Have you heard the saying, “We eat our dog food?” It’s corporate slang for an organization or group that uses its own products and services. It’s rumored to have been originated by Microsoft in the 80’s to assure consumers that their products are of such high quality that they use them internally. Since then, thousands of companies have jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming they, too, eat their dog food (or drink their champagne – if they’re trying to be fancy!).
The other day I stumbled upon an article on Chief Learning Officer by Elliot Masie titled “Learning Professionals Must Be Learners” that echoed the same sentiment of eating your own dog food. Based on the title, you can guess where this is going. Maise asked his learning friends and colleagues three questions:
- As a learning professional, how often do you take a complete e-learning program?
- How often do you attend a complete classroom program?
- Do you currently have a coach to help you improve your performance?
The results – though quite revealing – aren’t much of a surprise. Learning leaders are no less busy than the rest of us, and if given the option to take a twenty-hour class program, they would ask if something shorter is available. Yet they develop courses and content at work day after day. The article explains some interesting findings they uncovered from consuming their learning content around sequencing, learner knowledge, course timing, technology overhead, and disruptive innovation, to name a few.
Maise took away one simple lesson from this exercise: Learning leaders need to be continuous learners. In order to excel at their craft and develop engaging, sticky learning courses, they need to know what consumers want. And one of the only ways to do that is to eat their dog food.
But what is most interesting to me is that the impact of continuous learning and eating your dog food casts a net far wider than learning professionals. We could all spend more time learning. We can certainly spend more time consuming and evaluating our own work output, whatever it may be.
Just some food for thought.