by Jennie Ruby    We have a good collection of peeves this week, starting with one from Geri Moran: Emails--I have given up using the original form with a hyphen (e-mail) because the Microsoft Manual of Style finally capitulated, but it drives me crazy to see the word emails used for multiple email messages. I don't get "mails" from the U.S. Postal service, I get mail. Right, Geri! Some editors used to say that email is only an adjective, not a noun, so that it should always have the word messages after it. I think we mostly gave up on that idea long ago, but email as a noun should certainly parallel the usage of mail! Anita Weiler brings us an incorrect pronoun usage, a substitute word, and a misspelling, followed by a pronunciation peeve: Saying myself instead of me. It isn't more polite, it's just wrong! Ask as a noun: "That's a good ask.: (Makes my skin crawl.) [I received other complaints on this one-you are not alone.] Loose instead of lose: when did you loose your keys? [I hate it when people unleash their keys and loose them upon the world!] Mispronouncing nuclear as "noo-kyoo-lar" She brings us another word that is similar to the aforementioned use of ask instead of question or request: I understand that language evolves. I just don't like many of the changes. Often the result is language that is less clear, or just ugly. For example, I really detest when people say (and mispronounce) INvite to mean invitation. "Did you get the invite I sent you?" However, after checking some online dictionaries I see that invite is now listed as an informal word for invitation. Which means eventually it will likely be considered standard usage. Ugh! Barbara Kennedy takes us into a more esoteric realm: the use of the subjunctive mood. She is peeved by these errors: Incorrect: "If he would have" Correct: "If he had" Incorrect: "If I was you" Correct: "If I were you" Incorrect: "I suggest is that he is removed." Correct: "I suggest that he be removed." Incorrect: "I recommend they do not enter the competition." Correct: "I recommend they not enter the competition." She says she is afraid she'll have to let this bit of grammar go, but I think it is not on the brink quite yet. These incorrect uses would be corrected in any professionally edited context, I hope! A few weeks ago, I asked people to send in their memory aids.Julie Robertson has one that she would like to ask all of you about. She remembers one that started like this:   "Capitals SHOUT; italics whisper. Bold [does something]; underline points the way, and so on. Have you heard this one? she asks. It is not familiar to me. If you know this one, please help us out by filling in the gaps. I'm sure there are more peeves out there, free to add them as comments below.

Written by Chris Osborn   Today's Q&A discusses who decides what skills are promotable, and more importantly how to align those skills with current and future orientations in order to best benefit your organization.     Access 7,000+ Employee Training Resources BizLibrary offers 7,000+ training videos in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   How to Measure the Impact of Employee Soft Skills Training We know great "people skills" when we see them or experience them. However, soft skills don’t always lend themselves to easy measurement for excellence. Measure the business impact . . . Well, that’s just not something the ROI and traditional approaches to training investment don’t really help us do very effectively unless we dig deeper. 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. Video Transcript Hi,Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing with BizLibrary with today's Q&A. We're going to deviate a little bit, we're going to comment on a comment actually that we got in a webinar. It comes from Anne, she's the VP of HR at a manufacturing organization who self-identifies herself, by the way, as a baby boomer and she said "I'm all for mobile learning, there's lot of benefits. Convenience, speed, etc" but she still believes for it to stick it has to be complemented with on-the-job training.   We agree! Mobile is nothing more than a method to deliver content, no more, no less. But mobile should be a central part of a next-generation learning strategy for a whole host of reasons. First, it's the way most of us are already accessing information we want or need away from work. Think mobile apps, like Maps or Movie Apps, looking for nearby restaurants. It's how we answer questions each and every day in the moment, wherever we happen to be and whatever we happen to need. Our employees are already using their mobile devices to access work-related information right now. Trust us, they're doing that whether you want them to or not. So the thing that mobile content does it helps employees in the exact moment of need. So, it makes on-the-job training even more effective. And here's why: people learn best when they can apply what they learn right away.   By having immediate access to information on mobile devices and being able to apply that content right in the moment of need, especially when that content is delivered in short-form video, that methodology works perfectly to meet the learning needs of today's workforce. It matches brain science, it ties into adult learning theory, and it helps employees in nearly every job role in nearly every organization. So Anne, you're exactly right. Mobile learning does work really well for a whole range of reasons and it actually helps amplify the impact and effect of on-the-job training.

