Based on my post yesterday on Missed Opportunities, I received a really interesting email. The basic gist of the email could be summarized as: Don’t we have enough tools for now? At some level, this seems like a great question. We are already swimming in tools and new tools arrive faster than we can understand them much less try them. It seems somehow reasonable to simply say, let’s stop looking at new tools for a while and just get better with what we already have. In Work Skills Keeping Up?, I discuss the Tilde Effect. And in some ways, there’s a really good point being made that there is no way we can truly keep up with the flood of tools and solutions. So, we have to make smart choices about how to stay up to speed. Still I’ll stick with: The bottom line for the Tilde Effect is that we live in a time of incredible innovation that directly affect the methods we use to work and learn. Our work skills cannot sit still. There's a lot of discussion about 21st century skills to be taught in schools, but what about the rest of us? And the focus of that post is really about general metacognitive tools and methods for knowledge workers. If you are talking about tools, methods, analysis, etc. for technologies that impact learning and performance AND you believe you have a responsibility to help with design of appropriate solutions, then I don’t think you can say we have "enough tools for now." The better question is "How do you appropriately balance the need to stay up-to-speed with the fact that you cannot possibly spend enough time to truly stay up-to-speed?" Back to the post from yesterday for more discussion on exactly that. 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.       Looking for for videos and eLearning resources to develop your leaders? Sign-up for a free trial below! 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! --> -->

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.     Looking for for videos and eLearning resources for diversity training? Sign-up for a free trial below! 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! --> -->

LearnTrends 2009 starts tomorrow!  I’m really looking forward to very interesting conversations around the messy topic of convergence.  There seems to be quite a bit of last minute registration activity.  We have over 500 attending and over 140 who say they might attend.  Should be lively.  There will be lots of time for conversation as well.  Speakers generally are scheduled for half the time and half for discussion. If for some reason you’ve not signed up (and read my blog)... To register, you must first register on the LearnTrends community and then register on the Conference Event Page. Look forward to "seeing" you tomorrow. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The last week of May came with the release of the 20th Annual Meeker Internet Trends report, which can be found here in its full 197 slide glory.  I know you are excited to jump right in, but let me hone your focus on a few key areas that really caught my eye.   Video Usage Statistics   -       Consumer Internet Traffic grew 21%, with 64% of that being Video -       Mobile data Traffic grew 69%, with 55% of that being Video   These numbers shouldn’t be that surprising, especially with the rise of cord cutting and streaming services.  In fact, adults now spend on average 5.6 hours/ day engaging with digital media, or about a third of waking hours, regardless of device.  Video views on Facebook increased 400% from Q32014 to Q12015, with 53% of the views from shares, and 75% being viewed on mobile devices.    Smart Phone Usage Research showed that 87% of 18-34-year-olds say their smartphone "never leaves [their] side, night or day."   And the forecast?  60% of them (3 out of 5) believe that in the next 5 years, everything will be done on mobile devices.  And these same Millennials are leading the tech revolution .   Millennials Value Training over Bonuses When asked "Which 3 Benefits they would most value form an employer, here are the results of the first selection: Training and Development (22%) Flexible Working Hours (19%) Cash Bonuses (14%) Free private Healthcare (8%) Pension/ Retirement Funding (6%) More Vacation Time (6%) That means that 1 out of every 5 surveyed picked Training and Development as the most valuable asset their Employer could provide.  Even above cash bonuses, free private healthcare, retirement contributions or vacation time!   How can BizLibrary Help? Millennials make up almost 35% of the workforce today, and are expected to be 75% of the workforce by 2025 (Deloitte.)      They expect to be: Provided Training and Development Have flexible work options (geography and time) Be able to access everything from their mobile devices Our library contains thousands of titles to meet today’s employee’s needs.  It is accessible immediately, no matter when you want it, or where you are.  It works on PC, MAC, Android and Apple.  Whether you are working from Starbucks or your office, training is available in the palm of your hands.    We can provide your Clients with a valuable recruiting and retention tool, or provide their competition with one.  Share these statistics with your Clients, and help them have the advantage!   Make it a successful month! Tom

