So what can Learning & Development learn from children’s education? Recently I attended one of Europe largest exhibitions for technology in education. The show is called BETT and took place in London’s ExCel Centre.
BETT describes itself as being for:
If you’re a Learning and Training Professional, come to Bett to discover how technology can improve and enhance learning, from school to Higher Education and workplace learning.
Although I saw little directed at workplaces directly. That being said there is a lot that we in “professional L&D” can take away. Aside from the significant focus on what we used to call “Design technology”, with a lot of stands promoting CAD, 3D printers, coding etc, there were 2 things that stood out for me in particular:
- Robots & AI
- Virtual Reality – VR
These all have a place in the “Future of Work”
Robots and AI
There were lots of robots at the show. they seemed to fall into a number of uses:
- To make coding and programming more interesting
- To assist learners with learning material and processes
- Information and guidance or customer service
From an L&D point of view, coding is not relevant for most of us, although some may argue it will help those of us that are not millennials learn how to use data better!
However several were looking to promote robots as “classroom assistants”. If they can do this for children, why not adults?
Putting robots on the white collar floor
For a long time robots have threatened blue collar/ manual work. Some of the latest tools can offer different options for us. In the blog “The robot will see you now” we saw how easy it was for humans to build trust and working relationships with robots. Why not for some typically white collar jobs too?
Many IT deployments require teams of “trainers” to carry out “floor walking” as part of the implementation. In a call centre or large office where there may be 50+ users all trying to use the new system at the same time, limited “floor walkers” will help people when they can, but they are limited in numbers. Imagine coding a team of these Pepper style robots to ‘walk’ around and be the first line of support. They can be trained faster than humans and can be reprogrammed for different tasks and organisations.
The advantage of using such tools will mean that IT users will have to wait for less time for the help they need. As a result of faster support, they will feel less frustrated, and more productive. there is nothing worse than being on the phone with a customer and the employee cannot find what they need to do. This angers the employee and the customer. So rather than just one traditional floor walker, you have one human floor walker and several robots.
It is not all about AI
read almost any blog or prediction about Hr and the future of work, and they give examples of Artificial Intelligence (AI) being one of the next big change technologies. Again when you read these pieces, many are predicting that AI will be in our phones, our computers, in the software tools we use. I agree they will. But for me, one of the most exciting areas of AI that we will be aware of is in movable robots. Sure AI platforms like Cortana, Siri, ok google, Alexa etc are already getting smarter. They are forms of AI and we will just adapt to using them increasingly on a daily basis. But these will just be improvements to what we do and how we do it. For me the excitement is having that robot with advanced AI , who I know and trust, come up to me whilst working and help me when I need it. A work buddy if you like.
Robots and Loneliness
Having seen the programme The robot will see you know, I have a strong belief that this is a really exciting development for coaching and learning and development. I also feel that many people that for whatever reason currently feel isolated will feel more connected. Even these simple childlike faces that many of the robots have to build a bond of forms. We are hardwired to look for faces. We are hardwired to trust friendly looking ones. I learn this some years ago when a designed put a logo together for us. It was for a children’s centre, and he showed us how just subtle changes to simple lines make children attracted to the characters.. or not. We are seeing the same development in the robots I photographed above.
Robots, AI and learning and Development
It is not something we see much at the adult-based L&D shows. If this is a major part of the offer to young people, why are businesses not starting on this road? I for one am keen to seek a new assignment where we can explore the introduction of such tools.
In my next blog I will discuss what I saw in the rise of VR for education and how the business world needs to adapt… fast!