A few years ago I read an article written by Jon Gordon entitled "Just One Word." The "one word" concept is explained fully in the book Wisdom Walks, co-authored by Dan Britton and Jimmy Page. Simply put, the authors believe that one word can change our lives.  It’s not a random word, plucked from obscurity but rather a word that is shown to the seeker after much self-reflection, meditation and prayer. Quieting your mind, sitting back and listening to the murmurings of your heart allows you to hear the word that you could use to open up possibilities and give deeper meaning to your life for the next year. Interestingly enough, at the time, I had just read a post by an old friend of mine who shared her journey with "just one word". Over the course of three years, she had moved from "abundance", to "healing" to "determination". All of these might sound like ordinary words, but to her, they provided an opportunity to shape her outlook on life and focus on what she hoped to accomplish through actions, words and deeds for that current year.  After reading these posts, I came up with my own word for 2014, "blessed".  I spent the year reshaping my thoughts and actions to better reflect how I felt and always wanted to feel, which truly is "blessed".  I reminded myself to pause and take a moment before I reacted; a step that freed me to respond in a more conscious way.  My word was about making intentional choices about how I looked at things, how I let things affect me as well as the activities and people I let into my day.  It allowed me to take control and live my life to the fullest. In 2015, my word was "grateful". I found myself alternating between my prior year’s word and this new one. I strove to be consciously grateful throughout the day; for an afternoon of beautiful weather to a night with my children around the dinner table. I also tried to express my gratefulness more, sharing with others how thankful I was to have them in my life. My word for 2016 is "cherish". I want to focus on caring for and nurturing those around me. My youngest went off to college this past Fall, and I realize how quickly time is flying by. This is a new phase for us as a family unit, and instead of dwelling on the feeling of sadness, I'll focus on cherishing our moments together and our conversations while apart. Of course, I’ll continue to feel blessed and grateful and spread those good feelings everywhere I go. For honestly, I look at the "one word" as a ladder - each word builds on the next and all work together to get me where I want to go. As educators, we are well aware of the power of the written or spoken word.  We’ve all experienced the thrill of getting lost in a great novel, turning page after page, devouring the words and reveling in the emotions they stir up in us.  And while a novel is a compilation of many words, the power of just one word is phenomenal.  I’ve shared this story with others who are thoughtfully reflecting on what their word for 2016 might be.  Setting up visual reminders both at work and at home help me focus my thoughts and feelings towards my goal.  Writing "cherish", "blessed" or "grateful" in my planner, on my computer desktop and on a sticky note on my refrigerator keeps it front focus and top of mind. What will your word be for 2016? How can Ed4Online help you? We offer hundreds of career, personal enrichment and professional development courses. The next course on my personal list is The Power of Goal Setting; a course that will teach me valuable tools that will help me work towards my goals. Check out our course catalog here and while you are on our website, sign up for our newsletters and blog posts.  We'd love to stay connected!          

We work with a lot of companies that are relatively new to eLearning, and one question that comes up a lot is: "Should we build SCORM courses or should we bring our existing content (in Word, PowerPoint, PDF, or video formats) directly into LearnUpon instead?" I’ve worked in the eLearning and LMS space for 10 years and even now, it’s still not a straightforward question to answer. The growing popularity of the Tin Can API (xAPI) has recently added another important factor to consider in a future post. There are many pros and cons that can influence a decision about whether to build SCORM-based courses using a popular authoring tool like Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline alone. For me, it depends on your individual circumstances and what you’re trying to achieve with the eLearning program you plan to develop. Here’s a list of the main pros and cons of SCORM to consider before making a decision.   Let’s start with the pros of developing SCORM-based content to import into your LMS: Developing courses in SCORM can help you to make eLearning content more interactive. Many SCORM-compliant authoring tools allow you to add engaging features: directing learners to click on images and other onscreen elements, rendering dynamic text as a result, asking learners to expand components before they proceed to the next section, the inclusion of mini-quizzes embedded within the course, to name a few popular tactics. And as most of us working in eLearning believe, the more engaging and interactive your course content, the more likely it is that learners will, firstly, complete it, and, secondly, retain what they’ve learned after they finish the course. A SCORM package will also allow you to control the length of time a learner spends on a course before it’s marked as complete. SCORM-compliant authoring tools include settings that force learners to spend a specific amount of time on each page of a course before the "Next" button is enabled. These features allow you to design a course of a minimum length, for example 50 minutes, which is required for some accreditation bodies in a number of States. While the setting doesn’t mean the learner is more likely to pay attention to your content while they wait for the "Next" button to enable, it does allow you to meet requirements that stipulate that learners must spend a minimum length of time on the course. A SCORM package can also allow you to combine course and assessment content to deliver a superior user experience. If your course must be assessed with a final exam, for example, an authoring tool will allow you to place it directly after your course content and return the score to your LMS. It’s a popular option with some LearnUpon customers because it means the whole course (content and exam) are contained in a single SCORM unit. That makes life easier for learners who don’t need to navigate away to a separate exam once they’ve completed the course. A final advantage of choosing SCORM is that, in theory at least, it should be easier to migrate course content if you need to move to a new LMS vendor. The point of the SCORM standard is that courses built in the format should run in any LMS that’s SCORM compliant. I say "should" for a reason. From our experience, there are many learning management systems that claim to be SCORM compliant, when in reality they struggle to run SCORM courses effectively. But in theory you should be able to migrate course content between SCORM-compliant learning management systems pretty easily.   There are also a number of cons to choosing SCORM that you should be aware of before reaching a decision: Authoring tools can be quite expensive, particularly the good ones. The two most popular authoring tools that publish content in the SCORM format are Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline. Adobe Captivate 9 currently costs about $1099 per user license, while Articulate Storyline 2 is about $1,400 per license. So if 2 or 3 people in your company need to create courses, a SCORM-compliant authoring tool can be a significant investment. There are some cloud-based authoring tools on the market now, such as Elucidat, which allow multiple instructional designers to work on a course at the same time. These tools are certainly worth considering if you have a team of people designing and developing courses. One main drawback to consider is that authoring tools take a while to get the hang of. While basic courses are easy to create, you’ll probably have chosen the SCORM format because you want to develop slick content with lots of interactions. But learning how to create sophisticated course content with an authoring tool can take time. You might even decide to invest in a training course to speed up the process, which will add another cost in addition to the license fee you’ll already have paid. Here are two guides Lisa from our Customer Support team has written on publishing SCORM content in  Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate. The most effective SCORM content has traditionally been developed in and published to Flash. If most of your learners will be using Apple iOS devices to access courses, Flash-based SCORM content can cause headaches. While most popular authoring tools now tackle the problem by providing a HTML5 output option, those outputs can be buggy and of inferior quality. If your content contains a lot of rich media, like video, HTML5 can deliver a diminished user experience. And video-based SCORM content can struggle to stream or buffer properly in a HTML5 player. The SCORM standard has been used in eLearning for quite a while. While I don’t expect it to disappear anytime soon, in the last few years the Tin Can (xAPI) has challenged its dominance. Before deciding to create courses in SCORM, it’s worth investigating if Tin Can may be a better option. Consider whether investing in SCORM now is likely to make sense in a few years, with the future of the format less than certain. Many of our customers have recently opted for Tin Can, due to the advantages it offers for mobile learning, an area where SCORM can struggle. The most popular authoring tools now also support Tin Can. So if you choose to go with SCORM now, you’ll still be able to convert courses to the Tin Can format in future if necessary. Because SCORM is a relatively old eLearning standard, it can be clunky and complicated in places, particularly in the area of course completion, and the communication of statuses back to your LMS. Because we’ve so much experience with the format at LearnUpon, we’ve been able to assist customers who have experienced these kinds of issues with SCORM. But not all LMS vendors offer the same level of support, making it tricky for some organizations to get SCORM courses tracking properly in their LMS.   Deciding whether to invest in SCORM courses isn’t straightforward and there are pros and cons to both options. If you have time to invest in developing nice content, I think SCORM courses are a great idea, as they tend to look polished and engaging. Much will also depend on the type of training you want to deliver and why you need to deliver it. If you’re a professional training company that wants to sell courses online, I recommend investing in the the development of professional-looking SCORM-based courses. If you expect someone to pay $50-100 or more for a course, you want them to see appreciate its quality. If, on the other hand, you simply need to deliver internal training that’s less about learning and is more compliance focused, then adopting a simpler approach of importing PowerPoint and video documents with an exam bolted on at the end may be a more cost-effective option.   Try LearnUpon free for 30 days .learnupon.com Agree to Terms of Service Start my free trial The post To SCORM or not to SCORM, that is the question appeared first on LearnUpon.

It’s a new year and people are predicting education trends for 2016. Transparency is one higher education strategy that will definitely gain momentum. As we’ve seen in 2015, transparency is already a major factor in successful education strategies such as feedback,  formative assessment, student-centered learning, self-assessment, adaptive learning, and personalized learning featured in our blog. Transparency basically means clarity. In education, transparency takes a number of forms: analysis of big data to support institutional growth and success demystification of the learning process so that we can understand why and how we are learning analysis of factors in learning for the purpose of improving achievement At the institutional level, schools collect data on many factors that shed light on the nature of their student body such as race, gender, class completion, major selection, graduation, and retention. Analysis of this data helps them achieve their goals and make informed decisions on strategies such as funding, how to attract new students, and how to meet accreditation standards. Input that feeds transparency at the student level focuses on answering questions such as: What do I have to learn? Why am I learning it this way? Are there other ways to learn? How well have I done so far? What is it about my approach that contributes to success or failure? What kinds of changes can I make to improve? Transparency in the classroom isn’t a new education strategy. Many traditional instructors explain to students why they need to learn a specific subject or encourage students to think about how they approach learning. Some would even say that any instructor/student or peer-to-peer communication that sheds light on accomplishing learning during activities such as group projects and discussions represents transparency. What’s changed is that we now recognize transparency as a powerful tool for enhancing learning. In an interview with Mary Ann Winkelmes, Director of the Transparency in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Project, she describes a pilot program in which faculty used basic transparency principles in making assignments more accessible and relevant. The study resulted in enhancing attributes that are connected to greater academic success: …students reported gains in three areas that are important predictors of students’ success: academic confidence, sense of belonging, and mastery of the skills that employers value most when hiring. While the benefits for all students in the aggregate who received the intervention were statistically significant in a small way, the benefits for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students were significant and large. Digital innovation has given transparency new meaning and scalability. In Acrobatiq courseware, faculty are able to aggregate student data on performance and learning process from one class or many quickly allowing them to make changes in real time. Learning objectives and ongoing feedback are transparent mechanisms that give students a strong stake in learning and motivates them to do better. As we learn more about the impact of transparency in education, we’ll be able to make it even more forceful.

