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When I speak at L&D industry events, one example I give of an organization that is effectively using Web 2.0 technologies -- what is more recently being called "Enterprise 2.0" -- is the large biomedical and pharmaceutical company Pfizer. One of the key things about Pfizer's use of these tools, and one reason that I always use it as such an important example of success, is that Pfizer is, of course, a heavily regulated company -- and the appropriate use of tools in such a context is a valid concern and always a question I am asked when speaking on this subject.
From what I've read and from talking with Pfizer employees, the company has incorporated into the daily workflow a range of Web 2.0 or more "social" tools, including:
- A large wiki, called Pfizerpedia.
- Social networking profiles.
- Various blogs.
- Many RSS feeds.
- Discussion forums.
- Social bookmarking (tags).
- Shared Microsoft OneNote notebooks.
- Microsoft SharePoint.
- … and more.
Pfizer's use of these kinds of tools has been discussed elsewhere online of course, including this post by Karl Kapp and this write-up at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
But perhaps the most effective description of Enterprise 2.0 at Pfizer comes from a SlideShare presentation called "Meet Jessica." This set of slides walks you through the daily life of a typical Pfizer employee ("Jessica"), focusing on how she uses the various Web 2.0/social learning tools. (See also the earlier "Meet Charlie" presentation as well.)
This "Meet Jessica" presentation has been available for a few years at this point, but if you've not seen it yet, I strongly encourage you to do so -- you'll likely get some great ideas for how "Enterprise 2.0" communications, knowledge management, and social learning tools could help your organization.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
Few industry events are scheduled during the holiday season of late December and early January. But at this point, things are again kicking into high gear, so I thought it would be a good time to link back to my earlier posting from October 2008, titled "15 Tips for Making the Most of Learning Industry Conferences." For more good tips, see also the recent ASTD blog posting "How to Make the Most Out of the Expo."
I'd also like to draw attention to three major L&D industry events that Element K will be participating in during coming weeks.
Learning Technologies 2010
The Learning Technologies conference will be held at Olympia 2, London, from January 27-28, 2010. Now in its 11th year, it is billed as "Europe's leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning." It will have some 130 exhibitors, 60 free educational sessions, and some 3,000 visitors. It has a content-packed accompanying magazine -- definitely worth a look.
Element K will be in the exposition hall at booth 17, and we'd love for you to stop by! We'll have several demo sessions, with topics such as:
- How to Reduce Your Learning Management Costs With a Hosted LM
- vLabs: How to Deliver Real Experience within a Virtual Environment
- Beyond the Hocus Pocus: A Practical Approach To Building Blended Learning and a Learning Culture
For descriptions of these sessions, and to sign up for any of them, please visit our sign-up form page.
In addition, Andrew Tempest, Element K's Director of Learning Products Management, will be giving a presentation at Learning Technologies on the topic of "Challenges and Opportunities in Developing New Training Programs."
Be sure to visit our new website to meet our team and get valuable resources including whitepapers and case studies.
ASTD TechKnowledge 2010
This year's ASTD TechKnowledge Conference and Expo is being held in Las Vegas from January 27-29. This year's event once again features an outstanding lineup of speakers, as well as other features such as creation stations, tech intensives, and learning labs.
I will be attending this event, and will be speaking on Wednesday, January 27 from 1:30 - 2:45 p.m. on the topic of "Overcoming Obstacles and Objections to Using Web 2.0 in Organizations." In this session, I will be covering numerous "obstacles and objections" to the use of social learning tools in organizations, and provide valuable insights and tips on how to overcome these so you can move forward with the latest tools and approaches in your blended learning programs. In addition, I will be leading one of the Closing Session group discussions on the topic of Social Learning.
Training 2010
The annual event from Training magazine, this year's Training 2010 Conference and Expo, is being held in San Diego from February 1-3. Like the two events already mentioned, Training 2010 promises an outstanding learning experience due to its exceptional lineup of speakers and topics.
I will be also attending this event, and again will be presenting on the topic "Overcoming Obstacles and Objections to Using Web 2.0 in Organizations." (on Monday, Feb. 1 from 8-9 a.m.) In addition, I'll be presenting a brief Twitter Overview for L&D professionals later that day between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. in the technology demo area.
