LTUK26 Redux

My laundry is washed and folded, the cat has forgiven me, Toronto still has frost warnings, my inbox is overflowing with follow-up messages; it must be the May Monday after Learning Technologies.

This latest romp over to London was a double header with both CEdMA Enterprise and Learning Technologies Exhibition & Conference happening consecutively. I decided not to fly home in between and was able to spend a few extra days in the city. Luckily, M&S has not changed the recipe of its Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese Ploughman's sandwich. I remain, however, perplexed by the abundance of protein in everything. I have never had to chew my morning yoghurt before.

I would also like to give a shout out to the Canadian Goose, a.k.a. Cobra Chicken that was representing my country in Little Venice. Hiss, flap, and attack, my feathered friend!

Alas, I digress.

The festivities started early with a pre-conference workshop on Skills-Based Organisations, led by moi, and sponsored by the most values-centred, and genuinely for-good company I have ever had the chance to work with: TalentMapper: an AI-powered skills mapping platform helping organisations identify and develop workforce talent, by removing bias.

We dove in deep. This was no learning event, instead, a strategy development session. Everyone walked out with a detailed, bespoke plan for getting started on an SBO business case. We will be running these periodically, so do reach out if you want in.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". So, our day was capped with the loveliest dinner at Cafe Murano Pastificio, hosted by the TalentMapper CEO and CCO, Martin Mason and Erica Rose, respectively. This was guaranteed to be filled to the brim with the most interesting people, and it did not disappoint. At our table, we shared our most embarrassing work stories. Out of respect for confidentiality, I will only share mine. My manager once told me she had to get an emissions test. Because I did not own a car at the time, I thought this was something medical, and well, to do with her own personal emissions. You can imagine how awkward I made the rest of the conversation!

The standout from Day One at LT was definitely the Future of EdTech with Dani Johnson. My brain crush is now getting awkward; however, she brought the receipts and data to stand up so much of what we need to know about our industry. Her prediction that conversational AI is permanently reshaping our relationship with technology is not a small claim. The other signal I will not stop thinking about: workflow analysis is the largest and most underserved chunk of work we have ahead of us as a profession. I am not going to steal her thunder because I am certain there are plans for her to share the data. That said, I have heard Dani speak many times, and this time was by far the best. She leant into the massive shifts in EdTech with confidence. Follow her and the team at RedThread Research.

Josh Squires took to the stage to speak about the savvy Go1 research paper on "Beyond the LMS". "47% of employees needed development support multiple times in the past month. When they needed it, two-thirds turned to a person first. A colleague or manager, not a platform. Only 7% went to the learning system we built for them." Seven is pretty grim. The data also points to a broader shift already underway: as AI accelerates access to information and raises expectations for immediacy and relevance, traditional course-based models are giving way to in-the-moment enablement. Josh dove into what this means for how L&D leaders need to start shaping a more adaptive, AI-informed development strategy.

After roaming the conference floor, it was off to the Sunborn for cocktail hour with Open LMS. This was a very unique event for me. Not only have I known Bill Conran for aeons, but Open Source models are very compelling for tomorrow's needs. Budget pressure, data sovereignty requirements, interoperability mandates, and AI infrastructure needs have all converged at the same moment, making open source EdTech the pragmatic choice rather than an ideological one. Proprietary licensing is harder to justify when budgets are under scrutiny, vendor lock-in has become a strategic liability as governments move to mandate open standards, and the widening gap between what commercial platforms promise and what organisations actually need is pushing buyers toward tools they can adapt themselves. Layer on top of that the compliance complexity of GDPR and sector-specific AI governance requirements, and the ability to audit your own stack and control your own data flows stops being a nice-to-have and becomes essential. Now, that's a mouthful.

Enough of the techie-talk, and let's get to the fun part. To cap off the cocktails, Josh Squires and I built a deck of "EdTech Against Humanity" cards. Rest assured, it was very G-rated and SFW. My favourite? The future of work is here. Unfortunately, so is The Netflix of Learning. Guests received their own decks. FOMO? HMU.

Then it was a quick pop-over to the crew at Filtered to raise a celebratory glass. I have long since loved the vision and leadership of this company. We have a history going back to well, maybe 2017? gulp This is why it was so special to say hello to old friends and finally meet some incredibly smart ones in person! I'm looking at you, Parminder Kaur, Lisa Lester & Kata Szkopkowska (thanks for indulging my bad Polish grammar!). Filtered's content intelligence tool is the best in the business (not a paid endorsement).

Finally, it was the RedThread Research dinner. I will admit, this introvert was waning, but pushing through was worth it. To share a deep conversation about all things in the industry and compare notes on what we saw at the expo was worth being out past bedtime. The massive consensus was less cynicism about AI than in previous years, and definitely more real progress in solutions. Armin Hopp of Speexx summed this sentiment up nicely in his post today, "The paradigm shift in L&D is not from "no AI" to "AI". It is from delivering learning to orchestrating capability. And perhaps most importantly: from doing more to deciding better".

