eLearning Learning Hot ListMay 1, 2009 to May 31, 2009Here is the best stuff from May 2009 via the eLearning Learning site. Hope you enjoy.Top Posts The following are the top posts from featured sources based on social signals. The Truth About Twitter- Social Enterprise Blog, May 11, 2009Twitter Tips: for Teachers & Educators- Don't Waste Your Time, May 9, 2009Twitter and Webinars- eLearning Technology, May 14, 2009Presentation: Twitter in Education - Don't Waste Your Time, May 12, 2009The Challenge of Training the PlayStation Generation- The E-Learning Curve, May 15, 2009Adobe eLearning Suite: is it worth it?- Clive on Learning, May 29, 2009Implementing New Learning Technology? Choose the Right Pilot Group- Kapp Notes, May 22, 2009Presentation: Wikis in Education- Don't Waste Your Time, May 19, 2009List of System Variables in Cp4- Adobe Captivate Blog, May 15, 2009Presentation: Social Bookmarking with Delicious- Don't Waste Your Time, May 15, 2009New Way of Learning- eLearning Technology, May 4, 2009Discovering Instructional Design, Part 1- The E-Learning Curve, May 19, 2009The Ten Commandments of eLearning- Upside Learning Blog, May 8, 2009Avoiding the Virtual Ghost Town- Kapp Notes, May 6, 2009Meeting icebreaker-How to get a group to acknowledge differences in perceptions.- Business Casual, May 16, 2009Audio in eLearning: Cultural Differences?- Learning Visions, May 12, 2009Overcoming Objections to Social Learning - One Week at at Time- Engaged Learning, May 8, 2009Skype screen-sharing collaboration & feedback- WISE Pedagogy, May 28, 2009MOBILE LEARNING - eLearning Tour Part 1 - Hosted by Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation- Discovery Through eLearning, May 21, 2009How I use social media to learn- Adventures in Corporate Education, May 17, 2009Lies, damned lies, and Wikipedia…- ThirdForce Blog, May 8, 2009#ela2009 workshop George Siemens: social networking technologies for teaching and learning transformation- Ignatia Webs, May 29, 2009More on Social Learning and the Military- Social Learning and Communities of Practice, May 28, 2009Gaining Audience Attention >- MinuteBio, May 27, 2009Twitterfall - letting the web work for you- eLearning Acupuncture, May 26, 2009How Do You Build A Team?- Blogger in Middle-earth, May 26, 2009Tips for Working with SMEs- Bozarthzone , May 21, 2009Social Networking in Times of Stress and Personal Emergencies- Electronic Papyrus, May 11, 2009Aligning Learning Theory with Instructional Design- The E-Learning Curve, May 21, 2009Developing a PLE Using Web 2.0 Tools- Don't Waste Your Time, May 10, 2009Informal Learning Technology- eLearning Technology, May 11, 2009Capture Examples- eLearning Technology, May 29, 2009Presentation: Blogs in Education- Don't Waste Your Time, May 22, 2009 Top Other Items The following are the top other items based on social signals. A List Apart: Articles: In Defense of Eye Candy, May 16, 20099 Free Tools That Help Me Build Better E-Learning, May 5, 2009Control and Community: A Case Study of Enterprise Wiki Usage, May 4, 2009Facilitating Online | Centre for Educational Technology, May 19, 20097 Tips for Better E-Learning Scenarios, May 26, 2009The Eight Classic e-Learning publications? | Tony Bates, May 8, 2009Are Your E-Learning Courses Pushed or Pulled?, May 19, 200925 Tools: A Toolbox for Learning Professionals 2009, May 19, 2009The End in Mind " A Post-LMS Manifesto, May 8, 2009Micro-blogging at Work, May 30, 2009Using Elgg as as Social Learning platform, May 2, 2009Learning with 'e's: e-Learning 3.0, May 4, 2009Does technology change the nature of knowledge? | Tony Bates, May 8, 2009Learning 2.0 and Workplace Communities - 2009 - ASTD, May 18, 2009Modern Corporate Training: The Enterprise Learning Framework, May 24, 2009Learning 2.0, May 5, 2009The future is people, not technology, May 30, 2009Learning Management Systems 2009 - 2009 - ASTD, May 21, 2009Engage Your Learners By Mimicking the Real World, May 12, 2009Sensemaking, PKM and networks, May 17, 2009The Mobile Learning Engine (MLE) for Moodle, May 18, 2009Royalty-Free, Podsafe, and Stock Music, May 25, 2009A closer look at using a social media platform ..., May 10, 2009Learning as a Network, May 7, 2009Become a chief meta-learning officer, May 3, 2009Modernize Corporate Training: The Enterprise Learning Framework, May 24, 2009 Top Keywords Learning Management System (28)Social Learning (52)Social Media (56)eLearning (172)Mobile Learning (27)Knowledge Worker (9)Instructional Design (52)Free (105)Knowledge Management (23)eLearning Tools (58)Trends (40) eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

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View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording. 10 Tips to Overcome the Training Usage Dip | BizLibrary Webinar 11.04.2014 from BizLibrary     Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   10 Tips for Marketing Your Employee Training Program In this eBook  you'll learn 10 ways to improve the marketing of your online employee training program and boost employee engagement and participation. 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 Barb Binder   Adobe FrameMaker 12  supports GREP Find/Change (General Regular Expression Print), but I tend to forget about it because it's not prominently featured in the Find/Change dialog box.One of my major headaches in a FrameMaker layout job is updating hyphens to en dashes between ranges of numbers, as outlined in my article on GREP in Adobe InDesign. Without the aid of GREP, I run 10 replacements, 1- to 1-. 2- to 2-, etc. It's tedious, but if I wait until I have all the files in the book, I can do it once and be done with it.Until today. Thanks to a series of misfortunate events which made me sit back and think, "Isn't there a better way?", the lightbulb finally illuminated. A little voice piped up and said, "Barb! Copy the string from the InDesign blog post and paste it into FrameMaker!" And with one minor change, it worked perfectly.Here's the setup in FrameMaker:   For your copy and pasting pleasure:  Find Text: (?x)\b(\d+)-(\d+)\bChange to Text: $1-$2 Don't forget to change from a Simple Search to Regular Expressions and, once you test the string, remember you can update the entire book. (Always test before you click Change All!)This simple GREP query will find all digits separated with a single hyphen and change those hyphens to en dashes. Now, if we could just get Adobe to add the widgets that make figuring this out easier and the ability to save these strings for future reference!   *** Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker? Check out our live, online FrameMaker classes.

eLearning Learning Hot List - May 29, 2009 to June 5, 2009 Top Posts The following are the top posts from featured sources based on social signals. Adobe eLearning Suite: is it worth it?- Clive on Learning, May 29, 2009Capture Examples- eLearning Technology, May 29, 2009Mistakes made in Academic Blogs- Don't Waste Your Time, June 3, 2009Time Spent- The Learning Circuits Blog, June 1, 2009Presentation: Camtasia in eLearning- Don't Waste Your Time, June 4, 2009Does Deliberative Practice Lead to Quick Proficiency?- eLearning Technology, June 3, 2009Should you Care about Google Wave?- Social Learning and Communities of Practice, June 4, 2009Favorite 10 Tools For Creating Learning- Business Casual, May 28, 2009The Various Roles of Instructional Design (work in progress)- Jonathan's ID, June 5, 2009#IeL09 Technology and the Next Gen Learner- In the Middle of the Curve, June 5, 2009Discovering Instructional Design 8: Developing Material for Learning Programs- The E-Learning Curve, June 5, 2009Webinars - A Cool Marketing Tool- ThirdForce Blog, June 5, 2009#IeL09 The Social Web and Learning- In the Middle of the Curve, June 5, 2009#IeL09 Successful Implementation of Online Collaboration- In the Middle of the Curve, June 5, 2009Our Top 10 Learning Tools 2009- Upside Learning Blog, June 4, 2009Firefox Bookmark Shortcuts- eLearning Technology, June 4, 2009Technology in Education- Don't Waste Your Time, June 3, 2009Discovering Instructional Design 7: Objectives Analysis- The E-Learning Curve, June 3, 2009The When and What of M-Learning- Element K Blog, June 2, 2009Web 3.0: yes, they went there- WISE Pedagogy, June 1, 2009 Top Other Items The following are the top other items based on social signals. 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio, June 2, 2009Does Google Wave Mean the End of the LMS?, June 2, 2009Micro-blogging at Work, May 30, 2009The future is people, not technology, May 30, 2009Price Ranges for Learning Management Systems in 2009, June 1, 2009Collaborative Learning « Social Enterprise Blog, June 3, 2009Organizing for Performance Effectiveness, June 1, 2009Co-operation for Networks, June 1, 2009Social tools for networks, June 1, 2009Picky, picky, May 29, 2009Case Study: Royal Bank of Canada, June 3, 2009Grains of sand, June 3, 2009ONLINE FORUM: Lights, Camera, Action - Using Media to Engage the Learner, June 2, 2009Top Keywords Collaboration (38)Knowledge Management (15)Expert (16)Conversation (23)Management (42)Technology (60)Performance Support (16) eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.       Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   The Career Journey and Learning Across Generations In this eBook  you'll learn the demographic, behavioral, performance, and future demands of each career stage - early career, mid-career and late career. 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 Jennie Ruby    We are finding some agreement, those of us sharing our pet peeves. First, Lisa J. Stumpf voices her agreement with Michael Stein: I totally agree with Michael. Moot is much different in meaning and sound than mute! And keep the "t" sound out of often! And on the topic of pronunciation (have you heard people say "pro-nounce-ee-a-shun"?), Julie Walawender gives us "processes": One of my pet peeves is the mispronunciation of the plural form of process. The correct pronunciation is pros-es-iz, NOT pros-es-eez. An online resource suggests that this new pronunciation is increasing in popularity, perhaps by mistaken analogy with such plurals as "theses" and "hypotheses," with which it has no connection. I've also heard users attempt to make a parallel to "matrices." Drives me nuts!! Right? That "eez" on the end always sounds a little pompous to me--but a trip to Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) indicates that the long e is used equally often by educated speakers as the short e! But again, Webster's is descriptive, meaning it is a record based on observation of how people are actually using and pronouncing words, rather than an analysis of how words should be pronounced and used. So Julie is absolutely right that processes, from the Latinprocedere, has nothing in common with theses or hypotheses, which come from Greek words. Given that, together with my feeling that it is pompous, I would guess that the origin of this pronunciation is in hypercorrectness. Hypercorrectness occurs when people create "a nonstandard linguistic form or construction on the basis of a false analogy (as ... "widely" in "open widely")." In other words, when they try so hard to get it right that they get it wrong. Speaking of getting it wrong, Laura Gillenwater writes in to clarify her pet peeve about impact, which I mistakenly took to be complaint about its use as a verb: One small clarification...I actually wasn't complaining about the use of impact as a [verb], but, rather, its incorrect use when the person means "effect." So, for example, I'm fine with The impact that the asteroid made when it hit the Earth 246 million years ago can still be seen today. But I'm not okay with, The price of that new TV has an impact on whether people will buy it. Finally, one more pronunciation peeve: Tanya Davis writes, I have a pronunciation pet peeve. It is "our." Most people pronounce it as "r," when it should be pronounced just like the word "hour"! If you've got some peeves, feel free to post them as comments below. If I have not featured yours yet, it means I'm either hording it or researching it, one or the other, but I intend to publish them all. (Haha!, a self-peeve just happened! When I proofread the previous sentence, I found I had typed [or autocorrect had helped me type, I'm not sure which] punish instead of publish! Don't you hate it when that happens? Is that a new category of peeve? The SELF-peeve? Write in if you have any of those that you are willing to share. We have a new category: pronunciation.)