Hopefully you are able to attend one or more of these outstanding industry events!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
It's time for another edition of the Learning and Development Roundup! (See also previous editions at the archive page.)
Videos from recent L&D Industry Conferences
Did you miss some or all of the major conferences in the Learning and Development industry in the month of November? Well, the good news is that a few of these have made some video content available for free:
- Elliott Masie's Learning 2009 - Provided are videos of many of the "keynote" sessions. Great stuff!
- The eLearning Guild's DevLearn - Provided are a summary video of the event, plus a recording of the webinar delivered on Dec. 18th that highlights five of the 30 demos from DevLearn's "DemoFest."
- LearnTrends - Provided are nearly 20 videos from this online "virtual conference."
Looking Back on 2009
The December "big question" from ASTD's Learning Circuits blog was "What Did You Learn About Learning in 2009?" This has by now generated over a dozen response postings, including items from top industry bloggers such as Tony Karrer, Karl Kapp, Michael Hanley, and others.
And over at Tony Karrer's eLearning Learning site, his list "Hot Topics for 2009" and the many links to articles from throughout the year make for an interesting read. The top eight areas are:
- Twitter
- Social Media, Social Networks, Social Learning, and Informal Learning
- Google Wave
- SharePoint
- Video
- Mobile, Mobile Learning, and iPhone
- Changes in Design and Instructional Design and our Roles
- Webinars and Virtual Classrooms
Tony also provides a review of his predictions for 2009, and grades himself A-F on how he did for each.
Looking Ahead to 2010
Bersin & Associates has released their annual report, "Corporate Learning and Talent Management Predictions for 2010" (free, registration required). This includes 12 predictions, which Mr. Bersin summarizes at their blog here.
Bersin also posted in December on "Discussions with our Research Members: Five Topics to Watch for 2010" in which he described five big issues that they see emerging in 2010.
Jeanne Meister has also provided us with a top five, with her posting at New Learning Playbook titled "Five Words To Describe Corporate Learning in 2010." The five words are not a surprise (Social, Mobile, Collaborative, Engaging, Fun), but read her post for her insightful explanations for why she chooses each.
And finally, Jay Cross shares some words of wisdom for 2010, nearly two dozen classic quotes that he describes as follows: "The following ideas help me get out of the daily rut to renew my commitment to make the world a better place. Perhaps they’ll move you, too." A quick but very motivational read!
A New Journal
Late in 2009, a new and valuable resource joined the ranks of the many journals, magazines, and blogs available to L&D professionals. This new resource is a refereed journal named Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-Learning, and it comes to you from ElNet, the E-learning Network of Australasia. All of the contents from the 200+ page inaugural issue are available for free download online, so take a look!
When Will 3D Virtual Worlds Really Take Off?
Koreen Olbrish shares some very sensible comments about 3D Virtual Worlds and when they will finally go mainstream for learning and other uses. Read her posting "Virtual Worlds 2.0…a few humble predictions."
The Latest Insights on Social Learning
Every day, more industry experts and bloggers speak and write about the importance of "social learning" and "enterprise 2.0" -- I've done so many times here at Element K Blog as well. Here are some of the recent highlights you don't want to miss:
- "Web 2.0 and Change Present Challenges to Many Learning Executives," by Rex Davenport. An interview with Jay Cross.
- "Come Together, Right Now" - Jay Cross' latest column in the December issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine.
- "Enterprise 2.0: A Parallel Meritocracy," by Venkatesh G. Rao and Janet Clarey in the Oct./Nov. issue of Elearning! magazine.
- "Using Social Media to Counter Budget Shortfalls," by David Coleman in the Oct./Nov. issue of Elearning! magazine.
- "Leverage Online Discussions," by Kendra Lee, on pg. 18 of the Oct./Nov. issue of Training magazine, where she provides six helpful tips.
- "Boomers 2.0," by Margery Weinstein, pgs. 48-50 of the Oct./Nov. issue of Training magazine.
