Every half-decade in IT sees the rise of its own star technology. Some, like AI in the seventies or Grid computing in late nineties, proved to be either fads or prototypes rushed to market before their time. Others, like the Information Superhighway (today known simply as "the internet"), and the Cloud (which emerged as  common IT term sometime in the mid-noughties) were destined to catch on and forever change the way we do business. But are all business use cases fit to adopt a new popular technology? And, more specifically, is moving your online learning platform to the Cloud a good idea? This is exactly what we will be discussing in this post. Jump to the future For those businesses that are still relying on traditional, in person, seminar-based training, the answer to our question is quite obvious. Yes, you should definitely make the jump to online training. It’s 2016 already, and it has proven itself time and again in the market, as well as having been adopted by all major (and most minor) enterprises and organizations. If you are one of those businesses, the question is not whether you should invest in an eLearning platform and/or the Cloud, but rather: why did it take you so long? The benefits, in lower training costs, flexibility, re-usability, etc. are so big that adopting eLearning is really a no-brainer. Besides, with TalentLMS’ support for blended learning you can easily combine traditional and online learning sessions, in those few cases where there’s a legitimate need for the former (e.g. training in the physical use of tools, etc.). To Float or Not To Float: Cloud-based LMS Advantages With that settled, let’s move on to the more important, and less clear-cut, question: do Cloud-based online learning platforms make more sense compared to e.g. self-hosting or running some legacy desktop learning tool? Fortunately, we are in a good position to answer this, as we have helped thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of learners make the transition to Cloud-based online learning, while at the same time we have had extended experience providing self-hosted learning solutions. In short, we’ve seen both sides of the equation, and we have horses in both races, so to speak. And the answer we’d give is that, in most cases, and for most companies, it indeed makes much sense to take advantage of what Cloud-based elearning platforms have to offer. To be fair, there are benefits to running your own self-hosted solution too — but those mostly concern specific use cases, and companies that want total control over their infrastructure, and have the resources to install, manage and maintain it. For most businesses though, and we’re not talking about small and medium enterprises either (in fact some very large companies swear by our Cloud-based TalentLMS platform), going with the Cloud is a no-brainer. Let’s see why. Easy to start with With a Cloud-based eLearning solution, there is no infrastructure to be bought and provisioned, and no installation either. TalentLMS, for example, is just there, available and working 24/7, waiting for you to open your eLearning portal account. And it’s really as easy as that to get started with eLearning — like registering for a Gmail or Facebook account. Enter your email and name, pick a password and you’re good to go. Literally good to go, that is. For the most common and basic use cases (e.g. no eCommerce, no custom integrations, etc.) you can immediately start using TalentLMS to create and serve your courses without any other configuration. And even those advanced uses are quite easy to setup, usually taking no more than a visit to the administrative pages, and a couple of clicks. Easy to "maintain" A Cloud-based online training platform, and we can’t speak for all of them, but this is definitely true for TalentLMS, is also dead easy to "maintain". And I’m writing this in quotes, because there’s actually nothing much to maintain — if anything at all. The beauty of the Cloud is that the programs are maintained automatically, and you just get to use them. Not only that, but the team doing the maintenance are the world’s best experts in the software they maintain, because they are the very ones who wrote it in the first place. Contrast this with your typical IT team of system administrators trying to install, configure or update some third party software they half-understand, using whatever documentation they can find on the internet. Which of those situations do you believe will result in the most robust and more reliable result? Or, to put it in another way, how many times did you have problems with your company’s IT infrastructure (intranet portal not working properly, the DB not responding, viruses spreading on the office’s PCs, printers behaving strangely, etc) and how many times has Google or Gmail or Facebook failed you? Sure, the Cloud can have some downtime too — but much much less than what employees used to tolerate for decades on their corporate intranets (and still do). For enterprises and organizations that don’t have complicated infrastructure needs, the Cloud, with its automated updates and backups, instant access to the latest version, and zero maintenance, gives you the best, easier to work with, and more secure LMS option. Scalability on demand That’s another good thing about the Cloud: it’s built to be scalable. Sure, you could add another PC to your datacenter to beef up your self-hosted services, split the database into its own server, maybe build a small cluster — but, unless you have Google’s or GM’s scale, why bother? And why pay the price (in money AND