by Jen Weaver     While it failed to be renewed for another season, the 2010 NBC show "Outsourced" shed a comical light on some of the cultural nuances to doing business in India. Miss the show? Never fear. In this article we'll explore some common cultural facts about Indians and their expectations when it comes to training and development.   Test your Knowledge of Indian Culture Match the old westernized city name with its present replacement. Colonial Name Current Name Calcutta Bombay Madras Mumbai Chennai Kolkata What two world religions were born in India? Quick Tips for Training & Development in India1: Resist the urge to change "Indian" to "Native American" out of political correctness. Aboriginal tribes in North America are Native Americans, and individuals from India are Indians. Hindi is the national language, although English is extremely common especially given the high volume of U.S. jobs outsourced to India presently. Depending on your audience, it's likely you won't need to translate training materials, but pay close attention to learner retention and quiz scores. Students learn best in their own language. If your trainees aren't scoring as well as their native English-speaking counterparts, you may want to pilot translated materials to see if results improve. Most Indians are Hindu, a religion that supports their social caste system. Many Hindus are vegetarians and won't wear leather, as cows are regarded as sacred. A smaller percentage of Indians are Muslim and do not eat pork. Keep this in mind when selecting meals, attire, and images or examples in your training materials. If you're training on location in India, be sure to drink bottled water and avoid eating raw produce that is at risk of being contaminated. Many travelers face digestive issues from overindulgence in spicy food, so come prepared with necessary medications. The last thing you want is to search for a pharmacy in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar country. When it comes to decision-making, objective facts are less persuasive than appealing to individual feelings and religious beliefs. Relationships are more important than vocational experience; however, higher levels of education are still highly valued. Another common cultural norm is fatalism--the belief that all events are predetermined and, therefore, inevitable. This contributes to passivity in decision-making and a casual approach to time and schedules. Male chauvinism abounds, and women do not have equal privileges. If your training team includes female instructors, be mindful that this may impact learner receptivity. Also, orthodox Muslim men will not touch women. To be safe, it's ideal to wait for the Indian representative to offer his hand to shake. The word "Namaste" is also an acceptable greeting as a replacement for shaking hands. Standing with your hands on your hips is seen as angry and aggressive. Pointing with your finger is also rude, and you may notice many Indians pointing with their chin instead. Never point your feet at someone, as feet are considered unclean. If your shoes or feet happen to touch another person, be sure to apologize. Black and white are deemed unlucky colors, while green, red, and yellow are considered lucky. These are good perspectives to keep in mind when branding training materials or selecting gifts for Indian counterparts.  Trivia Answers: Mumbai is the present name for what was once Bombay. Chennai is the present name for Madras, and Kolkata is the present name for Calcutta. Hinduism and Buddhism.  References:   1Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.   *** Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Written by Jessica Batz View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.

I just saw When Knowledge Management Hurts … Professors Martine Haas from the Wharton School and Morten Hansen from INSEAD, for example, examined the use of internal knowledge systems by teams of consultants in one of the big four accountancy firms trying to win sales bids. They measured to what extent these teams accessed electronic documents and how much they sought personal advice from other consultants in the firm. They figured that, surely, accessing more knowledge must be helpful, right? But they proved themselves wrong; to their surprise they found that the more internal electronic databases were consulted by these teams the more likely they were to lose the bid! So I naturally looked at the citation to read the details … Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver on Its Promises? In a study of 182 sales teams that were bidding for new client contracts in a management consulting company, Haas and Hansen found that using personal advice from experienced colleagues can improve work quality. "We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time," Haas says. "This is interesting because managers often believe that capturing and sharing knowledge via document databases can substitute for getting personal advice, and that sharing advice through personal networks can save time. But our findings dispute the claim that different types of knowledge are substitutes for each other. Instead, we show that appropriately matching the type of knowledge used to the requirements of the task at hand -- quality, signaling or speed -- is critical if a firm's knowledge capabilities are to translate into improved performance of its projects." There is considerably more detail here, but this certainly calls into question the idea of creating large knowledge bases.  It may even call into question sharing of Effective Patterns.  However, my findings indicate that using Data Driven approaches ensures that you arrive at effective sharing, but it's certainly different to share patterns as opposed to sharing additional codified knowledge. What is hugely important out of this is the reminder of the limits of codified knowledge and that Conversation Learning is essential but that there are limits to what should be shared and how effective that sharing can be.  Still, I've come to believe the most important Knowledge Worker Skill Gap is the Leveraging Networks Skill.  I've discussed this many times in Value from Social Media and Networks and Communities.  The research would seem to suggest that it's more than just an uneasy feeling after searching, but the reality is that you likely are missing things.  You really do need to have that conversation. The bottom line is to reduce the amount of time you spend search and spend more time talking. This does make me wonder what this means for professions that focus on helping to create codified knowledge? eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

Written by Jessica Batz View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.

It's been a while since I looked at: ROI and Metrics in eLearning and in this case, I was more looking at traditional content delivery and their impact.  I've recently been more interested in measures around social learning.  And I think I need real help here understanding how to measure this stuff. And, I just saw a post Measuring Networked (or Social) Learning that discusses how we could go about measuring social learning.  In this, Eric suggests the following minimum measures: Networking patterns - the relationship between people and content categories, the network make up or profile (business unit, job, level, etc), key brokers and influencers by content category, and the degree of networking across silos. Learning efficiency - time lag between posting content and when content is viewed,  amount of time spent producing content for others to view, amount of redundant or significantly overlapping content, the degree to which "informal" content is reused in "formal" content (and perhaps reducing formal content development costs and effort). Learning needs - differences between the learning needs or demand between "formal" and "social" learning (are some skills best learnt formally?), most popular learning needs by job, level, business unit, etc. Contribution patterns - most active contributors and methods of contribution, busiest days and times for contributing, frequency and amount of contributions by job, level, business unit, etc.  Content usage patterns - preferred ways to consume various content topics, busiest days and times for viewing content,  amount of time spent viewing content and participating in discussion threads and blogs, and preferred way to "find" content. Content quality - ratings by content category, contributor, and medium, amount of "inappropriate" or "wrong" content reported by users, and the amount and type of content with very few or a lot of hits or views. I'm not sure I buy how much real impact any of this will have on bottom line measures.  The recent MIT Study that showed that more highly networked individuals were more productive (see Workplace Productivity).  So, size and access of networks might be a proxy, but what about all the rest of these suggested measures.  Do we really believe they will be proxies for effectiveness? I like what Kevin Jones talked about in Objection #13: How Do You Measure ROI? How do you know that it is producing bottom line results? … Rachel Happe suggested some measurements of ROI. A lot of them are for environments that face the customer, but some are for internal. Among those were: # Number of new product ideas # Idea to development initiation cycle time # Retention/Employee turn over # Time to hire # Prospect identification cost # Prospect to hire conversion rate # Hiring cost # Training cost # Time to acclimation for new employees Remember, we are looking at the final outcome, not necessarily "did they learn". Because, honestly, we don’t care if they learn if they don’t use it for the benefit of the company. So the benefit is what we measure.  Other’s measurements might be: # How large one’s network is # Number of meetings taking place (or, more intuitively, are NOT taking place) # Number of travel arrangements made (or, again, NOT made). I always like to work on project where there are clear metrics that are the focus at the end of day (see Data Driven).  But in many cases, we need to define Intermediate Factors in Learning (see also Intermediate Factors).  As an example, we might be focusing on Customer Loyalty.  However, this metric is far too hard to directly measure and impact and thus we might say that there are intermediate factors such as customer satisfaction (based on surveys), recent contact, staff knowledge, etc.  We often know that these factors are contributors to the end measure.  Thus, we can define these as the actual goal. What is particularly challenging about social learning measurement is understanding what these intermediate factors are going to be?  If you have really good support for networks, communities, social learning, etc. - how would we expect that to impact (in a measurable way) the above factors?  Why?  Why would this impact something like engagement or turnover?  Is there any proof?  What does that suggest about the intermediate measures?  Any pointers to good resources on this? eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

by Jennie Ruby    Answers to my Confusing Words for 100 challenge are brought to you by Cathy A. Mackie: What will the effect/affect of the new restrictions be?(noun) The new director will effect/affect some changes in the current policy. (verb - exception when effect can mean to bring about or accomplish) The revisions to the software will effect/affect how we use it. (verb) How will the new functions effect/affect our template?(verb) What effect/affect will the new interface have on our compliance initiative? (noun) The change is to/too difficult to explain over the phone. I want to upgrade the operating system, to/too. The file is to/too large to fit on my flash drive. The goal is to/too enhance functionality without increasing costs. To/too encourage use, we will offer to/too/two new incentives. Other correct answers came in from Tara Allen, Gail Kelleher, Geri Moran, Ginny Supranowitz, and Kay Honaker. To the many, many respondents who missed number 2, note Cathy's comment: Effect can sometimes be used as a verb meaning to put into effect. If you think of the verb affect as meaningchange, it becomes clear that The new director will change some changes in the current policy doesn't quite work.   *** Confusing Words for 200    Let's tackle two more sets of confusing words: than/then and adept/adapt/adopt.    Than is for comparisons, then is for sequence.    Adept means skilled, adapt means to alter for a particular use, and adopt means to take as your own. The Washington Monument is taller than/then the Capitol dome. Lunch was later than/then we thought. The paddleboard is much longer than/then most surf boards. First we paddled up the creek, than/then we paddled down. The mouth of the Magothy River is much wider than/then the mouth of the Severn. The instructors were much more adept/adapt/adopt at maneuvering than/then the beginners were. We wanted to adept/adapt/adopt the puppy, but first it needed some shots. How adept/adapt/adopt are you at balancing on a floating board? You have to adept/adapt/adopt your stance to the circumstances. Is there some way we can adept/adapt/adopt this oar, which is much too long, for use with a canoe? Feel free to post your answers as comments below. *** If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Check out some of Jennie's mini courses.

Written by Jessica Batz View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.

by Kevin Siegel    If you have created a Captivate project and need to reuse a slide in another project, all you need to do is right-click the slide on the Filmstrip, choose the Copy menu item, switch to another (or new) Captivate project, and paste. Copying slides between projects gets a bit complicated if the two projects are not the same size. For instance, the original project size is 1024x768. The other project is 825x675. When copying and pasting the slides between projects, larger slides pasted into smaller projects will likely get cropped; smaller slides pasted into larger projects will "float" on the larger slide. There is an easy way to ensure that slides rescale when pasted between projects. First, open the project that will receive the pasted slide. Open Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences; Mac users, choose Adobe Captivate > Preferences). From the list of Categories at the left of the dialog box, choose General Settings. Select Rescale Imported/Pasted Slide (the option is deselected by default) and then click the OK button. With Rescale Imported/Pasted Slide selected, the slide you copied will rescale to fit the proportions of the active project after you paste. Keep in mind that if the two projects are not proportional to each other, copying and pasting slides between projects will likely yield poor results. For instance, if there are graphics on a copied slide that was sized to 2000x900 and you paste it into a project that is 700x500, the images will scale way out of proportion. When possible, copy and paste slides between proportionally-sized projects (for instance, copying a slide in a project that is 1024x768 into a project that is 800x600 would work well).   *** Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes.

Mike Gotta tells us -A common thread between social networking and KM that strategists should acknowledge is the principle that volunteered participation and resulting contributions are a daily decision employees make - and one that they essentially control."I largely think of KM as a failure exactly because of the level of effort required for participation and it worries me that Mike sees such a close parallel:Ultimately, people still make choices on sharing what they know. How do we influence them (if possible) to make choices that directly help co-workers and indirectly help the organization overall when they are not compelled to do so by the structure of their role/task? How do you instill a sense of volunteerism (if that's even the right phrase)? We find ourselves shifting from tooling into the realm of attitude and behavior change (some might include culture change) which are better understood through the lens of psychology, sociology, etc. I agree with Kate that changing culture is difficult but not impossible. Enabling an environment where people are more willing to volunteer above that which they feel is necessary has been one of the intractable challenges faced by industrial-age organizations.My gut tells me there is something different here now. That participation is different when it's a natural part of how we work, network, etc. But, I do worry about the 90-9-1 Rule and the resulting perception about participation. Much of what works outside of an organization does so because of scale and with 90-9-1, you still have enough participation. Inside an organization, 90-9-1 can be seen as a failure.What do you think? Is there something different here? eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

Written by Chris Osborn   Today's Q&A Thursday discusses proper timelines you should use to evaluate training programs, and what should be done during each phase.     Stay Up-to-Date on the Most Current Business Training Trends BizLibrary offers 6,000+ training videos in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   How to Build a Business Case for Online Employee Training This complimentary eBook will help you get your online training proposal approved. It identifies the 5 key elements of a business case, discusses best practices, and includes examples to help you make your case solid. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices. - See more at: /technology/bizmobile.aspx#sthash.umjsk4e5.dpuf Video Transcription