Did we just blink, or were we just celebrating 2014? The years seem to go faster and faster—and so does the speed of business. This is a great season to rev up your learning with a free webinar or two, and January has plenty of great offerings! We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Use Neuroscience to Improve Virtual Learning

Audiences typically forget 90 percent of the content you share with them. That is significant. To make matters worse, the 10 percent people do remember differs between members of your audience. Controlling the 10 percent your audiences remember and tying it to something that they find valuable and can act on is the skill of the future trainer, especially as you are conducting virtual training. So how can you control the 10 percent they remember? Using neuroscience. We now know more about the way our brains process information and ultimately remember it. Join this session to find out how to apply principles from cognitive neuroscience so you can create virtual training with lasting impact. Specifically, you will learn three brain science principles converted to guidelines you can apply to your own virtual class strategy immediately.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PST: ATD TK 2015 Newcomers Orientation Webcast (Free for ATD members)

Whether you are a first-time attendee or a seasoned TechKnowledge® conference participant, let us help you develop your conference game plan! Join us for the 2015 TechKnowledge orientation webcast to jump-start your conference planning. Learn about key activities during the conference, gain tips for success, and get a broad overview on how to make the most of your TK conference experience.

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 9AM – 10AM PST: Helping Learners Learn in the Digital Era (Free for ATD members)

Digital literacy is a critical component of learning in the digital era. Organizational leaders in general, and learning professionals in particular, must understand the digital competencies required for learning success. This webcast offers guidance for creating a digital culture and undertaking initiatives to increase digital literacy and enhance learning and development. After this webcast, you will be able to:

• Assess employees’ baseline competencies.

• Increase digital literacy through both formal and informal learning.

• Identify and promote subject matter experts and digital mentors.

• Create an infrastructure for ongoing digital development.

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: 8 Great PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Save You from a Fate Worse than Death by PowerPoint

In this fast-paced, interactive webinar you’ll explore how to put the point back into PowerPoint. From high-tech to low-tech ideas, experience different ways to make this tool work for you. You will learn how to:

• Examine tools to engage learners in real time.

• Use 8 design tips to differentiate a good PowerPoint from a bad PowerPoint.

• Select a strategy to begin applying to your own content.

Friday, January 9, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PST: Organization Fundamentals: Managing Strategic Change (Free for ATD members)

About 60 percent of all organizational change efforts fail. And some authorities believe that the quintessential management competency for the future will be the ability to manage change. But how can change be managed? And is it even possible? Organization development (OD) has been around for a long time. But OD is not taught in most business schools, a fact that complicates matters when it comes to managers trying to lead change with and through people. Too often the project plan is elevated above the people—which is when human resistance to change ends up destroying the change project. This webcast introduces OD fundamentals as a means by which to manage strategic change successfully.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PST: Empowering B2B Sales Teams on Social Media (Free for ATD members)

Research shows that sales teams hit their quotas 31 percent more frequently when they use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks as part of their process. Yet most sales professionals don’t use these tools in any systematic way. In this webinar, two industry experts will explore social selling in the B2B enterprise. We’ll share exciting new survey data on social selling adoption, and explore how sales training and enablement can boost quota achievement by integrating social media into the sales process. In the session, you’ll learn:

• Why today’s selling environment requires successful sales professionals to engage their buyers on social networks.

• How social selling requires changes to a sales team’s culture, mindset, and habits.

• How high-performing sales organizations are integrating social media into their business process and metrics.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice Session 6: Building a Marketing and Sales Channel

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. The series will explore issues like:

• If I’m good at what I do, why do I need to worry about the business side of my business?

• Why should I find a niche? I like doing a lot of stuff and I’m more interesting getting paid.

• Why should I worry about legal structure stuff? I hire people for this.

• What will insurance do for me? What’s the difference anyway?

• Contract! I didn’t sign up to be a lawyer.

• I already have a network. Why worry about marketing channels?

This session is about how to find clients and help clients find you. You will understand how to identify, develop, and use channels to help you be sustainable in difficult times.

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: So No One Told You You're a Marketeer of Training?

Like it or not, marketing training is part of the job! Identify a variety of ways to improve support of learning interventions and attendance at training events. Build alliances and a presence in your organization. Meet organizational needs, rather than put on events that have marginal participation. Fully utilize ALL marketing techniques from networking to navigating the digital world. Make your "marketing job" manageable, effective, and fun! Learn practical tips and tricks.

• Develop marketing strategies you can implement today that will cement your role as a valued business partner.

• Discover why and how to fold management into your marketing efforts.

• Learn practical tips from the pros about how to minimize your marketing time and maximize your marketing return on investment.

• Be seen as the valued business partner that you are in your organization.

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PST: BEST Webcast Series: American Cancer Society – Developing the Development Professional (Free for ATD members)

You've heard the saying: "The cobbler's children have no shoes." Does this apply to you and your talent development team? In this session, we'll discuss creating a learning culture on your team, and even your organization, through the approaches first introduced by Peter Senge and The Fifth Discipline. The session will provide time for reflection and personal development, approaches to embed personal mastery and organizational learning on your team, and will discuss strategies to help your team live and lead a learning culture. You will leave this session with:

• Thoughtful insight into your personal mastery, your vision, and your contribution to a shared vision for success.

• Strategies used by the American Cancer Society to create a learning culture on the talent development team and throughout the learning programs delivered to the organization.

• Practical implementation ideas to create a learning culture on your team and in your organization.

Friday, January 16, 2015,10AM  – 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.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 10AM  – 11AM PST: eLearning-related Visual Design Trends for Non-Designers

What do visual-design trends have to do with eLearning? If you are an eLearning designer or developer, and you don’t see yourself as a visual designer, what do you need to know about these trends? How can they help you create more engaging and effective eLearning? Which visual-design trends—such as flat versus skeuomorphic designs, infographics, and amateur-style video—are key to creating innovative eLearning design? In this webinar you’ll learn the concepts of visual design in a way that’s accessible to eLearning professionals who aren’t visual designers. You’ll explore the wide world of visual design, examine the trends that matter most to eLearning, discuss why these trends matter, and learn how to begin using new visual-design techniques in your eLearning deliverables.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 10AM  – 11AM PST: The Future of Learning Is Video-based and Collaborative – Are You Ready?

"Predictive...Content...Mobile...Collaboration. These are the trending themes in leading-edge business systems," says Jim Lundy, CEO and lead Analyst at Aragon Research. "Many organizations are exploring video-based content authoring and delivery. Some are investing in big data architectures to glean predictive workforce insights. They are also deploying various employee and customer collaboration systems for engagement and support. However, most of these initiatives are disconnected from each other and such critical business systems as their learning infrastructure." Jim Lundy of Aragon Research will present the evolving social learning landscape and discuss how leading organizations are taking steps to embrace these trending themes. Jim will discuss the evolution of video for recruiting, learning, and knowledge capture. He'll highlight the benefits of embracing social learning and collaboration to transform the traditional LMS into a strategic asset used daily for both internal and external needs. Finally Jim will describe how mobile is transforming learning by providing access to information anytime and anywhere.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 11AM  – 12PM PST: Doing More with Less: Developing a Comprehensive Training Program on a Tight Budget (Free for ATD members)

The training department is always asked to do more with less. In this webcast, you will learn how one organization leveraged technology to scale an effective training program with limited resources. In 2012 Bill Scerra joined Everbridge, a software-as-a-service provider and industry leader in unified critical communications, as the learning officer. His task was to implement a world-class customer, partner, and employee learning management system with a budget that allowed him a team of only two people. Since that time, it has grown to more than 20,000 students, with more than 100 courses containing more than 250 multimedia modules. During this webcast, Bill will share best practices for scaling an effective training program with limited resources.

Thursday, January 22, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: Bringing Out the Best in People (Free for CSTD members)

Are you ready for a bold start in 2015? Invite your entire team to this special webinar to learn how to supercharge your goal setting, increase communication, and build a motivated and aligned work environment! Dr. Victoria Halsey of the Ken Blanchard Companies will share the three keys all leaders need to focus on to get a team, department, or organization moving in the same direction and firing on all cylinders. You’ll learn how to:

• Ensure your people are focused on the most powerful goals and have clear targets.

• Diagnose the level of leadership that people need from you on any given task.

• Provide the right leadership style to make sure your team succeeds.

Start the year off with best practices for improving not only job performance but employee satisfaction.

Thursday, January 22, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: Developing Micro-Learning for Learners on the Go!

What is behind social learning, mobile learning, AppleWatch, and other Internet tools? These “access- anytime-anywhere”  tools and solutions are MICRO-LEARNING. It is micro-feedback, micro-application, micro-goals, micro-games, micro-exercises, micro-search, and other micro forms. The challenge is that training, learning, and performance-support experts, specialists, and consultants focus on BIG LEARNING. Somehow they feel guilty when they design and deliver MICRO LEARNING because micro-learning is minute and hard to capture and produce. Furthermore, most of our tools, software, design process, and delivery systems like LMSs are intended for big content. This is unfortunate since there  are tremendous opportunities to optimize micro-learning: short, simple, fluid, easy to produce, and at lower costs. In this webinar you will learn the essence of micro-learning design, delivery and applications.

Friday, January 23, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: Make Internal Coaching a Success in Your Organization (Free for ATD members)

For many years, costly coaching programs were reserved for senior executives and emerging leaders. Organizations now offer coaching beyond the executive suite. The difference is that these new coaching services are provided by internal coaches: individuals who may not be certified in professional coaching, but are trained in a set of coaching skills to support a specific business need and produce monetary business impact. Attend this session and learn:

• What internal coaching is and why it's important today.

• Three examples of internal coaching case studies.

• Three keys to make internal coaching successful in your organization.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PST: Activate Your Secret Weapon: The Simple Truth about Managers and Your Strategy (Free for ATD members)

Your strategy is brilliant. Your people want to help the business succeed. Your customers want what you’ve got. So, what’s standing in the way of success? Chances are you haven’t fully activated your secret weapon: managers. Strategy execution is hard work, but when you tap into that crucial manager link between strategic intent and action on the front line, you can accelerate success. Join us for a highly interactive webinar with author and Root Inc.’s Strategy Execution Expert Gary Magenta to learn the simple truths about managers and your strategy.

• Why are managers so well positioned to accelerate your success?

• What are the greatest pitfalls managers face and how can you save them?

• What’s even more important to manager success than skill building?

• How can leaders of talent development easily sustain your manager development efforts beyond the classroom?

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: Another Affair with LOLA (Live Online Learning Activity)

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

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PST: Making the Shift from Technical Expert to Organizational Leader (Free for ATD members)

Making the shift from technical or functional expert to a broader organizational leader is not often easy. It is a road paved with many pitfalls, stalls, and few guideposts. In today’s changing and competitive business environment, making this shift is more critical than ever; companies and organizations need employees with technical capabilities, 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. Topics include:

• Challenges of the transition.

• A model for making the shift.

• Building and managing critical relationships.

• Working with others successfully and communicating differently.

• Thinking and acting strategically.

• Your next steps.