Great post by Dion Hinchcliffe - Twenty-two power laws of the emerging social economy where he discusses what Steve Balmer calls "the new normal". Balmer talks about how a reset of economic expectations during the downturn has created an environment that is putting pressure on business to do more with less.  Some of the specifics of this transformation are captured in the following graphic: This is lines up really well with a lot of what I discuss in Business of Learning and Trends in Learning.  The primary shifts he talks about are: New resource constraints. Requiring that we find ways to accomplish our goals using fewer resources. Value shifting from transactions to relationships. Business flux. Moving from change as the exception to change as the norm. A shift of control to the edge of organizations. Dion then goes through his 22 laws that are useful to understand what is going on with all of this shift.  Several of them I regularly talk about: Amara’s Law (backstory) states that "we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." - I cite this in Work Skills Keeping Up? and Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited and often use this during presentations.  It's easy to look at any one technology and go through a hype cycle.  We first think, wow this will really change things.  Then we realize go through a cycle where we think, it's not that big a deal.  But over time it often has pretty incredible effects that sneak up on us.  This describes a lot of what we see around web 2.0 tools. Jakob’s Law roughly tells us that "users spend most of their time on other sites", and so you must be there too.  This has big impact on us as it forces us to think about being in the flow of where the work and learning will occur.  See eLearning Portal Integration as one example of this. The The Long Tail which tells us moving from providing best selling products to a wider spectrum of offerings gives an opportunity for larger, potentially more lucrative market overall, if you can service it cost effectively.  This is a common theme in my posts:  Long Tail Learning - Size and Shape  and Corporate Learning Long Tail and Attention Crisis. Principle of Least Effort notes that they will tend to use the most convenient method, in the least exacting way available, with interaction stopping as soon as minimally acceptable results are achieved.  This is important for things like Social Software Adoption. Overall, Dion's post is a great source for helping to think through what's really going on at a macro level with learning. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

For young professionals, graduating from college and entering the workforce can be scary and intimidating.  Not only is the workplace schedule an adjustment, but the additional burdens of managing expenses and planning for the future simply add to the stress.  Some young professionals successfully manage a budget and plan for their financial future, but to some, this is foreign territory.  With the number of millennials in the workplace increasing by the minute, it is important to provide them resources available for both professional development and personal development.  Hear first-hand from millennial and fellow BizLibrary employee, Hannah, on her review of the personal finance courses recently added to the BizLibrary Collection and how they have helped her start planning for her future.   The videos for the personal finance category: Establishing Your Financial Goals, Prioritizing Your Financial Goals, and Making a Budget have personally helped me a lot. As a young(er) professional, balancing all of my new responsibilities financially has been a challenge. Not to mention, my student loans coming out of deferment once I graduated graduate school was a financial shock to me that I was not prepared for. I had felt very overwhelmed for a long time, living almost paycheck to paycheck trying to make money work and just pay all my bills and still have a "life". Then, when I needed a vacation, it just went on a credit card because I never saved and planned for anything beyond my daily living.   These three courses and the worksheets made me actually start to look long term with finances. Whereas I knew this information in my head, it was so beneficial to be able to get it all on paper and have a real plan. The budget course was the best for me because I realized how unbalanced I was when it came to spending money. The 50-20-30 rule helped me to see where I needed to make adjustments to allow for fun, while still taking care of essential expenses. It also allows for me to actually plan things like vacations so I can save along the way and not just put everything on a card.   I made my fiancé watch the courses and do the worksheets as well a couple weeks ago - he is better with money, but a TERRIBLE planner and not so organized. For him, he said it was a huge weight off his shoulders to know where money from each paycheck is going so he has direction and organization in his life. Once we’re married and move in together, we plan to re-do the budget worksheet again for our new family.   Preview "Making a Budget" by clicking here !

I received a question today that I really wasn't sure how to answer and thought that lots of folks might have thoughts around this.  Here's the question: I have some extra budget money and I need to invest in software and hardware that will help me create cutting edge, top shelf eLearning programs. I already have these software programs: Articulate Suite '09 Adobe Master Suite CS3 (Not sure that I really need to upgrade to CS4) Camtasia & Snag It Are there any other must have software programs? It has to work with Articulate of course!  Free software is always nice but I don't mind paying for high quality products.  I have still and video cameras, a mic and a computer ... do you think I need any other hardware items?  I'm happy with my LMS, so I don't need help there. I can't claim that many of us will face the problem of having a budget that we need to use before the end of the year.  But I thought it might be fun to help someone else spend their money. I realize that with this little bit of information, it's almost impossible to have the right answer, but I'm sure there are lots of interesting possibilities. What purchases would you suggest? eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.   Looking to develop employee soft skills? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

I just saw a couple of comments on my post Recommended End of Year eLearning Tools Spending? that were asking about quality differences between a Blue Snowball mic and SHURE mics. While I wouldn't know the specific answer to this off the top of my head, I thought I'd show what I do to find a pretty close answer and some people who I could easily ask.I start by going to eLearning Learning and then I search for something like audio which gets me quickly to a page that's a bunch of great posts and other items all about Audio in eLearning. The keywords on the left are highly related to audio as well, so I'll drill down to pages on Audio Voiceover or Audio Microphone. On the Audio Microphone page I scroll down to the Best of Posts and see a bunch of great posts:Microphone Round-up! Audio quality does matter 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio Microphone Review: Marshall MXL Studio 1 USB, USB.008, and USB.009 More USB Microphone ReviewsBetter Late Than Never: Shure USB Microphones Of course you could cheat and search just for Snowball and/or Shure and find some reviews. And make sure you read about creating the mini-sound booth shown below. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

There has been really great response to both Recommended End of Year eLearning Tools Spending? and this month's Big Question: Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning.  For both, lots of ideas that I never would have been able to provide on my own.  I may be pushing my luck, but I received another question that I thought was a good question. By way of background, this person is a teacher/trainer who is bright and has lots of great experience teaching and training different adults across different topics.  He's well versed in "advanced Teaching-Learning techniques."  But he's looking for a job right now and wants to point himself in a good direction.  Here was his question: I taught MS Office and HTML for 8 years in college, then went back for an MFA in Fine Art to give my right brain a chance.  I have exceptional talent at training and communicating across disciplines and I’m trying to get back into the job market.  Any ideas about where some "sweet spots" are, niches that are growing, companies that are doing especially well now?  I appreciate any thoughts you can share. But I've got to imagine this question is bigger than him.  A lot of the core skills that a trainer has can be applied in a lot of different places.  How do you decide where to focus your search?  How do you figure out what companies are hiring trainers?  And, of course, there's the thought in the back of my mind, do you need to re-skill to be more than a trainer? What suggestions do you have for him? 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 at SHRM.org   Looking for resources to train your new hires? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

I need your help.  I’m supposed to be preparing for a panel session at DevLearn 2009.  But instead, I’m finding myself wondering what I’m going to be discussing with people. The panel description is: From Learning to Performance — Using Technology to Make It Happen Thursday November 12, 2009 01:15 PM Tridib Roy Chowdhury, Adobe Systems, Inc. Ruth Clark, Clark Training & Consulting David Metcalf, University of Central Florida Lance Dublin, Dublin Consulting Joe Ganci, Dazzle Technologies Corp. Tony Karrer, TechEmpower, Inc. Historically, learning departments across organizations have followed the "shiny penny."   This high-powered panel will discuss how can one overcome this barrier to learning. You’ll discuss the key trends in technology-enabled learning such as self-service (learning by search, mobility, syndication), collaboration, etc., and learn some frameworks for execution. In this session, you will learn: Why "shiny penny" is not the right approach to organizational learning Key trends in technology-enabled learning Picking the right learning strategy suited for your organization How organizations can adapt a productivity-oriented approach to learning technologies Audience: Intermediate and advanced participants should be associated with learning, training, or HR organizations at a strategic level. Each of the panelists have been asked to prepare to lead small workgroups.  My workgroup will focus on the topic of "missed opportunities." So, my first question - what would you expect to discuss around the topic of missed opportunities?   I’m thinking that we are talking about how the ever increasing set of technologies and solutions causes us to have to continually adapt.  As soon as we feel good about our ability to build one kind of solution, we are expected to build the next.  We don’t want to just fall prey to shiny object syndrome, but at the same time, we need to be ready to deliver good solutions using appropriate technologies as they arise. So, if that’s what I’m supposed to be talking about, then: How do you avoid missed opportunities?  How do you stay prepared?  How are you ready when the opportunity arises? Or at least, what might you discuss as part of this working group if you were there?   Please help. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

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

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.       Looking for for videos and eLearning resources to develop your leaders? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.     Looking for for videos and eLearning resources for diversity training? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

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

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

Should the following Dilbert worry me about Work Literacy? Much of the idea of Work Literacy is to help people who need to keep up with how technology impacts knowledge work. Maybe reading blog posts about the topic is okay :) Tool Set 2009 Work Skills Keeping Up Top-Down Strategy Better Memory Information Radar Processing Pages with Links Networks and Learning Communities Collaborate Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool Search Browser Short Cuts Work Literacy Workshop eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.   Looking for for video-based training? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

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

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.       Looking for online resources to develop your managers and leaders? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

