We All Know… and Other Warning Signs

Happened to notice these two statements printed in vendor literature at a recent conference. I’ve obscured their names just enough so I’m not obviously picking on them but they will know who they are.

Statement #1 from vendor named “C*g*i*o”

• “We all know that up to 80% of what learners are taught in training will be lost in 30 days if there is no practice or reinforcement.”

Statement #2: from vendor named “A*ea*”

• “We have known for more than 150 years that humans forget up to 70% of what they learn within 24 hours!”

These statements are false and misleading. To get a more accurate view of human forgetting, check out this well-researched document.

The Sad Reality of Faux or Misleading Research Citations in Vendor Literature

Buyer beware! Vendors are now utilizing confirmatory-bias methodologies to sprinkle their verbal and visual communications with research-sounding sound bites. Because we are human, this persuasion technique is likely to snare us.

We may even buy a product or service that doesn’t work.

My recommendation: Spend $500 on a research-to-practice expert to save yourself tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, euros, pounds, etc.