On Thursday, I finally got onto an LTUK stage. I had Henriette Kloots as my phenomenal chair, who kept me on the straight and narrow, and herded this feral cat with the best of agility! Thank you!

The ABBA of L&D was performing in the room next door: Donald H Taylor, Stella Collins, Egle Vinauskaite, Sandra Loughlin, PhD and James Swift. So, I was more like the second billing as Ace of Base. Thank you to everyone who made an effort to join my session (and to smash those Mentimeter hearts 💖💖💖💖). I spoke about the courseless L&D department, the need for bidirectional AI Intelligent Tutors, the Autonomous Learning Engine (previously Ecosystem), and more. You can have a look at the slides here.

Those are just a few highlights. So, what tech was I paying attention to? Well, the big one is SCORM scrapers. Years of content have been locked inside SCORM packages, and that's a problem: it prevents all of that institutional knowledge from being brought into the AI ecosystem where it can actually be used. SCORM scrapers are the key to unlocking it so content can be hypercontextualised via an Intelligent AI Tutor. In alphabetical order (no playing favourites), here are some of the players: Ardoise, Docebo, Filtered, GP Strategies Corporation, Metalark, Mint, Parta.io, Rustici Software, and Talvi.

Speaking of Talvi, I saw one of the most admirable interactions on the interwebs between them and Mint. Wesley Atkinson, Co-Founder of Mint shared, "One of my best moments of #LT26UK was Mike Alcock coming to wish me well before my talk. We've been competitors for years across different products, but he's one of the people I admire most. He's been immensely successful at consistently pushing the industry forward, and Talvi is no exception. He genuinely wants to help, and still always makes time to say hi.

Other companies went to great lengths to troll each other, and it's just not what this industry is about, or at least it shouldn't be. Great competition pushes the industry and technology-enabled learning into new, exciting spaces".

This is what I want to see more of in our industry. I have been subtweeted, subposted, and outright trolled. I fail to see the point. Who wants to work with a$$holes? Thank you both for bringing the class back into the word "classroom". More, please.

The second trend I was paying attention to on the floor was: AI coaches and tutors. I strongly believe these will be the one-stop interface for all learning. A Canadian-founded tech (yes, I admit my bias for moose🫎 and raccoon🦝 culture) is Valence. Their product, Nadia, is a voice-enabled AI coach purpose-built for HR and talent leaders. What makes it different from reaching for a general-purpose chatbot is that it integrates into performance processes, leadership programmes, and company values; it brings organisational context and memory to every conversation. The results coming out of European deployments are worth paying attention to: leadership attrition dropping, NPS climbing, and store performance turning around. It also ingests SCORM (see my point above). I did not get much of a chance to demo others (never enough time), but keep an eye on this space. If you are thinking in this direction, remember this will fundamentally alter your operating model and entire L&D function. Jumpy claps.

At LT, all roads eventually lead to the OpenSesame stand. I was beyond touched that Mehdi Tounsi brought me a TimTam after remembering a previous conversation. Shout-out to Minna Leikas for all of her phenomenal ideas and collaboration. If you are around May 7th, be sure to join our webinar on Workforce Reinvention, how AI is helping or hindering the L&D industry. Do register here.

Ooof. I could go on, but I think this is a sufficient summary. I am terrible at selfies (see the one I made with at xUnlocked stand with my Prime Minister, Mark Carney). You can view more at the end of the article. Thank you to everyone who took the time to chat with me - I know how valuable LTUK calendar real estate is. cynthia stuckey, Annee Bayeux, Dr. Serena Gonsalves-Fersch, FLPI, Kate Graham, Todd Tauber, Nag Chandrashekar, Dan Tesnjak, Susie M. Lee, Elene Ghelaghutashvili (bringing her 13-day old to conference!!), Jack Lockhart, John Hinchliffe, Ashley Hinchcliffe, Aisha Wague - FLPI, Venessa Parker FLPI, ACIPD, Harald Overaa, Josh Novelle and everyone else! Finally, to everyone who came to the secret Room #10 for a breather, you are always welcome. Don't tell our password.

What I will say to close: the cynicism that has hung over this industry for the past few years is lifting. I felt it in the rooms, in the conversations, in the tech on the floor. For the first time in a long time, I left London with genuine excitement about where we are headed. The irony is not lost on me that some of the most interesting thinking is happening inside the very institutions we used to want to burn down. Rage Against the Machine, sure, but also? Tackling from within. Can an LMS/LXP put aside ego and be middleware? Can we let go of our sacred darlings and really do what is best for a learner? We have to.

Until next time!