- "Social Media and Networking Journey," a series of blog posts at Kevin Jones' Engaged Learning blog, where he covers a range of social learning tools.
Updates from Element K
As usual, I'll end this roundup posting with links to our newsletter service that we launched earlier this year. Each newsletter includes several articles of relevance to the Learning and Development field, as well as updates about Element K events and our latest product releases. You can see the latest newsletters here: November, December, and January.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
This isn't a posting on "workplace learning today" as a topic, but rather a way of introducing any readers not familiar with the great group blog that goes by that name from Brandon Hall Research. The Workplace Learning Today blog is must reading for those in the Learning and Development industry, and should be one of the few blogs you read even if you think you only have time to read a small number of industry blogs -- it should be in your top five for sure.
I say that with certainty because of the type of blog it is and the value that the researchers at Brandon Hall bring to their readers. Rather than provide in-depth analysis or lengthy opinions on matters of concern to learning leaders, WLT focuses on "quick hits," on keeping you updated on all the news and happenings that matter to you as a learning professional. Very few significant happenings escape their collective eyes, so by subscribing to WLT, you can rest assured that you won't miss much.
Personally, I check their blog each day, by means of my personal iGoogle homepage. I have added a widget on this page that displays the WLT RSS feed that provides me linkes to their latest entries. I can generally tell from their entry titles if I'm interested enough to read their brief write-ups, and then from there if I'm interested enough to click through to whatever resource or article they are linking to.
Others might just include WLT as one of the many blogs they read via their favorite RSS reader, such as Google Reader. I recommend that you place WLT at the top of your feed list though, because they update it often and you are best off checking it several times a week.
Technobabble recently announced its Top Analyst Blogs for 2009. And congrats to Workplace Learning Today as it was rated third out of a field of 400 analyst blogs! Since starting the blog in August 2008, Brandon Hall analysts Janet Clarey, Gary Woodill, Tom Werner, and Richard Nantel have published more than 1,800 stories related to workplace learning and talent management. Keep up the great work!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
As 2010 gets going, many in the L&D industry continue to face the job-search struggle. Many more will encounter a similar need this year or in years ahead, so I thought it might be helpful to provide a blog posting with some resources to aid your search. I'm not talking about the obvious "big and broad" sites for job hunting, places like Monster, CareerBuilder, and others, or the social networking sites, like LinkedIn, that can be so crucial during a job search. Rather, I want to share some sites and other resources that focus on just our Learning and Development field.
First off, many of the key organizations in our industry provide help for those searching for work or looking to further develop their careers. A few of these (with an emphasis on North America) include:
See also page 84 of the July T+D Magazine, "Know Your Value in the Marketplace," by Judy Estrin.
Another good resource is the salary data provided on page 24 of the October/November issue of Training magazine.
And my friend Mike Lally provides sage advice in his presentation on Using Social Media in Your Job Search.
And lastly, an interesting and perhaps, at times, humorous resource for you is this wiki of obsolete skills.
So those are just a few links that I hope will be helpful for those in the job hunt in the L&D industry. What key resources did I miss? Which organization sites and job banks are the best for Europe, Asia, and other areas of the world? What sites have you found helpful in your own job search or career development? Please provide good links in the comments to this post!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
It's time for another edition of the Learning and Development Roundup! (See also previous editions at the archive page.)
ASTD Employee Learning Week is December 7 - 11
The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) is again celebrating employee learning in organizations with their Employee Learning Week (ELW) program December 7-11, 2009. As their website indicates, "Employee Learning Week is an awareness campaign highlighting the important connection between learning and achieving organizational results." Learning and training are more important now than ever before, as "the growing skills gap and the increased need to compete in today's economy require organizations to develop a knowledgeable and highly skilled workforce." See their list of ideas for how your organization can get involved and read about the ways that dozens of your peers celebrated ELW in 2007 and 2008.
