Today Adobe introduced the new Adobe Presenter 9, a fantastic tool for anyone to create interactive content and videos. Presenter has a long tradition of innovation. If you are in business, education or training, the new Presenter has a LOT to offer you. What does it do? At it’s core, Adobe Presenter allows anyone to […]

If you’ve updated your iPhone recently, you may have noticed the iTunes logo was replaced by the brand spanking new Apple Music icon. It’s not just an aesthetic difference, of course, but what’s inside. And what’s inside is not necessarily all that easy to navigate, especially when it comes to accessing your own library of […] The post How to Shuffle All Your Songs in Apple Music appeared first on WIRED.

Here’s the list of eSeminars we’ve planned for the month of August. Feel free to register for the eSeminars you wish to attend. Topic: What’s New in Adobe Presenter 9 Date and time: Thursday, 1st August, 2013 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM US/Pacific Description: Join Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, Adobe eLearning Evangelist, as she demonstrates some […]

Hillary Clinton says that as president, she would try to rid Wall Street of its tendency to fixate on short-term goals like earnings reports. "Too many pressures in our economy push us toward short termism," she said, in a speech at New York’s New School today. "Everything’s focused on the next earnings report or the […] The post Wall Street’s Focus is Too Short-Term, Says Clinton appeared first on WIRED.

In case you missed the news last week, Adobe has just released another in a long series of serious innovations in eLearning. Adobe publishes two of the most significant applications in the eLearning authoring space, Adobe Captivate - the long time leader in eLearning authoring, and Adobe Presenter 9, a simple to use PowerPoint plugin […]

My jaw dropped when I read it. Thanks to an internal memo leaked to Kara Swisher by a Yahoo employee, we have insight into a recent decision by their C-Suite. Taking a page from "we liked it better when we physically saw you hammering keystrokes on your laptop" the struggling company (bada Bing?) has mandated any Yahoo employee currently working from home (full-time or on occasion) must relocate their fingers and keystrokes back to the office by June. That’s right … if a Yahoo employee was able to work from home, it’s no longer in the employee contract. I call it ‘management yahooliganism‘. The memo itself was penned by Jackie Reses, Yahoo’s Head of Human Resources. I’ve no idea whether Jackie (and CEO Marissa Mayer) have a hate on for life-work balance or whether they  have been watching reruns of TV dramas from the 1970′s, but it screams naïvety and a definitive lack of trust with their employees. It’s management yahooliganism. Three lines irked me greatly in this memo missive: "Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home." Perhaps Jackie doesn’t believe in research but if she walked down the street to Stanford University, she could have chatted with Nicholas Bloom et al who actually proved this statement wrong in their paper "Does Working From Home Work?" "Home working led to a 13% performance increase, of which about 9% was from working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick-days) and 4% from more calls per minute (attributed to a quieter working environment). Home workers also reported improved work satisfaction and experienced less turnover." The C-Suite might want to read a recent post of mine as well, "I Am A Corporate Floater" "If this impacts you, your management has already been in touch with next steps." This says a lot to me about the culture that is being (re)created at Yahoo. Instead of connecting and considering options directly with employees, this unilateral decision has been made, seemingly left to management to inform (and fire?) employees who don’t comply. Talk about a culture killer … although it does map back nicely to ‘command and control’ doesn’t it? The C-Suite would be wise to read Chapter 8 of Flat Army - the Collaborative Leader Action Model "for the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration." In an official memo such as this, why are we resorting to stereotypes like ‘the cable guy‘? Shame on Yahoo (and HR in particular) for stooping to such lows; an obvious bad attempt at official communication humour that does nothing to help build culture It’s management yahooliganism. It’s one organization I’ll never work for … and after writing this, it’s perhaps one I’ll never be able to speak at either. Related Posts:Flexible Working WorksI Am A Corporate FloaterThe 10 Winners of Flat Army Copies Are …Do We Need Textpectations?Bill Sullivan, CEO of Agilent Technologies is a Chief…

To increase the number of available jobs, the former Secretary of State laid out a plan to offer businesses $1,500 in tax credits for every employee they hire and train. The post Clinton: Why Training for the New Economy is Key appeared first on WIRED.

We are thrilled to announce the Sixth Annual Adobe Learning Summit, co-located with DevLearn 2013 hosted by eLearning Guild in Las Vegas. At this event, you’ll get a chance to meet Adobe experts, industry luminaries, experienced eLearning and Education professionals, and the engineering team at Adobe. You can choose your sessions from five different tracks […]

The title of Chapter 8 is "The Collaborative Leader Action Model" This 91 second video snippet sees me (Dan Pontefract) describe the background to Chapter 8 of the book Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. To become more collaborative, it’s my belief leaders of any ilk have to rethink their daily model of interaction. The Collaborative Leader Action Model — or CLAM for short — provides not only the method in which to do this, it provides examples of it being successfully utilized. Click the video to find out more about the CLAM. Related Posts:Flat Army: Chapter 10 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 11 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 7 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 6 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 5 Overview

Meteorologists are promising another El Niño, but the storm has left the west coast bitter and wanting the last two times it promised to come around. The post We’re Expecting You, El Niño, But You’ve Let Us Down Before appeared first on WIRED.

