"Trailing arbutus 2006" by Justin russell is public domain.

For many, tax time is a stressful season—one that causes many businesses to reassess how they’re deploying valuable resources. Should you splurge on new tools? Or find creative ways to get the most bang out of existing ones? Sometimes it’s as simple as discovering a new idea or strategy, and online learning can help with that. Why not check out one of the free webinars being offered this May? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Friday, May 1, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: Visual Explanations: How to Describe and Clarify with Graphics (Free for ATD members)

People are wired to understand visuals. Research shows that when you use relevant graphics to explain, clarify, and enhance content, it typically improves learning. In this session, the most effective graphics to use for various types of content will be explored. Then the speaker will discuss design tips for each format, showing what enhances the message and what obscures it.

These techniques will make you more conscious of how to design with intention, so that your graphics are understood accurately and are aesthetically pleasing.

After attending the webcast, you will be able to:

Determine the most effective graphics to use for telling a story.
Design or select graphics that explain concepts and systems.
Design or select graphics that explain data and numerical information so learners can make accurate judgments.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015, 8AM – 9AM PT: The Right Blend: The 70:20:10 Learning Framework

Despite decades of research showing that most organizational learning occurs informally and on the job, companies are still hopelessly devoted to classroom and formal learning. The 70:20:10 Learning Framework says that this type of learning only accounts for 10 percent of what a person learns at work. What can companies do to shift the paradigm and effectively deliver on the other 90 percent?

In this webinar, join David Wentworth, senior learning analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Alexandra Hopkins, Head of Learning and Development at CGI as they look at the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 70:20:10 Framework Survey and the journey CGI has taken to incorporate the framework into their learning strategy. Discussion topics include:

What is the 70:20:10 Framework?
Drivers and impact of the framework.
Effectiveness of various learning modalities .
Real examples from CGI’s experiences with 70:20:10.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015, 9AM – 10AM PT: Stand Out: How to Become a Recognized Expert in Your Company and Beyond (Free for ATD members)

The best form of career security is becoming recognized for your expertise. In this webinar, Dorie Clark, an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the author of Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, shows you how to develop a reputation as a go-to expert in your company or field. Her research is based on her interviews with more than 50 top thought leaders in business, such as Daniel Pink, Robert Cialdini, David Allen, and Seth Godin, as well as luminaries in fields as diverse as genomics and urban planning. This webinar will help you hone your ideas and build a following around them.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Sharing Economy for Learning (Free for CSTD members)

It is it is estimated that there will be around 2.13 billion social network users around the globe by 2016, up from 1.4 billion in 2012. Whether you need know about sheep shearing, cake decorating, or the complexities of dark matter in our universe, there is an individual, a group, or business willing to share that know-how with you. Increasingly, this kind of knowledge exchange happens in the web—far outside of traditional learning environments.

The collaborative-economy model is enabling individuals, groups, and organizations everywhere to share what they know, from wherever they may work/live and with anyone in the world. A variety of business models, including free content services, barter systems, membership models, micro-payment businesses, and full courses with traditional course fees have already surfaced, with more entrants coming to the market every day. If you are a learning leader, you need to better understand and even participate in this new learning culture.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Building Community in Organizations through Peer Coaching (Free for CSTD members)

Community – “the social glue that binds us together for the greater good.”

Based on the groundbreaking work of management thinker Henry Mintzberg, this session will showcase a peer-coaching method for developing leaders and building community.

Offering an alternative and complementary view to the dominant conversation about organizations as cultures, creating communities requires that we improve the relationships we have with each other, recognize the importance of reciprocity, and embrace and benefit from diversity and inclusion.

How, then, to get from the organization as a collection of human resources to the institution as a community of human beings? How to go from top-level leadership to communityship? How to go from learning and development to building community?