Celebrating 50 Years of Four Levels
There is another celebration going on in our industry, a birthday of sorts for a key L&D industry model: Donald Kirkpatrick's Four Levels Model for evaluating the impact of workforce development initiatives. The November issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine focused on this, starting with the great article "The Kirkpatrick Model: Past, Present and Future" by Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick. Additional articles in the same issue include "The Father of the Four Levels" by Daniel Margolis, "Simplified ROI: Measuring What Matters Most" by Howard Prager and Susan Vece, "Emerging Issues in Measurement" by Jeffrey Berk, "It's Time for Measurement Strategy" by Chris Moore, and finally a closing column by Donald Kirkpatrick himself "Same Model, New Challenges." For anyone who either wants to get up to speed with learning measurement and the history of the Kirkpatrick model, or is in the middle of implementing any sort of evaluation or ROI-measurement system, this issue is a goldmine.
Two Key Recent Industry Reports
The L&D industry has seen several new and important reports released in the past few months. ASTD recently announced their 2009 State of the Industry report, "a comprehensive look at the training and development investments, practices, and trends for 2008." This report for ASTD members provides data for from 301 organizations, including members of the ASTD Benchmarking Forum and ASTD BEST Award winners.
Also, industry analysts Ambient Insight have released their latest study, "The U.S. Market for Self-Paced E-Learning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis." Their press release notes that the U.S. E-Learning market will reach $16.7 billion in 2009, with demand growing by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4%, with revenues reaching $23.8 billion by 2014. I highly recommend that you read their free executive overview.
2009 Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards Announced
Also announced recently were the 2009 edition of the Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards. Element K is proud to have garnered two of these coveted awards: Best Custom Content (Silver) for the course "The Green Grid Measures and Metrics" and Best Innovation in Learning Technology (Bronze) for our incorporation of Web 2.0 collaboration tools into the KnowledgeHub LMS to support informal learning. Selections for the Brandon Hall Awards are based on potential impact, applicability, ease of adoption, and overall value for learning professionals.
Learning Circuits Big Question: What is the Value of Social Media for Learning?
How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization? That is the question that ASTD's Learning Circuits asked the L&D blogging community for the month of November. As always, the "big question" generated plenty of interesting responses, including perspectives from folks such as Jay Cross, Jane Hart, Karl Kapp, Clive Shepherd, Clark Quinn, Tony Karrer, and many others. If you are trying to convince others in your organization (or yourself!) of the value of social media for learning, this series of blog postings is a great place to start.
Jane Hart on Five Categories of Learning
Most people recognize the high-level distinction between what is called Formal Learning vs. Informal Learning. In considering how social media can be used for learning in an organization, Jane Hart wasn't comfortable with just these two categories, so she set out to get a bit more precise in how we conceptualize the learning that occurs in our organizations. She arrived at five categories, which she named at her blog as follows:
- Intra-Organizational Learning (IOL)—Keeping the organization up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives and activities.
- Formal Structured Learning (FSL)—Formal education and training like classes, courses, workshops, etc. (both synchronous and asynchronous).
- Group Directed Learning (GDL)—Groups of individuals working in teams, projects, study groups, etc. Even two people working together in a coaching and mentoring capacity.
- Personal Directed Learning (PDL)—Individuals organizing and managing their own personal or professional learning.
- Accidental & Serendipitous Learning (ASL)—Individuals learning without consciously realizing it (aka incidental or random learning).
While its not likely that this set of acronyms will catch on in our industry right away, I think Jane has done us all a great service in clarifying these five distinct concepts. Jane's colleague Harold Jarche then assisted by providing a useful visual of these five concepts, that clearly identifies each on a grid representing Individual, Group, Organization on one axis and Undirected, Self-Directed, Directed on the other axis. Then Jane took her analysis a step further and provided dozens of examples of how social media can be used for each learning approach. This mapping of examples to concepts is a great resource for you as you consider learning in your own organization, and how best to blend the use of social media tools.
Harold Jarche on Train Speeds and Bridging the Adoption Chasm
Harold Jarche's blog had several great postings this week, and I'd like to draw your attention to two of them. First he draws your attention to an analogy found in Alvin and Heidi Toffler’s book, Revolutionary Wealth, which compares various societal structures and institutions and their willingness to change. This is very instructive given the amazing pace of change facing L&D professionals today. He also wrote about the need to bridge the chasm between early adopters and the early majority, and provided an insightful table that suggests the average current stage for many of the Web 2.0 and other new technologies L&D professionals are integrating into their learning programs. Where is your organization in the practical adoption of some of these innovative learning approaches?
