Be Innovative in the Way You Educate and Engage Talent There is a big black cloud quickly moving in on companies all over the world.  As most would expect, it has something to do with the device you have pulled out of your pocket 150 times already today.  Organizations may think that they can avoid the storm moving in their direction by going mobile with their technologies.  Unfortunately, that is not enough to keep this force of nature at bay.  This storm consists of millions of millennials moving into the workforce, and they are coming in big waves.  "Over 75 percent of the global workforce will be millennials by 2025…" Projections of the labor workforce 2050 These talented people are more comfortable with technology than any generation before them.  The smartphone has evolved with them through childhood; the tablet is a tool used not just for recreation but required for education; and social networking is the number one way that these millennials know how to communicate. However, along with their highly sought-after technology skills, Millennials tend to be loyal to brands, not companies. The thought of staying with the same company for 35 years is as foreign to them as sourcing information from a printed encyclopedia or buying a CD at Best Buy. This way of thinking presents a new problem for organizations - high turnover. "91% expect to stay in a job for less than three years…the average cost to replace each millennial employee is $24,000." Job-hopping… Forbes Adding to this problem is the fact that high performing Generation X and Baby Boomers with years of experience have either already retired or are quickly moving in that direction. The reality is organizations aren’t going to move the needle by putting stale Power Point presentations or instructor-led training materials in a Learning Management System, on SharePoint, or on the Wiki. It’s important to remember when thinking about the way content is presented and created: The human brain can process 275 words per minute in written form, and it can only hear 150 words per minute The average attention span of the Millennial generation is 90 seconds, so the first 7 seconds is critical At the end of the day we are in a results-driven world where the people want to feel as though the content they consume is improving them professionally.  Think of our personal lives…we seek and consume information not just to educate ourselves, but also to entertain and enhance our minds. In order to keep up, organizations must be innovative in the way they educate and engage talent.

4 Reasons the Modern Learner Hates Your Training I remember a time when I thought social networking was a fad and smartphones would never get better than the Palm Pilot Treo. How great was that phone? As things do, technology evolved since then. Technology has and will continue to impact the way people learn - and ultimately, the way we teach them. Out of the primordial ooze of web-based and Flash-based training has emerged a new, more advanced learner, something we’re calling (insert booming voice a la James Earl Jones) the MODERN LEARNER. There are many new evolutionary differences you’ll see in today’s modern learner, but here are the top 4 reasons they hate your current training: They are Social. Social in terms of communicating and collaborating with each other - online, more than in-person. Social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Periscope have changed the game when it comes to the way people learn, consume content, and share ideas. Learners are accessing these networks not only be connect with others, but also to improve job performance. At Google, 55% of training courses are delivered by an ecosystem of 200+ peer learners. They are Extremely Visual. My world was rocked by Tesia Marsik in her recent TedX talk titled "Learning Styles and the Important of Self Reflection" Tesia makes a strong case for the fact that learning styles don’t even exist and we have been fooled for years. While I am mostly convinced, the boom of video and that fact that only 10% of Heard Information is retained after 3 days, and as much as 65% is retained when visuals are added makes for a powerful case that visuals improve knowledge retention regardless if you believe in learning styles or not. They are Impatient. Today’s learners are accustomed to getting the knowledge they need in an instant with a quick search on Google or Wikipedia. A recent study shows that in 1985 an employee needed as much as 75% of knowledge in their brain in order to do their job. Today it’s below 8%. Today’s learner doesn’t necessarily have to master a skill (as they would in the past) but they just need to be able to pull applicable information right at the time they need it. They are Mobile. For the first time in world history, the #1 device people used to access the Internet was mobile. 51% of Internet access was made from a mobile device and this stat is only going to increase! People want to and MUST to be able to learn from the devices they carry with them. Since 37% of the global workforce is going to be mobile by the end of this year, delivering training content to mobile is no longer optional, it’s a requirement. If your organization wants to align with today’s modern learner, you too must evolve the way you think about and deliver training. Change is difficult, but the impact of not evolving could have catastrophic results. The most important thing to remember is the learner. If you can transfer knowledge to them the way they want to learn, everyone wins! If you want to stay in the loop about innovative online learning ideas, specifically Microlearning. Sign up for our weekly newsletter CLICK HERE.

