At the 2006 Moving Learning conference Bob Mosher, Director of Strategy and Evangelism in Microsoft Learning, introduced the world to GEAR. Nope, it's not a product, more a strategy designed to transmogrify training into learning and to move it from the classroom to the workplace.

As an information professional, it could be the start of something big for you. An opportunity to extend and add more value to your information delivery activities.

GEAR, by the way, stands for Gather (people, probably virtually), Expand (their knowledge), Apply (it in the workplace) and Receive (feedback). It's a cyclic process which underpins a move from instructor-centric training to self-aided learning.

The Gather part is to explain the new learning processes. And the Expand part gives learners information on tap in the form of FAQs, search engines, eLearning and so on.

Every conference speaker argued for a move away from conventional training and towards various kinds of 'just in time' learning. One of them urged the use of mobile phones, Crackberries and iPods as natural delivery devices.

Charles Jennings, global head of learning at Reuters showed some information retention statistics from Kim Cameron, a University of Michigan professor:

Lecture	5%
Reading	10%
Audio-Visual	20%
Demonstration	30%
Discussion	50%
Doing it	75%
Teaching it	90%

If you compound this information with the fact that 70% to 80% of on-the-job information is drawn from the work environment, it makes conventional training look very poor value indeed.