man-months)? A Cloud platform like TalentLMS is not only created to be scalable, but it’s also provably scalable. You see, it already serves thousands of companies and organizations besides your, all from several data-centers around the globe. And when our customers need more storage capacity or more CPU power, we’ve made sure the platform auto-scales to meet the demand. Whether you want to add thousands of users, or split your eLearning portal into different, autonomous, Branches, to reflect your organization’s (or Extended Enterprise’s) structure, the TalentLMS Cloud will be there and ready to serve you. Everybody else does it That’s not much of an argument, of course. It reminds me of the classic, "if everybody else jumped over a cliff, would you too?", which my mother would say. It does, however, point to the maturity and trustworthiness of adopting Cloud solutions for your online learning needs. If something is good for IBM, GM, Google, Microsoft, Bayer, MIT, and many many more huge institutions and businesses, chances are it’s more than good enough for you. Cloud is just were the servers live Being on the Cloud doesn’t mean you’re restricted to accessing your eLearning portal from a web browser. Of course, you can always do that, and we’ve made sure it’s an excellent experience. But the Cloud is just where our servers live — how you access them its up to you, and to the client you use. Besides the browser app, for example, we have developed, and released for free, native mobile apps for accessing your TalentLMS-based eLearning (and microlearning, and Mobile Learning) content — namely TalentLMS for iOS, and (soon) TalentLMS for Android. Plus, if you have custom needs, you can always access TalentLMS through its REST API, and hook it up to any in-house or third party service you want to. Conclusion The Cloud gives you instant access to online training, limitless scalability, and frees you from having to deploy and manage your own application servers. You also get updates for free, rolled out by a specialized IT team that also performs backups of your precious learning data and constant monitoring of the servers. This lets you (and your IT team, if you have one) concentrate on actually running your eLearning program and training your employees. For most businesses, big and small, (with the exception of those that have very specialized customization needs or legacy applications that need to be hooked to one’s online learning portal), a Cloud-based solution will be the simpler, cheaper and more flexible solution to their online training needs. The post Benefits of moving your online learning platform to the Cloud appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Just like I can’t fit into my old, medium sized, t-shirts (I should know, I’ve tried), it’s just as difficult to shoehorn a desktop application into a mobile device. Sure, you could try (and many have tried), but it would just not offer a great experience, and users would hate it. And when it comes to eLearning, things are even tougher. The only entertainment and educational applications that make it to the "most popular" application lists are the ones that have a good mobile story, offering native mobile apps that play to the strengths of their platforms. Indeed, mobile-friendly courses have higher completion and participation rates compared to applications that don’t run on mobile devices or only offer a shoe-horned, half-baked (how’s that for mixed metaphors?) mobile experience. Fortunately, TalentLMS falls in the good category. While it already had an intuitive and responsive web-based UI, with the advent of TalentLMS for iOS (and, soon Android; currently in beta), it also offers a fully native experience, optimized for mLearning and microlearning. What about your content, though? Are there any special rules and guidelines you should follow to offer the most mobile-friendly course possible? The answer is yes — and in this post, we will share a few tips on how to create the best mobile-friendly eLearning experiences for your learners. Mobile-friendly Courses: The Design When you think of mobile devices, you should mainly be thinking of the few mobile OSes that cover 99% of the market. That would be iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Just the first 2 would get you pretty far, audience reach-wise, but factor in the different devices (the myriad Android phones, various iPhones, the iPad, etc.) and form factors (phones, tablets, phablets, etc.) and it suddenly seems like a lot of work to ensure that your mobile content plays well in all these. Fortunately, regardless of the variety of the mobile devices available in the market, the technique to create mobile-friendly courses that work well in all of them is one and the same. You just need to keep in mind these few factors that distinguish mobile learning from its laptop-based counterpart: 1. One size doesn’t fit all Mobile devices have much smaller displays than desktop computers. Cater for your content being much more space constrained on mobile, with screen sizes varying widely from one device to another. 2. Small is beautiful Mobile data network speeds are much slower and less reliable than your DSL or cable connection at home. Be mindful of your content’s volume and image sizes when you develop mobile-friendly courses, as slow mobile download times make viewing heavy content unbearable. 3. Bigger is better Use a larger font size to avoid having learners zooming in and out to be able to navigate and read your content. Bear in mind that zooming in and out on a desktop PC is much easier than on a mobile device. 