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording. Get updates, invitations and free resources from BizLibrary by signing up! Additional Resources: Five Barriers from Charles Jennings   Everyday we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. So much that 90% of the data in the world has been created in the last two years alone. SOURCE: IBM Understanding Big Data: Analytics for Enterprise Class Hadoop and Streaming Data   How Executives View Learning Metrics by Patti and Jack Phillips, CLO Magazine, Dec 2010     Creating a Frictionless Learning Experience by Dean Pichee Cox eLearning Consultants, Learning Solutions Forecast: 2014 Edition Make Training Stick by Barbara Carnes The Importance of Agility HR Exec Online

A really great question this about Time Spent month on the Learning Circuits Blog … okay so I'm the one who writes the question.  Please contribute your answers.  Each person's answer (like mine in this post) individually might not be that interesting, but collectively I think there's something pretty interesting.  For example, I can already see that TV is losing out to lots of other activities. My Typical Day Like a lot of the people answering, there is no such thing as a typical day.  I'm involved in a bunch of different things all at the same time.  How my time gets distributed really depends on the day.  But here are some elements of how I spend my time: I spend the vast majority of my time talking with people about particular business needs, market opportunities, technology opportunities, product specifications, social media marketing, researching related information, position of products in the market, talking to partners, VCs, etc., generally helping businesses figure out how they can be successful. I spend about 2-3 hours each week writing blog posts.  This can either be early morning hours or weekends in the morning.  For example, I'm writing this on Sunday morning.  I used to get up on Sunday mornings and read the newspaper from cover to cover.  Now I get up on Sunday mornings and open up my blog editing tool and begin to write.  I also will take the Sunday morning time to run through my reader to "catch up."       At any time during the week, I save interesting topics for blog posts into a big electronic pile whenever I encounter them.  So, if I happen to see something that sparks - oh, I should look at that - I save it into the pile and take a look at it when I have time to think and write about it. I also will save interesting questions that I've encountered because of particular work with clients.  So a lot of my blog posts directly or indirectly relate to clients or to start-ups that I'm working on. I spend maybe an hour or two each week on various outside topics such as Professional Speaking, Communities and Networks, that is related to public topic hubs for Browse My Stuff.  This doesn't pay back in monetary terms, but it definitely pays back in learning and networking terms. I spend 0-60 minutes each day catching up on topics being discussed via Twitter, different LinkedIn groups, blogs, other discussion groups, etc.  I used to open CNN.com at lunch time.  Now I will jump onto these sources. I have roughly one 30-minute conversation per day with someone new who I've met through blogging, LinkedIn, or some other virtual networking activity.  In most cases, this is directly related to a particular presentation, project, start-up, etc. I've never really felt great about connecting with people without somewhat having a reason.  But connecting around something that I'm working on is fantastic. Closely related to the above, I probably average 15 minutes per day on LinkedIn searching for people. When you add all the time I spend with social media, it's quite a bit.  However, when I do my  Top-Down Strategy to look at how I spend my time, what information sources to consume, etc. … my time is pretty well aligned with what makes sense. Finding the Time One of the main reasons I wanted to ask this question is explained by Jenise in her response to the question: I have heard Dr. Tony Karrer speak in person at my local ASTD chapter. We all sat dumbfounded to hear how much he knows, calculating in our brains how much time he must spend online, on the WWW, each day. He has a family, so we bluntly asked him… "Do you spend time with your family?" He does, but we left the meeting wondering how he balances his work and his life. The reaction Jenise had is quite common after presentations and it boils down to: I'm already too busy, how the heck can I also do all of what you are telling me about? So part of the question were the specific questions: How did you find time for all the relatively newer things like reading blogs, twitter, social networks, etc.? What are you doing less of today than you were 3-5 years ago? I've worked a bit with Stedman Graham and something he said really sticks with me: We all have 24 hours in a day. What makes us different is how we choose to spend it. In looking at my response above and what I described in Top-Down Strategy, I've made some very specific choices about where I spend my time - and a lot of it is replacement. I consume far less mainstream media - I don't watch the evening news, I skim the Sunday paper (3 hours has turned into 15 minutes), I'm watching less TV - but that's more a function of my kids keeping me busy.  I've replace the Radio with listening to podcasts. I've cut out / down trade publications.  I used to get Information Week, InfoWorld, CIO, Training, etc.  I still even get a few of these.  But, as I've described in Stop Reading - Skim Dive Skim and Information Radar I find that the vast majority of these publications trail what bloggers are talking about and they have to be superficial in comparison.  So, I've tuned them out and I've instead spent more time with very specific sources. While I still buy lots of books, I read a book from cover to cover far less often than I did 5 years ago.  Actually, I'm trying to remember the last time I read a book cover to cover.  Instead, I'm using my skimming behavior on books.  Good news is that with Safari and Kindle and things like that … pretty soon this will be a more natural integration. I've cut down on local networking events.  I used to go to a lot of these and even served on boards.  I still go to a few and I organize a local CTO Forum.  But I've cut down and I use Pre-Networking to make sure it's going to be a good use of time.  One thing that I've realized is that rather than committing 4 hours to an evening meeting to meet 5 random people to have a few minutes of conversation pales in comparison to the value of spending an hour on LinkedIn findings interesting people related to specific topics and scheduling 30 minute conversations with them. I've similarly cut down on conferences.  I still like to go in order to get together with people I already know.  And by presenting, it helps me build new connections.  Still there's a question in my mind of the value of doing a conference vs. the value of spending time doing something like Learn Trends.  Right now, I'm doing more virtual stuff and less in-person. Life Part of the question behind the question is whether the replacement of these things makes life better or worse.  I don't have any more time than I had 5 years ago.  And some people would see replacing 3 hours with the Sunday paper with writing this blog post as a bad thing.  I personally don't see it that way, but I'm sure it's open to debate.  Right now, mentally, I think I'm talking to you.  Yes, you.  Well actually not you, but a theoretical model in my head of who you are.  But still it feels like a kind of conversation.  It also continually puts me in a better learning mode - I'm not sitting passively consuming.  I'm active.  I'm writing.  I'm conversing. But probably the best part of all of this has been the greatly increased interaction with other people to discuss targeted questions.  Reaching out through LinkedIn to have 30 minute conversations is a beautiful thing.  Discussing things via blog comments or blog posts is beautiful.  Getting online together via Learn Trends is great. By the way, I still spend lots of time playing volleyball, taking my kids to all their events, having a generally great life here in sunny Southern California.  In fact, once I'm done with this post, my kids and I will be heading to the beach for volleyball and some fun. Life is better with social media. eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

by Kevin Siegel      I've written about Captivate's Smart Shapes a few times since Adobe first introduced them. If you want to know what they are, check out this article. If you want to learn how to use Smart Shapes as buttons, I've got you covered. This time I'm going to cover how you can use Smart Shapes instead of Text Captions in just about every development scenario.  Since Smart Shapes are far more flexible (when it comes to formatting) than standard buttons or text captions, I'd love to see Adobe completely replace text captions and buttons with Smart Shapes down the road (perhaps Captivate 9... 10?). As it stands, standard text captions are used whenever you record a software simulation or enable feedback captions for interactive objects (you can use Hint, Success, and Failure captions for Click Boxes, Buttons, and Text Entry Boxes). If you'd like to use Smart Shapes instead of Text Captions during the Software Simulation recording process, open Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Edit menu if you're using Windows; Adobe Captivate menu if you're using a Macintosh).From the Recording group at the left side of the dialog box, select Modes. Finally, for each mode you'd like to use, enable Add Text Captions and Use Smart Shapes instead of Captions. You can select the type of Smart Shape you want to use via the Smart Shape Type drop-down menu. When you record your next Software Simulation, the standard Text Captions will automatically be replaced with Smart Shapes. As I mentioned above, you can also use Smart Shapes instead of standard captions when adding Hint, Success, and Failure captions. It's a simple set up (assuming you're using Adobe Captivate 8.1), reopen the Preferences dialog box. From the Category list, select Defaults. Lastly, from the General area, select Use Smart-Shapes for SFH Captions instead of Text Captions.  The next time you enable Hint, Success, or Failure captions for an interactive object (via the Properties Inspector), the feedback captions will automatically be Smart Shapes. If you'd like to change the shape of the Smart Shape, it's a simple matter of selecting the shape and, on the Properties Inspector, using the Basic drop-down menu.  *** 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.

I was thinking about a prospect we spoke with earlier this year who decided not to move forward with our solution. The reason this organization provided was that the CFO and CEO both thought the existing employee development team could build custom online content less expensively.   Now this is not a small retail company. This is one of the world’s largest retail organizations, so they have a substantial internal training team. However, the entire internal training organization advocated for buying our content plus technology solution. So within one organization, we saw the entire build versus buy debate play out. We’ve since heard from the employee training part of the organization, and they are under water on content and cannot develop the content the organization needs. Which begs the question - how did the "build" part of the argument win in the first place?   It’s simple, really. Build won out initially, because the CFO and CEO took a very superficial look at the upfront, out-of-pocket costs. They never understood the business case and the true value and benefits of buying an all-inclusive solution that included content, and that’s too bad. Because, the true costs to build an online library of content to adequately train employees in today’s business environment is actually quite high. The table below is a conservative estimate of the costs to develop content.   Activity Unit Costs Need Total Interactive eLearning (level 2 interactivity) $20,000 per hour of seat time 20 hours $400,000 Video (Live Action) $2,500 per minute 40 minutes $100,000 Video (Instructor Style) $1,000 per minute 40 minutes $40,000   This amount of time gets the prospect 10 8-minute video courses and 20 1-hour eLearning courses. That is hardly sufficient content to adequately train a 20,000 employee workforce. And these cost estimates are based upon a few assumptions: Access to hard assets - studios, editing capability and personnel Skills - instruction design expertise, script writers, directors, producers, videographers, lighting technicians, developers, etc. Time - the time to develop, produce and then edit this content.   The total costs - above $540,000 or $27.00 per employee, and these costs do not get the company a learning platform - and LMS , either. And this does not get them enough content to do the job adequately. But - from the CFO and CEO’s superficial first look, these costs were hidden; because they HAVE an employee training department that can do training development, right? And the costs of these employees are ALREADY baked into the current overhead, so from the CFO and CEO perspective, the organization was not adding any new expenses to build content in-house.   The simple, cold, hard truth of the matter is this organization did not have the capacity to develop ANY content, much less the volume at an acceptable quality to adequately train any of its employees. Let’s face it. Most of us don’t have these skills. As HD quality video becomes more common and the sophistication of video training continues to increase, the skills needed to produce it are moving beyond all but a select handful of training departments.   Buy? Yes - the correct answer SHOULD have been to BUY content AND a platform. (By the way, the internal learning and development team wants to get rid of their current learning platform.) The costs to buy? Well - a LOT less than $27.00 per employee over the life of a three-year agreement! And that would include: 7,000+ video courses 25+ employee training topics Content management/LMS Mobile Access to 100% of the video content Why Work With BizLibrary?     The BizLibrary Collection is an award-winning "NetFlix-style" employee training solution of online training videos and eLearning courses. Employees have unlimited access to more than 7,000 online training programs on virtually every topic.       Try the collection today!   Additionally, this solution would have been adequate to train nearly the entire employee population. Existing training programs would actually be made stronger and enhanced.   So why didn’t they buy? The reason the company did not buy is that the internal L&D professionals could not and did not make a good BUSINESS case for buying the content.   When you are looking at that build or buy decision, make sure your planning accounts for ALL of the costs to build: The actual AND hidden costs to generate custom content Access to assets, skills and resources required to develop a comprehensive library of content Keeping content updated and current Skills to develop custom content - development - technical and content, subject matter expertise, video - lighting sound, editing, etc. Publishing - AICC or SCORM LMS - do you have one?   Buying content is almost always a much more cost-effective solution, especially when you can find an all-inclusive vendor who can offer the best of both - content plus technology. Unfortunately, with the consolidation in the market over the last several years, the choices have gotten slimmer, but BizLibrary remains. We have a great solution with 7 ,000+ employee training courses , an award-winning LMS that comes with a free mobile app ready for you to try.

