Chris Burns
In the weeks leading up to Learning Technologies UK, our inboxes, news feeds and direct messages were awash with invitations. Other learning developers and training companies were desperate for us to visit their stands and attend their talks.
Keen to impress, they used all the jargon at their disposal. They even made up some new phrases just for the occasion. They verbed nouns and they nouned adjectives. And they liberally sprinkled their emails with three-letter acronyms that could have any of several meanings.
So what was the result of all this language-mangling? Answer: the message was unclear and often incomprehensible.
Remember, these are LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT providers, for goodness sake. There should be no gobbledegook in training! How can anybody learn if the people writing or delivering the materials use impenetrable jargon?
It must be nearly time for Learning Technologies. When did we stop speaking English? pic.twitter.com/dWpFyFBle3
— Anthony Williams (@bullsboy) February 3, 2020
It’s not just Ashford! Global learning design manager and comedian Anthony Williams shared this message on Twitter.
Technical language? Nah, it’s just gibberish
So, at the risk of negatively catalysing your cognitive load… here are just a few of the messages I received in three days from learning developers and training companies. I’ve copied and pasted them so you can see them in their full glory.
