On July 30, author and keynote speaker Bob Kelleher will present a webinar for Training Mag Network members and our  guests based upon his research and findings on the topic of his new book, Employee Engagement. Bob has generously provided several chapters of the book for you to download as a preview.  We start with Chapter 7. Chapter 7 People Who Lead People: Engaging Employees through Leadership In This Chapter: Differentiating between management and leadership Identifying leadership‐based engagement drivers Knowing why top leaders must buy in Identifying behaviors and traits of engaged leaders Training engaged leaders Recognizing the importance of coaching Identifying leadership best practices  

It’s common for venues to claim to be one-size-fits-all, but most are equipped for one type of event and ill-suited for others. So how do you find the ideal venue for your group’s needs? To help you navigate the labyrinth of offerings, the expert planning team at The National Conference Center has put together a comprehensive list of key factors any planner should consider when selecting a venue for a meeting, training or event. Click below to download this White paper.

This is the third installment of the five-part blog series about the The All-New TrainingMagNetwork.com Open Learning Environment. At Training Magazine Network, we capture the crumbs of insights as they happen. This level of self-awareness enables our members to keep track of their train of thought. While in webinars, reading white papers, watching videos, etc., members can quickly record the ripple of their insights. They also encourage real-time noting, sharing and tracking of other members' insights.   Savor the moment. As members go through all types of content that they find interesting through the help of a powerful search engine, they are constantly encouraged to record their insights as it happens. The key idea is to allow them to document what piqued their interest at the moment. Their learning preferences and interest areas are captured by the system. This provides them a unique perspective of their pursuit of expertise. Why Evaluate Insight? The idea behind evaluating one's insight is established by a huge quantum of studies. Organizations discover that giving appropriate feedback enhances personnel's ability to grow. As a matter of fact, neglecting a good evaluation or feedback mechanism is a recipe for disaster. According to Jane Bozarth "We often treat evaluation as an afterthought, focus on measures that offer little real information, or, when the effort looks difficult, just don't do evaluation at all. In looking at evaluation strategies, choose those that will get you what you need. Are you trying to prove results, or drive improvement? And above all, remember: some evaluation is better than none."  A founder of Triad Consulting Group and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, Sheila Heen delivers a talk on the importance of feedback. Giving the right kind of feedback takes center stage in sharing and tracking of other people's insights. Technology-Enhanced Feedback Mechanism  There are a lot of advantages in using technology as a feedback mechanism. First of all, the time and distance constraint is easily overcome. A good LMS (Learning Management System) can easily incorporate feedback mechanisms like forums where learners can discuss the ripples of insight.   Through this mechanism, peer learners can easily assess and give feedback on each other's ideas. This can be personalized even in a large group. On top of that, real-time tracking of feedback is easy with fast data transfer.    Insights Leading to Path to Expertise (Path2X)   The Training Magazine Network just released the first-of-its-kind member service we call Path to Expertise or Path2X. It incorporates a technology-enhanced feedback mechanism.

On July 30, author and keynote speaker Bob Kelleher will present a webinar for Training Mag Network members and our  guests based upon his research and findings on the topic of his new book, Employee Engagement. Bob has generously provided several chapters of the book for you to download as a preview.  Here is Chapter 10. Chapter 10 Brandy, You’re a Fine Girl: Driving Engagement through Branding In This Chapter: Looking at the relationship between branding and engagement Defining who you are through your employee value proposition Branding internally and externally Using tri-branding to your advantage  

Bringing Everything into View As today’s organizations stare down the challenges of ever-increasing compliance regulations, unpredictable turnover, and rapidly expanding cultural and learning style changes among employees, companies are looking for new ways to automate and scale their training efforts. More and more, they’re finding that help in video. Adaptable to both formal and informal learning needs, video overcomes today’s most common training challenges. It helps instructors increase training quality, speed and effectiveness — all while significantly lowering program costs. But of course, today’s learning and development professionals already understand the potential that technology can offer in the modern training environment. Their real challenge? Convincing their organizations to do more. In this paper, we help L&D practitioners tackle that challenge head-on, including: • 5 benefits that help convince your decision makers to use video in more ways • 14 ideas for supporting and scaling formal and informal learning with video • 1 technology — the video platform — that simplifies the use of video for L&D  Video training is no longer a novel idea. It’s the new normal. Make sure your organization isn’t missing out. Click below to download this White paper.