Interesting post found via the Communities and Networks Connection - The Future of Collaborative Networks by Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch.  Aaron's main point is that enterprise 2.0 software or enterprise social software should not focus on: social networks or social software, which is focused entirely on enabling conversations Instead, Aaron points to what he calls Collaborative networks: Rather than focusing on socialization, one to one interactions and individual enrichment, businesses must be concerned with creating an information fabric within their organizations.  This information fabric is a federation of content from the multiplicity of data and application silos utilized on a daily basis; such as, ERP, CRM, file servers, email, databases, web-services infrastructures, etc. When you make this information fabric easy to edit between groups of individuals in a dynamic, secure, governed and real-time manner, it creates a Collaborative Network. Collaborative Networks are focused on groups accessing and organizing data into actionable formats that enable decision making, collaboration and reuse. Social Networks' Characteristics Collaborative Networks' Characteristics One to one Group to group Social interaction centered Objective and content centered Achieving personal objectives Achieving group objectives Individual enrichment Operational excellence Results immeasurable Results measurable   While I agree that making information that is currently in application silos available is really important, I feel like Aaron has missed two really important issues: Concept work is far too varied and complex for anyone to continually try it on their own.  Concept workers need access to the information in silos, but the answers are not found there.  Instead, they need to be able to quickly find expertise inside and outside the organization. Adoption starts based on individual value.  See Enterprise 2.0 - What's the PU? & Web 2.0 Adoption in the Enterprise - It's Personal.  In fact, studies of technology adoption for many years have come back to: Adoption Rate = Perceived Usefulness (PU) * Perceive Ease of Use (PEOU) Aaron may not have meant this, but he seems to suggest starting with a focus on group value, achieving group objectives.  I'm sure some people will buy into that, but I believe it's a much easier sell if you first focus on individual value. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

by Jen Weaver     This week let's explore some common cultural facts about Panamanians and their expectations when it comes to Training and Development.Test Your Knowledge of Panamanian Culture Is Panama part of Central America or Northern America? True or False? Panama has the same governmental structure as the United States, which includes a president and a vice president. Quick Tips for Training & Development in Panama1: Public criticism is frowned upon, as Panamanians work diligently to maintain an image of harmony. Be careful not to criticize students or team members in public; pull them aside and address concerns privately, if needed. Spanish is the official language, but English is commonly known. Training materials will likely be requested and better accepted in Spanish, even though English materials could be understood. Many Panamanians are highly sensitive about the influence of the United States on their country--whether perceived or actual. Even if influence by the United States seems apparent, don't mention it, as the commentary will often be met with disdain. Truth is strongly biased towards emotions rather than logic. Decision-making is commonly done in light of its effect on the group as a whole, and personal relationships are a vital part of daily life. Trust is freely given, but you may experience resistance as a trainer from the United States. While there is a wide gap between social classes, this difference is typically accepted by older generations. Younger professionals are starting to fight this cultural norm as they seek higher levels of success and affluence for their families. Machismo is prevalent, so students may inherently respond better to male trainers or leaders. To overcome this stigma, women can emphasize their role as part of a committed team. Knowledge Answer from Above: Central America. False. Panama is a multi-party republic and includes a president and two vice presidents. References:   1Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.   *** Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions. And if you love Jen's articles, check out her new Localization mini courses.

One of the coolest things about working for BizLibrary is unlimited Learning! Each month BizLibrary Employees share their favorite courses. This month features employees from Bizlibrary's Client Success Team.     November Pix from Left to Right:   Jason Wirick, Client Success Manager   I Can't Get No Traction Safety - it’s an important topic that must be refreshed regularly. Unfortunately, this topic is also one that can seem repetitive to employees who have heard the same message over and over year after year. This video is an excellent tool to breathe new life into your safety meetings and kick it off on a high note. This video is a meeting opener, meant to be used in a group setting. It is a music video set to the tune of The Rolling Stones’ "(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" and includes some attention-grabbing vignettes of people slipping, tripping and falling. While safety is no joke, this is a way to make the topic a little more fun and facilitate discussion. View the video preview below:   Melissa Hebert, Client Success Consultant   Employing Generation Why: Differences Between Us and Them It’s imperative that employers understand what motivates workers in this age group so that they can successfully train them and be better aligned to retain them. View the video preview below:   Mark Pettis, Client Success Consultant   Focus Your Vision with Dewitt Jones When we think about work and even our life, we sometimes try to put things into perspective and this course really brings out the good and makes you see what’s right in front of you. This course talks about vision and how to focus it and what really makes it stick with me is it encourages us to make our vision into reality. With that said we can apply this to our work life and our personal life and enjoy what we have. I like how he says to "slow down and take it all in". I know that the more I think about it I want to enjoy every aspect of my work life and personal life which will help me understanding who I am and what my passions are. I think we can all agree that if we take a moment focus our vision, we can all become better at what we do. View the video preview below:       Try these courses and more! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.

Live, online, and 100% interactive! 3-hours of content... and just $79! 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. Who Should Attend? High school and college students Persons who are seeking employment Job seekers who are re-entering the workforce Seasoned professionals who need to learn the right way to establish online presence More information.

