Throughout the movie Planet Terror, protagonist Cherry Darling frequently counts off her various “useless talents.” I can relate. My plethora of useless talents is what led to me major in English. Inspiring, right? I can draw cats and unicorns, play guitar, sing, write fiction, bake delicious vegan cookies — those are all cool talents, but in college I decided to go with the least useless of my useless talents, so I majored in English.

The English program at my university mainly focused on literature, but that doesn’t mean I’m limited solely to writing feminist critiques of J.D. Salinger’s oeuvre. English majors are pretty versatile. In my career, I’ve done layout, editing, writing, blogging, project management, mentoring, and more. I originally set out to go into teaching, but quickly found that writing, editing, and layout suit my introverted nature better.

When I moved to Texas almost six years ago, one of the first things my mom and I did together was tour the UNT campus. I really took to UNT’s j-school — The Mayborn School of Journalism. On a 100+ degree summer day, we melted into the seats on the first indoor tour, where I was promptly told by a teaching assistant that journalism was a “terrible choice” for a major. Newspapers weren’t going to be around, there would be no jobs, I would probably end up homeless — she was certain (that last part is hyperbole).

Journalism has certainly changed. But it’s far from dead — it’s morphed, instead, into several fields, really. And a reporter these days can be doing anything from reporting on news a la the original vintage to writing a BuzzFeed article titled, “50 things only cat-hoarders understand.” It’s a strange world.

This week, we're covering our newest research on the learning management buyer. You can download the full report for free here.

In our research with Brandon Hall Group and Human Capital Institute (HCI) we discovered that most learning professionals are no longer stuck in training, but are playing a much larger role in the talent management function today. The realization is setting in that learning is the motor that drives all other talent management processes.