Should the following Dilbert worry me about Work Literacy? Much of the idea of Work Literacy is to help people who need to keep up with how technology impacts knowledge work. Maybe reading blog posts about the topic is okay :) Tool Set 2009 Work Skills Keeping Up Top-Down Strategy Better Memory Information Radar Processing Pages with Links Networks and Learning Communities Collaborate Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool Search Browser Short Cuts Work Literacy Workshop 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.   Looking for for video-based training? Sign-up for a free trial below! 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! --> -->

I participated in a session at DevLearn that I mentioned last week in my posts Missed Opportunities and Enough Tools for Now. The session was conducted where we broken into discussion groups around different topics each their own facilitator. My group discussed that as learning professionals we need to put ourselves in position to be able to serve learners and internal/external clients through the best possible solution we can design and create given the constraints that exist. This might mean improving our capabilities around existing offerings. It also means getting ready to offer new kinds of solutions that are outside of what we currently deliver. The challenge in this is: There’s a very wide range of possible issues that we can be presented. It’s often hard to know ahead of time what your next request will be. If we haven’t spent time and effort to be ready to offer a particular kind of solution, it’s harder to sell, harder to estimate, and has greater risk. We have limited time and resources to spend trying new things out and putting ourselves in position to deliver them when needed. Some of the specific suggestions that were made by the group: Build strong internal networks and relationships in order to develop predictability and agility for the learning organizationHave discussions with lots of different parts of the organization in order to have a better sense of what’s coming in the future Figure out what this means in terms of business / learner needs, likely requirements, and constraints Get the key people in the room to brainstorm potential offerings Build prototypes to learn and later be able to sell Start real small on a project with no major impact Learn to be a Translator - often the barrier is different language being used by different parts of the organization. "Sneak it in" Share among distributed learning organizations Form a framework of offerings The nice thing about this list is that it follows a process that I recommend around defining an eLearning Strategy. Thanks to everyone who participated in this group or helped me last week via this blog to get prepared. 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.       Looking for online resources to develop your managers and leaders? Sign-up for a free trial below! 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! --> -->

We’ve just announced the innovation awards associated with LearnTrends 2009. The session was fraught with technical difficulties, so I thought it would be worth capturing a bit about each of the four award winners here. CUDA Business Brain CUDA technologies is a small software firm within the Hi Performance Learning and IQ Business Group in South Africa, the United Stated and Australia. In 2007, they launched the CUDA Business Brain as an integrated Workplace Performance Support Solution. It provides a blend of learning management and performance support. Because they operate in bandwidth constrained locations, they have implemented an extremely light web interface. They provide automated content distribution capability. A unique a Visio enabled process publishing tool that 'walks' users through performance support when they need it. This combination, backed by flexible expert location, rating and ranking mechanisms, makes our offering stand apart in providing cutting edge performance support and learning management to large audiences. Learnosity Learnosity provide a set of tools to help in the assessment, teaching and learning of spoken language skills. The Learnosity system is designed for speaking, listening and learning via a mobile phone. The use of the mobile phone allows students practice their spoken skills in and outside of the classroom, facilitating student-led learning. The use of such simple technology eliminates any required technical support in the classroom, and make the system extremely easy to use for both teachers and students. Voice-chat and text-chat facilitate structured, moderated and anonymous peer-to-peer learning. Thinking Worlds Thinking Worlds is a new kind of 3D "Serious Games" simulation engine and authoring tool. It provides an authoring interface that fuses a visual story boarding system with easy to follow templates, both of which require no programming skill at all. It makes it possible to develop rich simulations in a fast and cost-effective way. It publishes simulations that are both LMS and SCORM compliant. Playback is through standard technologies allowing easier distribution. CLT Plug and Learn CLT Plug&Learn is an interesting blended language learning course combining learning software with extensive online tutoring and regular (virtual) classroom training, framed by a placement test, a Kick-Off meeting and a final test. Based on the results of the placement test, students are offered a language course designed to meet their goals. During the self-study phase, they practice their written, reading, listening, comprehension and pronunciation skills with the language software. A tutoring team assists students via e-mail. They receive a weekly e-mail with their assignment, additional written production exercises, motivational and technical tips as well as personalized feedback based on the self-study results as recorded in the LMS. Congratulations to the winners. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.