What do you do when learners don’t seem to want to learn online? You may have all the ingredients for a successful training roll out - from internal marketing and senior management buy-in to a great Learning Management System - but what options do you have when employees are pushing back? For employees that have worked a certain way for years, asking them to change their behaviours is a big deal. If they don’t believe in the new way of doing things - whether it’s a new style of learning, changes to structure or systems - they won’t be enthusiastic about it. In fact, they’ll likely be disengaged, demotivated and disinterested. And you can’t expect to get a good return on investment if this is how your employees are thinking, can you? Yet engagement is incredibly important when it comes to a change programme - you can’t afford to have employees falling behind or not picking up on the changes required. From Novice to Master One way to deal with employees who aren’t engaged with their new online training is to encourage them to ‘master’ their Learning Management System. If you want to engage your learners, the Mastery Mountain is a great framework for thinking about how likely you are to secure engagement. If your LMS is designed with a learning journey in mind - taking learners from being ‘Novices’ to ‘Visionaries’ - then chances are your learners will be engaged. On the other hand, if your system simply offers eLearning modules and then tests how much they learnt without a framework for progress, you’ll find your learners will be demotivated and disengaged. How it Works All learners - whether they are tech-savvy Generation Y-ers or Baby Boomers who have been working at the same organisation for 30 years - begin their learning journeys at the same point. They’re all novices when it comes to online learning and their LMS. They don’t really know what it’s all about; part of the excitement of online learning comes from exploring this new terrain and familiarising ourselves with technology that has opened up new possibilities. In order for the Learning Management System to engage, you need a clear and well defined process for mastery. Each step needs to be clearly and thoughtfully mapped out to ensure your employee has an obvious, sign-posted progression journey, gently guiding them up the mountain. If this is mapped out and carefully considered it is then possible to be clear and measure the level of engagement on your LMS and, most importantly, make changes to ensure it is continually improving. The more detailed the roadmap is, with key achievements along the way, the better and more attractive the LMS will be to learners and the more likely it is that employees will be engaged with their training programmes. The basis of engagement is that if you give someone a sense of mastery over the system, they tend to become loyal users. It’s clear that climbing the Mastery Mountain will get learners engaged with their online learning journey. But it might not be as clear how to get the ball rolling… Recognition and Rewards The learning journey you map out for your learners needs to clearly signposted - and these signposts can come in all sorts of forms. From the get-go, the learner needs to discover what’s in it for them - what will they get out of learning these things? Of course, they also need to understand how to use their LMS, so a guided tour and a set of tasks they need to complete is a great way to do this. Aligning points and badges to these tasks (‘gamification’) shows them that when perform certain actions, they get rewarded - which encourages them to do more! Let’s not forget the importance of recognition of learners’ achievements. Taking a look at the Badge Cabinet and checking out all the badges and achievements available to them will show the learner what actions they need to take to progress up the Leaderboard, which itself highlights how a learner is doing in comparison to their peers. The rewards that learners gain for doing certain things - from opening up an eLearning module to sharing a badge on Twitter - will motivate them to continue. With a gamified LMS, no great achievement goes unnoticed, yet the learner doesn’t have to toot their own horn. Mastering their LMS and receiving recognition and rewards will encourage learners to get on board with their learning journey and embrace their new online system. Pretty soon they’ll realise that online learning isn’t scary! There’s no need to push back against their new L&D programme - pretty soon employees will realise that there’s a lot to be gained by logging on and learning. Want to find out more about securing engagement in learning? Fill out the form below!  