Content from the nowcomms.com: the B2B marketing company for tech busineses in education, sports, security & ID. See the full story here How to win a business Oscar Eddie Redmayne, Michael Keaton and Julianne Moore might have make the business of award winning look easy, but as the marketers amongst us know too well, the media machines behind the big studios they work for have been beavering away in the background for months to make sure it was their talent that was treading the red carpet at Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony. The rules in Hollywood are exactly the same as the rules in business, so as the movie world’s rich and famous recover post the infamous awards parties, we’re taking a behind the scenes look at how to play the recognition game in your industry. You’ve got to be in it to win it: most companies don’t win awards because most companies don’t enter them Reese Witherspoon didn’t get nominated for best actress by being coy and anyone who’s actually seen Wild (right to the end) is unlikely to need any convincing that some kind of marketing magic must be going on in the background when it comes to getting shortlisted for the Oscars. In business, just like in the movies, it pays to airbrush out the negatives and accentuate the positives. Truth is, most companies don’t win awards because most companies don’t enter. And even if they do, most entries fall at the first hurdle because they’ve been put together too hastily by insiders with too little commitment. After all, even the most exceptional business achievements look a little ragged round the edges when you’re working on them 9 to 5 day after day, month after month. Playing to win at the awards game Over lengthy applications offering every minute detail of a company’s achievement without actually panning out to look at the big picture is the most frequently voiced gripe of the judges we talk to about the businesses they evaluate for awards and recognition. Rather than being crisp and to the point, complex difficult to read applications quickly force judges to adopt tight elimination processes before actually getting down to the real work of evaluation. Applications so "innovative" that the allotted space on the form needs to be supplemented with reams of additional (un-requested) support material are unlikely to dazzle. Similarly submissions littered with footnotes promising that the case study, product examples or customer endorsements necessary for consideration will be" mailed under separate cover ASAP" will find their way to the shredder in minutes. Here’s our top tips list for getting on the shortlist See yourself on the podium: Rule number one is easy. Before you even start your application, use the sports psychology tactics that got Lizzy Yarnold Britian’s first Olympic medal on snow this winter. If you visualise your company as an award winning business before you pick up the pen, your application will be streets ahead of most of the competition. Get a bid team together: The best applications take time and effort. To treat the task with the respect it deserves you’ll need a crack team of committed colleagues. Allocate key aspects of the application process to key players, making sure that all the bases are covered. If case studies are to support the bid, make sure you submit the best freshest examples available. If sales statistics or business growth evidence is required make sure you’re delivering exactly what was asked for by the award organisers. And put one of your best administrators on the case too. You won’t believe how may awards are lost because the application is lost under in the CEO’s "to do" tray! Track your progress: Completing your paperwork and getting it in the mail is the beginning, not the end, of an award winning application strategy. Calling the organisers to see how your bid is progressing will make you look keen rather pushy and, if you’re not short listed you’ll at least deserve some personal help and advice that’s likely to become invaluable next time round. Play the numbers game: Ever noticed how companies either win lots of awards all the time or never win any? Putting together winning bids is a major resource outlay and putting all your eggs in one basket just doesn’t justify the effort. A good bid team will pull together a hot list of awards they want on to see in the corporate trophy cabinet and repurpose materials to suit multiple applications. As Helen Mirren will testify, having an Oscar on the living room mantelpiece might be the holy grail of movie making achievement, but a BAFTA still makes a pretty respectable table feature. See the full story How to win a business Oscar

What’s the difference between the people who access the online learning content you create and the people who visit your company website? It’s a pretty simple question really but it’s one that many marketers in eLearning, training and HR seem to sidestep. To illustrate the answer, we’d like you to imagine one stick and one carrot. Now, while most of the cool interactive stuff you use to create really compelling learning content certainly does need to be demonstrated on the company website, the key thing to remember is that your prospects and customers can’t be prodded with the stick, they need to be coaxed with the carrot. If we build it they will come - won’t they? Learning tech websites need to educate less and sell more. When we write this all out in black and white it looks painfully obvious, yet time and again, one of the main weaknesses we see in the company websites hovering on the wrong side of this industry’s top 100 highest rankers, is a misguided assumption that if you build a great looking site, customers and prospect will come. These sites can be compelling, engaging, rich in flash, video and other highly interactive content, but they fall down because they lack the essential inbound marketing tactics that online lead-nurturing and customer conversions depend on. But how can an industry so skilled in the art of educating people in the workplace via the internet, ever misfire when it comes to engaging with prospects via the company website? After all it’s just a case of educating customers about your products and services, right? Having put the marcomms tactics of the top 100 ranking websites under the microscope this January, we’ve come up with a theory on this (this is where you need the stick and the carrot). From the boardroom to the course designers, coders and developers that actually make eLearning, the vast majority of people in this industy really get the importance of compelling interactive content: these are the things that make learning immersive, enjoyable, effective and successful. But, outside of the marketing department, what many in this industry don’t get quite so readily, is the importance of the search, social and other inbound marketing basics that people like us depend on. Tactics that encourage inbound communications aren’t in the DNA of the wider business because the courses that training companies create are usually commissioned for a pre-defined, guaranteed audience. Almost inevitably, the audience for eLearning content can be effectively corralled. Whether it’s a gentle prod from the HR department or a sugar coated compliance condition in the job spec, your average audience for eLearning is ultimately coerced into engaging with online content using interruptive tactics that marketing people like us would kill for. Understanding this point is important for almost every marketer working in eLearning because rolling out promotional campaigns in today’s tough business environment usually means recruiting skills from internal designers, coders and developers who are much more familiar with what’s required for a successful eLearning product than they are with what’s required for a successful inbound marketing campaign. Over the course of the past months, projects like our eLearning, Training and HR Marketers Spending Review or the Top 100 Highest Rankers Chart have helped us gather the thoughts of marketers in this sector. As far as we can see, marketers in this industry do start out with well rounded campaign briefs that consider the need for inbound, search and social-based marcomms, but sustaining these elements becomes difficult if campaign briefs are fed into a web development machine that is, understandably, optimised to produce the great eLearning that is the lifeblood of the wider business. Here are some of the most likely casualties: 1. Meta tags that matter: It’s been ages since Google took any notice of meta "keywords" but that doesn’t mean that some of the other meta tags aren’t still important. The "title" (70 characters max) and "description" (160 characters max) tags are really important because they show up in Google search results, but in more than a quarter of the sites we’ve studied, one or both of these tags are either not present or they fail to adequately describe the products or services on offer. Since students don’t usually find the courses they need via Google, it would seem that meta tags are often extremely low priority for course designers. As a result, they are often little more than an afterthought for internal developers who are asked to assist in the production of online marketing. The worst examples we’ve seen are title tags like "Company XX: we have a catchy slogan but it doesn’t really capture what we do concisely", or "Company Y: we’re an awards winning company". Google’s index (usually) hates catchy slogans and customers rarely ever search for "award winning suppliers". Much better examples are things like Articulate’s "E-Learning Software and Authoring Tools" or (perhaps even better) Skillsoft’s "E-Learning for Business Skills & IT Certification", where the title includes lots of words that potential customers are likey to use in search. Jump over to our most recent Top 100 ranking websites in eLearning and learning technology and study the descriptions listed for each company under the "their place in the space" column.  