean at the top.

The Marconi Center is, itself, an unusal place. While it is now owned by the State of California, from about 1912 until 1939 it served as a radio station for ships at sea. Using Marconi's radios, this station allowed ships to send and recive news and information and provided the military with communciations during World War I.

This is a view from the Marconi Center toward Tomales Bay. The vista are lovely and the center is made up of condominium-like townhouses, several free-standing conference buildings and a separate dining area.

Guests sleep in the condos and can share rooms, if desired. There are miles of trails and paths that hug the coast and wind through the trees and gentle hills that surround the center.

A ship idles through the bay. Below, the condos where gusts sleep and beautful lupin flowers which greet visitors to the Pine Lodge meeting rooms where we will be holding our sessions.

Future of Talent

2005-07-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

From October 9-11th on Tomales Bay in northern California, I will be hosting, along with Jay Cross, Eileen Clegg, Verna Alee and Christian Dahman, a discussion and brainstorming session on the Future of Talent. These experts, along with about two dozen practitioners from the corporate and academic worlds will engage in a series of conversations around talent. The practitioners represent recruiters, trainers and developers, coaches, and knowledge management experts. They will come from some of America's largest corporations and from other countries such as the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and China.

Why are we doing this?

We believe that talent is the only real asset an organization has and it is the only investment that will actually return significant value. We see changes and deficits in the skills workers have, we see an educational system producing people without the skills organizations need the most, we see an exodus of senior talent and expert knowledge from organizations as Baby Boomers retire, and we see a hunger for personal fulfillment and growth that neither academic institutions nor corporations are easing.

We believe that the U.S. and probabaly most of the Western world, is at a tipping point where there are so few skilled and creative workers that organizations are (or soon will be) suffering great talent shortages that lead to lost market share, lower profits and stock value. Recent books such as Tom Malone's "The Future of Work" and Richard Florida's "The Flight of the Creative Class" all underline and reinforce these beliefs.

The Future of Talent Think Tank will be an exploration -- an intellectual journey to discover how true these thoughts are and what can be done to reverse the direction we seem to be heading. The long term purpose is to begin dealing with these changes in a positive way. It is to start crafting purposeful actions to overcome, compensate for or change these trends.

The tangible result of this first session will be a set of findings that will form the core of a website devoted to discussion about these issues. Sponsors will be able to contribute to an ongoing forum and attend sessions each year that will contine the exploration and continue to find ways to develop and keep the talent we need.

If you have an interest in these issues, consider applying to attend. We are limiting the number of attendees to just 24 -- two dozen pioneers who are willing to act as catalysts for the discussions and, hopefully, experimenters with any suggested solutions. We have a few spots open and if you would like to come or learn more, please go to the Future of Talent web site (www.futureoftalent.com) for details.

How is a CU different from a T&D Function?

2005-04-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Three features distinguish a corporate university or learning institute from the normal training and development function.

First of all, the corporate university is not focused on improving the personal skills of individual employees through classes or seminars. Rather than teach presentation skills, time management or other generic skills; a corporate university aims to improve a broader set of skills that will have a measurable impact on corporate goals, or business results or on customer satisfaction.

An example might be developing a curriculum devoted to improving sales. Emphasis would be on analyzing what the weaknesses are and then in designing a set of activities, programs and interventions that would deliver some predetermined results.

The second big difference is that a corporate university aims to have an impact on strategic thinking and decision making at the senior levels of the organization. The corporate university incorporates elements of change management, team effectiveness, negotiation into its programs and activities so that overall organizational capabilities are improved and strengthened. Most training and development functions are tactically focused and have little effect at senior levels.

And finally, the corporate univeristy has an interest in the future and in helping the organization understand and develop appropriate responses to opportunities and threats in the marketplace.

Instead of being reactionary, the best corporate universities anticipate competition and change and help senior management understand and craft ways to take advantage of opportunities or defect challenges.

General Electric�s John F. Welch Leadership Development Center at Crotonville is often used as an example of an effective corporate-based learning institution and for good reason. Crotonville has consistently helped the CEO and his staff to assess market opportunities and challenges and then develop forward-looking curricula to educate management on how to deal with those challenges. Its Workout program helped GE become more nimble and less bureaucratic just as the ability to respond rapidly to market changes became critical to success.

