Free T&D webinars for November 2014

The year is racing along—here come darker days, with crunch-time to the holidays not far behind. Why not leverage this relatively calm time to build up your knowledge? November’s free webinars are full of innovative ideas, tips, and techniques to get you thinking about your business. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Monday, November 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST:Generation Z: Understanding the Next Generation of Worker(Free for ATD members)

Having grown up post-9/11, in the wake of the great recession, and always connected online, Generation Z is an emerging group that your entire company needs to understand, from HR to marketing. Gen Z represents 23 million Americans born between 1994 and 2010. Dan Schawbel has spent the past year learning about Gen Z through a global research study spanning the world, from America to the UK to South Africa. The first of its kind, the study sought to understand the implications of this generation from both a workplace and a consumer perspective. Dan found that while Gen Y is more optimistic, Gen Z is realistic and has a strong sense of career management, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship. This self-sufficient and tech-savvy generation also poses new threats and opportunities for managers, marketers, and HR professionals. No matter what interests you about Generation Z, this webcast is tailor-made to fit your needs.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why Context Is King, Not Content – and What to Do in Your Learning Design

Learners are constantly on the go and demand rapid, short, and instant learning tools to perform on the job. Whether participating in structured courses or informal learning, they want knowledge acquisition to be fast and easy. Their leaders and businesses allow less time for training and expect shorter learning time. Most content is designed for DEEP DIVE LEARNING. However, learners' priority need is HIGH CONTEXT LEARNING to help them instantly find meaning and usefulness.

This webinar will share insights, techniques, methods, and tools on how to help organize your content so you aid the learner to determine what to learn first and how to learn it faster. This increases the application value of the content so they are equipped to solve problems and respond to on-the-job demands.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Women, Leadership, and Success(Free for ATD members)

Companies should not be run solely by men or be predominately male; nor should they be run solely by women. Generally, women offer different leadership skills and competencies than men, and these skills are every bit as important—if not more so. Women are more focused on organizational culture, the spirit of a company’s employees, and the long-term effects of decisions and actions. We need the best of both the male and female perspective in today's leadership.

During this webcast, you will learn to:

• Empower women to continue their careers while attending to family responsibilities.

• Communicate the accomplishments of everyone in the organization, including those working remotely.

• Let go of limiting assumptions about women in business and the importance of being open-minded.

John Keyser will help you recognize the skills and competencies of talented women regarding leadership, client relationships, sales (such as creating new relationships), and the positive influence they bring to organizational culture.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 6AM – 6:30AM PST: Brandon Hall Group Membership: Dynamic Tools for Business Improvement

Whether you work within a Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development, or HR/Workforce Management function, a Brandon Hall Group Membership unlocks answers to questions that every organization needs in order to excel in today's fast-changing business environment.

Here are just a few findings from our latest research:

• 68 percent of organizations say that coaching and mentoring is a highly effective learning method, but only 27 percent currently use it widely within their organizations.

• Over 50 percent of organizations say their biggest regret when implementing HR systems is lack of training.

• 64 percent of organizations operate without even a high-level strategy to guide their hiring strategy and initiatives.

If you are looking to enhance your human capital management processes, develop a better strategy, plan a major technology purpose or an organizational transformation initiative, Brandon Hall Group can help with its vast array of online resources and advisory and training services. Our members receive unlimited access to research and generous collaboration time with our team of expert analysts. Learn more about how BHG can be part of your team.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: The IBM Manager Experience: A Strategic Transformation(Free for ATD members)

IBM is currently leading its networked enterprise through a major transformation. New markets, new buyers, and new ways of working are demanding greater agility and speed like never before. In addition, IBM’s strategy to lead Cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security has leaders at all levels working towards reinventing IBM to deliver a differentiated client experience.

Learn how the newly formed IBM Management Development Team turned its programs inside out and flipped the classroom, offering managers the tools and experiences needed to engage IBMers in delivering a new client experience. The director of this initiative, Wagner Denuzzo, will share how the management development team was able to design the experience, deploy programs, and gain senior leadership support within one year to create the New IBM Manager Experience.

During this webcast, you will learn:

• How IBM is elevating the role of the manager to achieve the company’s strategic goals and change the landscape of management development.

• What, how, and who to engage when initiating changes in your organization.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Behind the Screens: Secrets to Successful Synchronous Online Events

Just about anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and a headset can produce and lead a virtual class, webinar, or other synchronous online event. Solid instructional design and good presentation skills will certainly help make these events effective, enjoyable, and successful, but challenges almost inevitably arise: Several of your participants can’t log in, no one responds to your carefully designed polls, your Internet connection drops just as you’re about to start the event, or that video … just … won’t … play.

Join us as we talk with three experts on designing and producing successful synchronous online events. Karen, Melissa, and Tammy are part of the team that has been producing The eLearning Guild’s Online Forums and various webinars for over a decade, they lead several Guild Academy courses on online-event design and production, and they have worked through just about every challenge to a successful online event imaginable. We’ll review several of these real-life challenges, discuss how we can meet these challenges with grace and ease, and learn what really happened.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Mental Game of Project Management: The Math of Project Lies

Pretend Lou just asked you how long it would take to you to design a job aid to support the new Hands-Only CPR process for your company. What would your answer be? Would you need more time to answer? Would you quickly Google to see what else is available or wing it on your own? And once you told Lou the number, would it be how long it would take you uninterrupted or how long it will take you on the calendar given your present workload? In other words, if you said two hours, would I get the job aid in two hours or two weeks from now when you have time to work on it?

At the Training 2015 Conference, Lou will be facilitating the Project Management Simulation clinic. During this session you will laugh and learn about:

• The Lies we tell ourselves during our projects that prevent success.

• The Lies our customers believe that prevent success.

• The Lies our stakeholders and executives believe that prevent success.

• How to eliminate guessing and just work back from the date.

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Metrics that Matter in Onboarding Excellence

New Hire Onboarding sits at a critical junction in human capital management. As the process through which candidates become employees, it presents a unique opportunity for talent leaders to harness the momentum built up in the hiring process and launch new hires into a successful career within the organization. And yet, onboarding remains largely an administrative process for the majority of organizations today.

According to Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 State of Talent Acquisition Report, a mere 27 percent rated their onboarding process as more than moderately effective. By identifying KPIs and tracking the metrics that matter, these organizations are keeping ahead of the curve.

In this webinar, SilkRoad and Brandon Hall Group are teaming up to explore the metrics that matter most in high-performance new-hire onboarding programs. Questions this webinar will explore:

• What are the most important metrics to measure in new-hire onboarding?

• How do you gauge the impact of a more robust onboarding program?

• What role does technology play in a high-performance onboarding program?

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding the Return on Investment in Blended Learning

Developing a blend takes investments in hardware, software, content development, and program design.  Implementing a blend requires investments in managing the program, marketing the program, and maintaining motivation through what might be a multiple-week (or month!) program for participants.

When we develop a face-to-face program, we know immediately after delivery what needs to change and we can adapt before we teach again. With blended programs, it might take six weeks to figure it out. After all this, how do we know if the blended learning program was worth the investment?  Sure, we can tell if people enjoyed the content using Level 1 evaluations, and if people LEARNED the content using Level 2 evaluations, but how do we evaluate at Level 3 (are they using what they learned on the job?) and ultimately Level 4 (was it worth the investment?).

These components together provide the background we need to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of our blended learning initiative. During this session we will discuss:

• The pros and cons of virtual, on-demand and face-to-face learning.

• How evaluation levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 relate to ROI.

• Applying a five-step process to calculate ROI of a blended learning initiative.

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Using Your LMS to Drive Customer Engagement and Deliver Results(Free for ATD members)

In a workplace with ever-increasing workloads, distractions, and information, getting potential learners to engage has never been more difficult. The days of an “If you build it, they will come” strategy are well behind us, and best-practice organizations are using a range of tactics to engage, excite, and build loyalty among learners.

Join us for a 60-minute session as we take a closer look at how one of those organizations, Bridgestone Americas, has put in place a multi-faceted engagement strategy with learning at the core. In this webcast, you will:

• Hear how Bridgestone defined its business challenge and strategy.

• See how Bridgestone implemented a learning portal that incorporates gamification, social learning, incentives, and more to engage its customers.

• Discover a framework for effective customer engagement.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Ensuring Happiness at Work

We have reached a unique time in history where no longer can we increase working hours and workloads expecting to maximize productivity and engagement. We can do better though—in a way that is both “good for people and good for business.” 

Contrary to what most of us have been told, our Success and Happiness formula is backwards. When we put happiness first everything changes. The science proves it. Want engagement? Want business success? Start with happiness. And sustain it. 

How do you do that?  How do you raise happiness levels for the long term?  How can you insure happiness?

In this webinar Shawn Achor and Gary Baker President of Nationwide Brokerage Services provide real-life examples of happiness efforts taking root. In this interview you’ll learn:

• How one organization is creating sustainable business outcomes and ensuring happiness by embedding positive psychology in its work routines.

• The latest in research findings on the application of positive psychology in the workplace.

• The leader’s role in getting our brains and organizations to move towards both positive and engaged.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Who Is Going to Leave Your Company This Year?

Engagement is the greatest indicator of why an employee makes a decision to stay with their current employer. When employees are motivated to perform, overall business outcomes such as productivity, performance, and retention improve dramatically.

Although most companies recognize the benefits of a highly engaged workforce, few have the right strategies or tools to make it work. In fact, most companies are doing very little outside of simple engagement surveys. During this presentation, Brandon Hall Group analysts will share the top challenges, strategies and technology solutions for engaging and retaining your workforce. Key takeaways include:

• The process for integrating engagement in overall talent management strategies, including performance and succession planning.

• The technology and tools to help organizations improve engagement and retention levels.

• The metrics to evaluate engagement and retention efforts.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: From Silence to Brilliance: How to Kick Off a Compelling Presentation

Lights! Camera! Crickets? Don't let the deafening silence of a disengaged audience derail your presentation. Immediately capture attendees’ attention by dazzling them with a wow-worthy introduction. Attend this live, interactive webinar to learn:

• Confidence-building techniques to help kick-start presentations.

• Pre-work that will increase the likelihood of engaging openings.

• How to structure introductions that really motivate participation.

• And more...

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 6AM – 6:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value(see below if you prefer a later session)

All solution providers need tools to connect with clients, and Brandon Hall Group  provides you with a wide variety. Our newest and best include:

BusinessBuilders: A research-based tool that helps organizations make a business case for new technology purchases. Available for licensing.

DataNow: Our new online platform that puts customizable research results in your hands as soon as our analysts close a survey. You can instantly filter data by company size, revenue, and region; reports on major verticals are also available. DataNow comes with all Ultimate memberships.

KnowledgeBlasts: Short research reports—on topics like technology selection and implementation—that deliver compelling data as well as tips on how to succeed. Available for licensing or as part of our Premier or Ultimate membership packages.

KnowledgeGraphics: Research data for your clients or prospects to put to immediate use. One-page, colourful graphics available for licensing or as part of Premier or Ultimate membership.

Learn more about these tools—and other services Brandon Hall Group offers to solution providers—at this insightful webinar.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value

A second web session is also available.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Top Ten Ways to Maximize the Value from Training 2015 (or any other learning event)!!

Who else has gone to training, or a workshop, or a conference—gotten inspired, perhaps overwhelmed with all the information—and 60 days later—no matter how great the experience—has to admit that they have not applied anything (okay—very little)? Our learners have this happen more often than we'd like—and if we are honest as trainers, we do it too!

But that ends as soon as you attend this webinar! In just 60 minutes Bob Pike will help you explore a powerful ten-step plan that you can implement immediately to maximize your next learning experience—hopefully Training 2015! Many trainers can attend one conference or event per year—if they are lucky—and often the next year it's someone else's turn. Following the steps Bob lays out will give you a plan that will demonstrate so much ROI to your organization that there are sure to be many more learning events in your future!!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating Engaging Learning Video(Free for ATD members)

More people than ever are turning to video to learn new skills and obtain knowledge. Whether it’s on demand or as a part of webinars and eLearning products, learners are demanding visual content.

In this webcast, popular author Jonathan Halls will explain how video works in learning and what makes good video. He’ll also discuss the skills that trainers need in their personal development plans if they want video to be an important part of their professional toolkit. You will learn how video works as a communication medium, and explore the psychology behind why people watch and don’t watch video. Halls will highlight how you can make your videos more engaging and provide tips to help you shape your video so it’s focused on providing real learning. In this webcast, you will learn how to:

• Make people want to watch your video.

• Create video that engages learners.

• Shape your video so that it provides real learnin.

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: eLearning Essentials for a Device-Rich World(Free for ATD members)

Is mobile learning the next logical leap from online learning? Should you be ramping up your mobile solutions?

We have turned a corner in mobile-learning authoring with the availability of the easy-to-use, responsive authoring now found in Adobe Captivate 8! Join Allen Partridge for an introduction to responsive design and authentic learning for mobile devices.

Key takeaways:

• Learn how to deliver high-quality, seamless, responsive, and device-aware learning experiences without any programming.

