How do you effectively build a learning culture? Or reskill your workforce to work with evolving technologies? And what’s the best way to develop a content strategy? Manage your digital assets? Integrate digital learning into everyday workflow?
These are the kinds of questions that keep learning and development professionals up at night. They’re also the questions GP Strategies addressed with a select group of clients on September 26 and 27 at the GP Strategies 2018 Customer Forum: “Take Flight! Empowering Innovation at the Speed of Business.” The Boeing Company graciously hosted this event for GP Strategies customers from around the world; the Forum was held at the Boeing Leadership Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Like most learning organizations these days, many of our clients are going through some aspect of transformation, finding new learning strategies to manage talent, keeping learners engaged, preparing the workforce for a shift, or building a continuous learning culture. Several of our clients made presentations about these types of challenges and shared how they and their GP Strategies team have addressed them successfully. There were also many great conversations—both formal and informal—about the issues learning professionals face every day to maintain their global leadership positions.
A popular attraction at the GP Strategies Customer Forum was our Exploratorium—five rooms delivering hands-on learning experiences, blending highly engaging visuals, storytelling, technology, and kinesthetic learning opportunities. The theme for our Exploratorium was “Transforming the Landscape of Learning”; each room featured innovative, real-life solutions developed by GP Strategies and our clients to solve business problems in their organizations. The Exploratorium included:
- An “Innovation Garage” showing how a major automotive manufacturer transformed learning for their sales consultants through chatbots, in-vehicle technology, interactive 360 tours, augmented reality, and virtual reality.
- A water-themed room telling the story of how a marine-themed MOOC was used to upskill a pharmaceutical company’s practitioners. At the end of the MOOC, participants could peruse the Captain’s Log, a bound book filled with key learning takeaways.
- An aerial-themed room sharing the story of how one small conversation between two fathers on a soccer field changed the trajectory of learning for one of the world’s largest technology companies. Visitors to this room had hands-on experiences with a drone and a 360-degree video camera and witnessed how these technologies could be used in learning.
- A room sharing the story of two learning journeys: Leading Self and Manager of Managers. Among the items in this room were parts of a prosthetic hand that participants from the Manager of Managers session assembled in their program for delivery to an amputee who was injured by an unexploded munition device in Asia.
- A room telling the story of how our Company is making a meaningful impact in the world through diverse initiatives such as eliminating chemical weapons stockpiles, improving disaster relief communications, supporting a crisis call center, and boosting operations and safety in the oil and gas industry.
A peek inside the Exploratorium during the GP Strategies Customer Forum.
From a panel discussion with learning industry experts to a variety of presentations addressing the everyday challenges our clients face, the GP Strategies Customer Forum was packed with relevant and timely information that our clients could put to use immediately to enhance their learning organizations.
Each year, the GP Strategies Customer Forum raises the bar to bring our global clients value beyond the work we do for them every day. The event gives our clients the ability to connect and share ideas with each other, and gain insight on how other companies are addressing performance in their organizations. The energy, excitement, and camaraderie lasting beyond this two-day event keep our clients coming back year after year. I hope to see you there in 2019!
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