Imagine if every person acted like a lady or gentleman….. Engagement Tip: Ladies and gentlemen are attentive when serving others.   The more you know about your customers, the better you’re able to create unique, memorable and personal experiences for them. Sometimes your customers disclose information about their preferences, but often your employees will have to listen for clues. Your employees should be especially attentive to your customers in order to best anticipate and meet their needs. At The Ritz-Carlton, we call this concept of attentiveness "radar on, antenna up." This means that our employees—known as our Ladies and Gentlemen—are very present, thoughtful and looking for ways to fulfill unexpressed wishes every time they interact with guests. An employee of The Ritz-Carlton may notice that a guest prefers a specific cookie served in the lobby. When the guest checks out, the employee could "surprise and delight" that guest by providing a few cookies to go along with the recipe for the cookies. Being attentive can also aid in effective, personalized service recovery. Perhaps customers are experiencing a long wait. Use that time to engage with your customers and learn something about them. Maybe you will learn that a customer is a fan of a particular sports team. When you follow up with that customer, you can integrate that information into a personalized note as in the following example: We sincerely appreciate your patience and look forward to working with you in the future. Wishing you a great day and a win for the Tigers this weekend. When you’re truly attentive to the people you’re serving, you can create genuine engagement, earn trust, provide anticipatory service and achieve brand loyalty. ∞ The motto of The Ritz-Carlton is "We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen." This motto sets a tone of goodwill and grace for all. The Blog Post Etiquette & Engagement: Attentive appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Moving your human capital management to a cloud/SaaS such as SuccessFactors makes sense. The larger your operation is, the more sense it makes. However, an important issue that will become more difficult as your company or your implementation project starts expanding is the need to accommodate users with different language requirements and different cultural backgrounds. For example, an American company expanding into a European setting, a European company setting up a plant in a neighboring country, or a Middle Eastern company acquiring subsidiaries in the Far East will all have to decide to what degree to accommodate local languages and practices. You know I am going to say this eventually, so here goes: You can get just about everything you need with SuccessFactors. It is paramount, however, that you connect with someone with experience to help you get the best system to face your end users. Benefits Global companies will usually encourage or even mandate only one corporate language, but when you get out onto the factory floor, it will be Bahasa, Italian, or Polish that people will be speaking, not English. It’s also guaranteed that your end users eventually will become confused if the system uses decimal points where they expect decimal commas, or months/days where they expect to see days/months. Therefore, it makes the conversations and the processes much easier if the supporting system is set to the end user’s language and notation. The user can at will select a language option or one of several similar locales (e.g., traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan as opposed to the simplified version used in PRC), and the selection stays with that profile and is stored server-side along with the rest of the user’s data. When you implement the SuccessFactors language packs, you also get settings for decimal notation, date notations, etc. Then, supplement those language packs with sets of company translations. Once in place, you have a system that takes into account the individual user’s need to communicate in his/her own language and you benefit from a correct, company wide terminology. Of course, you do also have the option to import the default locale, and thus decide centrally what people should see. This is not something we recommend because you never truly know what language all of your employees are more comfortable with, right? Challenges and Pitfalls Historically, SuccessFactors is software created in the US and with US language and notations. We see that in lots of places, and we know how to work around it when we need to. Administrative handling of localization has been retrofitted in many of the older modules, and we see the translations are implemented in completely different ways. Most of this older editing is strictly ‘implementation consultant only’, but over the years, we are seeing that newer modules have a more logical and intuitive way to implement translations. We also see more and more options accessible to the local SuccessFactors administrator. It is important that local administrators are properly trained so that they are able to maintain all the translations they can because if they are not sure what they need to do, they can potentially create a lot of damage. It is also imperative to identify where to maintain the knowledge. If you have a technically inclined person in the correct position, that is great. In cases where there isn’t a dedicated resource, this can create a big challenge and is a reason why many customers come to us for advice and support. The need for localization of Human Capital Management efforts is growing. Are you prepared to expand global efforts within your organization?

Have you ever felt very satisfied with the completion of a workday or project just to realize you still need to document your time and/or items of work completed? Looking for more productivity from your team, but still requiring them to provide mandatory self-reported time/work sheets? Many back office operations, particularly in Health Plans, have an excessive amount of self-reporting.   Still using spreadsheets that are difficult to roll up to a group level and take a lot of time to insure individual inputs are correct is an amazing time killer.   Others use simple web based applications which rely on accuracy of the reporter,  while believe it or not some plans still use paper, pencil and stop watches. Self-Reporting is a root cause of several common operational deficiencies: Too many costly work hours spent completing forms and combining spreadsheets Consistency in the definitions of work across multiple groups and individuals lead to errors Accuracy of data is dependent on those inputting the information, again leading to errors or misrepresentation Without real-time data; managers cannot make decisions to impact inventory quickly Using automated capture and reporting of work streamlines operations and provides real-time data.   Take a look at WorkiQ as an example using desktop analytics.   While visiting our information take a swim through our Savings Calculator to see how much your operations might benefit from eliminating self-reporting. The post Getting away from Self-Reporting appeared first on WorkiQ Blog.