• Choose from a selection of out-of-the-box responsive themes to render customized content for multiple devices.

• Create award-winning simulations, HD videos, interactive modules, games, and more using Adobe Captivate 8.

• Discover best practices for tweaking content on specific devices, and using the in-product preview to see how your project will appear on various screens.

• Learn how to publish the course as a single project and automatically deliver the most appropriate experience for your learner’s device.

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: mLearning: What’s Working

Mobile devices are playing an increasingly large role in the delivery of learning, but organizations are still struggling to identify the most effective ways to use them. According to Brandon Hall Group’s Mobile Learning 2014 survey, only 42 percent of organizations are doing anything more than allowing limited access to learning via mobile web browsers, but 87 percent agree that the use of mobile for learning will increase over the next 12 months.

Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Mark Simon, Senior Training Specialist for Hi Mark Solutions, as they examine some of the strategies organizations consider the most effective, as well as examples of companies successfully leveraging mLearning today.

Discussion topics:

• The current mLearning landscape.

• What’s working.

• Security challenges.

• Examples of mLearning.

Friday, November 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Best Webcast Series: Measuring Talent Development at Valvoline Instant Oil Change (Free for ATD members)

When measuring the impact of their programs, talent development departments too often settle for Level 4 data that doesn't connect to the needs of the business. In this session, you will see how Valvoline Instant Oil Change correlates actual employee business metrics with granular data from the employee training program. You will also look at methods for calculating a reasonable return on investment when the data you want isn't available.

Key takeaways from the webcast include:

• The true measure of training is actual employee job performance.

• Talent development departments should measure the knowledge, skills, and abilities that impact performance at a granular level.

• When you can't get the data you want, reasonable ROI calculations are still possible.

Monday, November 17, 2014, 9AM  – 10AM PST:The Self-Aware Leader: Reinventing Yourself, Others, and the Business (Free for ATD members)

Our work constantly challenges us to find faster and better ways of doing things—to reinvent. Yet the speed of business pushes leaders to maintain a pace that is exhilarating one day and exhausting the next. Leaders who move too fast risk missing important pieces of data that feed solid decision making. Self-aware leaders slow themselves down to speed themselves up. They recognize patterns around them to increase momentum and productivity. This interactive session presents practical and relevant guidelines based on the research of more than 700 leaders. The pillars highlighted will change the way you approach your work, your team, and your business. All participants of this webinar will have access to two special promotions: First, buy 50 copies of The Self-Aware Leader: A Proven Model for Reinventing Yourself and receive a free and perpetual license to the new one-day training program based on the book. Please note that 100 percent of all book proceeds go to City Year. Second, all participants in this webinar will gain access to an online self-assessment based on the research conducted to validate the model introduced in The Self-Aware Leader.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 9AM  – 10AM PST:The Coaching Approach: A Key Tool for Successful Managers (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, ATD Research discusses the current state of the use of coaching as a managerial tool, and provides insight on how learning leaders can more effectively develop and sustain successful coaching programs. Although coaching is a powerful tool, only about a quarter of organizations incorporate it into their talent-development portfolio.

Key questions that will be discussed:

• Have organizations identified the skills that managers need to be effective?

• Do learning leaders provide managers with the learning assets associated with the necessary skills?

• Do organizations emphasize, measure, and recognize coaching?

• What are the best practices related to implementing, growing, and sustaining coaching, as identified by our research?

Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 10AM  – 11:30AM PST: Webinar Series: Building Better Leadership, Decision Making & Agility into Your Organization – Session 1: Kirk vs. Spock: Building Better Decision Making into Your Organization (Free for CSTD members)

Are you on a five-year mission to seek out better decision-making, to boldly go where no trainer has gone before?

We literally face dozens of decisions daily, from the ordinary to those more akin to intergalactic warfare. Decision making is a skill with many facets: how do you deal with a challenging stakeholder, when is enough analysis enough, how do you move the process forward, how can you add the most value, and how can a leader harness the most value from their crew? The Starship Enterprise has two great decision makers on board: Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock. Which of them does your organization need making decisions, and how will your training best prepare them?

Join us for a 25th-century view of decisions and learn what the future has to offer your organization today. You will take away tips from the latest research in neuroscience, develop new insights for targeting your training, and rethink the roles of your first officer and other crew members in the decision-making process.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: Best of DemoFest 2014: Award-winning eLearning in Action

This webinar showcases some of the award-winning eLearning projects presented at eLearning DemoFest 2014, now available to all through this special online presentation.

Each year at DevLearn, dozens of conference participants show off their latest and greatest eLearning projects at eLearning DemoFest, offering their fellow attendees the opportunity to see a wide variety of solutions to common eLearning challenges, and sharing information about the tools, technologies, and processes used to build them.

Meet several of this year’s winners in this complimentary Best of DemoFest Webinar. Learn about their award-winning projects and get some great ideas to apply to your work!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice: Session 5 – Unravelling Contacts

This series is for you if you are new to consulting or are thinking about starting your own consulting practice in the areas of training, eLearning, process improvement, or performance improvement.

Session 5 is about how contracts are structured and the implication of terms and conditions as they apply to operating a successful consulting practice. You will understand what your client’s procurement office is really wanting in its agreement with you and what you can negotiate.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 11AM  – 12PM PST: Moving the Middle: Motivating Existing Sales Teams to Perform Better (Free for ATD members)

Every sales organization can be categorized into top, middle, and bottom performers. Top-performing sales reps can be counted on for hitting quota and making those deals happen that didn't look possible. Most reps, however, fall into the middle category. Consider that a simple 5 percent gain in the middle 60 percent of your sales performers can deliver more than 91 percent greater sales than a 5 percent shift in your top performers. What if you could bump up your middle performers by just 5 percent? Join our webinar to better understand:

• The art and science of understanding your middle performers.

• Practical tips to help motivate those sales reps.

• The full financial impact of motivating your middle performers.

Thursday, November 20, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: 7 Strategies for Learning Leaders: Driving Agility, Accountability, and Results (Free for ATD members)

Much is expected of today’s learning leaders. They must ensure that their organization has the learning opportunities and resources it needs, measure the business value the department provides, and stay on top of their evolving role. This session is designed to help learning leaders build personal and organizational agility and success through learning. The seven strategies introduced in this webcast will help you stay at the top of your game.

Friday, November 21, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Understanding What’s Next in Talent: The People Cloud Future (Free for ATD members)

Companies in the future will have two key assets to manage—their technological infrastructure and their human capital—with an increasing overlap between the two. We are all familiar with Cloud Computing—the ability to share, store, and deliver computing services over the Internet in real time. In the future, the concept of the Cloud will jump from software to “wetware,” resulting in open-source talent sharing that will in effect create a “People Cloud.”

In this world, work will be shared, collaboration across the globe will be instantaneous, and “Cloud” employees will work for multiple enterprises on a variety of projects simultaneously. The essence of the People Cloud is rooted in the emerging pattern of work becoming more social. As boundaries between internal and external social networks continue to blur, companies have begun to embrace the wisdom of crowds to execute their business strategies. The People Cloud will give rise to not only a new approach to the employee lifecycle, but a new way of doing business altogether. As a result of the  webinar, you will:

• Explore the trends pointing toward the future of the People Cloud that will completely reframe your organization and the employee lifecycle.

• Expand your field of vision around the possibilities of the future so that you can make better maps and decisions in the present.

Monday, November 24, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Developing High-Performance Leadership Teams (Free for ATD members)

During the past couple of decades, organizations have increasingly become enamoured with the power of teams. However, if the team you are working with is a leadership team, comprised of "leaders of leaders," it will be difficult for them to build collaborative team-oriented relationships with their peers and hold themselves mutually accountable to achieve meaningful results.

By attending this session you will be able to:

• Define what leadership teams do and ensure that you have the right leadership team structure.

• Identify the specific benefits your organization will receive by investing in leadership team development and how to measure success.

• Launch a new leadership team.

• Address the unique challenges facing leadership teams.

• Assess the competencies required to be a successful leadership team member and to lead a leadership team.

• Support a leadership team’s development as a leader, trainer, coach, or facilitator.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Developing the 30-Second Perfect Learning Moments

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.

Unfortunately, we are missing out on opportunities to help learners accelerate their need for learning and engagement. There exists the tendency to ignore or overlook new opportunities for instant and micro learning moments.

Attend the webinar and download Ray's “Chaos in Learning – Story Book,” a colorful pictorial of learning in a chaotic world. This is only available for those who attend the webinar.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 10AM  – 11:30AM PST: Webinar Series: Building Better Leadership, Decision Making & Agility into Your Organization – Session 2: Who’s Got the Ball? – Building Dynamic Leadership into Your Organization (Free for CSTD members)

An evolution of leadership thinking is afoot, driven by the need for greater collaboration, creativity, and efficiency in organizations. When we think of leadership as a dynamic role—a role that we all play at time—it opens up huge, untapped potential.

