Leadership, Employee Collaboration and Grooming the Leaders of Tomorrow

An email came across my desk today titled..."Did you miss the best HR webinars of 2013?". Intrigued, I opened the email and read that SilkRoad is offering access to three past online events - free webinar recordings from top business writers as well as a free chapter of each author's latest book. The webinar titles look particularily interesting:

• Creativeship: Why Leadership is SO Yesterday! by Bob Kelleher
• The Role of HR in Employee Collaboration by Jacob Morgan
• Manager 3.0: Grooming Tomorrow's Millenial Leaders Today by Brad Karsh

If you're interested in checking any or all of them out, click here to register (for free) and access the recordings and chapters. 

I'd be really interested to know what you think of them so drop me a line and let me know.

Free T&D Webinars for November

With autumn off to a spooky start, and rainy days ahead, it’s a great time to stay indoors, fortify yourself with a cup of hot chocolate, and enjoy the warm glow of a fire. Or is that the warm glow of the Internet? There’s a wonderful selection of free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Friday, November 1, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: ASTD Best Webcast Series: Migros Retail Academy: Success Formula for Results (Free for ASTD members)

2013 BEST winner, the Migros Retail Academy, had a mountain of challenges to overcome in developing its workforce. Chief among the challenges was the lack of a formalized education program in Turkey to prepare people for a career in retail. The company needed to start from square one—and make sure that the training delivered to employees aligned with business goals and the needs of multiple stakeholders. This session will share insights and tips about how Migros tackled this big challenge, including:

•  How to establish a successful corporate academy
• The importance of understanding business needs and being aligned across lines of business
• Managing different generations in the workforce

Tuesday, November 5, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Are Your Trainers Great Facilitators? Creating the Dynamic Experience with Facilitative Training Skills

Even experienced trainers sometimes find themselves standing before groups whose dynamics are all over the board. Everyone has an opinion, varying learning styles must be taken into account, and you’ve got to delineate difficult questions being thrown at you at warp speed. How do trainers handle these challenges in an effective, enthusiastic manner? Wouldn’t it be great to have the tools to regain control of the room every time? Join Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson as he introduces a training approach you can use right away— the facilitative approach. Learn about cutting-edge tools designed to make sessions more engaging, and proven techniques to transform the way audiences receive and apply your training material.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013, 10PM – 11PM PST: Teaching People to Learn (Free for ASTD members) 

Teams are the way we get work done. They are critical to innovation, growth, and risk management in our organizations. But teams are vulnerable to dysfunction from poorly aligned priorities, interpersonal tensions, and unproductive conflict. So why do we throw people together and hope for the best? In this interactive session, you will hear about a revolutionary new approach to teaching employees to team. By starting teams off on the right foot, you can accelerate productivity and reduce the impact of inevitable challenges.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 7AM – 8AM PST: Intercultural Communication: Leaping over Boundaries (Free for ASTD members)

As organizations become more global, they come across more challenges in intercultural communication. Unfortunately, a lack of intercultural communication skills sometimes deters collaboration amongst individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this webcast, you will hear how intercultural communication skills training can be applied to people from different countries and cultures. You will learn how to act, communicate, and change your paradigm for synergistic cooperation.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learn How to Avoid "Crisis of Emptiness" in eLearning

Part of eLearning’s challenge is to recapture the lost warmth and interpersonal relationships many of us experience in face-to-face interactions. The common complaint from eLearners is that intimacy, empathy, helpfulness, and support are absent. This creates a disconcerting experience that leads to delays and resistance from learners. In this session you will learn practical and useful best practices to ensure the elevation of your eLearning design and delivery from sheer loneliness and apathy to curiosity, engagement, and better learning.

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 8AM – 1PM PST: Shifting the Performance Curve: A Human Capital Community Virtual Summit (Free for ASTD members) 

In these challenging economic times, no one can afford to let profit slip away. And yet, many organizational leaders do not realize that they can find the secrets to high profit (and higher performance) by looking inside their own organizations. But how can leaders ensure that they know how to tap into the talent and secrets of their star performers, and then implement these insights throughout the entire organization? During this half-day event, Paul Elliott and Al Folsom of Exemplary Performance will provide their innovative and cost-effective path to helping organizations translate employee performance improvement into measurable business results.

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: De-Mystifying the LMS Selection Process

The LMS marketplace continues to shift and evolve as vendors consolidate and new technology features become available. Deciding to invest in a learning management system isn’t even half the battle. Once they walk through that door, companies are faced with a mind-numbing array of choices. Where do they start? Which system is right? How do you know? Attend this webinar and learn concrete steps and strategies to make the journey to LMS selection far simpler.

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 1PM – 2PM PST Rescheduled for Friday, November 8, 2013, 10AM - 11AM: The Future of Learning

Is there anything that isn't changing? Industries, organizations, jobs, work, and even peoples' expectations are shifting. So it's only to be expected that learning will also adapt. This webinar will explore a broad range of topics such as:

• Social learning and how it will continue to evolve to meet new social technologies
• What the Kahn Academy could mean for corporate learning
• The role of accreditation in providing "trophies" to the next generation of learning
• Eight strategies for accelerating development of new employees as experienced employees leave the workplace
• Augmented reality and the implication for just-in-time learning

And in the spirit of social learning, YOU are the content.  Bring your ideas to the table to collaborate on understanding the future of learning.

