Interview between Steven Smith, Capgemini University Director, and Christian Kuhna
Future Learning and Learning Campus Strategy at Adidas where they discuss
different corporate learning platforms and the need to create the right physical
spaces.
S:
Can you explain how your digital learning platform works?
C:
There are three elements of our learning campus: online learning, dedicated physical spaces
like the Shed and the future workplace. With the digital learning campus, we took an in-depth
looked at MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Why are MOOCs so successful? Why do
people like to participate in them? We used MOOCs as a model to build our online ‘learning
kits’ and, right now, we are transforming all our content into these learning kits. They have a
mixture of internal and external offerings. So the materials include PowerPoints, TED talk
videos, YouTube and Vimeo videos, links to blogs, and the course curriculum as a Word
document with tick boxes. So, whenever somebody goes into a learning kit on, for example,
The Art of Persuasion, they can find all the materials they need with different curated
exercises. Each learning kit also has an integrated physical workshop associated with it. All
the learning kits have an open activity feed where the learners can connect through
conversations, ask questions, comment on others, just like in a MOOC. They can share their
experience and, wherever they are located physically, they can join the discussion and have
this learning experience online together.
S:
You mentioned the Shed. Can you tell me what that is?
C:
I created this Shed which is an informal place where people automatically switch into a
different, more open mode as soon as they come in. There are curtains as separators - a
curtain works so well because it provides you with this more intimate space but, on the other
hand, it’s not a wall. People do their workshops and then, in the breaks, they meet in the
learning café, they hear the other workshop or the conversations next ‘door’, or rather, on the
other side of the curtain. And then people pop around in the breaks and start to connect. This
has a balance which works very nicely, because it has a more intimate feel. We call it the
Shed because it used to be a recycling shed. People just love that place. We are transforming
the existing learning spaces in all our offices, step by step. For example, we are transforming
them with flexible furniture, with physical appliances to create a similar atmosphere where
exactly this design thinking, this collaboration, this open meeting and learning aspect all come
to life.
S:
You mentioned that the third element of your learning campus is the ‘future
workplace’. Can you explain how this works?
C:
It’s about changing the physical spaces that people work in day to day. For example, we are
in the process of building two new buildings here at our headquarters in Herzogenaurach. We
are also looking at transforming existing office spaces into the workplace of the future, with
more home offices, with gaming rooms, with workshops equipped with tools where people
can physically build and prototype. These will be more flexible offices. There was a building
already planned and budgeted for which was due to be the corporate university building. The
first thing I did was to say that we didn’t want that, because this is in contrast to our
philosophy of open, connected, everyday learning. Our learning campus should not be a new
ivory tower; rather it should be in every workspace, every office, in every kitchen and in every
canteen. This is the principle that needs to be embedded in the workplace.