Did My 2016 Predictions Come True?

By: Justin Ferriman December 6, 2016
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It is hard to believe but it is that time of year again when all of the “future of <insert industry here>” articles begin to appear.

My own will be coming out in January. 😉

Truth be told this past year has flown by quicker than usual in my view. Perhaps it is because we have made tremendous strides in our own company. Our team grew and our learning management system evolved considerably. Time flies when you are busy!

But what else has happened in the elearning industry in 2016? The short answer: a lot. Earlier this year I made three elearning predictions. Now that 12 months has gone by let’s have a look to see if any of these have come true.

As a reminder, the three predictions I made in January were:

  1. Gamification Changes Articulate, Captivate, and/or iSpring
  2. Global Learning Management Industry Revenue Increase
  3. Instructional Designers Paid More Globally

Prediction #1: Gamification Changes Articulate, Captivate, and/or iSpring

Result: Wrong 🙁

Unless you have been ignoring the elearning space recently you would have noticed that Articulate completely revamped their offering. Part of this overhaul does include gamification, but the breadth of changes really goes beyond that.

iSpring has continued to make steady improvements to their software. Their offering emphasizes interactions but nothing that jumps out to me as pure gamification.

Captivate has been a little quiet on gamification. Their current version (Captivate 9 as of this article) emphasizes the creation process rather than the learner experience. I couldn’t find much related to gamification.

Prediction #2: Global Learning Management Industry Revenues Increase

Result: Sort of Right

More data needs to be gathered about the industry in 2016, but I can say that there are reports that indicate the industry is growing by as high as 17.8% from 2016-2020.

Docebo (another popular LMS) predicted similar growth in the industry overall from 2014-2016.

The elearning industry continues to boom and shows no signs of slowing down. It will be interesting to see growth by segment as those market reports come available. I’ll write about those separately as soon as they do.

Prediction #3: Instructional Designers Paid More Globally

Result: To Be Determined

Unbeknownst to me at the time I made this prediction, the typical salary reports don’t come out until early on in the following year. For example, when the ELearning Guild released their 2016 salary report, it compared data from 2014-2015. Their 2017 salary report will compare 2015-2016.

Many other surveys follow a similar schedule. As such, I don’t have hard numbers to share with regards to the growth (or decline) of instructional designer salaries.

I am still optimistic as I think the U.S. is poised to grow in this area as well as many other countries that are quickly adopting elearning. If you are an instructional designer, then there are things you can do to position yourself for higher pay (and prove my prediction as correct)!

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter