"Mushroom and fern" by Manuel Barroso Parejo is licensed by Unsplash.

It’s a busy time of year. The onset of fall has a funny way of drawing our attention to how quickly the year is whizzing by, and invariably we’re playing catch-up. So how about a productivity-boosting resource to help you reach that elusive next gear? There are plenty of free webinars happening this October.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: 9 Things You're Doing Wrong with Video (Free for ATD members)

Video has become the de facto medium for delivering employee training at scale. While working with video has traditionally been complex and time-consuming, recent technology advances have dramatically simplified the process of capturing, managing, and sharing it. Join Panopto to learn nine things you may be doing the old way, why they're no longer necessary, and how updating your approach to video learning will enable you to maximize its value.

In this webcast, you’ll learn:

Three best practices for creating new videos.
Five best practices for publishing, editing, and sharing your videos.
About the benefits of peer-to-peer video-based learning.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: Why Aren't B2B Sales Presentations Effective? And How to Fix Yours

This session is geared specifically toward helping sales managers and sales professionals create more effective and more persuasive B2B sales presentations.

This session will explore:

The elements of building and communicating a persuasive story, based on the needs of your prospects and customers.
Guides for how to capture their attention, demonstrate the value you offer, and differentiate from the competition.
Creating visual sequences to communicate your messages in a compelling way.
And add interactivity to achieve high levels of active engagement, resulting in a more memorable and effective presentation.

And you'll learn how to do it all using nothing but standard PowerPoint and a good story.

Join PowerPoint expert Richard Goring for a session tailored to helping you create persuasions designed to help you and your sales team close more deals.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: You Say You Want a Revolution? Transform Your Managers! (Free for ATD members)

Today, a slow evolution isn’t enough. Revolution is where it’s at! And managers make it happen. High-performing companies see their managers differently. Managers can power change—but first, you must unleash their potential.

Uncover the simple routines, everyday disrupters, and unconventional ways today’s managers spark the revolution. With their signature blend of storytelling, dialogue, and drama, the consultants at Root will show you exactly what your managers need to power change.

Participants will learn how to:

Exert a more strategic mindset to manager development.
Empower your managers to lead with purpose.
Equip your managers to power change.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: R.I.P. Outdated LMS: Make Way for Modern Learning

Spooky ghosts, goblins and ghouls might be looming in your alleyways and hiding in dark corners with Halloween coming up but they shouldn’t be causing a fright in your LMS!

Did you know that many organizations struggle with outdated platforms and processes when it comes to their learning technology? In fact, according to Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Learning Technology Study, 44 per cent of companies are actively looking to replace their existing learning management system (LMS).

Organizations are looking for modern, flexible systems that can adapt to the evolving needs of the business and its learners. Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group and Caitlin Bigsby, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Saba, as they discuss the evolving learning technology landscape and strategies for finding the right LMS for your organization.

In this webinar, you’ll gain insights on:

Best practices for finding an LMS that engages your workforce, reduces training costs and elevates skills to maximize productivity.
How to future-proof your learning strategy with an LMS that allows you to keep up with the latest trends in learning and development, including micro and informal learning.
Connecting the dots between learning management and business performance.
A proven technology migration framework, with practical steps you can take to ensure a successful LMS transition.
Methods for ousting those frightening learning technologies once and for all. (Boo!)

Wednesday, October 4, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Is Your Microlearning In Trouble Before You Even Start? Why and What Should You Do?

Microlearning has nothing to do with learning. It has to do with usefulness. Sadly, the worst thing we have done about microlearning is call it “learning.”

The “usefulness” aspect of microlearning (or should we call it micro-actions) is what matters. Focusing on usefulness forces us to change strategies so we aim for the targeted results rather than the methods, tools and the content.

For microlearning to succeed, it has to be ready to use and rich in context. Simply put, there is nothing that should stop the worker from using it instantly.

In this webinar, you’ll gain insights on:

Why is content the worst way to start microlearning?
What are the booby traps and minefields that lead to failures?
How do workers actually work and when do they need help?
What are the “learning”-related factors that impede performance?
How would you address the flow-killers in work?
How do you use microlearning to deal with the flow-killers?