Friday, November  8, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Developing Global Talent at UPS (Free for ASTD members) 

Learn how a new type of executive training program was deployed in May 2012 to be delivered in conjunction with UPS’s logistics coordination role at the 2012 London Olympic Games. The program objectives were to drive profit and return-on-investment capital (ROIC) by building the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of UPS’s international country managers.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: From Functional Expert to Organizational Leader: Making a Successful Transition (Free for ASTD members) 

Making the shift from technical or functional expert to a broader organizational leader is often not easy. It is a road paved with pitfalls, stalls, and few guideposts. In today’s changing and competitive business environment, making this shift is ever more critical; companies and organizations need such capability, and individuals need to grow. By looking at what it takes to make the shift and where to focus, we can map out the path and accelerate the process.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating Culture That Rocks

This interactive session is effectively designed to highlight best practices to create, maintain, enhance, or even revolutionize a company’s culture in all areas of the business. Jim Knight, former Hard Rock Training executive and more recently founder of Knight Speaker, will discuss key strategies to transform any organization’s culture. Key concepts will include: a Definition of Culture (finally!), Hiring "Rock Stars," Brand Differentiation, Employee Engagement, Virtuous versus Vicious Circles, and Retention Strategies. The time allotted is filled with visual slides, out-of-the-box thinking, quotes, industry statistics, and case studies…all told through the spirit of Rock ‘n’ Roll. If you’re a fan of unpredictability and thinking about things differently, come hear what all the noise is about.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DemoFest 2013: Award-winning eLearning in Action

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. Join us and see their award-winning solutions in many of the following categories including Acedemic, Augmented Reality, Blended Learning, Business Processes, eBooks, Game-based, Immersive/Simulation, Mobile, Onboarding/Employee Orientation, Performance Support, Sales Training, Soft Skills, Software Systems, Social Media or Online Communities and Virtual Classroom.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Enabling Healthcare Learning with Technology

Ninety percent of healthcare organizations are having difficulties finding skilled workers; 33 percent say the lack of skilled workers impacts their ability to comply with external quality standards and regulations. How can we address these issues through greater development opportunities and better talent practices? Attend this webinar to learn key findings from Brandon Hall Group’s new research on the skills gap in healthcare organizations. In addition we’ll have award-winning case studies and insights from healthcare industry experts.

Tuesday, November 14, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Build Greater Acceptance and Increase Adoption of Training through Coaching

The training industry ebbs and flows in terms of its acceptance. We use teaching aids, eLearning systems, etc.—but what if management supported our training by assisting in the coaching process? Training would be more accepted and employee development would escalate. This webinar will teach specific strategies for using coaching to gain greater acceptance and understanding of your training programs.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 8AM – 9AM PST: Talent as a Business Risk 

Organizations regularly assess their financials, information technology, and operation risks. However, concerns around talent—or human capital—tend to receive little attention. Join Brandon Hall Group and KPMG as they share research findings from 1,200 organizations across 54 countries on talent risk. This research comprehensively sets out the degree to which businesses are concerned about various types of talent risks, and the extent to which they are managing these concerns. Event topics include:

•  A Global Talent Risk Profile
• Top 10 Talent Risks
• A Talent Risk Disconnect: Business Leaders versus HR
• A case study from a global organization addressing its talent risks

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: “DUDE, WHAT’S MY JOB?” Developing and Training Millennials in Today’s Global Workforce 

Millennials are infiltrating the workforce, while managers and older generations are scrambling to understand and work with this fascinating group. The phrase “What’s up with the kids these days?” is not a new one, but with Millennials, there seems  to be an entirely new set of challenges and opportunities. By 2015, Millennials will outnumber Boomers in the workforce—are you ready?

In this engaging webinar, participants learn everything they need to know about Millennials around the world. What makes this generation tick? What are their assets, liabilities, communication preferences, and top motivators? Importantly, how do Millennials differ from country to country? How are Millennials from India impacted by their emerging middle class? How have Millennials in China been affected by family planning laws? Brad Karsh provides a plan of attack on how to manage, train, and motivate Millennials across the world.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Putting Instructional Design in the Hands of End Users (Free for ASTD members)

User design provides an alternative to top-down expert-driven design processes. Grounded in systems theory, user design empowers frontline stakeholders to design and create their own innovations, which in turn may lead to greater adoption and diffusion of those innovations. During this webcast, we will discuss the role of instructional designers—specifically how they provide resources and facilitate the work of the design team rather than impose their expertise upon team members. We will discuss a range of user-design tools, including ethnography, cooperative design, design-based research, action research, and scenario-based design. Learn how the user-design process unfolded at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the critical lessons learned as a result.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Sustaining Development: How to Make It Stick! (Free for ASTD members) 

Have you ever been excited to launch a development program, only to see it fade away? Have you ever witnessed a leader go through a training program, resulting in no indication of newly developed skills? A "yes" to either question means you need to re-evaluate your sustainability measures. Sustainability can be looked at in two ways: the learner level and the program level. Join us to learn how you can maximize your efforts by implementing a strategic approach to sustainability at both levels.

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Exploring the Learning Experience Canvas

This presentation introduces you to the Learning Experience Canvas, a tool for designing learning experiences. Join Peter C. Honebein, an expert in designing product and service innovations that enable customers to be co-creators of value. Explore the eight key elements of the canvas from the perspectives of design thinking, customer experience, instructional theory, and human performance.

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Inspiring Millennials: The High-Impact Learning Culture (Free for ASTD members) 

On average, one Baby Boomer retires every eight seconds. By 2014, Millennials will represent almost 47 percent of the workforce, and 75 percent by 2025. The right skills are in short supply, and talent pipelines are shrinking. Younger people are getting bigger jobs faster; and they think, learn, and behave differently. To become the kind of employer that attracts and retains both today's and tomorrow's talent, organizations need to create a workplace that is agile and nurtures learning—a high-impact learning culture. Join us to learn:

• The key elements of a high-impact learning culture
• Common obstacles to creating that culture, and how you can overcome them
• Steps you can take today to start creating the high-impact learning culture you will need for tomorrow

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 12PM – 1PM PST: Identifying and Nurturing Emerging Talent

A 2012 report by Deloitte identified eight trends in human capital that will have the most business impact over the next 18 to 24 months. One of the trends identified was the development of next-generation leaders. Identifying and nurturing emerging talent increases the availability of experienced, capable employees prepared to drive future growth. During this session, Alan Fine will explore the fundamentals of a high-performance environment, and the basic activities that create empowerment, accountability, and trust for managers and the emerging talent they lead. You will discover the three elements at the heart of high performance and will learn how to recognize and address obstacles that are getting in the way. Finally, you will explore a simple and reliable process that reduces interference, creates focus, and unblocks performance breakthroughs.

Free T&D webinars for July

Summer’s been teasing us with little bursts of warmth—let’s hope the sun gets down to business with some good weather! In the meantime, you can get down to business by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Monday, July 1, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leaders Open Doors: A Radically Simple Leadership Approach to Lift People, Profits, and Performance (Free for ASTD members)

The study of leadership development has grown very complicated. We often get stuck thinking about leadership in terms of matrices, competencies, and modules. The simple truth is that to be a leader is to open doors of opportunity for others. To be most effective, leaders need to be opportunity creators. Drawing on the concepts introduced in the new book Leaders Open Doors, leadership expert Bill Treasurer shows how leaders help people and organizations grow by creating meaningful learning opportunities.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Conquering Online Presentations with Confidence and Charisma (Free for ASTD members)

Confidence and charisma are key when delivering live online presentations. We all possess these attributes, but knowing how to tap into them and share them with your virtual audience will make your online presentation much more effective. Join best-selling author Jim Cathcart as he reveals how to tune up your presentation skills to connect more powerfully with your audiences. In this webinar you’ll learn how to:

• Put yourself at ease to be your best in online presentations
• Treat virtual presentations like in-person events
• Naturally engage your audience so you’re not alone as you present

Tuesday, July 9, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Earn a Top Spot on the Training 125

Don’t miss this opportunity to get the inside scoop from three Training Top 125 judges who will pinpoint what they look for in Training Top 125 applications during the scoring process. Whether you are a veteran Training Top 125 winner or filling out the application for the first time, this special complimentary webinar can be the key to increasing your score and ranking.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Three-minute Activities That Teach

Enliven your training in less than three minutes with a jolt that gives learners an emotional impact resulting in surprise and discovery. Your learners will sit up, listen, learn, and gain instant insights into your training topics. Join us in this discussion of why and how to use these three-minute training “jolts” to provide practical insights before, during, and after training events. Listen as interviewer Karen Hyder challenges and probes Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan to validate the return on investment of this approach to training the next generation, and learn about the importance of debriefing.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Managing a Technology Change Initiative (Free for ASTD members)

Technology is a breathtaking investment. Implementation often requires significant revenue and a heck of a lot of work, devouring profitability, time, focus, and energy. And we know that change efforts often fail. If you’re in charge of leading a technology change, how do you make sure you deliver? What does success look like? How do you communicate effectively to stakeholders? Tricia Emerson, author of the recent Technology Change Book, will show you how to be successful with one of the toughest assignments out there.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best Practices in Diversity and Inclusion: A Panel Discussion (Free for ASTD members)

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) practices are important in today's workplace in light of changing demographics, globalization, the war for talent, and consumer requirements. Panelists—several chief diversity officers—will share their insight and experience on how D&I has evolved in their organizations. These chief diversity officers will discuss challenges encountered along the way, established best practices, and the future of D&I.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Is Sheryl Sandberg Right? Are Women Liked Less when Promoted?

Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In, tells a story about a businesswoman who explains to her daughter that when women are promoted and succeed in business, they are liked less by their co-workers. The daughter says, “Then I wouldn’t want to be promoted, because I want to be liked.” We’d like to see women “lean in further” and not assume that being promoted to a senior position causes them to be disliked. Interestingly, our data show just the opposite. Join us as we discuss whether the male “success-likeability bonus” is fact or fallacy, whether likeability is linked to leadership effectiveness and business outcomes, and much more. Register now to take our Likeability Assessment and see how you compare to other leaders!

Thursday, July 11, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Get Your CEO and the C Suite to Engage the Workforce

Chances are your CEOs are left-brain types who get the numbers— things like EBITDA, ROI, net and gross revenue, income statements, balance sheets, and related “hard” data. But perhaps they don't put the same focus on “soft” business needs such as employee engagement. Many of us learning, communications, OD, and HR folks are right-brain types—more reliant on soft skills, feelings, visuals, and intuition—and thus have difficulty convincing executives to make employee engagement part of the company's strategic plan. Invite your C Suite to join you for an entertaining and fast-paced hour discussing how employee engagement DRIVES business results.

Thursday, July 11, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Role of Learning in Global Talent Management

Most often the term “talent management” refers to the life cycle of the employee, beginning with recruitment and selection, continuing through to exit interviews and retiree support, and covering everything in between. To one degree or another, the processes and programs that manage each phase of the talent cycle depend on one another. One aspect of this cycle is connected more strongly to all the others and in more ways—learning. Join Brandon Hall Group Senior Analyst David Wentworth and Alex Poulos, Chief Marketing Officer at NetDimensions, as they take a look at specific examples of how learning is inherently integrated with various aspects of talent management and how technology can leverage these connections, especially in global organizations.

Thursday, July 11, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: From Complex to Simple: How to Make Hard Subjects Easy through Story-based Learning

Have you caught the facts fever? If you’re comfortable with a subject matter, it’s quite likely you’re infected with the curse of knowledge. In other words, knowing too much gets in the way of communicating clearly to those who know less. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a master storyteller or presentation designer to learn how to choose, prepare, and present the right content for the right class—whether in person or online. Join Roger Courville, virtual presentation expert, for a fast-paced and practical session on how to tell a clear, compelling story that both educates and motivates. Learn:

• Three steps for transforming facts into messages
• How to design a flow that keeps the audience engaged
• Four tips for creating visuals that stand out
• A killer idea for making infographics work in online presentations

Tuesday, July 16, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Tin Can: Why Your Systems Need to Talk and How the Tin Can API Can Help

