Free T&D webinars for November 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During this webcast, you will learn to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are just a few findings from our latest research:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During this webcast, you will learn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Lies our customers believe that prevent success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Hear how Bridgestone defined its business challenge and strategy.

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

  • Discover a framework for effective customer engagement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The metrics to evaluate engagement and retention efforts.

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

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

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

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

  • How to structure introductions that really motivate participation.

  • And more...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A second web session is also available.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Make people want to watch your video.

  • Create video that engages learners.

  • Shape your video so that it provides real learnin.

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

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

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

Key takeaways:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion topics:

  • The current mLearning landscape.

  • What’s working.

  • Security challenges.

  • Examples of mLearning.

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

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

Key takeaways from the webcast include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key questions that will be discussed:

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

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

  • Do organizations emphasize, measure, and recognize coaching?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The art and science of understanding your middle performers.

  • Practical tips to help motivate those sales reps.

  • The full financial impact of motivating your middle performers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By attending this session you will be able to:

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

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

  • Launch a new leadership team.

  • Address the unique challenges facing leadership teams.

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

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

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

Pictorials, symbols, emoticons, visualizations, and snapshots are 30-Second Learning Moments. However, they are challenging to create and construct because of pressure to deliver massive amounts of content. There is fear that our learners may not grasp what we want them to learn. This is the “They Must Learn All Content” mindset of trainers and designers.

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

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

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

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

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

Free Webinars for September 2014

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It seems like summer goes by faster every year. As the days grow shorter and the beach becomes less tempting, indoor activities start to beckon. Why not get cozy with one of the free webinars being offered this month? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 6AM – 7AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Tech Mahindra—Aligning Learning to an Organization's Vision & Mission to Drive Business (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, Tech Mahindra, an ATD BEST Award winner, will discuss how learning can become a strategic differentiator for organizational growth.

During this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Align learning goals to the organization's mission.

  • Draw business outcomes through learning initiatives.

  • Create a self-sustained learning model.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Learning From Diversity and Inclusion Leaders: Prudential Financial and Pepsico (Free for ATD members)

Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is recognized as being a necessity to compete and thrive in today’s global, changing workplace and marketplace. Many organizations have discovered that putting the aspiration to create an inclusive environment into action is quite challenging. Join us for this interactive webinar, where we will explore two in-depth case examples: Prudential Financial, ranked number eight in the DiversityInc. Top 50, and PepsiCo, which has established innovative ways to reward and recognize individuals and teams who exemplify D&I. As a result of this webcast, participants will:

  • Learn how Prudential and PepsiCo establish priorities for D&I investments and obtain senior-level sponsorship.

  • Discover how Prudential and PepsiCo engage employees at different levels in their respective organizations to get involved.

  • Learn examples of “big wins” at Prudential in the workplace and marketplace.

  • Learn how PepsiCo creates rewards and recognition programs to promote diversity best practices globally.

  • Explore where PepsiCo and Prudential see D&I headed in the future

Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: A Leader's Guide to Getting Things Done (Free for ATD members)

Getting things done in complex organizations doesn’t get any easier. Developing leadership gets squeezed out by the challenges and pressures of organizational life. Influential leadership is a new framework for making things happen, and for navigating between the short-term pressures and the long-term purpose of developing leaders.

Short, sharp, and practical, this webcast will share simple ideas that leaders can apply immediately to begin influencing more effectively, making faster progress, and freeing up time to allow their leadership to flourish.

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 5:30AM – 6:30AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: ICICI Lombard – Learning is Protein for the Organization's Muscle (Free for ATD members)

Hear how learning is the protein in the corporate diet at ICICI Lombard, a nine-time BEST Award winner. Learning is the perpetual fuel that satiates each employee’s personal desire to constantly stretch and grow. It adds variety and substance to every job and develops the muscle needed to drive a career. It enhances the flexibility and endurance that helps rise to new challenges. Most importantly, learning is the building block that helps the entire company to continuously grow, strengthen, and be more resilient. In this webcast, you will learn how to design remedial actions to optimize performance levels and build the knowledge and capability base across the organization.

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Thursday, September 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding Balance in Blended Learning: Making the Move to Interactive Online Training

In-person training is reliable, personal, and interactive. Online training is scalable, cost-effective, and empowers people to learn at their own pace, on their own time. With today's agile workforce, blended learning offers the best of both worlds. 

Yet online learning is too often limited to videos and slide decks, meaning learners may spend more time checking Facebook than learning the material. So how can organizations successfully make the move to online training while creating the same kind of captivating and engaging experiences found in person? 

In this lively webinar, you will...

  • Learn how to create interactive online learning experiences that your audience will love.

  • Explore ways to migrate lecture-style materials and exercises into online courses.

  • Receive actionable tips on how to convey concepts interactively and keep your learners engaged.

Immediately following the webinar, participants are invited to remain for a semi-private demonstration of the new Versal for Organizations platform.

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Moving Beyond Compliance: Integrating Your LMS and CRM(Free for ATD members)

Most learning management systems (LMS) are put into place to implement and track compliance training. To ensure 100 percent employee compliance, it is essential to integrate the LMS with the organization’s CRM system. Your sales force most likely uses the CRM system every day—they probably don’t use the LMS every day. In many organizations, the LMS and CRM can leverage each other to achieve better product training and education. Better-trained partners can lead to improved customer satisfaction and reduced support costs.

Attend this webinar and learn how to:

  • Identify business cases for LMS/CRM integration.

  • List the benefits your organization could achieve with an LMS/CRM integration.

  • Diagram the system work flow for a typical LMS/CRM integration

Friday, September 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Marketing Strategies for a Targeted Job Search: Tips for Attracting the Attention of Employers (Free for ATD members)

Are you prepared to market yourself? Ask yourself these questions to find out:

  • When was the last time you revised your résumé?

  • Do you know what T&D competencies or expertise you want to showcase in a marketing campaign?

  • Can you describe the professional image or brand you would like to project?

  • Is your professional story up-to-date so that it represents the present into the future and not the past?

This session provides practical and useful tips for:

  • Developing a marketing action plan.

  • Identifying your market.

  • Viewing résumés as a basic marketing document.

  • Preparing for interviews.

  • Creating a positive and confident mindset.

Essential to a successful marketing campaign is knowing how to tell a story and what story to tell to whom. This session teaches those skills and more. Learn what it takes to get the recruiter to listen to you and place your name on the follow-up list. This discussion also will include some of the differences between  phone or face-to-face interviews and those held at job fairs and employment programs.

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Monday, September 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Workforce Management Study: Findings Preview

Powering meaningful analytics, workforce planning, and managing a dispersed and diverse workforce: These are some of the most critical workforce management challenges revealed in Brandon Hall Group’s latest research. We invite you to join Mollie Lombardi, principal analyst and study lead, as she shares a sneak peek at some of the initial findings from this breakthrough study, including how organizations are rising to meet these challenges. She will cover:

  • An overview of key concerns, drivers, and trends in workforce management.

  • Study demographics.

  • Insights into how organizations are using technologies like automated time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, and payroll solutions to drive business value.

  • How top-performing organizations are integrating workforce management with key talent and business processes.

  • The planned output from the study, including a timeline for publications on key topics.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: 2014 Excellence Awards Winners Revealed Sept. 9th

And so the countdown begins! Winners of the prestigious 20th annual Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards in Learning and Development, Talent Management, and Human Resources & Sales and Marketing will be announced in a live web event. Register for this much-anticipated live announcement and see which organizations will be dubbed as this year’s prestigious Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards winners in more than 50 categories.

Your hosts, Brandon Hall Group CEO Mike Cooke, COO Rachel Cooke, and VP/Corporate and Product Development Claude Werder, will take you through the winners of each category and highlight their achievements. As part of the program’s 20th anniversary, all winners will be honored at Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Conference 2015 to be held January 28–30 at the Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Conference presenters include select Excellence Award-winning organizations, who will take you through their journey of developing and deploying programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Building Coachable and Approachable Employees for Training Success

The world of training is changing. The days of all-day workshops and seminars are behind us. Employees need to be developed, but there is little time allowed for the old traditional ways. This is where the world is changing, and NOW has never been a better time for trainers to build their value!

Employees and managers must share the responsibility for performance development. This webinar is dedicated to teaching the foundational principles that learners need to become high performers, and how trainers and managers can train and coach them.

  • What the foundational principles are.

  • Why foundational principles are required to develop targeted skills.

  • Why development of the foundational principles will drive coaching and training success.

  • How to create coachable and approachable employees.

  • How to assess employees’ learning capacity.

  • How managers can coach non-coachable and approachable employees into high performers.

  • Why coaching is Training’s # 1 Supporter.

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Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Beyond the LMS: Building a Virtual Training Strategy

Join Training Magazine for a live webinar where you will learn how to create virtual learning environments that deliver an interactive learning experience. This webinar will also discuss how a virtual learning environment can complement your existing learning management system—increasing learner engagement, improving knowledge retention, and reaching learners at their point of need.

This interactive webinar will feature guidance on how to:

  • Increase the reach and effectiveness of your training programs.