David Mallon on Back to Basics in 2010
And finally, at this time of year most magazines, bloggers, and others will set out to either give a wrap-up look back at the year that was, and/or make some predictions about what we might expect in learning and development in the year ahead. One of the first to do so this year is David Mallon of Bersin & Associates, in his blog posting Back to Basics in '10. After noting the tough year that was 2009, Mallon notes that "The learning industry as a whole seems to get that it has reached a point in its history where it must evolve or face rapid obsolescence." He then clarifies what he means by "back to basics" as "cutting through the distractions, asking ourselves hard questions about where and how we can add the most value to the organization, and optimizing our processes to leave no possible question of underutilization or inefficiency." He notes that L&D departments need to be focused on two key questions: "Are we truly working on the right things to help the business get where it needs to go? And, are we as good at the business of learning as we must be in order to succeed?" In discussing these two questions, Mallon argues that a focus on social learning is anything but a distraction, but rather a means to get "back to basics" by giving the L&D group a way to better enable informal learning. In other words, given that informal learning has always been around, isn't it high time you took the reins and started to better support and enable it?
Updates from Element K
As usual, I'll end this roundup posting with links to our newsletter service that we launched earlier this year. Each newsletter includes several articles of relevance to the Learning and Development field, as well as updates about Element K events and our latest product releases. You can see the latest newsletters here: June, July, August, September, October, November, and December.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
At this time of year, many magazine writers, bloggers, and analysts do one or two things: they take a look back at the past year's ups and downs and/or they make predictions (bold or otherwise) about the year ahead. As a blogger—and more generally as a human conditioned my entire life with a January through December calendar year—I can't help but find myself thinking along these lines as well.
I have many thoughts on both the year 2009 that we are wrapping up, and the year 2010 ahead of us (and beyond), so I'll share one such prediction with you now. This is a topic that I often touch on during my conference and webinar presentations on the topic of "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning." Although each presentation instance is unique, many questions are asked regularly. One in particular I think is not only a sensible and good question to ask, but is particularly pressing these days because of the very difficult employment situation in the United States and in most of the world.
The question goes like this: "You say that Web 2.0/Social Learning technologies will not replace the use of classroom training or traditional e-learning, but will rather most often (and properly) be used to supplement these standard learning modalities, in order to better enable informal learning in our organizations. But with limited L&D budgets and resources, won't this mean a cut-back in classroom training and e-learning development, and thus job layoffs for some instructors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts?"
This is a good question, but I think the concern largely relies on a false assumption: that the people in those job roles will not have important roles to play in the realm of social learning. Tools such as wikis, blogs, forums, social networks, and so on most often work best when they have people performing specific supporting tasks. These tasks take time, and so should be part of the job descriptions of the people performing them. So the idea here is that people who today work entirely as instructors or instructional designers, or spend a lot of their time serving as subject matter experts within an organization, will continue to spend a lot of their time in those roles (perhaps most of it), but will also take on new roles such as:
- Blog author
- Forum moderator or discussion generator
- Wiki contributor and/or gardener (seeding, pruning, weeding, etc.)
- Podcast host/interviewer
- Significant ink bookmarker
- Significant micro-messaging contributor
- Social networking site profile administrator (and participant of course)
In this way, such key L&D team members will continue to provide formal learning (whether teaching, designing, or consulting) but will now also provide crucial support in enabling informal learning. This kind of learning has always been occurring in organizations, but by using Web 2.0/social media tools, at least some of that informal learning will become even more commonplace and powerful, and also become transparent to the organizational leaders, rather than staying largely hidden, untrackable, unsearchable, etc.
As an example, some of Element K's instructional designers—specifically those on our Business Skills team—continue to use our single-source authoring process to create outstanding e-learning and print courseware training materials. But a year ago they also started serving as forum moderators and blog authors for their respective areas of focus. It does require the right combination of aptitude, interest, and motivation to take on new tasks such as these, but fortunately our IDs have what it takes!