We know the majority of learning that happens in the workplace (and everywhere else) is informal. People learn constantly at their jobs, solve problems, and get better at the things they care about. In order to support people we need to figure out where they’re at, what they need to do, what they want to do, and how we can remove the barriers stopping them. Without a common language, this is very hard to do. The Tin Can API (aka Experience API) is a common language for many different systems to communicate what people are doing. Learn what the Tin Can API is, how it works, and see some examples of what it can do.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Teaching Effective Online Dialogues for Federal Agencies (Free for ASTD members)

Easter Seals has been recognized as a best-in-class example of collaborating with government agencies and creating effective forums for online dialogues. Federal agencies are often faced with a deluge of information from the public, and are often challenged by how best to organize, capture, coordinate, and follow up on those interactions. This gap in capabilities can effectively be addressed by the training and development community. This webcast will focus on how training and development professionals can educate their agencies on effective large-scale online participation.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Make Technical & Compliance Training and eLearning Fun and Engaging

“Boring.” “Tedious.” “Painful.” “Do I have to?” These are the moans and complaints of learners as receivers of the data-dump type of very technical and compliance forms of eLearning. But when we shift the design by focusing less on the technical view and instead considering the learner’s perspective, technical and compliance eLearning can be fun and helpful. This webinar will present ideas on how to make this shift possible.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Get Ready for the Virtual Classroom (Free for ASTD members)

One of the biggest obstacles to moving organizations to virtual instructor-led training is the approach of the trainers themselves. Why do learning professionals resist using these tools? The answers to that question will help individuals overcome their objections and help organizations make the move to VILT smoother and more effective. Join us for this candid and entertaining webinar event.

Thursday, July 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mobile Learning: 5 Ways to Improve Learning Results

Are your employees increasingly mobile, but your learning programs aren’t? If so, you’re missing out on an effective way to support your programs, make an impact on learning results, and be relevant to your employees’ day-to-day jobs. Mobile learning used to be the next big thing—now it is the big thing. Join senior product marketing director Mark Brandau to find out the top five ways mobile learning can boost your learning programs. Get an overview of using mobile technologies, and learn how to:

• Provide learning on the spot, right when it’s needed
• Use mobile learning to increase learning adoption and business results
• Jumpstart your own mobile learning initiative

Thursday, July 18, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Increasing Training Success: Best Practices for Implementation & Sustainment (Free for ASTD members)

Interested in a better approach to making learning initiatives work? Considering today's hectic work environment, don't you want leaders to be more engaged in learning initiatives? Register for this one-hour webinar to join experts from the award-winning employee development firm AchieveGlobal. You'll learn about a new research-based model for sustaining learning to get optimal gains on training investments. Wendy Mack and Seleste Lunsford will tap into AchieveGlobal's 50+ years of experience in delivering learning solutions, revealing best practices that are proven to boost training transfer and sustainment.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Building a Pipeline of Culturally Agile Professionals

While our world is becoming increasingly more interconnected through cyberspace and international airports, success in global business requires more than a passport and a plane ticket. Success in global business is a function of people—those with an ability to operate effectively in intercultural and multicultural situations—people with cultural agility. This webinar will describe what cultural agility is (and isn’t) and offer various ways HR leaders can help develop a pipeline of culturally agile professionals within their organizations.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS

Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Over 30% of organizations in a recent Brandon Hall survey had plans to replace their existing LMS solution. Most of them look forward to the transition with dread and concern. Register today for this critical session to learn how hundreds of organizations have made successful transitions—and the tools and tricks your organization can use to upgrade successfully too.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Unleashing More Team Power in Your Organization (Free for ASTD members)

Have you noticed how everyone in the workplace talks about teamwork? For facilitators who specialize in teamwork, it can be frustrating to encounter old mental models and biases about team training. In this webinar, you will explore some of the common systemic barriers to effective teambuilding—from cynicism, to time and budget pressures, and more. You will also encounter some tools and strategies that you can put to work in your organization right away.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Is L&D an Expense or Investment?

The continually accelerating speed of change over the last several years has made employers and learners (employees) more impatient. In today's climate, investments need to provide returns in a relatively shorter period of time than they did a few years ago. This webinar will provide insight on the important factors business leaders need to consider to create the required velocity in realizing ROI, and the controls possible over direct and indirect resources. You will learn how to improve ROI on training and development by understanding the underlying factors, gaining control of them, assessing competencies and their impact on business performance, and strategizing for competence development.

Thursday, July 25, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Profiling Management Success – Leveraging Performance and Analysis in Management Development (Free for ASTD members)

This session will focus on the development and research methods involved in the creation and enhancement of training and leadership development initiatives at U.S. Security Associates. The discussion will specifically highlight the Success Profile Initiative (SPI) and how the research supporting this initiative was utilized to leverage transformation in a variety of learning, training, and development components within the organization, including selection practices, targeted organizational objective accomplishment, succession strategies, and management success.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 5AM – 6AM PST: Learning for Transformation: Co-create & Co-achieve (Free for ASTD members)

Join this exclusive webcast presented by Ms Rajkamal Vempati, Head of Human Resources at ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited, the largest private-sector general insurance company in India. Critical learning components:

• Build ownership: co-create & co-achieve; strategic agenda
• Leverage learning to transform: create a brand, sponsorship, contextualization, and business impact
• Integrate with people process: performance and talent management, leadership development, competency-based development, and organizational structure

Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Show Me the Numbers – Five Case Studies Illustrating the Effectiveness of Games and Gamification for Learning

Are learning games effective? Does gamification work? What are some practical examples of successful implementations of games and gamification in practical work environments? This webinar examines five case studies of organizations that have successfully implemented game-based learning and gamification to help increase sales and participation in leadership programs, and to reduce safety incidents and inventory loss through shrinkage. Webinar topics:

• What type of business results can be expected from games and gamification?
• What elements of games and gamification lead to success?
• What tools are used to create games and gamification results?
• Participants receive a list of “Lessons Learned” from the five case studies.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Global E-Learning for Today’s Multinational Work Models (Free for ASTD members)

As your organization expands its operations in the global marketplace, effective and timely eLearning becomes crucial to the success of your company and your multicultural workforce. There is a wide range of tools for developing training content, and an assortment of media for communicating that content. How can you ensure your eLearning curriculum makes the best first impression with global audiences? And how can you facilitate simultaneous release in multiple markets? Join representatives from Lionbridge, dedicated global eLearning experts, as they describe how to:

• Address the challenges of developing content for global consumption
• Utilize industry best practices for developing eLearning for a global audience
• Implement design, development, and multimedia tools that facilitate delivery to multiple markets

Free webinars for May

The warm weather has finally found us—it may finally be safe to put away those winter woollies and dig out the sandals. Keep that springtime optimism high by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Using Technology to Drive Just-in-Time Learning (Free for ASTD members)

In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to quickly attain and apply new knowledge is the hallmark of top performance. But with employees geographically dispersed and constantly on the go, how can you ensure that your people are empowered with the information they need to excel? This webinar will show how you can use technology to put learning at the centre of integrated, people-centric talent processes and deliver contextual learning that addresses on-the-job challenges.

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creativeship: Leadership Is SO Yesterday

Creating a sustainable company in a world of unprecedented technological advances, globalization, and shifting economic drivers is one of the greatest challenges facing decision makers today. Fostering this environment requires that companies invest their time in a series of interrelated priorities. Join Creativeship author Bob Kelleher as he challenges you to:

• Learn how to crystallize your "Purpose" to build your EVP (Employer Value Proposition)
• Make the business case that employee engagement is key to corporate success
• Build a high-performing culture
•  Introduce innovation throughout the workplace
• Leverage social media as a key tri-branding tool

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating a High-Performance Team (Free for ASTD members)

Is your team achieving exceptional results, or just doing okay? Is your team operating ethically? Is your team operating sustainably, or burning people out and pulling rabbits out of hats to make its numbers? The old leadership models are no longer viable when it comes to creating high-performing teams. It’s time for fresh approaches that challenge long-held leadership assumptions and practices. In this webcast you'll take a step back to learn best practices from 61 organizations in 11 countries, including Google, Zappos, Infosys, Cisco, eBay, GE, Toyota, Xerox, successful start-ups, and non-profits such as Mayo Clinic and KIPP.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Engaging Millennials: New Training Strategies for a Connected Generation

Is your organization evolving its learning technology and learning environment to deliver continuous, just-in-time training, and enabling informal and social learning for a workforce increasingly comprised of Millennials? Training has to go beyond the classroom and beyond basic online delivery if you want to engage—and get the best from—a generation that is used to a different way of interacting with people.

Join Claude Werder, VP Corporate and Product Development of Brandon Hall Group, and training and coaching expert Jan Slater as they share ideas for maximizing training effectiveness for the emerging workforce.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Turn Your Organization’s Leaders into Powerful Presenters

In surveys, employers consistently say that verbal communication is the most important skill they want in their employees. For internal meetings and sales, presentation skills are essential. But how do you train employees to improve these skills? In this webinar, Ellen Finkelstein provides a syllabus for teaching presentation skills to the presenters in your company. You’ll learn why Death by PowerPoint is no longer acceptable and how you can lead the presenters in your organization to greater levels of accomplishment. What you learn may even increase sales in your company!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Fostering Career Growth of Young Professionals in the Government Community through Collaboration (Free for ASTD members)

It’s a long climb to the top in any organization, especially in government, as new entrants must understand protocols and culture to excel in their careers. The ability to collaborate, network, and develop as a professional is critical to rising professionals entering government agencies and information technology companies. Join the webcast to learn how the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council's Associates Program is helping compress the learning curve for new employees coming into the government and corporate world.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating a Mobile Learning Environment for a Connected World (Free for ASTD members)

With today’s on-the-go, mobile workforce, companies must train their employees wherever they are. The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets has enabled people to work from the office, at home, or on the road. This is forcing training leaders to rapidly design and adopt mobile learning strategies. This webinar explores how mobile learning environments are helping companies deliver engaging, interactive training to today’s mobile workforce

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Delivering Content in an Increasingly Mobile World

More than half of the phones sold in the U.S. are smartphones, and Gartner predicts that tablet sales will outpace PC sales by 2017. This reality has many organizations rethinking how they approach learning content and environments. What does a mobile-ready environment look like? What content is appropriate for mobile delivery? Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Dan Medakovic, VP Learning Solutions at Blatant Media, as they explore how mobile delivery can be leveraged for learning.

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Sales Training (Free for ASTD members)

Companies spend about $20 billion a year on various forms of sales training. Yet many sales leaders report low ROIs from sales training initiatives. In this webinar, Norman Behar and David Jacoby of the Sales Readiness Group discuss five essential factors that can help you achieve sustainable success from your investment in sales training programs.

Friday, May 10, 2013, 9AM–10AM PST: Leadership Development for Millennials: Why It Matters (Free for ASTD members)

This webinar is based on the ASTD/i4cp research report Leadership Development for Millennials: Why it Matters. Join us as Jay Jamrog, Vice President of Research for i4cp, and Tammy Erickson of Tammy Erickson Associates discuss the report’s examination of how organizations are preparing the Millennial generation to manage and lead effectively, now and in the future.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Learning on Demand: How the Evolution of the Web Is Shaping the Future of Learning

The evolution of the Web has fundamentally changed the business models for creating value. More than simply designing instruction, we as instructional designers need to ensure our content is valuable to our audience. This means our role in designing content must play into the larger ecosystem of the business. Looking at five principles that have fueled and sustained the Web’s growth and evolution, we can extract key insights into creating valuable content consistent with the Web’s own evolution.

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: People Development – Engaging, Building, and Expanding Your Talent

Our world is changing dramatically—how we live, how we work, and how we perform. In order to keep up, learning must also change and evolve—sometimes dramatically. Brandon Hall's latest research on relationship-centered learning traces the evolution of learning models over the years and reveals some interesting findings. Key topics include:

• Practical approaches to making development the centre of your engagement and performance programs
• The impact of effective people-development strategies
• What technologies best support the relationship-centered learning model
• Real people development stories connected to real business outcomes

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Virtual Learning Environments: Redefining the Training Experience

As organizations continue to expand globally and training budgets continue to decrease, developing effective learning programs has become a significant challenge. Learning management systems and basic online learning tools have fallen short in providing an engaging learning experience, resulting in a need for more effective training programs. In this webinar, Tom Masotto will demonstrate how virtual training enhances learning retention and improves learning outcomes. Learn how to re-engage your employees by providing easy access to interactive training programs.

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Attention! How to Get It and Keep It (Free for ASTD members)

Have you ever watched a movie that kept your eyes riveted on the screen? Your online presentation may not have car chases, but you can use Hollywood's attention-grabbing techniques to keep your virtual audience on the edge of their seats. Join Roger Courville, author of The Virtual Presenter's Handbook, as he reveals how to design engaging slides and interactions for attendees—wherever in the world they happen to be. Attendees will learn:

• Three movie techniques that work in virtual presentations
• How to polish your presentation—no design skills needed
• Tips for increasing the "aha!" factor of your presentation
• Two voice skills anybody can use to stimulate thinking

Friday, May 17, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Build Micro-Scenarios: Snappy, Fast, Engaging

The demand for fast, on-the-go learning plagues eLearning designers, developers, and leaders. Many of us are still stuck with the very old and antiquated “data dump” and “learners must learn” paradigms. How do we develop eLearning content that teaches content yet is also short, concise, snappy, fast, and instant? In this webinar, Ray Jimenez addresses the following questions:

• Where is the juncture between good learning content and snappy, fast, engaging micro-scenarios?
• What are the characteristics of a good micro-scenario?
• How do you “fit” big content into micro-scenarios?
• What is the step-by-step process of building snappy, fast, and engaging micro-scenarios?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Tin Can API: What Do the New Standards Mean for You?

There isn’t a learning professional today who would tell you learning takes place only in the classroom. It happens every day, everywhere. Anything from reading a book, having a conversation, watching a video—even playing a game—can be a learning experience. The challenge is to figure out an efficient way to capture those experiences as data that can be measured, reported, and analyzed. Rustici Software has developed a set of standards for tracking these learning experiences. Please join our panel of experts as they discuss Tin Can API, and what it can do for you.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Aspects of Performance Improvement

In this webinar, Hale Associates President Judith Hale introduces three interdependent aspects of performance improvement : (1) the systematic process, ( 2) the consulting process, and (3) the brand-building process. All three aspects contribute to improving the performance of people, work teams, and organizations as a whole. You will gain insights about performance improvement, political prowess, and personal branding—as well as three tools for explaining performance improvement to others and guiding their own professional development.

Thursday, May 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: 7 Creative Ways to Combine Training & Coaching into Powerful Performance

The world of training is changing. The days of all-day workshops and seminars are well behind us. Employees need to be developed, but little time is allowed for the old traditional ways. In this webinar, seasoned Coaching Strategist Tim Hagen discusses specific ways of combining training and coaching to deliver powerful performance results and explores:

• Seven easy-to-use training and coaching combinations
• The top five reasons training and coaching must be combined
• A unique coaching method guaranteed to raise any trainer or training department’s value
• Why trainers must be trained in a coaching methodology
• How to get managers to coach their employees

Thursday, May 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Sales Onboarding at DHL – A Gold Medal Case Study

The Goal: Grow DHL Express’s market share and increase its EBIT (Earnings before Interest and Taxes) by 20 percent from 2011 to 2013 and ensure that DHL Express becomes recognized as the best sales force in the logistics industry.

The Plan: Increase the effectiveness of DHL Express’s 6,000-person global sales force, reduce the time to productivity for new hires, and attract the best salespeople. In this case-study webinar, DHL executives will tell the story of how STR designed and implemented a game-changing sales-performance program for DHL that engaged the entire global sales force in 14 languages so that it attracted top salespeople, reduced staff turnover, increased customer loyalty, and became known as the best sales team in the industry.

Tuesday, May 30, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Beyond the Mobile Hype: Making Learning Fit in a Mobile World

Over 50 percent of organizations that participated in Brandon Hall Group’s annual Business Focus survey stated that mobile technology was going to be an important topic for their organization this year. We’ve shifted how we live our lives, make money, and even communicate to fit the new mobile world—we also have to change how we think about learning. Join Learning Analyst David Wentworth Sr. and CERTPOINT Systems CEO Ara Ohanian as they share recent research, exploring practical and effective ways to ensure that learning is effective and relevant in today’s mobile environment. Takeaways include:

• Key practices in streamlining mobile performance support  and knowledge sharing with mobile learning
• Practical approaches to meeting learning goals with a broad mobile learning strategy
• Award-winning case studies of effective mobile learning strategies

CSTD Calgary Symposium - May 2013

If you work in Calgary or happen to be in Calgary area May 29 - 31, 2013, CSTD (Canadian Society for Training and Development) is hosting a Learning and Development Symposium. You’ll connect, create, and collaborate with your peers from a variety of industries across the country. With a leading edge program offering you choices of case studies, enterprise learning strategies, and a stream dedicated to the core skills required of the profession, you’re sure to discover the answers you need to deliver the learning your organization values.

Top 10 eLearning authoring tools...do you agree?

I follow a lot of industry related blogs and recently came across an interesting article from the E-Learning 24/7 blog. Based on a variety of criteria, the author Craig Weiss created a top ten list of eLearning authoring tools (In a recent list ranking the top ten most influential people in the world for e-learning, Craig was listed as number four.) I was surprised at what tool came out on top and which one was a close second.

I'm now curious about what other eLearning experts rankings are and will do further research. In the meantime, take a look at the list and let me know if you agree with Craig's rankings.