Have you ever shared your thoughts with someone? On a grander scale, have you tried sharing your work or a potential masterpiece with like-minded people? Sharing your work simply means that it is where your mind is at. It is where your expertise can be found. The patterns of your insights showcase your expertise areas.   Of course you can imagine the satisfaction you get when you receive the approval of people you respect. But the approval of like-minded people is not the only thing. Rather, it's making your work bigger than yourself that matters.     In this fourth installment of my five-part blog series about The All-New TrainingMagNetwork.com Open Learning Environment, I'm going to talk about the importance of sharing your work. The Internet and a good portion of its supporting technology has been the result of open sharing of ideas. Inevitability of Sharing Insight Apart from the climate of openness, we can't expect to enjoy what many would consider to be the greatest invention of modern times. Buzzwords like "open source," "collaboration," and "crowdsourcing" are all synonymous to the sharing of ideas and the climate of openness that it entails.   Although the effort to share one's ideas is not something recent, modern development made it easier to collaborate. According to Josh Lerner and Jean Tirol in their book The Simple Economics Of Open Source, "While media attention to the phenomenon of open source software has been recent, the basic behaviors are much older in their origins. There has long been a tradition of sharing and cooperation in software development. But in recent years, both the scale and formalization of the activity have expanded dramatically with the widespread diffusion of the Internet."   On a more limited scale, programmers have been sharing source codes as early as the '60s and the '70s and this has been called "sneakernet" due primarily to the actual movement of files through people wearing sneakers. I'm sure you can imagine the inconvenience but you get the picture. There is no way ideas can be prevented from getting shared. The Power Behind Sharing Insight Matt Ridley shows that the great progresses experienced by human history have been the result of collaboration or the "meeting and mating" of ideas. I like the book Show Your Work by Jane Bozarth. It suggests a profound change of our outlook. When we share our work, we actually learn a lot better. I recall a story from a toxic waste company client about how they apply "Chalk Talk." After each training they ask participants to use chalk and blackboard (may be flipcharts, white boards and markers) to talk about what they have learned.   This is a powerful self-learning process that enables the learners to articulate what they know and correct themselves along the way. Let's call this the digital tracker.   At TMN we allow members to capture trends and patterns. They discover and learn and track what they are good at and they show it off in the "Trending Report."  How is Openness Beneficial to Organizational Performance   The advantages of collaboration to organizations are enormous. Bozarth opined, "Showing work offers increased efficiencies, the possibility of innovation and increased ability to improvise, and promises correction of longstanding deficits in organizational communication."   In another study, Martine R. Haas and Morten T. Hansen proposed that, "An organization's  capacity to share knowledge among its individuals and teams and apply that shared knowledge to performing important activities is increasingly seen as a vital source of competitive advantage in many industries."   While it's nice to think about the solo working genius, it's undeniable that we are at a time when certain problems are just too big for the individual to solve alone. We need the insights of other like-minded people whose expertise are in other areas.  Conclusion   The pattern of your insight is a clear predictor of where your expertise lies. While the solo genius presents an attractive picture, sharing these insights expands your horizons. It is only through openness that ideas take on a new life because they meet and mate with other ideas. Innovation becomes possible and inevitable when ideas are shared. Problem-solving is facilitated by not one person but through the contribution of others.

On July 30, author and keynote speaker Bob Kelleher will present a webinar for Training Mag Network members and our guests based upon his research and findings on the topic of his new book, Employee Engagement. Bob has generously provided several chapters of the book for you to download as a preview. Here is Chapter 14.   Chapter 14 All Aboard! OnboardingTechniques to Foster Engagement   Recognizing the importance of onboarding Seeing things from the new hire’s point of view Knowing what to do before a new hire starts, on the first day,  and in the first week Establishing performance expectations

Video is increasingly the tool by which businesses communicate and share valuable information. As organizations continue to find new value in video - creating online training videos, streaming live executive broadcasts, webcasting events, and offering on-demand presentations and product demos - the question of where to keep all this video has become critical. Often this question comes down to two hosting options - video sharing sites like custom YouTube channels, or "the corporate YouTube" video content management system. Each option has its pros and cons, which are discussed in this paper.   Click below to download this white paper.