  • Use a virtual learning environment to provide an outstanding learning experience.

  • Enhance and extend your existing learning management system.

  • Extend the life of training sessions and content.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: SharePoint for Training and Compliance (Free for ATD members)

Training and compliance are now more than ever a necessity in the corporate world. Adhering to applicable laws and regulations concerning your business is vital, and failure to do so can lead to severe penalties. Leveraging an option like SharePoint for training and compliance can effectively reduce security risks and challenges associated with compliance. In this session, we’ll discuss some examples of using SharePoint to support training and compliance in organizations. Topics include:

  • Managing training curriculum.

  • Employee onboarding/orientation.

  • Workflows and version control.

  • Project management.

  • Using SharePoint as LMS.

Join guest speakers Dr. Shawn Andrews and Matthew Smith as they walk you through some practical examples based on business problems, solutions, results, limitations, workarounds, and lessons learned.

Thursday, September 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Add Adventure, Challenge and Discovery in Learning Lessons

Learners often feel that training and eLearning are the least interesting and engaging activities. They have no time. They are busy. So, we need to push hard or force them to complete courses.

What if your courses provide the learners a sense of adventure, challenge and discovery? What if the courses become so inviting that learners are glued to the screen and refuse to end the course? What if they rave about the course and attribute high praises? What if your course is virally promoted to other learners as a “must experience” learning event?

In this webinar, you will learn:

  • How to avoid using word learning games, but still add adventure and excitement in your courses.

  • How to use heroes (super bosses, employees, customers, etc.) or villains (really obnoxious bosses, employees, customers, etc.) to represent learning challenges.

  • How to add provocative exercises and interactivities that enthrall learners into action and learning.

  • How to set up an adventure-based exercise by following a step-by-step process.

  • How to make sure learners not only get excited but also use the knowledge.;

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Thursday, September 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: New Technologies for Virtual Coaching (Free for ATD members)

The latest innovation in achieving performance improvement has arrived, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Many of us are experiencing the pressure of  decreased budgets, remote teams, and an increased need for performance coaching.

In this webcast, we will share the key reasons why talent development suffers, and how to overcome those pitfalls and unleash performance. We will also share the latest in a leading, web-based technology platform that helps accelerate talent development.

Friday, September 12, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: The Executive Speaking Presence(Free for ATD members)

What makes us gravitate toward some speakers over others? What is it that makes some people easy to listen to, while others put us to sleep? What can we do to be a great speaker?

This session takes an in-depth look at what it takes to be a successful speaker today, and how to maximize your executive presence in front of any group. We’ll examine 12 key aspects of verbal communication that will help you succeed in presenting, leading meetings, training, and engaging others in successful conversation.

In this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Maximize your personal appeal by expressing a fine balance between strength and warmth

  • Enhance your content by creating clear, compelling messages and delivering them powerfully.

  • Boost your impact by turning presentations into interactive and appealing conversations.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Brandon Hall Group Membership: Dynamic Tools for Business Improvement

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

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

Learn more about how BHG can be part of your team. We will provide you with:

  • A short update on the latest research

  • A tour of our Research OnDemand member centre, DataNow (benchmarking database) and KnowledgeBases (database of technology solution provider profiles, and comparison tools).

  • Overview of strategic consulting services.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: When Remembering Really Matters: The Power of Serious Games for Learning

Remembering is hard. Forgetting is easy. Employees have to complete a lot of training during the year—so much so that it is simply impossible for them to remember everything that is asked of them. “Processes, policies, terms, Oh My!” While business-critical for organizations, so much detail can be overwhelming to learners.

This session shares research on remembering—and forgetting—and identifies techniques that foster long-term retention. It then connects these techniques to games and explains how games can help form long-term memories ... and business results. We'll share recent research on games and case studies that demonstrate how games can be used for learning.

Attendees will be entered to win a free "starter" package for use in your organization and—after the webinar—are invited to remain for a focused exploration of the game-creation platform, Knowledge Guru.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Subject Matter Expert + Tablet = Faster, Cheaper, Better Video Learning Content

In this session, we'll discuss a whole new way to gather video learning materials from your subject matter experts. Rather than dragging them to a recording studio, why not put the studio in their hands?

We'll introduce you to a new class of tablet-based video production tools that makes it easy and even fun for SMEs to share their knowledge with the organization and its customers. You'll walk away with a couple of great new free tools and a lot of insight into how to fit these tools into a learning program.

We'll cover:

  • New, easy-to-use tools that will let your SMEs create content right from their tablet.

  • Best practices for using these tools effectively.

  • How to make this content even more effective with easy post-production tools.

  • How to coach your SMEs to get the best possible on-camera performance.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Cracking the Hidden Job Market (Free for ATD members)

In this fast-paced, 60-minute session, national job search expert Laura M. Labovich will share with you:

  • Why the "reactive" job search approach is a time-drainer and waste of time.

  • The importance of being proactive in your job search campaign, and why it's too late to land the job once the job is posted.

  • How a job target can enable you to help your network to help you better.

  • Why a company list is like a GPS for your job search.

  • How to become an insider—because insiders get hired!

Friday, September 19, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Six Keys to Career Resilience(Free for ATD members)

It is commonly believed that “training is always the first to go” when organizations need to cut the budget, leaving many corporate training professionals looking for work. You often hear “let the problems roll off you like water off a duck's back,” but do you know that ducks aren't always waterproof? It takes a certain process for a duck to stay afloat, as well as for us to keep our career afloat. Building career resilience is crucial to your success. Using the metaphor of a duck’s waterproofing and relevant real-life case scenarios, we will explore the six steps to help you build your career resilience.

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Tuesday, September 23, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creativity Matters: Why Creativity Is Crucial and How to Develop Creative Employees (Free for ATD members)

Global business trends underscore the important role of creativity and creative problem solving in the new millennium. Indeed, many reports published in the last several years highlight creative thinking, innovation, and creative problem solving as essential 21st-century skills for both individuals and organizations. Unfortunately, most schools and organizations are not effective in developing these crucial skills. A recent Conference Board report on job readiness skills listed creativity as one of the 14 applied skills most desired about new hires, yet creativity was also the number one skill organizations felt least prepared to develop among employees.

The purpose of this session is to highlight how these trends support the need for more concerted and systematic efforts in promoting creative thinking in individuals and organizations. Some of the topics to be explored and experienced include:

  • What is creativity?

  • How can I become a more effective creative thinker?

  • How does creative thinking relate to leadership effectiveness?

  • How to develop the creative talents of employees.

Tuesday, September 23, 10AM – 11AM PST: DataNow: Easy-to-Customize Research for HCM Practitioners

Brandon Hall Group for more than two decades has produced great research on Human Capital Management. But providing research that is quickly accessible and customized to each client’s needs has been challenging. Until now. This webinar introduces new research that is instantly accessible and customizable for your needs through Brandon Hall Group’s new DataNow platform. In this webinar, Brandon Hall Group analysts will show highlights of recent learning, talent acquisition, and workforce management research that can you can see in various formats, filtered by company size, revenue, and more.

In this webinar you will:

  • See highlights of just-released research on Workforce Management, Social Talent Acquisition, Compliance Training, and Social Learning.

  • See how you can quickly filter data by company size, revenue, and much more!

  • See how data can be quickly exported to share with your team.

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Wednesday, September 24, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Agile Organization: Improving Time to Decision through Collaboration

Modern organizations are driven by their ability to react, change, and make decisions quickly. But attaining that agility can be difficult as organizations continue to become more diverse and dispersed. It takes more than just collaboration tools. It takes an organizational commitment to a collaborative culture, supported by the right tools and technology, to let organizations move faster, perform better, and win more often.

Join Mollie Lombardi, VP and principal analyst, workforce management, of the Brandon Hall Group and Shelley Schmoker, VP Marketing at Bloomfire, as they look at the links between agility and collaboration. The webinar will discuss:

  • How your organization can harness collaboration to improve decision making.

  • The key strategies to building and reinforcing a collaborative culture.

  • How collaboration not only supports internal processes like learning and performance, but how it impacts sales and customer service

Wednesday, September 24, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DevLearn: Streamlining Your eLearning Production Process for Efficiency

Clients want high-quality courses quickly and inexpensively, but there are many parts to creating eLearning courses, so you need an effective and efficient production process. A training, tracking, and performance monitoring system will let you increase your quality and decrease your production time and costs.

Session participants will learn best practices for documenting procedures, establishing clear roles, and creating tools, job aids, and checklists. You’ll get access to many of the tools and checklists. In this session, you will learn:

  • The data types to capture and analyze about your current production process.

  • How to map out your production process at both a macro and micro level.

  • How to create a knowledge base to help train team members and reduce effort.

  • How to create systems for effectively managing production.

Thursday, September 25, 10AM – 11AM PST:Strategies for Training Groups with Mixed Reading and Communication Skill Levels – Part 1 (Free for CSTD members)

Are you frustrated by mismatches between the materials you have to deliver, and the literacy, communication, and other foundation skills of the people who show up?

