This paper is focused on the mobile virtual classroom but don’t worry, we’ll be covering the other concepts (globalization and social networks) in future publications. (The concepts are useful here to help explain the context in which we will be discussing the mobile virtual classroom and its place in the modern virtual classroom.)

Discover the impact of a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous (VUCA) world on current and future leadership requirements.    Learn how thinking agility will help you and your leaders adapt, focus and get more done in a rapidly changing and increasingly noisy environment. Explore four specific steps you can take to build your own and others’ thinking agility. Create your own action plan from the provided checklists to start putting better thinking to work for better performance and results.

This report looks at the implied promises to the instructional design field which include:  -Promises to the instructional designers/developers that they are valued not only financially but also as a professional.  -Promises to the instructional designer/developer’s organization that instructional designers/developers get better, deeper learning and show results through learning transfer.  -Promises to learners that their learning experiences are valuable use of their time and support their current and future work.  Finding ways to reach into organizations for these measures required tapping the instructional design industry and market. A series of focus groups or interviews was planned. This report summarizes the interview process, data, and projected next steps based on interview results. Data gathered about these promises will become part of the ID Certification application process of 2016. 

Successful leaders think differently. They think intentionally about where they are and where they want to go. They think strategically about how they can get there from here. And successful organizations are made up of successful leaders. Can changing your thinking really change your life and how your organization functions? Consider this: after studying successful people for over forty years, John C. Maxwell believes they are all alike in one way: how they think! That is the one thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

Do you wake up every Monday raring to go to work, full of new ideas, confident that you’ll be able to implement them, and passionate about what you do? If so, would you like to stay that way? And if not, doesn’t that sound pretty great?

After spending close to 30 years in human resources and organizational development, and participating  in  countless  retention and succession planning initiatives, I’ve  come to the conclusion that employees are not primarily fired or promoted because of their education, skills, or even amount of experience. Of course, those things are important in their own ways; you are expected to be informed, up-to-date, and capable of doing the job, whatever that might be. However, it’s often the intangibles that define an outstanding employee (or conversely, the less-than-outstanding employee). Companies increasingly understand this shift, and have implemented behavior-based interview techniques during the candidate evaluation and selection process. This approach aims to match the key behavioral and / or trait competencies of an applicant to those that define success in  a  particular job - or in a broader sense, in the larger organization.

Large, global organizations typically operate disparate business systems around the world - increasing information technology costs and impacting service consistency for customers. To increase efficiency and performance, many enterprises choose to optimize their operations based on globally standardized ‘core’ systems. Implementing core software applications, such as SAP, PeopleSoft, SalesForce, Maximo, WorkDay, etc., takes a major investment not only in the technology infrastructure but also in preparing the end-users to operate within the system. Business cases are prepared to forecast the potential savings resulting from the installation of the new application. Assumptions are made on how quickly and thoroughly the users of the application will be able to use it efficiently and effectively. These expectations can be jeopardized if the technology roll-out is delayed or slowed because the users are not ready to meet these assumptions. If a company wants to achieve its business case goals, they need to ensure they get maximum end-user adoption with skilled, competent users.

Today’s dynamic global economy has increased the need for organizational training across all industries. Efficient, cost-effective training and employee development are necessary for day-to-day operations and for meeting strategic business objectives. Many organizations turn to online meeting tools to meet their needs, and there’s no shortage of options. Simple and free. Low-cost/low-feature. Enterprise-grade offerings built for business. But online learning and collaboration require more than a one-size-fits-all solution.

Do you wake up every Monday raring to go to work, full of new ideas, confident that you’ll be able to implement them, and passionate about what you do?  If so, would you like to stay that way?  And if not, doesn’t that sound pretty great? Best-selling author, keynote speaker and bona-fide expert on employee engagement, Bob Kelleher has researched and reflected on these issues deeply.  In his new book, I-Engage:  Your Personal Engagement Roadmap" Bob offers valuable insights and even potential solutions.  Click below to download the first chapter of this latest revelation.  It begins... Engagement is the key. Back in 2003, global consulting firm Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson) identified and defined an intriguing concept that would go on to revolutionize the way companies thought about their most important asset: their employees. Called "employee engagement," it was originally loosely defined as "the capture of discretionary effort." Discretionary effort, simply put, means going above and beyond at one’s job, or putting in additional effort, because one wants to do so. 

Just as B2B sales strategies must adapt to increasingly savvy buyers, sales training must change too. This brief discusses how newer training content and methods can result in a better, smarter sales force.

Attention spans are dropping at the same time technology is advancing, leading to a digital skills gap costing the U.S. economy 1.3 trillion dollars in lost productivity. Therefore there’s an ever-growing need for new and better ways to teach, learn and train the 21st century workforce -- and Microlearning is the solution. This white paper is designed to educate L&D professionals on the advantages microlearning can offer their organizations and a brief introduction on how to create it. In this white paper you’ll learn: Why microlearning is better for learners Why microlearning is better for trainers and creators The principles of effective microlearning and how to create it for your own organization  

Despite billions spent on leadership development, the investment doesn’t seem to be having the impact one would expect. This may be due to the lack of traction these programs typically have when it comes to lasting behavior change. This white paper provides 22 lessons that will help increase the likelihood that the skills learned in a leadership development program will "stick" and be used on the job.

2013 Integrated Talent Management Survey Results   Two different divisions trip over each other, recruiting the same candidate. A consulting firm is unable to meet staffing needs for a new, tightly scheduled project. An organization doesn’t have a clear picture of up-and-coming leadership for succession planning. A business merging with another company can’t easily identify overlap of staff skills. Sound familiar? All of these scenarios point to poor integration of HR solutions. At SilkRoad, we feel this topic is so important that we surveyed 380 HR professionals on their integrated talent management systems and processes. We've compiled those results into a comprehensive (and complimentary!) report. This report highlights the survey results and explores the most pressing questions confronting talent management professionals, including: How truly integrated are talent management functions in organizations? What are the most common talent management functions that companies integrate? What are the biggest pain points organizations experience due to lack of integration? What kind of data do professionals want, but can’t access? Big Data: What is it and are talent management professionals planning to use it? How important is "social" talent management to professionals, and what do they see as its greatest application? Are companies enabling mobile access to their HR data?

It is hard to fault the idea that appraisal reveals an employee’s abilities and a development plan should follow naturally from that. The smooth link looks good on paper. The reality is a good deal messier. It is not that HR is doing something wrong, just that the process is harder than it looks. Understanding why it is hard will lead to better results. Download this complimentary ebook and gain a full understanding of the link between appraisal and development, and what you can do to smooth this tricky process.

The reality of business today means that organizations will have to grow the talent they need when they can’t find it. Developing talent internally over the long term will be most of the solution. You’ll want some recommendations in your back pocket when your CEO turns to you for answers. Learning managers will be seen as the go-to resources when it comes to compensating for major skill gaps in talent. By socializing learning, mobilizing the technology, creating strategic stretch assignments, partnering with institutions, and speaking to the bottom line, HR can make learning an integral solution to filling skill gaps in the organization.

Social business tools are not entirely new. Enterprises have been using virtual tools such as chat and message board tools for years. Yet today, Gartner predicts that by 2016 half of all large organizations will have internal Facebook-like social networks, and that 30% of those will be considered as essential as email and phone.   Why are we seeing such a rapidly accelerating interest and business investment in social business implementations, especially as Gartner notes in Enterprise Social Networks (ESN)? How do you understand how ESNs can help you and how do you get started? Don't get overwhelmed. Download this free eBook from Bloomfire to learn how.

I spent this summer writing the second edition of my book Web-Based Training. One of the topics that required updating was blended learning. In the four years since the book was published, the term has taken on several new means. In my research I found the term blended learning referred to four different concepts.

As instructional designers we are constantly being bombarded with new technologies and new trends. It’s difficult to distinguish which are fads, and which are worthy of our investments of time and resources. The safest, and often most expedient course of action is to continue to focus on the delivery technology we know is NOT a fad, the traditional classroom. After all we’ve been using the traditional classroom forever, how can we possibly go wrong teaching in a classroom in front of an audience? As new technologies, like the virtual classroom, eLearning, and social media, are introduced, we continue to play it safe by trying to make these technology experiences replicate the classroom.

Microlearning is a new kind of training for the digital age. This playbook offers strategies for applying this methodology to your own curriculum - a positive step in gaining back lost productivity and finding affordable, effective training for a more digitally capable workforce.

Bringing a new product to market? One of the hidden success factors of a product launch is your sales force, and by extension your customers. Do they have the right skills and knowledge to make your launch successful? This white paper will show you how a curriculum of learning solutions can be used as part of a product launch to solve common business problems.

To make technical and compliance elearning engaging, it needs to focus on the learners’ point of view. Thus, it must be short, immediately useful and employ episodic events and stories to help learners absorb and recall knowledge quickly.

Although variations of the flipped ideology have been around for years, Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams are considered pioneers of the movement since their adoption of the flipped classroom in 2007.       The idea of the flipped classroom is simple: take what's typically done in the classroom (lecture, direct instruction) and provide that for students to view at home, or outside of class, in the form of a video.  

It is not uncommon for learners' jobs to depend on their ability to master the critical information delivered to them via training. Imagine you must design and deliver a learning solution that addresses a critical business need. What would your approach be? Every day, stakeholders and designers make choices that sabotage corporate learning efforts... and result in wasted dollars that produce no result. If learners take a course, will they remember what they learned? In this white paper, you will discover four learning strategies that maximize long-term retention. Then, you'll learn about four additional strategies that maximize the learning from a single training event.

More than 200M adults in the US are part of the digital workforce, yet only 1-in-10 rate themselves as very proficient with the digital tools they use every day at work.  Training has not kept pace with technology, and workers, businesses and the entire economy are paying the price. Digital products and topics are rapidly proliferating and evolving, and yet there is virtually no professional development focused on these 21st century skills. For instance, organizations are using Dropbox and Box for file storage and sharing, Twitter and Facebook to connect with customers, and Google Docs and Analytics to run their businesses. These tools serve essential functions but they can only improve productivity with the right training. This paper will help you develop an action plan to assess and remedy the digital skills gaps in your business.