The team at Ammonite are committed to innovation in training and to customer service, so it’s humbling and extremely rewarding to get great feedback from our clients. This testimonial video, produced by Outer Path Films , is a snapshot of what our customers are saying about our product and backup service. Training, whether face to face, blended or online must be valid and engaging, but it must also be able to be done in a way that is extremely efficient. We are firm believers that all that can be automated should be automated. This then frees the teacher/trainer up so that they can focus on providing great support to their students. Our system automates: Importing units/courses from training.gov.au Allowing students to self-enrol, pay and to receive tax invoices instantly Collecting and collating continuous improvements Progression and marking Ensuring consistency among and between trainers Issuing of Statements of Attainment/Completion Gathering and submitting AVETMISS reports Providing and collating required student feedback And much more. Ammonite, confidence in online training

It seems so obvious to us that education/training can be better. By better, we mean that it can be more engaging, up to date and available on demand. Two videos that I have re-watched recently not only support our view but actually highlight the necessity for change. The first video, RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms, basically highlights how the current educational delivery approach, which has been used in education since the industrial revolution, is failing students, in this, the most exciting and dynamic time in human history. Ken Robinson clearly identifies how the currently used old world model fails to solve the problems of the current and future world. While the second video "The wonderful and terrifying implications of computers that can learn" is about a seemingly different topic, it too makes it very clear that the current model of education/training must improve greatly to equip people to survive in an environment where knowledge and skills are increasing at an expediential rate. While the author, Jeremy Howard is very excited about the unstoppable potential of deep learning by computers, he raises some concerns as he states that "80 percent of the world's employment in the developed world is stuff that computers have just learned how to do" Time has now passed where education/training can be delivered in a way that causes disinterest or disengagement and/or causes students to become bored.

The one thing we at Ammonite are not good at is marketing, but really we don’t have to be because our most vocal supporters are our customers (and their clients). Whenever one of our staff has a free minute it’s not unusual to find them with a smile on their face going through the recorded webcam feedback provided to Inscope Training by some of their students who have completed their courses. Their feedback is just great. We were also thrilled to get feedback from another client the other day who had just been through an audit. They got through the audit "without a suggested improvement" and said that the auditor loved TOMS - "he said he hadn’t seen anything else as good". There are a lot of things broken with online learning and we, at Ammonite, are on a mission to fix the issues.

This is a copied response to an article dated Sept 7, 2011 on DangerouslyIrrelevant.org To see the full article with comments: http://bit.ly/qFXcbu I am all in when it comes to providing students with multimedia projects in which they immerse themselves in the language of the particular technology, collaborate with their peers and create a product worthy to display and communicate the results. Saying that utilizing new technologies is playtime may be accurate. Do you have to hate what you are doing or be miserable during an assignment for it to be validation of learning? I think not! I will certainly agree that the educators that are using technology in the classroom need to be supported and accountable, but there is always a learning curve and to get educators up to speed, there are going to be some bumps in the road. Not every lesson, technology or otherwise is always a hit. If we stopped using technology because our lesson failed and did not satisfy the outcome we were looking for, that would be akin to giving up on a student because they "just don’t get it." Technology is expensive and as stated above, those in who are utilizing it should be accountable for the use of it and become teacher leaders in there respective schools. There is a great network of teachers all around the world who eat, drink and sleep technology for the sake of students. These folks banter around ideas and learn from each on how to better utilize technology and attend conferences in which they further along ideas and practices that benefit students. To say there is not any research to the fact that students benefit from technology is ludicrous. Dr. Robert Marzano completed a study on the use of interactive whiteboards and responders (an overview of the outcomes can be found here: http://bit.ly/9HlRMW) and the research concluded that using interactive whiteboards increased student achievements by 16% and utilizing voting devices had a positive impact of 26%. These results did not come without parameters. It is not as simple as plugging in the interactive whiteboard and seeing the magic happen, it still requires hard work, preparation and follow through. For example, educators need to utilize visuals, follow up on any missed answers, while discussing correct answers and opinions and should not focus on to many of the bells and whistles, such as crowd applause for a correct answer. Educators, keep using the technology your school provides for you and know that you have to work hard to make it work, but in the end the results will be long lasting and prepare our students for the present and the future.

When it comes to winning big sales opportunities, sales leaders often share 2 complaints: 1.  Sellers aren't proactive. They fail to drive their most important sales opportunities forward with determination and rigor. 2.  Even when sellers are proactive, they don't follow a consistent process to put themselves in the best position to win the sale. Based on our research and experience, we've found that the key to fixing these management headaches is to focus on opportunity planning, and installing the discipline in sellers to follow the plan. In fact, the better sellers are at planning for sales opportunities, the higher the win rate. The RAIN Group Center for Sales Research recently studied the effects of sales opportunity management process and win rate. We asked, "Which of the statements below best describes the organization's overall process for winning individual sales opportunities."     Related Stories[New White Paper] Optimizing Sales Opportunity Management: 12 Critical Questions Sales Leaders Must AskEssentials of an Effective Account Planning Tool4 Examples of Big Plays to Help You Win Major Sales and Grow Accounts 

Just because a buyer is in a position of authority—and has the financial ability to buy—doesn't mean they will, in fact, buy. They have to be in the right mindset. We call the right mindsets "buying modes." The wrong mindsets, "non-buying modes." When you understand which mode someone is in, you'll know whether they’re inclined to make a purchase or not. There are two different buying modes: Problem-solving, and Future-seeking. There are also two non-buying modes: Satisfied, and Euphoric.     Related Stories5 Reasons Why Buyers Now Control the SaleThe 6 Buyer Personas (and How to Sell to Them)5 Decision Roles in Every Sale 