Surviving the Test of Time

 In 1956, Benjamin Bloom (along with a group of collegues) identified three domains of learning: Cognitive (Knowledge), Affective (Attitude) and Pyschomotor (Skills). Trainers and instructional designers  usually refer to these as KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude), the end result of an effective learning event or experience. Although Bloom's Taxonomy has been around for over 50 years it's still respected by learning professionals to this day. 

One of the many things I learned as a new instructional designer was Bloom's Taxonomy and I've continued to use it over the years so I was really interested in an email I received from eLearning Guild today about a new research report they've just released.

In Cecelia Munzenmaier's report, Bloom's Taxomony: What's Old Is New Again, she describes the history and revisions that Bloom's Taxonomy has gone through and examines how it's being used. She describes why it has endured despite criticism and how it can help instructors, instructional designers, and educators of all kinds. The revised version is worth examining since it now makes it easier to precisely target a learner's desired performance. The new emphasis on cognitive processes addresses a weakness in the original taxonomy and it has also been updated to include new digital technologies like social media. It's definitely worth the read.

The eLearning Guild is offering it free to members. Membership is free if you haven't already joined.

2013 Training & Development Conferences

If you’ve had a chance to read some of our past blog posts, you’ll know that Stephanie and I believe that it’s as important to continually educate ourselves as it is to help our clients educate their employees. Reading articles, books, white papers, research articles, and blog posts, following industry tweets and attending webinars and online certification courses are great sources of educational material – and we continue to pursue these. But it’s also worth looking at larger events. They give us the opportunity to meet industry experts in person and learn first-hand about the latest research and topics that particularly interest us. It also gives us the opportunity to meet lots of other like-minded learning professionals.

We all have busy live and it takes time to find what’s out there and locate the conference that’s the right fit for our needs and interests.  So with this in mind, I’ve compiled a list of links to a number of popular T&D conferences that are being offered in 2013. I hope they inspire you!

January 30 – February 1, 2013

ASTD TEchKnowledge conference, San Jose, California

Focuses on the design and delivery, management and strategy of technology and learning.

February 15 – 20, 2013

Training 2013 conference & expo, Orlando, Florida

Training Magazine's conference for learning professionals.

March 13-15, 2013

Learning Solutions 2013, Orlando, Florida

Focuses on maximizing performance with learning technologies.

April 12-14, 2013

ISPI, The Performance Improvement Conference 2013, Reno, Nevada

Learn about performance improvement from industry leaders.

May 6-9, 2013

eLearning DevCon 2013, Las Vegas, Nevada

Focuses on delivering practical eLearning development and management skills.

May 19 – 22, 2013

ASTD 2013 International Conference & Exposition, Dallas, Texas

Focuses on workplace learning and development.

June 18-20, 2013

mLearnCon 2013, San Jose, California

Focuses on every aspect of mobile learning including management strategies, platforms, operating systems, authoring tools and technologies, content design and development, and best practices.

October 23-25, 2013

DevLearn 2013, Las Vegas, Nevada

Focuses on what’s coming next in the world of learning, what the leaders in the field are thinking and doing, and how new technologies impact management, strategy development, and learning development.

October 23-26, 2013

NASAGA (North American Simulation and Gaming Association) 2013 Conference, Sarasota, Florida

Focuses on learning professionals who use active learning methods to increase engagement, enhance retention, and improve performance. 

November 13-15, 2013

CSTD Conference and Trade Show, Toronto, Ontario

Focuses on workplace learning and development.

December 4-6, 2013

Online Educa Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The largest global eLearning conference in the world. (Thanks for the info, Bruce)

If I’ve missed an event, just drop me a line with the details and I’ll post it.

Free January 2013 Webinars

Happy New Year! We hope you had a successful and happy 2012. Stephanie and I wish you much success on your training and development endeavors in 2013. Now I’ve been remiss this month in getting my blog post of free January webinars posted in time. I thought rather than abandoning the January list and moving directly to February, I’d list what’s left for January. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

See you online!

Thursday, January 17, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Game-Based eLearning – How Does Its Effectiveness and ROI Compare to Traditional eLearning?

There is lots of buzz about “gamification” and game-based learning over the last year.  Why should your organization consider adding it to your talent development strategy?  This webinar may provide the key to igniting the performance of your workforce in 2013! Bryan Austin will share 6 reasons why hundreds of organizations are implementing game-based eLearning, and how your organization can inexpensively benchmark its effectiveness versus traditional eLearning in transferring learned skills to the workplace to improve performance.  He will also share a plan to assess the return on investment (ROI) of game-based eLearning versus traditional eLearning.

Thursday, January 17, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The 2013 Employee: How they Engage, Learn and Develop into Leaders

How do you deliver great employee experiences in today’s climate of change? Evolving employee expectations, record job dissatisfaction levels, and economic slowdowns are amplifying this challenge and exposing the silos in how we manage and engage talent. Bring your HR, Learning and Leadership professionals together for a beginning of the year webinar with Stacey Harris, VP of Research and Advisory Services, Brandon Hall Group, and Kenexa co-presenters as they share best practices and trends in:

• Creating a holistic onboarding experience, for new employees as well as those who are changing positions and taking on leadership roles
• Connecting your HR, Learning, and Leadership functions to collaborate together and deliver an engaging and enriching employee experience
• Shrinking employee time to autonomy and increasing ongoing learning
• The continuation of learning - leadership training and development

Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Power of Storytelling in the Virtual Classroom

Brain research confirms what storytellers know from experience: we learn through stories. We’re wired for it – the pattern, rhythm and structure. As a professional trainer, you use the most up-to-date facts and processes to impart knowledge and skills, but without a good old-fashioned story to put it all together, you make your learner’s job harder. Join Roger Courville, author of The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook, as he discusses practical tips for how to weave a story that will draw your learners fully into your virtual classroom. Attend this interactive webinar to discover:

• What stories to tell (hint: no “once upon a time”)
• How to choose the story elements that are right for you
• 3 steps to telling a story fit for virtual classrooms
• 4 tips for combining voice and visuals for improved impact  

Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 12:30PM – 1:30PM PST: How to Apply Advance Story-Based eLearning Design Techniques to Immerse Learners

A story-based lesson can employ the “SRIA Model – Setup, Relate, Interpret and Apply”– to improve learning. But what is the approach to create a full program where there are several lessons? How do we make the lessons work in rhythm and harmony so each lesson moves the learner from one type of emotional learning to another? How do we immerse the learner so that each lesson builds up to a final “learning realization” or “high”? In this webinar, you will learn:   

• What neurosciences and cognitive learning research tell us about the relationship between learning and the art of music,painting and writing.
• How to employ the structure and rhythm of musical notes, photos and words to raise the learners' awareness and emotions of critical content to learn?
• How to use the "Advance Story-Based Design for Learning Oscillation".
• How to identify which content warrants a different tempo, theme and visual flavor to impart the right meaning.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Finding Time to be a Leader (free for ASTD members)

The scarcest resource a leader has is time (not money, people, or influence). This is why the top frustrations of leaders are typically: not having enough time, struggling to balance priorities, not being proactive enough, and spending too much time doing work that someone else should be doing. This webinar will show you how to discover your own personal green light work and give you tactics for shedding all the yellow, orange, and red light work that is misusing (or wasting) your time, hurting your leadership effectiveness, and stopping you from hitting all your goals.

Thursday, January 24, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Employee Engagement: Practical Tools and Strategies

Is “doing more with less,” resulting in burned out employees?  Are you finding it difficult to keep employees engaged? Even before the economic downturn less than 30% of employees were fully engaged – so the problem is growing every day.  In 2010, companies with highly engaged employees performed 22% better than the total stock index, while those with disengaged employees performed 28% worse. This presentation will give you practical tools to assess the engagement of your workforce and create strategies for increasing engagement.

Thursday, January 24, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS?

This session will help you reduce your fear and create a strategy for success during the process!
Your business needs are changing fast, and so are the demands placed on your current learning technology. Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Do you have that nagging awareness that it is time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Saba's Shruti Kala, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, as they share insights that can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. They'll discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions for creating a strategy for the upgrade, as well as tools and tricks for preparing your organization for a limited-impact change.

Thursday, January 24, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: Informal Learning (free for ASTD members)

This webinar is based on the ASTD/i4cp's research report, Informal Learning: The Social Evolution. It will be presented by Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. Joining Kevin will be Dan Pontefract, Senior Director, Learning & Collaboration at Telus. The purpose of this report is to examine the ways in which informal learning is evolving and how organizations are leveraging it to improve performance. This Study is based on an analysis of a survey of 351 respondents. Nearly all the respondents (97 percent) reported that informal learning played a role in their learning initiatives within their organizations.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Shut Up and Deal the Cards: Card Games for Training

This webinar begins with a survey of 20 different types of cards that can be incorporated in training activities. It then focuses on three powerful training templates: Classification Cards explore concept categories (such as conflict-management modes) and stages in a process (such as stages in team development). With these cards you can play any game that is played with a regular deck of playing cards. In this interactive webinar learn how to create hundreds of your own card games that can involve 1 to 100 players for 5 minutes to 52 weeks.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The 21^st Century Mindset: Unlock Critical Thinking to Unleash Organizational Performance

We all use a variety of thinking styles in our daily lives, but we tend to favor some but rarely use others—and that hurts our ability to make good decisions. Knowing your preferred style will help you approach problems and decisions with the right mindset so you can be more successful. Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Dr. Judy Chartrand, as they offer you a unique opportunity not only to learn more about critical thinking and what it means for organizations, but to learn about your own thinking styles. My Thinking Styles™ from TalentLens helps you find the right balance between, so you can make the best choices, in life and at work. Between now and January 29th, Pearson is giving BHG members access to a complimentary administration of My Thinking Styles and a personalized Development Report. Then on January 29th at 1:00 EST, Dr. Judy Chartrand will give a brief overview of the Seven Powerful Thinking Styles and she’ll help you interpret your results. Your report will unlock a unique combination that will help you be more successful with your decisions, relationships, projects, and every aspect of your life – so don’t miss out!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mixing it up! Merging Learning, Information, and the Social Enterprise to Maximize Impact

The increased value of learning through social enterprise collaboration and communications and the integration of quality information to support learning on-demand is a key focus area at Oracle. Hear and see what Oracle's Virtual Information Services (VIS) program has done to engage employees first with the key learning content for on-demand learning and how the integration of that information into programs and the collaboration around that information through social enterprise tools has increased awareness, productivity, engagement, and overall learning and business impact across the organization. Providing alternative ways of learning is enabling Oracle to become more productive but it starts with access to the right information at the right time - information integration, social, mobile, digital libraries.

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Future of Virtual Learning and Collaboration

In the past, online education and e-learning failed to live up to its potential. Fortunately, the future of virtual learning is here. It’s now possible to create rich, robust and collaborative learning environments that can be delivered anywhere and anytime.  Join this Training Magazine webinar, presented by UNC Executive Development, to learn how you can realize the full potential of virtual learning in your organization. You will hear directly from one of the industry leaders based on years of experience delivering world-class online learning. 2U Inc. was recently recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the 10 start-ups changing the world. Attend this webinar to learn how the company is transforming online education and how you can do the same in your organization.

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Transformational Learning – Building a Learning Organization From the Ground Up (free for ASTD members)

In July 2010, the Global Learning and Development function at Savvis did not exist. By early 2012, the L&D function was not only in existence, they are thriving. Business unit leaders are advocates for learning, there is a direct connection to organizational strategy, leadership capability is positively moving, learning impact is measured, and the team is positively influencing the parent company. A Cinderella story? The transformation was driven not by a fairy god mother rather a well-articulated vision and intentional steps that maximized the possibility of success for this team. Learn the steps this team took to transform learning at Savvis, and how they helped the organization substantially increase learning consumption, decrease time to productivity, and increase leadership effectiveness.