This isn’t how we chose to categorise these companies, it’s how they describe themselves in their own description meta tags on their sites.  The best ones always take a simple "it says what it does on the tin" approach. 2. Keyword research: Another SEO basic that often falls down the void in eLearning, training and HR marketing is careful adoption and ongoing use of properly researched keywords and phrases. The search engines have sussed out all cheap tricks like keyword stuffing or cloaking and these days good keyword research is all about integrating key phrases sensitively into good, sharable content. Keyword research and implementation would normally occur sometime after the marketing department has created copy for a new product or service and before the web designer turns this copy into an online promotion. Its effect on the tone and message communicated in the copy may be minimal (for instance, good keyword research may ascertain that a company offer for "serious games" has much more chance of success if it opts to use the key phrase "business simulations") but its impact on a promotion’s success can be immense. Closing the skills gap on keyword research can be more difficult internally but if external help is not an option, there’s plenty of decent software available out there, and most of it goes some way towards sparking up a keyword strategy. Two really useful FireFox plug-ins to help with SEO are: KGEN - which displays the strongest keywords on any web page (IE: run competitors that you think are doing a decent job through KGEN to get an idea of the kind of vocab that works well for them) and Keyword Spy SEO/PCC - which allows you to search behind adwords on Google to see which keywords are driving the ads insertions. Basic versions of both of these are free. 3. Localisation: Typically, when a busines works out of several regions, marketers need to devise strategies that allow consumers in one country to access specific content (for instance, at the moment, it’s a good idea for a UK-based learning and training company to promote any credentials and products it has for the health sector or the NHS, but if the same company sells into the US market, it would probably want to promote any credentials it had in defence (see our SEO in elearning story if you’d like to know why). When search and social marketing experts think about doing this kind of localisation, they instinctively take into account the weak spots that may arise when a company’s web presence needs to be accessible to multiple cultures in multiple countries (Essentially all interactions from anyone anywhere should be leveraged to help build global authority online). This does not happen if a company’s site in, say, the UK, is hosted and managed independently of its sister site in, say, the US. This type of regionalised, but separate approach is currently the main reason why many Pan-European or global providers in eLearning, training and HR have high ranking websites in one country, but very low ranking sites in another. Staying the course can be tricky It’s not that marketers in this industry don’t set out to produce search and socially optimised company websites - they do. It’s just that staying the course can be tricky when the tune you’re asking folks to sing to is in a different key to the one they’re most used to. But since few of the companies we want to sell to are likely to make visiting our sites a compliance point for their training managers and directors anytime soon, we’re going to have to rely on the staples of content and relevance marketing to get us noticed for the foreseeable future.

Brace yourself: You’re about to read an entire article about a dash. Yip: we mean the little horizontal line thingy that some people use to join words together, as in "e-learning" or to make a nose on a smiley. Don’t blame us - we didn’t start it. E learning SEO is a compounding problem which, regrettably, we’re unlikely to put entirely to bed today in this article. But the question of exactly how marketing motivated people like us should write the word "eLearning" (or e-learning, or even e learning) has divided dash believers and non-believers in the industry for too long. Here at Now Towers we think it’s time to do what we can to bring these fighting factions together. Google search an answer and ye may find No point bickering over meaningless aesthetics: the only measurable bit of difference that the syllable separator could possibly contribute to good content marketing is surely any potentially positive (or negative) impact on online search: If using the term "e-learning" rather than "eLearning" or "e Learning" can be proven to boost a website’s page ranking in Google, Yahoo and Bing even slightly, we should use it. If not - let’s ditch it. It’s a simple point to make, but a complex one to prove. The Google Trends tool helps us make an initial assessment. Worldwide search trend for e learning, e-learning and elearning In the graph below we’ve used Google Trends to compare the relative search volumes of the three varieties of the keyword "elearning". It shows that, in terms of worldwide search, "elearning" - written as one word - has been attracting more searches than "e-Learning" with a hyphen since about 2008. Armed with this bit of insight we might start to conclude that it’s time ditch the dash. Don’t jump to conclusions and do a "find and replace all" just yet however: turns out that the world’s hyphen lovers and haters are not dispersed all that evenly across the globe. If you’re selling predominantly into the US then you’re dealing with a nation of hyphen haters. In European hotspots like France and Spain, syl-la-bi-fi-ca-tion is still the acceptable norm, although usage is in decline. As usual, the Brits don’t seem to care much and will search for any variety of the keywords in approximately equal measure (see the graphs below). US search trend for e learning, e-learning and elearning UK search trend for e learning, e-learning and elearning   For the moment then, the global picture is one that looks to be following the trend in the US. More people are ditching the dash when they search and, overall, the trend is towards the US keyword of choice: "elearning". So when it comes to organic search, it might make good sense to settle on the word "elearning" because this form of the word is the favoured search option in the US and is growing steadily in popularity in most other regions. Well sort of, except that search engines tend to understand synonyms pretty well these days and all three versions of the word "elearning" are already strongly associated with each other (i.e.: type "elearning" into Google and you’ll be presented with the question "Did you mean ‘e learning’". This means that any measurable benefits of using the term "eLearning" today are subtle at best - they may improve with time as the term’s popularity continues its upwards trend. The eLearning Network provides a decent indicator because the organisation has historically favoured the term "eLearning" over a long period and the term itself has become more popular over time: Search for eLearning in Google today and the eLN site is listed in the top ten results. Search for "e learning" or "e-Learning" in Google and the eLN drops down to just outside the top ten. The strong association of all three terms suggests that much Search Engine Optimisation and backlinking would be required before any clear competitive edge could be realised. More importantly perhaps, while it’s true that "eLearning" looks like it will soon become the global search term of choice, the fact that Google treats hyphenated words as two separate words makes for a pretty uneven fight. Google doesn’t really differentiate between "e learning" and "e-learning" so even in the US, where trending towards the term "elearning" is highest, the no hyphen version needs to convincingly beat both before any significant benefits are likely to be realised. OK, so if the navel gazing over the dash in e-learning is to be parked for another day, what should we all be doing now to boost our business’ relevance for the procurers searching the web for elearning products today? Well first and foremost, it helps if you know what kind of people, in what kind of industries, are currently searching for the things you might be able to sell to them. Google Insights’ top searches and rising searches charts helps us work this out. Surprise surprise: Over the past couple of weeks in the US, "army e learning" has rocketed to the top of the rising searches chart, which means that savvy marketers in North America are now battling it out to be first to publish new content that promotes their business’ defence credentials. Meanwhile in the UK it’s growing interest in what eLearning can bring to the NHS and other health provision businesses that e-learning providers should be focused on if they want to keep content synced up with current search trends. In France, it’s worth considering some focused content marketing around the phrase "anglais e learning " right now if language courses are part of your portfolio. None of this is rocket science, but it is just a tiny bit geeky. Let’s face it: keyword analysis, split testing, placement tools and search traffic estimators are useful but they’re not really marketing cool. What most of us are really interested in is how creative ideas, great content, images, designs and debates can connect our business with customers and compel people towards action. The key is being able to balance the need to be different, distinctive and unique for the humans we want to sell to, with the need to be highly catagorisable and easily indexable for the search engines that carry our message out to customers? The fact that the fundamental debate over the dash in e-learning still rages on suggests there’s a long way to go.