In this webinar you will learn about:

An innovative peer-coaching adaptation of the 70/20/10 approach to leadership development and organizational change.
Mintzberg’s communityship, the foundation of community in organizations, and the six guidelines for Mintzberg’s “middle out” change to build community in organizations.
The impact of this approach through hands on review of select case studies and gain insight into leveraging a peer-coaching methodology in your practice.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: 4 Must-Know Strategies for Excellent Mobile Sales Training (Free for ATD members)

Your sales reps need to become experts in your business quickly, but slides and classroom training aren’t enough. Out in the field, they need to have the right information at their fingertips.

What is already at their fingertips? Mobile devices. By putting searchable, always up-to-date sales content in a mobile app, you can give your sales team the information they need to close deals faster.

Learn Inkling’s four tried-and-true strategies for amazing mobile sales training that your reps—as well as your marketing, enablement, and operations teams—won’t be able to live without.

This webinar will show attendees:

The best approaches to adapting your content for mobile devices.
How Covidien, one of the world’s largest medical device companies, went mobile in four weeks without adding to its budget.
How to choose tools that help you create content, easily share it to mobile devices, and measure its ROI.

Thursday, May 7, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: 6 Ways to Make Off-the-Shelf Content Your Own

How do you make off-the-shelf content more engaging for your learners? You’ve got the content, but how do you get learners interacting with new concepts and applying them to their real jobs as soon as possible?

Join eLearning guru Megan Torrance for six easy ways to personalize content packages and improve adoption.

Megan will share how you can use technology to painlessly customize out-of-the-box content in order to:

Take your existing program to new levels of success.
Generate ROI from training initiatives faster.
Create your own employee certification program.
This is a must-attend event, whether your 2015 plans include purchasing a content library, or your team already has access and you need ways to increase engagement!

Thursday, May 7, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: The New Approach to Managing Performance

It’s been a business practice for 50 years or more. It’s likely here forever—in some form. And, every organization’s business performance relies on it. Yet, only a meagre few have figured out how to garner real value from the performance management process, generating business results that cause others to pay attention.

In this session, Brandon Hall Group’s Laci Loew, VP and Principal Analyst Talent Management Practice will:

Explore today’s performance management drivers, challenges and philosophies.
Share a proprietary framework for transforming to a new approach.
Present the business value of adopting the new approach.
Describe success levers of the new approach.

Join this interactive webinar to learn the secrets of top-performing organizations that have transformed the review process.

Thursday, May 7, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: The Science of Learning in Action: 7 Insights from Real Data (Free for ATD members)

Many organizations around the world are starting to apply the principles of brain research to their learning environments. On May 7, join Carol Leaman and Alice Kim as they leverage real learning data to determine what kind of effect this is having on behaviour and, ultimately, performance.

During this webinar, attendees will learn:

How the correct combination of spacing and reinforcement can shorten time to competency.
The different extrinsic and intrinsic motivators that can lead to an increased level of voluntary participation in learning.
The importance of assessing an employee’s confidence and how that can affect knowledge growth.

Friday, May 8, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Add Power: Use the ATD Career Navigator to Build Your ATD Conference Schedule! (Free for ATD members)

If you want to make the most of your time at the ATD International Conference & Exposition, or if you simply want to identify the right activities to close your talent development skills gaps for the job you have or the job you want, then join us!

For a limited time, you can use this free member benefit for U.S. ATD members to assess your skills gaps and identify the best ATD conference sessions to attend to close them.

Join ATD and SkillDirector (formerly Edutainment Media) for a discussion and demonstration on how to use the ATD Career Navigator to create a personalized learning plan and to build your ATD conference schedule.

When this session is complete, you will be able to use the ATD Career Navigator to:

Assess your own knowledge, skills, and abilities against The ATD Competency Model.
Create a personalized learning plan to close your talent development skills gaps.
Help identify which ATD conference sessions you should attend.

Monday, May 11, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Flourish with Feedback

Feedback is a powerful intervention for improving human performance. Everyone gives and receives feedback every day in the workplace. Given appropriately, feedback can enhance a person’s motivation, competency, and self-image. Given inappropriately, feedback can leave a person feeling resentful, patronized, confused, stupid, and ashamed.

This interactive webinar will use LOLAs (Live Online Learning Activities) to help you become more proficient in both sides of using effective feedback: giving and receiving.

Topics:

Different types of feedback that serve different purposes.
Reasons why people fumble giving feedback and resist receiving feedback.
Guidelines for giving useful feedback.
Guidelines for using the feedback you receive.

Monday, May 11, 2015, 5PM – 6PM PT: Creating a Professional Development Action Plan Using the ATD Competency Model (Free for ATD members)

What specific skills do you need to stay valuable? Learn how you can prepare for the future faster by aligning your professional development plans to the ATD Competency Model, which defines what talent development professionals need to know and do to be successful across a wide range of roles.

This session will introduce you to the ATD Competency Model. The presenter will cover all 10 areas of expertise, including three of the most critical: coaching, integrated talent management, and change management. At the end of the session, participants will be able to:

List the 10 areas of expertise that talent development professionals need to know.
Identify a few key resources aligned to the model to help you close key skills gaps.
Access tools to help you create a detailed professional development action plan aligned to the model.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 9AM – 10AM PT: E-Learning Interaction (Free for ATD members)

Join Allen Partridge for an exciting hour of smart learning interactions. Learn to quickly customize your own interactions to easily create compelling, responsive, animated, and interactive content with Adobe Captivate 8. With little more than text, sounds, and pictures, learn how you can rapidly move from learning objectives to meaningful interactive learning using the powerful tools in Captivate.

In this webinar, attendees will learn to:

Customize smart learning interactions using Adobe Captivate 8.
Create responsive, animated, and interactive learning experiences.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Creating the Path to Career Success for Healthcare Workers

Finding and holding onto great talent is of critical importance to all organizations, but in the specialized world of healthcare, it can get tricky. Healthcare organizations face a dual challenge of holding onto workers with in-demand skills by offering them the right development and growth opportunities, and of being able to move talent across the organization by better understanding their individual skills and capabilities that can be applied in new positions.

This session will cover:

Creating competency-based career paths that integrate with learning to help individuals improve performance in their current role and prepare for their next role.
Building business buy-in from the start through HR business partners.
How to increase engagement and accountability by giving employees visibility into career options and development opportunities based on their current competencies.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Battle of the PowerPoint Authoring Tools

There is a whole classification of eLearning development tools that install themselves as new ribbons in PowerPoint. They include some very popular tools: Adobe Presenter, Articulate Studio, iSpring Studio Suite, Microsoft Mix, Trivantis Snap! and Zenler Studio.

Are there any real differences between these tools? If so, do any of those differences lead to a clear-cut winner in the mix? Which tool will best serve your needs? PowerPoint add-in development tools do not address every eLearning need but in many cases can be the perfect solution to designing and developing an eLearning course, especially when time is of the essence and budgets are very tight.

It's important to know what each of these tools offers you, especially where the differences lie, because the differences can make all the difference between delivering really good eLearning or boring, bad eLearning. If you're going to use a PowerPoint add-in tool, are you sure you're using the correct one for your particular needs? Come and find out.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: How to Create Content to Attract the Modern Learner

Research shows that 84 percent of organizations are spending less than 5 cents of every learning dollar on exploring, acquiring, and deploying informal initiatives, yet modern learners prefer informal methods.

Why the disconnect? Too many learning organizations still try to conform to their current technological environment of learning management systems and authoring tools that focus on traditional, formal learning.

Register now to learn how to create an ecosystem that breaks free of formal learning confines and allows you to finally leverage learning content in a way that meets modern learning requirements.

Topics covered:

How to create a content strategy that makes your learning content reusable, accessible, and measurable across all formal and informal channels.
What new and expanded L&D roles are required to create and deliver modern learning experiences.
Why content management is the critical missing piece of your learning architecture and how it allows you to deploy informal learning programs.
Using content management to address critical learning and development initiatives, including closing skills gaps and reaching a mobile and multi-generational workforce.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: How to Create Content to Attract the Modern Learner

Research shows that 84 percent of organizations are spending less than 5 cents of every learning dollar on exploring, acquiring and deploying informal initiatives, yet modern learners prefer informal methods.

Register now to learn how to create an ecosystem that breaks free of formal learning confines and allows you to finally leverage learning content in a way that meets modern learning requirements.

Leslie Farinella, VP of Customer Success at Xyleme, and Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer at analyst firm Brandon Hall Group, will discuss:

How to create a content strategy that makes your learning content reusable, accessible, and measurable across all formal and informal channels.
What new and expanded L&D roles are required to create and deliver modern learning experiences.
Why content management is the critical missing piece of your learning architecture and how it allows you to deploy informal learning programs.
Using content management to address critical learning and development initiatives, including closing skills gaps and reaching a mobile and multi-generational workforce.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Show Your Work: A Management Perspective (Free for CSTD members)

Narrating our work—also known in some circles as “working out loud”—is getting a lot of attention lately as it offers great potential for connecting talent pools and capturing tacit knowledge, and reducing rework and duplication of effort, and maybe even meetings. While showing your work provides value in the context of learning, there’s less clarity around how showing your work provides value to a business or organization.

In this session, you will explore the value of narrating work from the point of view of management. You will discuss what it means to narrate your work in an organizational context. You will discover why this is critical to business outcomes and how organizations can encourage more people to narrate their work. You will leave this session understanding when to support showing work in the ever-challenging quest for surfacing organizational knowledge.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: Visual Learning: A Picture Is Worth an Hour of Training (Free for ATD members)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, it is easily worth an hour of training. As the time available for training continues to diminish, organizations need to be creative in how information is communicated to learners. An innovative solution to teaching a challenging project is to use visual learning, or communicating through images and video, instead of traditional training methods.

During this webinar, Sheri Weppel will provide easy-to-understand insights on the application of visual learning principles. Attendees will learn how to use:

Infomercials to communicate a message.
Infographics to communicate statistics.
Animations to communicate processes and procedures.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Escape from the Maelstrom: Managing Priorities in a Chaotic Workplace

In today’s workplace, leaders and their teams have far too many shifting or competing priorities to manage effectively. Challenges of all kinds can keep them from achieving desired results: inability to identify top priorities, constant distractions, pressure to multi-task, rambling meetings, email overload, 24/7 mobile technology, the inability to say “no,” and many others.

It’s no wonder priority management is such a hot topic for today’s organizations. In this webinar, we’ll discuss ways to develop a framework to support high performance by:

Applying clear criteria to identify top priorities.
Better leveraging physical and mental stamina.
Negotiating the terms of requests, so you can say “yes” more often.
Delivering the results that your organization and customers expect.

Thursday, May 14, 2015, 9AM – 10AM PT: Lessons Learned from 30 Years of Entrepreneurial Experience (Free for ATD members)

As an entrepreneur, it’s not enough to excel at your profession. You must also be a master of business development, sales, project management, marketing, finance, strategic planning, and all of the other hats that entrepreneurs wear. In this webinar, two entrepreneurs—each in business for more than 30 years—will share proven tips and techniques for building your entrepreneurial venture into a thriving, profitable, and sustainable business.

Learning objectives:

Understand the difference between marketing and sales and how to do each effectively.
Master the art of managing client relationships to build goodwill and repeat business.
Expand your business through products, partnerships, and alliances.
Gain control over your finances by understanding pricing, profitability, and money management.
Learn to create processes, set boundaries, and operate your business so that it works for you as well as your clients.

Thursday, May 14, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Leveraging Technology to Reinvent Learning at Ledcor (Free for CSTD members)

Ledcor's Learning and Development team has recently helped their organization transition from “pen and paper” to leveraging an integrated, cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) that includes a mobile learning platform, online social learning communities, and blended learning. Ledcor, a diversified construction company, is providing innovative ways for their employees to access learning. Join John Cline, Director of Learning and Development, to hear Ledcor’s story and lessons learned.

