Innovate? An LMS? LXP? Learning Platform? Employee Dev Platform? Are you saying that any of these platform types are innovative? Wait, LMS? Oh, that is so traditional; there isn’t any innovation there. LXP? That’s where innovation comes in (hint- it doesn’t). A Learning Platform driven by brain-centric modalities? That must be innovative. AI-first platforms. Ok, that has to be innovation at the forefront. Huh? That isn’t an accurate statement, or any statement, for that matter.

Wait, are you telling me that the industry still suffers from a lack of innovation to such a degree that we are just seeing the same ol same 95% of the time?

Innovation is a word to toss around because its ambiguities are enough to put something through at the tiniest level, as though you are placing a piece of paper into a slot, and out it comes to your wonderful hands.

The whole LXP innovation pitch continues and is a load of month-old baloney. What I see today isn’t unique. Many of the initial feature sets that stood out—or that were enhanced and tweaked from a visibility standpoint—are gone. LMS vendors always had skills and capabilities.

Not where we are today, but then again, you shouldn’t compare a system from 2004 to one that is in play now, nor should you think that what folks seek in extensive skills capabilities within a system (assuming the employee is your core, and yes, some customers too—dependent on the case) wasn’t around in the early days because of different expectations and needs.

Just as you wouldn’t expect a new car version to be the same as one that exists today, think about it. Rear-view camera? Sensors if you go out of your lane? Most people didn’t need those in the 2000s. Nowadays, sensors are pretty much standard in all vehicles. Rear-view is an option; most of the time, it comes with the vehicle anyway. You now expect those things.

Seatbelts is another one. When I got my driver’s license in the early 80s, wearing a seatbelt wasn’t a federal requirement. I wore one with my driver’s test, but it was hit or miss after getting my license. Today? Seatbelts are mandatory when you drive a vehicle and, in many cases, on the passenger side (although I think many folks ignore that).

Where can you find innovation?

It is out there – yes, in some systems – i.e., the system itself, which I will note shortly. Then it is there, well, in any system, if you look, and yes, pick it out, and go WOW, that is different, unique, and I see it as the “Gold.”

That is something you should be looking for – if you are seeking a system or as a vendor, you should be examining it right now – is there something there that is unique – that if Craig looked at it, he would say, WOW.

Isn’t every system innovative?

No. Just because they say it is – “We do things differently. We are not a (fill in the blank – but often they use LMS). This is very unique,” doesn’t mean it is true. On the other side, I always hear people saying to me, “No system can do this.

We haven’t found a system that can do that. What we need just isn’t out there.” First off, it probably is if you expand your look and reach. The vendor may be horrible at marketing (often the case) or messaging (ditto on the case); therefore, you won’t know or hear of them.

That said, way too many – can’t grasp it. There are many whose whole design and approach is based on their biggest clients, or clients in general, that seek this or that. This, to me, is a big mistake – because you are supposed to be the expert, not the client. Trust me, a client won’t know everything out there or what is possible (today).

Then, some vendors will go down a rabbit hole because a couple of large clients asked for it. This goes at the bucket of worst ideas behind the decision to sell electrolyte flavor packs for water—bad, bad idea.

The Systems that do something different (that I have seen so far)

#1 Vendor doing something that goes beyond HOLY MOLY!

Kilo—They focus solely on the maritime industry (and also offer EdTech maritime training), using VR simulations. They also have an LMS, but what stands out to me is…

VASCO

Their VR simulations, available for safety management, operations, and navigation, take the whole VR piece to a new level.

How? By dropping in a live instructor. The live (yes, human) instructor can bounce into the courses/content and add instructions on how to do things, etc.

It reminds me of the “group party” thing that many of the VR headsets have, where folks can go into the area and talk to others in real-time – despite them being anywhere in the world. The same applies here – except it is an instructor.

OnPoint Digital Learning

OnPoint took a different approach to VR. They developed a course/content that appears in the Apple Pro Vision. A learner can select the course and go right into it. The client that went with it is T-Mobile, who is adding the Apple Pro Vision headsets—one per store. I think it has potential. However, the APV has turned out to be a dud in terms of sales and other issues. Nevertheless, that isn’t due to OnPoint.

For what it is worth, OnPoint does fully customized LMSs – including mobile. I know you will say hey, Moodle does that, and blah blah. Moodle does okay, but the level of what OnPoint can do, plus the person behind it, Robert Gadd (an early pioneer of e-learning and a pioneer of mobile), differentiates it from the pack.

Pluralsight

Pluralsight continues to be innovative in multiple ways. One is the data visualization and data points.

They provide data points that tell me my learning story—thus, true learning intelligence. It doesn’t cost me extra. It doesn’t require me to have a background in stats or tech; rather, it presents real useful information for your learning. They are IMO the best system out there for data visualization and metrics, as it relates to showing me my learning story.

I love the innovation when it comes to certification, which is popular with various companies and definitely associations. Here is their way of presenting (please note my screenshots are from a video—and Pluralsight approved the usage—viewing of it).

Another section I think is brilliant, and I have not seen this in any other learning system on the market. The system will show you the cost of the token fees tied to the characters and words you are using for the prompt. Tokens are charged based on the number of characters you type into a prompt, regardless of what you type.

