Jay Cross

Jay Cross (born James Calvin Cross Jr; July 5, 1944-November 6, 2015), was an American futurist who popularized the term “e-learning” and championed the cause of informal learning in business settings.

Early Life and Schooling

Born in Hope, Arkansas at Julia Chester Hospital to Lenora R. Cross and James Calvin Cross (who was the youngest member of the General Staff in U.S. Army history), he grew up in Virginia, Texas, Rhode Island, France, and Germany.

He attended the St. George’s School in Newport, R.I. and the Paris-American High School, a Department of Defense run school in France. At Princeton he belonged to the Charter Club and received an AB in sociology (1966).[1]

He served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970, stationed primarily in Germany. In May 1970, the month of his discharge, he married Uta Bawey in Heidelberg. Cross returned to the U.S., attending Harvard Business School, receiving an MBA in 1974.[2] [3]

Career

1966-1968, NCR selling mainframe computers.

1976-1978, John Sperling hired Cross for an education startup created out of Sperling’s professorship at San Jose State University. Cross wrote a business course for Sperling, then a business degree program for what was to eventually became the University of Phoenix.[4]

Cross wrote in his eulogy of Sperling, “John told me he wanted our graduates to be able to talk like business people. It was a Turing test. Can you tell the accomplished business person from the recent winner of an accelerated degree?...While still in the midst of development, I hired and managed the sales force to sell it. Commission only. John was adamant that we were a profit-making business venture and needed to pay our bills as they came due.”[5]

1978-1998, Omega Performance corporation, converting the organization from startup into an Inc 500 winner that trained a million banking professionals to make sound decisions and sell services.

In 1998 Cross founded Internet Time Group to help the people in organizations learn. He joined together several colleagues (Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, and Clark Quinn) to form the Internet Time Alliance, which persists as a legacy.[6]

In 1998, frustrated with attention being placed on e-commerce for training, Cross said to a colleague, “People just don’t see it although it’s right in front of them. The next big thing in education isn't e-commerce, it's eeeeee-learning.” He began writing online about “e-learning” that year. Because there are others who are said to have coined the term e-learning, Cross described his involvement by saying, “the term grew around him."[7] There are claims he coined the term as late as 2004.[8]

From 1999 to 2001, he worked closely with TPT Systems, which became CBT Systems, then SmartForce, then Skillsoft.[9]

In 2001, with colleagues Claudia Welss, Claudia L’Amoreaux, and Clark Quinn, Cross created the Meta-Learning Lab, which believed that everyone has the capacity to learn but most people can do a much better job of it. Learning is a skill one can improve. Learning how to learn is a key to its mastery.

From 2001 to 2003 Cross was CEO of Emergent Learning Forum (which began as the eLearning Forum), an 1,800-member society, think tank and advocacy group. For five years, this non-commercial community of people made decisions at the intersection of learning, technology, business, and design and participated in a global conversation of vital eLearning issues.[10][11]

Cross wrote his first significant paper on informal learning in 2003[12] (updated 2009).[13]

He first heard the phrase informal learning from the late Peter Henschel, the then director of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), who said to Cross, “People are learning all the time, in varied settings and often most effectively in the context of work itself. Training – formal learning of all kinds – channels some important learning but doesn’t carry the heaviest load. The workhorse of the knowledge economy has been, and continues to be, informal learning.”[14] Cross later abandoned the term informal learning in favor of "working smarter,” though he could never really step away from the original term because his book remains popular in the field.

For a time Cross was managing director of Workflow Institute, which promoted the understanding of real-time enterprise-level learning in industry and government.

He spoke often at events and conferences across the globe, including Europe, India, the Middle East, Australia, and more. The Oxford Debate on Informal in 2011 pitted several elearning leaders against one another to talk about its merits and drawbacks.[15]

Other events included Emergent Learning Forum, Online Learning, Training, Image World, Instructional Systems Association, ASTD International, eLearn International, Edge-X, Training Directors Forum, I-KNOW, Bank Marketing Association, and many other venues. He delivered the inaugural keynote on web marketing to the first meeting of the Online Banking Association.

Cross became part of the steering committee for Online Educa, and had a lasting impact on the creation of the business stream with colleagues Laura Overton and Charles Jennings. He attended and spoke at almost every meeting during his lifetime.[16]

In March of 2016, at their Learning Solutions conference, the eLearning Guild posthumously recognized Cross as a Guild Master, in honor of his contributions to the field.[17][18]

Publications

He was also a prolific writer and published author. In addition to his widely-read blogs, he was a columnist for Chief Learning Officer magazine and guest contributor to Learning in the New Economy magazine.

