“Your talent strategy is your business strategy.” Notes from the D2L Executive Summit

Originally posted here.

The D2L Executive Summit, held last week in Toronto, was an excellent series of discussions on the future of education and work.

The day kicked off with a fireside chat with D2L CEO John Baker and Chief Strategy Officer Jeremy Auger.  John mentioned that at the Business Council of Canada  learning one of the top three priorities: “If we are not sharpening skills of employees each year we are holding back our companies. And our people.”

This really set the tone for the day’s discussions. The keynote speaker was David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at MIT who spoke on “Expertise, Artificial Intelligence, and the Work of the Future” David provided many insights, including stating that “we’re not running out of jobs. We are running out of workers.” This is an important point to think in terms of the supply and demand of the workforce that fuels our economy. David also had some really great pull quotes in his deck, including from “We know more than we can tell”, from Michal Poyani on rules versus tacit knowledge and the nature of competencies that are used to guide work. I subscribe to the need to make tacit knowledge explicit, including in supporting skills development as I wrote recently.

Another useful quote was this: “The future is not a forecasting problem. It is a design problem” attributed to Josh Cohen of Apple University. I like this because it gives us agency – in determining the future – of education, work, AI disruption. It was also a good segue into the panel of presidents, which included Humber College President and CEO, and eCampusOntario Board Chair Ann Marie Vaughan, Ed.D..

On the development of the Humber Strategic Vision, Ann Marie quipped that “Strategic planning is like trying to nail the fog to the wall.” What is important, she reminded us, is that we advocate for the value of public education and the inherent value to society that public education provides.

On this topic, in the next panel Soulaymane Kachani, Senior Vice Provost, Columbia University's Columbia Plus: lifelong learning at Columbia for all graduates for the rest of their lives. This is an excellent model that aligns well to some of the initiatives eCampusOntario is supporting around subscription models to higher education as part of alumni and industry engagement. This is all part of supporting the three-legged stool of productivity in Canada.

Fundamentally, providing faster routes to credentials is a productivity issue and challenge. Rethinking – and intentionally designing – how higher education can support our society and economy is imperative. Extensible learning that leverages the application of new knowledge into the workplace such as through work integrated learning is even more important today to future proof our economy for tomorrow. As Malika Asthana, Senior Manager, Strategy and Public Affairs at D2L reminded all: “Your talent strategy is your business strategy.”

A big shoutout to Malika Asthana, Jeremy Auger and John Baker and the D2L team for putting together an excellent agenda.

As an added bonus it was great to see many friends and colleagues at the Summit, including Saskatchewan Polytechnic President Dr. Larry Rosia, Fanshawe College President Peter J Devlin, CMM, MSC, CD, ICD.D, GCB.D, Laura Jo Gunter, President and CEO of the NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology).  And in the photos below: Business + Higher Education Roundtable Valerie Walker and Matthew McKean and University of Waterloo President and Vice Chancellor Vivek Goel.

Thanks to D2L for providing the space for thought leadership.