In the previous tip we talked about sharing your insights. In this fifth installement of the five-part blog series about The All-New TrainingMagNetwork.com Open Learning Environment, we will talk about presenting yourself as an expert and specialist of a specific field.   TMN members can share with friends, peers, leaders and if they wish, in the world of social media like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. We encourage TMN members to announce and celebrate their accomplishments.   On the other hand, people with whom members share their achievements are likewise provided the facility for feedback by sharing ideas and comments. Mobile apps and digital watches are so good at this. Their entry to the market is by providing people immediate/instant feedback - whether they are walking, running or consuming calories.   Feedback is key for people to correct and achieve their goals. In the Path2X (Path to Expertise), our members accomplish this through Path2X eShare. Path to Expertise Progress The classic resume is static. It is insufficient because it fails to provide the reviewer a better perspective of the capabilities and experiences of an applicant. With teams, leaders have no immediate way to assess capacities,  status of ongoing learning and new skills developed by team members. They have to wait for evaluation and assessments which may happen only once a year.   In Training Mag Network we try to provide a dynamic way for leaders and members to update interests and skills development. TNM members share their Path2X progress with their leaders, bosses, friends, peers and team. These people are able to comment and have discussions with the member/owner of the report. They can drill down into what resources the TMN member has "actually" studied, reviewed and submitted insights to. Members can share the Path2X report as often as they like. The Path2X Progress Report helps the member "celebrate, announce and demonstrate" their deliberate efforts in building skills and expertise.   The graphics below is an illustration of the Path2X Progress Report. Seth Godin talks about connecting with the customers and standing out as an expert in this short clip of an interview with Bryan Elliott. In the world where competition is the norm, how do you stand out against everybody else? Nowadays, it's not enough to be good at something or be connected to someone, you have to standout. According to William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson, "In today's workplace, creativity has trumped loyalty; individuality has replaced conformity; pro-activity has replaced hierarchy. Those who succeeded were aware of their talents and confident enough to use them to stand out and consistently deliver value to their teams.

So, you’re taking on a change. And it needs to happen sooner rather than later, with as little pain and as much support as possible. Simple, right? Being a change leader is never easy. In fact, many change efforts fail outright. Many others never achieve their original visions. This little book is designed to help you think about change in a way that will involve the people who can best help you be successful - formal and informal change leaders, and the people who will be affected by and must implement the change. The goal here is to help you avoid many of the landmines that can derail any change effort.  

As technology continues to advance, video accessibility will become more and more important - both in terms of legal requirements and the needs of our world.  Captions have become much more ubiquitous with the growth of online video. Laws continue to close the accessibility gap by requiring captioning in more places where video is found, but people are also starting to appreciate the universal benefits of transcription and captioning.  As video continues to dominate the web and other public spaces, captioning will become less of an afterthought and more of a necessity in an increasingly accessible world. Download this Guide for an excellent introduction to captioning (vs subtitles) their importance to learners and even their role in risk management (see pages start on #24!).

Content. Every employee development program requires it. Every employee needs content to learn. There are no exceptions. This is one of those rare absolutes we simply cannot escape. But if you read about the state of the training industry, it would be easy to walk away believing that the newest application or technology innovation is all you really need to really improve your employee training results. Delivering actual, business benefits from your employee learning and development efforts requires more than simply adding a new application or acquiring a new piece of super-duper technology. What organizations must do is deliver meaningful content to employees.  

Accessibility is becoming ever more important to organizations seeking to make all learning accessible and those who want to manage risk through compliance and even where 508 compliance isn't required, through best practices in instructional and training videos.   Click below to download this excellent resources, attend the webinar and watch for the companion piece in your InBox soon, "Beginner's Guide to Captions for Training Videos"

Examples, Demo Micro-Learning Ray Jimenez, PhD VignettesLearning.com

So you know you want to incorporate virtual reality into your training. Everybody wants to bring in the new kid and have virtual reality (VR) on their team because the tech is innovative and memorable. VR training experiences have a proven higher retention rate, with retention gains reaching 75% in comparison to standard video, eLearning, or textbook training. VR simulated training has made its way into retail stores, car assembly factories, police academies, all the way to Olympic athlete training.  The possibilities are endless. But how do you turn your VR training idea into reality, and who do you turn to? This new kid isn’t like any training you’ve worked with in the past. VR is not a one-size-fits-all delivery method, nor is it built for quick turnarounds. But here’s the real reality. It’s an investment, and investing in something implies longevity and appreciation in value. Choosing to incorporate VR into your training curriculum or course is not a choice made lightly, nor should it be. This guide is designed to help you set realistic expectations for the VR production process, know what to look for in a great VR development partner, and understand the process of production planning for your next VR training module. Click below to download this  White Paper.

Download eBook "Unbundling Content" Examples, Demo Micro-Learning Ray Jimenez, PhD VignettesLearning.com

Making resolutions can be a practical way to reflect on and determine goals that are important to you in the upcoming year. To see results for resolutions in your employee training program, it’s a good idea to focus in on one or two at a time. Your goals may be anything from figuring out how to fit employee training into your organization’s budget, to giving your program’s ROI a boost with post-training reinforcement. There is always room for improvement, and the new year is the perfect time to set new goals for your training program. In this guide, you'll find: 7 different employee training resolutions Key data to understand each one First steps toward the results you’re looking for Click below to download this White Paper.

MICROLEARNING Important Trend, or Flashy Fad? What the Science Says And How to Spot Vendors Selling You with Junk Science Microlearning as an idea has been around for a while. Now that the term has been made popular, vendors are falling over each other to convince companies that they have the best microlearning. But few vendors actually understand the science justifying the use of microlearning, let alone how it bears on instructional design. We present some of that objective research here, making the argument that microlearning is extremely effective, if it is done correctly. Click below to download this White Paper.

In this video Dr. Ray Jimenez provides some provocative ideas on what micro-learning is and how it may change the face of learning completely in the future. 

What Are The Most Effective Tips For Successful Learning Management System Implementation?  By Tridib Roy Chowdhury I've had the opportunity to work with numerous clients over the years. Each had their own unique requirements, budgets, and list of must-have features. Regardless of their differences, I always share the same LMS implementation tricks to ensure a smooth and stress-free LMS implementation process. Click below to download this White Paper.

Making Leadership Happen   More than ever, in a fast-changing and interconnected world, organizations feel the need for leadership. As a result, managers get a lot of advice on how to be more effective leaders. Articulate a clear vision, engage your employees, develop talent, have a global mindset, think strategically, create win-win solutions, leverage diversity, communicate effectively, hold people accountable, be an agile learner.    On one level, all of this advice makes great sense. Who could argue with it? At another level, it can be overwhelming.  We think it’s time to step back and take a different approach. Click below to download this White Paper.  

What is the #1 problem with every training event?  People forget. Research shows that the natural process of forgetting can have a materially negative effect on productivity, budgets, and time. Why? Because decades of research show that people can forget up to 80% of training information in a mere 30 days after a training event takes place.  But the fix is here, and it’s easy.  Download this white paper to learn:  1) Download this white paper to learn: How to augment your training programs so forgetting is minimized 2) What format of learning has the most impact across any learning demographic 3) How the techniques of Retrieval Practice can quickly increase knowledge retention by 90%+ Click below to download this White Paper.

Use this report to help you consider the best tools and technologies for helping workers (aka "learners") get stuff done and get it done well. Identify tools you want to keep using, stop using, start using, or improve how you use them. Here’s what you’ll find: Information about what L&D professionals actually did in 2017, and what they plan to do in 2018. Emerging trends for 2018 and beyond. Top roadblocks to delivering effective training and how those have changed over time. The training topics L&D professionals view as most important in 2018. Our insights into the data.