Apple, Starbucks and many others have proved beyond doubt that the right customer experience can trump even price in a highly competitive market. But how do you prepare customer-contact associates to deliver the experience that your savvy customers expect?

Coaching is that tool that really helps training professionals integrate into the mainstream of the organization’s business imperatives. There has never been a better time to adopt coaching as more and more research and case studies illustrate the impact training professionals can have with the use of coaching.

Thanks to the popularity of Siri on the iPhone, voice enablement applications are exploding. In this program, Nancy Munro will provide several examples of how organizations can utilize voice enablement for performance support, training, data collection and more. Many of these applications can be created without a deep level of technical expertise.

MOOCs are the talk of the town in the higher education space, but what can they mean for corporate training?

What Comes Before Happiness? This was the essential question that the data posed to happiness researcher Shawn Achor. While recent advances in neurobiology and scientific methods have clearly demonstrated a link between happiness and success; the question they had NOT answered was: "Why do some people move toward a more positive state quicker and more easily than others?"

How do you deliver training and successfully compete with all the noise, chatter and information overload that is going on? How do you persuade learners to pay attention to your content and ideas when they are busy and have no time?

Most smart phone users check their phones a whopping 150 times a day, and tablet shipments surpassed desktop PCs and notebooks in fourth quarter 2012, according to The Meeker report. Clearly, mobile devices have become an integral part of people’s lives—and many of them now want the option of getting their workplace training on these mobile devices. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

This presentation will define ‘Big Data’ and its impact on organizational decision-making. It will then focus on defining talent development processes that house big data and identifying data sources and classification of metrics to transform data into wisdom through timely, credible, predictive analytics.

When you ask, "What does learning look like?" no one answers, "Someone talking in front of a room." We learn by doing, and by telling what we're doing, and by watching others do things, and by showing others how we did something. Narrating work can solve so many problems for organizations, from capturing tacit knowledge, to easing transitions when workers depart, to further enabling informal and social learning. What does it look like, and how can Training & Development (T&D) help it happen?

Effective onboarding is critical to ensuring that new-hires are quickly acclimated to your company culture, trained and ready for success. Today’s onboarding programs, however, face new and difficult challenges posed by a geographically dispersed, multigenerational workforce.

The DECLARE methodology of instructional design was developed with both the program and course in mind. DECLARE is a set of practical recommendations and content reminders used when creating training programs and courses.

Mobile learning is exciting to talk about and the potential seems unlimited but ambitious visioncasting can only take you so far. Are there examples out there of mLearning being used successfully in real life? This webinar will take a look at several mobile learning case studies and evaluate the initiatives on all levels from concept to completion.

In this interactive webinar, Lou will share the highlights of her ½ day ‘bring-your-own-workshop’ session scheduled for Chicago on the afternoon of 9/19/13. There really isn’t any need to pick between SAM and ADDIE! The methodology you use is USELESS if you don’t know WHY the business is doing your project.

The Visual Cortex is the area of the brain we use to process visual information. We can communicate an action or perceived affordance on a computer screen by applying simple visual techniques. The term, "less is more" is the key by allowing learners to use their imagination and experiences to complete the image or graphic and in turn results in higher retention. As instructional designers we want our designs to be visually appealing and relevant.

Although we don't have a sell-by date stamped on our foreheads, according to a 27-country survey, obsolescence is the number one concern employees share around the world. Will my skills and abilities remain fresh in order to sell my wares in the marketplace of jobs? Or will I pass my sell-by-date and become obsolete, facing underemployment or unemployment? There is reason to worry.

It's estimated that unengaged workers cost the US $350 billion/year and that US businesses lose $11 billion annually as a result of employee turnover. Clearly engagement is a key priority for all organizations - so why is it so low? And more importantly, what can be done-quickly-to get it right?

Training Magazine’s Training Top 125 Award winners are the organizations with the most successful learning and development programs in the world. These organizations tie training to corporate strategic goals and have the business results to show for it. Indeed, as a result of its training efforts, Jiffy Lube has experienced eight consecutive years of increased average revenue per customer and improved customer service scores. The company’s aligned and focused approach to training has increased store certification, reduced turnover, and resulted in high approval ratings by franchisees.

Manage learning and development like a business by gathering the right metrics, driving continuous improvement, and reporting results up to the executive level.

We’re sure you’ll echo our sentiment when we say that lecture-style training sessions can be quite the bore. Maybe even to the point of your business experiencing a case of "death by PowerPoint" (think rolling eyes and uncontrollable yawns). Since that’s no way to keep employees pleasant and productive, let’s see what we can do to switch things up in the boardroom.

This webinar is dedicated to teaching how organizations can gain a competitive edge in the marketplace using coaching. Learn how to educate employees and managers about their responsibility for coaching. Learn how training staff get managers engaged and have a dialogue that facilitates manager involvement for coaching.

What's your biggest leadership challenge? Engaging employees? Preparing emerging leaders to step up? Building high-performance teams? Developing a leadership mindset across the organization? If you're like most training leaders today, the answer is "all of the above." The good news is, you and your leaders already have the best tool for navigating an "all of the above" world-the brain. You just need to know how to consciously shift your thinking when the situation requires it. Learn how to do it in this interactive webinar!

A LOLA is a Live Online Learning Activity that transforms boring webinars into dynamic interaction. In this walk-the-talk session, learn to increase and improve interactivity in your virtual classrooms through the use of five new types of LOLA.  Use textra games to add something extra to textual content on the screen. Use Assessment-Based Learning Activities to integrate diagnosis with just-in-time training. Use instructional magic to intrigue your participants into mindful learning. Combine storytelling techniques with the case method. Use optical illusions to encourage metaphorical exploration.  

Pictorials, symbols, emoticons, visualizations and snapshots are 30-Second Learning Moments. However, they are challenging to create and construct because of pressure to deliver massive amounts of content. There is fear that our learners may not grasp what we want them to learn. This is the "They Must Learn All Content" mindset of trainers and designers.

We've all been there- as a current or aspiring HR leader; we all know that the business of putting out fires often takes over any time to be proactive in our roles. I've found two things that lead to success in pushing past this mode of operation. The first is taking responsibility for your own career development and creating a plan of action. The second is breaking your learning into small, manageable bites so that you're able to master upgrading your skills and approach.