We’re really proud to announce that Growth Engineering and Unicorn Training, in association with e.learning age, are holding an exciting two-day seminar on the future of learning! Taking place on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th November 2014 at the Kia Oval in London, the E-Learning 20-20: Stay ahead of the game! seminar offers a unique chance for the eLearning community to come together to network, share knowledge and explore future trends in the industry. The landscape of eLearning is fast changing, so it’s vital to stay ahead of the curve. We’re delighted to say we’ll be joined by three industry big-hitters: Craig Weiss will be flying in from LA to provide his unique insights on what’s next for the industry. Founder and CEO of E-Learning 24/7, Craig was named the second most influential person in the world for eLearning in 2014. Craig will be with us throughout both days including a closing review and was named the second most influential person in the world for eLearning Q & A session. An Coppens is the Chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation Ltd, where the vision is to make business and learning more fun and engaging. She is an award-winning business coach, learning & development professional, author and speaker. She was ranked in the top 100 Innovation and gamification experts in 2012 and in 2014 entered the top 25 of gamification gurus worldwide. Mike Hawkyard is an expert on casual games design, self-publishing and digital marketing. His work has won many awards and helped generate over 253,000,000 play sessions in 2013 alone. As a Board member of TIGA, a UK trade association for computer game companies, he helps British studios stay competitive in a global market place. This led to him representing the UK games trade mission to South Korea in 2013. Buy your ticket now Places are strictly limited, please head to the e.learning age website to book your place! Prices are £195+VAT for a single day or £325+VAT for both days. Day one: Next Gen Learning Management Systems and Gamification As technologies continue to emerge and advance, the world of online learning is going through a period of rapid and unprecedented change. New technologies open up new possibilities for learning and development, but they also bring new challenges for L&D professionals. How do we make the right choices to meet the expectations of our learners and to drive business performance? To keep up, you need to understand what’s possible today, as well as what’s coming next. Which trends really matter and which are just today’s latest fad? 10.30am - 11.30am: Craig Weiss What is a Next Gen Learning Management System? The problem of engagement and getting learners invested in their learning. What’s the future for Learning Management Systems? +Q&A 11.30am - 1pm: Breakout groups Attendees can choose from: Rolling out an LMS, key challenges of LMS engagement, mobile learning, social learning (with GAME Retail) The future of Learning Management Systems with Craig Weiss  How to link gamification with real-life rewards and remuneration (with Noel Jolly of Steinhoff) 2pm - 2.30pm: An Coppens How to use gamification on Learning Management Systems and the challenges faced by organisations. What demographics affect gamification uptake and how can these problems be mitigated? How important is it to make gamification strategic and linked to learning? +Q&A 2.30pm - 4pm: Breakout groups Attendees can choose from: Rolling out an LMS, key challenges of LMS engagement, mobile learning, social learning (with GAME Retail) The future of Learning Management Systems with Craig Weiss  How to link gamification with real-life rewards and remuneration, effective use of gamification within an LMS (badges, leaderboards, levels) (with Noel Jolly of Steinhoff) Challenges of gamification & solutions (with An Coppens) Day Two: The future of learning content - You cannot be Serious! The exponential growth in the use of smart phones and tablet devices has in a period of less than five years transformed the way we as individuals find information, learn and share. Yet much of corporate eLearning remains deskbound, behind the firewall, and often is perceived as a necessary chore by reluctant learners. This seminar will explore the question of how we bridge that gap. What new tools are available, and where should we be looking for inspiration in our learning design? What are serious games and can they make a real difference to learning effectiveness? How do we transform eLearning into just-in-time Performance Support? 10.30am - 11.30am: Mike Hawkyard How is the mobile revolution changing the way we consume learning and what are the implications for learning content design and publishing? Mike is the managing director of Amuzo games, one of the UK’s most successful games development companies best known for their Lego games on the iPad and Android. Amuzo‘s award winning titles have been #1 on iOS in 130 countries and were played over 250,000,000 times last year alone. +Q&A 11.30am - 1pm: Breakout groups Choose from: Building game principles into your eLearning on a budget Migrating to mobile - upgrading your legacy content Performance support - chunking and JIT delivery 2pm - 4pm: Let’s play A unique opportunity to get creative with a practical, hands-on breakout session. Working in small groups, you’ll design and map out a game. (With Craig Weiss and Mike Hawkyard). To whet your appetite, why not download a research paper on gamification? Just click the button below!  

This Week’s Learning Hero is Erika Andersen! Erika is an author, consultant and coaching expert and a founding partner of Proteus; a training and consulting company that aims to create better organisations by growing better leaders. When it comes to Learning and Development, a lot of the focus tends to be on a top-down model, with managers delivering and coordinating training for their employees. But who is training the managers? It’s often been said that you can’t teach management skills - great leaders are born, not made. Maybe there’s an aspect of arrogance in that assumption, or perhaps it’s just the habit of ages. Whatever the case, Erika doesn’t sit around debating its source - she seeks to fix the problem by telling the managers and leaders of the world what they need to hear - leadership skills can be taught and they can be learned. She focuses on equipping managers for the leadership challenges they meet every day, as well as preparing them for anything that might come up in the future. By helping these individuals to become the best leaders they can be, Erika is also helping whole companies to succeed as these leadership lessons are turned into tangible results. Besides her consulting work, Erika is also a popular author on the subject of leadership and management. When she first got into the field, she looked around for a good book that just told her how to be a good manager. All she could find were small books with vague tips and tricks, and at the other end of the scale, she found dense scholarly tomes that went into exhaustive and specific detail. There was nothing in between the two extremes, so Erika decided to fill a gap in the market. Her latest book, Leading So People Will Follow, describes how leaders can truly succeed by employing six key attributes: far-sightedness, passion, courage, wisdom, generosity, and trustworthiness. In keeping with her conviction, she shows how it is indeed possible to turn people into better leaders. It’s only in this way that they can set the example necessary to lead better teams and thus form stronger companies. If you want to find out more, you can check out Erika’s website which is regularly updated with insightful articles. You can also keep updated with the latest from Erika by following her on Twitter. Erika Andersen demonstrates on a daily basis how behavioural change can completely transform companies. The key to getting the most out of your people is engagement. If you can deliver training that keeps them interested, excited and engaged, then the rest is easy! At Growth Engineering, we help businesses realise their full potential with the help of our Gamified Social Learning Management System. To find out how the Academy LMS can help you unlock the secrets of engagement, fill in the form below to download our white paper.  

Stop what you’re doing and listen up: Growth Engineering won THREE coveted awards at the 2014 E-Learning Awards gala evening on 6th November! We were shortlisted for five awards (find out more here) so it was absolutely fantastic to scoop three of them! Here’s what we came away with: Bronze for Best E-Learning Project - Private Sector in conjunction with the incredible Bensons for Beds (read the case study!). Noel Jolly, Head of HR for Steinhoff Retail (which Bensons is part of), was among five of our wonderful clients who joined us for the exciting awards ceremony at the London Marriott Hotel, and it was a delight to share the stage with him to celebrate Bensons and Growth Engineering’s combined success. The second award was another Bronze, this time in the Best Learning Management System Implementation, which we won with Brakes for the impressive Brakes Academy (read the case study here!). The awesome Ian Moreton-Thickett joined us on stage to pick up the award - and share a celebratory glass of wine (or three)! Finally, we were blown away to receive GOLD in the special e.learning age Outstanding Learning Organisation Award category - a huge honour that we are delighted to have won! As we often say, Growth Engineering isn’t just a Learning Technologies company. We’re an organisation that’s on a mission to shake up the online learning landscape, force a revolution and transform learning from something dull and boring into an experience that excites, delights and engages learners. To be recognised as shaking some life into online learning is fantastic, and something we’re incredibly proud of. Juliette Denny, Managing Director of Growth Engineering, said: "What an honour! We won a Silver award last year and thought we couldn’t feel any better than we did then, but this is even more incredible! Thank you, e.learning age, for putting on yet another incredible evening. The E-Learning Awards have seen ten years of excellence - let’s raise a glass to another ten!" We may not have come away with all 5 of the awards we were shortlisted for, but for us - and our lovely clients - we feel like we’ve achieved something spectacular, particularly when we consider all the other accolades we’ve received this year: three Brandon Hall Excellence Awards (including an award with Azlan Tech Data) and very impressive rankings from eLearning expert Craig Weiss of #1 NextGen LMS, #1 Gamified LMS and #1 LMS in Europe. So please join us in toasting the success of our clients, who work so tirelessly to implement our learning solutions into their organisations, and to all the Growth Engineering team for their dedication to striving for greatness. See you all next year for more of the same! Want to find out more about our multi-award winning Gamified Social Academy LMS and what it can do for your organisation? Click the button below and fill out the form!      

We’re really excited to invite you to attend the E-Learning 20-20 Stay ahead of the game! seminar at the Kia Oval on 26-27 November. This seminar will offer unique insights from online learning thought leaders, gamification gurus and the organisations that utilise award-winning learning technology. You’ll find out more about: Future trends in eLearning What the best ‘NextGen’ Learning Management Systems have over legacy LMSs How to secure learner engagement How to roll out a training plan utilising ‘Gamification’ How to link gamification to real-life rewards By the end of the seminar, you will: Have a plan for implementing gamification and games into your learning and development programmes Be able to make plans to keep ahead of the changes within the industry Understand how to migrate to mobile learning Be able to create games for learning Hosted by eLearning expert Craig Weiss, gamification guru An Coppens and game design expert Mike Hawkyard. Are you ready to get ahead of the game, or are you willing to fall behind? Book now to avoid disappointment: E-Learning 20-20 Stay ahead of the game! seminar. We hope to see you there! Want to find out more about what we do and what gets us motivated? Click the button below!  

We’re really excited to share with you all the awesome news that Juliette Denny, Founder and Managing Director of Growth Engineering, has reached the final of the prestigious NatWest everywoman Awards for her contribution to technology! Juliette is one of three finalists for the NatWest everywoman ‘Iris’ award, which is sponsored by IBM. It’s given ‘to the most inspirational and successful female entrepreneur who runs a business that uses technology in an innovative and disruptive way’ - and as we wage war on dull online learning, we think it’s a fitting selection! The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on December 3rd at the Dorchester in London. But until then, here’s a bit more about Juliette, us, and of course everywoman. In 2004, while working in the US, Juliette identified a need in the market for a Learning Management platform and eLearning content that engaged and delighted learners. Her vision was to create online learning so compelling that organisations could deliver training and development programmes that their staff enjoyed and really wanted to be engaged with. Fed up of the boring online learning that was suffocating L&D, Juliette launched Growth Engineering - with the support of her family - upon her return to the UK. Juliette’s goal is for Growth Engineering to provide exceptional online learning through our ISMM and ILM eLearning Libraries and our Gamified Academy Learning Management System to 10% of the world’s population within 10 years. It’s a ballsy goal, but having recently opened offices in India, the Philippines and the US, and with clients as far reaching as Australia, Canada and Peru, it’s a goal that looks set to become a reality. Speaking about being selected as a finalist, Juliette said: "I can hardly believe it! I was excited to have been selected for the shortlist, but to reach the final is simply incredible. We work hard at Growth Engineering to shake up the learning landscape by delivering beautiful, engaging learning technologies, so it’s great to be acknowledged for this." If you’d like to find out more about what we do, get in touch with us by clicking the button below and filling out the form. We can’t wait to hear from you! About the Awards The NatWest everywoman awards were launched 12 years ago to celebrate British entrepreneurship and creating female role models to highlight the benefits and rewards of business ownership. Find out more here: NatWest everywoman Awards.  

Do you remember, as a child, when the teacher would wheel a TV into your classroom during lessons? It was a joyous occasion, for it marked the start of something very special. Something engaging, interesting, and captivating. When your teacher pressed ‘Play’, learning no longer felt like learning. You didn’t have to try not to fall asleep or wish away the hour. You were free to sit back, watch, consume and learn. You probably don’t remember many of the textbooks you read in school when you were young - but the likelihood is you do remember at least one educational video you were shown during class. That’s because watching a video is more engaging than reading or copying off a blackboard. Here’s why videos rock: Why Videos are Vital in eLearning 1. Videos add an extra dimension to eLearning. They add interactivity, boost interest and engagement, and are great for presenting information in a role-play style scenario. Reading can get tiring after a while, so replacing text-heavy screens with a ‘talking head’ can ease the process and make it easier for learners to take in the information. 2. Real-life, face-to-face training in classrooms and workshops is expensive. Think about it: booking the venue, paying the tutor, getting employees there, paying expenses, a lost day’s work… The costs soon add up and it quickly becomes a very expensive venture. On the other hand, using videos in eLearning is much less expensive, while still being a personal way of getting your message out there to your learners - which they’ll appreciate! 3. It’s easy to record videos. Sure, you can head to a local recording studio, stand in front of a green screen and have the video digitally altered afterwards. But you don’t have to! You could choose to record yourself on your computer or mobile phone and upload it straight away to your online learning portal. Much simpler, quicker and cheaper! 4. According to research, 65% of us are visual learners, so videos really appeal to the way in which we like to learn. Some of us find reading difficult and tiresome, yet come alive with interest and enthusiasm when presented with a video from which to learn. The most important thing is having the option: ok, not everyone will like videos, so be sure to include a transcript too - that’ll get everyone on the same page and improving their knowledge. 5. Videos are very quick to make. We said before how simple it is to create and upload a video - therefore, that makes it quick, too. Picture this: the industry your organisation is in has passed new legislation and you need to update your employees as soon as possible to avoid repercussions. You could write it all down in a slideshow presentation (boo! Boring!), create an eLearning module on it (yay, but time consuming) or grab your CEO, sit him in a chair and record him on your mobile explaining the new legislation. You can have the video up on the Learning Management System and being watched by hundreds of employees in minutes! 6. You can track videos to make sure everyone has seen it. Your Learning Management System will be able to monitor and report on who watched it, who has yet to watch it and who started but then stopped. You can then send reminders to those employees to make sure they log on and get themselves up to speed. In fact, you can even set these reminders to go out automatically after a certain date. Easy and effective! To find out more about how to create awesome eLearning, check out our white paper:  

This week, we’re going to jump away from the world of learning and development to bring you something a little different. Learning can be found in all kinds of places and this week, we’ve found more enlightenment than we thought possible in the whimsical world of webcomics. Randall Munroe has an impressive, if diverse resume, including topics as wide-ranging as robotics and comic strips. His website, xkcd, is a haven of geeky comedy featuring minimalist stick figures dealing with themes like computer science, philosophy, social awkwardness and irony. But it isn’t his comic that’s caught our eye this week (brilliant though it is). Randall has recently published What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, a book based on the section of the same name on xkcd. Here, fans submit their own hypothetical questions, many of which are utterly ridiculous, and Randall endeavours to find the best, most accurate scientific answer he can. Need a couple of examples? "My 12-year-old daughter is proposing an interesting project. She is planning to attach a number of helium balloons to a chair, which in turn would be tethered by means of a rope to a Ferrari. Her 13-year-old friend would then drive the Ferrari around, while she sits in the chair enjoying uninterrupted views of the countryside. Leaving aside the legal and insurance difficulties, my daughter is keen to know the maximum speed that she could expect to attain, and how many helium balloons would be required." Phil Rodgers, Cambridge, UK Find the answer here. "As plastic is made from oil and oil is made from dead dinosaurs, how much actual real dinosaur is there in a plastic dinosaur?" Steve Lydford Find the answer here. In most cases, the answer has no practical value but sometimes, it’s the process used to arrive at the answer that’s truly ingenious. He regularly employs complex mathematics and applies it to figures gleaned from a number of scientific studies to arrive at something resembling a satisfactory explanation. In What if?, we see the value of curiosity. In the world of learning and development, it’s easy to forget that not all learning needs to have an objective that can be mapped to a business goal. It’s important to think outside of the box sometimes - after all, it’s only through thinking creatively that we can arrive at creative solutions. One way to tap into the wellspring of creativity in your company is to encourage social learning. Collaborative knowledge sharing is a way to take advantage the collective genius of your employees and realise the true potential of your business. Our Academy LMS is built not only to deliver training to your learners, but to encourage real organisational change. To find out how this can help you, download our white paper by clicking the button below.  