What about your organization? As your mix of learning approaches shifts to include more social learning, how are you going to provide the support necessary for it to succeed and truly have a positive impact on the organization? Who from amongst your current L&D team—whether instructors, instructional designers, subject matter experts, or others—will you rely on to take on new challenges in this arena?
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
It was March of this year when I last highlighted the great work that Jane Hart does on behalf of the Learning and Development industry. So it is high time that I give an update, and Jane has provided me the perfect excuse as she recently announced the final results of the 2009 edition of her survey of Tools for Learning. The final list of 100 top tools was compiled from the contributions of 278 learning professionals worldwide—from both education and workplace learning—who were each asked to provide a list with descriptions of their top 10 learning tools (broadly defined). As always, Jane provides her valuable data in multiple formats, this year providing both a SlideShare presentation that walks you through the list one tool at a time, as well as a complete listing from 1-100.
So what learning tool tops the chart? It is one that will come as no surprise to those who have discovered its power and value: Twitter. I have several times posted here about the value I and many others in our industry get from Twitter on a daily basis, so let this top ranking serve as a wake-up call for anyone reading this posting who hasn't yet given Twitter a serious try. I'll note also that Twitter didn't just come in first place, it did so by a very wide margin! Here are the top 10 tools for 2009, with the number of votes each received.
- 159 Twitter
- 95.5 Delicious
- 79.5 YouTube
- 79 Google Reader
- 78.5 Google Docs
- 69 Wordpress
- 64 Slideshare
- 56 Google Search
- 54 Audacity
- 54 Firefox
Jane's full listing table provides the rankings for each tool in the 2008 and 2007 survey results, which allows us to learn that, for instance, Twitter has climbed the list from 43rd place in 2007 to 11th place in 2008 to finally taking the top spot away from Delicious (which had been first in 2008, and second in 2007). The growth of YouTube—not just in terms of the number of videos it serves up daily, but in how people perceive it—is evident by its climb from a modest 18th place in 2008 to 3rd in 2009. And another big climb is evident for SlideShare, which went from 31st in 2007 to 20th in 2008 to 7th in 2009. Outside this top 10, a few other tools rising sharply from 2007 to 2009 include Ning (31 to 11), VoiceThread (101 to 19), Jing (unranked to 20), and Google Apps (101 to 38). Jane also gives her own review of the biggest gainers and losers in this year's survey results, and separately wrote to highlight 10 of the tools that made their first appearance in the list and that she thinks "are useful, innovative, cost effective, and certainly worth considering for 2010."
Jane further provides a useful alternate approach to organizing the results: by category. Here, she separates the tools into 27 different categories, such as blogging tools, micro-blogging tools, presentation tools, productivity tools, and so on, allowing you to quickly see the top-X in each category.
You can also view the complete list of the professionals who participated, and read their individual top-10 lists—a great deep dive for those of you who closely follow particular industry experts. If you are curious, you can see my top-10 listing, which was posted very early in 2009 (I was the third person to participate this year.)
As if doing the annual survey exercise wasn't enough, Jane also maintains an overall tools directory which this year has topped 3,000 different tools! As Jay Cross recently remarked at his blog, I don't know how Jane does it!
If you find these resources as valuable as I do, be sure to send Jane a note to thank her for her hard work in creating and maintaining these and the many other resources at her website: Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies. It's great stuff!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
A perpetual problem that organizations face is how to support their "top performers" when transitioning them into management roles. Such "all-stars" have many skills, character traits, and other positive characteristics that have made them standouts in what they do. But what made them so successful in their previous roles is not what is needed to be successful as managers. It is unreasonable to expect anyone making that transition to not experience some bumps in the road (I can speak from personal experience!). A key need from an organization's learning and development function is to help minimize these bumps to ease the inevitable learning curve that such individuals face. And this need is only going to become more important as waves of managers in the Baby Boomer generation retire, replaced often by Gen X and Gen Y "top performers."
In the July 2009 issue of Talent Management magazine, there was a very good article on this subject, "Nine Ways to Make Top Performers Effective Managers." The nine guidelines shared are:
- Move from tactical to strategic.
- Defend the team.
- Build trusting relationships.
- Delegate.
- Teach and mentor.
- Admit mistakes.
- Leverage others' strengths.
- Manage each employee.
- Take time to manage.
At Element K, we recognize the great importance of this transition phase in the development of an organization's management team. We have a range of e-Learning courses that touch on this topic, and a wealth of resources on the topic of "What Good Managers Do: The First 100 Days." These include a flagship e-Learning course in our Business Skills library, as well as a corresponding instructor-led training print courseware course. (Aside: Did you know that Element K creates formal learning content via a "single source" model that involves authoring in an XML environment in order to get multimedia-rich and engaging e-Learning, and professional print courseware for the classroom, all from one development cycle?)
But we have gone well beyond these foundational learning modalities, by:
- Providing additional "Blended Blueprint" guides that specifically indicate how organizations can integrate classroom training sessions on this topic with e-Learning modules and business simulations.
- Providing key concepts from the course as audio portions that can be listened to when convenient for the learner. These audio MP3 tracks can be played on iPods or smartphones as anytime, anywhere learning.
- Abstracting the key principle guidelines from the training content and providing them as a handy quick reference card. This is a great job-aid for new managers to refer to as needed.
- Enabling learners with collaborative, Web 2.0 features such as forums and blogs, so that they can learn from their cohorts who are making similar changes, or those who have made the same transition in the recent past.
- Providing an end-user "Management Knowledge Portal" that brings together learning assets that cover more advanced topics in management, as there is obviously much to learn beyond those first 100 days.
As your organization evolves, what are you doing to help support your all-star, top-performers who are making the critical next step in their careers? Are you enabling them with a range of learning assets, so they aren't learning everything by trial and error and by hitting the bumps in the road?
To learn more about the Blended Learning solutions available from Element K, see our Real World Blended Learning Subscriptions.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
It's time for another edition of the Learning and Development Roundup! (See also volumes one, two, three, four, five, and six).
The Future of the Training Department
I'll start off with the most provocative item in this roundup, a blog posting from Harold Jarche titled "The Future of the Training Department." Jarche begins with a whirlwind tour of the history of training, why it developed as it did, why it made sense and worked well enough, and so on. But then along lines similar to columns and postings written by his colleague Jay Cross over the past year, Jarche notes that the world has changed and that people in organization's "training departments" had better change too, or potentially face extinction as such. Jarche's thoughts on this subject, like those of Cross and others, are provocative to say the least, and should be a wake-up call to any learning leaders who are changing very slowly or continuing to do basically the same things they have always done. While you're at Harold's blog, see also his many other excellent posts from this past month, especially his "Increased Complexity Needs Simplified Design," which makes several valuable points about informal learning.
Low-Costs LMSs Do Exist
The August/September issue of Elearning! magazine included an article by Jerry Roche titled "LMSs for Less Than $20,000." In these tough economic times, where everyone is being asked to do more with less (or in some cases making the tough decisions to do less with less), understanding how to maximize value from your Learning Management System is critical for learning leaders. The article starts by noting the absolutely critical point: The trick is finding an LMS that meets your needs, while not buying more LMS than you need. In other words, hitting the sweet spot while spending as little as possible. With this as the context, the good news is that in some cases, a low price tag no longer equates to less functionality than you need. Some low-cost LMSs now include not only basic tracking of e-Learning, but also features such as ILT classroom management, advanced reporting, and even collaborative Web 2.0 features such as forums, blogs, wikis, and more. Element K's KnowledgeHub LMS is one such platform that provides all of these and more. While many in the industry know of Element K for our award-winning e-Learning and print ILT courseware content, in recent years we have spent a lot of effort into building out our KnowledgeHub LMS platform, so we are pleased to be included in this article's listing of low-cost LMSs you should be considering.
If you are in the market for an LMS, another good recent resource to share with you is Clive Shepherd's posting on "The 21st Century LMS," which includes a PDF of the results of a recent gathering of the eLearning Network, and in particular their activity to "identify what was required in an LMS that was fit for the 21st Century."