For the past 15 years, I've spent a lot of time working on start-ups both inside and outside the world of eLearning.  As I mentioned in Blogger Outreach, I'm now getting quite a few emails that are announcements of new services, products, events, etc.  One thing that really surprises me is the number of new products that constantly appear that leave me scratching my head.  Why am I scratching my head?  Because I'm not sure that they've really done any market research, competitor analysis and have come up with a unique value proposition. In some cases, I'll connect back to the vendor to ask how it's different than some of the other products in the market.  In most cases, they will mention some neat new feature that makes their product marginally better. A marginally better new product is not going to do anything in the market. You only need to read a few marketing books to understand why that is.  You won't be able to get above the noise. And this isn't just me. Stephen Downes - What Not to Build.  Notice how a lot of the solutions he suggests not to build falls into the category of marginally better.  The places he sees opportunity are significantly different.  I don't necessarily agree with him on some of his suggestions - too bleeding edge.  We'd need a lot more market research before I invested much time and money.  But the point is to make sure you are not a "me too" solution. What's going to make a new learning solution interesting? Addresses Real Pain Point Tell me the pain that customers are feeling that will make them pay for your solution - or adopt your free solution.  Even if you are free, you still have to have enough pain with how they are doing things today to get them to adopt. A corollary to this is to make sure you tell me who your customers are.  It's surprising how many times I run into new products where it's not clear who they think will be using it. Different Type of Solution I'm going to be more interested when you tell me about a new solution that doesn't fit into the existing categorizations of tools.  Actually, this is the same thing as differentiating a solution.  For example, let's say that you are building a web conferencing solution that includes an easy to use 2.5D representation and avatars.  You would categorize the space from faceless (WebEx) to 3D/complex (Second Life) and your solution is this new category of approachable 3D.  You get the feeling of presence and personality, without the complexities of Second Life. Integrates in Interesting Ways Another way to get my attention and possibly get the market's attention is to have a solution that integrates with existing, already adopted solutions.  For example, if you build something that integrates with Facebook, Twitter, etc. that can take advantage of an existing audience in order to help you solve particular issues.  Or maybe it's a product that lives on top of SharePoint.  Or integrates with all the major LMS products. Islands have a hard time making it. Interesting Market Entry This somewhat relates to the integration issue.  If you can integrate with Facebook, Twitter, or similar products and you have some kind of viral aspect, then that could make you more interesting.  For example, create a business simulation that integrates with those products.  Or a learning tool that leverages those products to help aggregate activity.  But interesting market entry can also be things like the strategy that Yammer took.  They allow you to set up a corporate twitter that is based on your email domain without ever asking permission from IT.  It's a similar idea to the original groups that Facebook had where you couldn't be part of it unless you had an email with the appropriate domain.  Yammer thus provides a very interesting market entry model that can effectively beat out competitors who need to go through a full IT sales cycle. An Example - New Survey Tool What sparked this post was an email I received that was a new survey tool.  I'm not going to mention the specific tool because they didn't provide any of the information I would need to assess whether it's an interesting offering or a me too.  On the surface, the tool looks very similar to many other survey tools on the market.  Actually, in terms of reporting and some other aspects, other tools look like they are way ahead.  This new survey tool appears to have additional multimedia question types, but I was not clear on why that's any better than providing some media or a small embedded captivate piece and having the question there. Some thoughts and questions I would have for this company - Customers?  Pain Point? Who do they perceive to be their customers?  What is the pain point? From my experience using survey products, there are definite pain points that are encountered in specific situations.  You want to create a survey with a particular purpose, but the reporting doesn't seem to work out for you quite right.  Or you want to create surveys that need to have reporting done in specific ways.  Or maybe these surveys are aimed at employee satisfaction and the goal is to feed it back into the LMS?  Maybe there's a unique roll-up of results?  Or unique aspects of sending it out to the right people and tracking who's completed it? Integration Notice how several of the above pain points relate to integration.  Quite often integration is the barrier to adoption of tools.  If this survey creates something that can feed back into the LMS, then it might be able to get traction in the market. Of course, most survey tools today really are aimed more at integrating with social platforms.  If you could create a survey and have it work seamlessly with Twitter, as a widget on your blog, with Facebook, with your LinkedIn connections, etc., that represents a pretty interesting offering.  Or maybe there's something about being able to report back out through these same tools? You need to be a little careful that you still find customers and pain points. Market Entry Survey tools can have a very nice viral aspect to them.  You see someone use the tool and then you want to use it.  It's a bit like hotmail in the early days.  And if you are able to use it with twitter, Facebook, etc. it will be that much more viral. Maybe this tool could be bundled with other authoring tools? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

by AJ Walther     Ever wanted to create your own font but then realized you have no idea how to do that? I feel ya, friend. And I'd like to suggest you check out FontStruct. FontStruct is pretty intuitive and easy to use for even (and perhaps especially) novice font designers. Fonts you design can be installed on any Mac or Windows computer.    Click here for a nice introduction video on FontStruct with instructions for getting started.  What I think is particularly nice about this tool is the social aspect. After you've created your font you can choose your own licensing for the font. This means you could protect the font with an All Rights Reserved copyright (preventing downloads), or you could share the font (making it available for download) under a variety of Creative Commons licenses.  The ability to share fonts means that not only can you create and share your own fonts, but you can also download fonts made by other users who are willing to share their work. Make sure you check the license for each font before you download and use it; I was able to find a decent selection of fonts available for commercial (and non-commercial) use.  To find a font, click the Gallery tab on FontStruct. From there you'll find fonts divided into a few categories: What's New, Top Picks, and Everything. You also have the ability to search, but I do wish the search feature was a bit stronger and had the ability to search by license type. When you find a font you like, click its title to access the font's page. From there you can download the font, rate it, and see more information. Be sure to check the Shared section for licensing information. Each license is a clickable link, so if you're unsure what the license means, click the link to learn more. Here are some great fonts I found. Zastava, fruit stripes, tockice, and circuit breaker all by usertime.piece:     Nova Thin Extended by user laynecom (I love this one!):     Robot Raid by user vertigokid (this one's a bit less useable, but how fun!):   If you create a font on FontStruct, don't be shy! Send it along and we'll share your font here! *** If you love AJ's articles, you'll love her Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations mini course.  

One of the coolest things about working for BizLibrary is unlimited Learning! Each month BizLibrary Employees share their favorite courses. This month features employees from Bizlibrary's Client Success and Sales Teams.     December Pix from Left to Right:   Jeannie Gutridge, Account Executive Leadership Feedback: What employees want to tell you…but don’t! Being a great leader takes work. Have you ever wondered what others think of your leadership? This is a great video that is a must-see for all managers! We’ve all had bad bosses that wouldn’t complement our work, were evasive, didn’t demonstrate competence, were micromanagers, and didn’t give employees autonomy. This video walks you through the how great leaders do things vs how poor leaders do. This is perfect for all levels of management as well as for people who would like to become management. View the video preview below:     Ryan Jaegers, Account Executive Persuasive Presentation Skills: Go For the Goal (Part 1) How many presentations have you begun by saying, "Today I am going to give you an overview"? If you have made this mistake you need to take this course. Setting a correct goal that is directed towards your audience is one of the most essential parts of an effective presentation. Mary does an outstanding job of giving you a short outline for more effective presentations that "get people marching". View the video preview below:   Andrew Buller, Client Success Consultant Time Challenged "Time Challenged" is all about effectively managing your time. I liked this video because it was effective yet humorous. Time management is a fairly generic topic and I think it may be overlooked by many. This video is a situational type exploring many of the root causes of improper time management. Even if someone doesn’t necessarily have issues showing up on time but feels scattered, it explores those situations as well. I thought the producer "bizniss" did a great job with this video by putting together situations and settings that are relatable but can also make you laugh. View the video preview below:     Anne Haupt, Client Success Consultant What to say When: You’re New on the Job As it is my second week on the job, I thought ‘What to say When: You’re New on the Job’ was a great fit for December! It’s a nice reminder that it’s okay not to know everything about your new job when you initially get started. Asking a lot of questions and utilizing your resources and co-workers are the best ways to get up and running quickly. View the video preview below:     Try these courses and more! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.

by Willam van Weelden     When you create a list, there are several list styles you can use in RoboHelp: bullets, squares, lowercase alphabet, and numbers. But RoboHelp brings one more great feature: you can use images instead of bullets. Create a List Style with Custom Images On the Project Manager pod, double-click your style sheet to open the Styles dialog box. Right-click List and choose New. Enter a name for the list style and press [enter]. Click the Create a bulleted list button. Select the list images option. Click the browse button to open the Image dialog box. Select the image you want to use as a bullet and click OK. Then click the OK button to save your changes. Apply an Image List Style Open or create a topic, and then create a regular bulleted list. Select the list. Right-click and choose Bullets and Numbering. Go to the Custom tab and select your list style in the left section. Click the OK button to apply your list. *** Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

Important announcement: I've moved where I will be creating the eLearning Hot Lists.  So … Want a weekly list of the best content on eLearning from around the web?  Please read this post and then head over to eLearning Learning and subscribe to the Best Of feed via RSS or eMail. In Using Social Signals to Find Top eLearning Resources I discussed a particular example of using the social signals capability of Browse My Stuff to find good resources on a particular topic.  This capability also works for finding the top resources over a given time period.  I've been using eLearning Learning to create Hot Lists for a while now: eLearning Initial Hot List eLearning Hot List Feb 1-14 eLearning Hot Last Week eLearning Top 9 Posts You May Have Missed eLearning Hot List - April 1, 2009 to April 11, 2009 eLearning Host List February eLearning Hot List - Second Half of January Google Wave - Social Learning - Business - eLearning Hot List Performance - Collaboration - Social Network Analysis - eLearning Hot List Collaboration - Knowledge Management - Expert - Hot List eLearning Learning - Best of May Social Learning - Instructional Design - Free - eLearning Hot Topics eLearning - Social Media - Mobile Learning Twitter TechSmith LinkedIn Learning Strategy From now on I will be creating and publishing these hot lists over on the eLearning Learning site.  The first post is up now: Learning Theory - Enterprise 2.0 - Social Software - eLearning Learning Weekly Hot List With the recent updates to the site, you can subscribe to the Best Of RSS feed to receive these hotlists or you can visit the site and sign up to receive them via email. As always, I would welcome input, ideas, etc. on eLearning Learning and Browse My Stuff. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.       Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Employee Training and Development: How to Measure Effectiveness and Impact This complimentary eBook discusses training metrics including where we've been and where we're going, how to determine key goals and indicators, and how to create a measurement plan for your program. 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.

T+D Blog - Serious Gaming in the Workplace asks the question: Is serious gaming being taken seriously in your workplace? It is time to change the perception of "gaming" among CEOs and other corporate executives. It is a valuable learning tool that is taking too long to become a mainstream part of everyday learning. However, I've been wondering for long time about when the added costs of building games really pays off.  Last year in Training Method Trends I showed some data from the eLearning Guild that had games and simulations decreasing as a modality.  My guess is that right now with pressure on training budgets, there's significant pressure on spending on games.   The Upside Learning (disclosure) white paper Do You Need Games In Your eLearning Mix? (see also their great blog post - Top 100 Learning Game Resources) of course comes out and tells us that different kinds of games make sense based on different learning needs and that there's a place for them. I concur that there's pretty significant backing that game-based learning results in better learning transfer rates.  But transfer does not equal ROI.  I've done some initial search for back-up that the added cost of developing learning games is worth the cost, and I've really not come up with much of anything.  There are some great anecdotal examples, but the real question is up-front: When is it worth the added cost to turn a learning experience into a game?  And how do we know that going in? The justification is often a bit hard.  There's an emotional response among some buyers that games equals waste.  But even beyond overcoming that challenge, I see it as a bit hard to go from additional transfer angle.  Couldn't we get transfer using another approach at a lower total cost?  Are we trying to justify in additional seat time that learners would spend if it wasn't a game?  Is it true that seat time is less for the same transfer for games? This relates to the question of the Business of Learning.  I'm not sure that by creating games you really are going to be able to sell enough additional product or create enough added value that it justifies the additional expenditure. What's the business rationale for spending on games? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

by AJ Walther   I've said it a thousand times: when it comes to eLearning (and presentations in general), PowerPoint is not the problem. Bad design is the problem. That being said, I wouldn't let PowerPoint off the hook altogether. Many PowerPoint defaults serve to lead users down a path of poor design choices (starting on a slide that encourages a title followed by a bulleted list, for example). Let's take a look at tables. When you insert a table in PowerPoint, you will probably end up with something that looks a lot like this:The table shown above isn't deplorable, but there's a good chance that if you show it to an audience, eyes will glaze over (people will not know where to focus). To fix this table you first need to decide what message you are trying to convey. Do you want your audience to really see all of the information? Are you trying to show a progression over time? Are the totals really important? Maybe just one month is important and the other information is just supporting data? You might find that a table really isn't the solution you want after all. Maybe a simple graphic would do the trick instead.For the sake of demonstration, let's say you are presenting the chart above and the main point you want to drive home is the 2013 totals. Here is a step-by-step guide to fixing such a table:Remove font and fill colorsDon't worry, we'll add in some design-y elements later.Remove Borders and GridlinesUse your best judgment here to decide whether there should be absolutely no lines, lines in specific places, or a line after each row. Generally you will find that despite temptation to add them, few lines are really needed. This may depend on your audience, how much data you are presenting, and from what size screen your end-users will view this content.Remove Bolding Traditionally you may find that the trend is to bold all items in the top row and the left-most row. Think carefully about whether this is really necessary.Left align textIgnore the titles for now and align all of the data's text (not numbers) to the left.Right align numbersStill ignoring the titles, right align all of the numeric data.Align titles with dataNow for the titles. Match the alignment of titles to the data below them.Resize columns to dataWorking within the table in PowerPoint, hover your mouse over the gridlines between each row of data. Your mouse will change to parallel lines with arrows. Double-click and the row to the left will resize to perfectly fit its data. Use white spaceIn the example below the data is divided by months of a year so a logical place to add space and provide a rest for the eyes was after each quarter. Use your best judgment when deciding how you might break apart your data to make it more readable.Round numbers and use consistent precisionThere are some fields where it is truly important to show numerical data several units past a decimal point. For most of us, however, that is not the case. Decide where you want to round your numbers and be consistent throughout.Remove repetitionIn this case, repeating 2013 for every month of the year was not necessary. Instead the title was changed to "Months of 2013."Format fontsIt's easy to forget to apply the fonts you've used elsewhere to your table. Take the time to do that now, making sure you are being consistent with the rest of your content.Add emphasisNow, finally, add in emphasis thoughtfully to illustrate your main point. *** If you love AJ's articles, you'll love her Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations mini course.