The muddiest point of your course is the area that is the hardest to grasp or the most confusing to understand. This part of your course needs to be reinforced with extra resources and activities. If the muddiest point of your course is not determined, your learners may lag behind and more often, drop out. To retain and engage your learners, integrate an activity that helps uncover the muddiest point of the course (so far). This activity has to be social in nature to be more effective. In this article, we will describe an example of an eLearning activity that helps the instructor find the muddiest point of the course. An online activity that assesses the skills learned towards the middle of the course is a great way to check the progress of the learner. It is also a good opportunity to present the reflection question: What was the muddiest point of this activity? This activity can be used as a peer to peer evaluation tool as well as a personal reflection exercise. The responses to the muddiest point question can be used to create further activities that reinforce the weak areas in the topic. Online Teaching Activity: Create a Video about yourself Task: For the Fundamentals of Multimedia class, create a video using the software tools used in the classroom. Objective: To work as an individual and then comment on your peer: Create a Video about yourself. Answer the muddiest point question after you complete the activity: Which step in the video development process was the toughest? Directions: Your task is to create a video for your prospective employers. Talk about your learning and professional achievements, in short, everything you would say in your resume, but in an interesting manner. Use interesting sound effects and diagrams, to demonstrate your point. Your goal is to convince the employer to hire you! Prepare a storyboard and submit it as a word document along with your video. Use a video camera of your choice or your smartphone to capture your video. Use a microphone if necessary. Make sure your audience can see you and hear you easily. There should be no background noise. Use Fox Pro to edit your video. The video should be between eight to ten minutes long. Use images to explain your points. Use Audacity to edit the sound. Provide transcripts with your video. End your presentation with a references page. Upload your video to the class Youtube channel. Post the link under the discussion board activity. Provide feedback to three of your classmates’ videos. Use any five criteria from the evaluation rubric to comment on their video. Your criteria should be clearly labelled with comments. You will be awarded 10 points for each response. After you have completed the above steps, respond to the next discussion board question: What was the muddiest point of this activity? Intended Outcomes This eLearning activity is a mid-course skills check-point. It helps learners revise and apply all multimedia development tools in a meaningful manner. They are given several resources dealing with model video-resume and are requested to cite any sources they used in any step of the development process. The objective of this activity is to create their video using the rubric described below. After uploading their video on Youtube Channel, learners are required to upload the link of this video in the discussion forum for the course. They are required to evaluate their peers’ video using at least five of the evaluation criteria described in the rubric. This discussion activity will guide the video-maker to improve their video in the future. It will also be a platform where different experiences regarding the nuances of recording and editing a scripted video are shared. Multiple solutions will be shared. Learners will be helping each other out. The response to the muddiest point question will be closely tied to the discussions in the previous activity. Learners will share their problems in planning and developing their videos. The instructor will understand the problem area of this process and will be able to change future lessons to fill the learning gap. By the end of this activity, learners will not only improve their videos but will also be able to use them as a part of their job search. Evaluation Rubric (adapted closely from A+ Rubric for Evaluating Videos, University of Wisconsin) References Conrad, R. & Donaldson, J. (2012) Continuing to Engage the Online Learner. A+ Rubric. University of Wisconsin (2011). Retrieved from, https://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/rubrics/videorubric.html The post Finding the Muddiest Point of your eLearning Course appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

The importance of authenticity in first-time leaders is important for their success right out of the gate.

In our new book, Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster, my coauthors Jane Ripley, Eunice Parisi-Carew, and I explain the importance of building a culture of collaboration in your organization. Believing true collaboration is the responsibility of every individual, we define five elements each person must consider when accepting their specific role in helping to create that culture. The UNITE acronym makes these elements easy to remember. Every collaborative leader must be able to Utilize differences; Nurture safety and trust; Involve others in crafting a clear purpose, values, and goals; Talk openly; and Empower themselves and others. Let’s take a closer look at the importance of utilizing differences. Many people think if a group working together allows differing viewpoints it might create disagreement, which would be a bad thing. However, we believe conflict in collaborative groups is good—as long as discussions stay focused on the issues and disagreements don’t get personal. In fact, conflict can be the basis for breakthrough thinking that leads to revolutionary ideas. Ask yourself these questions to see if you are a collaborator who makes the most of people’s differences: Do you believe everyone has something to contribute? Do you ensure everyone in your group is heard? Do you actively seek different points of view? Do you encourage debate about ideas? Do you feel comfortable facilitating conflict? If you answered yes to most of these questions, congratulations! You are well on your way to being a first-class collaborator who embraces diverse points of view within your work group. If you answered no to any of them, you know where to begin your journey to effective collaboration. Organizations operating in today’s global economy have workforces comprising multiple generations with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and temperaments. This guarantees significant disparity among people in almost every work group. The ability to utilize these differences for the greater good will determine the success or failure of your project—and possibly your company. Remember—collaboration begins with you! Editor’s Note: Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster will be released October 12. Place your pre-order at www.Amazon.com.

If you’re running an online course and you’re finding it difficult to keep your students engaged in your community you’ll be glad to know that gamification may be the tool you’re looking for to help inspire students to engage.   WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?   Gamification is the process of using game-like strategies and rules and applying them to the educational environment. Gamification takes some of the responsibility off of teachers to help incentivize community participation. Gamification also helps educators keep students motivated and on track.   Teachers and learning institutions can use features like points, achievements, badges, virality, and count-downs as ways to gamify their online courses.   HOW GAMIFICATION LED TO A 260% INCREASE IN STUDENT ACTIVITY   We recently tested a client’s site for the impacts of gamification. Up until we ran this test, this particular client had no gamification features on their site whatsoever. We ran this test for a month and we found that compared to previous months the gamified version of their online learning environment had a 260% increase in student activity!   WHAT THEY DID   The gamification features that you’ll decide to add to your own online course will vary depending on the particulars of your course. However, below you’ll find the list of gamification features we added to our client’s site in order to instigate the increase the student participation.   Students could earn points by:   Posting interesting information on their student profile Having people "like" their posts Visiting the online course on a daily basis Submitting assignments Commenting on other students’ assignments The could also earn points manually by having a teacher award them with an "achievement" in a certain area of the course. These achievements or badges would then show up on their student profile page.   WHAT’S EVEN MORE POWERFUL THAN GAMIFICATION?   The above changes led to a 260% increase in student engagement. That’s huge! The course vendor in this case mentioned that "In the past we put a lot of the responsibility of the community in the students’ hands. However, we didn’t realize that we didn’t really give our students much incentive to be part of that community. We just gave them the platform and walked away. The community existed as a good idea in an abstract sense [to us] but it never really started to take off until we made it our responsibility and not our students".   However, what’s even more interesting, is that during our tests on this client’s online course site, we found something even more powerful than gamification as a tool to increase student participation.  We asked this client to use "proactive" rather than "reactive" communication as their primary way of communicating with student in their online course. Using proactive communication this client was able to see an additional 1200% increase in community activity on their site. You can read the full case study about proactive student communication here.  

As an edupreneur, you might search for an LMS that provides you the features through which you can keep your users engaged and motivate them for active participation during the course sessions. There are plenty of features that you can embed into your online course to make it interactive such as video conference, discussion forums, live chat, audio call and many more. However, the problem arises when one has to select the most effective means for engaging users. A live webinar is an internet based interactive program where a presenter can reach out to specific audience through his electronic devices such as PC, tablet, smartphones, etc. Live webinars create a prospect where the subscribers/users can actively share, survey, talk, debate and inquire the presenter or others about the program. Besides, the presenter can also broadcast other relevant presentations in sync with the discussion. These sessions can be within budget, special, live and quicker and easier to understand. Live webinars exhibit all the attributes that can help you grow your eLearning business and develop informative courses. Let us look at some of the benefits of including live webinars in your course. Interactive: Live webinars construct an opportunity where two way communications between the instructor and the audience can take place in a productive manner. Instead of being a passive listener or viewer of your online course, the users can participate in healthy debates and share their questions and experiences. Besides, for the instructors, the webinar assists them to develop a perception about the kind of audience they deal with. Global: Earlier, when seminars were held, only people with convenience of travel and money could attend them but the live feature of webinars makes your courses accessible to those viewers who face geographical and financial constraints. Time and Cost saving: Arranging a live webinar not only helps you in reaching out to more people but it also puts less pressure on your pocket. You only need to invest one time on your course material and LMS. All other activities such as arranging event, seminar venue, promotion and supporting team at different locations are not only expensive and time consuming but also localized. Post event activity: You can also equip the webinars with post event activities such as assignments, quizzes, discussion forums, review sessions, etc. In this way, you do not only keep your users engrossed in the course but also inspire them to attend your upcoming sessions. Hence, the above stated overview of live webinar feature emphasizes its power of taking eLearning businesses to new heights.  Now the question arises how can you embed, handle and promote live webinars.  You can rely on Academy of Mine to ease out these functions for you. We help educators develop and sell their courses online. Being a member of AOM, you will be benefited with a power-packed platform that is integrated with learning management system and eCommerce setup. You would only be required to customize the settings and edit course materials to start your own eLearning business. We also offer features that let you interact with your users and make the learning live and fun. Below are few of the live webinar features offered by us. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Live Chat :  Live Chat feature enables users to discuss one-on-one or in a group about the sessions by sending text messages and also save them for future references. Broadcast Video: This feature enables the users to broadcast their customized videos during a private chat or in a public chat room. Video Conference: Users can start discussions over video conference and let others join it to experience live audio-video sessions. Audio Call: If users do not require video chat, they can simply use ‘Audio Chat’ feature to interact with others. Screen Sharing: This feature helps users to instantly share the glimpses of websites, files, images, etc. running on their screen without bothering the need to send the link or the data. White Boarding: On White Boards, users can bring out their creative sides by using a virtual pen and scribble anything they want to share with others.