This is a very strange time. While increasing amount of concept work and the pace of change puts a premium on learning, the business of learning faces an incredibly difficult time. In the past few weeks, I've had some really eye-opening conversations about the state of Learning as a Business. It makes me realize that we had really better get moving on thinking about our collective future. There are some important calls to action at the bottom of this post. Particularly, I'm interested in the question of: While training as a publisher of courses and courseware faces an increasingly challenging market, what other things can learning businesses successfully sell to internal or external customers? Troubled Times for Publishers By way of background for this, I think it's instructive to look at what is happening in parallel industries. Publishing happens to be a pretty close parallel to training. The challenges for publishers has been well documented: From Terrible to Terrifying: "The stats show that total newspaper ad sales dropped by an unprecedented 28.28% in the first quarter of 2009, a deep plunge that represents a loss of more than $2.6 billion in ad revenue compared year-over-year." Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable by Clay Shirky "...the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem." New Yorker - Out of Print Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, said recently in a speech in London, "At places where editors and publishers gather, the mood these days is funereal. Editors ask one another, ‘How are you?,’ in that sober tone one employs with friends who have just emerged from rehab or a messy divorce." Keller’s speech appeared on the Web site of its sponsor, the Guardian, under the headline "NOT DEAD YET." Watch this following video from the Daily Show: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c End Times www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview Great lines - "You guys are like a walking Colonial Williamsburg." At 3:23 - "Give me one thing in there that happened today." The reaction is priceless. "What's black and white and red all over. Your balance sheet." The editor at the end makes a great point that you don't find a Huffington Post, Drudge over reporting in Iraq. It reminds me a bit of the arguments about the loss of quality as you lose our instructional design and go to cheaper forms of delivery. But that doesn't mean you have a viable business. State of the Business of Learning Oh, those poor publishing people. Thank goodness that's not us. FYI that's what publishers thought about the music industry when it when through it's slide. That may be happening right now when we (learning businesses) look at publishing. I don't think there's much doubt that we are in a very tough period for learning businesses. Take a look at the Masie - Learning Barometer. Learning budgets are decreasing. Spending on external services are decreasing even more. And learning departments need to do more with fewer resources. If you are inside a corporate learning department, assuming you still have your job, then you feel this by being more busy. In many ways, that's not a bad feeling compared to either the person who lost their job. Or the people who have seen their learning business crushed by this. Anecdotally times are incredibly tough right now for training vendors. See My business has cracked! for one first person story. But I've talked to training vendors who are down 30 - 60% on their sales in the first quarter. 60% lower sales is a really difficult thing to manage. You have fixed overhead. Temporary Downturn or Changing Landscape? While the market is tough right now, there are some people who believe that learning businesses who sell classroom, virtual classroom and courseware training will rebound once the economy rebounds. And maybe within some niches that's true. I personally believe that traditional training as publishing is on an overall downward trend. I'm certainly not alone. When we asked the Big Question of Workplace Learning in 10 Years - the responses of many experts were that in 10 years there would be significantly shift from classroom to eLearning and virtual classroom, but combined total training dollars spent on traditional formal learning will be less in ten years. You can certainly argue against this being the case. And probably the best argument comes from the fact that learning needs are greatly increasing. Of course, the crux of the issue is whether those needs are being fulfilled through self-service learning or by formal training. I personally would bet against training as publisher of formal learning in the long-term. Interestingly, I expected that the stock market - which generally I think of as being forward looking - would show bear this out. In other words, the stocks of public training companies would be down as compared to the market as a whole. Instead, it appears that the stock market considers these companies to be okay bets. But when I drilled down on one company, Learning Tree, it's quarterly revenue from last year is down from $47M to $30.5M and it's running an operating loss from making $4M. That's a big ouch. And for smaller training businesses, it likely feels more painful than that. I'm not quite sure how the market can be treating them as well as they are. However, I would be a bit worried about these stocks when I think about what has happened in No Bull: 2008 — The Year Newspaper Stocks Collapsed: The statistics behind the collapse of newspaper stocks in 2008 are sobering as New Year’s Eve approaches: GateHouse, down 99.55% in this calendar year McClatchy, down 93.6% Lee Enterprises, down 97.3% Journal Register Co., down 99.58% Media General, down 92.47% Gannett, down 80% I guess that's why I'm not a stock analyst. There are pretty important question here to ask about your learning business: Will there be demand for our training products (classroom, virtual classroom, eLearning)? Is it generally going to be still growing or are we selling into a market that's contracting? I always think it's good to go back to customers and what they are willing to pay for as a reality check. Put your customer hat on for a minute. Are you more or less interested today in taking a course on something? Do you remember 10 years ago when going to a five day course seemed great? Do you even consider that anymore? Okay, I'm leading the witness, but I believe that you will find that most people are less interested in training as a product. That said, I would still claim that because of the pace of change and the increasing number of concept workers … There is an ever increasing need for learning. Future of Learning as a Business Weird times certainly. There's an increasing need for learning, but a demise of training. I can't say this is really anything new. The writing has been on the wall (or in blogs) for quite a while: Jay Cross and Harold Jarche in The Future of the Training Department The second half of the 20th Century was arguably the Golden Age of Training. Every corporation worth its salt opened a training department. Xerox Learning, DDI, Forum Corporation, and hundreds of other "instructional systems companies" sprung up. Thousands upon thousands of trainers attended conferences to learn about new approaches like programmed instruction, behavior modeling, roleplay, certification, interactive multimedia, sensitivity training. corporate universities, and Learning Organizations. Training was good; efficient training was better. Future of Training Started Yesterday - Dave Wilkins - Mzinga The gist: we need to completely rethink training departments and responsibilities from the ground up (both literally and figuratively) and we need to recognize that we are midst of a transition to a new normal. … This is similar to a post I wrote called Social Learning Defined where I argued that there were three models at play simultaneously: socializing existing formal models (top-down), the sharing of information "from the trenches" back to management (bottoms-up) and the sharing of best practices and collaborating (side-to-side). … All of this should scare the crap out of you if you are in learning. This Venn Diagram courtesy of What Consumes Me captures the questions pretty well. I'm somewhat focused on the bottom right - what we can be paid to do and figure things out from there. Thus, the challenge I really see around all of this is: What will internal or external customers pay for that's not traditional training? In having lots of conversations with heads of training departments, training vendors, and training consultants, it's not at all clear what we should be selling instead. Sure we know about software and services that go along with things like: Informal Learning Social Learning Toolkits Resource sites Books 24x7, Safari But will people really pay for these things? Training is a known product. These things are not. And you are competing with a perception that there are free/open or public or cheap versions of all of these things. Or that someone can figure it out. Don't I just use SharePoint? If we start using social learning, do they really need anything from the learning department? As one example of the challenge, Upside Learning (disclosure) who often works for training companies to help them build innovative eLearning solutions has what they call an Innovation and New Projects Team. This team builds innovative solutions, often in concert with their training company partners, that they believe will help generate business. This is an applied R&D effort with the goal of building out things that customers will ultimately want to buy. That's worthy of a blog post on its own, but this topic raises and interesting question: What should the innovation team be building? Should they spend time building out things that are listed above? The safe bet is for them to build things that are closer to existing eLearning solutions. But that doesn't get us across the chasm. We seem to be squarely in an Innovators Dilemma. One caution about the above Venn diagram is that it doesn't necessarily imply the disruptive changes that may be required here. Incremental changes, e.g., going from face-to-face in a classroom to virtual classroom or courseware, likely are not going to be sufficient in the long run. Conclusion Ending this with these somewhat terrifying questions is probably going to be a little bit unsettling. But I certainly don't claim that I have the answers to this. I've talked with enough VPs of Training and CEOs of Training Companies to know that this is a hard problem that definitely has their attention. And I don't see easy answers. Maybe just because of my nature, I'm actually still optimistic because there's greater need for learning than ever before. I believe that we are in the learning business - and there must be things we can do. It's part of the reason for Work Literacy and Browse My Stuff. These are small pieces to a larger question. Calls to Action I would like to ask you to help me pursue this topic: 1. If you have thoughts on this by all means comment or write a post or engage me in a conversation. It's too important not to discuss. 2. What business models, products, companies do you currently see getting ahead in this? Where should we collectively be looking to understand what's next? What's already selling? 3. I am planning to hold a discussion through Learn Trends around this topic in July. I'm going to bring together people who represent a variety of different perspectives for a frank discussion and exploration of the business of learning. Learning Department Heads What can they sell internally that's not training? What will they pay for? Training Companies, Software Vendors, Services Vendors What products and services are selling? Where are they going? What are the challenges? More to come on this. I hope you will find this topic compelling enough to want to participate.July 2009 DiscussionsIn July 2009, we held a Free Online Conference - Future of Learning. You can see the video recordings of the session. Additional Reading I used eLearning Learning to find some other great pieces on this topic: Get out of the Training Business A new business model for learning Corporate Learning Long Tail and Attention Crisis The Business Web Open Source Business Model eLearning Business Alternatives - Good Discussion Thoughts following April Learntrends The Business Case for Social Learning Improved Learning or Business Benefits The Business Case for Social Learning: Dealing with the "Capability Recession" at Lower Cost John Thackera's Power Laws of Innovation Preparing for Business 2.0 The Business Value of Web 2.0 Learning Tools Become a chief meta-learning officer Corporate Training Modernize Corporate Training: The Enterprise Learning Framework Innovators Dilemma of Learning Course and Courseware Fading - The Future of eLearning Learning Trends Point To and Shape eLearning 2.0 Training Method Trends Working Smarter: Corporate learning in the network era Disruptive Changes in Learning eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.       Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Succession Planning and the Development of Your High Potentials In this eBook  we’ll cover both aspects and provide some practical suggestions for selecting the right participants and the development your high potential employees. 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. Q&A Video: Motivating Employee to Participate in Leadership Development Programs

