Here at Growth Engineering, we know how learning and development can really engage employees, boost morale and improve company culture. Although adequate training is undoubtedly a vital cornerstone in your company culture, it’s not the only thing that needs to be considered. All good managers and leaders understand that to craft the kind of company that people want to work for, it’s important to have clearly defined values and goals. It’s easy to find out how to do a job - it’s up to your company culture to tell you why. S. Chris Edmonds is a speaker, consultant and author who makes it his mission to help out organisations by showing them how to improve their company culture. Chris embarked on a consulting career in the early 90s after 15 years leading business teams. Since then he has become an authority on the importance of organisational culture and he has done a lot to change the way it is perceived by business leaders. When it comes to running a business, company culture has for a long time been considered the "soft stuff" of the mix. It’s taken for granted that task management and KPIs are the aspects that demand the most focus. In reality though, it is becoming steadily obvious that it’s the so-called "soft stuff" that makes the difference between companies that just get by, and those that surpass expectations and thrive. This is one of the main lessons to take from The Culture Engine, Chris’ latest book. In this book, Chris sets out a plan for anyone who wants to unlock the power of their organisational culture. The framework he presents helps managers to define their company culture, identify patterns of behaviour that generate the best results and build those behaviours into the company’s ethos. This latest offering from Chris Edmonds brings together his years of experience and it’s a great starting point for anyone who wants to improve employee engagement, customer experience and of course, profit! You can check it out for yourself here. You can find out more about Chris and his consultancy work on his website, or you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. At Growth Engineering, we’ve seen what amazing results businesses can gain from bringing everyone together and celebrating who they are. Our learning solutions are designed to engage learners and make them feel like they are part of a winning team. By applying the principles of Social Learning to your L&D, you can discover a new realm of engagement and build a company that your people are proud to be a part of. Want to know how? Just click the button!  The post This week’s Learning Hero is S. Chris Edmonds! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Drumroll please… Growth Engineering’s Academy LMS has been ranked the #1 LMS in the entire universe! Ok, technically it’s the best LMS in the world, but that’s still a pretty awesome feat, right? eLearning expert Craig Weiss - yep, the same one who will be joining us on our stand (Stand 150) for three talks at Learning Technologies - reviewed hundreds of Learning Management Systems and came to the same conclusion that we’ve always known to be true - Growth Engineering’s Gamified Social Academy LMS is the best, most incredible, most jaw-dropping, most fun and most engaging LMS in the solar system! And, according to Craig, it’s not hard to see why. Craig highlights our ‘extraordinary’ service and support, ‘commitment to push the envelope’ and ‘monthly updates with enhancements and feature sets, rather than tweaks’ that most LMSs release. Pretty neat, right? If you’re interested in reading more, check out Craig’s website here or download his report here. And don’t forget, Craig will be joining us on Stand 150 at Learning Technologies on 28th and 29th January! He’ll be hosting three talks, two on day 1 and a final talk on day 2. Click here for more information. If you want to see for yourself just why Growth Engineering’s Academy LMS is the best in the world, why not take a tour?          The post Growth Engineering’s Academy LMS is officially the Best LMS in the World appeared first on Growth Engineering.