Thursday, October 5, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Applying Augmented & Virtual Reality to Training and Performance Support

As products and services get more complex, providing the right training has the biggest impact on improving proficiency. With 75 million baby boomers approaching retirement, how do you cater to the next generation of digitally savvy workers? Augmented and virtual reality provide the links that enable you to deliver valuable training and performance support resources directly to your audience wherever and whenever they need it most.

In this webinar you’ll…

Explore the benefits of AR/VR to learners, as well as the practical considerations and challenges around deploying such programs.
See real-world examples of how augmented and virtual reality can be applied and used for training and performance support.
Discover the ROI of implanting these types of programs, including how to decrease overall costs associated with long training periods and potential rework.

Thursday, October 5, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Driving Adoption for Better Learning Outcomes

Think of the time, money and energy spent creating learning experiences aimed at both engaging the learner and well as improving business outcomes. What happens when these programs are released into the wild and nobody engages with them? All of that effort is wasted and the potential they contain is never realized. Simply turning a learning program loose on the workforce is no guarantee it will be successful.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Litmos, as they discuss what it takes to drive learning adoption, as well as what can happen if you don’t. They will discuss strategies for ensuring your learning audiences will jump headfirst into the experiences you are creating.

Discussion topics include:

Barriers to adoption.
Why adoption is important.
Adoption strategies.

Thursday, October 5, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: 9 Things You're Doing Wrong with Video

Join Panopto to learn nine things you may be doing "the old way," why they're no longer necessary, and how updating your approach to video learning will enable you to maximize its value.

Learning Objectives:

Learn three best practices for creating new videos.
Learn five best practices for publishing, editing, and sharing your videos.
Learn about the benefits peer-to-peer video-based learning.

Friday, October 6, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Increase Performance and Productivity With Emotional Connectedness (Free for ATD members)

Until now, there hasn’t been much research on the effect of employees’ feelings on such workplace outcomes as engagement, productivity, or attrition. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, there is a record low in productivity. And, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the contingent workforce is growing to nearly one-third of the nation’s workforce. On top of this, for the first time, we have five generations of employees working together. If you think fancy foosball and ping pong tables, napping pods, friendships, and golden parachutes will help you become the best and most loved workplace, think again.

The way to become a truly extraordinary company that is loved by your employees and attractive to candidates is by fostering employees’ emotional connectedness to your company. Presenter Louis Carter’s team at Best Practice Institute has proven that emotional connectedness is the strongest self-reported indicator of retention and productivity. The key to becoming loved is creating a culture of psychological safety, consistent positive messaging and communication, and effective group dynamics.

Join this webcast to learn about this exciting new research. You’ll learn:

What the “best lists” don’t measure and why they need to change.
What workplace connectedness is, and how it affects company outcomes such as attrition and productivity.
How increasing positive interactions, endorsement, and focusing on future advice can shift thinking.
Steps you can take to create a culture of psychological safety and emotional connectedness.

Monday, October 9, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Changing the Perceived Culture of Indifference in Care (Free for ATD members)

The key to patient experience is changing the perceived culture of indifference in care. When the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) and other survey tools are provided to patients, they ask patients about the aspects of their experiences that are important to them.

The goal of this webcast is not to tell healthcare employees to smile more. It’s to look at the visual aspects of healthcare culture and surroundings and work to add better visibility to the fact that your employees truly care about patients. This webcast will discuss “optics” issues that contribute to:

Improved patient experience.
Increased patient satisfaction.
Focused patient education.
Better patient communication.
Motivated employees.
Higher return on investment through patient and employee engagement.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: 5 Ways Managers Unknowingly Damage Company Culture

Nearly half of all sales executives in the U.S. have voluntarily left a company because of their direct managers. In many ways, managers are as important as the C-level in influencing a company’s culture. Yet many of today’s managers have had little management training and even less development, emotional intelligence and insight into the psyche of their employees.

In this webinar, Paul Nolan, Editor-in-Chief of Sales & Marketing Management, will have a one-on-one interview with C. Lee Smith, President/CEO of SalesFuel® and the creator of TeamKeeper®, a team leadership and development system.

Topics include:

The benefits of improving your company culture and why it’s critical with a millennial workforce.
The importance of empathy, feedback and an employee-centric approach to management.
How managers can quickly coach and develop their team members when there aren’t enough hours in the day.
How culture can be measured and how you can manage it.
The impact of culture and retention on your bottom line.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Cultivating 5 Modern Sales Skills for a High-Value Advantage (Free for ATD members)

The sales landscape is changing. Is your organization’s team evolving to meet new challenges? To create success, they need modern skillsets and mental models—which touch everything from relationship building and prospecting to growing current customers and positioning their own value and brand.