Books authored:

Books contributed to:

His interests also included design, photography, conceptual art, hiking, and the nature of time, technology. He was director and webmaster of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. In 2011 he began writing about the Berkeley Diet, focused on food-related news and featuring restaurants in the Berkeley California area.

Called by many "the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning,"[27] Cross was recognized for challenging assumptions, and challenged the entire corporate education field to see beyond the present to imagine what the future of learning could be.[28] He was an advocate of using common sense to approach learning. He experimented, failed fast and often, and was always improving. He fought against pedagogy for pedagogy sake, explored the edges, and was always learning something new.[29] He was constantly thinking about what was new on the horizon.[30] His legacy lives on through the countless people he has inspired with his work.[31]

Family / In Passing

After a lifetime of innovation and boundary pushing, Cross died at his home in the hills of Berkeley California on Nov. 6, 2015. He left behind wife Uta [Bawey] Cross, sons James Cross III and Austin Cross, and a miniature longhaired dachshund.

References

  1. ↑ "Class of 1966, James Calvin Cross, Jr. [Obituary]". Princeton Class of 1966. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  2. ↑ "Class of 1966, James Calvin Cross, Jr. [Obituary]". Princeton Class of 1966. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Learning from Experience: Jay Cross Discusses His New Muse". The Bamboo Project. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "Jay Cross - Crystal Balling with Learnnovators". Learnnovators. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  5. ↑ "It Was The Happiest Day of My Life". Internet Time. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  6. ↑ "Jay Cross - Crystal Balling with Learnnovators". Learnnovators. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  7. ↑ "elearningspace Interview - Jay Cross". elearningspace. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  8. ↑ "eLearning: It's Time for a Reboot". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  9. ↑ Cross, Jay (July 2004). "An Informal History of eLearning". On the Horizon 12 (3). doi:10.1108/10748120410555340.
  10. ↑ Quinn, Clark N. (May 2005). Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games. San Francisco: Wiley. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-7879-7979-9.
  11. ↑ Cross, Jay (October 2004). "The Future of eLearning". On the Horizon 12 (4). doi:10.1108/10748120410564458.
  12. ↑ Cross, Jay (October 2003). "Informal Learning: A Sound Investment". Chief Learning Officer 2 (10). Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  13. ↑ Cross, Jay (July 2009). "Informal Learning 2.0". Chief Learning Officer 8 (8). Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  14. ↑ "Jay Cross - Crystal Balling with Learnnovators". Learnnovators. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  15. ↑ Greengard, Samuel (August 2011). "The Oxford Union Debate on Informal Learning, Style or Substance?". eLearn 2011 (8). doi:10.1145/2016016.2018696. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  16. ↑ de Vries, Pieter. "In Memoriam Jay Cross". e-learning.nl. e-Learning.nl. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  17. ↑ "Guild Masters". eLearning Guild. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  18. ↑ Brandon, Bill. "So This Happened at Learning Solutions and Ecosystem 2016". Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  19. ↑ Cross, Jay (August 2015). Real Learning. Internet Time Press. ISBN 1329458052. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  20. ↑ Cross, Jay; Quinn, Clark; Jennings, Charles; Hart, Jane; Jarche, Harold; Husband, Jon (September 2010). Working Smarter Fieldbook. Internet Time Press. ISBN 0557689783. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  21. ↑ Cross, Jay (November 2006). Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. p. 320. ISBN 978-0-7879-8169-3. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  22. ↑ Cross, Jay; Dublin, Lance (2002). Implementing E-Learning. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press. ISBN 1562863339. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  23. ↑ Ehlers, Ulf-Daniel; Schneckenberg, Dirk, eds. (Mar 10, 2010). Changing Cultures in Higher Education: Moving Ahead to Future Learning. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 43. ISBN 3642035817. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  24. ↑ Elaine, Biech, ed. (May 2014). "Chapter 25". ASTD Handbook: The Definitive Reference for Training & Development (2nd edition ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press. ISBN 1562869132. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  25. ↑ Pope, Christina, ed. (January 2006). Implementing E-Learning Solutions: In Action Case Studies. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press. p. 145. ISBN 1562862928. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  26. ↑ Bonk, Curtis J.; Graham, Charles R., eds. (December 2005). The Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. p. xvii. ISBN 0787977586. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  27. ↑ Brandon, Bill. "In Memoriam: Jay Cross". Learning Solutions Magazine. eLearning Guild. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  28. ↑ Bingham, Tony. "Remembering Jay Cross". Association for Talent Development. ATD Press. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  29. ↑ Wheeler, Kevin. "In Memoriam". Future of Talent Institute. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  30. ↑ Burjek, Andie. "Jay Cross: Learning Guru Dies, But His Lessons Live On". Chief Learning Officer. CLO Media. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  31. ↑ Kelly, David. "An Industry Remembers Jay Cross". David Kelly's Blog.
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