Learning Outcomes:

Apply lessons learned when implementing new technologies such as a cloud-based LMS.
Discover ways to create online/social learning communities.
Explore how to use technology for a blended learning approach (e-learning, virtual classroom).
Discover how to use a mobile learning platform for employees on job sites and in remote locations.

"Sears - Town Mall of Westminster" BY Mike Kalasnik IS licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015, 8AM – 9AM PT: Talent Acquisition in the Retail Industry: When the Candidate Experience Is the Customer Experience

While talent acquisition is changing rapidly in a post-recession world, the retail industry faces a unique set of challenges for identifying and attracting talent. Retail organizations' number one priority is the customer experience, making time to productivity as important as culture fit for all frontline, support, and executive positions. But it’s more than just the KPIs that make talent acquisition different for the retail industry. Below are a few of the topics that will be discussed:

Retail organizations face specific challenges including complex customer expectations of highly knowledgeable salespeople, the lack of a recruitment function, possibility of franchise models, and the need to align the candidate and customer experiences.
Retail organizations will need a strategy for recruitment that aligns candidate and customer experiences, gives line managers accountability, defines the process to identify critical job roles, and identifies gaps between current and future skills.
No longer relying on kiosks to support recruitment, technology has evolved drastically in how it supports these companies. This webinar will address the key trends in technology to support retail organizations.
Case Study : The Sears Story – Presented by Andrea Joseph, HR Operations Manager, Talent & Human Capital Services, Sears Holding Corporation.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: How to Develop Great Online Video Training Programs

We know bite-sized video works to deliver highly effective, targeted learning content and resources to employees. We also know that with the right approach to delivery (mobile!), bite-sized video has the potential to live up to the long-promised “anytime, anywhere” learning capability of online training.

The challenge many organizations are now confronting is how to develop customized content to deliver their unique subject matter expertise to employees and maybe even customers in an effective video format.

In this session, you will learn the art and science of developing customized online training videos. Adult learning theory, brain science, and memory feedback loop are the foundational principles we’ve relied on for years—and they are still more important than ever! We’ll take these foundational principles and bring them into line with current technology and video capability to help us create, develop, and then deliver online training videos that work better than any type of online training that’s come before.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Becoming BlueShore Financial (Free for CSTD members)

The session will tell the story of how a compelling vision can transform an organization—specifically, how a small community credit union became a brand boutique financial institution. BlueShore Financial is a full-range financial services institution offering personal and business banking, wealth management, insurance and commercial lending services. BlueShore Financial has been in business for 75 years, but for the first 73 they were known as North Shore Credit Union.

The story will highlight how-to transform an organization through engaging employees in every step of the way—from articulating the client experience, strategy, and culture.

Learning Outcomes:

The importance of linking strategy and people.
How to implement a change-management model through people Lessons learned.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: How Companies Are Leveraging Learning Technology in 2015

Learning has changed significantly in recent years, and the advent of new technologies has allowed companies to train better, smarter, and faster than ever before. But are companies taking advantage of these tools, or is there a missed opportunity to truly embrace what the market has to offer?

In this webinar the facilitators will look at what the latest research tells us about the world of learning technology and how your organization can leverage it not only for better learning and development results, but for better business results as well. In addition, dedicated Q&A time will be set aside for you to ask your most important learning technology questions.

Join us as Chief Strategy Officer Michael Rochelle, Senior Learning Analyst David Wentworth, and HCM Analyst Ben Eubanks uncover these answers and more based on the data from the Brandon Hall Group 2015 Learning Technology Trends survey.