Over the past few months our Learning Technologies vs World of Learning project has been asking B2B marketers in L&D to rate the two events that traditionally dominate the UK trade show calendar. The results? Well it’s bad bad news for World of Learning as the findings of our tradeshow showdown survey puts the Birmingham based L&D show firmly in the shade of London’s Learning Technologies event.  But is a good day for LearningLive, which our research solidly identifies  as the industry’s new "significant other" business event in L&D. Totally independent and fiercely unofficial, the purpose of this exercise is to help us help you. This survey is not sponsored or supported by either show or any affiliate in any way, although reading through its findings, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was. Mind blowing bombshell #1 LearningLive is the industry’s new "significant other" business event. If B2B marketers in L&D are turning their backs on the two trade show giants in L&D, then it’s the fast growing LearningLive show that’s reaping the benefits.  This is the show that over 80% of you specified (without prompting) when you chose "other" in our survey. Mind blowing bombshell #2 Both Learning Tech and World of Learning are thought to deliver less value for money these days. Learning Technologies remains the industry’s value leader, but it represents the best value option for just one in two L&D marketers today (six in ten rated this show best value three years ago).  World of Learning wins the best value vote from less than one in five B2B marketers in L&D these days (three years ago World of Learning was considered the best value L&D trade show by four in ten). Mindblowing bombshell #3 When we last did this survey three years ago, 85% of you said you regularly attended both shows.  Today this number is less than 25%.  This is interesting because general perceptions of both shows have remained fairly constant. Three years ago, you rated Learning Technologies above World of Learning in every category we asked about (networking opportunities, sponsorship packages, quality of visitor, general value for money). But while World of Learning was constantly rated lower than Learning Technologies, over 8 in 10 of you routinely went along anyway, took stand space and generally supported the Birmingham based show.  Now just 1 in 4 of you do this. Learning Technologies vs World of Learning: Key questions asked* Which UK based learning & training event do you think: LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES WORLD OF LEARNING BOTH ABOUT THE SAME OTHER Is the leading trade show for the industry today? 81% 5% 10% 4% Currently represents the best value for money for the businesses that take part? 50% 19% 15% 16% Delivers the best networking opportunities today? 55% 10% 31% 4% Offers the best value exhibitor and sponsorship packages today? 35% 27% 23% 15% Currently supports your business with the best marketing and PR opportunities before, during and after the show? 65% 15% 12% 8% *128 people participated in this survey So what did we learn for B2B marketers in L&D? First up, it’s important to stress that the majority of people who take part in our surveys work in learning and training businesses that have a reasonably strong connection to technology.  For this community, the World of Learning show has always been the poor relative to Learning Technologies. Three years ago, when budgets were less stretched, participating in what was rated the industry’s second best trade event (for training companies with a technology bias) may have been a nice to have, worthwhile addition to the marketing mix, but when marketing budgets are tight, nice to have additions have much less chance of making the draft. If recessions are opportunities to aggravate and innovate, then LearningLive seems to have spotted the empty space and scored. The questionnaire we used for this survey had no mention of LearningLive. Respondents were not prompted to choose from a list of alternative trade shows, yet 80% identified LearninngLive as the clear alternative in L&D events today, especially when asked about value and sponsorship deals. Looks like the L&D event has found its third way.

We’ve taken all the insights acquired from years of Learning Tech exit polling and cherry picked five big lessons to keep in mind as you set out your strategy for Britians’s biggest trade show for tech companies operationg in the L&D and HR markets. From the lead nurturing blogging content you use to build awareness before the big show to the attendance boosting tactics that get the right prospects in front of you on the day, make our 5 ground rules for B2B marketers planning for Learning Technologies 2015 your template for for marketing succces at LT15uk. 5 ground rules for B2B marketers planning for Learning Technologies 2015 1. Don’t mix your products with your seminars When our exit pollers asked Learning Tech delegates to study the seminar timetable and pick out a talk that sounded really interesting, not one of them picked a topic that mentioned a product or an exhibiting company. It’s not that your company or its products don’t interest learning tech attendees, they almost certainly do - so long as they know which problems your products are going to help them solve. Seminars with titles like "Product X™ from Company Y™: the mobile assessment tool for today" send a shiver up the average delegate’s spine these days. They brace themselves for the big sell and, perhaps most importantly, they really don’t think they’re going to learn anything that’s not already on your website if they attend. Seminar topics like Brightwave’s "A roadmap to 2020: How can learning tech support fast changing business practice", work better because they focus on an issue, hold cross-sector appeal and box in the topic: It’s a "roadmap", and it’s guiding us to "2020" rather than some vague place like "the future" or "beyond blended learning". 2. You don’t score on the day without training hard all year The vast majority of delegates at Learning Tech do at least a little pre-visit planning, so getting noticed before the event is critical. Pre-event direct mail has a role to play here but it’s not an easy option: Most delegates remember receiving emails inviting them to "come visit us at stand X, Y or Z", but this is a much over used tactic and few visitors can remember, or name, any specific companies emailing this kind of general invite out. One off eShots, isolated newsletters or social campaigns carry little weight at the best of times, so actioning one of these in the build-up to the country’s biggest trade show has about as much impact as sending a cheap card at Christmas. It’s much better to build the Learning Tech show into your marketing plans than build your marketing plan around Learning Tech (this sounds like an obvious point but lots of marketers we talk to seem to think this way). The problem here is that delivering a good, steady flow of relevant content all year round seems quite difficult compared to a one time pre-show email blast (it is and it isn’t, but we’ll come back to that later). 3. Create content that the Learning Technologies website can use The Learning Tech show website was another frequently mentioned research source for the diligent pre-planner but, for the most part, learningtechnologies.co.uk seems to influence decisions over which conferences or seminars a delegate attends much more than which companies to see in the main exhibition area. Improving the site’s search and relevance matching features would really help exhibitors without diminishing the integrity of the site, but for now any learning tech visitor with a specialised query (like, for example which exhibitors offer LMCS / have specialised experience in finance / global presence / etc) is left unsatisfied. Here’s where that mis-calibrated content raises its head again. Exhibitors recognised as issues champions and thought-leaders will always be able to make a strong case for appearing in LearningTechnologies.co.uk’s news and features sections, but the key phrase is "relevance marketing". Company profiles or product sheets just don’t make the grade and these days, even case studies that feature big name customers may fare only slightly better. 4. Remember the people who aren’t even there: they might be more important than the people who are The internet has changed the profile of the classic trade show attendee dramatically and many five-star prospects these days choose to watch over the proceeding from the comfort of their own desktop than roam the avenues and alleyways at Olympia 2. It helps to anticipate this and adopt tactics that help build brand fans online. Make sure that whatever content, product details or key messages you’re pushing to delegates at the show is available online, preferably in one easy to use micro-site dedicated to the event. Launch this site via a simple eShot campaign as part of your show build-up and already your pre-event announcements look 10 times more distinctive and memorable. Those likely to attend can start interacting with you online, perhaps pre-booking meetings. Those likely to watch from afar can start influencing the company ambassadors they’ll surely send to Learning Tech in their place. 5. iPads and Kindles are more memorable than the companies who give them away Delegates taking part in our exit polls certainly noted the volume of desirable objects on offer at Learning Technologies this year, but the companies promising to dish them out had all become a bit of a blur by the time visitors saw the daylight of Hammersmith Road. As a pure-play data capture exercise, these big(ish) ticket prize give-aways may have some value (typically a delegate is trading personal contact details for the opportunity to win) but the anecdotal evidence from our exit poll really left us wondering. Almost everyone we spoke to who thought they had participated in some kind of a lucky draw (not everyone was absolutely sure either way) did so as part of a larger dialogue with the exhibiting company. So: If this dialogue is compelling shouldn’t the attendee be happy to offer over a business card anyway. If it’s not, and attendees still offer their contact details purely on the basis that they may be one iPad to the good if they do, then isn’t the competition masking some serious flaws in the sales dialogue? Overall, the main conclusions we can draw here is that delegate rarely really remember if they have entered a competition, care about the outcome or can link prizes with the companies offering them. Individual, smaller give-aways were slightly more memorable. Or perhaps we’re just sore because we didn’t win one!