Don't be Scared to Evaluate
In the August/September issue of Elearning! magazine, Diane Valenti wrote on the importance of evaluation in "Scared to Evaluate? Return on Learning Is Your Lifeline." After introducing the subject and posing the normal difficult questions regarding training ROI, Valenti describes a good example of the role that accountability can play in driving ROI: it can be the extra push users need to apply what they learn from training to their actual jobs. She notes that ROI doesn't always need to be calculated, but does when training "is the solution, in whole or in part, to a specific business challenge. Such challenges could include an increase in customer complaints or employee turnover, a drop in sales or profit margin, or even a lack of leadership bench strength." She then walks the reader through the three high-level steps of determining ROI: determining the benefits of training, determining the costs of training, and finally calculating the value of the training. For each, step she gives useful examples to help anyone new to this process. A recommended read for both novices and veterans alike: you definitely don't need to be scared to evaluate!
Big Question: New Presenter and Learner Methods and Skills?
The latest "big question" at ASTD's Learning Circuits blog is "New Presenter and Learner Methods and Skills?" The list of more focused questions can be pretty well summed up with two concerns: multitasking and backchannel. That is, how can trainers and presenters best handle the inevitable multitasking and backchannel chatter that occurs during their classes and sessions? And what are the best practices for us on the other side, as learners and audience members? As a conference speaker myself, I've certainly been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as the phenomenon that is Twitter has made live-backchannel discussions a reality at almost every presentation at every conference. The response postings to this "big question" come from great industry bloggers including Tony Karrer, Clark Quinn, Clive Shepherd, and others. See also Karrer's additional posting highlighting some of the salient points raised by everyone else.
A Corporate Social Media Use Example: SabreTown
The September 2009 issue of T+D Magazine, in an article titled "Letting Go" (ASTD membership required), provided another good example of using social media technologies in a corporation, this time from Sabre Holdings. The center of their application, SabreTown, revolves around employee-completed profiles, complete with areas of expertise, and online discussion boards. When people ask questions, the system notifies the people it considers to have the most relevant expertise, an innovative way to drive conversation and knowledge exchange. The article details numerous best practices and lessons learned at Sabre, including the following and more:
- Maximize the value of the system by making sure it is used to the greatest extent. In particular, the advice given suggests keeping it simple, making the tool easy to use for all, not worrying about making it perfect technologically, building it to mimic how people already communicate (e.g., Q&A), and not letting it lose its meaning by building it into something larger
- Promote behavior that will increase trust in the system.
- Seed the system with questions and answers for the first month or two by selecting some people to "overuse it."
- In communications about the system, keep returning to its value.
The article notes that SabreTown is credited with substantial savings for the company, including $500,000 in direct savings in the first year. But, based on strong anecdotal evidence, that figure doesn't come close to representing the total savings they are seeing. A truly impressive case study!
New Whitepaper: Social Learning Introduction
Harold Jarche recently announced a new whitepaper, "Social Learning Introduction", from the new "idea lab" group Collaborative Enterprise. A group-authored whitepaper, each writer gave their unique perspective on the question: "How would you describe social learning and why is it important for today's enterprise?" Included are insights from Clark Quinn, Charles Jennings, George Siemens, Jay Cross, and eight others.
22 Power Laws
Dion Hinchcliffe wrote an outstanding article at ZDNet.com titled "Twenty-Two Power Laws of the Emerging Social Economy." Definitely a good read, possibly one of the most thought-provoking things you will read all year. Some of the "laws" he covers will be well-known to you, such as Moore's law, the Long Tail, the Pareto principle, or even Metcalfe's law. But many of the others will be new to you, so I strongly recommend you read this article and consider which of these "power laws" are a major driver for your organization. And for additional reflections, see also Tony Karrer's comments on Dion's article.
Updates from Element K
I'll again end this roundup posting with links to our newsletter service that we launched in June. Each newsletter includes several articles of relevance to the Learning and Development field, as well as updates about Element K events and our latest product releases. You can see the latest newsletters here: June, July, August, September, October, and November.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
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