Thursday, May 21, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Increasing Online Learner Engagement With Big Data (Free for CSTD members)

Marketers, doctors, and analysts all use Big Data to make informed decisions, diagnoses, and predictions. We have access to more data than ever before about how people interact with online content, yet learning professionals stick with traditional needs assessments when determining design. By mining data sources that already exist at your company, you’ll learn much about the needs and preferences of your learners. Harnessing this knowledge will allow you to better respond to learner needs, which will result in higher content engagement.

Learning Outcomes:

Identify the types of data sources that can be used to detect learning trends and preferences.
Analyze web usage data to uncover insights about learner behaviours.
Translate identified trends into the creation of optimized learning content.

"Ryan Nelson coaching Toronto FC 2013" BY abdallahh IS LICENSED UNDER CC BY 2.0.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015, 10AM – 11AM PT: Can You Make Your Feedback Quick and Short, Please? Improving Performance with Micro-Coaching and Feedback

Have you heard these urgent requests before?

“Can you make it quick, please?”

“Can you tell me how I can improve immediately?”

“Will you let me know instantly if I am doing a good job or if I am failing?”

The mode and tone of today’s workers and team members sound urgent, almost always needing immediate attention. What happens when we miss the opportunity to provide coaching and feedback because of long awaited and scheduled performance evaluation or weekly meetings? The urgency of the need may have passed, so the value of the coaching and feedback may be diminished. How do you prevent this from happening?

Why do micro-coaching and feedback work? What do science and research tell us about how people get rapid feedback in today’s “milliseconds oriented” workplaces?
How do you detect opportunities for micro, quick coaching, and feedback in your business?
How do you become perpetually alert for micro-coaching and feedback?
How do you redirect urgencies and emergencies into micro-conversations that help learners learn, though in a very concise and precise manner?
How do you design coaching for new learners or experienced learners?
How do you integrate micro-content, micro-goal setting, and micro-tracking with micro-coaching and feedback?
How do you add micro-coaching and feedback into your classroom training, e-Learning and performance support methods.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: BEST Webcast Series: Touchpoint Support Services: Growing Your Supervisors into Great Leaders (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, you will learn how developing your supervisor-level associates will help your company achieve its business objectives and build a strong bench of qualified candidates for future management openings. Sharolyn Balsley and Jessi Moffitt will tell you how they focused on their supervisors and developed training for their unique needs. By developing this level of associates, you’ll see increased associate engagement and reduced turnover.

During this webcast, you will learn:

Common causes for why supervisors may fail in their new roles.
Why focusing on supervisors benefits your company.
How to ensure that you are building a strong bench of qualified managers from your supervisor pool.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015, 11AM – 12PM PT: Using Video to Train Employees on Great Customer Service (Free for ATD members)

Most customer-facing employees are usually based far away from your company’s senior leadership or strategists, yet by definition, these employees are the face of your brand. A new product, service, or brand initiative is only as effective as its delivery to the customer. In this webinar, we’ll explore how leading retail, financial, and hospitality organizations are leveraging video to train frontline employees to deliver a consistent message and great customer experiences.

Attendees will learn:

Best practices and examples of how leading companies are training frontline employees.
How to use video to communicate quickly and effectively.
How to implement a program and measure results.

Thursday, May 28, 2015, 9AM – 10AM PT: Dealing with Ambiguity During Change (Free for ATD members)

Learn how Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) developed a hands-on leadership simulation event to prepare leaders to make critical decisions during unprecedented ambiguity and industry change. HCSC is the largest customer-owned health insurer in the United States and fourth largest overall, operating through its Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Thursday, May 28, 2015, 12PM – 1PM PT: Symposium Teaser: Articulate Storyline 2 (Free for CSTD members)

Articulate Storyline was a “game changer” for the e-learning industry when it launched. Now Storyline 2 is here. Some terrific new features enhance an already great product. One of the most hyped features is the slider function. While inserting a slider is easy, making it work and taking your e-learning to the next level of engagement takes some thought and a little practice. That’s where this session comes in. We’ll provide you with a step-by-step job aid, and all the source files and assets needed to create some engaging sliders that you can easily reuse in your next project.

Learning outcomes: