That wail you hear is the combined voices of learning and development (L&D) professionals everywhere who want to know, "Why doesn’t training stick? We trained them, we put them in classes—why doesn't it stick?”

Consider this: If you take a piece of paper, press it against the wall, and let go, it won’t stick. You need something to make the paper sticky, so it adheres to the wall. Getting information to stick in the mind works in much the same way. Knowledge needs help to stick.

What Is This Magical Learning Glue? We’re all familiar with the concept of engaging the brain to help create learning outcomes. However, we need to take engaged learning to the next level. It’s called integrative learning, which helps learners intentionally connect ideas and insights from various disciplines and experiences. But how do we get there? First, we should develop learning initiatives that promote learning as a nonstop action. Create learning that connects through organizational communities, is easily accessible, and promotes intelligent collaboration.

It's Time to Move Into the 21st Century New learning technologies have become commonplace and should be our first stop for planning training or performance support. When we couple these technologies with the ease of the distribution of information and the speed and frequency of communication, learning "stickiness" will increase dramatically. Integrative learning practices should not be an afterthought or add-on provision. They should be our first stop.

If you attend my ATD 2016 session, you will leave with applicable ideas to build connectivity and integrative learning into your programs. We will review the three Cs—curation, communication, and collaboration—and how these three key concepts work together to add that extra stickiness to your learning outcomes.

Learning doesn't happen in the classroom. Seeds may be planted there, but real learning applicability happens beyond the class coursework. Join me on Sunday, May 22, in Denver and walk away with tools to build learning links and connect minds to your content.