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

I was surprised by the fear and loathing expressed around SharePoint yesterday at LearnTrends 2009.  I don’t think it’s the best tool out there, but it likely is the best tool being adopted by your IT department and is part of the Enterprise 2.0 plan in your organization.  My belief is that it’s going to be a big part of eLearning 2.0 for many workplace learning professionals.  SharePoint 2010 looks to be a much better product. As such, I’m always looking for people who want to discuss how they are using it.  Certainly we’ll be doing more sessions like SharePoint in Corporate Learning - Free Micro Virtual Conference (see SharePoint Session Descriptions).  And I’ll continue to collect examples of how organizations are Using SharePoint. In fact, towards that end, I would appreciate you connecting with me (email, LinkedIn) if: You work in an organization that is using SharePoint and might be interested in sharing how you are using it. You are a consultant who works on SharePoint workplace learning implementations. You are interested in how SharePoint can better be used in your organization. Look forward to connecting with you. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

View and download the webinar handout. View the webinar recording.     Looking for professional development resources? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

After LearnTrends 2009, I received a note from a person I know and highly respect that said, "I dropped in on several sessions over the last three days and wanted to thank you for your good facilitation skills …" It’s great to get that positive feedback, but this was actually a bit of a surprise.  I often felt during the conference that I was not doing a good job of taking advantage of the expertise that was often in the room. This was amplified when George Siemens did a highly participatory session where he had the audience list out design considerations for several things like formal vs. informal, etc.  Some tweets during the session: "opens the whiteboard up to let participants create the agenda…whoa! crazy fun! " @chambo_online "Very intrigued to have 130 people writing on a whiteboard all at once at #learntrends … and amazingly, it didn’t suck" @cynan_sez "130+ people writing on same Elluminate whiteboard and GWave also being completed. Online learning has arrived" @GillianP That session flew by and was a great use of the power in the room.  A masterful job by George.  Great stuff.  And something that I believe he and I will be doing together in the future in some way. Other than George’s session, most of the rest of the conference had active chat, but it was limited in many ways.  The time we had for open discussion didn’t seem to achieve that much discussion.  It rambled.  My gut tells me that if I had designed things in a particular way, we could have had some truly amazing sessions. So, please help me so that in a month when I’m designing future online sessions, I can come back here and design something great. What are some ways that I can facilitate meaningful learning from others in the room during online sessions? Have you seen examples of something that was powerful? What conversation would you have wanted to have or see? Please comment or post with ideas.  And if you don’t have an ideas, please just retweet to ask someone else for ideas?  And maybe come back in a day and see if some of the ideas help spark other ideas for you. eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Bizlibrary has released a new, 5 part series on Dealing with Difficult People. When it comes to dealing with difficult people, the reality is that unless you are prepared in advance for these challenges, you will react the way you always have and achieve the results you always achieved. These videos explore difficult people and personalities and give scenarios on the proper ways to handle these situations. Check them out and let us know what you think!   Dealing with Difficult People - Introduction Dealing with Difficult People - Part 1: Pinpointing Your Triggers Dealing with Difficult People - Part 2: Culture, Upbringing and Personality: Your Responses to Difficult Circumstances Dealing with Difficult People - Part 3: Techniques for Defusing Difficult People and Challenging Situations Dealing with Difficult People - Part 4: What to Do and Say to De-escalate Volatile People and Situations   Want to try out this series and more? Sign-up for a free trial below! We provide our clients with thousands of video and eLearning courses. Whether you’re targeting leadership development, new manager and supervisor training, project management, communication, computer skills, compliance or safety, we pretty much have something for everyone. So, try out some courses…have your employees try out some courses. Just fill out the short form to the right and start a free 30-day, no risk, no obligation trial! Check out the BizLibrary Collection! --> -->

Jack Merklein from Xerox Global Services did a really great presentation at LearnTrends 2009 entitled - Common tools for Diverse Communities at Xerox Global Services.  You can find the LearnTrends 2009 Recording including Jack’s presentation.  A few follow-up thoughts. Jack is responsible for the development, care and tools for learning communities and knowledge sharing initiatives.  In practice this means a lot of different things and across many different learning communities.  A few of the different communities he discussed: New Hire Sustainability CxO While the title centered on tools for communities and knowledge sharing and he provided a list of tools … Existing Tools: Outlook email distribution lists Live Meeting with Brain Shark DocuShare Calendars Wiki Instant messaging Links to training catalog Emerging Tools: Podcasts YouTube LinkedIn (Intra-community) Training videos on YouTube A Second Life Island available Most of the discussion didn’t focus on tools.  Instead, it focused on Jack’s no nonsense ability to make communities an effect part of learning.  And particularly, I got to spend time with Jack on how he sells learning communities in the organization. Jack does an amazing job of finding out what people in the community really care about and need.  For one community, they meet every two weeks and a lot of times the topic comes a week before and he pulls in subject matter experts to present.  He ensures that the facilitation then focuses on the key issue that the people in the room cares about.  I’ve seen exactly this kind of thing work really well before.  But I’ve not seen it done as systematically as how Jack has designed it. Jack was a quote machine during the session, here are some of the phrases he used: "Publication warden" "Billable always wins" "CoP Warden" "not everyone will or wants a group hug" "young and stupid" "Training is a resignation" "Capture it damn it - put on community site" (responsibility of all members of a community to make knowledge explicit) "Amenable to bribing everyone" Part of the beauty of Jack and his style is that the language he uses is plain, business oriented.  Everything sounds obvious when he says it.  In a way, he didn’t feel like he was ever "selling learning communities".  That was my language.  Instead, he asked people if they wanted help with a particular problem.  If he could bring together experts and expertise and facilitate a conversation on X and then help capture that - is that something you’d want.  Absolutely!  In fact, we all want that all the time!  In a later session, we discussed the fact that one of the big barriers in many organizations is that they don’t "have a Jack."  Selling learning communities or social learning or anything other than formal learning / training is hard because we find ourselves using the language of learning or learning community.  As an example of needing a Jack, the question - How do you avoid the issue … "I’m too busy" … Jack’s answer is basically, if the value is high enough, you are focused on problems they are faced with right now, they will come.  His example is a community that meets on Friday afternoons.  Yikes.  I’d never plan something then.  But he gets amazing participation because the topics focus on hard hitting topics where people need help right now.  Senior leaders participate because they see the value.  And participation is rewarded through recognition … and sometimes bribed. Now let’s all be a Jack! eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

Well - I survived the heat, the dry air and three days on my feet. The 2015 SHRM Conference in Las Vegas was amazing! The announced attendance of 15,600 attendees set a conference record, and I can tell you that from a vendor’s perspective, we saw a lot of you! I thought you might be interested in how a vendor views the conference. It’s certainly not the most important perspective, that’s for sure. The conference is about you - the HR Professional. We are there to meet you and learn from you and hopefully find new ways to help you meet the needs of your employees. And, if we all have some fun in the process, well, so much the better. It’s a FUN Conference That’s right. It’s fun. I have to confess. I really enjoy meeting people, so this is an environment that is ready made for that part of me, and this year’s conference was just wonderful. One of the things I tell friends and colleagues is that the HR community is a gregarious and engaging one. From a pure business perspective, the conference was a stunning success, but we had a lot of fun meeting people. HR is as Challenging as Ever BizLibrary is in the employee training and development space, and we like to learn about the challenges facing organizations as they struggle to teach employees the skills they need in this rapidly changing marketplace. Well, no surprises, the challenges we heard about are getting more and more complex. Newly promoted managers, leaders and compliance issues dominated our conversations. What we didn’t have to explain much was the value of learning technology. That’s a big shift, and that’s massively welcome! The professionals we talked to need help - now - getting great content in the hands of employees in more efficient and direct ways than outdated tools allow. Luckily for us, we believe we can help. Confusion Reigns - Sadly - About Certifications HRCI is still a valid and important part of the profession. But the certifications we’ve all known for years have been shunned by SHRM, and that’s really a shame. We all need to understand just how confusing this "dual" certification world is to the practitioners and end this silliness. There may be a place for multiple certifications. There may not. But let’s find ways to effectively communicate to the practitioners what is going on with their hard-earned certifications and how they can maintain them. SWAG is AWESOME Fun! The SWAG at this year’s show was, well, swagalicious! I certainly hope attendees enjoyed the EXPO, because the vendors seemed to go all out to make the EXPO hall a fun, interactive and enjoyable experience. I saw lots of smiles, heard lots of laughter and enjoyed numerous conversations about the attractions and cool things happening on the EXPO floor. From feather boas to flashing light sun glasses to funny t-shirts and entertaining mascots, it seemed like vendors went all in to entertain and engage. I have to admit, even from a vendor’s perspective, it was fun! It’s About the People Last, and not least, it turns out that in the end SHRM 2015 was really all about connecting with other professionals. I wish I had a nickel for every networking conversation I witnessed. The HR role is a difficult one, and without the support of our peers, it’s really isolated. That’s one of the reasons I think this specific conference stands out so much as being so open, friendly and social. People talk to each other, openly, freely and with enthusiasm. It’s wonderful to witness, and I was lucky enough to participate in a few conversations like that. The Future My sincere hope, and maybe a challenge for all of us, is that we don’t let this wonderful energy from this conference slide away. Let us all endeavor to connect and stay connected. We need to make better use of social tools like Twitter (yes, Twitter) and LinkedIn, and the certification programs of HRCI and SHRM to connect about best practices and help each other meet the challenges facing our organizations. We will see you in Washington in 2016, and bring your enthusiasm and energy with you again!