Come learn why and how you must develop five core skills within your team—skills critical to modern sales success. When your team commits to becoming modern sellers, their relevance will grow, and they will maximize their results.

Attendees will:

Discover how to cultivate modern skills within their sales force to maximize their results.
Apply understanding of modern selling trends to their decision making when developing sales strategy, designing skill building programs, and assessing skill gaps.
Incorporate best practices into their strategy and programs.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: 5 Lessons from Microsoft's Leading Edge Corporate MOOC Innovations

The challenge facing most organizations: transforming at scale and at speed. The answer for Microsoft was leading-edge “Corporate MOOCs,” which they have continually innovated in their quest to transform to a mobile-first cloud-first company at 21st-century speed.

In this webinar we’ll discuss how Microsoft tweaked the basic educational MOOC idea into a highly contextualized collaborative learning experience at scale that has led to phenomenal sales and marketing/customer channel results, and share real-world takeaways for anyone looking to transform their own organizations.

This webinar will cover:

How Microsoft’s thinking about sales and marketing readiness training has evolved over the last four years and what the future holds.
The difference between an educational MOOC or SPOC and a “Corporate MOOC” and when to choose it.
How to effectively leverage a Corporate MOOC for topics ranging from business acumen to industry verticals to soft skills leadership training.
Microsoft’s challenges, successes, and lessons learned along the way.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: xAPI – Geek Free and Ready to Go

Is xAPI here to stay? This is the billion dollar question. With any new technology, there's a small set of early adopters who take the plunge, while others wait in the wings. When you're responsible for the learning and development of a large organization, it's wise to wait and see if this is going to get traction or if it's just a well-hyped flash in the pan.

Until recently, using xAPI meant custom programming, close work with your LRS provider, and custom reporting tools. It just wasn't scalable for enterprise-wide adoption. Today, xAPI is ready for wider adoption. We'll talk about the state of xAPI adoption and what you'll need to get started. Major courseware development tools have varying degrees of basic conformance with xAPI and can send statements to an LRS. Several LRSs are commercially available to choose from, and LMS providers are adding an LRS to their suites. Conformance specifications are evolving and more tools that previously never used SCORM are adopting xAPI.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Interconnecting your LMS Integrations

Is your technology working with you or working against you? Integrations play an essential role in building an interconnected IT environment, where information is readily shared between systems. If your disparate systems can’t “speak” to each other they become information silos and information becomes more difficult to access.

In this webinar Lambda solution engineer James Nicolson will outline how Moodle and Totara LMSs can be interconnected to your other IT systems. James will demonstrate how different types of information can be used as part of these integrations. He'll also detail how third-party applications can be integrated into the LMS to further enhance its abilities with additional course and content functionality. For each of these integrations, he'll identify how they can performed and what features are available out of the box in Moodle and Totara LMSs.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Make Virtual Classroom Learning Relevant – Scenario Based Learning In The Virtual Classroom

Adult learning principles state that adults learn best when content is relevant. So why do most virtual classroom lessons rely on lectures and slides? One of the most effective ways to ensure learning sticks is by getting learners involved, and scenario-based learning design does just that.

Join this webinar to discover ideas for producing appropriate scenarios that resonate with your learners in the virtual classroom.

Goal: Learn how to design and facilitate scenario-based learning for the virtual classroom.

Thursday, October 12, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: When High-Performance Dreams Become Training Nightmares (Free for ATD members)

For professionals charged with learning and development projects, there is nothing worse than the realization that a course has brought little back to the organization after all that effort. This webcast will detail best practices for ensuring that a training effort achieves visible return on investment, including bringing workforce leaders into a partnership for success.

Focusing on a current training need, you’ll learn to:

Identify the failure points for a past training effort and decide how you will prevent that loss in future training programs.
Partner with the leaders you support, to communicate the criticality of their involvement and increase the probability of success with specific steps.
Design learning elements to teach new behaviours so that they can be practised and applied on the job.
Plan for learners to continue using new behaviours on the job in partnership with their leaders.
Continue with aid and oversight to help leaders and learners measure the overall effects of training and determine if it met the need.

You'll also be given a job aid with the picture of the simple four-part model the webcast is based on. You can use this to better partner with others in your organization. You'll leave the webcast with a plan to create the ultimate accomplishment: permanently changed behavior that brings real, measurable business results. When you use these tools and begin to show return on investment, the process gets easier and attracts even more support, growing your organization's learning culture and gaining credibility and value for training professionals!

Thursday, October 12, 2017 12PM – 1PM PT: Boosting Training Results with Learning Transfer and Manager Involvement

As much as 85 per cent of new learning never gets applied, drastically reducing the potential organizational impact. The solution is not more learning but more learning transfer. Learn practical tips on what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to driving manager involvement in supporting learning initiatives. Plus, see how technology can be used to automate participant reinforcement, simplify manager coaching, and gain critical management support. See how several companies’ learning initiatives excelled with learning transfer through manager involvement.

During this webinar, you’ll:

Discover practical actions to increase manager involvement and support of training initiatives.
Hear about best practices used by other organizations to increase manager involvement.
Experience the power of a learning transfer technology system that maximizes manager involvement effectively and efficiently.
Learn three ways to get managers involved in learning that result in increased learning transfer and improved business impact.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Do You Have What You Need Today to Train Tomorrow's Leaders?

By 2020, millennials will make up over 50 per cent of the American workforce. Typically defined as individuals born between the mid-80s and early 2000s, this generation has already begun to move into professional leadership roles.

Common wisdom dictates that the more mindful we are of the unique characteristics of this generation, the more effectively we’ll be able to train these young people to become excellent leaders and managers in their chosen fields.

In fact, studies have revealed that millennials’ employment needs and desires are not markedly different from those of their predecessors. Millennials report five key professional priorities: (1) maintaining a sense of purpose; (2) receiving mentorship from a coach rather than a boss; (3) receiving frequent feedback; (4) showcasing their strengths; and (5) developing their careers in the long-term.

But while professionals of all ages tend to want the same things, millennials are uniquely vocal in their pursuit of these ideals. Given their near-majority in the workforce, perhaps it’s time we started listening. In this webinar, discover how to focus on developing training systems that honor the unique attributes that millennial employees bring to the table.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Performance Management Isn’t Going Away, It’s Transforming

Research shows a clear link between employee involvement in performance management processes and successful outcomes from those processes. Despite the widespread media attention around organizations that have removed performance management altogether, most organizations are modifying their processes to incorporate the latest research in management and psychology.

Even traditional and successful performance review processes stand to benefit from advances in technologies, allowing for a more transparent, segmented, and data-driven strategy. Coaching, in-the-moment feedback, and consistent recognition for meaningful contributions are practices that truly impact performance management effectiveness.

Takeaways include:

Best practices around one-on-one conversations and ways to create positive perceptions of the performance review.
Ways technology plays a role in engaging and tracking manager-employee interactions.
Steps towards transitioning your workforce into a future-focused performance management process.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: How to Hire Top-Performing Salespeople in an Evolving Sales Environment (Free for ATD members)

The rapidly evolving world of sales is causing significant changes in how companies hire and train their sales force. Because today’s buyers are much more aware of features, benefits, and alternative offerings, salespeople must now add value by conveying much deeper knowledge of the client organization’s needs and provide real return on investment.

HR and talent management professionals are tasked with understanding this business shift as they look to bring salespeople on board who will remain engaged, loyal, and ultimately successful in taking companies to the next level.

Research into sales performance over the past 15 years clearly demonstrates one thing: The business world must expand the traditional hunter/farmer conception of sales to more closely align with how customers buy in today’s complex environment.

This webcast will reveal:

The changing business environment and how it affects the sales profession.
Six successful sales job models that are applicable in today's changing environment.
How to leverage this information to better hire and train sales professionals at your organization.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Is Your Training Content Stuck in the Printer?

The idea of digitizing your high-value training materials may seem like a daunting task. But in fact, there is a road of best practices that you can follow to make it seamless. The key is to start small—perhaps with PDFs and securely delivering them—and work up to interactive material with analytics so there’s a continuous improvement of content. Just do this one step at a time.

This interactive webinar will provide easy-to-understand insights into:

The steps to take to go from print and PDFs to more interactive content with analytics.
Best practices for securely distributing your training content.
How to engage your learners with your high-value training content.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Skills, Skills, Skills: What You Should Consider While Implementing Skills for Your Organization (Free for ATD members)

Are you thinking about using skills or have you been using skills for learning? Deciding to use skills can be an important and strategic part of enabling your organization can help you measure your bench strength and where you may need to train.

In this webcast, you’ll:

Learn how to align skills to learning in your organization.
Communicate the value of skills to your learners.
Measure the impact of skill use and enablement.

Wednesday, October 18, 10AM – 11AM PT: Wrong Content = Wrong Results: Why the Right Content Is Key for Propelling your Business Forward

Organizations spend big bucks on learning content – whether creating it or buying it. In fact, content takes up 20 per cent or more of the learning budget for more than half of companies. And nearly one-third expect to increase their content spend over the next year. But simply forking out more money won’t solve the fundamental problem: Content is not meeting the needs of the business. Companies need to do a better job of creating or finding the right content to improve employee performance on the job and to achieve the bottom-line results the business wants.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Craig Wahl, Vice President of Client Experience at Axonify, as they look at the results of Brandon Hall Group’s recent Learning Content Study and the role content plays in Brandon Hall Group’s Learning-Performance Convergence Model. They’ll discuss how to take a more strategic approach to learning content that will help you maximize the time, money and resources you put towards this critical initiative.

Specifically, they’ll talk about:

Best practices for buying or building learning content.
Drivers behind content strategies.
Challenges with instructional design.
The Learning-Performance Convergence Model.
Examples of content strategies in practice.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Make Your Smart Teams Smarter

Most eLearning, webinars and face-to-face training focus on memorization. Critical thinking and building expertise are left to chance. As a result, this environment adds to failure on the job, poor performance and yet costly training. Furthermore, the challenge has been that software for learning systems reinforces memorization and discourages thinking and reflection. However, on the contrary, when tasks change quickly and business leaders want demand agility, critical thinking and rapid expertise development is the new norm.

In this webinar, Ray Jimenez will share with you his experiences. Topics to cover:

What are the costs to business when critical thinking is not part of work processes?
When is memorization as learning ever justified?
What is the science in “instant thinking” and “deep-dive thinking”?
How would you design a learning experience that fosters critical thinking and rapid expertise development?

A walkthrough and demo of an in-house software project that accelerates expertise development, critical analysis, solutions generations and success impacts reporting will be shared.

Thursday, October 19, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: 5 Steps to Better Webcasts, Podcasts, and Video Conferences (Free for ATD members)

Many jobs now involve online communication. People who used to interact only face-to-face are now tasked with using digital tools to share information: managers communicating with staff members in diverse locations, trainers sharing instruction with off-site trainees, business leaders informing shareholders about quarterly results, salespeople explaining product features to prospective clients, and many others. While digital platforms make it easy to broadcast a message, it is not easy to create and deliver digital messages that engage viewers and have impact. Taking the PowerPoint presentation that’s used in the conference room and assuming that it will transfer to the online world is a mistake. Being able to effectively communicate in the digital world requires some specialized skills—skills that most have never been taught.

This webcast will share ideas for avoiding common mistakes, and offer tips for making digital communications better.

By the end of this webcast, you’ll:

Learn a framework to create more powerful messages in any situation.
Understand how digital tools change the nature of communication.
Get specific suggestions for tailoring talks for the online world.
Get specific suggestions that enable you to be a more impressive speaker online.

Thursday, October 19, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: 3 Ways to Build a Knowledge-ABLE Culture

In this session, Jacquie Beck will present multiple ways to create a “habit-forming” learning culture to ensure the learners in your enterprise are leveraging the content available with on-demand assets and live training. Jacquie will discuss the importance of tracking views, leveraging small reusable learning assets, and creating points, badges, and leaderboards to foster competition. With content at the learners’ fingertips, and a clear path to getting answers quickly, building a KNOWLEDGE-ABLE enterprise is key to keeping your team productive, educated, and informed.

Webinar attendees will learn how to add PBLs (points, badges, and leaderboards) to training strategies with gaming elements; hear insights and research on building a “habit-forming” corporate university that brings learners back daily to become proficient with finding answers on their own; and gain instructional design best practices to build a learning architecture that allows learners to get answers quickly and apply the skills immediately in their day-to-day jobs.