It will come to no surprise to you when we say that technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives. From birth to death (and every fun dip, climb and twist on the rollercoaster of life in between), technology is making its mark. Whether it’s the way we brush our teeth, navigate cities or read books, advances in computing, circuitry, robotics and the internet are affecting everything we do. And - you may have guessed this already - it applies to learning, too! Nowadays, organisational training doesn’t have to remain firmly wedged in a seat in the classroom. It has been released from its confines and we can now learn anytime, anywhere and anyhow! That’s because, when it comes to training, technology opens up so many opportunities. With online learning that utilises all this awesome new technology, learners are able to log on to their Learning Management System when they’re lying in bed on a rainy Sunday or on their lunch break during the week. They can take eLearning courses in their own time, at their own pace, and yet the training is so engaging that it is still effective. In the past, organisational training may have involved months of planning, weeks of arranging venues and tutors, hours of poring over budget sheets and hundreds (of thousands) of pounds in lost sales. If you wanted to train up your best salespeople, you’d have to take them away from doing their job for the whole training programme - which is counterintuitive at best, and pretty silly at worst! But now, you don’t need to drag your employees away from their jobs for week-long workshops or training days. Instead, they can do an hour’s work here and there, an assignment on a quiet day or during the weekend, and get a lot more done - all while continuing to push the company forward to ever greater success! Not only is technology making it easier to access online learning, but it’s making it more fun, engaging and exciting, too. For starters, advances in technology mean that now it’s possible to hook learning up with rewards like virtual badges and points. This makes learning more like a game - in fact, it’s a technique that’s called gamification, and we’ve found that gamification helps to get learners engaged and make learning fun! Want to find out more about what advances in technology are doing for learning? Check out our white paper below!  The post How Technology is Changing the Way We Learn appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Are your learners engaged or have they been infected with the zombie virus? Are they eager beavers or slow-moving sloths? If you tick the boxes of these 9 points, you’ll know that your learners aren’t engaged - and you’ll know you need to invest in learner engagement posthaste! 1. You can almost smell the dread coming off your learners - the stench of disengagement pervades every nook and cranny of the office. As soon as that email inviting them to take their compliance eLearning lands in their inbox, you’ll hear their screams and groans from all directions. 2. Learners put off their training for as long as humanly possible. And when they do finally get around to doing it, they make sure everyone knows it’s not willingly. "This is so boring! I’m only doing it because I have to. It’s not like I’ll learn anything from it anyway." 3. ZOMBIES! Your learners are so bored and lifeless they may as well be zombies. They’re brain dead; nothing more than shuffling corpses. Click here for a video of how to cure your learners of the zombie virus! 4. Your learners only log on to their Learning Management System under threat of death (or loss of job). If your learners were engaged, you wouldn’t have to bribe, pester or threaten them in order to get them going on their Learning Management System. 5. Your learners aren’t, you know, learning anything. You can’t see any improvements in their performance, increases in sales or boosts in knowledge. D’oh! You’re in exactly the same place as you were before the training programme, except for one issue: you’ve spent your L&D budget! 6. Your learners bad-mouth their online training any change they get. Employees that do this aren’t just lacking engagement - they’re actively disengaged. They don’t just find the training boring - they HATE IT WITH A PASSION! Phew. Calm down. 7. Activity on your Learning Management System begins to trail off. What might once have appeared to be a buzzing hive of activity is now a graveyard - complete with cobwebs. Learners just aren’t logging on as often as they used to. This is because they realised pretty early on that the only kind of eLearning they’ll get on their LMS is boring. It just won’t keep their attention - so they’re not bothering.8. Learners zoom through eLearning modules… But don’t take anything in. If you create eLearning units that learners can just click right on through, guess what? If they’re not engaged, they’ll do just that. We’ve even heard some learners say they’ll compete to see who can click their way through the fastest! 