It is unfortunate that many organizations fail to grasp what power they could unleash if they created and gave appropriate resources to a corporate university instead of a training and development function, albeit a great one. The two functions are no more similar than bookkeeping is to financial management. Both essential, but not the same.

Facilitating Collaboration

2005-03-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

Eileen Clegg collaborated with me on this book and is a visual journalist, artist, writer and educator. She and I worked together to create a A history map of educational trends. This is an except from an article she wrote on facilitating collaboration that uses the history map to explain the power of thinking and learning using visual imagery.

"This History Map depicts major historical, business, education, and social events of the past 100 years. It was used as a springboard for executives of a multinational telecommunications company to discuss corporate values, employee learning, and corporate ethics. One of the effects was to uncover �memes� (the social equivalent of genes - succinct repeatable statements that diffuse throughout an organization) explaining identity and goals to employees, customers and shareholders.

The social and psychological components of visual communication can be leveraged to facilitate collaboration. In her book, Vizability, Kristina Hooper Woolsey wrote about how graphics function within a group that is striving to work effectively together:
�Collaborative drawings have a neutral quality that can be very effective. By focusing on a drawing, people tend to concentrate on ideas on the table, rather than the different personalities and social dynamics involved. They also keep discussion focused on specifics rather than on vague and nebulous generalities.�
Often people on the same team believe they share the same goals but lack a shared framework. Progress is impeded due to clashes of assumptions that have not been expressed. A visual process to identify embedded assumptions, underlying principles and motivations moves everyone on to the page, creating a shared context before defining the goal and steps to reach it.

David Sibbet, founder of The Grove Consultants International, who has been using visuals as a strategic tool for 30 years, describes graphic facilitation as �public listening.� Participants in a meeting immediately see their ideas captured and reframed � making it possible for them to clarify their thoughts. The image can then be diffused for others to respond and elaborate upon the idea.

Organizations increasingly are using group graphics as a �high touch technology� that works on a meta-level to develop a shared focus. Visual storytellers may use a landscape background as a way to bring people together to a familiar-looking �place� � literally �grounding� them. Similarly, history maps can show �where we�ve been� and �where we�re going.� Facilitators can use time-lines and arrows to show forward movement.

The Agility Factor
In a time of rapid and extreme change, there is little time for traditional process. There is no longer enough cycle time for an executive decision to go through training and education departments to bring employees up to speed. Rather we are in an era that demands just-in-time, relevant information. That changes the definition of what it means �to learn.� It has been suggested that the best definition of learning today is �constructive interaction with change.� The �Agility Factor� describes the process of moving ideas quickly through a company and continually improving upon them.

Visuals are one item in the toolbox for quickly conveying context and content in a form conducive to ongoing change. Simple art forms and shapes communicate movement, change, and impermanence. They invite people to tweak, develop, and improve upon ideas. There is a wide spectrum of visual communication approaches � from The Grove�s templates, designed to help people in corporations conduct their own strategic visioning, to highly individual visual interpretations by people who synthesize and amplify information in idiosyncratic art forms as they record it. The list of approaches is growing: graphic recording, graphic facilitation, reflective graphics, mindscaping, visual thinking, information architecture, scribing, visual synthesis, graphic translation, group graphics, interactive graphics, ideation specialists, communication graphics, visual storytelling, visual journalism, integrative graphics.

Although artistic talent may enhance presentational graphics, visual communication is above all functional � on-the-fly, unpolished, and transient, particularly during conversational phases. Sometimes called �primitive art� or �tertiary art,� it is a visual snapshot of what is known at the moment � when a CEO first describes a proposed change, when an expert describes a new approach, when executives add their input to a vision, when groups respond to a proposal, when ideas are disseminated.

Photographs, audio clips, and power points can be part of an evolving web package � continually being updated and improved upon as the cycle of communication continues.

To learn more about this or to contact Eileen, click here.

Action and Experiential Learning

2005-03-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

As you can tell from reading these various posts, I am a believer in learning by doing. I haven't had a "class" in blogging nor have I ever taken a computer class; but I do experiment, read, ask others, and continuously try new things.

David Kolb was one of the first to write formally about experiential learning, and his definition of it is simple: �Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.�

If you reflect on Kolb's model (below) and on how you most likely really learn anything, it becomes harder and harder to defend an educational process that relies so completely on theory, reading, and learning facts.

The First lesson: Learning How to Learn

2005-03-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

�. . .we can say that Muad�Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.�
-Frank Herbert, Dune

This quote from the well-known science fiction novel Dune underlines the difficulty anyone in the corporate university, education, or training arena has to face. Very few of us have ever learned to learn and most of us live in fear of learning. This fear has roots in embarrassment, fear of failure, fear of ridicule, our society�s worship of �book� learning over experiential learning, and many other fears.

Children have the wonderful gift of total trust that they can, through interaction with their environment, learn. They experiment, test, challenge and in the process learn. Their natural curiosity and excitement over piecing together the world as they discover it is a wonderful thing to witness. Yet, somehow as we go through our formal schooling that innate belief in our own ability to learn, and most of our curiosity, is taken out of us.

Our organizations reflect us as well. Only a few are true learning organizations � ones that can invent the future and do so regularly. One that comes to mind is Apple. It remains youthful and exciting, even now that it is into middle age. It has programmed into itself the ability to take risks, be bold, and go where others are afraid to go.

Ikea also, as well as Starbucks and a handful of other organizations have developed the skills and trust to perpetually learn.

What the organizational development professionals and corporate university experts need to do is to better understand how they do this. I don�t think we have a very good understanding of how to teach a person (or an organization) to learn � which is, as Herbert says, the first lesson of all.

Human Capital Management and the Learning Process

2005-03-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of talk lately about human capital management. No one seems to have created a commonly accepted definition of HCM. Some of the definitions I have seen are quite broad and encompass all the elements that have an influence on people in organizations. Other definitions are narrower and focus on hiring, or performance management or on a few of these.

SAS defines HCM as "Organizational insight to drive effective strategies." I like that definition but it doesn't give me any clue as to what the elements are that might lead to effectiveness.

Others define it as strategies and/or tools for finding, attracting, assessing, developing, managing, and retaining top talent. This is fine but how is it different from Hr?

In the eyes of a CEO, HCM has to be defined as the processes and tools that increase profits, innovation or improve the effectiveness of the organization. HCM is not necessarily dependent on technology, although it would be hard to do without it.

Yesterday Hank Stringer of Hire.com and I did a half-day seminar for the Conference Board on this topic for about 20 executives from a variety of organizations across the country. It was interesting to see how varied their definitons and concepts about HCM were. It was also facinating to see how hard all of us struggle to articulate and define our worlds - professional and personal.

A lot of learning is about defining and creating frameworks to place actions, technologies or whatever into some sort of cognitive order. What Hank and I did was help these very intelligent executives construct a framework that let them see relationships and interdependencies. This led to several AHAs and a deeper understanding of what they need to do. I am hopeful they will say they "learned" a lot.

Apple Pioneer Dies at 61

2005-03-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

This article describes the life of Jef Raskin who is generally regarded as the father of the Macintosh computer. Jef was a far reaching guy who lived at the intersections Johansson talks about in the Medici Effect. He was the inspiration who helped Apple combine graphics, human interface design, simpliciy and computers. He was a leader in thinking about the "Humane Interface" between people and machines.

What has Jef Raskin got to do with corporate universities? Absolutly nothing in a direct sense. Yet, it was the spirit he embodied of combining vision, experimentation, art, music, design and technology that leads me to beleive the CU world needs a Jef Raskin or two.

We need to learn how to more effectively embed learning in our day-to-day work and build processes and systems that require no learning. We need to experiment with how music, art, language and action can be combined and used to accelerate learning, improve the speed of adoption, and increase retention of knowledge. This kind of thinking is what Raskin was all about.

What Role the Instructor?

2005-02-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

Does the business-focused corporate university rely solely on e-learning and other "instructorless" forms of trasferring knowledge and stimulating learning, or do instructors play a role?

Tom Kelly and Nader Nanjiani of Cisco describe how Cisco University has evolved the role of traditional instructor into one of of coach, facilitator, and guide.

Good teachers have always been learning facilitators. They guide, point out previous thinking, assess skills and readiness and then expose the learner to new information, or construct experiences where the learning can take place.

It is only the poor teacher who believes that information and pedegogy alone create learning.

The Talent Cycle

2005-02-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

An effective corporate university has a broad charter: it has the responsibility to look at �talent� holistically. Rather than focus exclusively on employee development or management development, it should also be involved in planning what talent is needed to execute corporate goals, in defining the skills and finding the best people, and in developing those skills and providing a career path for retention.

This is an era where traditional corporate HR silos have to be taken down. Without the authority to look at talent from multiple perspectives, the corporate university will be less effective and find it much harder to show any return on its work. Ideally the corporate university always keeps the talent cycle model in mind.

Corporations like Yahoo have already done this and are reaping the benefits that an integrated talent acquisition and development function provide.

The Medici Effect

2005-02-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

Innovation happens when we are somehow thrown off course or when we look at things with new eyes. The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures by Frans Johansson outlines how.

Johansson illustrates how the most interesting and potentially innovative ideas, inventions and product concepts occur at the intersections of conflicting, disconnected, or seemingly unrelated disciplines, thoughts, or experiences.

In many ways, innovation is about seeing the obvious in a new way. It is, to my thinking, often like looking at an optical illusion that takes one form when looked at quickly, but assumes another form when looked at differently.

Highly recommended reading for all corporate university leaders, training and development directors or anyone focused on learning.

Rappelling and Learning

2005-02-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

Frightening situations often stimulate learning. Last fall I spent a few days in Australia learning to rappel (or Abseil, as they call it down under). In the process of launching myself off of 30 meter high cliffs, I learned about ropes, anchoring those ropes, carabiners, rock climbing safety, and a host of other things.

While I am not even an amateur in the sport, some of the lessons I learned remain with me. But most don't. The toughest lesson is to learn to transfer the things you learned into business or life settings.

The failure to make this transition is why so many outdoor training programs, while fun and packed with knowledge, rarely make any lasting impact.

Would a period of reflection after each event help? Some think so and practice this, but in my own experience it takes more than refelction alone to anchor the learning.

Would a longer, more intensive session help? Perhaps. Soldiers who have been in combat for long periods of time develop habits and skills that carry over to civilian life (often with unintended consequences). This is why we ask for experience from job seekers. There is no question that the longer you do something the more you learn about it.

But most of us can't rappell frequently enough to make the learning stick.

What does make experiental learning work?

What are your thoughts on this? Comment welcome

Action Learning: How Is It Different from Classroom Learning?

2005-02-24T08:53:00.000-08:00

Class is scheduled for 9:00 am. Only a few students are there at that time, so the class waits and finally gets underway at 9:20. The first 20 minutes are spent in introductions and overviews. Then the instructor starts to go over the material. Overhead transparencies, flip charts, computer displays provide the media for display. The students sit quietly, inactively listening. This goes on for an hour or so and then there is a short break. After the break, which takes longer than scheduled and not everyone returns on time, the lecture resumes. There may be a few questions. Mostly there is only the teacher doing anything active. Some people take notes, some appear to be sleeping, and some are listening with glazed eyes.

Sound familiar? Is anyone really learning anything? Couldn�t this be more effective and more fun?

Most organizations equate employee development with classroom training. Billions are spent providing classes � mostly classroom-based lectures � to employees at all levels. The material taught is concepts, theories, approaches used by other organizations, and analysis of past events (case studies). And even though some of these lectures are being migrated to the Internet, there is often little improvement in the amount of student involvement or in the efficiency of getting the key messages to the learner.

On top of all this, it is very difficult to show how this classroom education relates to the business outcomes of the firm. Even more time and money is spent trying to justify and prove that there were benefits from the classroom activity. I have seen or been invited to more than 10 conferences in the past year that purported to help do this. The conclusion any business person has to draw is that either there are so few benefits that it takes high level detective work to find them, or that most of this activity is futile.

This scenario is why so many training departments have been downsized, reorganized, or put out of business entirely.

However, there are some givens: (1) most organizations realize that employees need to gain new skills � and do so efficiently and when they are needed, (2) almost everyone accepts the fact that people need to be engaged in their own development, and (3) that we learn most from our actions and our mistakes.