Thursday, October 19, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Closing the Employee Skill Gap

Job openings are up (4 per cent) and hiring is down (3.5 per cent) in the most substantive gap in labour supply in 16 years (with roughly 250,000 skilled baby boomers retiring quarterly). Companies can cut into margins and raise wages or focus on a succession strategy for the current workforce.

Come and join in a discussion around utilizing career development, mentoring, and on-the-job training to help close the skill gap and create happier, more engaged, employees that stick around longer.

Friday, October 20, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Emotionally Smart Healthcare (Free for ATD members)

Emotional intelligence is the link that connects healthcare providers to patients. It serves as the intra- and interpersonal skill that improves connection, quality, satisfaction, and patient outcomes. Communication, relationships, and patient experience demand high-quality, dynamic human interaction. Emotional intelligence allows leadership at all levels to optimize results.

This webcast will give participants:

A fundamental understanding of the impact of emotional intelligence on healthcare relationships and experiences.
A dynamic, best practice system for improving emotional intelligence throughout a healthcare climate and culture.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: Next Generation E-Learning (Free for ATD members)

The latest research by ATD and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that self-paced e-learning is thriving in nearly 90 per cent of organizations. Talent development leaders and practitioners say they anticipate not only continued growth, but exciting changes for e-learning ahead. They expect e-learning to take on new characteristics: greater levels of personalization, more interactivity, expanded use of videos, and an increased focus on content presented as microlearning.

Join ATD and i4cp for this webcast to learn how e-learning is evolving and what best practices are associated with increased e-learning effectiveness, according to ATD and i4cp's latest study of hundreds of organizations. This webcast will also discuss the tools, skills, and strategies e-learning designers and developers need to be prepared for the future of e-learning.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: How Learning can Drive Sales Performance

Training is always a challenge for sales team. Sales professionals cannot spend large amounts of time off the road or off the phone attending classes or taking courses. Yet, they need to always be informed on the latest product news and sales techniques. Rethinking learning technology with an eye on sales enablement can help organizations develop agile, effective sales teams.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Josh Squires, Chief Learning Officer at Docebo, as they examine how learning technology can deliver experiences tailored to sales professionals and designed for performance.

Discussion topics include:

Sales training challenges.
Informal learning opportunities.
Creating personalized, relevant experiences.
Tying learning to measurable outcomes.
Strategies in practice.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Scale Up Your Learning Efforts With Live Collaborative Streaming Video

For many years our industry has functioned under this premise, "We know that 1:1 training is the most effective method to learn/teach, but that doesn't scale." We created elaborate self-paced instructional courses that allowed anyone with a connection and the right computer equipment the ability to learn from an expert. And that worked. For about a decade. The eLearning course solution has been failing companies for many years now. It's time for something new.

Live streaming video is not necessarily new. However, the ability for anyone with a connected device to live-stream video is. Live streaming video offers immediate, real time, instruction as well as feedback. It's the one solution that can truly scale up the efforts of subject matter experts and help training departments deliver learning solutions at the speed of business.

Join Brent Schlenker in this lively conversation exploring the future of live collaborative streaming video.

Why did live video streaming become possible so fast?
How mobile live streaming enhances sales enablement/onboarding.
How mobile coaching integrates into management/leadership programs.
Learn about the difference between live streaming and webinars.
What skills are needed to create effective live streaming videos?
What use cases are best suited for live streaming video as a learning solution?

Thursday, October 26, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Up Is Not the Only Way: Rethinking Career Mobility

Careers used to be predictable. There were ladders. Each rung led up the hierarchy. Then individual aspirations and company needs began to evolve. Old ladders became largely inaccessible. Some rungs disappeared, and the space between others shifted from steps to leaps. Today's marketplace demands an agile workforce. Organizational structures have become fluid and flexible. As a result, career mobility has emerged as essential for individuals at all levels. No longer is mobility just about physical movement or assuming the greater responsibilities that come with a promotion.

Career mobility today is about flexibility and agility. It is a rich mix of experiences, roles, assignments, and options. Savvy careerists have come to appreciate the ability and willingness to explore multiple opportunities and experiences. To succeed in a rapidly changing environment, employees need to recognize when new opportunities for growth emerge and to be ready with options when others fade or change. Like the navigation systems we rely on to reroute our travels based on unexpected traffic congestion, shortcut options and last-minute detours, a career mobility mindset will provide a foundation for resilience in a changing world of work.