It’s a cliche, but not one without merit. You’ve no doubt heard the phrase "that decision is above my pay-grade" at least once in your career. Whether in jest or seriously, we’ve all been witness to its intent. For those that use it for comic relief, it’s my belief it’s done so to relieve tension — I use the term ‘clowning’ in Flat Army as a key ‘being’ attribute of connected leaders — but it’s also unknowingly utilized to make fun of a serious situation. What is that situation? Decisionthink. Huh? You’ve heard of groupthink before, right? Coined by Irving Janis in 1972, groupthink portends a group of people to be thinking the same way, blinded by differing opinion or statistical proof otherwise. It’s been hailed as the purported reason for classic groupthink examples such as the attack on Pearl Harbor and arguably the 2011 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. But ‘decisionthink‘ is a wee bit different. It’s refers to a group of leaders who jump to action before stopping to think if others ought to be included in the process of discovery. It highlights leaders who make a decision before connecting with others and considering options before the creation or action process commences. Decisionthink is dangerous. It creates a class divide in the organization, particularly if the decision needs important information and data from others. What if employees — lower on the machination of corporate hierarchy — could help bring about a much improved final result? That would be as delightful as a mille-feuille in Paris. (you really have to try one of those) In Chapter 8 of the Flat Army book, I introduce a concept called the CLAM - the Collaborative Leader Action Model. It donned on me — after completing the manuscript and final publishing edits — that the model is actually a mechanism to prevent decisionthink. I hadn’t even come up with the term ‘decisionthink‘ until two beers into a flight from Toronto to Vancouver recently … which is really a shame as I would have actually put it into the book, but what do I know. (I’m not the editor) By virtue of connecting with others and considering options BEFORE a decision is made, perhaps we can prevent decisionthink from gaining further traction in the organization. Although never proven, when Coca Cola Enterprises launched ‘New Coke’ back in 1985 — to much universal panning including Time Magazine who referred to it as the second worst invention ever — it was rumoured to have occurred without involving key members of the executive team. Would the debacle have ensued if that leadership team were to have reached out to others in the organization, outside the C-Suite, first? More recently, Apple launched their version of Maps and similar to Coke, were panned just about everywhere on the planet including Wired who referred to it as ‘Mapocalypse‘. I have no proof whatsoever — think of this as dp speculation — but I have a suspicion that decisions were made in secrecy and many Apple employees could have prevented the public relations nightmare had they been invited into the ‘connect and consider options’ stages of the CLAM. Yes, I know … some decisions need to be made privately and cannot involve everyone — or even a few — in an organization. But, rather than defaulting to ‘let’s make a decision now’ thinking, why not make your first decision about who you should connect with first to consider options before you make a decision to act. Run away from decisionthink. And if you do, I believe your organization will rid itself of comical (or serious) comments such as "that decision is above my pay-grade." Related Posts:An Example of the Flat Army CLAM in Action: BC Ideas2ActionFlat Army: Chapter 8 OverviewGoing Forward to the Past: Management Yahooliganism &…the FLAT ARMY cheat sheetYa, I Cry at Work. Do You?

This year at mLearning DemoFest 2013, I showcased an Interactive eBook on the new Drag and Drop Interaction in Adobe Captivate. There were 38 mobile learning demonstrations and the conference attendees looked at each project from table to table, and cast their votes for their favorite mobile learning solutions. It gives me immense pleasure to […]

Last night's episode finally turned Lee Pace's Joe into a truly rehabilitated character. The post Halt and Catch Fire GIF and a Graf: Joe Gets Out of the Way
 appeared first on WIRED.

When I was in discussions with my executive editor about the Flat Army cover, it took a nano-second for me to sign off on the first iteration from the Wiley art department. I’m biased, but I think it looks fantastic. After the front cover was sorted out, it was time for me to talk about my wishes for the back cover. Perhaps I’m naïve as a first-time author, but I insisted that there be no ‘special’ quotations from other authors or industry leaders on the back cover. When I interviewed Henry Mintzberg for the book he was quick to point out that he would not be providing a quotation for the back cover. "Fine with me," I said to Mr. Mintzberg. I don’t think they have a part in today’s publishing world either. Why? Let’s say I did ask Mr. Mintzberg to pen a few words about Flat Army and/or Dan Pontefract. If he agreed to do it, he’d be forced to write something nice, wouldn’t he? (and we had literally just met) What if I asked other colleagues/friends like Marcia Conner or Chuck Hamilton or Lang Davison or Mark Fidelman or Gautam Ghosh … wouldn’t they be compelled to write something nice as well? I didn’t want to put quotations on the back cover because it smacks of elitism. Sure, I may not sell as many books due to the decision, but Flat Army is about being, well … flat … and having a few highly recognizable names on the back cover seems antithetical to the intent of the book. Instead, I defined flat, army and flat army and I’ll let my words speak for the book as opposed to those of anyone else. Related Posts:Announcing the Front Cover of Flat ArmyWordle Graphic of Flat ArmyThe Remarkable Leadership Story of Conner & Cayden Long10 Free Copies of Flat Army … Participate to WinMintzberg, Managing & the Missing Element of…

Meet the company that thinks the era of the cypherphone is upon us. The post The Turing Phone Is Built to Be Unhackable and Unbreakable appeared first on WIRED.

