Predictions for a New Year?

Another year has flown by and, once again, it’s the time of year when bloggers and other self-proclaimed forecasters attempt to predict the future. We did it last year and our predictions for 2011 turned out pretty well. Online continuing education and webcasting both continued to grow (in hindsight that forecast may have been a little too easy). We saw dramatic increases in online revenue across many states and industries, reflecting a commensurate decline in in-person events that we did not see coming as rapidly as it did.  We also predicted that states would allow more online credits to be used for certification/licensing and that also happened—webcasting was reclassified for live credit in many states.

We forecast that more and more professionals would be turning to associations for online education. We know this to be true based on our own customers (a statistically significant sample across a number of industries). Something we didn’t predict specifically is the sea change that seems to be taking place in continuing medical education (CME). Where, in addition to changes in the way CME programs are funded, many more medical associations/societies are creating CME programs (an article in The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions did predict that growth, “online CME is likely to be 50% of all CME consumed within 7–10 years.”).

But what does it all mean for 2012?

In all honesty, our 2011 predictions still hold true, so rather than reinventing the wheel, I’d like to take a slightly different tact and look at some predictions or rather observations that are not my own—and may not even belong to this century. A nod to the simple fact that lifelong learning (including professional continuing education) is of critical importance –whether mandated by a particular industry or sought after by an individual who understands the importance of staying current/at the top of his game. And, it is the educator’s responsibility to make information and knowledge available and accessible to motivated learners – which may mean delivering it to them directly, via the Internet.

On that note, I leave you with some notable quotes on ongoing learning.
Happy New Year!

Brian

“Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.”
~Henry L Doherty

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” 
~Henry Ford

“Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
Albert Einstein

“The wisest mind has something yet to learn”
~George Santayana

“I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
 ~Abraham Lincoln

“Education is hanging around until you've caught on.”
~Robert Frost

“A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.”
~Anonymous

“The growth for education and training will be in continuing adult education. Online delivery is the trigger for this growth, but the demand for lifetime education stems from profound changes in society. We live in an economy where knowledge, not buildings and machinery, is the chief resource and where knowledge-workers make up the biggest part of the work force.”
~Peter Drucker

“It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
~Attributed to Harry S Truman

The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions: The growth, characteristics, and future of online CME by John M. Harris Jr., Bernard M. Sklar, Robert W. Amend, Cheryl Novalis-Marine