iPhoneography and Mobile Photography offer an endless array of apps to edit and enhance your images, as well as combine them and create artwork that can be posted online or printed and framed. During this class, you will learn tips for using your phone’s camera and for getting better shots. Then we will explore some of the best apps on the market for creative photography, available on a variety of platforms including iOS and Android. Who Should Attend? Amateur photographers who just want to take better mobile photos Creatives looking to learn more about what apps are available and which ones offer the best features and interface Designers who want to create their own graphics using mobile photos More information or to register.

eLearning Learning Hot ListJune 1, 2009 to June 12, 2009 Top Posts The following are the top posts from featured sources based on social signals. The Various Roles of Instructional Design (work in progress)- Jonathan's ID, June 5, 2009Mistakes made in Academic Blogs- Don't Waste Your Time, June 3, 2009New online book on mobile learning -available for free download- Ignatia Webs, June 12, 2009Discovering Instructional Design 12: the ICARE Model- The E-Learning Curve, June 11, 2009Audio in eLearning: When Rough Around the Edges is Better- Learning Visions, June 9, 2009Compliance or competence: you choose- Clive on Learning, June 9, 2009E-learning in the Mobile World and the Right Business Model to Deliver It- Electronic Papyrus, June 9, 2009Discovering Instructional Design 9: Implementation and Improvement- The E-Learning Curve, June 8, 2009Expert Level Answers via Social Networks- eLearning Technology, June 8, 2009Presentation: Camtasia in eLearning- Don't Waste Your Time, June 4, 2009Does Deliberative Practice Lead to Quick Proficiency?- eLearning Technology, June 3, 2009Student Guide: Introduction to ‘Wikis’ in Blackboard- Don't Waste Your Time, June 12, 2009Discovering Instructional Design 11: The Kemp Model- The E-Learning Curve, June 10, 2009I Say Instructional Designer, You Say Tomah-toe- Learning Visions, June 9, 2009Attribution in a Web 2.0 World Part 2- Social Enterprise Blog, June 6, 2009Should you Care about Google Wave?- Social Learning and Communities of Practice, June 4, 2009Our Top 10 Learning Tools 2009- Upside Learning Blog, June 4, 2009Firefox Bookmark Shortcuts- eLearning Technology, June 4, 2009Google Wave as a Learning Tool- Learning and Technology, June 12, 2009Productivity tip: Quickly convert auto captions to voice over narration- Adobe Captivate Blog, June 11, 2009Tips for Teaching Problem Solving Skills- Kapp Notes, June 8, 2009A Little (Random) Learning- Blogger in Middle-earth, June 6, 2009The When and What of M-Learning- Element K Blog, June 2, 2009Web 3.0: yes, they went there- WISE Pedagogy, June 1, 2009Time Spent- The Learning Circuits Blog, June 1, 2009 Top Other Items The following are the top other items based on social signals. Work Together: 60+ Collaborative Tools for Groups, June 6, 2009Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking, June 8, 200913 More Tips to Help You Record Narration Like the Pros, June 9, 20094 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio, June 2, 2009Chief Learning Officer magazine - Get Out of the Training Business, June 9, 2009Price Ranges for Learning Management Systems in 2009, June 1, 2009Social Network Analysis: An introduction, June 12, 2009Social Learning Resources, June 6, 2009Collaborative Learning « Social Enterprise Blog, June 3, 2009Organizing for Performance Effectiveness, June 1, 2009Business Impact of Social and Informal Learning, June 12, 2009When it's just so obvious NOT to train it's painful to watch it happen, June 12, 2009Co-operation for Networks, June 1, 2009Social tools for networks, June 1, 2009OutStart and HotLava Software - mLearning is Going Mainsteam, June 9, 2009Aging. Can We Enhance People's Cognitive Outcomes?, June 4, 2009From E-Learning to Social Learning, June 10, 2009Investigating the Application of Social Software to Support Networked Learning, June 4, 2009 Top Keywords Social Learning (34)Social Network Analysis (4)Collaboration (43)Mobile Learning (18)Performance (46)Learning Management System (11) eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.   Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   [GUIDE] How to Develop Learning Agility In this new series, "How to: Competency Development Guides," we'll define the competency, outline supporting behaviors and suggested development activities. The first guide is on an emerging competency, "Learning Agility." We’re trying to make your job a little easier! Go ahead, get started today! 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      You can easily insert videos into Storyline from just about any video format. All you need to do is click the Insert tab on the Ribbon. From the Media group, click Video drop-down menu and choose Video From File. I was working on a project recently and inserted a video onto one of my Storyline slides using the step above. Upon previewing the slide, I saw that a portion of the video needed to be trimmed. Fortunately, trimming a portion of a video is just as easy as inserting a video... and you don't have to leave the Storyline application. First, select the video on the slide. Next, click the Video Tools Options tab on the Ribbon. At the left of the Ribbon, click Edit Video to open the Articulate Video Editor.     Once you're in the Video Editor, click Trim.    By default, the first and last half-second of the video is selected for Trimming. All that you need to do now is extend or reduce the Trim Start and/or Trim End markers as needed to specify the areas of the video that need to be trimmed. When you're done, click Save & Close and the video is trimmed. It can't get much easier than that.  *** 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 Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, or Articulate Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you. 