We recently launched Adobe Presenter 9, and with that came the very powerful Learning Analytics dashboard which integrates the traditional quiz outcomes to create a modern and powerful solution for analyzing student learning outcomes. With this solution, you can detect potential problems with learning and get an opportunity to intervene early - improving the chances […]

Several moons ago I wrote about the power of your network. I go into greater detail within Chapter 7 of the Flat Army book (The Participative Leader Framework) about the need for leaders to continuously and authentically build out their direct professional and personal networks by being reciprocal and educating. I won’t reveal the source, but the following landed in my inbox today: Hey Dan - I sat in on one of your sessions at the Training Magazine Conference and Expo back in 2011 and recently saw on your blog that you had a book coming out.  Congrats!  I’ve been using Evernote now for a few months, so naturally I enjoyed seeing how the book was conceived. I also referenced you in a couple sessions I conducted at this year’s Training Mag Conference (one of my first ever speaking engagements), and I wanted to thank you for being a champion of effectively using technology to enhance collaboration in the workplace.  It has not only helped me implement a social platform with full learning and performance capabilities within my own company but also personally (for speaking engagements) as well as with our clients. Be open. Be honest. Be humble. Be giving. Be congratulative. Be caring. Be authentic. Be reciprocal. Be educating. Good things will come from your network if you do. Related Posts:the FLAT ARMY cheat sheetAn Example of the Flat Army CLAM in Action: BC Ideas2ActionVirtual Worlds in an Organization are not a Time Waster (andFlat Army: Chapter 7 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 5 Overview

Apparently Libby is more interested in Virginia than we originally thought. The post Masters of Sex GIF and a Graf: A Kiss Is Just a Kiss appeared first on WIRED.

The title of Chapter 9 is "Learning at the Speed of Need" This 104 second video snippet sees me (Dan Pontefract) describe the background to Chapter 9 of the book Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. Learning is an important aspect of a Flat Army leader but many leaders in today’s organizations think it only occurs in a classroom. I seek out to dispel this urban myth, introducing something I call ‘Pervasive Learning’ and the ’3-33 Model’. Related Posts:Flat Army: Chapter 12 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 11 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 6 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 10 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 5 Overview

"The biggest difference between time and space is that you can’t reuse time." Need a better solution to create similar advanced action again and again? Ever wondered how to use a specific advanced action in multiple projects? Are you a fan of advanced actions? If you say YES to any of the above, then read on. Many […]

Even after uninstalling the Google Photos app, your pictures may still be synced to your Google+ account. The post Is Google Secretly Syncing Your Photos? appeared first on WIRED.

I don’t do golf. It’s about as hierarchical as it comes. In the corporate world, golf is still a major part of fiefdoms. It’s a problem. Think about it. Four individuals get to spend somewhere between four and five hours walking around a golf course whacking a ball without interacting with anyone else. Golf tournaments, requests to golf, schmoozing through golf, and golf as a form of recognition are prevalent in business. It’s not that I’m against networking - you must know me by now - but golf creates a form of elitism that exacerbates the ‘us versus them’ of an organization. "Where’s Ted?" "He’s golfing with the boss." "Where’s the C-Suite today?" "They’re out golfing at a tournament." It reminds me of a horrific quote attributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson: "When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better, and they will appreciate the attention." What, you don’t think the two are related? C’mon. I’m not against golf as a sport, but please — as many vendors/partners have found out over the years — don’t ever invite me to golf on business time. It smacks of old school trickery, hierarchy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Invite me to a peloton where we share the load … any day.   Related Posts:The Organization as a Cycling PelotonCan Leaders Lead From the Side?An Example of the Flat Army CLAM in Action: BC Ideas2ActionVirtual Worlds in an Organization are not a Time Waster (andBosses Should Shift From Scroll to Swipe

It’s happened to us all. What once was trivial, publishing our Flash based eLearning out to a browser and looking at the result, is now not such a simple matter. We download or install the latest update of tool or switch computers and suddenly our browsers go blank on newly published eLearning modules - or […]

New Horizons' scientists just announced their best estimate of the dwarf planet's size. The post NASA Finally Knows Pluto’s Size…Kind Of appeared first on WIRED.