9. Your return on investment is atrocious. Sorry, but that’s the crux of it. If your online learning isn’t engaging, your learners won’t learn and your training programme will be a complete disaster! This’ll be apparent in your learners’ reviews of their training, senior management’s perceptions and ultimately the return you’ll get on your training spend. If any of these seem familiar to you, then start panicking - yesterday. Your first step towards securing learner engagement is to download our white paper. It’ll tell you why engagement is important and how to send it sky-rocketing. Just click the button below:  The post 9 Signs You Need to Invest in Learner Engagement appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Earlier this month it was announced that our Learning Management System - the Academy LMS - was placed in the Number 1 spot in eLearning expert Craig Weiss’s list of Top 50 LMSs. We were so excited we could hardly contain ourselves! In fact, we couldn’t even wait until Craig had released his corresponding blog post on his report before we wrote our own. But now we’re happy to say Craig’s blog post is live and you can check it out for yourself. Craig reviews over 600 LMSs for his report, so coming first out of all of those contenders is a massive achievement - well done Team GE! Head over to Craig’s website to read his article or click here to download his full Top 50 LMS for 2015 report - well worth the purchase, especially because you’ll get the money back if you then choose to go with the Academy LMS, the world’s best Learning Management System (no, I don’t think we’ll ever get bored of saying that!). Here’s what Craig said about li’l ol’ Growth Engineering’s gamified social LMS: "I could write thousands of words on this system and it still wouldn’t be enough. By far the most modern hip front and back end in the industry (i.e. learner and admin).  One of the very few systems, that I as a learner would have fun and want to stay in.  Support is elite. Constantly adding new features and capabilties.  Mobile rolling out includes on/off synch, native app with xAPI. Gamification - the best in the market. This is a LMS wrapped around gamification, so if you are not into gamification, this may not work for you. My take though, is today you may not be using gamification, but a year from now?  Features are all there and then some.  They are launching Q2 a built-in authoring tool with gamification tied around it and some gaming elements. Badge Library included, social solid, learner huge win!  #1 in Next Gen, #1 in Retail.  They are also working on a HE version which will offer different features than corporate, another nice win for me." Nice, eh? Click here to read the rest. If your interest in the world’s #1 LMS is piqued, there are a few things you can do: 1. Get in touch with us to request a demo tour of our Academy. We’re so proud of our LMS and we love to show it off! 2. Download some of our white papers to find out more about what we do - and why! Some particular highlights are (click each one): Social Learning: How to set your learning free How to secure ROI on your LMS Overcoming common objections to online learning The Business Case for Gamification 3. Click the button below and fill in the form and we’ll get back in touch at a time that suits you. We’re nice like that! We look forward to talking to you!  The post The Academy LMS is the #1 Learning Management System in the World appeared first on Growth Engineering.

This week, we’ve chosen one of the most prolific bloggers on the internet. The label "prolific blogger" can be a double-edged sword. Sure, everyone likes to follow a blog that’s updated regularly but all too often that results in a regular stream of okayish content that’s occasionally ‘hmm’, but more often than not, it’s a bit ‘meh’. This is only to be expected - it’s simply impossible to produce engaging and inspiring content all day, every day, isn’t it? Well, it can be done, but it means working your backside off and dedicating yourself to a mission of enlightenment and most bloggers are hobbyists at best. In her blog, Brain Pickings, Maria Popova does the impossible and consistently writes insightful articles about the most inspirational aspects of literature, culture and philosophy. In an interview for Lifehacker, Maria confesses to spending over 450 hours per month working on Brain Pickings. Now when you consider that there are only 730 hours, give or take, in a month, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for eating and sleeping and all of those other damned distractions. But, from our point of view at least, it’s time well spent. Brain Pickings is one of those blogs that you can feel proud to read. Each article is composed of bits and bobs collected by Maria in her constant quest for knowledge and they have the unique ability to make the reader feel both clever and ignorant at the same time. Most striking of all is that it’s impossible to walk away from Brain Pickings without feeling amazed and inspired. With blog titles like these, it’s easy to see why: 20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life Famous Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diary An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence And that’s just three articles picked at random so you can imagine what the rest of the site is like! One of the most inspirational articles on Brain Pickings concerns the lessons that Maria has learned since starting the project in 2006. Back then it was only a weekly email that she sent to some of her friends and colleagues. You can read the article here, or check out this short video in which Maria sums up her 7 lessons. If you want to pick Maria’s brain (and we strongly recommend that you do), then pop along to Brain Pickings. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook and ensure a regular stream of mind-expanding status updates in your newsfeed. Maria’s incredible achievement is only possible because she’s passionate about what she does. At Growth Engineering, we’re passionate about exciting online learning. It’s the drive to share our passion with learners everywhere that gets us up every morning. If you want to make learning fun again and revolutionise your company culture, get in touch with us today!  The post This Week’s Learning Hero is Maria Popova appeared first on Growth Engineering.

