Go beyond measuring engagement and move towards creating a culture of engagement. In this video, Mary Ann Masarech discusses trends in employee engagement, including the three following areas: engagement as a shared responsibility, action v. action planning and how to gather information for useful measurement of engagement.

Every new learning and development technology is frequently hyped as the next big solution. Tin Can API, also known as Experience API or simply xAPI, is a promising addition to this collection. I recently attended a workshop about Tin Can led by Mike Hruska and Neil Lasher, both deeply involved in shaping its development. Despite all the reading I had done about Tin Can to prepare for the workshop, I still wasn’t able to fathom exactly what it did, but I was excited to learn the details from the experts. Opening the can Mike and Neil began the workshop with a critical question: What do high performers do differently to be successful? They asked us to consider the following: How can we trace the path these employees take to becoming really good at what they do, track these learning experiences from all available sources, and then attempt to recreate similar experiences for others? Their proposition—Tin Can is just the tool being developed to manage these processes. Tin Can API technology, they explained, was developed to make it possible to track all learning experiences, both inside and outside of a formal LMS or training environment and convert the information into useable data via a Learning Record Store (LRS), a specialized database. It would be up to each organization to figure out what data to track. It’s an exciting idea since those of us in learning and development seem to be scrambling for ways to measure and record learning activities we all know are happening "outside the firewall" such as interactions with a variety of social media, including, wikis, blogs, online videos, and discussion groups, etc. Tin Can might also hold the key to enhanced, personalized learning by giving only what is needed by learners to mirror successful behaviors; however, our presenters warned us that although it’s tempting to measure every single activity because it can be done, it’s not a very good idea to make measurement overly comprehensive. They recommended concentrating only on those we deem as meaningful to our organizational objectives. Inside the can The abilities of Tin Can and the vast range of learning experiences Mike and Neil illustrated for us sounded amazing but still left me pondering what the end product would actually become when programmers got done tweaking it. I did, however, discover some useful ideas during the session. The pros View clearer learning paths: Often we can identify high performers but little else that’s meaningful. Tin Can technology creates the opportunity to analyze actual learning paths vs. predetermined learning paths, including real-time analytics rather than static metrics. It accounts for informal learning: One of the biggest features of this technology is tracking myriad experiences that have previously gone unknown and undocumented. Learning personalization: As learners goes through a process, the system can offer suggestions based on learning patterns of other successful learners. It can also bring a learner back on track if going in the "wrong" direction. Since the experience is personalized, it could be more engaging. The cons Garbage in = garbage out: If we collect and aggregate meaningless information, we won’t find value in the data. Big brother is watching everything: There are concerns about tracking every action we take. Are there instances when actions should not be tracked or measured? What are they? Too much data: What actions and activities are meaningful to measure? If we give too many actions importance, the data will be overwhelming. After learning more details about Tin Can, I have no doubt in one form or another, it could be a tremendously useful learning technology. We already have a massive need to find ways to personalize learning experiences and integrate non-traditional, outside-the-LMS activities into an employee’s learning and development cycle. The question is, will Tin Can turn out to be that next great solution or will we just keep kicking that (Tin) can down the road? Resources for further exploration A Behavioral Scientist’s Initial Thoughts on the Tin Can API, Big Data, and Learning Analytics: http://ericfox.com/tincan Tin Can API - Adopters, Google Group: https://groups.google.com/a/adlnet.gov/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/TinCanAPI-adopters The Experience API Origins and Capabilities Webinar recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8EDnoasTAg&feature=youtu.be How Tin Can Can Help: Vehicle Fleet: http://blog.saltbox.com/blog/2013/02/18/how-tin-can-can-help-vehicle-fleet/

Billy Biggs explains three reasons why transitions to the cloud are often unsuccessful.

This past week, GP Strategies was a Gold-level sponsor for ISPI’s annual THE Performance Improvement conference in Reno, NV. The focus of this year’s conference was discovering the interventions and strategies that work to create proven, measureable results. As usual, a highlight of this year’s conference was the annual Human Performance Technology (HPT) case competition. This is the fifth year I have facilitated the case competition, and it was one of the best. For those unfamiliar with the case competition, it provides graduate students with hands-on consulting experience in exploring HPT interventions and strategies for a simulated company. During the competition, the students select a methodology, conduct a performance analysis, and ultimately provide recommendations and a preliminary ROI estimate. The Challenge Each year, my challenge is the same: How can I provide a rich, authentic learning experience that provides the students with a strong return on the time they invest—in some cases up to 200 hours per student. To achieve this, I blend a constructivist approach with a failure-driven learning strategy and an adaptive case. By design, this allows the students to explore a rich-enough simulation that does not limit them while providing a safe-enough environment to fail. The Teams, Conference Sessions, and Judges This year’s competition included two teams: one from the University of New Mexico (team TILO) and one from Concordia University in Montreal (team Catalyst). The students submitted a proposal of written recommendations in advance of the conference and presented their proposed solutions to a panel of judges during the first of two sessions during the conference. During the second session, I facilitated a debrief of the experience with the students. In this dialogue, the students were able to ask our panel of judges all the questions they struggled with over the prior 12 weeks. Our judges provided excellent insight, drawing upon their collective 120 years of experience in the industry. The panel of expert judges for this year’s competition included: Roger Addison, CPT, EdD, Addison Consulting Anne Apking, CPT, High Impact Learning Solutions Ray Svenson, CPT, Ray Svenson Consulting, Inc. Eileen Banchoff, CPT, PhD, Banchoff Associates, Inc. Why Is This So Important? Many stakeholders benefit from this experience. The students benefit from a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience. ISPI strengthens the bond between its deep base of performance improvement practitioners and emerging professionals. The universities have the opportunity to showcase their students, the faculty, and their curriculum. And finally, GP Strategies gains access to the best and brightest emerging training and performance improvement professionals. To underscore the value of the experience, the students shared the following quotes:  "…this has been one of the richest learning experiences I have participated in…"  "…this challenge pushed us to think critically and apply what we have been learning in our graduate programs."  "…this case and client is authentic, but what is even more important is that I have been able to apply what I have learned back to my current job." Based on the feedback from this year’s and past teams, the failure-driven learning approach is a powerful tool in providing an authentic, experiential, and engaging learning experience. How do you or your organization help to make the learning experience more authentic for your learners? What are some examples of where your organization has utilized failure driven learning to develop rich expertise?

Leadership development is essential to the health of any organization. We wanted to know what qualities make a good leader, so we grabbed a video camera and asked! It was fascinating to see the commonalities in responses, especially from people working in different industries, services and business levels. Going beyond identifying what makes a good leader, how can organizations further develop the skills of their leaders? Special thanks to those who took the time to talk with us: Matt Poovan; Mary Schools; Johnathan Lightfoot; Butler Newman; Karen Hoye; Doug Sharp; Manoli Salpeas; Billy Biggs; Jennifer Jacobsen; Neil Baksh and Greg Long

A strategy cannot be successful until the people on the front line have changed the way they do their work. Greg Long, VP Organizational Excellence at GP Strategies, discusses how CLOs can partner with thier business to execute strategies and overcome organizational drag.

Employee engagement matters. Don’t take our word, however. Think of how you felt as a customer the last time you interacted with someone who went above and beyond for you - demonstrating enthusiasm and know-how. Think of the impact that you had on your organization’s bottom line during your last "great day at work." We can achieve extraordinary accomplishments for ourselves and employers when we are fully engaged. But for too long, employee engagement has been a numbers game — a score out of context with mission-critical business priorities. Moreover, many organizations are stuck in a rut of measurement, analysis, communication, and well-intentioned action planning that goes nowhere. It’s time to make engagement a daily priority. It’s time to make engagement a shared responsibility - where every member of your workforce understands and fulfills his or her role in creating a workplace where individuals thrive and your organization makes its mark. It’s time to equip people with the insights and tools they need to ensure that engagement is not a separate goal from the work that needs to get done but instead is a seamless part of how the work gets done. We hope this newsletter provides new ideas for doing just that. Read the latest issue of Performance Matters.

The SharePoint Learning Portal is an innovative solution around learning needs. In this video, Manoli Salpeas, Director of Emerging Technologies & Partner Alliances, talks about key features of the SharePoint Learning Portal and the benefits it can provide for organizations and its users.

One of the challenges organizations face with formal learning (instructor led training) is that the learner takes in the necessary knowledge, but by the time they need to implement that training into real-world situations, a majority of this knowledge has been lost. In this video, Manoli Salpeas and Johnathan Lightfoot discuss problems that the SharePoint Learning Portal can address with respect to formal learning today.

Doug Sharp, President, and Debbie Ung, Senior Vice President at GP Strategies Corporation discuss the competitive advantage that companies are beginning to realize regarding workforce development and training.