This session will open a new lens for managers and employees who want to make the most of the new career landscape.

Objectives:

Explore the business case for the new lens on career mobility.
Understand the opportunities available in organizations other than the traditional vertical move.
Practice four ways to do an "Enrichment Workout!"

Thursday, October 26, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: Can Mindfulness Reboot Diversity and Inclusion? (Free for ATD members)

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategies have simply not moved the needle for corporations. While a variety of factors, including inadequate resources, competing priorities, and lack of accountability, have all contributed to slow progress, changing demographics, the need for innovation, and globalization have made D&I more important than ever. It’s time to rethink traditional approaches.

A complex issue that necessitates an integrated solution, D&I can be enhanced through mindfulness, which focuses on training the mind to balance the sometimes-competing functions of awareness and attention. Hallmarks of mindfulness include the ability to suspend emotional judgment under stress, greater self-awareness, and increased compassion in thought and action. By increasing competencies of presence, awareness, and attention, mindfulness at work can illuminate the behaviours and mindsets that build bridges across differences and enable organizations to leverage the power of D&I.

Learning Objectives:

Examine the driving and restraining forces shaping D&I in companies today.
Understand how mindfulness increases the ability to pause and manage nonconscious biases in moments of communication and decision.
Discuss the advantages of increasing awareness, attention, presence, nonjudgment, and compassion in leadership and team behaviours to build more inclusive workplace cultures.
Discuss the advantages of developing mindfulness as a portable competency that enables employees to engage and contribute fully at work.

Thursday, October 26, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: On Applying Action Learning to Corporate Projects in Executive Education

Action Learning is a dynamic process that helps participants learn individually, as a team and as an organization. Ultimately, Action Learning helps organizations develop creative, flexible and successful projects that can serve as best practices and increase shareholder value.

In this webinar, participants will see:

If you want to truly measure the return on investment in executive education, look at the incremental economic benefit generated from program projects.
An effective Action Learning process applied to real-world individual or team projects increases the probability of meeting and/or exceeding the commitments senior leadership is expecting.
How the application of action learning can foster invaluable insight and perspective to individuals and teams – getting them to think about aspects of their projects they have not considered, possibly because they have been too close to them.

Monday, October 30, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Blue-Collar Leadership: Training and Developing the Blue-Collar Workforce and Those Who Lead Them (Free for ATD members)

Blue-Collar Leadership provides talent development professionals with a platform for training and developing their workforce to unleash their potential by taking powerful leadership concepts and packaging them in an easy-to-understand format for frontline team members, frontline supervision, managers, and support personnel. This webcast covers the foundational principles of Blue-Collar Leadership that will help the frontline workforce and their leaders understand how and why they should accept more responsibility, how to become a high-impact team player, and how to become more successful as an individual and more valuable to the company.

After attending this webcast, you’ll be able to:

Understand the performance gap between highly engaged blue-collar team members and those who aren’t.
Describe why blue-collar team members should accept more responsibility and how they can.
Restate three key Blue-Collar Leadership foundational principles related to developing frontline workforce members.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Coaching Is the New Leadership

In these changing times, organizations are battling more employee-related issues. With unemployment being low, retaining top talent comes to the forefront. And with millennials rapidly entering the workforce, generational challenges become prevalent. So how do you combat challenges like retention, recruitment, and succession planning, as well as continued leadership development?

This webinar will tap into the power of coaching and what it takes to build the foundation for a strong coaching culture in your organization. You'll learn:

Why coaching is leadership.
The real reason why some managers won't do it.
How questions drive trust and build teamwork.
How coaching helps retain and recruit talent.

Employees crave coaching, and the companies that tap into the power of coaching see benefits across the board. Is your organization— and is your leadership team—ready for the new coaching culture?

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: How Can a Webinar with Lou Russell be a Halloween Party?

It’s your favourite webinar of the year… time to PARTY.

This year don your best Halloween Costume, pull up a candy bowl and get ready for FUN.

All of this, while coming up with great ideas for making your webinars more engaging and interactive.

There might be tricks… and there are guaranteed treats!