We’re back from Learning Technologies 2015, and what an event it was! After taking a break from the event - held in Olympia Central in London on Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th January - for a couple of years, it was a great experience to be back in the action and exhibiting alongside hundreds of other training companies, eLearning creators and technology companies. Our Sales and Commercial Champion gives a demo of our Academy LMS Learning Technologies hosts a huge number of free seminars for visitors, though we noticed a few exhibitors sneaking into seminars, too - us included! The seminars ranged from the basics of online learning and blended learning to creating eLearning apps and discovering the importance of compliance for L&D. Whatever your area of interest, there were seminars for you. We particularly enjoyed JollyDeck’s talk on good and bad uses of gamification, and of course our MD Juliette Denny’s talk on how to create awesome game-based eLearning. We were busy from start to finish, showing people the Academy LMS - our multi-award winning Learning Management System which was recently voted the #1 LMS in the world - and our brand new game-based authoring tool, Genie, which we launched at the event. We’re really excited about Genie; it’s a unique authoring tool that focuses on making eLearning simple and effortless for content creators as well as fun and engaging for learners - a win/win, if you ask us! There are just five simple steps to create awesome game-based learning with Genie: Upload your assets (images, videos, sound bites) Build your question bank (type in questions and answers - select from yes/no, multiple choice or text) Pick one of Genie’s game templates (e.g. Around the World, Pole Position, or any bespoke games you desire) Let Genie work his magic (behind the scenes Genie will take everything you’ve entered into the eLearning project and automatically populate the game) Delight your learners! Once Genie has waved his magic wand, you’ll have some incredible game-based eLearning that will make your learners happy and get them engaged, enthusiastic and motivated. We’re pleased to say that the interest in Genie was phenomenal. Whether it was people visiting us because of our awesome Genie-themed outfits or being directed to our stand by colleagues, we were bowled over (and delighted!) by the number of visitors wanting to find out more about our game-based authoring tool. It just goes to show that when you create something unique it’ll capture people’s attention. Want to find out more about Genie? Check out the video below and click here to read more. If you’d like to chat with us about Genie and what he can do for your organisation, click the button below and we’ll get in touch.  The post Game-based Delight at Learning Technologies 2015 appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Pitching eLearning to senior management can be tricky. They might be lacking time to listen to your presentation, budget to implement it or knowledge of what it can do for your organisation. That’s why we put together these 5 super-quick eLearning elevator pitches which will help you get your foot in the door. So imagine you’re in the lift with your boss and you have a couple of minutes for each pitch: 1. eLearning is cost effective Forget booking meeting spaces or classrooms, paying for lunches, travel, accommodation and workshop tutors. Forget the cost of lost sales that occur from taking your employees out of work for the day or week. Online learning is cost-effective because learners can log on to their Learning Management System during down time at work or at home, work through eLearning at their own pace and get things done when it’s convenient for them - and the organisation. 2. Learn anytime, anywhere, anyhow! With online learning, there’s essentially no limit to where or when employees can do their training. On the bus? Yep. On their lunch break? Of course. Snowed in at home? Yup! If some employees want to race ahead of others and get a head start, that’s fine. On the other hand, if others are really busy at work and need to get a project out of the way before they commit to training, that’s fine - just set a deadline and employees can make sure they have completed the training before then, whenever works for them. 3. Online learning is fun You might be met with a look of disbelief if you say this, but that’s only because it’s likely that your boss has had bad experiences of online learning in the past. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s actually very simple and easy to make online learning fun and engaging: use gamification! Gamification involves using gaming mechanics like badges, points and leaderboards. It makes learning more fun because it encourages competition and makes undertaking eLearning modules and doing tests and assessments more enjoyable and engaging. And when learners are more engaged, they’ll be learning more. 4. Online learning is multi-language Rolling out classroom training to thousands of employees who speak a variety of languages is tricky. Luckily, our Academy LMS comes with a drop-down list of languages, which means each learner can select their own language. It really makes them feel at home! 5. Online learning is aligned to business needs Picture this: you work in a multi-national organisation with offices all over the world. New legislation comes in that affects every single person in your business. Your first thought is probably one of panic - how will you make sure all employees know of this legislation? How will you do so fast enough to satisfy the conditions? What will happen if you fail in rolling out this new information? Don’t panic. With online learning, this is easy. You’ll just have to create an announcement or a short eLearning module containing all the information, ‘invite’ your employees to take it on their Learning Management System and be able to monitor who has then learnt about the legislation. No travelling required; no phone calls; no meetings; no workshops. Simple. Want to find out more? We wrote a white paper to tackle all the most common criticisms and objections to online learning. Click the button below to download!  The post 5 Effective eLearning Elevator Pitches appeared first on Growth Engineering.

