The Church of Masie (term invented by Clive Shepherd on his excellent e-learning blog) has emailed me with their programme for November 2006 – it looks woeful.Main theme ‘Learning in a Flatter World”. I assume this is a reference to Thomas Friedman’s book on globalisation. (Always ready to jump on a bandwagon after it's passed by.) If this is so, then the fact that every named speaker in the email is American also seems to have passed them by.
Stephen Covey – remember The 7 Habits of Highly…..well vaguely. Also crazy fundamentalist.
Marshall Goldsmith – sort of new age Buddhist coach!
Ken Blanchard – yawn.
Wal-Mart is to receive an award – presumably for low pay and becoming one of the most hated brands in the world.
BBC also up for award – say no more – see previous post.
A host of other stars including Micky Mouse, Goofy …… yip every year.
There is some good news - the excellent Jay Cross will also be there.
3 comments:
In defense of the World is Flat discussion, a main theme of the book is that we need to improve our "learn how to learn" and self-directed learning capabilities. I think we are woefully behind in really understanding that within the corporate eLearning world. See:
Tools and Strategies for Personal Learning
Do Learning Professionals Make the Worst Learners?
So, depending on where they go with the discussion, it may not be a bad theme.
I am hesitant to make too much of a fuss about the US-centric nature of US conferences, because I'm not at all anti-American and have to admit that a good 50% of the best ideas in our field have originated from the other side of the pond (note that's 50%, not 100%). But I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for invites, Donald, because somehow I can't see any of them risking having you as a speaker, because you quite obviously say what you think. Now there's a challenge, Elliot, put on a brave face and give Donald a platform.
To be fair, has Elliott ever been much more than a Dr Phil of the eLearning community? He gets paid to bring a bunch of people together and get them to feel good by telling them what they want to hear and what they already know. Ignoring the fact that he is clearly completely in love with himself, he does know how to assemble a good collection of speakers and provide an environment for scads of informal learning. If you can get past the personal hype and questionable facts coming from the pulpit, there is much to gain from his events.
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