The vendor – yep, gets charged a fee. While the price of the fees is quite inexpensive, it ramps up fast when folks are always using the prompts. They show the number of characters available to type into the prompt – another brilliant move. This is because every LLM has limitations on the number of words you can enter into a prompt. Some of it is massive – which you think rocks – however – those token fees.

The one downside here is that the token fees angle only works within their Playground, which is awesome by the way. However, the prompt—think Gen AI here—is not available anywhere else in the system.

Above the learner typed into the prompt – How do I learn tech skills? You can see the tokens used and the costs (Admin side).

Another tokens data and cost that appears on the admin side.

Compare the prompt options (see image below). Okay, you are on the admin side and are debating the cost based on various LLMs on the market. You can compare the fees by selecting an LLM (that is listed in the system vs. another).

Pluralsight does not have all these LLMs in its platform. The one minus is that Pluralsight doesn’t update the LLMs—thus, the ones it has today are dated and no longer utilized by many companies, even in Enterprise.

You won’t see GPT 4o (known as 4 omni), the latest with Claude, or Llama3 from Meta. Yes, new LLMs are coming out all the time, which is hard for a vendor to keep up with, but utilizing the prompt angle here, they need to do so—perhaps once a quarter.

Lastly, the feedback loop. I kid you not; I have seen feedback loops in less than ten systems. That isn’t very good. Especially since AI learns from itself, so, if the response is inaccurate (due to hallucinations – fake or false information or AI bias are just two), you – the learner – can’t change it. You – the learner – can’t edit in what is wrong, nor do you have a thumbs up or down option (common with feedback loops, although there are LLMs that it is a flag – indicating inaccuracies). Way too many vendors think learners know about fake or false information, AI bias, and so on. This is false. Not even close to being real. And while there are content creators that allow you to edit the text – it is only within the context of the course – and still there is not a feedback loop there – again, edit within the tool, can’t identify what is wrong in the feedback loop – and thus the AI has no idea.

To date, I have seen zero vendors with a feedback loop on the admin side. Seriously?

At least with Pluralsight, the learner does see a feedback loop, but this is only available in the Playground section.

You will see their angle – “Provide Feedback,” which opens the loop, and the text below around AI recommendations – which is a crucial piece of any AI within a system. The number of vendors I have seen note the “warning of fake info” is, again, less than ten – not just on the admin side – those numbers are awful, but those that have gone learner side too. Come to think of it, it’s not even two hands worth.

Cypher Learning– AI Crosscheck

Cypher’s answer to using Gen AI to review the text you have entered when creating your content/course (admin side): It will review the text and provide a response. If it is correct, it says so. If the AI finds that something or something is wrong, it identifies “inaccuracies” and then shows what those inaccuracies are and recommends text. You can choose to accept it or not.

I like Crosscheck, but what I don’t like is no feedback loop. I mean, here – I accept the text because I assume it is accurate and hey it saves me so much time. What though if it is not correct – accurate? There is not one LLM out on the market, that has zero hallucinations. You can have dozens of LLMs in your system, with a RAG, and fine tuning and guardrails, and you will still get hallucinations.

Anyway, here is their screen. I think this has real potential if they add the feedback loop and the text (which appears when you create the course – that it may produce fake information).

Cypher has something else in the works—and it is very intriguing (yes, I have seen it), but once again, the output does not have a feedback loop. I’m at a loss here for why they ignored something they are fully aware of—a loop.

Anyway, as I’ve noted before, they have the best authoring tool with AI pieces within it, from synthetic audio to images.

Cornerstone Galaxy with Skyhive

Cornerstone acquired Skyhive this year and has already incorporated it into its system (Galaxy). If you have Learn (their learning suite), the skills piece is included. If you choose to go just with the LMS, there are skills in there, but the level of Skyhive is not.

The big win with this new piece is that it can compare in real time the latest labor, economic, and skills data parsed with their AI (Cornerstone). The labor data is important to me, more so than just adding a skills library or competencies of skills tied solely to a role.

Bottom Line

I am a fan of bucking the perceived notion that everything has to be the same. The idea of L&D or Training or others all want the same thing, regardless of their use case regarding the appearance and what the system can do. Sure, they may ask for something out of this world, but such inquiries as “I need a system that allows me to see a video,” “learning catalog that can be seen by X folks versus Y folks,” and “analytics and reporting on learners” are universal.

I am not a fan of where vendors rely on clients telling them what is needed, and then the vendor does it – ignoring that innovation isn’t coming from your clients – it has to come from you – the vendor, and the folks within it.

Out of the box in the consumer world that has hit the home runs and we use today – include streaming (initially, everyone was going VHS or DVD, who would think of trying this), bypassing commercials with the recording or stopping a live show, while you do something else, then pick it up again (TiVo – thank you for coming up with this idea), or this vendor called, Sony who decided that the next format should be Blu-Ray for DVDs, out thinking Toshiba’s HD format, whereas consumers never gravitated towards.

In other words, trying something different, taking that risk, isn’t about adhering to everything your favorite clients, or those who use your system the most, or even some small group you tap in a focus group spin.

It’s about – you being an innovator.

Not a follower.

Please note: There will not be any blog posts for the next two weeks (July 30th to August 9th), as I will be off on holiday!

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