Trends scan: Whoa is us - T+D 's Annual - Brief Article

How to explain this in print? When we were working on the themes for this issue of T+D, more than once we came upon trends that had the power to prompt a Whoa-as in, that's awesome-but also another kind of Whoa, as in enough already. So much of what's happening in the workforce is paradoxical: technology that enables more and faster work but leaves us feeling swamped and sapped; gadgets that let us learn, work, and connect anytime, anywhere but make us ask, Do we really want to? and the astonishing power to link to other people's information but the need to create ways to keep each other out.

One thing that prompts a big Whoa is the sheer volume of stuff that has crossed our editors' desks or computer screens in the past six months-easily 30,000 individual pieces of information seeking our attention, not including the several hundred more we went Out to find. One editor compares it to a high-speed conveyor belt, which is just the sort of industrial-age metaphor that fits this paradoxical era. Technology enables so much. But just because we can do something, should we?

A big mistake about the new is to assume it must replace the old. Sometimes, improvement is enough. Looking ahead, it seems that e-learning will be more personalized, more emotional, more-can it be true?-like the classroom experience.

One of our Trends writers sums it up this way: "Taken as a whole, these new advancements in technology and learning are providing us with the incredible power of choice and the ability to personalize the way we learn and train. And though these advancements clearly speak for the individual, they also mean a greater degree of interconnectedness, and that speaks for the good of the learning community and for companies.

COPYRIGHT 2001 American Society for Training & Development, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group