OK, so last January we published the latest edition of the learning technology industry’s most popular Hot 100 highest rankers chart. No big deal really: Corral your best SEO and content experts into one locked room and sustain them with all you can eat pizza long enough and these kind of marketing milestones just sort of happen really. But no, we didn’t do all of this just for the pizza. Frankly, we didn’t even do it for the industry-wide recognition we’ve received via the project (although that’s always nice). What we really like about the the Hot 100 rankers project is the forensic-class investigation that goes on behind the scenes: that’s why we do it. You learn a lot when you undertake a project like this one, so we’re pretty stoked with data at the moment. Here’s the bottom line on the top stuff that’s blowing our minds right now. Mind blowing bombshell #1: the very best content usually sits on the least optimised websites It’s true! Some of the best content we found in eLearning, training and HR sits on some of the weakest websites (in terms of their SEO and SMO clout), and some of the weakest content sits on steroid induced, supercharged search and socially optimised powerhouses. Why does this matter? Well: Awesome content marketing (that’s the kind that nurtures leads and converts web visitors into customers) depends on both. First, you need really compelling content. You know the kind of thing: It’s like, you just can’t look away! Second, you need a really intelligent web platform where customers and prospects can find your content easily, interact with it, endorse it and ultimately, share it. The big bombshell that hits you when we research the world’s leading learning tech companies’ websites is that most of them are dramatically better at one of these dependencies than the other. It’s only when you get close to the upper echelons of the top 20 or so, that both content quality and platform efficiency start to receive equal billing. How do we know? Well, the biggest indicator comes when you compare a website’s social traction (how often its visitors share, like or bookmark content) with what we might call its technical readiness for effective search and social marketing. Routinely we found company websites scoring high because meticulous attention to search and social optimisation gave them impressive technical clout, but these supercharged websites seldom followed through with evidence that this clout was really being leveraged. Content which was technically well optimised for search, was only rarely being endorsed (liked, tweeted, dugg, shared, etc) by real people. Conversely, most of the sites that made our chart on the strength of good, issues-based, topical content, tended to suffer somewhat because the news and insight they offered up was not housed on a well optimised, social friendly web platform. SEO scores on these websites were usually lower and an overall lack of social/sharing opportunities made these sites harder for those impressed with what they read, to spread the word. bombshell #2 Outside of the top 10, the upper half of our Hot 100 table is dominated with company websites that usually score best in terms of "technical readiness" (i.e.,Google likes them). Companies in the bottom half of the chart are usually there because they score higher in terms of social pick-up (i.e., people like them). What could that mean? Well, we’re speculating a tiny bit, but a lot of this might be about bigger companies having budget to spend on SEO/SMO while smaller companies need to depend on good ideas and encouraging support from known communities. Good ideas housed on a supercharged search and social optimised platform will get you in the very top tier of the chart, but being pretty efficient at just one of these things is enough to win a spot somewhere at the table. The big issue for many of the larger companies at the top half of the chart is that solving an SEO/SMO problem is usually much easier than solving a content problem. Optimising a website and ensuring that it’s equipped for search and social marketing requires only budget and the resources to commission a respected SEO expert: The majority of the companies listed higher than spot 50 in our chart would seem to have done this part already. Delivering well-designed, compelling content that connects with customers, nurtures leads and builds authority is much harder: Only the upper 15-20% of our hotlist can claim to be doing this really effectively. Bombshell #3 The most often missed SEO hygiene factors could be corrected in less than a week. When we say "hygiene factors" we mean the boring techie bits that the geeks at the Googleplex love but creative marketing types like us hate. Brace yourself young marketing master: you’re about to read a paragraph about meta data. OK, so none of us did these arts degrees and MBAs so we could end up scrolling through reams of search friendly tags, but we should at least have the discipline to check that the poor coder or web designer we passed this eye-wateringly boring task over to has actually done it. Putting the never ending, raging debate over meta tags aside for a second, two pieces of meta data really do matter: The title tag (that’s the 70 or less characters that asually appear in the blue bit at the very top of the browser) and the descriptions tag (that’s the 160 or less characters that should be there to summarise what a page is all about). These two tags are usually the first things that search engines use to match your business with potential customers searching online so if they’re not right, you’re left at the starting blocks while competitors get a head start. And fixing them is so incredibly easy. Bombshells #4 -  ’nuff already, I get the picture! We’d love to go on, but the truth is, we’re a relevance marketing company and we’re pretty sure that we’re about to lose half of you if we proceed much further. What say we break things down and get a little personal? Want to brainstorm some savvy SEO-tastic content marketingcaper of your own? Step one might be to work out what’s holding back your web marketing effectiveness via your own special B2B marketing hackday.

Well we’ve only just gone and done it again! Last summer we created a bit of a stir when we first published our definitive 100 best elearning websites chart, so this time round we thought: why not turn things up a notch?.  Why settle on just the Top 100 when we could be spotlighting the 250 best elearning websites? Why offer just one consolidated ranking position per company website when we could lift the lid on the six top indicators that influence our chart most.  And finally, why not just make the whole thing interactive too, so that search and social savvy webucation marketers who don’t think we’ve come up with the learning tech industry’s best overall ranking formula, can come up with their own. Risky move?  