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It’s that time of the year for one of the most popular awards in the entire world.
Call it exclusive, because, well, uh, it is.
Not every learning technology, including learning systems, e-learning tools, and the big Turkey for 2025, can win.
I know it’s definitely a bummer.
This year, the categories really should make you smile, or for those vendors, take out their dart board and throw darts.
There is one day I hope a vendor will post their award on their site or in their marketing.
Multi-winner SuccessFactors didn’t qualify this year.
I know, many of you are bummed, while others are saying, “Who?”
The categories are
Why is that feature/function in your system?
The AI term nobody understands unless that person is knowledgeable about the technical aspects of AI
AI spin
DevLearn Turkey (I know, but like I said, lots to digest (Get it?)
Turkey of the Year 2025
Category One – Why is that feature/function in your system?
Every year, vendors love to toss terms and spin capabilities in their system that any system can do; however, for whatever reason, people think it is unique – the vendor pushes it as such – and the logic behind it is baffling and ambiguous enough to get people enthralled.
For me, it makes no sense.
Nominees are
Micro-learning
That is the term. It is not microlearning.
Secondly, every system on the entire e-learning planet since 2000 (even one vendor that went modem back in 1993) could do micro-learning.
For whatever reason, there are vendors out there pushing their system as a microlearning platform – ignoring the actual spelling.
Micro means short – and actually, if you are creating content for micro, the total running time should be under three minutes (if assuming the person goes straight through, rather than focuses on an area of interest, which is why it was established).
A vendor who pitches micro-learning, but fails to mention that it is say by chapter, so you could have a “micro-course” that is more than 50 minutes in time, again assuming that you are going straight through, and based upon some weird calculation on how fast someone can take a course or content.
Since they personally do not know your learning system, your learning retention rate, or that e-learning was created so you can go as fast or slow as you want, repeat to learn more, the idea of micro-learning is at best misleading and at worst disingenuous.
Flow of Work
I won’t mention the vendors, but a couple launched a platform around the flow of work. Since FOW (I will use this to represent flow of work) is doable in the majority of systems targeting the corporate space, sans associations, non-profits, and any entity that views e-learning (online learning) differently (than traditional-typical), my perspective is that they are duds.
One vendor whose system I do like rolled out an add-on called FOW.
I heard from someone in the company that sales were underwhelming.
I always say it as a dud.
Flow of Work sounds nice – it gives off some impression that what it can do can’t be achieved with a variety of systems targeting employees (because FOW’s goal is that audience) is nothing more than a nice term that an L&D person(s) (not everyone) request or a vendor looks at enough use cases and thinks, “winner.”
Client(s) wanted it, so we have it
The absolute worst.
My philosophy around this attitude is quite simple: “You (the vendor) should be the experts, not your client(s).”
Ask a client what they want to see in a system, and you might be surprised by their answer.
Vendors who go this route often will note that they asked a set of clients what they wanted (it’s never everyone, especially those who never use the system – and thus the question should be why), and bam, here it is.
OR large enterprise clients ask for it and zam it goes in there.
If your roadmap is over 10% client requests, you should stop selling a platform and move into the shoe business at a local department store.
I have seen way too many systems go down the rabbit hole, ignoring the market trends, forecasts, and just reality – especially Impact of Learning, which is what you want, that never hit their stride.
This approach costs you (vendor) time and resources. And for what?
A broad audience using it, or just a select few who wanted it in the first place.
The Times photographer James Estrin joins us in December to chat with teenagers about using a camera to explore the place where you live. Post your comments and questions for him by Dec. 12.
Above is an image related to one of the news stories we followed this past week. Do you know what it shows? At the bottom of this quiz, you’ll find the answer.
Have you been paying attention to current events recently? See how many of these 10 questions you can get right.
