[Post by Karla Willems, Account Manager at GeoMetrix Data Systems Inc.] Justin Hearn, President of GeoMetrix Data Systems, will be presenting an informational session at the upcoming ATD Techknowledge Conference & Expo being held in Las Vegas from January 13 to 15, 2016. Over the last ten years, advances in web-based interfaces have led to learning systems becoming more approachable and engaging. However, many challenges remain. Justin will examine these developments and discuss future engagement strategies for learning and talent management systems. The presentation titled "Learner Engagement in the 21st Century" is scheduled for Wednesday, January 13 from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m. in Demo Area 2 of the Expo Hall. And while you’re visiting the exposition, please drop by booth # 500 to find out about the latest developments with GeoTalent and TrainingPartner. GeoMetrix and GeoTalent are proud to be Silver Sponsors of this important industry event. So join us in Las Vegas and come prepared to stretch your imagination. Remember to check your attendee bag for a key. Bring the key to booth # 500 for a chance to try it in the prize box. If it opens the lock, you’ll walk away with that’s inside. For a free expo pass to this event, please call 1-800-616-5409 or email us by clicking here. For more information visit: ATD TechKnowledge® 2016

The management and staff of GeoMetrix Data Systems would like to wish everyone a happy new year. May we live to learn well, and learn to live well. May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. All the best in 2016 from GeoTalent and TrainingPartner!

Specifically, I’m a Neon Elephant: The Neon Elephant is an award from Dr. Will Thalheimer of Work-Learning Research, given for bridging the gap between research and learning practice. This is really delightful, given the company of previous awardees: 2014 - Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel for their book, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning 2013 -  Gary Klein 2012 - K. Anders Ericsson 2011 - Jeroen van Merriënboer 2010 - Richard E. Clark 2009 - Ruth Clark 2008 - Robert Brinkerhoff 2007 - Sharon Shrock and Bill Coscarelli 2006  - Cal Wick Lots of smart people on that list.  You should check our their stuff. Thanks Will! (In other news, the second edition of the book is out.  I’ll be doing a separate announcement on that shortly).

The 2015 Higher Education Horizon Report presentation by Alex Freeman of the New Media ConsortiumAlex FreemanKeynote presentation at the 2015 Pennsylvania / Delaware / New Jersey Distance Learning Association's (PADLA) Annual Conference & ExpoHear about the future of Higher Education:6 Key Trends6 Significant Challenges6 Important Tech DevelopmentsLinksPresentation Slides w/AudioPADLA.orgNMC.orgNMC Horizon Report Video IntroHorizon Report PDFRPP #123: 2014 Horizon ReportPodsafe Music Selection  "As The Wind Blows" by KitaroClick Image for Larger ViewDuration: 31:49

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Harvard Business Review and explores how to not only engage but also inspire your employees.Recent studies by Bain & Company found that inspired employees are 125% more productive than satisfied employees and 56% more productive than engaged employees.So I ask: How do we take employees from satisfied to truly inspired?It starts by looking at the top. Managers and leaders are often the ones who decide where an organization’s resources and efforts get invested. Too often they focus solely on monetary incentives, which can lead to a purely transactional relationship. According to the article Engaging Your Employees is Good, but Don’t Stop There, real inspiration starts by connecting your team’s or the individuals’ mission to the company’s overall purpose.Are you meeting each individual’s pyramid of needs?"The foundational elements—call them employee satisfaction—are fundamentals such as having a safe work environment and the tools necessary to do the job. Abraham Maslow taught us that we can’t concern ourselves with higher goals until we have the necessities of life, including security. So it is in the workplace: first things first.Read the article.The post Fierce Resource: Engaging Your Employees is Good, but Don’t Stop There appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Forbes and uncovers six ways to get the most out of the holiday season rush.For most of us, December is a mad dash to the New Year filled with performance reviews, holiday parties, and year-end strategy meetings. It’s easy to get swept up into the madness and forget about setting up our new year on the right foot.Make sure you set aside some time to focus on enriching your workplace relationships. The article How Successful People Take Advantage Of The Holiday Season provides a simple guide for getting the most out of your holiday season.Are you struggling to make that personal connection? It might be time to put away the keyboard."Pick Up the Phone. In our digital world, we are all pre-programmed to shoot over a quick email or text message when reaching out to someone. We’ve forgotten about the power of a phone call, which has only gained effectiveness since becoming phased out by the keyboard. This is the perfect time to pick up the phone, whether you’re inviting someone to a holiday get-together or just calling to say hello."Read the article.The post Fierce Resource: How Successful People Take Advantage Of The Holiday Season appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Harvard Business Review and provides a simple learning strategy that enables leaders to successfully meet the challenges ahead.Wherever you look, we are living in an age of constant change. As we move into 2016, organizations need to ensure they have the right leadership development strategy in place to navigate the ever-evolving business landscape.According to a recent Deloitte study, more companies than ever report they are unprepared to meet this challenge. How do we start closing the capabilities gap? It starts by building an organizational culture centered on learning. The article The Best Leaders Are Constant Learners offers a simple method for transforming yourself, your team, or even your organization into a learning organism.Is your organization prepared to offer scalable learning?"Sustainable competitive advantage depends on having people that know how to build relationships, seek information, make sense of observations and share ideas through an intelligent use of new technologies."Read the article.The post Fierce Resource: The Best Leaders Are Constant Learners appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Fortune and offers advice on the one thing you need to do to foster future success in the workplace.As we jump into the New Year, we hope you have spent some quality time reflecting. But before you commit to your 10 step self-improvement strategy for 2016, we caution you not to focus on your shortcomings too much.As Shawn Archer pointed out in his 2012 TED Talk, as a society we have developed an illogical formula for determining happiness - "If [we] work harder, [we’ll] be more successful. And if [were] more successful, then [we’ll] be happier."Instead we need to flip the formula for success. According to The One Thing You Can Do Right Now to Be More Successful, the first step is to focus on developing your unique superpowers. By building on your strengths, you will not only be happier but you will also gain a new self-confidence that will help you overcome the inevitable roadblocks in your career.But how do you uncover your hidden superpowers?"That’s where hard work can come in handy. You need to be willing to see yourself clearly, and to understand what works well for you instead of trying to turn yourself into your boss or mentor. Try writing down your top three superpowers. Are you fast on your feet? Or do you come to better resolutions when you have time to evaluate processes?"Read the article.The post Fierce Resource: The One Thing You Can Do Right Now to Be More Successful appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