Well it might be. Better take the time now to check out the new chart before we bottle it and change our minds. My company isn’t in the best elearning websites chart and I think it should be We’re good, but we’re not perfect. Over 1000 companies are analysed to produce the 100 best elearning websites and we’re adding more all the time. You can be 100% sure that your company is included in future analysis by signing up to Nowfriday newsletter (the #Learning tech edition) here. Tell me about the marketing tools and tactics that these companies do get into the best elearning websites chart The all new Marketing Spending Review for marketers in L&D is out now. Get the highlights in our infographic then download the full report to see what the best B2B marketers in L&D will be spending budget on over the next 18 months. What’s it all mean? Check out the "how to read the 100 best eLearning websites chart" section at the bottom of the page. Company website Place in the space 1 www.adobe.com/captivateAdobe Screen capture software, E-learning authoring software, Learning management system9976542000651938288 2 www.oracle.com/taleoOracle Talent management software89674970531741239 3 www.blackboard.comBlackboard Technology and Solutions Built for Education8996584017499530 4 www.desire2learn.comdesire2learn Learning Management System (LMS)7996112019832702 5 www.articulate.comArticulate E-Learning Software and Authoring Tools799633700278142961 6 www.lynda.comLynda Software training online-tutorials for Adobe, Microsoft, Apple & more7996221001639258841 7 www.tribalgroup.comTribal Group Learning support services69471050N/A364 8 www.ispringsolutions.comiSpring Solutions Rapid E-Learning Software | PowerPoint to Flash Converter | Convert PowerPoint to Flash7866457082834993 9 www.kineo.comKineo Custom E-Learning Training & LMS Solutions699657101927367 10 www.skillsoft.comSkillsoft E-Learning for Business Skills & IT Certification699619700890241272 11www.remote-learner.netRemote Learner Integrated Open Source Learning Services6986362158514569 12www.sumtotalsystems.comSumtotal Complete Talent Management Software : Learning, Performance, Compensation, Succession, Development, 360 Feedback, Hiring, Collaboration, HR Management, HRMS, Workforce Planning, Analytics694645001193881675 13www.cblearning.comCBLearning Microsoft Training Courses, Microsoft Excel Training & Windows Courses694616200121309691 14www.webanywhere.co.ukWeb anywhere e-Learning & Web Design for Schools, Business, FE/HE, Public Sector, Charities5947692N/A540 15www.successfactors.comSuccess Factors Business Execution Software693614000152461609 16www.saba.comSaba LMS, Performance Management, Talent Management, HCM, Human Capital Management, Video Conferencing68561850185670845 17www.newhorizons.comNew Horizons IT Training, Microsoft Training, Cisco Training, Computer Training, Certifications6836617000713051516 18www.enocta.comencota Turkish based one stop eLearning company67861480N/A47 19www.50lessons.com50Lessons Business learning content providor owned by Skillsoft670611801002865189 20www.ilxgroup.comILX Group Accredited Training and Consulting Organisation59962140505942236 21www.playgen.comPlaygen Games and Gamification5996196637205180 22www.trivantis.comTrivantis e-Learning Software, Authoring Tools, LMS and Online eLearning Development69856030064364688 23www.mindleaders.comMindleaders Talent Management And Elearning On One Platform59861370157564687 24www.brandon-hall.comBrandon Hall Learning & development, talent management, sales & marketing, executive management 597661702883031404 25www.epic.co.ukEpicE-learning, online learning and blended solution69756971090659296 26www.upsidelearning.comUpside Learning LMS, Custom eLearning Development, Mobile Learning Solutions from Upside Learning, India59665030281533427 27www.softchalk.comSoftChalk E-Learning Authoring Solutions | Interactive Online Lesson Creation Tool69556271255018272 28www.expertus.comExpertus Learning Management Experts - Cloud Learning - SaaS Learning Portals - Social LMS - Training Administration5956457151302983 29www.ydp.euYoung Digital Planet Digital Education Publishing Providor6955819N/A94 30www.lumesse.comLumesse Talent Management694518502751578 31www.premierit.comPremierIT IT Training, Cloud Computing, IT Support, Website Design and Development, CPD ePortfolio, e-Learning692511001563980147 32www.brainshark.comBrainshark Online Presentations, Mobile Video Presentations,eLearning 5896180000276372874 33www.enlightks.comEnlightKS learning technologies business delivering Computer Driving Licence testing platform5766413N/A56 34www.theworkingmanager.comWorking Manager D2 organisational development solutions | e-learning547616221449 35www.knowledgeadvisors.comKnowledge Advisors learning measurement software5995640453874155 36www.learningpool.comLearning Pool Saving money for the public sector with collaboration and learning5995549001176392151 37www.raptivity.comRaptivity Create e-Learning interactions quickly and easily59854060191934301 38www.xyleme.comXyleme Learning Content Management System (LCMS)59859041671863249 39www.thales-trainingconsultancy.comThales Training Business Training Courses & Bespoke Services49861050N/A96 40www.cornerstoneondemand.comCornerstone on demand Talent, Learning & Performance Management Software5975960301026727 41www.rapidintake.comRapid Intake e-Learning Software for Computer Based Training5965836687463228 42www.certpointsystems.comCertpoint The Global e-Learning m-learning LMS LCMS CMS Talent Management Software Solutions Provider596514201030966197 43www.myknowledgemap.comMy Knowledgemap Knowledge and learning assisted by technology4966243N/A72 44www.goodpractice.comFor Leaders and Managers5955303493129102 45www.elearningbrothers.comDevelop rapid eLearning courses and games495688260396876 46http://www.logica.co.uk/we-do/hr-and-payroll-services/HR Services59551100N/A212 47www.excelindia.come-Learning Solutions, Custom eLearning, Content Development59457491418697 48www.outstart.comLCMS, Learning Systems, and Social Business Software5935786539487448 49www.onlinetraveltraining.co.ukOnline Travel Training, Travel Agent E-Learning, Travel Courses49361270635008409 50www.pfeiffer.comEssential resources for training and HR professionals5925108002026287 51www.crossknowledge.comDistance learning solutions59252650801513215 52www.im-c.comeLearning provider59259034163314124 53www.tatainteractive.comLearning solutions and custom e-learning5905415499102166 54www.skytap.comEnterprise Hybrid Cloud | Development Test, Sales Demo and Virtual Training5905623535904276 55www.videoarts.comVideo based learning support49063010810397243 56www.electricsheepcompany.comEmmy award-winning creator of virtual worlds and social games for major brands and media companies4906652417027803 57www.toolwire.comExperiential learning58955018530178 58www.gpworldwide.comPerformance improvement company58951800472945316 59www.exact-learning.comLearning Content Management System (LCMS) and Digital Repository586523518852390 60www.netdimensions.comEnterprise Learning Technologies, Certification & Compliance Management Solutions,e-Learning Solutions585577910939202 61www.kaplanlt.comRapid elearning: Software Simulations, Assessments, Documentation & EPSS. 5855395138668580 62www.saffroninteractive.comBespoke training solutions and business communications5855403211921463 63www.edvantagegroup.comCorporate e-learning and managed learning services5845242167873196 64mediaspark.comeducational games, simulations, and social networks5815687265789101 65www.swissvbs.comweb-centered learning campaigns5815149N/A37 66www.learninglight.comelearning and learning technologies58053370791575888 67www.emantras.comE-Learning Training Solutions Digital Education5745275841622211 68www.yukonlearning.comSimulations and learning content473642547516616 69www.brookwood.comCustom eLearning web and training solutions5695568838408857 70www.cdsm.co.ukInteractive solutions568573N/A68 71interactyx.comTOPYX Learning Management System59847440253401321 72www.brightwave.co.ukBrightwave e-learning, online training and blended learning experts49851830132556089 73www.daden.co.ukvirtual worlds and AI solution provider498510101411317220 74www.line.co.ukBespoke E-learning and Blended Learning4985652283243875 75www.happy.co.ukSerious learning49755262081109172 76www.onlignment.comelearning consultancy and strategy support4965449466109 77www.allencomm.comCustom Training, Corporate Training, & Training and Development49652281115287323 76www.iris.co.ukBusiness management solutions supplier4945663240266868 79www.alleninteractions.com4945446946673152 80www.thetestfactory.comEmployee Skills Assessment49451691061128123 81www.quicklessons.comCollaborative e-Learning Platform to Create Courses4945346145402669 82www.caspianlearning.co.ukMulti-Award Winning Serious Games Designer49352082842255208 83http://www.faculte.com/solutions/corporate-learning/Enterprise social video4925224179263481 84www.goventure.netGames, simulations & social networks4915577216677272 85www.questionmark.co.ukAssessment products and support services691331131367630 86www.bluevolt.comExtended Learning Management System4895335209175290 87www.redtray.co.uke-Learning, Blended learning and Training Outsourcing provider4895276237015571 88www.nelsoncroom.co.ukOnline learning for professionals4895651597945136 89www.eukleia-training.comspecialist training company providing elearning courses on regulation &compliance4885190N/A30 90http://www.webex.co.uk/products/elearning-and-online-training.htmleLearning, Online Training, Webinars, Desktop Sharing: WebEx Training Center58741230312772215 91www.irisconnect.co.ukTeacher development & Lesson Observations487578499506260 92www.dominknow.comCollaborative eLearning and mLearning Creation4875192222279062 93www.cm-luminosity.comeLearning products and services487553268921634 94www.mohive.comEnterprise e-learning publishing system4865333400852179 95www.p4you.comelearning software, tools & other eLearning solution485578439259336 96www.blueeskimo.comlearning and development, e-learning and training recruitment48553310N/A35 97www.appraisal360.co.ukReview Appraisal Staff Development Coaching38464028796 98www.trainingfoundation.comTraining support services36861080N/A89 99www.itrainhome.com About the chart Our best elearning websites chart focuses on commercial operators whose primary market is b2b learning.  Larger companies with specific divisions or product sets targeting the learning industry are included but only specific portions of their website have been used in the ranking (for instance, Adobe.com/captivate or webex.co.uk/products/elearning-and-online-training.html). Institutes, schools & colleges are not included, but if they were, the Open University, Coventry University and others would be in the chart.Trade publications like eLearning Age or TrainingZone.co.uk , or industry bodies like eLearning Network or Towards Maturity are also ommitted from the chart, as are vendors or resellers like Coursemerchant.com. How to read the chart Overall Ranking The overall ranking for each company is calculated by crunching together individual rankings from Google PageRank, Moz Rank, Alexa, Hubspot‘s Web grader and Compete. Rankings from link-based measurement tools like Moz or Google PageRank are given more weight than tools like Compete or Alexa, which use smaller samples. We’ve also considered the number of pages that a website has indexed in Google, social reach and the number of domains linking-in to each website. All ranking tools have strengths and weaknesses, but together they paint an interesting and valuable picture we think. Google page rank Ah yes, the big quality score from the people who run the Internet. Google Page Rank scores a website 0 (low) to 10 (high). See this Wiki page if you’d like to know more. Hubspot The Hubspot Website Grader’s job is to sniff out all of the search, social and structural stuff that makes a website well equipped for effective inbound marketing (conversion pages, subscription options for twitter or RSS feeds, mobile readiness, etc) .  Sites are scored from 0 (low) to 100 (high) depending on what it finds. MozRank An algorithmically scaled 10-point measure of global link power or popularity, Mozrank is one of the SEO analysts’ favourites (possibly because it’s quite hard to understand).  Put as simply (crudely) as we like to put things,  lots of people say Moz is quite a lot like Google PageRank, except that it scores a site dynamically where Google PageRank ranks a site periodically.  In our experience, when we compare scores from Google PageRank and MozRank over time we think there’s some evidence to say that a site with a higher Moz score than a Google PR score may be gaining popularity. If Moz scores are lower than Google PR scores, the site may be on a downward curve. Google indexed pages Not one for the rocket scientists. This the number of pages on a website that Google knows about.  When this number is smaller than the number of pages that actually exist on a website, it can be a good idea to submit a site map to google. Alexa traffic rank Probably the best known of the three most popular traffic measurement services, Alexa ranks the world’s most popular website (Google) at number one and works back from there, so the smaller the number the better.  Like most traffic measurement services, Alexa gathers data generated from a  pool of web surfers who have a special toolbar installed on their browser.  Some SEO experts criticise traffic measurement services like Alexa, Compete or Quantcast, claiming that smaller samples can produce misleading results. Inbound links Easy one.  It’s the number of sites that link in.  Google believes that the best sites are the ones with the most authoritative links linking in. Company website The url analysed to allocate the ranking. place in the space If the site’s title tag contained a meaningful description we’ve used it here, if not we’ve done our best to estimate.    

A couple of years ago our exit polling at Birmingham’s World of Learning identified LearningLive as the "significant other" event that most L&D professionals were likely to go to. Since then, every time we’ve asked L&D professionals to tell us about the trade shows and conferences they’re really getting excited about, the LPI’s LearningLive seems to be high on the hotlist. So if LearningLive is emerging as the new "must attend" show in the L&D professional’s calendar, then as Britain’s most inquisitive B2B marketing company focused on the L&D space, we thought it was our job to dig a little deeper. Over the course of five days just after LearningLive 2013, our LearningLive survey for exhibitors asked all the companies who sponsored the show or invested in stand space, to tell us what they thought about the commercial, networking and lead generation opportunities offered by the event. Here’s a quick overview of what they told us. LearningLive Exhibitors survey: five big findings to take-away  The majority of LearningLive 2013 exhibitors: Are happy, or more than happy, with the show’s attendance Rate at least 4 in every 10 visitors as a high-level prospects they could do business with Would recommend the show to a friend or colleague Leave the show with a minimum of 10 good leads to follow-up on Are already thinking about coming back next year Get the full report - instant download