If you’re a salesperson or you’re a Learning and Development professional looking to upskill your salesforce, you’ve probably encountered a lot of boring online sales training. You know the kind we mean. It has great intentions, but the click-through slideshows are dull, the videos bland and monotonous, and the recall questions at the end could send a hyperactive toddler straight into the land of nod. You’re probably doubting the efficacy of online sales training altogether and considering going back to classroom or workshop training. But don’t forget the reason you wanted to steer clear of this in the first place: real-life, face-to-face sales training is expensive, time consuming and difficult to roll out to an entire workforce. Online learning, on the other hand, is quicker, easier and more cost effective, and it’s a piece of cake to roll out the same sales qualifications to an entire workforce in one fell swoop, whether employees are in a nearby office or on another continent. Our Sales Academies are one way of doing this. Sales Academies are online learning portals that host, deliver, monitor and report on sales training programmes. Salespeople simply log on, open up eLearning modules, go through them and submit assessments and assignments to check their knowledge. It sounds similar to other online sales training, but there are a few big differences: Our Sales Academy is social. Learners are encouraged to share their knowledge with other salespeople who are going through the same training, which helps everyone to get to grips with concepts better and reach a greater depth of understanding. Standard online sales training is lonely - learners go through eLearning modules (usually slideshows only!) all on their own and aren’t able to bounce ideas off one another. Sales Academies are social, collaborative learning spaces that encourage interactions - creating a culture of knowledge sharing which boosts intellectual capital. Our Sales Academy is gamified. Gamification is the application of gaming mechanics and metaphors to non-gaming scenarios, like sales training. It makes the whole learning process much more fun and enjoyable by rewarding learners for desired behaviours, thus reinforcing them and leading to a more successful training roll-out. Our Sales Academies offer accredited sales training. We’ve partnered up with the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (ISMM) to offer Ofqual-accredited qualifications which confer real advantages when it comes to getting a new job or working your way up the career ladder. ISMM qualifications are respected all over the world - in fact, one of our Australian clients is putting their employees through ISMM training. Our sales training comes preloaded onto an Academy or as a separate entity. By this, we mean that you can license the library of ISMM content to your Learning Management System, create a specialised *Your Company Name* Sales Academy on which to offer the training, or sign individual employees up to our Academy, the Sales Superstars Academy. Whatever method you choose, you’ll know that you’re treating your employees to impressive sales training that will boost their skills, engage them in their learning and let them gain a recognised qualification. Want to find out more? Download the Sales Academy white paper by clicking the button below, or head on over to our Sales Superstars sister site!  

Experience real gamification at the E-Learning 20-20: Stay ahead of the game! seminar at the Kia Oval on Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 November. It’s not long until the exciting event - put on by e.learning age in association with Growth Engineering and Unicorn Training - which will provide a unique opportunity for the eLearning community to come together to network, share knowledge and explore future trends in the industry. Let’s take a closer look at what Day 1 holds and how the entire two-day seminar will be ‘gamified’: Day One: Next Gen LMS & Gamification        As technologies continue to emerge and advance, the world of online learning is going through a period of rapid and unprecedented change. New technologies open up new possibilities for learning and development, but they also bring new challenges for L&D professionals. How do we make the right choices to meet the expectations of our learners and to drive business performance? To keep up, you need to understand what’s possible today, as well as what’s coming next. Which trends really matter and which are just today’s latest fad? The day kicks off with eLearning expert Craig Weiss (of elearninfo247 fame) explaining how the ‘next generation’ of Learning Management Systems is revolutionising the L&D landscape, and what the future might hold for learning technologies. At 11.30, Craig is joined by GAME Retail and Noel Jolly of Bensons for Beds (part of the Steinhoff Group) for breakout sessions, including: Rolling out an LMS, the key challenges of LMS engagement, mobile learning and social learning The future of Learning Management Systems How to link gamification with real-life rewards and remuneration After lunch, gamification expert An Coppens, of Gamification Nation, will be speaking on how to use gamification on Learning Management Systems and overcome challenges, in what situations gamification works best and the importance of making gamification strategic and linked in business goals. Finally, Day One will end with another breakout group session, focusing on the three issues from earlier as well as: Challenges of gamification and how to overcome them. As for gamifying the event…   Attendees will be split up into four groups at the start of the day. Every time they interact with the speakers, ask or answer questions and take an active role in the day, they’ll receive a badge and a point will be added to their team’s running total. The team with the most points at the end of the day will be crowed champions! Time is running out to get your ticket - head to the e.learning age website to buy your ticket now! Find out more about gamification and what we do by clicking the button below: