What are you doing Saturday? Are you going to build something? A storage shed perhaps? A deck? Face it, there's no way you'll finish either of those projects tomorrow. If you want to build something that matters, and get it done in a day, why not focus on your LinkedIn Profile?  Whether you are in the market for a new job, just starting your career, or are a well-established professional, LinkedIn is one of the most important tools for establishing your online presence.   Good practices from the start help you to "brand" yourself & determine what kind of message you want to offer about yourself to the world. During this class, you will learn to use the most powerful features of LinkedIn to get your profile noticed. You will discover best practices for creating an online presence, learn about privacy and other settings, get tips on networking and protecting your online reputation, and more. The class will use a series of worksheets (provided) for exercises in gathering keywords, writing your summary, and listing your skills and strengths. We'll do some fun group exercises to get everyone thinking of how to improve their own profile. Learn more and sign up here!

I've been slowly going through Chris Anderson's book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. There's a lot he gives you to think about and definitely a lot that relates to the Business of Learning. There's quite a bit in the book that really resonates with me: We can't help it: We value atoms more than bits. Bits want to be free. A common theme throughout the book is that people naturally understand the differences between bits and atoms. We somewhat intuitively understand that near-zero marginal cost is true for bits. Thus, they treat content delivered as bits as having less value than the equivalent atoms version. Chris tells us: It's time to stop treating bits like atoms and assuming the same limitations hold. There's definitely a lot of questions raised by the book that will undoubtedly add to my thoughts around New Learning Solutions: What are the versions of offerings that can have different prices? Because of downward price pressure on anything that is bits and relatively undifferentiated, what are the ways that offerings can include other differentiating aspects? Where can users add value back into the system?What are network effects that we can leverage for greater value?Where do network effects outside a single organization instance help drive value? How do we effectively compete in the Attention Economy? (see Corporate Learning Long Tail and Attention Economy) This will be fun to explore. Likely through my Free Blog and Free Webinars. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

You might call it a "perfect storm." Others might use a different term, but in the end, the term is immaterial. We all have to deal with the broad social influences converging on our workplaces affecting employee learning and development. In some respects, employee learning and development has never been more important given this current climate some commentators describe as "VUCA," which means volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. For generations, employee training programs had a clear focus. We helped employees improve skills to solve known problems. But something foundational has changed. In today’s VUCA world, we need a different focus for employee development. We need a different approach to employee development that enables employees to learn new skills and help our organizations become more agile and adaptable. A critical element of effective employee learning in such a world will be a next generation of learning content strategies. Traditional approaches to learning content are perfectly suited to an environment where improving skills to solve known problems is the strategic objective. But an analysis conducted by LinkedIn of some of the most "in demand" jobs reveals something that tells an interesting story. After looking at 259 million LinkedIn profiles, eight of the 10 job titles with the fastest growth since 2008 are: IOS Developer: 142x growth Android Developer: 199x Social Media Intern: 174x Data Scientist: 30x UI/UX Designer: 22x Big Data Architect: 3,360x Cloud Services Specialist: 17x Digital Marketing Specialist: 17x The other two were both fitness related. So today’s employee learning and development initiatives need to shift from preparing employees to solve known problems, to preparing employees to fill jobs that don’t exist yet. How do we do that? We start with content. No learning or development can occur unless we deliver content to employees, but we have to rethink learning content if we are going to shift the strategic focus of employee development to reflect the broad influences of demographics, technology, behaviors, and future needs of both employees and the organization. Three Elements of a Next-Generation of Learning Content Strategy Content Definition: Let’s start with a new definition of content. Content can be anything that answers a question an employee might ask that can improve or influence performance. Curation: Content needs a structure to be effective. Curation is about providing context so the content employees need is usable, accessible, and can be applied in the moment of need. Delivery: Employee performance cannot be improved without content, but the content must be delivered to employees to be effective. The delivery of content, therefore, must be a key part of any effective content strategy and must take into account how employees access information. Content A traditional approach to defining content would restrict content to learning objects generated by the organization, usually the Training or HR department, and delivered to employees via formal training, either a classroom or an online course. Other content might be from third-party vendors such as online courses or seminars conducted by outside subject matter experts. At the core of a traditional definition of content is the idea that content is what the organization deems it to be. That’s fine, as far as it goes. But learning professionals have known for quite some time that employees learn most of what they need to know to effectively perform their jobs informally or socially. The 70-20-10 or 80-20 theories of social and informal learning long have dominated thought leadership in the industry, but traditional learning content strategies did not adequately address this reality. In fact, many traditional learning professionals tried to "formalize informal learning." A far more effective approach is to simply accept reality. Social and informal learning are real, and our employees already are engaged. Additionally, employees already are accessing content on their own, when they need it, and on their own mobile devices, too. To employees, it doesn’t matter where useful content originates. If it’s useful, it’s…well, it’s used. To employees, learning content is anything that helps them in the moment of need. This practical, real-world approach to learning content is exactly what we as learning professionals have to adopt, and we have to adapt our content strategies accordingly. Curation This leads us directly to consider the second key element of the next generation of learning content strategies—content curation. If we accept that content can be anything, then we also have to accept that this definition creates risks and can be a little scary. What if employees access content that is inaccurate or not vetted by subject matter experts? This is why we have to have an effective strategic plan in place to organize content and provide a context for employees. Guiding our employees to great content will become an important role for learning professionals in this evolving environment. Curation of content, therefore, is crucial. If content is king, context is queen. Delivery The third and final element of the next generation of content strategies is delivery. Since we’ve broadened the definition of content, and recognized that content is king and context is queen, it follows that we must have a platform to deliver this organized and collected content to employees. What’s happening in the market in this specific area is amazing. The technology advances in social sharing and social media-inspired learning platforms and mobile delivery continue unabated. As we see more and more employees using tablets and smart phones for work-related purposes, it’s important that our learning content strategies give employees something useful that delivers content straight to those devices. Our employees are already there. The real question we have to ask ourselves is, "Why aren’t we?" Mobile delivery of effectively organized content will be effective and important for the next generation of learning organizations, and will be central to the next generation of learning content strategies.

by Willam van Weelden   In my last article I introduced you to merged help and showed you how to create merged Microsoft HTML Help (CHM). This week I will show you how to create links to a merged project. Create a Link to a Merged Project from Within a Topic Using RoboHelp, open a topic in one of the merged projects. Select some text and choose Insert > Hyperlink/Popup to open the Hyperlink dialog box. From the Link to drop-down menu, choose Remote Topic.   From the HTML Help file name drop-down menu, choose a CHM file. (If your CHM is not in the drop-down, click the Browse button and open it.) From the Topic area, select the topic you want to link to.  Click OK to close the Select Remote Topic dialog box. Click OK to close the Hyperlink dialog box. You created the link to another project. Please note: Should the file name of the topic in the remote project be changed, the link will no longer work.   Create Link to Merged Help Within a TOC In much the same way as from a topic, you can also create a TOC link to a merged project: Open the TOC and click New Topic Page.  Click the Link to drop-down menu and choose Remote Topic.   From the HTML Help file name field, select the CHM file. From the Topic area, select the topic you want to link to. Click OK to close the Select Remote Topic dialog box. Add a title for the TOC page in the Page Title field. Click OK to close the New TOC Page dialog box.  The link to the topic is added to the TOC. The same warning I gave you above applies: If the file name of the topic in the remote project is changed, the link will no longer work. Be careful not to change the file name or location of a topic once it is referenced it in another project. *** 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.

Great video similar to Did You Know?Here are some of the stats from the video:By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social mediaAlways love to see this. And I like to add that the marriages that came from eHarmony (roughly 1% in US) will be better than those that came through other means.2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phoneAccording to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.Pretty amazing stuff. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording from Go to Webinar.   VIEW RECORDING FROM YOUTUBE:   Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 10,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Coaching Skills for Managers and Leaders In this eBook we’ll discuss emerging principles in employee coaching for managers and the objective of coaching in organizations. 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.

by Kevin Siegel    Over the past few weeks I've taught you about text hyperlinks and object hyperlinks. This week, let's dive into yet another way you can get your learners to a website: Web objects.While both text and object hyperlinks will take the learner to a website, the resulting website will either appear in a new browser window/tab, or replace the lesson completely. In the case of the latter, the learner will need click the browser's Back button to get back to the lesson.Web objects allow you to embed a website directly on a Captivate slide. Once the website loads, the learner can interact with the website as normal (without ever leaving the lesson) To add a Web object to a slide, click Objects and choose Web.  With the object selected, visit the Properties inspector. You can add a Web address (just like any hyperlink). In the image below, notice that there is an Embed code option. You'll find the ability to Embed code particularly useful if you want to control the size of the window when it appears on the slide or its relative position onscreen.You have the ability to Auto Load the website and control whether the website appears on the Slide (which is the default) or in a new browser window. And you can add a border to the object, allow the learner to scroll through the website, and add a Loading Animation (useful if the target website is large and is going to take some time to download). In the image below, a web address has been added to the Address area. Notice that it appears directly on the Captivate slide (there's no need to preview in a Web browser first).In the image below, check out how the web browser displays the website (and I was able to scroll around the website).***  If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you. 

Why are coaching skills Important for managers and leaders? As an isolated question, a study conducted by Bersin by Deloitte showed that organizations with senior leaders who coach effectively and frequently improve their business results by 21 percent as compared to those who never coach.   More broadly, organizations that invest in leadership development are more profitable, more innovative, and more likely to be market share leaders than their peers. It’s just no longer optional to take the time and allocate the resources to effectively develop leaders at every level of your organization.   One of the most significant issues confronting businesses today is a glaring lack of next generation leaders, coupled with a stunning lack of success for both newly promoted leaders and leaders recruited from outside the organization; you have a genuine leadership talent crisis brewing. Which makes effectively coaching current leaders and current talent mission critical for organizations.   Developing sound coaching skills in leaders makes business sense. Coaching skills can help with key employee retention, performance improvement, skill improvement, and knowledge transfer. While there are other important leadership skills and competencies, coaching is central to improving the performance of entire teams. That’s why there is such a clear and direct connection between business results and organizations that place an emphasis on leadership development generally and improved coaching skills more specifically.   7 Coaching Tips for Managers and Leaders Teach managers to ask good questions to enable the process. Great questions lead to great answers, and that leads to great conversations. Meet the employee on the employee’s terms. Great coaches are motivated by the success of others, and that requires a relentless focus outward . Help managers understand how to guide conversations . This is where communication skills and emotional intelligence really come into play. You guide a conversation by asking questions not by giving direction or directives. Employees learn the most and grow the most when they uncover the answers themselves. Reinforce effective listening skills to make sure that the feedback understood by the employee. Show managers and coaches how to ask follow-up and clarifying questions to do this and make sure every communication is clear and understood by all parties. Emphasize to managers their central role in the success of the development programs of their employees . No other stakeholder has as much influence over the productivity, engagement and learning as the manager over her direct reports. Support both the employee and manager in this effort. Teach the importance of coaching in the moment. Learning happens best when things are occurring. Employees learn best by doing, so coach as you go!   Looking for online resources to develop the coaching skills of your managers and leaders? Sign-up for a free trial here ! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

A great comment from Ken Allan on my post Free: My family listen to NZ Radio a lot. Current affairs progs are now all available, free, as podcasts (bits) on their site. When someone misses a broadcast they wanted to hear, their dismay is ameliorated with, "I can always access the podcast". Of course, this event rarely actually happens. So not only has bits reduced the value of some things, it also shelves the possibility of their use. I'd already realised this was happening last century when people would stock up on videoed TV programs that they would never have the time to watch because they were watching the broadcasts - a time debt that was not able to be paid. The same (actually) applies to reading blogs. As Sue Waters pointed out to me about indexing blogs, "people don't use blogs that way". I completely agree with Ken that content seems to stream by and if you miss the stream, it somewhat gets lost later as there's the continuous flood.  I believe that things will eventually circle back to it, especially if it is important.  But it concerns me that Ken may be giving up on our mutual quest to figure out alternative views of blog content.  This is something I discussed in my post - Index Page where I describe the core challenge as: How do we create resources on our blogs that will help a new reader or a search visitor understand what's on a blog and orient themselves? Sue Waters responded previously: Most of the time they are a lot of work for minimal return so you really do need to consider whether the time spent is good R.O.I. Think about it. How often do you go to another person's blog to find specific information? Guaranteed either never or seldom. And the main people who you would return to are those that you know provide informative posts. Reality of a blogger is we are only as good as our last post :) . With good use of search, categories and tags on posts combined with making each post count is probably time better spent than creating index pages (however they can be useful for the blogger themselves). In terms of the ROI of spending time making other views, I have a slight advantage in that I can get automated views of my blog via eLearning Learning and have it do interesting things.  My goal is still to figure out what the views are of a blog that can help make it more accessible.  Get that into eLearning Learning.  And then make that available to other bloggers.  Thus, the ROI becomes high because the Investment is small (zero). In looking back at Sue's comments, I actually go quite a bit to blogs as sources of specific information.  That's a big part of the value of eLearning Learning.  I do think that use of categories/tags is part of the answer, but I'm hopeless when it comes to that.  And I'm not willing to go back and tag older posts. I'm hoping there's still some interest and thoughts on what should emerge as alternative views of blog content. Some specific questions: 1. Would it be helpful to have a tag cloud view instead of the long list view of a blog content as shown in my sidebar that is auto-generated by eLearning Learning? 2. Are there a set of views that are combinations of recent, best of, organized by keywords, essentially the information we have via eLearning Learning that would be compelling to first timers, or for going back through a topic, etc.? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

by Jennie Ruby  "In this course you will learn the functionality of [insert topic you've never heard of]. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to [do a bunch of procedures the utility of which is not immediately evident]." Traditionally, many of us have written these types of sentences at the top of page 1 of our courseware materials or eLearning scripts, and then that has served as our audience's only introduction to the topic of the course. It doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to introduce the Introductory Narrative--a brief paragraph prior to the sentences above and the list of objectives. Its job is to engage the learner and perhaps provide a little positivity and motivation. The introductory narrative should do five things. Signal the correct audience. Use the word "you" to talk directly to the learner. Explain the "what's in it for me" (WIIFM) for the learner. Say some positive and encouraging words about the topic of the training and/or the process of learning it. Finally, name the [topic you've never heard of] as the very last words of the paragraph. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be exploring each of these topics in turn. Today let's look at the first one: signaling the correct audience. Signaling the correct audience is indicating in your first sentence who the intended audience is for the course or lesson. It can be done a couple of different ways. First, you can always indicate the correct audience for a course or lesson by explicitly naming the job title or describing the situation of the person the learning is meant to address, and using the word you: As a warehouse employee here at ABC Company, you... As the parent of a newborn, you... Another popular way to signal the intended audience is to ask a question. If the learner answers yes, they are the correct audience: Have you ever taken a picture of someone and had their eyes come out red? Do you need a quick way to transfer files between computers? Do you need to build an authentication and identity API? Learners who answer yes, immediately understand that the lesson is for them. Those who answer no or don't recognize what you are talking about will instantly know that the training is not intended for them. A more subtle way to signal the correct audience is to describe a real-world situation with "you" at the center: So you've landed the interview. Now you've got to land the job. Without directly saying "this training is intended for persons who are currently seeking employment," the message is conveyed that if you are currently trying to get a job, this training is for you. Of course the introductory narrative for training materials is not the only place you might need to use these methods of signaling the correct audience. You might need to do this in the subject line of a company-wide email aimed at a subset of employees. Or in the first paragraph of any article or blog entry. Or you might need to write a course description to help potential learners identify the correct training for them. Do you have other interesting ways to signal your correct audience? Please post your suggestions as comments below. Reference Kevin Siegel and Jennie Ruby, Writing for Curriculum Development 3.0, 2014, IconLogic. ***Do you need to learn how to write eLearning scripts? Come check out my live, online mini course.