M
uch has been written about learning content curation. Often, this concept stems from a desire to take advantage of the sea of free content available through smart devices, high-speed network connectivity and social media. It’s certainly hard to think of a task or skill that cannot be found demonstrated on YouTube. Corporately, it’s also hard to think of a topic area not addressed by bloated course catalogs. As a result, there has been a large focus on content curation. Content curation is a practice borrowed from marketing. Using this practice, marketers target a set of
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buyer profiles to better understand how people relate to a product or brand, and “feed” them content that increases the likelihood of them making a purchase. Similarly, learning and development professionals might target employees in a specific job role to better understand their work, and suggest or require learning content intended to improve performance on the job. This is an efficient approach, connecting more employees to more content with less effort. However, more is not always better, and content alone is never sufficient. To increase the effectiveness of their curation efforts, learning professionals
should broaden their focus beyond content to experience. Curation also has a much older meaning. Originally, the role of curator was associated with museums and exhibitions. What can we learn from that role that can be applied to the curation of learning experiences?
ENTER THE WHITE ROOM Think of a museum or exhibit you’ve visited where, at some point during your walkthrough, your breath
