BP's Nick Shackleton-Jones explores how e-learning has evolved over the past 10 years and anticipates a screen-less future in Brightwave's interview series.

View the full series of interviews on Brightwave's YouTube channel. 

In the latest instalment of Brightwave's 'What a difference' video interview series, Nick Shackleton-Jones, Group Head of eLearning at BP, describes how e-learning has ridden a 'hype curve' over the past 10 years and is now moving towards a resource not course-based approach to its application. This resource approach has the flexibility to respect the level of engagement or care experienced by the target audience. Nick explains:

"What you have to do is identify the various care points along a care curve, and fit the media appropriately. What you end up with is, not 'Let’s build a course,' but 'Let's identify a range of resources'. These might be really impactful videos from somebody senior, peer videos, an animation or perhaps an infographic."

For example, colleagues may 'care deeply' about specific information that will help them with a pressing task but perhaps less about top-down initiatives. Nick explores how to connect with people on an emotional level with learning.

It's not only about engagement and care. It's also about understanding the learning process. Nick suggests that the e-learning industry is reaching a new point on the arc:

" … of differentiation and disaggregation, so instead of putting a whole load of media together in a course, we're breaking it apart and providing the right types of media that are fitted to various stages of the learning process."

A honeybee model

Nick broadens out the benefits of this resource approach, and the contribution that Learning and Development can make in curating best practice:

"I have a kind of honeybee model for learning and development - the future of learning and development. I think we are those honeybees. We have to be very active in the organisation, identifying the good stuff and bringing it back into a central location so that it can be shared."

Brightwave's 'What a difference' videos are a series of interviews with leading figures from Learning and Development. They aim to share success stories and lessons learned from the last 10 years as well as explore how learning technologies can support fast-changing business practices in the next decade. Other interviewees include Donald H Taylor (Chair, Learning and Performance Institute), Kenny Henderson (Head of Talent Development Operations, Sky) and Laura Overton (Managing Director of Towards Maturity) with more planned in the future.

View the full series of Nick's interviews on Brightwave's YouTube channel or watch each video individually:

• Case study: Learning to make an impact at BP

• Interview with Nick Shackleton-Jones: Advances in technology for learning

•  Interview with Nick Shackleton-Jones: From hype curve to care curve

•  Interview with Nick Shackleton-Jones: Learning has not been sufficiently self-critical

• Interview with Nick Shackleton-Jones: The business challenge for L&D in the future