It's TechKnowledge time again and this one is going to be a bit different for me as I've headed in early for my very first pre-con workshop (It's the Duarte Visual Storytelling one and so far it's been amazing!). On one hand, I'm pretty giddy about the workshop, but on the other hand it's an extra two days in Vegas. Is it possible for me to get even sicker of Vegas by the end of a conference? I don't know... but we're going to find out!This conference is also going to be a bit different for a programming reason too. There's an entire room at TechKnowledge devoted to more conversational, collaborative sessions - the Disrupt Room - and my plan is to attend as many of those sessions as possible (including, no surprise, the two sessions I'm helping out with). I really enjoyed last year's Fail Jam and the Disrupt Room programming promises more of that same kind of "learning from everyone in the room" that made the Fail Jam so fun. So if you're at TechKnowledge and looking for something a bit different, definitely come join me there.And now on to the specifics. I don't have my whole con fully figured out, but I'm definitely heading to the keynotes and these sessions:WEDNESDAY1:00-1:45pmSession: Disrupt Room - Outside InspirationSpeakers: Well, it's a group conversation but I'm facilitatingYup... I'm starting out my Disrupt Room adventure by facilitating a session. The main idea of this event is that a great way to keep your work fresh is to look for inspiration OUTSIDE of L&D. That said, a lot of us look in dramatically different directions. While the session is going to be guided by the interests of the people in the room, it's definitely going to touch on what fields people find particularly helpful to pull inspiration/insights from, what they've gained from them, and how you can dip your toe in each topic if you want to learn more.What's particularly cool about this session (and many of the other Disrupt Room ones) is that it doesn't have a set speaker or formal panel. Instead, anyone who shows up has the opportunity to share with everyone else. It's a format that worked fantastically for the Fail Jam and I think it's a great format for this topic as well.So if you get inspiration from ANY other field, whether it's something closely tied to L&D (for instance, software development or film making) or drastically different (gaining L&D inspiration from flying drones or being a volunteer fire fighter? I bet it can be done!), I'd love to see you at this session and hear what you have to say.3:00-4:00pmSession: Not just for superheroes: Exploring learning through comicsSpeaker: Me!SPEAKING of outside inspiration, if you've ever met me or followed me online you probably know that I love comics. They're fun and engaging to read, and it turns out they can be pretty effective for teaching and explaining content too. Want to know more? Watch my session trailer.4:15-5:00pmSession: Disrupt Room - E-Learning CheckupSpeakers: Diane Elkins, Megan Torrance, Julie Dirksen, Connie Malamed, Cammy Bean, and meYou know what can be really helpful when you're trying to polish up a project (or get it unstuck)? A fresh set of eyes. And that's what the e-Learning checkup is all about. Bring your project, whether it's something fully built or just an idea you've been pondering, and you'll get some one-on-one time with one of the six of us to get some feedback and come up with a few new ideas.While I'm happy to help out with anyone's project, I'll admit that I'm probably most useful to people who have graphic design, storytelling, or multimedia questions. Or cupcake-related questions. I have a lot of options about those too.  ;)THURSDAY10:45-11:30amSession: Disrupt Room - Social Collaboration Tool ShowcaseSpeaker: JD Dillon is facilitating this oneCurious about what some of the newer social collaboration tools out there are (and how you might actually use them in the real world to get stuff done)? Then some to this session to see cool examples and ask all the questions you need about how they work.2:15-3:00pmSession: Disrupt Room - Fail JamSpeaker: Becca Wilson is facilitating this event again!Like I mentioned earlier, last year's version of this session was one of my ATDTK 2015 highlights. Basically, it works like this: we all know failure is a great way to learn, but it's not something we get to share a lot at conferences. This session is your opportunity to learn from the mistakes and missteps of others and even to share your own too. That's right, this is another session where anyone who attends can share, and I strongly recommend sharing something if you come. The environment is completely supportive... plus getting to talk about something that didn't go the way you wanted is delightfully cathartic.3:45-4:30pmSession: Disrupt Room - AR and VR in actionSpeakers: Chad Udell and John FairchildEver wonder how you might actually go about using virtual and/or augmented reality for learning and performance support? Ever wanted to just poke the technology with a stick and see what the fuss is all about? Then this is the session for you. Not only will there be a discussion of the applications for this technology, but you'll also be able to get hands on with it too!FRIDAY8:00-9:15amSession: PowerPoint for Graphic DesignSpeaker: Tim SladeI use PowerPoint for graphic design all the time (ah, the joys of often having little or no project budget!), so I'm hoping to pick up a few tips. Plus, Tim Slade is always sharing awesome design stuff on Twitter, so I'm looking forward to getting to see him speak in person.So that my game plan so far. What are you most excited to see or do at TechKnowledge this year?

We all feel like we've got a lot of stuff working against us right now. As we slide breathless and exhausted into another year, this thought from Parker Palmer resonates with me: To get unstuck, I must let go of my "career" … and begin again as a novice. In truth, I am a novice in every new moment of the day, each of which presents possibilities unknown and untried. Why not embrace that fact and see what happens? As Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."It's been a tough year, and not just at work. My husband, friends and I were in a Viking river boat 30 miles from Paris when the horrific murders occurred. This quote from Parker Palmer helps me describe how I still feel: I’ve been feeling stuck about many things, including how to respond to the world’s nonstop saga of suffering: the ongoing carnage in the Middle East, endless episodes of mass killings in the U.S. and around the world, the racism deep in the DNA of my native land, our collective blind eye to radical economic injustice and climate change, and the grotesque parade of political "leaders" who bloviate about God and prayer while doing squat about gun violence and other evils.Challenges are always and will always be in our lives. The constant screaming from the media  and sometimes even the people we love makes no sense and hurts us. It's easy to fall victim to the 'oulds':  we should do this, he could have done that, who would do that… etc. The 'oulds' are a plague that drops us straight into the pit of victim-land, allowing us to defer any responsibility we have for the situation. It also paralyzes us and we slip farther and farther from who we want to be. Tim Gallwey, who has graciously provided me much new thought and guidance this year, likes to explain our challenge with this equation:  Performance = Potential - InterferenceInterference comes from others but as likely from our own beliefs. It reminds me of the painful but popular scripture reading in Matthew 18:9 (New American Standard): "If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell." We have a choice of who we listen to and what we consume. At work, we may not have the choice to leave the presence of people with negative energy but we do have a choice about how we will react to it. I have had some success re-framing these conversations by working on my empathy, thinking about the person's fear or anger instead of what they are saying that offends me. Tim has helped me see that I limit my own potential and my performance when I do not work to eliminate the interference that is keeping me from my best. Once I decide that someone's a total jerk, I only look for ways their jerk-ness shows up. I interfere with myself with this addiction, allowing this person to shut me down whenever I am in their presence. Any mental model that interferes with progress can play the same role of limiting your performance. The starting assessment statements are all examples of interference. Which one is your biggest Achilles Heel? Technology can help us or completely suck up our time with nothing to show for it. In our Realistic Project Management workshop, we start with clarifying the difference between these three things below.  Just organizing these in the right places gives you hope and energy back. Check out this table: I am impressed by the top leaders doing incredibly chaotic and important work, who always have openings within 24 hours to speak or meet if it is getting them to their goal. I do not see this as much at the staff level. Working through this at the start of the year is like cleaning up after the holidays. Put everything away where it belongs and jump into 2016. Stop just doing the tasks that are easy to cross off. As Palmer says,The tighter we cling to the norm of effectiveness the smaller the tasks we’ll take on, because they are the only ones that get short-term results… 

They say that art reflects life, and when it comes to how we perceive our workplaces, this is often true. Though the situations portrayed in film are often exaggerated (few of us would plot to kill our boss, however often we may dream of their demise), movies and TV shows about workplace dynamics can sometimes be very truthfully reflective of the challenges we face, both as employers and as employees. Here, we take a look at what some of the most notorious bosses in film teach us about what not to do. The "I Own You" Boss This is the boss that usually takes the crown when it comes to horrible bosses. They are perfectly willing to ruin your life to get what they want and they expect you to be grateful for letting them do it. Think: Buddy Ackerman (played by Kevin Spacey) in Swimming with Sharks or Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada. These bosses feel it is their prerogative to make unreasonable demands of their underlings and think it is unreasonable for those underlings to be anything but delighted to serve them or anything but brilliantly successful in attending to their boss’s needs (or whims). The Devil Wears Prada (2006), 20th Century Fox These tyrants often believe, or at least profess to believe, that it is good for their subordinates to be exposed to this kind of treatment in order to "toughen them up" for work in one or another tooth-and-nail industry. They are permitted to persist in their tyranny because they are, when it comes down to it, very good at their jobs and underlings put up with it because it does a career good just to be working in their shadow. But this can’t be the only way. As unforgiving as these fields may be, the dog-eat-dog cultures in these industries persist because they are allowed (and encouraged) to persist by those at their pinnacle. As other industries, i.e. those related to technology, look to raise productivity by raising the quality of life of their employees, it may be time for industries traditionally ruled by iron fists to reconsider whether they are likely to attract the best talent with the old autocratic approach now demonized rather than admired in film. The Unforgiving Perfectionist Perhaps most closely related to the "I Own You" boss is the unforgiving perfectionist. Like Miranda Priestly and Buddy Ackerman, this boss is a tyrant. But unlike them, there is no carrot of career advancement buried under the heel of their boot. This boss rules only through fear and threats. We see a version of this boss in David Harken in Horrible Bosses (another sadistic tyrant played by Kevin Spacey…hmmm), but we think this more classic example really highlights the nature of this approach to management. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox In Darth Vader, we see tyrannical management taken to its extreme. Not only does failure result in very literal termination, his expectations, like those of the boss who thinks they own you, are largely unreasonable ("Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want that ship, not excuses…"). This boss has no interest in his underlings’ success or failure and is happy to move through subordinates (and coworkers) until he happens to come across one lucky enough to stumble upon a route to his end goal - a goal which he can’t be bothered to share with those he expects to help him reach it. This "leadership" style is, besides of course being morally detestable, totally unsustainable. With no promise of reward, employees will do only what they have to in order to avoid punishment. If demands are too high, they get burnt out quickly and will eventually get wise and realize they can find other jobs, appeal to law and workplace regulations, or join the rebel alliance to get out from under the threats of their bosses. In a workplace ruled by a tyrant, it only takes one savvy employee to remind the others of their rights as workers. It is too fragile a system to be maintained in most modern workplaces, and one condemned by management experts and labor laws alike. The Boss Who Has No Business Being the Boss This may be a boss with no managerial skills, no knowledge of the industry, no interest in being a leader, or someone who simply isn’t competent enough to take on a leadership role. In movies, we most often see these bosses pop up when an undeserving heir takes over their parent’s company and is so caught up in their newfound sense of power or access to wealth that everyone in the company - and the company itself - suffers. Horrible Bosses (2011), New Line Cinema Though the business world is certainly rich with inept heirs, in real life, an incapable boss is more often the result of unqualified managers get promoted to their point of incompetence, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the Peter Principle. In these cases, an excellent salesperson, for example, may be promoted to regional manager as a reward for success in sales, regardless of whether his or her strengths include qualities necessary to a capable manager. While this tendency has been well-known in the management industry for decades, it is still not uncommon to see successful individuals promoted to the point at which they fail. Managers, then, must be careful to nurture those who may lack the skills to take on a job for which they may be "next in line", to recognize in themselves areas of expertise that they may need to strengthen in order to fulfill their current roles, and to recognize when the necessary skills or abilities are not likely to be developed - in themselves or others - and find other ways to reward excellent performance. The Passive Aggressive Boss The passive aggressive personality rears its head everywhere, but it is perhaps nowhere more irritating than in the workplace. The passive aggressive boss avoids confrontation at all costs. They send memos instead of making direct requests; they frame bad news and unfair decisions in language that is difficult to oppose; they hide behind company policy and pass the buck in order to avoid taking responsibility for unpopular decisions. Their passive, "everything’s fine" demeanor leaves employees feeling not only disempowered and taken advantage of, but ultimately resentful and just plain annoyed. Office Space (1999), 20th Century Fox Employees will not respect the passive aggressive boss and will always be looking for a way to get out from under them. Because passive aggression is a form of manipulation - one that can easily devolve into sabotage - once it is introduced into company culture, cohesion and morale quickly break down. The result? Attrition and high turnover at best, backstabbing and deliberate undermining at worst. Better to engage with employees directly, listen to what they have to say, and address their concerns. Lance the boil instead of letting it fester and infect the body. The Best Buddy This unfortunate soul is trying at once to be everyone’s best friend and to be everyone’s boss. Usually driven by insecurity - either in themselves or in their position - their primary concern is to be well-liked, which means, among other things, avoiding confrontation, letting poor performance slide, and allowing laxity to go unchecked. The Office (2001), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) While opinions vary on how friendly relationships between supervisors and employees should be, it is fairly certain that a boss who is more concerned with gaining his or her employee’s approval than with running an efficient or productive office is not likely to succeed in either. Add to this the often inappropriate familiarity that can arise as superiors try to forge unnatural friendships with those working for them, and the result tends to be a lack of respect for the boss, a lack of motivation on the part of the employees, and a deterioration of productivity in the absence of any real leadership. The "Everyone Should Be My Clone" Boss This type is also known as the "Know-It-All", and it is not confined to bosses. It is, however, especially unappealing in those in positions of authority. Here, we have an individual who attempts to motivate employees by highlighting his own accomplishments, setting himself as a standard to which subordinates should aspire. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), New Line Cinema The obvious arrogance of such an approach aside, the end result is more often to demoralize those to whom the self-aggrandizing diatribe is directed than to inspire them to comparable greatness. Employees have likely already taken note of their superiors’ accomplishments. The desire for similar rewards is, indeed, often why they have chosen that work in the first place. For the majority or employees, such reminders only serve to highlight a hierarchy which, in many cases, they perceive as working against them. It may also remind them of their own failings or, as in the case cited above from Glengarry Glenn Ross, engender resentment at what they feel is an unfair distribution of opportunity or reward. It is only the very rare employee who believes that their failure to achieve the success equal to that of their superiors results from their own lack of ambition or hard work. The boss who thinks everyone should try to be like them is, by definition, failing to recognize and encourage the strengths of his or her subordinates. The Unscrupulous Boss This character, in film anyway, tends to be primarily cast as middle management. This is the supervisor whose primary goal is to work his or her way to the top of the food chain. But by "work" here is really meant lie, cheat, and manipulate, most often at the expense of subordinates. While we may have come to expect this behavior in our politicians, the effects of this kind of scheming in the workplace can be disastrous. 9 to 5 (1980), 20th Century Fox If a manager’s primary motivation is their own glorification, they will not only be willing to sacrifice the well-being of the employees that make a company productive and profitable, they will likely be willing to sell out the company itself, should a more prestigious or lucrative opportunity present itself. This sense, combined with the knowledge that the accomplishments of the team are likely to be appropriated by the boss as personal achievements, leaves subordinates feeling insecure and unmotivated, resulting in a lack of company loyalty, reduced productivity, and high turnover. Other bosses to look out for: Jekyll & Hyde This is the superior who treats you like the most valued employee one minute, then berates you and threatens your job the next. One day, you’re rewarded for taking initiative, another you’re chided for acting out of turn. Trying to figure out how to please this kind of boss can end up taking an employee’s attention away from their real task - to contribute to the success and profitability of the department and the organization. It should always be clear to employees what is expected of them and how they can succeed, and the expectations of their superiors need to be consistently in line with these standards. The Ghost We rarely see this boss in film because, well, we rarely see this boss. This is because they are out on business trips, at conferences, or schmoozing clients at lunch the majority of the time. On the rare occasions they do make an appearance in the office, they are in meetings or on the phone with the door closed, inaccessible to their team. It is, of course, inevitable that some positions require those who fill them to be out of the office a great majority of the time. However, if travel or meetings mean that someone in authority will be largely inaccessible, then someone who is accessible needs to be placed in a position to act on their behalf or at least be able to communicate quickly and consistently with the actual boss. Otherwise the result is a leadership vacuum inside of which employees may start to form their own agendas and the unified vision of the company will get lost. Of course no boss is relegated to just one cardinal sin of management, and few embrace any of them fully, but being aware of these tendencies and traits can help managers to check their own behavior as well as promote to positions of authority those who are well-suited to lead the team. Film clips used in accordance with the Fair Use statutes of U.S. copyright law. The original post was published at Find My Shift.

Just a few weeks left before Learning Technologies kicks off at Olympia, London on 3rd-4th February, and we’re really excited about meeting you there. With 150 free L&D seminars, 70 conference speakers and 250 leading exhibitors, this year’s show is a must for any HR or L&D Manager. Over 7,000 visitors are expected at the exhibition - don’t miss out! We have loads of goodies waiting for you, so make sure you drop by for a chat at Stand M11! White Paper: Understanding how Big Data Helps HR You’ll be the first to get your hands on our brand-new white paper, which captures insights and opinions from over 220 HR and L&D experts around the globe. The report is based on the Speexx Exchange 2015-16 Survey. If you’re curious, here’s a sneak peek of what we found: Blended Learning. 63 percent of companies audited said that "blended learning" will continue to be the primary approach for corporate learning as opposed to pure face-to-face training or standalone e-learning. Big Data. Maximising the use of HR data was hit by a barrage of internal issues. Those audited listed five major obstacles: Lack of management support (31 percent), lack of know-how in collecting and using data (24 percent), budget constraints (16 percent), global implementation issues (16 percent) and understanding data privacy issues (13 percent). Mobile Learning. 35 percent of businesses now use mobile devices for corporate learning, while almost one in five companies plan to implement a mobile learning strategy within their organisation within the next three years. Communications. 98 percent of organisations agreed that good communication is "very important" or "important" for overall business success. However, the "lack of management support" (27 percent), "intercultural differences" (23 percent), the "lack of foreign language skills amongst employees" were the top reasons were holding back strong communications. If you want to see our other white papers that have been published so far, click here. Infographic: 6 Bright Ideas to Maximise your Top Talent Don’t have time to read full reports? No problem, we’ve got something in store for everyone. As part of Towards Maturity’s annual Treasure Trail at the show, we’re publishing a fresh infographic which summarises 6 practical steps which will help HR and L&D maximise their top talent this year. Back in December, we had our 5th Speexx Exchange conference in Berlin, where we talked to hundreds of industry professionals and captured what they wanted to achieve this year and how to best go about it. Free Seminar: Top Talent Management - A Call for Better Communications And finally, if you want to hear some of our latest insights first-hand, join our free 30-minute seminar on 3rd February at Theatre 8. I’d be happy to meet you there and answer any questions you may have on talent managament and empowering communication. Session: Top Talent Management - A Call for Better Communication Skills When?: 03-Feb-16,  11:00 - 11:30 am Where? Theatre 8 By the way, here’s our official press release for the Learning Technologies 2016 show. See you very soon! About Learning Technologies Learning Technologies, co-located with Learning & Skills, is Europe’s leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work. And it continues to grow in importance, value and attendance year on year. With more than 7,500 visitors, 150 free L&D seminars, 250 exhibitors, two exhibition halls packed with the latest learning technologies, innovation and best practice and Europe’s leading L&D conference, it provided a unique and exciting environment for all those involved in workplace learning. In 2016 there will be even more to see and do and the combination Learning Technologies and Learning & Skills has created the biggest show in the entire learning sector. It’s also the best attended and fastest growing. - See more at: http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/#sthash.uJBMOhQ0.dpuf

This year’s CES2016 is a glimpse into the near future of tech, but a further future for eLearning. It’s easy to get excited about technology after an event like CES. Many of the really cool products will never get to the hands of consumers, and others won’t go mainstream for several years. And that means that the eLearning industry won’t take advantage of it until a few years after that. However, it’s still very interesting to see what’s coming and how we might prepare ourselves and our learners for the coming changes. Last week I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas and can tell you it was an overwhelming experience. I thought I did a pretty good job of covering all 3 expo areas of the event, but I’m still seeing things on the internet that I did not see. If you’ve never been to CES it’s hard to explain the experience. People have told me a lot about, but nothing they said prepared me for the massive size of this event. If you ever have the chance to attend, I would highly recommend it. After day one I posted an update and intended to write a blog post each night. But that just didn’t happen for day 2 and 3. I decided instead to do as much posting through other social media channels as possible and then write a second blog post update after I had a change to internalize everything more deeply. And so, this is that blog post. CES Mega-trend: Blended Data There were several trends displayed at CES that effect our industry. But after thinking a lot over the weekend I began to see a larger more all encompassing trend emerging: Blended Data. (I’m not completely sold on the term but it’s the best I could come up with.) Each individual trending technology is important on their own, but put them all together and you see blended data as one mega-trend that truly shapes the future of eLearning and edtech. Blended Data is exactly what you'd think. Its The blending of data from multiple sources to create new data/content. Or at the very least represent the individual data in a larger context with other data. Some of the individual trends at CES were in the automated home, the quantified self represented in the health and fitness section, and the internet of things represented all over the event in every expo category. There were also tools for how we create content which connects to the trend in increased user-generated content. It’s important to note that I considered content like video, still images, audio, etc., to be data in this context. So not only do we have numbers to contend with, but we also have media data as well. How we make sense of ALL the data to create something useful and new is the mega-trend Blended Data. What does Blended Data have to do with the eLearning industry? Everything. The training department is no longer the only creator of content useful for learning. This is especially true for those focused on the performance support segment of our industry. Blending user-generated content, data from the internet of things, the quantified self, and basic automation, you begin to see how performance support will simply become part of the workplace, and part of the job, without a separate intervention from the training team or learning consultant. All of this data also makes it possible for new virtual reality systems based on mobile devices. Intel did a demonstration of their mobile virtual reality toolkit which was quite impressive. This tech is not quite perfected, but you can see how easy it will be in the future to create fully interactive virtual reality simulations for just about any training situation. And like everything else, the tech is getting smaller and cheaper which is helping drive further innovation. Virtual reality had a very big presence at CES2016. And it also fits nicely into the blended data mega-trend. The virtual spaces are being created by data gathered from multiple micro cameras and being presented to the user in real-time. This technology, for most of us, is likely the technology furthest away. But it’s coming. In summary, there was so much more at CES than I can possibly fit into one blog post or even several posts. The event pretty much saturated the online tech media channels. And you can overwhelm yourself in the #CES2016 hashtag stream if you’d like. In future posts I will highlight some specific content creation and consumption products that you can buy and use today for your eLearning content development. But in general, with regards to our industry, the blended data mega-trend is collectively the best definition of what I saw and experienced. You check out my recent Periscope videos for more information as well. Also, if you're interested in hearing more, you can join me and the Litmos team at our C3 Event coming soon. The post CES2016 Update Part 2: eLearning Mega-trend! appeared first on Litmos.

  Hello HIPAA Gang! Do you remember the HIPPOs everyone gave out when HIPAA was brand new? Well, Mama Hippo just gave birth to a new little Hippo, a new HIPAA Final Rule on January 6, 2015 … at least this one did not complicate the holidays of 2015. This rule, as usual, has an elaborate name; it is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) final rule. Of course, the industry already has a nickname for it - the gun check rule! It really is the FBI check on whether or not an individual who wants to purchase a firearm from a federally licensed vendor is not someone who is mentally ill. The new HIPAA final rule is effective on February 5, 2016. This means that if your organization is a covered entity that cares for mentally ill patients, you will need to understand all the nuances of the new rule and be ready to report to the NICS if necessary. So the nitty-gritty is as follows: The HIPAA Privacy Rule is being added section 512: Uses and disclosures for which an authorization or opportunity to agree or object is not required (k) Standard: Uses and disclosures for specialized government functions, (7) National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Covered entities may do or not do the following: If a covered entity orders involuntary commitments or make other adjudications regarding an individual’s mental health, or that serve as repositories of the relevant data, are permitted to use or disclose the information needed for NICS reporting of such individuals either directly to the NICS or to a State repository of NICS data. If a covered health care entity also has a role in the relevant mental health adjudications or serves as a State data repository, it now may disclose the relevant information for NICS reporting purposes under this new permission even if it is not designated as a HIPAA hybrid entity or required by State law to report. It does not create an express permission for covered entities to disclose for NICS reporting purposes the PHI of individuals who are subject to State-only mental health prohibitors. If you are one of the covered entities that must report to the NICS the preamble states that you must report the data elements that the NICS needs to create a record plus there more that you are permitted to share with NICS. The data elements needed to create the NICS record are: The individual’s name The individual’s sex The individual’s date of birth The Federal mental health prohibitor[1] The record documenting the involuntary commitment or adjudication, and The entity from which the record initiated, in other words your business name. The additional data elements you may send include: The individual’s Social Security number The individual’s State of residence The individual’s height The individual’s weight The individual’s place of birth The individual’s eye color The individual's hair color, and The individual’s race. These additional data elements will help the feds weed out false positives. One last thought, the new section in the HIPAA Privacy rule does not name any data elements outlined above. This gives the reporting covered entity the flexibility to report the data elements required and requested by the feds and any state requirements your state may have for this area. Your reporter, Sue Miller, has a 10-page memorandum explaining the new HIPAA final rule in depth. You may purchase it from her at tmsam@aol.com or 978-505-5660. [1] Federal mental health prohibitor makes individuals ineligible to purchase a firearm because they have been "committed to a mental institution" or "adjudicated as a mental defective." DOJ regulations define these categories to include persons who: Have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution for reasons such as mental illness or drug use; Have been found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity; or Otherwise have been determined by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority to be a danger to themselves or others or unable to manage their own affairs, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease. The post Latest HIPAA Final Rule appeared first on Litmos.

Online training providers are changing the traditional ways we consume training. In this article, I’ll look at five market leaders and break down what I like about each of them. 1. Lynda.com Why we like Lynda.com: Granular course design: each course consists of around 40 videos, grouped into ‘chapters’ with bite-sized segments of around 8 minutes. And every video is stand-alone so it can be taken as an individual course without the rest of the module. Content is organised in learner pathways as ‘playlists’, collections of courses curated by Lynda.com. Anyone can create and share playlists, so learners can create their own pathways. The catalogue provides a selection of free videos in each course so you can browse before purchasing. Subscription based, giving a choice of price and access. Multi media multi channel - including digital materials from publishers such as Wiley, and interactive PDFs that can be downloaded and used in exercises as learners work with the videos. Basic membership includes unlimited access to the entire library. Premium members can download course to phone and tablet devices for offline use. Dynamic transcripts flow alongside videos. Users can make notes below the videos which helps transform the entire UI into a work space. Visit Lynda.com 2. Google Primer Why we like Google Primer: Breaks down information in a really simple way. Lessons take five minutes or less. Uses real case study material, insider tips and interactive tips and quizzes for you to see how you’re doing. The offline feature means you can learn anywhere, anytime (on the underground if you can get elbow room). Beautifully designed and easy to use. Visit Google Primer 3. Treehouse Why we like Treehouse: Clear progression - idea of ‘Achievements’ in a course. Clear structure with timings. Raises the bar with high quality studio produced video lessons hosted by in-house team of trainers and contemporary visuals. Courses organized into ‘Tracks’. These are pre-selected sequences of training topics that you complete in a specific order Visit Treehouse 4. Duolingo Why we like Duolingo: You can set yourself daily goals to achieve. Content is delivered in short learning chunks. Clear roadmap and progress markers for your learning path. Placement tests to put you start you at the right level. Discussion streams linked to the language you are learning. Spaced repetition - neat use of algorithms to determine when you should practice words to get them into your long-term memory. Gamified design unpins the whole experience. Visit Duolingo 5. Codecademy Why we like Codecademy: Clear progression and scaffold approach (lessons build sequentially on what you’ve learned before). Interactive practice activities and quizzes to put learning into action. The content and practice is chunked into series of very short exercises so it’s easy to roll through or get back into after a break. Practice in walled-garden, so you can see the code changing the online elements without screwing up your actual website! Visit Codecademy The post 5 innovative online training providers (and why we like them) appeared first on Elucidat Blog.