4. Formats and stuff Try limiting your file formats to plain text (the king of eLearning formats), .DOC or .DOCX, .PDF, .PPT, .JPG, .GIF, and .PNG — that is, formats that play equally well on mobile as they do on the desktop, and for which native mobile readers and transcoders exist. 5. Mind your media The following media formats are desirable for mobile devices. Stick to those, as the last thing you want is the learner having to download a supporting app each time they use your course: a. Audio: Use the MP3 file format. Use 128kbps audio quality (if it’s speech, e.g. a lecture, you can go even lower). Limit the length of each segment to five minutes or less. b. Video: Use the MP4 file format with the h.264 codec which has good hardware support in most mobile devices (it will play without glitches and won’t be a drain on the battery). While a lot of devices sport 1080p displays (or better), many don’t. If your target users are expected to have high-speed mobile connections (e.g. in a place with widespread LTE/4G support), you can go to 720p, but don’t go beyond that for the time being. Or else, stick with 480×320 (for the iPhone) and/or 640×480 for tablet users, resolutions that work equally well on most Android devices. 6. Incorporating Blogs, Journals, Wikis & Discussions to your eLearning The real-time capacity of mobile devices to capture pictures, video, and audio anywhere, can make courses more meaningful and satisfying.
 For example, you can have culinary art students taking pictures of their latest creation in their kitchen and uploading for their peers to comment. Similarly, you may have a photography class where students use their phones to take pictures, and then have an exciting online discussion on the images taken while travelling. Sometimes, we learn a new concept or a vocabulary word in the most unexpected places. Since learners always have their mobile device them, they can use it to update Wikis before they forget. When mobile devices are used as learning catalysts, the possibilities are endless. When mobile devices are used as learning catalysts, the possibilities are endless.Click To Tweet 7. K.I.S.S — Keep It Small and Simple Mobile learning is all about the moment and about exploiting dead-time (commuting, waiting, flying, bored at lunch, etc.) to engage in a learning activity. These moments are brief, though, which means that you should plan your content accordingly. Don’t demand hours of your learner’s time; demand minutes. Don’t stuff them with new information; have them learn what’s essential. They can always do in-depth learning sessions on their desktops — mobile is for short-bursts of casual learning. Mobile is for short-bursts of casual learning.Click To Tweet TalentLMS’ mobile interface has been designed to reflect and encourage this notion, and your content should too. 8. Plan for offline use 24/7 connectivity is a noble goal for the future, but it’s far from a reality today. Doubly so in developing countries, or out in the countryside. If you’re designing mobile learning content, you’ll also want to design for offline use. Platforms like TalentLMS already offer offline-capable native mobile applications, but as the content creator, you should do a little work on your end too. Not all content works equally well (or at all) on mobile use. For example, while video files can be automatically converted and made available for offline use by TalentLMS, they do take time to download before the user goes offline, and they do demand a lot of disk space on the user’s mobile device. And links to videos (e.g. to YouTube and Vimeo files) don’t work offline at all. Study your LMS offline content guidelines and learn what works and what doesn’t work, content-wise, for courses that you plan on making available for offline use. Conclusion Mobile learning is quickly commanding an increasingly important share of the eLearning pie, either as a standalone or combined with a desktop learning strategy. The tips and guidelines offered in this post are part of a platform-neutral approach that will help you develop eLearning programs that work well on all kinds of platforms and devices. By being mindful about what works for mobile-friendly courses, training content developers can motivate learners to engage in training beyond the confines of their offices and homes. The post Learning on the go: how to develop engaging mobile-friendly courses appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Click here to preview the demo.Click here to preview the explanation demo.Brenda LaRose’s Workshop Proof-of-Concept PrototypeBrenda LaRose is the Training & Development Specialist from Levitt-Safety. The demo provided here is her mini-project as a participant to the Story-Based eLearning Design workshop. We thank Brenda for allowing us to share the content.From Very Dull Technical Content to an Engaging Story LessonThe small lesson is intended to help learners understand some basic concepts of the company’s policy and process on Record Retention. We present here the prototype and a video explaining the method that we employed in converting the small content into a Story-Based Lesson.The demo lesson is only available for 10 days. Please access it as soon as you can.For further references on the Story-Lesson Design, please read this blog "How to Use Questions to Immerse Learners in Your Lesson".More Demos from Last WeekIn case you have not reviewed the two demos on the 5-Step Scenario Learning Design,Technical: Too Much DowntimeSoftware: HRIS SoftwareYou may access them here.Preview Ray’s Storify Micro-IdeasThis is a summary of Twitter postings to recap some highlights of micro-ideas. Click here.Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Click here to preview the demo.Click here to preview the explanation demo.Brenda LaRose’s Workshop Proof-of-Concept PrototypeBrenda LaRose is the Training & Development Specialist from Levitt-Safety. The demo provided here is her mini-project as a participant to the Story-Based eLearning Design workshop. We thank Brenda for allowing us to share the content.From Very Dull Technical Content to an Engaging Story LessonThe small lesson is intended to help learners understand some basic concepts of the company’s policy and process on Record Retention. We present here the prototype and a video explaining the method that we employed in converting the small content into a Story-Based Lesson.The demo lesson is only available for 10 days. Please access it as soon as you can.For further references on the Story-Lesson Design, please read this blog "How to Use Questions to Immerse Learners in Your Lesson".More Demos from Last WeekIn case you have not reviewed the two demos on the 5-Step Scenario Learning Design,Technical: Too Much DowntimeSoftware: HRIS SoftwareYou may access them here.Preview Ray’s Storify Micro-IdeasThis is a summary of Twitter postings to recap some highlights of micro-ideas. Click here.Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Networking in the early days leads to a new hire who stays longer and is more engaged.

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As you can imagine, I’m on a lot of mailing lists and social media groups about Lean and see it described and talked about in many ways. Recently, some of these have been really over the top and, quite frankly, do a disservice. Headlines like "Improvement Through Cultural Transformation!" either scare people away or are so vague and highfaluting that everyone reads into it whatever they want. Thoughtful organizations that can benefit, sadly, hesitate. Others jump in with both feet and little understanding of what’s actually required. Not surprisingly, their effort stalls, sputters or flat out fails; another casualty in the Program of the Month Club. Lean strives for simplicity and transparency, so let’s describe it that way. Here’s how I frame my conversations with clients when they ask what Lean is all about: Lean is the daily practice of people perfecting their own work by eliminating non-value-added activities and creating more customer value. You’ll notice I don’t mention any tools or techniques. No value stream analysis. No 5S. That’s because tools change over time and apply to specific situations and problems. And I don’t mention reducing costs either because that’s just one possible result and some organizations don’t want to focus on that. For example, healthcare is concerned with patient outcomes and L&D organizations want to reduce time to proficiency. This definition evolved over many years and tries to communicate Lean’s never-changing essentials. Here are the words and phrases I thought about carefully and why I included them (and excluded others). "Daily Practice" Are you watching the Rio Games? Those athletes and teams perform at a consistently high level because they practice and practice and, then, practice even more. How well would the USA volleyball team perform if they got together and practiced once a month? They wouldn’t even make it out of the first round. Lean is the same. It requires frequent application to develop proficiency and deliver results. The first step in developing Lean problem-solving muscles is to set aside time daily. In addition to doing work, people need to spend time improving work together. "People Perfecting" Lean is collaborative, so the word ‘people’ is important. Also, I didn’t say ’employees’ because improvement can involve suppliers, contractors and consultants. Most waste is the result of activities, things and data moving (or, in some cases, NOT moving) between people, departments and locations in the right order at the right time. Therefore, people have to work together to identify and eliminate these wastes. And they should have ambitious goals that make the time working together worthwhile. Problems should be eliminated at the source so they cannot recur. Lean is not putting yet another Band-Aid on a problem. "Their Own Work" As opposed to special teams sitting in a corporate office changing other people’s procedures, tools and work environment, Lean improvement happens where the work happens, i.e., at the gemba. Change comes from within. Now, some of you are rolling your eyes, but consider the adage I live by: ‘People don’t mind change; they mind being changed." Properly led and motivated, people are capable of radically altering how they do their work. And that leads to the last part of my description. "Non-Value-Added Activities" and "More Customer Value" Lean focuses on clearly understanding what the ultimate customer truly needs and wants, i.e., what they will actually pay for. Armed with this knowledge and using Lean tools and techniques, work teams can separate the wheat from the chaff and make changes, both small and large, to their work processes. What the ultimate customer values becomes the ‘True North’ of every effort. So, does this definition scare you? Are you more or less likely to want to start practicing Lean after you read it? Let me know at todd@maverickinstitute.com or call me direct at 303.819.6662. I’d like to hear your thoughts. Let’s Ride! Todd Hudson, Head Maverick The post Don’t Be Scared Away From Lean appeared first on Maverick Institute.

People focus too much on Lean as a way to reduce costs. Yes, that’s frequently one result, but Lean, at its core, is about creating more customer/patient value. Show ‘Em the LUV The perfect example is Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV). You’ll never see the word ‘Lean’ on their website or any corporate communications. And to my knowledge they’ve never presented at a Lean conference. But, continuous improvement and low operating costs are thoroughly ingrained in their culture. You see it in their airport employees moving between jobs and locations and in their modern, fuel-efficient fleet. You feel it in their unique booking and boarding process. You read about their impressive gate efficiency in aviation journals. The result is Southwest announced its 43rd year of consecutive profitability. Every other airline in existence over this period has posted staggering losses and consequently filed for bankruptcy, been acquired, or gone out of business. Lower Airfare Prices? Heck NO! So, what has Southwest done with all these profits? Increased customer value! Here are just two examples. First, you can change airline reservations for free. The other airlines charge $200. If you’re a frequent business flier on a tight travel budget, this is HUGE customer value. You could save thousands of dollars a year. Second, two checked bags are free. The other airlines charge $25 per bag. If you’re a sales person transporting product samples or family of four going on vacation, this is HUGE customer value. You could easily save $100 or more on a trip. Now, Southwest could follow the herd, charge big bucks for changes and bags and be even more profitable in the short term. Or they could forego some profit, lower prices and try to steal marketshare from other airlines. But, their strategy is to grow by offering more customer value. And this is much more difficult for inefficient competitors to match. The Machine That Changed the World (aka Lean) The Japanese car companies knocked the Big Three US automakers silly in the 1980’s doing this very thing. They plowed the greater profits generated by their Lean-based, lower cost operations into features that customers wanted. Power windows used to be an expensive option. The Japanese made it a standard feature. The same with air conditioning; came with the car at no extra charge. This strategy slammed US automakers hard. It stole customers from their showrooms and lowered revenue from both sales of vehicles and options. This, in turn, reduced their profits and deprived them of funds for new car R&D and plant improvements. The Japanese went on to gain a huge chunk of US marketshare. The upside is that we’re all driving much better cars today. Lean is a Funding Strategy Stop thinking of Lean as a cost reduction method. Rather, view it as a strategy to fund your efforts to improve patient outcomes and increase customer value. What does your customer or patient value that you "can’t afford" to provide them today? How could Lean help you reduce operational costs to fund those offerings? Remember, small wastes get big quickly! Let’s Ride! Todd Hudson, Head Maverick The post Funnel Lean Savings into More Customer Value (Not Lower Prices) appeared first on Maverick Institute.

Some of you know that I have a passion for Accelerated Learning (my first book was The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook)and the research around how people learn.   At the end of our two day workshop on Accelerated Learning, I would always play the video. The song still moves me.  It's in Every One Us, especially YOU. Pull it out and use it.   It's in everyone of us to be wise, Find your heart, open up both your eyes, We can all know everything without ever knowing why, It's in everyone of us by and by ..  It's in everyone of us, I just remembered, it's like I been sleeping for years, I'm not awake as I can be but my seeing is better, I can see ..through the tears,  I've been realizing that, I bought this ticket and watching only half of the show,  There is scenery and lights and a cast of thousands, Who all know what I know, And it's good that it's so ..  It's in everyone of us to be wise, Find your heart, open up both your eyes, We can all know everything without ever knowing why, It's in everyone of us by and by .. 

These five social media tips will help you define and take control of your own personal leadership brand.