What is perhaps most �wrong� with the usual corporate training is that it provides understanding before there is any sense of a need to understand! We provide learners the answers to questions they do not yet have. If there is no desire, no motivation, no interest or way to utilize a concept; it is almost impossible to get a person to grasp it well.

What would happen if we turned this equation around? What if we took employees and asked them to work on a real business problem and at the same time provided them time and place and guidance for reflection and thought about what they were doing?

This is the essence of action learning (also called work-based learning) first conceived as a corporate tool by Reg Revans back in the 1970s.

We are not talking about one person or a few sharing what they know about a problem. What we are really looking for is acknowledgement that no one in the group knows how to do something and that we will all have to work together to find the answers. As Reg Revans says �Action learning. . .requires questions to be posed in conditions of ignorance, risk and confusion, when nobody knows what to do next. . .�

It must be applied to problems, not puzzles. A puzzle is something for which a solution already exists, although those solutions may be hard even for an expert to find. Examples of puzzles might include making a factory run more efficiently, optimizing a maintenance or repair procedure, speeding workflow or measuring costs.

A problem, however, defies easy solution and many different people may come to many different conclusions about how to solve it. A problem does not have one answer that all agree to, and the answers may change given political circumstances, economics or other factors.

When groups of people who are genuinely interested in exploring new approaches tackle a real problem with the idea of acting, reflecting and re-trying; they are �action learning�. Action learning skills have helped keep General Electric as one of the world�s best companies. Hewlett-Packard and many other companies are also deeply involved.

If you want to know more about action learning, check out these resources:

Center for Work and Learning at Northeastern University. This is headed by Joe Raelin, one of the leading thinkers, resarchers and writers on action (or practice-based) learning.

Resource papers in action learning from Australia

Revans University (named after Reg Revens, the founder of action learning).

Habits, Frameworks and the Corporate University

2005-02-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

We all know how to learn � it�s built into our genetic makeup- but we struggle to articulate and explain how we do it. Piaget developed his constructionist theory of learning by watching and studying how children learn. In his theory, children acquire information and then, by testing it with experience, add to it. If for any reason the higher level of learning cannot be used, they revert to lower levels. I believe this is the way we all learn at every stage of maturity. It is by a mixing observation, experience, facts, procedures and other knowledge that we move up a learning hierarchy.

Our traditional school and corporate training systems primarily impart facts, information and procedures in an attempt to build these higher levels of learning. But, this is an incomplete model for fostering learning, yet it has become our framework for thinking about it. Learning is always personal and can only be learner-centered by that definition. To think we can impart learning to others is mistaken. We can only create learning environments and frameworks.

Our current teacher-centered framework is hard to challenge because it is familiar and because we are all products of what it delivers. But it prevents change and inhibits new architectures. I believe we need to deliberately create frameworks where experimentation, non-verbal communication systems, social networks, learn-by-doing, and other tools and concepts enhance our learning.

This is happening in some places. The Idea Lab and other innovation centers practice much of what I am talking about. The corporate university has an opportunity to resist the �develop a curriculum� challenge and to break the habits and frameworks of traditional learning.

CU Workbook Launches

2005-01-16T05:37:00.000-08:00

Last Friday was an exciting day as the CU Workbook was finally available to the public. Eileen and I would very much like to hear your thoughts about the book and about corporate universities in general.

We would like to attract a worldwide community of commentators and thinkers on corporate education. There is a movement to expand the number of corporate universities worldwide, yet at the same time there is no agreement as to the definition of a corporate university. In some cases they are little more than an extension of the normal training and development function -- sort of a rose by another name. On the other hand, many are substantially different and are involved strategically and dynamically in the success of a organziation.

I would like to see a corporate university community that is focused on:

- linking doing, reflecting and learning.
- exploring new techniques and ideas to foster creativity and innovation.
- moving away from classrooms, professors, and serial learning into an environment where everyone contributes to the learning and where parallel thinking is encouraged.
- learning by playing in the intersections of disciplines and by intertwining concepts and ideas from diverse backgrounds.
- and by an experience that is culturally rich and open to everyone.

We would love your thoughts, ideas, comments and success or failure stories. The goal is make this a living, current documentary on the changing nature of corporate universities and education.