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording. Closing the Employee Skills Gap: A Framework for Future Success | Webinar 11.20.14 from BizLibrary       Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Closing the Skills Gap: a Framework for Future Success In this eBook, we will ignore the political and social static that dominates a lot of the conversation about "skills gap." What we want to do instead is focus on the data about where organizations are struggling to find talent, and then offer some practical advice, best practices, and tips to help find or nurture talent to fill both current and future skill gaps. 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.

I've been getting more and more messages these days that are asking me to take a look at a particular product or service.  I wish I had time to look at all these great things, but I find that I have to be pretty selective about where I will spend my time. I have a tendency to talk about things that are a little less bleeding edge than some other bloggers.  I want to see that they are proven in the market somewhere before I'm generally going to jump on them.  So, I may be a little harder to convince to review something - although I'm sure that most bloggers do very similar filtering. So I thought it would be worthwhile to post on how I evaluate whether I'm going to spend time on a request to look at a particular product or service offering.  I have a tendency to get a bit of push-back on these types of posts: Profile Photos, Profile Photo, Questions Before You Ask.  Yes, I'm exposing bias here.  Yes I'm making a snap judgment about how much time I'm going to spend.  You have to do this in life. The amount of time I will spend relates to a variety of factors … What's your position/role? I generally will spend a lot more time with people at the top of this list than people at the bottom of the list. Possible Client Entrepreneur / CEO Chief Marketing Officer / VP Marketing / Product Management Business Development / Sales PR Person at Company PR Person at PR Firm Of course I'm going to spend time with someone who I believe is legitimately a potential client.  I'm also more willing to spend time talking to key players in a company.  Once you get to someone who likely is motivated and compensated for purely getting the word out through any and all means, it becomes more of a one-way relationship.  That doesn't mean I won't engage with a PR person, but I'm much more likely to ignore a classic PR-driven request. Corollary: PR Firms have a lower probability of success in blogger outreach. Are you engaged in social media? I'm not sure when this started happening to me, but I look at things like: Do you have a blog?  Is it a marketing only blog?  Or an interesting blog?  Are you a thoughtful person with some interesting discussions on your blog? Do you have a LinkedIn profile?  What's your background? I get so much value from my blog relationships and social network relationships.  If it appears you are going to be a good blog connection or LinkedIn Connection, I'm naturally going to be more interested in engaging in a conversation with you. Corollaries: Blog before you do blogger outreach. Engage with social media before you do social media outreach. Interesting Product / Service Let's assume that you are a person in a PR firm representing a client with no blog and you don't have a LinkedIn profile (not sure why you wouldn't).  Is there a chance that I will spend time looking at your product / service?   Yes, but you are going to need to spend some time to be in position to get me to spend time. You have spent time figuring out how this product / service is different / interesting in the market place.  Your message to me should indicate some real thought.  You know that there are five types of competitors in the market and here's where this product fits into that.  Add value with your research.  Take a look at Questions Before You Ask.  The percentage of PR people who really do this is very small because they don't really understand the domain and thus can't really engage in a more interesting conversation with a blogger. You've looked at my blog and know who I am and some things I've written about before that relate to your product.  I likely have talked about stuff in your domain.  Otherwise, it may not make sense for me to blog about your product / service.  So, how about reminding me of that, but adding some thoughtful information about how the product / service is interesting. Corollary: Do your homework. Nothing New Here The reality is that this really is nothing new.  Using the Browse My Stuff site B2B Marketing Zone, I found some interesting articles on Blogger Outreach: PR and Blogging Outreach: Practical Tips 8 Tips about Blogging Outreach: 1. Bloggers are not journalists 2. Read the blog first 3. Develop a relationship Don't pitch, get "coverage" and then leave. It's like getting ready for a hot first date and being taken to a McDonald's for dinner. When you start corresponding with the blogger, maintain the relationship. 4. Be Transparent 5. Customize your emails 6. Grammar and spelling do count 7. Don't disregard the smaller bloggers 8. Read Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. At least read the the section about "Blogging Wrong & Right." My Top 5 Blogging Outreach Mistakes Number 5: Oops - I thought that was MISS Blogger, not MISTER Blogger Number 4: Spellcheck is a wonderful technology…when you USE it Number 3: I’m not stalking you honestly. Could you just puhleeze respond to me? Number 2: Sorry - didn’t realize you just wrote about this… yesterday! And the number 1 mistake that I’ve made pitching a blogger: Who cares about YOUR interests, it’s all about ME Blogger Outreach for PR - Worst Practices 1. Just send a press release. 2. Act like you expect coverage. 3. Send exactly the same message two (or more) times. 4. Promise something you can't deliver. 5. Don't acknowledge return correspondence. 6. Don't acknowledge coverage. If you want more you can go to: Pitching Bloggers Blogger Outreach for PR: The Importance of Follow-Up How Not to Pitch a Blog eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

by Willam van Weelden     I have previously taught you how to embed YouTube videos in a RoboHelp project. While immensely popular, YouTube is not the only video site. This week, let's focus on embedding videos located on the Vimeo website. First, access the Vimeo site, locate the video you'd like to use, and then click the Share button located on the video.  Next, go to the Embed field and copy the embed code.  Now that you've got the embed code copied, the rest of the work occurs in RoboHelp. Go ahead and open a RoboHelp topic, switch to HTML mode, and then paste the embed code in the topic as shown below.  Lastly, you'll need to edit the HTML just a bit. In the src attribute, type http: in front of the url.  Save the topic, generate the layout, and open the topic in your browser to see the embedded video. Note: Vimeo includes a hyperlink with a description below the video. Retain this link unless you have the correct license for removing it. *** 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.