There is a second role—followership—that is just as important as leadership, but not well understood. When you combine leadership and followership, it produces partnerships which are the building blocks for the future, whatever it might bring. Through a series of interactive exercises you will uncover practical takeaways that create stronger leadership, more engagement, and greater organizational capability. It will change how you view leadership (and followership) forever.

It's official! Limestone Learning and Lambda Solutions are strategic partners

Lambda Solutions and Limestone Learning have become strategic partners to provide current and future clients with full-service online learning solutions.

Lambda Solutions is a Moodle certified services partner and a Totara Platinum partner providing systems integration, customization, training and support to enterprise-class customers, including Mt. Sinai Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Alberta Blue Cross, and Canada Health. The company has offices in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Brent Harvey, the VP of Sales and Marketing at Lambda Solutions comments,

“Lambda is really excited to be partnering with Limestone Learning. As experts in instructional design, Limestone Learning provides a like-minded approach to customer excellence. Lambda’s customers will benefit from Limestone’s industry expertise and best practices ensuring the best of both worlds with content creation and benefiting from a platform to deliver flexible e-learning within your organization.”

Limestone Learning is very excited about the opportunity of partnering with the Lambda team!

Read the full press release here.

One company's move to a blended learning solution

Everywhere I turn now, I see articles, blog posts, threaded discussions, tweets, seminars and much more about using social media. More and more learning professionals are now looking at new or more impactful ways of incorporating social media in learning. 

Stephanie and I recently came across an interesting TELUS case study that highlights the process they used to pilot a new approach to learning that integrates social and informal components, including webcasts, videos, blogs, microblogs and wikis. The interesting part of this approach is that they used Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2010. Dan Pontefract, Senior Director of Learning for TELUS said “the social networking elements drew us to SharePoint Server 2010” and that “the company’s three-year plan is to move to a situation in which formal learning accounts for just 50 percent of its total learning budget”.

As the popularity of social media takes hold in the learning community, Stephanie and I are seeing more companies with traditional learning offerings like face-to-face training become interested in adopting a more balanced blended learning solution that includes eLearning and social media. In fact, we are currently working with a company that has asked us to recommend a more blended learning solution for their 30,000+ employees.

Interested in reading the TELUS case study? Check it out here  http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000006924

Moving towards greener learning

Being ‘green’ is everywhere these days – as our planet’s population grows, our environmental impact on it has become a very important consideration.  Often the focus is on what we can do at home and the ‘big picture’ things organizations can do, but what about what we can do in our work as learning professionals? In an online article I read the other day called “Going green—are learning professionals ready?", author Silke Fleischer states that although classroom training declined from 76% in 2001 to 65% in 2006, according to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) 2007 State of the Industry Report, it still makes up the majority of learning hours delivered and has a significant impact on the environment in the areas of travel, facilities and materials. So how can an organization move towards greener learning?  

According to the ASTD 2007 State of the Industry Report, “Tailored blended learning saved one organization $2.8 million in travel and accommodation costs by cutting travel time for a 14-week program from 28 to 7 days.”  Moving face-to-face training on-line reduces the need for paper-based materials as well as the energy required for travel and classroom facilities (e.g., lighting, heating, cooling, etc.). According to Public Works and Government Services Canada, we produce more than 30 million tonnes of garbage each year – more than one tonne per person.  Of this waste, more than 36 percent is paper.  A blended learning solution using a combination of e-learning, online discussion forums, blogs, web seminars, wikis and podcasts as well as providing online resources will reduce your organization’s printing costs and other environmental impacts associated with face-to-face training.

Sometimes, however, face-to-face training is simply the best option for your organization and learners. Here are some ways you can make that training greener:

• Design courses that require fewer printed materials. Instead, provide online resources that support the learning.
• If you need to print, use recycled paper and print double-sided. Print only the most critical information.
• Provide training in centrally located areas to shorten travel distances.
• Upgrade your training facilities using such things as energy-efficient hardware, lighting, cooling and heating.
• Provide recycling bins in your training facility - encourage participants to recycle.
• Purchase recycled and environmentally friendly training supplies.
• Support carpooling for off-site participants/training sessions.

 We make choices each day that potentially impact our environment. If we all consider even small changes we could be making in the way we develop and present learning, we can do our part to contribute to a greener world. To learn more about green learning, check out a good article from ASTD Learning Circuits, “E-Learning = Environmental Learning”.