As if it wasn’t enough that we’ve given you the best Learning Management System in the world (as ranked by renowned expert Craig Weiss), we’ve also branched out into the exciting realm of authoring tools. We’ve been beavering away behind the scenes to bring you Genie - a content authoring tool like no other! Genie is a magical being that will grant all your eLearning wishes by creating fun, engaging and motivating game-based eLearning. Genie is obsessed with making learning fun. He’s passionate about engaging learners and really has all their best interests at heart. Let’s take a look at what Genie has to offer: THE DASHBOARD This is where eLearning wizards can see all their eLearning projects at a glance, from what projects are active to who is contributing the most and which badges are up for grabs or have been achieved. PROJECT ACTIVITY STREAM This is the place to keep up to date with everything that your team is doing - automatic and shared posts on the Dashboard show who is doing what and how each project is progressing. When it comes to actually creating awesome game-based eLearning, there are five steps: 1. Upload your assets ‘Assets’ are images, videos, sound bites, badges etc that will make your eLearning stand out and be more interesting and captivating for learners. Genie hates reams of text on slideshows, so images and videos make the learning much more enjoyable for learners.   2. Build your question bank Some of the games you can select (see #3) will require Genie to wave his magic wand and randomly pull questions from your question bank into the eLearning. It’s always a good idea to create more questions than you need, as this ensures learners see different questions and won’t be able to cheat by asking others what they put!   3. Choose a game template Genie has a few inbuilt game templates, such as Around the World, Pole Position (left) and Crossing the Chasm. But there is no limit to Genie’s abilities, so if you have your own idea for a game, let us know and we can get it created. The game you choose will depend on your specific eLearning needs and what you think will work best with the content. If you’re creating an assessment, then Crossing the Chasm will work really well - Genie will populate the game from the question bank, and learners will have to answer questions correctly in order to make it across the board. 4. Let Genie work his magic! Once you press ‘create’, Genie will set to work. He’ll hop on his magic carpet, wave his wand and get busy creating the best piece of game-based learning you’ll have ever seen!   5. Delight your learners! Picture this: learners start their eLearning unit expecting the same old yawn-inducing slideshow. But instead they’re instantly surprised and thrilled to find something entirely different! Badges, images and games, oh my!   If that’s not enough to excite you, well how about this: we’re offering lucky eLearning aficionados the chance to sign up for a Genie Beta Account to try Genie out before he’s officially launched into the big, bad world! Just click here and fill out the form to be on the list!    The post Magical game-based eLearning is effective and engaging appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Are you guilty of committing online learning sins? Do your learners dread your eLearning modules? Does your rigid approach and aversion to change and update your eLearning rankle your team? If you identify with any of these 7 deadly sins of online learning, you’ll need to rethink your eLearning strategy! Here’s what not to do if you don’t want your team to hate you and your learners to wish bad things on you! 1. Text overload! No one likes to read reams and reams of text, especially not on a computer screen or tablet. That’s why we like to keep our articles short and sweet, peppered with images and headings. It’s easier to read, right? Of course, some text is necessary in eLearning to explain terms, show workings or introduce new theories, but any more than that becomes overkill. "But how will I get the content across?" we hear you ask. Well, that’s where other forms of media come in: video and audio, specifically. We pay much more attention when we can see or hear a presenter than if we’re asked to read paragraphs of text. So next time you’re creating eLearning, make sure you keep it short and sweet. 2. Ignoring the learner. If you were baking a cake for someone’s birthday, would you think about whether they would like the taste, or would you do whatever seemed ‘easiest’ or most ‘functional’? If they were mad on chocolate, would you bake a Victoria sponge because that’s what you always do and you know the recipe off by heart? Of course not! You’d bake a gorgeous gooey chocolatey cake that they would adore. "Oh, it’s heaven!" they’d cry - not "Oh. Victoria sponge again… thanks." In the same way, when creating eLearning, you shouldn’t think about what makes your job easiest, what is quickest or involves the least amount of hard work. Instead, you should do everything within your power to make the eLearning appeal to your learners. 3. Lack of interactivity Next Arrow: Click. Next Arrow: Click. Next Arrow: Click. Next Arrow: Click. Boring, right? Your learners won’t appreciate you if your eLearning amounts to a plain old slideshow - and your team won’t be proud to put their name to this ‘eLearning’ that could really just be sent out as a PDF. Instead, the focus should be on interactivity; clicking various places on screen to progress, drag and drop exercises, inputting their own thoughts and experiences into the learning and choosing how they progress through the module. Interactivity like this will make the whole experience much more valuable and the content will stick in learners’ minds. 4. Yo, you ugly! The amount of ugly eLearning out there is crazy - we often stare at the screens thinking that it’s almost as though the content creator was trying to create the ugliest-looking, most poorly-working eLearning module they possibly could. You know, like how kids will do a really shoddy job of washing the dishes so they aren’t asked again? Yet it’s the job of these eLearning designers to create units that hundreds or thousands of learners will see. You’d think they’d try a little bit harder, right!? In simple terms: don’t be the ugly sister. Make the effort to be the beautiful Princess. 5. It’s too hard! What is more demoralising than logging on to take your eLearning unit and realising it’s all way above your head? It’s never nice to feel out of your depth, and eLearning that is unnecessarily technical, pitched too far above the learner’s level or full of complicated terms will really put them off. Solution? Make sure the content is pitched at the right level, never use an uncommon or overly-complicated (read: pretentious) term when you could use a well-known one, and make sure there is further reading available for those learners who need a bit more help. 6. It’s too easy! Everyone knows their ABCs and their 123s. If they didn’t, they certainly wouldn’t be in a position to undertake an eLearning module! So don’t treat them like idiots. If they’re taking a sales management training course, you can be confident that they’ll already know what ‘closing a sale’ is - don’t teach them to suck eggs. If an eLearning module is going to be worth a learner’s time, it needs to teach them things they don’t already know. It’s a delicate balance to strike, but one which will pay off dividends when a learner comes away from their training energised, full of beans and motivation, and ready to take on the world with their newfound knowledge! 7. It’s too long! Everyone’s time is precious, so it’s a deadly sin to draw out a learning module longer than it needs to be. If you can explain a theory in one paragraph, don’t try to stretch it over three slides because you think it looks more professional. Not only will it take you and your team longer to create, but the learner will certainly not appreciate it! In the same vein, if you say an eLearning unit will take 1.5 hours to complete, it better had - inaccurate timings will make you an object of hate where learners are concerned! Imagine they schedule in the time into their busy days and then find their course overruns and they have to either stop their eLearning or cancel a meeting… That certainly won’t get you into their good books! It pains us to say this, but this is by no meals a definitive list of eLearning sins - there are many more committed by even the most good-intentioned content creators. If you commit any of these seven deadly eLearning sins, make sure you heed our warnings and make a commitment to change! It’s never too late to learn how to create incredible eLearning - click here to find out more!  The post Seven Deadly Sins of Online Learning appeared first on Growth Engineering.