"Life is curly. Don’t try to straighten it out." - Susan Scott   This year will not go as you have it planned right now on January 4, 2016. In 2016, you will have triumphs you didn’t expect, setbacks you didn’t anticipate, and new people enter your life. You may have the same challenges, and you may not. You may have the same job responsibilities, and you may not. When things are out of your control this year, you will choose how you feel about what happens. And, more importantly, you will choose what you do after.For stability seekers, the notion of the unexpected and changing can be disconcerting. For the thrill seekers, it can be exciting. Regardless of what side of the spectrum you live on, you are responsible for the outcomes.This week’s tip is to accept that your plans will change and go with it. "Going with it" may sound counter to being intentional, but it isn’t. It is necessary to accept that the journey you are on often looks like a large squiggly pattern opposed to the straight line. It won’t always make sense. It won’t always go your way.Your journey can be jarring, frustrating, and bumpy, or it can be exciting, fun, and twisty. One way to look at it is scary. The other is to look at it as exhilarating. You get to choose.To all of you, I wish you a curly 2016. Embrace the ups and downs, the ins and outs. And let’s enjoy this ride together. The post Fierce tip of the week: Life is Curly - Go with It appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

As we enter a new year in the complex world in which we live, I am mindful of the amount of stress many of our clients are trying to work through in their professional lives alone, on top of the complications of home challenges and world events. Last year, a client started his coaching session by asking me to ‘stop asking questions - it takes too much energy to search inside myself for the answers’. Already, in the first week of this year, my inbox is full of messages encouraging me to set goals, get a focus, enjoy my best year yet …. and more, and it seems to me that the writers are so busy chasing towards the future, they forget to spend time enjoying the present. The NLP world is no better, being ‘stuck’ in a paradigm of ‘outcome thinking’ and a well worn sales banter about ‘living the life you want’.  In fact, the ‘muddiness’ that has evolved between NLP and Coach does no favours to either field, but that debate is for another day.   Many transactional coaching models such as GROW, come from the world of sport and performance improvement and are centred around goals which start in position A, and take the coachee through a procedural process to reach position B. They assume that we know, or have some idea, about what we need and that the system will stay the same as we move in a direct line from A to B. They rely on a static environment and short termism, and why should I be surprised? They emanate from a 1980’s performance and reward driven culture. These models are a project management system for living life.   The world has changed. We are entering 2016 and a third decade for coaching, where coaching clients often don’t know what they need and want to use the coaching process as an exploration. Coaching is now full of options, rather like a bowl of spaghetti that presents exciting opportunities for untangling the many components. David Drake (2015) describes this as a narrative approach which ‘starts from a different set of assumptions, e.g., increasing people’s non-judgmental awareness of their current state, stories and actions is the necessary foundation for any change’.   I postulate that even a narrative approach is two dimensional and clients now need more creative coaching to explore multiple perspectives, take risks and align ‘self’ with the world in which we now live. They need to be facilitated through work with their unconscious and non-dominant aspects of self to discover those gifts and talents they have not yet used. They need to be open to multi-level feedback and to risk experimenting with new and evolving behaviours, capabilities and beliefs. Most importantly, they need to be helped to access what is going on, on the ‘inside’ by being present with themselves rather than referencing themselves against external expectations - which are often ‘fashions’ and ‘trends’ which change before they achieve them. They need to explore and play with the ever emergent system in which we live, the inter-connectivity of ‘self’ with ‘others’ through the concept of relational collaboration.   So…. Coaching needs to be transformational. It is made up of multi-faceted lenses through which to transcend the narrative and the discourse, to re-engage with learning through playfulness, to converse with a light touch rather than be the imposed, goal orientated and stress inducing conversation that New Year goal orientation leads clients to experience. The post Thoughts for the start of 2016 ….. appeared first on The Performance Solution.