Workplace learning today

August social media blogger Geoff Livingston wrote an interesting post yesterday which highlighted Five Epic Social Media Failures. Though the subject in itself is an interesting one—a retrospective on what didn’t work in social media—the more interesting part for me is how he built his post.

If you look closely at his post, you’ll see how he sourced his content. He asked his Facebook friends, one of which I am, what we thought were the biggest social media blunder. He collected answers on his wall, those answers grew in popularity based on the “Likes” and then he made a summary. Once his blog post was written, he commented on the wall post discussion to let us know which ideas made the list.

It’s the same concept as Quora questions, yet smaller, more limited to his network, and it brings his network closer to him. I have a feeling that as Geoff collects opinions, he’ll definitely garner many opinions, knowing the popular answers will be highlighted.

In a world where everyone is competing to get everyone’s opinion, these types of strategies can help you breakthrough to your network and grow readership on your blog.

Five Epic Social Media Failures | Geoff Livingston | 26 April 2011

Agile Learning has been buzzing around for the past few years, perhaps in some circles even a decade, but like any new concept, it’s not always easy to wrap our head around it. In a research paper detailing the flaws with the ADDIE, Dick & Carey and Rapid Prototyping models, Peter Rawsthorne provides two key points on how Agile is different from prior ISD methodologies:

Agile methods are adaptive rather than predictive. Engineering methods tend to try to plan out a large part of the software process in great detail for a long span of time, this works well until things change. So their nature is to resist change. The agile methods, however, welcome change. They try to be processes that adapt and thrive on change, even to the point of changing themselves.

Agile methods are people-oriented rather than process-oriented. The goal of engineering methods is to define a process that will work well whoever happens to be using it. Agile methods assert that no process will ever make up the skill of the development team, so the role of a process is to support the development team in their work.

This resource is one in a long list provided by Tony Karrer in a recent blog post entitled Agile eLearning – 27 Great Articles on his eLearning Technology blog. What I particularly like about this list is that it comprises articles that give you various perspectives on this emerging approach. (KS)

Agile eLearning – 27 Great Articles | eLearning Technology | Tony Karrer | 6 April 2011

Agile Methods of Software Engineering should Continue to have an Influence over Instructional Design Methodologies (PDF)| Peter Rawsthorne | 10 December 2005

LCMSs Support Multiple Content Creators and New Mobile Devices

By Tom Werner, Chief Research Officer
March 2011

Introduction:

Some organizations today face a situation of multiplicity on both the creation side and the consumption side of learning content. On the creation side, organizations face the need for learning content created by Subject Matter Experts and other users. These content creators are in addition to the instructional designers and trainers on the learning staff.

On the consumption side, organizations are discovering that, with the proliferation of various types of tablets and smartphones, learners are accessing their learning content – or at least wish to access their content – with a wide and unknown array of devices. It cannot be assumed anymore that people are consuming learning content on standard computer desktops and laptops with standard screen sizes and known software setups.

Complete a short research survey to download the full research brief. (RN)

I’ll be presenting a free Webinar next Tuesday. Hope you can join me.

Building the Business Case for LMS
Tuesday, April 26, 2011, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. & Canada)

The departments within your organization are competing for limited financial and human resources. Key decision-makers need to be convinced that the initiatives they approve will provide value. Join Richard Nantel, co-CEO of Brandon Hall Group, for a fast-moving session on how to build a convincing business case for a learning and development initiative. Read more and register > (RN)

Robert Darnton dispels five myths of the information age:

1. “The book is dead.” Wrong: More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year.
2. “We have entered the information age.” …every age is an age of information, each in its own way and according to the media available at the time.
3. “All information is now available online.” Only a tiny fraction of archival material has ever been read, much less digitized. Most judicial decisions and legislation, both state and federal, have never appeared on the Web. The vast output of regulations and reports by public bodies remains largely inaccessible to the citizens it affects. Google estimates that 129,864,880 different books exist in the world, and it claims to have digitized 15 million of them—or about 12 percent.
4. “Libraries are obsolete.” Everywhere in the country librarians report that they have never had so many patrons.
5. “The future is digital.” True enough, but misleading. In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important.

Although The Chronicle of Higher Education is focused on university education, it’s a great site for general content related to learning and development. I visit this site at least weekly. Check it out. (RN)

5 Myths About the ‘Information Age’ | The Chronicle of Higher Education | Robert Darnton | 17 April 2011

Years ago, if we needed an animation, we would turn to a Flash developer. Now there are services such as Animoto and Wibbitz that take still images, text, music loops, and automatically mash them up into engaging animations for our attention-challenged audiences. Here’s a sample of what Wibbitz can do:

And here’s what you can do with Animoto:

Wibbitz: Create Interactive Video From Web Content | Makeuseof.com | 15 April 2011

If you’re involved in coaching, take a couple of minutes to complete Lynn Wernham’s short survey about the use of social media to support face-to-face coaching.

(Lynn, a Senior Judge in the Brandon Hall Awards, is conducting this research as part of master’s work.)

My home province of Quebec has launched a certification program to recognize companies that provide their employees with a healthy work-family balance. According to a government spokesperson:

“This standard is a seal of excellence that sends the message that Quebec promotes the right balance between work and family”

Although some companies around the world have self-imposed work-life balance policies, this is the first government program.

According to this article, organizations that have measures in place to promote a healthy work-life balance benefit from a reduction in turnover and attract more top talent. (RN)

Quebec ‘certifies’ firms for work-life balance | The Globe and Mail | Bertrand Marotte | 13 April 2011

If you’re looking for a free and easy way to have group discussions around a topic, you have many tools to pick from. In a recent post, Makeuseof.com pointed us to Convore, a group communication tool. The service describes itself as follows:

Convore is the best way to communicate with groups in real-time. You can join an existing group or create your own. Then post topics and have conversations with friends about those topics.

Also mentioned are similar tools such as Nurph, tgethr, Re:Subj, and Phuser. Many of these types of tools support mobile devices, allowing the discussions to continue when away from a traditional computer. (RN)

Convore: A Web-Based Group Communication Service | Makeuseof.com | 8 April 2011

Recommendation engines are everywhere. Listen to an artist you like on a music service such as Pandora and the software will suggest similar artists you may enjoy. Buy a book on Amazon and the e-commerce behemoth will suggest other books you may like. Rent a movie from Netflix and the Blockbuster killer will suggest other films you may enjoy.

Some universities are now experimenting with similar recommendation services to help students select their courses.

Last week, under­graduates at Austin Peay State Uni­versity were invited to visit its new online recommendation system before meeting with their academic advisers. When suggesting a course, the automated system considers each student’s planned major, past academic performance, and data on how similar students fared in that class. It crunches this information to arrive at a recommendation. An early test of the system found that it could lead to higher grades and fewer dropouts, officials say.

How times have changed. In my day, students used to pick courses based on whether they’d get Friday’s off or the ability to sleep in. (RN)

The Netflix Effect: When Software Suggests Students’ Courses | The Chronicle of Higher Education | By Jeffrey R. Young | 10 April 2011

Interesting article about using games for training.

The gist is that games can drive more engagement.

You can play one of the games: Plantville, a game launched by Siemens.

Here’s a video:

Oddest quote from the article:

Software maker SAP is turning to gamification to help corporate board members prepare for meetings. Directors typically must slog through thick binders full of documents or dashboards that feature key performance metrics. SAP is developing an application for Apple’s iPad that boasts game elements such as progress bars and leader boards to get directors “more engaged in consuming various pieces of data,” says Reuven Gorsht, senior director of strategy and global pre-sales at SAP.

(TW)

The Games Companies Play | 4 April 2011

Justin Fox interviews Bob Pozen, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and author for HBR and HBR Blogs, who shares with us his tips and trips for being more productivity in and HBR IdeaCast. The following are the key points discussed:

• Focus on results, not on time spent. For a long time, and perhaps still in many organizations, much value is placed on the employee who works long hours to complete a project. It is seen as a sign of dedication, devotion and commitment. The problem is that it’s completely inefficient. Pozen suggests that  finding efficient ways of getting results should be the focus and priority. He mentions that in the past, he has told clients that he worked work twice as fast but charge them double his time and they had no objections. In the organization that I work for, more often than not, we charge by deliverable and by results rather than by time, which is another way of tackling this issue.

• Know your comparative advantage. Most of us are familiar with the notion of competitive advantage: what it is that we do better than our competitors. But in an organization, our peers are not our competitors, or at least, they should not be. When thinking of an organization as a system, being competitive within the system is inefficient. Rather, according to Pozen, you should be thinking about your comparative advantage, that is what does your organization needs most from you. Management-level individuals need to focus on the question: “What are the functions that I and only I can do” and delegate the rest. Even in work teams, individuals need to focus on their strengths and unique abilities.

• Think first. Read or write second. This one really hit home. I’ve been applying this principle since as early as I can remember, instinctively. I always hid it, thinking it would be seen as taking shortcuts, which in turn could be perceived as laziness. Now I’m so thrilled to learn that this is simply efficiency! Pozen explains that when you think before you read and think about what it is that you are looking for, you know better what to focus and know what to skip over. Thinking before you write means developing an outline as soon as possible (which can be revised) to steer your research and what arguments you want to write.

• Prepare your plan, but be ready to change it. What are the highest priorities you need to achieve today? Whether you plan these the night before or early in the day, identify what it is that you absolutely need to get done today. If you start the day with that approach and something comes along to disturb your schedule, which for extremely busy people is very likely to happen, you’ll know what are the key things you need to focus on getting done and you’ll be able to defer the less important things. An additional note on this last point: My professional coach Nancy gave me an extremely helpful tool designed by Stephen Covey:  The four-quadrant matrix for importance andurgency, which is an amazing tool for priority management.

• Naps are also high on Pozen’s top tips for productivity. The benefits of reenergizing through sleep are well know, and it’s a wonder we aren’t better equipped in our modern offices to allow for this. According to Pozen, research shows that a 30 minute nap can let you refresh and be more productive. He does this by putting his feet up on his desk and dozing off.

• Being boring, or perhaps what I like to call having a routine, such as having the same simple breakfasts and lunches, is a way to take away some of the non-necessary thinking out of your day. Again, this is something I instinctively do because he’s right, it is a huge time saver. I spend a lot of time thinking of what I should be eating in general, that is what kinds of foods I should be buying for nutritional and health reasons, but very little time being creative about breakfasts and lunches on weekdays. That said, I keep the creativity for supper when I’m relaxing.

You may want to listen to the podcast on the HBR site or download this podcast in mp3 format. For more blog posts by Prozen, check out a list of blogs on productivity which he co-wrote with Justin Fox on HBR Blogs. (KS)

Productivity Secrets of a Very Busy Man | HBR IdeaCast | Justin Fox | 7 April 2011

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Here’s a factoid about LMS buyers.

Richard Nantel and I did a webinar last week on LMS Trends, and in a poll question we asked the attendees, ‘Is this your first LMS or are you replacing an existing LMS?’

78 of 135 respondents (58%) answered, ‘Replacing an existing LMS.’

We didn’t ask a follow-up question about why.

Some possible reasons would probably be:

O  Looking for more features and functionality than in previous LMS.

O  Following a general trend toward hosted systems (if their previous system was installed).

O  Looking for a new vendor if the previous vendor was involved in a merger.

O  Dissatisfaction with service from previous vendor.

We’ll look forward to getting more data on this.

(TW)

As the economy recovers, employment is slowly rising. Rather than scanning resumes, smart organizations keep a list of top talent they wish to acquire. According to Steve Boese, the amount of corporate poaching is rising as organizations pull out their talent lists and start making contact.

Some organizations are taking a defensive stance to keep their top talent. But, they’re using strategies that just don’t work:

First, they made all of their sales reps make their LinkedIn profiles and connections private. They didn’t want their staff to be easily found and connected to by other recruiters, as well as their connections mined. Next, they had IT block all incoming email messages from the domains of their main competitors. They couldn’t have rival recruiters emailing their people directly, after all. And last, they took their partial social media blocking policy at work and extended it to more sites and networks. Sure, they still let folks, some folks, onto LinkedIn, but that is about it. Taking those few steps, in their opinion, would help in slowing down, if not stopping, the exodus of good people to their enemies.

We live in a highly connected world. Anyone can be reached. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. Firewalls around top talent will not keep your competitors from luring them away. (RN)

Scared of Losing Talent? Circle the Wagons! (But We Still See You in There…) | Fistful of Talent | Steve Boese | 6 April 2011

Nancy Duarte, author of “slide:ology” and CEO of Duarte Design, shares her thoughts on how to present in a way that keeps the audience engaged. Hint: it isn’t about the PowerPoint slides, it’s about story telling and connecting with people. According to Ms. Duarte:

We use our slides as a barrier to protect ourselves from having to connect at a human level.

Presentation skills should be taught in school, regardless of the topic area. These are one of those basic skills, like reading, writing, riding a bicycle, that everyone should have. (RN)

You can watch the full interview here:

Ditch the jargon and back away from those tired slides | O’Reilly Radar | Jenn Webb | 4 April 2011

Interesting post by Tom Kuhlmann about various graphics tips and techniques for e-learning, such as how to use PowerPoint to make your own clip art from your photos.

Amazing tricks that people know…

And lots of strange free stuff out there, like a free airline ticket graphic generator…

The main take-away is that if you use Articulate, join the community.

5 Time-saving Tips from the E-learning Community | 5 April 2011

Makeuseof.com is a great site to browse for new applications, many of which can be used to solve day-to-day learning and development challenges. Last week, this site presented a tool called Topicmarks. Topicmarks is a program designed to summarize texts. You can try out the site by uploading a text file, pasting text into a field, or pointing the site to a URL.

Makeuseof.com describes Topicmarks as follows:

TopicMarks will be ideal for students preparing for an exam or for anybody who wants to understand a piece of long text faster.

The service is free while in beta. (RN)

Topicmarks: Converts Long Texts To A List Of Facts & A Summary | Makeuseof | 29 March 2011

Brian P. Hall is an assistant professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. A student recently dropped his class because, according to the student, his learning style was at odds with how the class was taught. Mr. Hall relates what came next:

Foolishly, I asked for an explanation, and he spent the next five minutes outlining every instance in which I had interfered with his learning style, including by assigning homework, giving tests, taking attendance, and requiring that all essays be typed, printed out, and handed in at the very beginning of class.

The rest of this article describes how our consumer-driven society is creating a university culture where students are “customers” and instructors are “educational liaisons.” (RN)

Educating Our Customers | The Chronicle of Higher Education | Brian P. Hall | 30 March 2011

Interesting article about information designers coming up with ways to visualize information, particularly statistics.

“The purpose of visualization,” says Ben Shneiderman, founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, “is insight, not pictures.”

Don’t miss Hans Rosling’s visualization of the health and wealth of 200 countries over 200 years:

(TW)

When the Data Struts Its Stuff | 2 April 2011

Students studying Folklore and Ethnology, Classics and Classical Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Renaissance Studies, and other humanities disciplines will be thrilled to read this post. Tony Golsby-Smith says hiring people with backgrounds in humanities can be good for your organization.

People trained in the humanities who study Shakespeare’s poetry, or Cezanne’s paintings, say, have learned to play with big concepts, and to apply new ways of thinking to difficult problems that can’t be analyzed in conventional ways.

According to the author, workers who studied subjects in the humanities are good at dealing with complex and ambiguous situations, can provide out-of-the box thinking, have strong communication skills, and have strong interpersonal skills, leading to increased customer and employee satisfaction.

This may help explain why the Faculty of Medicine at my alma mater, McGill University, used to actively recruit students from the Faculty of Music and other departments. (RN)

Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities | Harvard Business Review | Tony Golsby-Smith | 31 March 2011