This is National Teacher Appreciation Week, an opportunity to celebrate great teachers. While attention is focused let me float an outrageous idea. Though I don’t have the workings of this proposal completely flushed out I hope to instigate a dialogue and let you continue the conversation. I believe teachers are underpaid. And underappreciated. Let me back up a sec: What brought this top of mind are commercials currently airing (and somewhat self-aggrandizing) for the energy industry. You might have seen them, featuring successful—and not unattractive—young professional engineers whose physics and math teachers opened their minds to a world in which they could exploit their passion inspired by their teachers that led to a career and a life. What if there was a way to address the inequities, in the process refurbishing education as a noble art and science and do it in such a way that avoids new taxes or municipal funding? Here’s what I believe to be a logical method of rewarding those kinds of instructors: Why not set up a system of tithing; a tangible way former students who by admission found a life because of a memorable teacher. Let’s adopt a method to turn over a very modest amount of money per ex-student, now contributor to a teacher or teachers. Not to the school or district—but directly. These endowments would be a royalty, a supplemental contribution to the teacher(s) who has gone beyond. Just think, the average major subject high school teacher sees over 4500 youngsters in a 30-year career; an elementary teacher, 900. If only a few students, who believe one or more teachers added to their lives would pony up a stipend, then teachers would not only reap a personal gain that would improve their economic station, but set the country on notice that we honor and will reward great teaching. The well-known educational ripple effect ("A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Henry Adams) would be a paradigm for the nation. What a culture change. No matter the political party, there’s no downside to supporting this. Well, maybe not all politicians would agree, especially the ones who had all bad teachers, right? In the short term, such a plan resolves very specific wants: Adjusting salaries to make teaching a more fiscally viable profession Addressing teacher evaluations currently based either on formal and mostly contractual agreements or high stakes test results; both of which are flawed metrics Diminishing the overplayed hand of the unions to level the playing field where mediocre and superlative instructors are paid equally based on years of service and graduate credit hours for courses having no bearing on instructional quality In the long term, we establish a system that will drive teacher’s efforts to create instruction that is more dynamic and draw out a more humanistic approach to the treatment of students. That’s not an accusation that teachers as a group do not try to develop quality lessons nor are they deficient in humanity. However, we’ve all been students and can recall quite clearly those teachers who had the kindness and compassion any parent would hope was doled out to their child during the school day. But we can also recall the harridans, shrews, and malcontents among a faculty to whom teaching was a job to be endured and gave over as little of themselves as they could get away with. So posit this: A 20-year biology teacher whose total salary based on service and coursework is $60,000 per year. Next door, also teaching biology, the teacher is receiving $60,000 but based on voluntary ex-student contributions, her royalties are yielding an annualized, additional $12,000. What does that say to teachers, the school and district and community? Moreover, it becomes part of a teacher’s portfolio of merit they can take with them if they decide to shop around for another position in marketplace for excellence outside their current district. The mechanics, as I said are in the formative stage banging around in my head. Case in point; I would like a value metric to balance these anomalies: Rewarding an elementary school teacher who inspired you to think more of yourself but had no direct connection (though some psychologists would disagree) with your choice of career. K-6 teachers see a disproportionately smaller cadre of students but arguably can be more formative shaping a child and effective at saving one in crisis. What about a teacher who mentors students but is not their actual teacher? He supported and counseled youngsters helping them overcome their self-doubts, lack of confidence, sense of otherness and enabled them to grow in to good spouses, parents and wage earners; how do we apportion those contributions? What about special education, teachers of the arts and other specialties who in some settings have very few students. Maybe this system would be unfairly slanted and biased against these professionals unless we look for a way to design in equity. Something to chew on. So here’s how this might work: Every year in the Valley School District 700 students graduate. Assuming they go straight to work or on to higher education, whether technical training or a collegiate experience they will be wage earners. Let’s just say the IRS, attaches form 1200A, Education Contribution Benefit Designation to every return. This document is a rubric with these elements: A space to name teacher(s) A series of metrics, say a Likert scale (1-5 or NA) where they could identify and rate teachers based on objective criteria. For instance, did the teacher on line 21 provide you with the information you needed to be hired in the field/job you sought. Or did the teacher prepare you for acceptance into a higher education program. Did the teacher help you create a portfolio or college essay that allowed you entry into your field of study? Another series of metrics would be subjective, though not less important. Any psychometrican can compose, scale, and provide weight with regard to the value of these traits. For instance, did the teacher in line 24 provide the emotional support you needed when you were in crisis? Did s/he mentor you influencing you in a positive way that has made you a better person? Can you appreciate the differences among cultures, countries, and people unlike yourself? A space for supporting statements whether written by the constituent donor or other material provided as evidence the teacher is eligible for a contribution benefit. A space to work out the amount designated to be apportioned to the named teacher(s). Perhaps none of the above except the name of the teacher and the amount to be contributed. If you teach for 30 years, regardless of level or subject you will have influenced, not just taught content to thousands of youngsters who are now adults and hopefully earning a living. Every year the numbers of ex-students enters the workforce and are added to the roles of possible ‘donors.’ Kind of like compound interest! I would propose each contributor/donor be obligated for life, with contingencies of course. This serves two purposes; contributing is understood as a very serious commitment with long range consequence and contributions end only if the individual is out of work or retires; furthermore, it ensures the amount cannot fluctuate downward (unless circumstances such as the above occur) so the teacher can budget and rely on that income well in to retirement. Most importantly, I believe the contributor can add a teacher’s name at any time for as we mature it is only from a distance do we begin to fathom the impact a teacher has had on our lives. OK, some of you might define this plan as merit pay or reimbursement of extraordinary value. Others will see it as a ‘tip’ -a surcharge for what should have been the norm in the first place. I see it more like a legacy reward for a lifetime of great service recognized by customers… AND an immediate way to shake up the profession by the scholars hood and wake up potential. We can declare non too subtlety that, with some inspiration, even if in the form of—gasp—money, teachers can be moved to higher levels of overall performance. Finally it shakes up the worst offenders in the education realm—schools of education whose teacher prep programs are at the least out of touch… and at the worst criminally deficient allowing virtually anyone who pays tuition, is drawing breath and can prep for the tests into the classroom. You know the adage…what do they call the one who finishes last in medical school…doctor. That’s the plan. Talk about it, argue over it, but don’t pass it by. We rank far below even the poorest countries on many education scales of measurement. I believe a major reason is teaching and our myopic view of schools. The public coffers are empty and education at all levels is being starved. Here’s a place to jump into the dialogue. Or not, but I hope for better. Lastly, I believe I have the chops to write this; I taught K-12, was a university professor and a school administrator in urban settings. I’ve seen education from inside and as a corporate educator working with schools throughout the world. I’ll end on a positive note. I want to thank Miss Libman my first grade teacher at PS 194 in Brooklyn for her compassion and humanity. Miss Nurnberg who found my talent for art in grade 6 and allowed me extra time at the easel, also at PS 194. Frank Pelligrini who insisted I not turn in less than perfect work and rejected much of my efforts until I got it right, and last but not least, Dr. Peter Bohan, now gone, whose inspiration and love of subject made me a life-long learner and seeker. I would gladly tithe to any and all.

Who hasn’t been the recipient of the exhortations of motivation? It seems everywhere; used to suggest, cajole and inspire workers. Indeed exhort all of us to get out in front of a task and get going. I remember, I think, a professor or mentor of mine in the education business who consistently said that motivation, a mental state, is not what we want to create. No, he said, what we really want is movement. Movement is measurable, while motivation lies within us affected by a variety of mental attitudes and internal prejudices. Whereas movement can be evaluated against expectations or scales of achievement, motivation is opaque to the organization seeking its presence. This may not be news, but in the context of leadership and management, the misapplication of either motivation or movement in an opposing context can often lead to problems. Furthermore, with the push towards the nurturing of talent; talent management as its referred, it’s worth a look at how these states might be aligned to justify the effort, time and resources placed in readying current employees for more responsibility. The End of Motivation? No discussion of motivation can take place without clearing up the idea of incentives. Leaders continually seek ways of extracting more or better from their minions, only to find most systems never seem to yield consistent results. Incentivizing workers of any level with rewards, extrinsic or intrinsic seems to work only when there are simple goals to achieve and solid rules to guide performance. The problem of if-then reward schemes is a narrow focus on the task at hand. In many studies, incentives have been shown to effectively kill creativity. In sales and mechanical tasks, incentives may work but only sometimes, and not for long. However, as Daniel Pink has noted, as soon as performance requires any additional cognitive skill (e.g. reasoning) even a larger reward leads to decreased performance. He notes that the London School of Economics has found financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance. And not to be overlooked, robotics are increasingly eliminating the types of work for which incentives would prove even marginally valuable. So what to do? Firstly, let’s accept motivation for movement lies in the realm of management and distinct from leadership. The traditional definition of management says if you want compliance then create a linear system of compartmentalized tasks and add people adequately skilled to so function. Then stand back and measure, doling out cash to the top performers. The disconnect between this conceit and the new working environment fails to account for the types of problems so prevalent now—devoid of a clear set of rules, or a single solution or only one right answer. More often than ever before, business problems demand more right brain, conceptual activity. When challenges are mystifying and abstract, if-then reward systems/incentives don’t work. Since most jobs that demand compartmentalization and linearity are so easy to outsource (or robotize), tradition bound incentives, or motivation through rewards are useless. Nevertheless, what about managers who must raise the performance of workers, achieve cost/time/efficiency savings, another top, or bottom line positive changes? Science and Business There is a mismatch between what science knows and business does. For instance, we know, and studies show when people want to succeed because the problem matters, because it’s important or interesting or because it is bigger than themselves, they require no external rewards to perform at high levels. An operational paradigm that recognizes mastery, autonomy, and purpose will encourage workers to respond with energy to the types of business challenges in today’s workplace. If managers want workers to perform up, then the challenges and types of work that must be solved have to be designed to respond to these human factors. Is it the job of managers who require relatively simple tasks to be executed to re-form the jobs not into compartments of interchangeable elements but to something more interesting? The answer is yes. If we need new managers capable of thinking this way than that’s where talent management learning might start. Remember it’s not the manager who does the work…but managers need to set conditions where others can and do to their utmost abilities. Some might say this is starting to sound like leadership. But leaders themselves are too far distant from actual work. Why Managers Need to be Leaders The 20th century business model erects a formidable wall between management and leadership. Yet in this century it should be clear anyone in authority—having the responsibility to move (not just motivate) people to perform must embody both managerial skills and leadership qualities. When companies speak of talent management they still, in most cases, make distinctions among the types of employees who earn or receive the types of learning that prepares them for one role or the other. That distinction might best be obliterated. If managers are incapable of leadership perhaps they should not be managers. Not to be harsh but given the types of conceptual as well as practical business challenges that will engage enterprises big and small if there is no leadership in management (and the converse it true) success will be most difficult. Workers as people are different; those who guide their tasks had better be aligned to their ways. Leadership Is Too Far Upstream We know leadership has two distinct functions particularly in large enterprises; imbuing the business mission with vision and tone and setting priorities and policies. However to change performance I suggest unless a leader is in total control—think Jack Welch or Steve Jobs—they are too distant—to far upstream from the action to make a difference in how people move and their commitment to performance. Even Jobs, perhaps the most hands-on of any modern executive even with supreme governance required intermediaries, subordinates…managers to transfer his visions into reality. Without direct control of how problems are phrased and scoped, organized and aligned, leaders may exude all the power their words can muster but won’t help a local team produce better or faster solutions. Here’s a descriptive chart breaking down leadership and management from different perspectives:     Leadership   Management Core Art Science Visionaries Technicians Process Upstream-Strategic Downstream-Tactical Personality Driver Charismatic Pragmatic Foundation Situational Empirical/Formulaic Modality Front, top, prior to action Within or during action Structure Ideas, theory Hands-on, get it done Action Thinking Scheduling Metric KPIs FTEs Skill Motivation Movement The Talent Management Function There’s no question leadership is vital to any enterprise. In addition, leaders can come in all shapes and sizes, talents, strengths, weaknesses and deficits. Many companies thrive with lousy leadership—but none can survive without skilled managers, especially those who can meld some of the qualities of leadership into the organizing behaviors of managing. I suppose the final tally of all the characteristics in the chart can be boiled down to the simple idea that talent management learning programs should be less focused on building leadership and more attuned to managerial competence. Bringing management into a 21st century paradigm will directly encourage people to do great work. Employees will move towards excellence when problems support autonomy, permitting their own way of working out a problem, provide opportunities and tools to allow mastery to flourish and offer a clear purpose that serves the greater service. Incentives, no matter what type are contradictory to this type of cooperative milieu. Managers who are skilled in creating this type of work situation, who have received the education and training they need to create such an environment will be the backbone of every successful enterprise. Shifting resources from building leadership qualities for leaders only to ensuring hands on managers have the skills and knowledge, techniques and tactics they need, will lay a foundation to ensure the survival of the enterprise even as leaders wash in and out with the tides.

Filed under: In The Classroom

Mahatma Gandhi said it best: "Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men." When business and healthcare organizations make service their highest priority, they’re valuing their customers. However, their commitment to service generates further good when it extends beyond the boundaries of the workplace. Here are three ways organizations can increase the magnitude of their service and improve the world: 1) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs give employees the opportunity to volunteer and provide service to their communities. Achievers, an organization committed to driving higher employee engagement, notes on their blog that "organizations with well-defined social responsibility programs can improve their brand reputation, attract more job candidates and customers, and increase employee engagement." The social and environmental responsibility program at The Ritz-Carlton is known as Community Footprints®. Employees at hotels around the globe participate in local activities that support child well-being, hunger and poverty relief, and environmental responsibility. The mission of Community Footprints states: "At The Ritz-Carlton, we have built a legacy of extraordinary service. This tradition extends into our Community Footprints program and inspires us to impact the lives of others. Every contribution we make is an opportunity to leave an imprint on our communities. It is through this collection of imprints that we can make a meaningful difference." Community Footprints volunteer events take place around the world—and are even woven into executive meetings. Recently, Herve Humler, President & Chief Operations Officer of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C., convened 90 Ritz-Carlton General Managers for a three-day conference at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco. To kick off the conference, the General Managers spent the afternoon with nearly 200 students at a high school that serves low-income communities in the Mission District of San Francisco. In 11 classrooms, small teams made up of two Ritz-Carlton General Managers and four students collaborated on issues impacting the hotel industry such as identifying the biggest area of water waste at a hotel and presenting one strategy for reducing consumption. The teams worked together to generate and evaluate ideas, agree on potential solutions and create two-minute presentations. Students gained real-life problem-solving and collaboration skills, and through the expert guidance of our General Managers, they were also able to refine their presentation skills. 2) IMPACT 2030 IMPACT 2030, Corporate Volunteering for Sustainable Development, is a global private sector-led initiative in collaboration between the United Nations and other stakeholders. The purpose of IMPACT 2030 is to "advance the practice of employee volunteering, and create real and sustainable change." IMPACT 2030 notes that corporations are "uniquely poised to respond to the needs of a rapidly changing world." The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is the first Founding Partner of IMPACT 2030 and is partnering with many global companies, including IBM, Google and Tata Consulting Services. Sue Stephenson, Vice President of Community Footprints at The Ritz-Carlton, commented that "We’re all very excited about the possibilities of this global program that will leverage the skills and experience of employees to help address some of the most critical issues for our planet. It is about the power of our people to create real and sustainable change." There are several ways that companies can partner with IMPACT 2030. In addition, stakeholders from civil society, academia, philanthropic organizations and the public sector are invited to join the IMPACT 2030 network. 3) The Global Goals One hundred ninety-three world leaders committed to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, known as the Global Goals, on September 25, 2015. These 17 Goals focus on ending extreme poverty; fighting inequality and injustice; and addressing climate change over the next 15 years. The 17 Goals are universally applicable, and every country is establishing indicators to track the progress of each goal through 2030. The new goals replace the Millennial Development Goals and as this video humorously explains, finish the work that was already started. Organizations can help engage, educate and inspire their employees about the role they can play in impacting the Global Goals. IMPACT 2030 has supported the creation of the Global Goals Employer Hub, which offers organizations tools and suggestions for participation. Organizations can also share information on the website about their projects related to the Global Goals. Together We Impact the World Eliminating poverty, cleaning oceans, making cities safe, and reducing inequality among countries and between people may seem like unachievable goals, but as United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has noted: "Volunteerism … is among society’s most vital assets." By marshaling their resources and working together, organizations will play a role in bringing about sustainable societal change and make the world a better place. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Service Without Borders appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

WBT Systems launches Social and Mobile Learning Survey for Associations Survey to gain better understanding of trends, usage and attitudes towards social and mobile learning Dublin, Ireland, March 2012 - WBT Systems, the leading provider of eLearning software to associations, has just announced the opening of its latest survey to assess trends in both social learning and mobile learning within associations. WBT will use the feedback from the survey to make available a complimentary report that provides an overview of social and mobile learning, including insights around strategy, tools, usage and innovation. Significant advancements in technology in recent years have sparked major changes in learning design and delivery. BBy carrying out this study, WBT hopes to glean some interesting insights into how associations are approaching learning in this area, what they are doing today and planning for the future, what their understanding of social and mobile learning is. WBT will use this information to ensure it builds efficiency and effectiveness into its learning technology for the future, based on market demands and requirements. The concise two-part survey, which has a ten-minute completion time, has been designed for professionals employed in associations, professional bodies and institutes, and specifically those with visibility of the learning function. The survey will remain open for a four-week period and all information gathered is confidential to WBT Systems. All respondents will receive a complimentary copy of the findings, to be published in the July timeframe. This upcoming survey on social and mobile learning follows other recently published reports in the area of Association Learning, including - "A Practical Guide to Online Learning", "Open Source or Commercial LMS?" and "eLearning in Associations, comparing the UK and US." All reports, including the Social and Mobile learning survey may be accessed from here. To encourage survey participation, WBT is offering all qualified Social and Mobile Learning survey respondents a chance to enter a draw to win a Kindle e-Reader.

We are very excited to be sponsoring a webinar with Tagoras on Thursday, September 24 at 1pm EST. Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele are co-founders of Tagoras, two experts in the market for continuing education and professional development and will be joined by our own Mike Bourassa, Director of Business Development to present the session.   Great content is only part of the equation for successful online education—most organizations also need a way to effectively deliver the content, track participation, and manage credit and certificates. The right technology can mean the difference between a big success and a big headache, but the selection process can be daunting. In this session, Jeff, Celisa, and Mike will discuss a time-tested, 7-step process for selecting a learning management system. Attendees will leave the session with a clear understanding of how to lead their organization in choosing the right LMS technology and will receive a checklist of key issues and questions to consider when running a successful selection process.   Sign up for the free Webinar at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6479971047690643713.

  We are proud to sponsor the 2015 NiUG Discovery Conference that will take place October 12 - 14, 2015 this year in Arlington, VA at the Crystal Gateway Marriott.   Every year, NiUG International, the largest independent, not-for-profit, iMIS user’s group organize this great event to bring together users, administrators and suppliers to the Associations market.   The first day of the NiUG conferences are full and half day training topics, followed by two days packed with general and breakout sessions during the users conference portion of the event. Don’t miss out on the largest iMIS conference of the year, showcasing case studies of what you can do with iMIS, new functionality and MORE!   You can register for the conference on the NiUG website.   See you there!

By John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning. It wasn’t that long ago when associations’ main revenue was annual membership dues and annual tradeshow revenue.  That has all changed over the last five years and now learning and continuing education has become the primary line of revenue. Every conceivable profession has regional, national or global associations that compete for members.  Whether you are a radiologist, electrician, beautician, nurse, lawyer, architect, accountant, teacher, surgeon, arborist, engineer or Christmas tree farmer in PA, there is an association for you.  In the US alone, there are 86,054 associations according to the American Society of Association Executives. In most of these career choices there are continuing education requirements for professionals to earn and maintain their license over time.  Associations create and sell the content for professionals to satisfy their continuing education requirements at every stage of their career. The backbone of the association training business is the Learning Management System (LMS).  Not a traditional employee LMS, but an association LMS.  Because they share some common features, many people believe they are the same, but they are not. Employee LMSs are geared towards compliance and HR issues, but association LMSs are about making money.  Associations’ training for business focus requires enhanced LMS functionality in the following areas:   Association LMS Differentiators User attraction - Associations are not the only type of organization that sells continuing education content.  They have competition from universities and for-profit training providers targeting the same professionals.  The association LMS must provide features that attract users and entice them to buy.  This includes functionality such as browsing content before logging in, ecommerce promotions, dynamic audience grouping and marketing automation. Power Cloud - Every type of LMS is available in the cloud, however, associations need a power cloud.  Since they sell and deliver content globally, have large numbers of users, significant concurrency requirements and sophisticated integrations to AMS or ecommerce systems, associations need a top-tier global hosting solution offering much more flexibility than your typical employee LMS.                           Domain Segmentation - Associations are not homogenous.  Many are comprised of regional or national chapters that may be tightly or loosely affiliated with the mother organization.  Each regional organization may need to localize content, have their own content, share content, have different price points, registration requirements, taxation rules, integrations and business process.  An association LMS can provide a centralized umbrella to manage the needs of the whole and the diversity of the local. AMS Integration -Associations have association management systems (AMS) to manage their members and their activities.  The typical AMS is member facing and has been in place long before an LMS.  The AMS sells members, tradeshow attendance, books and shares some common features with an LMS.   An association LMS needs to be able to integrate with an AMS to do things like share a catalog of course, ecommerce engine, CRM and reporting engine.  Since every AMS is different and every association has deployed their AMS uniquely, the association LMS needs to have extreme flexibility to support many scenarios. Business-to-business eCommerce -eCommerce is a lot more than installing an "add to cart" button and having a shopping cart.  Most associations sell to both organizations and to individuals.  Organizational or B2B LMS ecommerce requires features like bulk purchasing, debit and credit accounts, access codes, tokens, bulk user upload and content assignment, timed access, tailored notifications and easy-to-use delegated administration. Traditional LMSs struggle with all of that. Taxation - In the US, we don’t have a tax on training or services, but globally that is not the case.  Every national jurisdiction has their own rules on what is taxed at what rate.  If you are a global association selling content in 70 countries and dozens of currencies, this is a gigantic administrative nightmare.  The LMS must keep track of the different rules and integrate with backend accounting systems.   Integration with Avalara or similar can provide the taxation management piece of the solution. Reporting and Analytics - Every LMS has reporting and analytics but associations need more.  They need reporting that is specific to the accreditation bodies to which they belong.  Every accreditation body has their own processes and standards that an association LMS needs to support.  Additionally, many accreditation bodies require psychoanalytical reporting that proves the efficacy of the content such as pre-posttest comparisons and statistical test item analysis. Complex Continuing Education - Corporate LMSs allow you to assign credit for course completion but stop there.  Association LMSs go much further and manage the complexity of state and national accreditation jurisdictions including managing differing credit types and value per course, credit validity duration, certificates and accreditation body reporting.  This is an advanced set of functionality that LMS vendors do not build unless they are specifically targeting associations.   Conclusion There are 600 LMS solutions in the world, but less than 20 specialize as Association LMS’s.   It is important if you are an association to specifically define your LMS requirements using the above as a guide on the level of functionality you require.  Specifically call out what your AMS currently does and exactly how you envision the learning piece integrating into the AMS and broader member ecosystem.  Knowing the specifics of your LMS complexities and using that as a tool to qualify potential LMS vendor partners is the best way to find an LMS for your association.   Do You Want to Learn More About the Association LMS? We have the perfect webinar for you on October 7th, 2015 @11am EST — "Top 10 Features of an Association LMS Webinar."  Join myself John Leh and Mike Bourassa, Director of Business Development of WBT Systems as we share best-practices learned from decades of association learning technology experience. This isn’t some old boring webinar.  We’ll dig into the key differentiators of an Association LMS, show you examples, discuss case studies and share best practices.  Please register even if you can’t attend and we will send you a link to the session recording. Hope to see you there!   About the Author John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, LLC. John is an independent learning technology analyst, blogger and CEO of Talented Learning.  After spending 20 years in the learning industry and selling over $50,000,000 worth of learning management system (LMS) solutions, John now consults with organizations to wisely find and buy the best LMS solution for them.  John has personally reviewed 95 LMS solution in the last 18 months for suitability in association and other extended enterprise uses. You can follow John at TalentedLearning.com.

Reblogged from THE WRIGHT STUFF: This is a repost of an article written by Rachelle Wooten and posted on TeachAmazing.com.  This a great article and really hits the mark with these 7 characteristics which fit for both teachers and administrators. After reading this, you should ask yourself ... Does this describe me?  And if it does ... GREAT -  Keep up the good work! But if you're honest, and it doesn't ...  Read more… 581 more words Innovation can't be systematized, but this is a good start.

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