What can you do to increase your success in supporting learning with mixed level groups? Building support for literacy and foundation skills into your instructional and assessment strategies can enhance learning outcomes and support employees in developing their skills. Best of all, strategies for supporting literacy and foundational skills are often more engaging, memorable, and fun for everyone.

This is the first of a two-part webinar series offered by the Advancing Workplace Learning project in partnership with CSTD. To learn more, please visit the website. www.advancingworkplacelearning.ca.

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Friday, September 26, 8:30AM – 9:30AM PST: Creating Engaged Employees (Free for ATD members)

The word "engagement" evokes different impressions from different people. What does the word mean? Why should anyone care about engagement? How can an organization create and sustain a culture of engagement? This presentation will answer these simple, yet profound questions. Upon attending this webcast, participants will be able to:

  • Define the word “engagement.”

  • Explain how to make the case for engagement with leaders and key decision makers.

  • Build an organizational culture of engagement and sustain it.

Participants also will receive an instrument to compare their organizations' engagement culture to best practices.

Monday, September 29, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Employee Brain Performance: Leveraging Neuroscience to Improve Critical Thinking (ATD subscriber content)

Science offers surprising information about what really engages employees and makes a difference in optimizing their performance.

Claire Herring is the head of product at Blue Ocean Brain. Claire is a human capital performance improvement expert. Her work has been featured on the Hallmark Channel, in Real Simple magazine, Fitness Magazine, and Women’s Health. She combines her experience as a Big Four executive with advanced degrees in cognitive science to help organizations optimize employee performance and elevate critical thinking. As head of product for Blue Ocean Brain, Claire helps organizations promote cognitive skill improvement through intellectual challenges and fun experiences that are brand new 365 days a year.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: 3 Keys to Getting Employee Engagement Right

It's estimated that unengaged workers cost the US $350 billion/year and that US businesses lose $11 billion annually as a result of employee turnover. Clearly engagement is a key priority for all organizations—so why is it so low? And more importantly, what can be done—quickly—to get it right?

Join us as Mahan Tavakoli, Regional Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Dale Carnegie, shares best practices and action steps you can take immediately to start improving employee engagement.

Takeaways include:

  • Why organizations have largely failed to turn engagement around despite all the buzz.

  • Latest research into the drivers of employee engagement.

  • Actions individuals can take—immediately—to start boosting employee morale.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: From Searching to Shopping: Leveraging E-Commerce within Your LMS (Free for ATD members)

An extensive catalogue of training content provides tremendous value to an organization and its learners, but ensuring that learners can easily find and access the courses and resources they’re looking for is crucial. Luckily, there are many creative ideas that we can borrow from online retail to help learners find what they’re looking for and even discover content they didn’t know they needed. Finding ways to increase user adoption ensures your learning resources are used and valued!

In this session we will explore ways to leverage e-commerce capabilities to enhance the traditional training and development searching experience. You will learn how to:

  • Replace the standard enrolment processes with an intuitive shopping experience.

  • Expand the reach of your content through targeted promotions.

  • Leverage cross-sell offerings.

  • Monetize content to external users’ bases.

Free T&D Webinars for August 2014

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Lazy summer days? Not likely in today’s high-performing organizations! The great thing is that by tapping into the right mentorship, and by working smart, we can hit our performance targets—and enjoy a few beach days too. Why not get some new ideas from one of the free webinars being offered this August? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, July 30, August 13, and August 27, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Summer School for the Virtual Trainer

Register for this three-part webinar series with Jennifer Hofmann, president of InSync Training, to discover how to design and deliver an effective training program that will help you finish the year strong.

Join us for this series to learn:

  • A blend of delivery methods designed to maximize learning.

  • What training content is best delivered in a live, virtual format.

  • How to overcome common hurdles on the road to blended learning.

  • Key strategies for performing and facilitating online training.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: e-Learning:  Are You Serious?

If implemented correctly, e-Learning can positively impact any organization. But so much of the e-Learning created and invested in today relies on technology, and focuses on content instead of the learner and improving performance. The result: boring e-Learning and wasted budgets! 

Join Dr. Michael Allen as he explains how the 22 principles of the Serious e-Learning Manifesto can help combat today’s e-Learning failures by creating learning solutions that generate business impact. In this webinar, attendees will:

  • Gain valuable knowledge of the e-Learning Manifesto Principles.

  • See examples of e-Learning created with the Principles of the Manifesto in mind.

  • Understand the ROI of using the Principles of the Manifesto to create your e-Learning.

  • Understand the performance impact of using e-Learning that takes into consideration the Principles of the Manifesto.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 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? Over 30 percent 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. Can they make a solid business case for the change? Will the transition impact business processes or mission-critical learning needs?

Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Death By Mismanagement: The Devastating Impact of Micromanagement (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Employees today are often promoted through the ranks without always receiving the necessary training on how to be a rock-star manager. Through their ineffective behaviour, their teams’ production levels begin a steady downward cycle, ultimately ending in terminations, resignations, or demotions. Many productive employees leave an organization because of something their supervisor is doing—or not doing. Whether leaders find themselves too overwhelmed with responsibilities to take an active interest in employee development, or haven't received the proper leadership training to inspire creativity, take risks, and cultivate project ownership, the results are the same.

One of the biggest trouble spots arises in finding the balance between micromanaging and delegating. New, overzealous managers feel they need to know everything at all times. From their employees’ perspectives, this may be interpreted as a lack of trust and autonomy.

Help your supervisors learn how to walk the fine line between micromanaging and delegating, and enable them to motivate, lead, and inspire in even the most challenging times.

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Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: HCM Technology Trends and Excellence Awards

Are you a solution provider that offers phenomenal, innovative technologies to Learning and Development, Talent Management, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, and Sales Enablement functions?

Or are you an organization that has created or implemented technologies to help streamline, save costs, and improve productivity within your organization?

Then we want to hear from you and invite you to apply for Excellence in Technology Awards Program.  The program offers you an opportunity to showcase your products, which will be reviewed by Brandon Hall Group’s elite analyst team and industry experts.

Now entering its 20th year, the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program is the most prestigious awards program in the industry. Often times called the “Academy Awards” by Learning, Talent and Business Executives, the program was one of the first of its kind in the learning industry, which was pioneered in 1994.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Breaking Training Development Project Rules

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded. Project Management specialists were  building roads, buildings, the new “computers,” and lunar modules. The AT&T telephone operators still plugged wires into boards to transfer calls! Paper memos slowly communicated work to be done. Multi-tasking was unheard of. The PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) established a standardized and control-focused approach to doing projects, much like ADDIE brought to the new field of training.  

Now, 45 years later, our work looks more like a flashmob: interruptions, unending work, dysfunctional multi-tasking, and highly matrixed organizations. Everyone needs everyone to do their pile of projects. We have to embrace the structure of the PMBOK while looking at our project artifacts and tools in a new way. Join Lou Russell to learn about shortcuts that help “accidental” project managers organize and adapt to chaos.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Moving from the Classroom to VILT with No Drama (ASTD/ATD subscriber content)

Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) is now a fact of life for most organizations. Yet a lot of training professionals still struggle to make the move from the classroom to the virtual environment.

This webinar is hosted by Wayne Turmel, writer, speaker, and president of GreatWebMeetings.com, which teaches companies and their people to sell, present, train and lead people using online and virtual presentation and meeting tools.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best Practices to Ensure Maximum ROI on Learning and Development

Employee development these days is a big deal and it is at the top of CEO priority lists. Billions of dollars are being spent on development, and this number is ever increasing. Research studies show that companies that develop their employees - and do it well - reap big rewards in terms of product innovation, market share, and greater efficiency.

This webinar will be an informative and engaging one hour session that will conclude with five best practices that need to be considered to ensure maximum ROI investment for all L&D activities. This webcast will be of particular interest to: Instructional Designers, Trainers, ELearning Trainers, LMS administrators, Employee and Management Development, and Organizational Development – and has been pre-approved for one hour of continuing education (HRCI) credits!

You will learn:

  • The difference between training and development and how the difference effects your development communication plan

  • The definition of “scrap learning”

  • How people best develop new skills or capabilities

  • What learners are expecting in their development programs

  • How to ensure that development will lead to organization success

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Monday, August 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Global Best Practices in Building Service Cultures (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Organizations with a powerful service reputation and a superior service culture attract and retain the best talent, achieve market leadership, and enjoy sustainable success. Ron Kaufman will show you why some organizations succeed beautifully, while others fail miserably. Find out what works, what doesn’t, what your organization should do, and what you must avoid.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mixing It Up and Flipping the Classroom

Organizations have adopted the virtual classroom as a way to maximize training opportunities while minimizing costs. After a decade of ineffective sessions, training organizations are looking for instructional design techniques that will create virtual programs that will meet, or even exceed, the results achieved in more traditional settings.

Trending in the virtual classroom design space are two concepts: how to “flip the classroom” to maximize valuable collaboration time, and how to apply the latest thinking with regards to Bloom's Taxonomy to determine how best to deliver content in this new environment. Another key consideration concerns how blended learning fits into the equation. Do we need to both FLIP and BLEND?

In this session, techniques will be shared that will help you to:

  • Determine what content is best delivered in a live, virtual format.

  • Map learning objectives to the appropriate virtual classroom tools using a modern application of Bloom'sTaxonomy of Learning.

  • "Flip the classroom" to maximize the collaborative impact of "together time."

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Maximizing the Effectiveness of of Sales Training (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Companies spend about $20 billion a year on various forms of sales training. Still, many sales leaders report low ROIs from their sales training initiatives. Join ATD for this webcast and learn how to maximize the effectiveness of your sales training initiative. Norman Behar and David Jacoby discuss five essential factors that can help you achieve sustainable success from your investment in sales training programs. Learning takeaways for attendees:

  • Motivate your team for training success.

  • Leverage the benefits of virtual sales training.

  • Reinforce training to make new skills lasting habits.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Building Trust and Transparency in Your Organization (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

We have a faltering economy and most organizations need top performance from their workforce to survive. Yet some of the actions needed for a company to remain viable come at the cost of losing the hard-earned trust of their employees, which greatly reduces productivity. If this is a familiar scenario for you and your organization, you will profoundly benefit from this webinar.

Join Bob Whipple for an enlightening program that shows a clear pathway for enhancing trust and transparency in organizations. This session is interactive and will reveal some wonderful opportunities for turning a corner on the malaise of the economy and the resulting disconnect in communication between companies and their employees.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 10 AM – 11AM PST: Big Data: What It is and What It Means for You (Free for CSTD members)

The era of Big Data - the creation of massive amounts of data often too large to handle - is here and you are one of the sources. You shop, text, Like, tweet, check-in, watch movies on Netflix and Google everything. And just maybe, your smartphone or tablet has become an extension of your body that you can't sleep without. Big Data is the present and future, and it is affecting you whether you like it or not, and whether you are aware of it or not. But what does that mean? How do we bring this new reality down to our day-to-day lives and careers?

Join Jamie Good, Social Media Specialist at Global Knowledge Canada, as he explores with you the implications and effects of Big Data on your present and future. Learn how being a part of our data-driven society impacts so many facets of your daily life and how Big Data will change the face of Learning and Development forever.

Thursday, August 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Next-Generation Learning Strategies for a Next-Generation World

What are your employees learning today? Or maybe a better question might be: are your employees learning today? If you aren't certain of the answer to either question, or the answer to either question is negative, you might have a problem. And the problem might not be your employees, either.

In March, we talked about a next generation of learning content strategies. Now we'll go deeper into that concept of a next generation of learning by exploring a new look at the very foundation of learning strategies more broadly. In this webinar, we'll explore what a next generation of learning strategies might include, how to develop such a strategy for your organization, and how you can begin taking action right away to build an effective employee learning program that will prepare employees to acquire the learning skills needed to learn how to perform effectively in jobs that might not exist today.

Thursday, August 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: On the Right Track: Designing Programs That Last (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Using a one-size-fits-all approach when training can frustrate advanced learners and leave others behind. Training tracks address the spectrum of competency levels possessed by employees, and are more successful when teaching complex skill sets. In this 60-minute webinar, OpenSesame's Marketing Manager Katie Hurst will show you how to use backwards planning to build a series of lessons, ensuring your employees retain knowledge and more effectively apply skills in the workplace. You will learn to:

  • Differentiate between the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

  • Learn the value of varied practice and lesson spacing.

  • Practice the Backwards Design process.

Participants will also receive a free copy of the accompanying e-book, which includes worksheets for use in designing your own training tracks.

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Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How Change Gets Stuck (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

The path to implementing change in an organization isn’t always smooth. On the way, you run into frequent speed bumps, wrong-way signs, and even concrete barriers. These road hazards on the way to change are obstacles that prevent you from moving forward. Despite your best intentions, you and your change initiative can get stuck.

In this webcast, you will learn the warning signs that your change initiative is stalled, and identify some of the root causes that may be preventing the organization from making progress. We will also discuss what you can do to get unstuck, and how to avoid getting stuck in the first place. Bring your challenges and your experience to this interactive session where we’ll uncover the common obstacles to organizational change.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How the Digital Skills Gap Is Killing Your Team’s Productivity—and What You Can Do About It

A recent study by Deloitte found that the rapid pace of technological change in the workplace is leading to a skills half-life of just 2.5 years. Even the most adept employee can quickly fall behind—and workers, businesses, and the entire economy are paying the price. Every year, the digital skills gap drives a loss of nearly $1 trillion for the US economy. For a firm with 1,000 employees, this translates to a $10 million loss each year on a compensation basis alone.

But we need not stand idly by as our organizations bleed productivity. By laying out the eight core competencies of digital skills, this webinar provides an action plan for addressing the digital skills gap in your team.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DevLearn: Design Models and Patterns for Creating Better e-Learning

More people within organizations find themselves in the role of e-Learning designer without having the experience needed to solve particular design problems. Participants will learn a core set of learning-design models or patterns that even inexperienced practitioners can quickly understand. These models combine some of the best principles and leading practices gained from years of research and experience, and are easily applicable to the vast majority of learning requirements that come your way.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice

This session is about the folklore and implications of different legal structures, including partnerships, sub S corporations, sole proprietorships, and non-profits as they apply to operating a successful consulting practice. You will understand the importance of asking the right questions when working with your lawyer, banker, and accountant. 

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, e-Learning, process improvement, or performance improvement.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Four Roles and Secret Skills of Followership

According to research in The Harvard Business Review and from Lloyd’s of London, the ability to grow effective leaders is an international crisis for organizations: poor leaders are hurting the results of most companies around the globe.

Twenty years of leading in the military, academia, business, and politics has taught Cory Bouck that the best leaders act, paradoxically, as both a leader and a follower at the same time throughout their career. Everybody has a boss, and both of you can enhance your reputation for strong leadership through your "followership.”

During this interactive webinar, you will be introduced to four key roles and learn how to demonstrate the secret skills of followership. Followership is the first—and most career-enhancing—form of leadership.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Four Leadership Behaviours That Build or Destroy Trust (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Trust continues to be identified as a missing ingredient in today's workplace. As surveys show, only a small percentage of today's workers strongly agree that they trust their leaders. To ensure high levels of organizational performance, leaders need to tackle trust head-on. The key is to demonstrate the behaviours people most associate with trust.

In this webinar, participants will learn how to:

  • Recognize the warning signs that people lack trust in you and your leadership.

  • Purposefully engage in the four trust-building behaviours.

  • Create strong, long-lasting, trust-based relationships.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to raise the level of trust in your organization by increasing the “trust-ability” of your leaders.

Monday, August 25, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Aha Moments in Talent Management (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

This webcast addresses the biggest issues in talent management. We will discuss some best practices to emulate and some worst practices to avoid. Anyone who manages people is a talent manager, so what are the essentials that everyone should know? By attending this presentation, you will learn answers to the following:

  • What is talent management?

  • What are the functions of talent management?

  • What do we mean by the word “talent?" (Spoiler alert: The word is not synonymous with “people.”)

  • What is the true nature of the job of anyone who manages people?

  • How do you create accountabilities for talent management?

  • How can you avoid the single biggest mistake in talent management—one that most organizations are guilty of committing regularly?

Tuesday, August 26, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Variables: 10 Things Every Storyline Developer Wants to Know

As e-Learning developers we often get caught up in designing only what we know from experience. The same holds true with e-Learning developers using Articulate Storyline. The more you know, the more options and ideas become evident to solving instructional design challenges. The more you know about variable programming in Storyline, the more the world opens up to unlimited design possibilities.  

Those who attend will learn... 

  • Variable types and their differences.

  • The various uses of variable types.

  • The best time to use a variable.

  • Tips for how to best manage multiple variables.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Thinking Beyond ROI: A New Way of Looking at Learning Metrics (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Learning professionals often mistake learning metrics for business metrics. Attendance rates and ROI are great indicators of a training program’s internal impacts, but often are irrelevant to an organization’s competitive goals. Koreen Pagano, director of enterprise product management at lynda.com, explains how to compile and share metrics that expose greater value. After this session, you will be able to:

  • Think beyond ROI.

  • Translate training benefits into the language of business.

  • Frame learning as a competitive advantage.

Thursday, August 28, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Closing Skill Gaps at Caterpillar Starts with Content Strategy

High Impact Learning Organizations (HILO) facilitate continuous learning. One where the development of new and increased skills ensure their employees can adapt quickly to a changing environment and help the business compete effectively. HILOs like Caterpillar strive to build long-term organizational capability through personalized learning paths and development plans. 

According to Bersin by Deloitte, one of the top three factors separating HILOs from the others is Content Capability. Join David Mallon, Head of Research at Bersin by Deloitte, as he interviews Michael Miller, Process and Standards Supervisor at Caterpillar, Inc.  to learn how Content Strategy is driving Caterpillar’s drive to personalized learning and transforming how their dealer technicians will learn and demonstrate competency and skills in the future.

In this session you will learn:

  • Caterpiller's approach to creating bite-sized learning that can be tailored to individua learning needs.

  • Unique methods for delivering learning content at the right time in the right place.

  • Measuring results at the content, personal and organizational level.

  • Personalized learning as the most effective approach to closing organizational skill gaps.

Free T&D Webinars in May 2014

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Traditionally May signifies new growth and development—it’s a time for sowing seeds and seeing what sprouts. The very best gardens grow when we strategize and plant carefully. Just as our flower beds need water and sunshine, our minds love new ideas, and this month there are tons of interesting webinars to help your professional life flourish. Check out one of the free sessions this month—we hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating an Engaging, Empowering and Electrifying Learning Culture That Drives Results

Successful organizations understand that people are their most important assets. When high-performance businesses understand employees’ core skills and development needs, they’re more likely to achieve superior results. But building out a dynamic learning culture that really understands your employee needs is not a simple task. Join this session for a lively discussion on how to build out a learning culture that will generate superior business results for your organization. Learn:

  • Why it’s important to engage leaders across your organization when building a learning culture—and how to approach them.

  • Top things to consider for delivering impactful training and development programs to your organization.

  • How to tie your learning culture and programs back to business results.

Thursday, May 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Captivate Your Virtual Classroom

Captivate your virtual classroom with these ready-made activities for online training. Attend this interactive webinar to learn how to:

  • Immediately engage your virtual classes.

  • Teach technical topics using creative techniques.

  • Instantly apply activities for interaction.

  • Increase participant interaction with GoToTraining.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Grow Your Emotional Muscle

Join us for a Power Hour and build a personal strategy for growing your own emotional awareness and regulation:

  • Learn how to notice and change the thought processes that trigger debilitating emotions.

  • Identify the triggers that take you off your game.

  • Set a goal to reduce the stress that keeps you from the success you are capable of.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 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 Charles DeNault, Senior Director, 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.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learn to Get Your Expertise Utilized – Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting Skills: An Introduction

Bill Brewer will introduce participants to the basic concepts underlying Peter Block’s highly successful Flawless Consulting workshops. The principles are simple and practical.

These workshops, continually updated and enhanced by Peter Block, and the basis for his best-selling book Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, teach staff professionals the competencies to successfully navigate the consulting relationship in situations where they have influence but no direct control. In the last 25 years over 1,000,000 people in hundreds of companies worldwide have been trained using Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting workshops.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating More Effective Online Training Through Interactivity – No Coding Required (Free for ASTD members)

Slide decks and videos are wonderful training tools, but have you ever wondered if there is a better way to engage learners? Are you leveraging the power of computers and the Internet to bring training to life? Join Christopher Poseley, vice-president of business development at Versal, to explore the value of active learning, and detail how to create interactive online courses that rival classroom-style exercises. Learn methods to improve retention and make training more effective. View case studies from companies at the forefront of online training. Takeaways:

  • Interactivity and engagement is key to establishing long-term training retention.

  • Consistent assessment throughout an educational experience is necessary to track learner progress and ensure quality training (and ROI).

  • Discover a new, interactive training platform through Versal.com.

Friday, May 16, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Organizational Conflict: Get Used to It and Use It (Free for ASTD members)

Organizational conflict can be debilitating to a manager and negatively harm organizational productivity and employee engagement. Organizational conflict does not have to be dysfunctional—you can leverage it positively with the right strategies. So how do you remake this dreaded workplace activity into something positive? This webinar will better equip you to:

  • Accept the dual nature of conflict—its disadvantages and its benefits.

  • Assess the potential benefits you can achieve by handling your workplace conflicts more strategically.

  • Avoid harming your organizational standing by becoming unbalanced in your conflict resolution approach (too nice, too aggressive, or too collaborative).

  • Improve your working relationships and organizational standing by using appropriate conflict-resolution strategies.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Putting HR in the Driver's Seat of Collaborative Talent Management – 4 Talent-Centric Technologies to Tune Up Your Talent Strategy

Social media, collaborative learning, the pervasive power of video, and shifting workforce demographics are changing how we recruit talent. They also impact how work gets done, by whom, how knowledge is shared, and how we continuously learn and develop. As social tools climb the maturity curve, HR must lead in making organizations more talent-centric and ensuring they strengthen internal connections and promote the company culture—from recruitment  to onboarding, to developing and retaining talent.

Join Laci Loew, Vice President Talent Management and Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Kevin Grossman, Director of Product and Content Marketing at Peoplefluent, to learn how analytics can help forecast critical talent needs throughout the employee lifecycle. It’s time to tune up your talent strategy and put you in the driver’s seat! Join us!

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Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of mLearnCon: Tools and Techniques for Creating Mobile Learning

This webinar showcases one of the best-rated, most popular sessions, speakers, or topics from mLearnCon 2013 Conference & Expo, now available to all through this special online presentation. Join Qualcomm senior director of mobile learning Geoff Stead as he shares some of the mobile strategies, tools, and technologies that help Qualcomm reach all 28,000 staff. Geoff will demonstrate Qualcomm’s latest in-house mobile-learning apps and discuss their mLearning development tools and approaches. Participants in this session will experience the mobile learning available to Qualcomm staff; be able to ask Geoff specific questions; and learn tips, tricks, and best practices for your mLearning projects.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Mentoring Partnerships: An Intergenerational Strategy (Free for ASTD members)

Do you agree that the differences among the four to five generations in the workplace are affecting productivity, retention, engagement, staff development, and succession planning? Do you realize that different mentoring approaches have similar goals? This session introduces a unique contemporary mentoring strategy that provides a two-way, mutually beneficial learning experience addressing these intergenerational challenges. The resulting outcomes are to retain and expand working relationships among the generations for reinforcing talent engagement and productivity and identifying future leaders.

Thursday, May 22, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Pinterest for Learning (Free for ASTD members)

One of the unique products to emerge in an increasingly crowded field of social tools is Pinterest—a fun combination of social bookmarking, images, commenting, and public sharing. It’s a great place for connecting with and sharing resources for your own professional development. So, you might be wondering how Pinterest can be used for learning and development.

Join Jane Bozarth for a quick example-filled tour of using Pinterest to support your practice and your professional growth.

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Thursday, May 22, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Google Analytics Approach to Measuring Learning: Allowing You to Move at the Speed of Business

Learning is the engine that drives performance, so why is it that we can’t link the training we provide to performance? Today, we create learning using any number of rapid authoring tools, and then attempt to measure the effectiveness of that learning through metrics such as time-in-training, completion rates, and test scores. Unfortunately, these don’t tell you if the training you are providing is actually working. The business wants more. They want low-level, actionable metrics that speak their language. This can only be accomplished when we take a “Google Analytics” approach to measuring learning.

Join us for this webinar with Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer at the Brandon Hall Group, as he shows you how to apply the same “Google” content metrics the rest of the business uses to your own training content.

Thursday, May 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want

Despite economic conditions, unemployment levels, or any other business factor imaginable, your best employees—the ones you need most—want one thing from you, plain and simple: to support their growth and development.  Study after study confirms that development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving engagement, retention, productivity, and results. Yet HR leaders know that career development is frequently the thing that gets sidelined unless or until the organization demands that some form be submitted during regular review cycles.

This session sheds a much-needed light on specifically what managers can do—within the time-starved, priority-rich, pressure-cooker environment in which they operate—to support employees’ careers. And it comes down to this: engage in short, ongoing conversations with employees about their career options, needs, and passions. It’s really that simple... and that complex.

Free T&D Webinars for April 2014

For many people this time of year represents a frenzy of activity. With fiscal-year time crunches and tax preparation, not to mention new business, it’s all we can do to keep up! But it always pays to make time for learning, and this month there’s a fantastic selection of free webinars to support you in your quest for excellence. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice

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, e-learning, process improvement, or performance improvement. The series will explore issues such as business practices, niches, legalities and insurance, and networking. Session 1, Starting Your Own Practice, is about the three sides of a successful consulting practice and the often undervalued role the business side plays in being profitable and sustainable. You will learn the importance of using business acumen to support your practice expertise.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: First-Time Leaders: Leverage Leadership Insights to Accelerate Success(Free for ASTD members)

“If only I had known then what I know now about leadership.” Most people become good leaders only after stumbling through new situations, making mistakes, and learning from them. If you attend this webcast you will benefit from several lifetimes of leadership insights, learning from others' mistakes and positive experiences to cut out a lot of stumbling and pain and accelerate your success as first-time leaders.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Pushing and Pulling: Winning the Learning Tug-of-War

In order to work together so everyone in a business community is well informed, sometimes we need to push information out and sometimes we need to pull it in. Social networking and learning typically involve sharing vital information and hoping our colleagues pull. Wouldn’t it be great if we could push and also validate that the pull occurred? Let’s talk about how to play this game of informational tug-of-war and ensure everyone’s a winner.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: CLOs and Training Leaders: When Design Really Matters, Picking Our Battles

If you’re a CLO or training leader, you realize there are times when your clients are just checking-the-box, and a death by PowerPoint is what they want. Part of being a leader is having a track record for results—and knowing which battles to pick. This means you can identify projects, initiatives, and curricula that really must deliver results. And you can develop sponsors who value the investment and are open to collaborating on a genuine training solution. This session looks at strategies and tactics for driving retention, reinforcement, and transfer of learning. At the macro level the session addresses the organization and the change-management tasks that must be tackled. Using a different lens we will look at the micro level and explore tactical and tools such as e-learning, social media, and m-learning that can help drive retention and transfer of learning.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: The Benefits of Virtual Onboarding (Free for ASTD members)

Effective onboarding is critical to ensuring that new hires are quickly acclimated to your company culture, trained, and ready for success. Today’s onboarding programs, however, face new and difficult challenges posed by a geographically dispersed, multigenerational workforce. In this webcast, Tom Masotto, vice president of product management at ON24, will discuss how virtual onboarding environments can be used to:

  • Train your global new hires at a significantly lower cost.

  • More effectively assimilate new employees into your culture.

  • Provide ongoing training, networking, coaching, and mentorship.

  • Tailor your communication to multigenerational differences.

Thursday, April 10, 2014, 6AM – 7AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Enabling Next Gen Learning Systems and Practices at Tata Consultancy Services (Free for ASTD members)

India's largest information technology services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is growing at a rapid pace, and its learning and development team is ready to take on the challenge. Hear how TCS structured real-life situations to re-imagine the four streams of the learning ecosystem. You will also learn how TCS institutionalized virtual learning to provide a personalized learning experience through Next Gen learning practices.

Thursday, April 10, 2014, 12PM – 1PM PST: 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. 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.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How Change Gets Stuck (Free for ASTD members)

The path to implementing change in an organization isn’t always smooth. On the way, you run into frequent speed bumps, wrong way signs, and even concrete barriers. These road hazards on the way to change are obstacles that prevent you from moving forward. Despite your best intentions, you and your change initiative can get stuck. In this webcast, you will learn the warning signs that your change initiative is stalled, and identify some of the root causes that may be preventing the organization from making progress. We will also discuss what you can do to get unstuck, and how to avoid getting stuck in the first place. Bring your challenges and your experience to this interactive session where we’ll uncover the common obstacles to organizational change.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Research Spotlight: Highlights and Trends for Human Resources Systems

Trish McFarlane, Brandon Hall Group's Vice President Human Resources Practice and Principal Analyst, will present statistics on what drives HR system decisions, mobile solutions in the HR systems, key findings on why organizations change HR systems, and key practices in implementation. In addition, Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke will present additional trends and highlight exclusive resources available to members of Brandon Hall Group through its Member Center. This webinar will include:

  • Statistics on the importance of specific features that drive HR system decisions.

  • Statistics around the impact of mobile solutions in HR systems.

  • Key findings on why organizations change HR systems.

  • Key practices in implementation.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Busting Myths, Facing Facts about HTML5 (Free for ASTD members)

HTML5? You’ve heard of it. It’s the most widely accepted standard for delivering high-quality, media-rich content on multiple devices. And yet there are ambiguities and misconceptions about what HTML5 can really do for your bottom line. Dig a little deeper and you hit issues concerning cost and complexity. What are the answers? In this webcast you will learn:

  • What HTML5 is and its importance to content portability.

  • The key benefits of having learning content in the HTML5 format.

  • The process of developing and converting content.

  • The metrics and standards to determine efforts for conversion and development.

  • The common pitfalls to watch for during the development /conversion process.

Thursday, April 17, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST Creating Interactive Videos from Really Boring Talking Heads, Lectures, and Demo Videos

Most videos in training and elearning are talking heads, lecture-type presentations, or demonstrations of a product or process. Case in point: your training director suddenly decides that it is good for the CEO to present an idea. Or your company has a library of videos that can be repurposed for training. They are costly and took a long time to produce, hence the need to be “put to good use.” In this webinar, Ray Jimenez will discuss these topics:

  • What do you do with really boring lecture and demo type videos? How do you make them engaging?

  • What do you look for in a video, and how do you find opportunities to add interactions?

  • What are the steps to augment your videos with interactions like discovery exercises, games, test exercises, and activities to improve retention and recall?

  • If you are to start from scratch, how do you plan to create a new video and make sure they are provided interactive components?

  • How do you cut costs, increase the speed, and increase the quality of your videos?

Thursday, April 17, 2014, 11AM  – 12PM PST: More Than Just "Click Next": Creating Innovative and Interactive E-Learning (Free for ASTD members)

Years ago, e-learning development was a complicated process requiring a full team of professionals. Rapid e-learning development tools changed all this. Now a single instructional designer can take on a project from start to finish. While these tools reduce costs and trim timelines, this sometimes comes at a cost to the final product. When the tools aren’t pushed beyond the basics of what they can do, we often end up with the dull “Click Next” e-learning that people dread taking. This means we need to use these tools differently for them to be effective. Attend this live, interactive webinar to:

  • Learn what makes an e-learning experience engaging and interactive in the first place.

  • Discover new ways to design innovative learning experiences with e-learning tools.

  • Determine which e-learning features you should (and shouldn’t) use to increase interactivity.

  • Know when e-learning isn’t the right tool for the job.

Friday, April 18, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Frontline Leadership (Free for ASTD members)

This webcast is based on the ASTD research report: Frontline Leadership: Developing Tomorrow's Executives. The purpose of this report is to gain insight on training and development practices that are aimed at frontline leaders so that professionals can change and improve their processes in assisting frontline leaders to be successful. This study, produced in collaboration with the ASTD Forum, is based on the analysis of 513 learning professionals from various sectors and organizational cultures. Presented by Sarah Matney, senior curriculum designer and consultant at Ingersoll Rand University, this webcast will discuss Ingersoll Rand's journey in creating their frontline leadership development program, which has trained over 1,850 leaders across the globe and in a myriad of industries.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST Innovative Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Leading Sustainable Innovation in Your Organization

A decade’s worth of executive surveys on innovation highlight a significant gap between what leaders say they want and what their organizations deliver. Over 80 percent of leaders surveyed believe innovation is important for their future success, but fewer than 30 percent are satisfied with their current level of innovation. So why, despite all the talking, have leaders not given innovation the attention it requires? This presentation explores the following questions:

  • What is the innovation gap and its root causes?

  • What are the three core principles for sustainable innovation?

  • What is the systematic approach to innovative thinking that leaders utilize to gain insight and discover innovative solutions to complex issues?

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: The Business Leader's Bottom Line: Aligning Learning With Organizational Needs (Free for ASTD members)

Business leaders are under tremendous pressure to account for the performance of their division. “Supporting” business functions like workplace learning, however, are not held to the same scrutiny as operational business functions. Leaders typically view supporting functions as budgetary “black holes,” unable to prove direct contributions to business results. This is no longer the case. Leaders expect supporting functions to contribute to organizational objectives. This webinar identifies how to get your leaders to value workplace learning and how to make it a valued business partner. You will learn how to:

  • Address the secrets business leaders believe about learning investments.

  • Answer your leader’s questions that validate “learning” effectiveness.

  • Discover how business leaders actually position learning in the workplace.

  • Learn what leaders mean when they say, "return on learning investment.” (It’s not what you think.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: 10 Big Data Insights for HR & Training

Big data is not just for the IT department.  What are some of the insights we can gather from big data that will affect how you plan your HR and Learning Strategy?  How do you set up your learning initiatives to contribute to additional insights on performance in your organization?  Join a conversation with award-winning authors and learning thought leaders Karie Willyerd and Heather Maitre as they explore specific ideas on how to use big data today. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Grateful Leadership: Using the Power of Acknowledgment to Engage All Your People and Achieve Superior Results (Free for ASTD members)

Effective leaders must find ways to enhance people’s level of engagement, commitment, and support, especially in the difficult periods all organizations experience at one time or another. Engaged employees work with passion and feel connected and loyal to their organization. This yields higher productivity, sales, and results. This can be accomplished through the practice of Grateful LeadershipTM. Learning takeaways for attendees:

  • Understand the need for Grateful Leadership to create a culture of appreciation in the workplace and overcome the barriers to using acknowledgment.

  • Demonstrate the language and subtleties of authentic and heartfelt acknowledgement behaviour so that people can and will practice and use them immediately following the webinar.

  • Describe how to coach teams, managers, and other corporate stakeholders in how to use Grateful Leadership to produce breakthrough results.

Thursday, April 24, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Actions Louder than Words: 6 Steps to Improved eLearning Activities

There’s much frustration with the limited range of interactivity found in eLearning programs. Arbitrary multiple-choice and true-and-false questions, even when masquerading under flashy game-like interfaces, fail to engage learners’ attention. Worse yet, they usually fail to teach. Too often designers feel bound by the limits of actions available to the learner—senseless button clicking, random dragging, confusing entries. But, even working within the constraints of low-level authoring tools, it is possible to design eLearning activities that will engage, motivate, and captivate the learner’s imagination and enhance post-training performance. In this session, Ethan Edwards will present six simple and easily achievable transformations to make your eLearning interactions more impactful.

Monday, April 28, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leading Change Courageously (ASTD Subscriber Content)

This webcast uses data from interviews with 60 executives in 14 Fortune Global organizations to highlight eight actions that matter in leading successful organizational change. The presentation suggests that a key leadership action involves integrating learning into change—courageously.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: A Street-Level Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience

Since the early days of “creativity training” and “problem solving,” brain research has vastly enriched our understanding of human mental process. New research findings with very practical, down-to-earth applications may well revolutionize our  understanding of the ways people think, learn, and perform. Functions like social intelligence, emotional intelligence, practical intelligence, cognitive preference, neuro-leadership, design psychology, and subliminal impacts of colour, language, and narrative are opening up new ways to approach teaching, learning, and development. According to Karl Albrecht, training is actually “applied cognitive neuroscience, and all learning professionals are aspiring neuroscientists." Albrecht will discuss the components of applied cognitive neuroscience; their implications for human development; and how to apply them in your work, career, and personal life.

Free T&D Webinars for January 2014

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For many of us January means embracing a new year full of possibilities. Some of us have resolutions; some of us like to wing it. Whatever your approach, it’s good to have some support. Why not check out one of this month’s free webinars and start off your year with some new learning tools? We hope January’s events will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Alignment: A Powerful Process for Peak Performance (Free for ASTD members)

Let us help you develop your conference game plan! Join us for the 2014 TechKnowledge orientation webinar for first-time conference attendees. Jump-start your conference planning by learning about key activities during the conference, the eight conference tracks, tips for success, and a broad overview about how to make the most of your conference experience.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Battle of Top eLearning Tools

There are many authoring tools in the marketplace, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. At Training 2014 Conference & Expo, Joe will give an unbiased overview of all the tools in three categories: PowerPoint add-ins, installed (non-PPT), and Cloud-based. In this session, Joe will focus on four of the top tools to see how they compare:

  • Adobe Captivate vs. Articulate Storyline

  • Articulate Studio vs. Adobe Presenter

Joe will give you an honest appraisal and will invite your questions and input too.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Technology Tools to Make Training Stick

Most trainers would like to see their training stick so it is used by participants in their jobs... if only they knew how and had the time. This session will feature practical, evidence-based techniques for instructional designers and training instructors to increase transfer of training, whether it is instructor-led training, self-paced elearning, or a blend. Barbara will demonstrate several new training transfer technology tools to make it quicker and easier than ever to make the training stick.

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Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of the Best: The 2013 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Award Winners  

Kick off the new year by learning which organizations are recognized for making the best advances in a variety of technologies, including: LMS technologies, content authoring technology, performance support technology, learning evaluations, marketing automation, other sales and marketing technologies, mobile learning technology, social learning technology, fully integrated talent management platforms, talent acquisition technology, compensation technology, rewards and recognition technology, CRM automation, and much more. In this special webinar event, you will:

  • Learn the winners of the prestigious Gold, Silver and Bronze awards in more than 30 technology categories.

  • Get snapshots of the award-winning technology advances being honored.

  • Participate in online surveys on technology use in the learning, talent management, and sales and marketing industries.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: How to Avoid Nine Common Mistakes with Video(Free for ASTD members)

This webcast is for learning professionals who are new to shooting video. Join video-maker, speaker, and author Steve Haskin for a fun and illuminating webcast that will show you how to shoot learning videos like a pro. You’ll learn to avoid common mistakes such as jump cuts, cross cuts, misusing the lower third of the screen (supers) and much, much more.

Thursday, January 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Make Adult Learning Come to Life

Need to take your training from ho-hum to Oh YEAH!? But not sure where to start? Look no further! Through hands-on activities, this session will teach you how to use several easy and quick techniques to make your training more fun, interesting, and effective. Learn to:

  • Trigger retention in learning activities

  • Sequence activities for impact

  • Identify creative and fun activities that appeal to various learning styles

Tuesday, January 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Cultural Intelligence: Effective Tools for the Global Workforce

While our world is now fully global, most educational institutions are failing us drastically when it comes to preparing employees to work across cultures. While most jobs nowadays require some type of across-the-border interaction, too few employees are appropriately prepared to avoid the cross-cultural land mines that lie within the international arena. Through this session, participants will learn how to:

  • Discover the different cultural dimensions at play when interacting across cultures

  • Position themselves within cultures

  • Learn about culturally different leadership styles

  • Tweak their communication style to bond across cultures

  • Adjust their culturally rooted expectations

Tuesday, January 14, 2014, 12:30PM – 1:30PM PST: Micro-Scenarios: Affordable and Easy to Build

Learning is best achieved when learners are pushed to the edge and provoked to think and make decisions. Scenarios can effectively engage and draw them into the learning process. However, these can be costly and challenging to develop. This session will help you discover the quickest and least costly ways to build micro-scenarios. Ray Jimenez will focus on helping you develop sure-fire scenarios that take hold of learners’ attention instantly including:

  • How to set up micro-scenarios for very important topics

  • How to find the right challenge to engage learners

  • How to ensure that the content is learned while learners are having fun

  • How to build scenarios that are affordable and easy to construct

  • How to design micro-scenarios for mobile, tablets, and desktop eLearning

Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of Learning Solutions: Ideas You Can Play With

We learn through playful discovery and experimentation; our brains make sense of the world through actions, interactions, and the resulting feedback loops. But are we designing truly playful learning spaces, or have we merely ported the limitations of pen and paper to computers and tablets? You will examine some of the more interesting interactive learning environments, explore how their designs use principles from psychology and neuroscience, and focus on how learning comes from interactions with the external world. Learn:

  • Seven ways our brains (and bodies!) make sense of the world

  • Which new technologies hint at future learning environments

  • What educational-technology companies are already playing at the intersection of new technologies and learning

  • A framework for evaluating new learning products

Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Use Micro-Learning Techniques to Change Behaviour and Improve Performance

Micro-learning refers to the tiny bursts of learning we do every day to solve problems, make decisions, and improve performance. All training involves a micro-learning phase if the goal is behaviour change and ROI. Trainers tend not to emphasize this last mile of learning because it is too personalized, short-lived, and entangled in work. Learn how new technologies and methodologies are changing that. Discover a new method for including micro-learning in training that breaks learning content into its smallest relevant chunks, called knowledge cards. Successful examples and demonstrations in leadership, innovation, teamwork, and emotional intelligence will be presented.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Research Spotlight: LMS Trends

This installment of the Brandon Hall Group Research Spotlight webinar walks through BHG’s latest research on Learning Management Systems trends and takes an advance look at the soon-to-be-released Learning and Development benchmarking study. You will learn about some of the intriguing results included in the LMS Trends 2013–14 report and give an advance peek at highlights of the Learning and Development benchmarking study, including spending, strategies, and learning and talent management integration. This webinar will include:

  • Statistics on LMS spending per employee

  • Trends on LMS deployment and satisfaction

  • Information on enhancements to Brandon Hall Groups LMS KnowledgeBase

  • Information on recent and upcoming Brandon Hall Group research

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Best Webcast Series: TELUS – Using Collaborative Tools to Build Your High-Potential and High-Performer Employees(Free for ASTD members)

TELUS believes “culture is our competitive advantage,” and one way this manifests is through the development of high-potential and high-performing team members. As an eight-time winner of the prestigious ASTD BEST Awards—one of only two organizations to do so—TELUS takes great pride in its human capital practices. Join us and learn how collaboration-based technologies can be used to help build your own high-potential and high-performer program.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 1PM – 2PM: Making Connections: A Training Magazine Networking Jam

Do you want to learn about gamification and see a great example in action? Do you want to make new connections to help your career and business? Do you want to learn the latest in analog and digital networking? Do you want to maximize your experience in a conference like Training Magazine's 2014 Conference, and meet your peers who plan to attend? Do you want to learn the secrets of conference hypernetworking? Then join Digital Team Building Expert, CEO of Geoteaming, and Your Training Magazine 2014 Chief Social Officer John Chen as he shares his secrets in this online Networking Jam where he’ll share his networking secrets gained from decades of practice. During this webinar, you will NOT sit passively. Instead you will:

  • Meet passionate training professionals just like you

  • Learn new face-to-face networking skills

  • Learn how to install and use the networking and gamification technology Goosechase, which will be used at Training’s Training 2014 Conference & Expo

  • Learn how to hypernetwork using Twitter at a conference to meet twice as many people

  • Walk away with at least one new networking tool or technique to increase your sphere of influence

Thursday, January 16, 2014, 10:00AM – 11:00AM PST: Leadership Training That Sticks: Lessons Learned over 21 Years

With over 21 years of customizing leadership and management programs for hundreds of clients – and training thousands of leaders and managers – we know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to making leadership and management programs “stick.” Many leadership and management programs are events that come and go with little impact on the organization. However, when a leadership development program “sticks,” productivity improves, innovation increases, leadership emerges, and employee engagement and loyalty soars! In this short webinar, you will learn five characteristics that increase the “sticky-ness” of your leadership program, moving it from an event to an effective, culture-defining initiative.

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Thursday, January 16, 2014, 10AM – 12PM PST: Employee Development on a Shoestring: Developing Talent outside the Classroom (Free for ASTD members)

With budget constraints and organizations struggling to do more with less, many employees (as well as those responsible for their development) are challenged to find ways to address employee development needs. WLP professionals may quote the "70-20-10 rule," which says that development happens mostly through on-the-job experience as well as coaching and feedback. Training professionals and the supervisors and employees they support need alternatives and complements to formal learning, because formal learning is not enough. In this webinar, explore other, non-training ways to develop employees on a tight budget. Consider the pros and cons of various non-training development methods, and the requirements and specifications of three employee development ideas. Then begin to develop a strategy for implementing new employee development methods for your organization.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why Your Training Development Team Is Getting Bad Information… and How to Fix It

Content is only as good as the input your training development team uncovers to create it. You have skilled developers, but if they aren’t getting the information they need, their content will miss the mark. From requirements gathering to content, your training developers must be able to uncover the right information from all types of subject matter experts (SMEs), yet many developers struggle. Are SMEs uncooperative, or do your training developers need a different approach? Join this session to discover:

  • The #1 reason why training developers don’t get the information they need

  • When misinformation occurs most frequently during development, and how to fix it

  • Three strategies to get accurate, useable information from executive SMEs

  • Two strategies to handle SMEs who sidetrack conversations

  • Three steps to fix it and get more accurate information

Tuesday, January 21, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Develop Your Change Intelligence Factor (Free for ASTD members)

The ability to change is your only real competitive advantage and the single most important critical success factor today. The stronger your change intelligence factor becomes, the easier it is for you to successfully navigate the challenges of a dynamic and complex environment. If your change intelligence factor is weak, you struggle to cope with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Change can be frightening, confusing, and downright scary. This webcast will introduce three change intelligence practices designed to help you embrace change cognitively, emotionally, and physically. Learn how to leverage your budding change intelligence in key areas of workplace life: engaging employees, holding powerful conversations, resolving conflicts, and leading effectively.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Leveraging Game-Based Mobile Learning to Anchor Your Organization’s Critical Knowledge

What knowledge is most critical for your employees to perform at their best? How are you ensuring that this information is “above the noise” and differentiated from other information or training they are bombarded with every day? How do you know if they’re getting the message? And how engaged is your workforce, anyway?  This webinar will demonstrate how to leverage game-based mobile learning to deploy the most critical, “performance-impacting” knowledge to your employees, receive real-time analytics on how well they are assimilating it, and assess and drive overall employee engagement.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Virtual Conferences: If You Build It, They Will Come (Free for ASTD members)

What are the pros and cons of virtual conferences? How are they different from regular conferences? What are the technology requirements for both the government entity and the participants? How do you keep participants engaged when hundreds or even thousands of people are participating remotely? These and many other questions will be addressed as we walk through best practices of sourcing, organizing, and managing a successful virtual conference. Join us as we examine the logistics of setting up a virtual conference and investing in and evaluating the needed technology with Bernie Izler of the Bureau of Prisons.

Thursday, January 23, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Identifying and Nurturing Employee 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.

Thursday, January 23, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Building a Sustainable ROI Process during Changing Times (Free for ASTD members)

Sustaining ROI in the face of accelerated change, moving targets, and competing resource demands is no easy task. Only by planning for sustainability, with a long-term line of sight, can your ROI efforts endure and excel. Join Holly Burkett, principal of Evaluation Works, as she highlights core characteristics of a sustainable ROI measurement process and provides proven tactics for helping you ensure its durability and organizational value over time. Learn:

  • How to assess an organization’s evaluation process and practice maturity

  • How to address common barriers that can derail ROI momentum and sustainability

  • Best practices for implementing and sustaining the ROI process in the face of perpetual change

Tuesday, January 28, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Manager’s Employee Engagement Toolbox(Free for ASTD members)

Review the advantages of an engaged workplace from a manager’s perspective. Engaged employees can be a significant advantage for managers, themselves, and the organization. This program explains how employee engagement makes the workplace a more productive and satisfying work environment. Attendees will gain practical and useful tools that can be readily applied in their own work environments.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Beyond the Basics: Take Online Training to the Next Level

Your GOAL is to keep your learners focused, engaged, and learning during your online training sessions. PROBLEM: We, as online trainers, are not keeping attendees busy enough. They are multitasking because they can. It’s time to take your sessions to the next level. In order to accomplish this, you need a combination of compelling content and integration of the hottest new tools. This webinar, combined with our live conference session, will do just that. Join Sheri Jeavons, President of Power Presentations, Inc. to learn our Webinars that Wow® content development format. This provides a step-by-step process to guide you through developing dynamic content for your live online learning session.

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Thursday, January 30, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Key Elements of Effective Leadership Development: Analytics, Strategic Stories, and Modeling a Proven Approach

In today’s disruptive and challenging marketplace, organizations are reinventing themselves to sustain a competitive post. Their leadership development (LD) is limping alongside—it is not bent; it is broken. Without the benefit of practical examples and success stories, the window to leading practices for high-performance leadership development and how they work best in your organization can be foggy. It can be even more challenging to implement practices that make a measurable impact on your business. This webinar is an opportunity to explore three leading leadership development practices, compare them to what is happening in your organization, and define your calls-to-action for closing the gaps.

Free T&D webinars for June

With summer around the corner and school out soon, many of us are getting ready to switch gears. It’s a great time to brush up on learning before the hot weather hits. Why not wrap up spring with a free webinar or two? We hope these June events will inspire and motivate you.

Thursday, June 6, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Let’s Get Real about Training Evaluation – Part I

In today’s resource-strapped business world, there exists greater pressure than ever to demonstrate the value of training to the organization. In this two-part webinar, Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick will share practical ideas for maximizing the value of training while minimizing investment. In Part 1, Jim Kirkpatrick will discuss the fact that training evaluation is not as complicated or expensive as some make it seem. He will explain how to integrate a sound evaluation plan into the instructional design process and implement it with minimal resources. Participants will come away with ideas they can implement quickly and inexpensively in their own organizations.

Thursday, June 6, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: How Leaders Can Minimize Deception and Build Trust (Free for ASTD members)

Wouldn't it be great to know when you're being lied to? Wouldn't it be a savvy career strategy to know how to handle liars? And wouldn't it be a great leadership skill to know exactly what minimizes deception and builds trust? Join Carol Kinsey Goman, author of "The Truth About Lies in the Workplace," and learn:

  • Why people tell lies at work
  • How our biases, motives, vanities, desires, self-deceptions, and  rationalizations allow us to be duped
  • 7 habits of highly successful liars
  • 12 verbal and nonverbal cues for spotting liars
  • Strategies for dealing with liars once you've spotted them
  • How to make sure that you don't look like a liar
  • Leadership strategies for minimizing lies and building trust

 Thursday, June 6, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: The New Reality of Virtual Training

The way we learn has changed. With just a few taps, we can now find and share information with anyone, anywhere. Today’s training professionals must embrace the new technology and create an environment where people can gain knowledge the way they want to. Join Cammy Bean, Vice President of learning design for Kineo, as she explores the resources and performance tools that are supporting this revolution in learning. Attend this live webinar to learn:

  • What continuous, collaborative learning means and why it matters
  • How to implement the newest learning technologies
  • How other organizations have transformed their learning programs
  • And more…

Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Designing Learning for Behavior Change

Frequently, learning design is about showing people how to do the right things, but actually getting them to change behavior can be a challenge. This means that, as design professionals, we need to know all we can about designing for real behavior change, including using techniques from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral economics, behavioral psychology, persuasive technology, user experience, and even game design. Join us as we discuss learning design for behavior change with Julie Dirksen, consultant, instructional designer, and author of the 2011 book, Design for How People Learn.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Show Your Work (Free for ASTD members)

When you ask, “What does learning look like?” the answer is rarely, “Someone talking in front of a room.” We learn by doing, and by telling what we’re doing, and by watching others do things, and by showing others how we did something. Narrating work can solve so many problems for organizations, from capturing tacit knowledge, to easing transitions when workers depart, to further enabling informal and social learning. How can Training & Development (T&D) help this happen?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Informal Learning – Implications and New Opportunities and What They Mean to Your CEO

Experts state that 80% of learning in today’s organizations is informal. Learning leaders try to manage it; CEOs want the increase in human capital it creates. Bright prospects eager to get hired try to get it in order to have a shot. All have somewhat different objectives. Organizations that understand how to leverage their informal learning initiatives will create competitive advantage. Join this webinar to learn:

  • Why informal learning is not merely a different form of formal learning
  • How important members of your management team view informal learning
  • The language of the important constituents impacted by informal learning
  • The asset challenges the exiting baby boomers present to every organization over the next decade
  • Innovative ways to increase the assets of informal learning in your organization

Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Happiness and Productivity at Work (Free for ASTD members)

Learn how to use the power of positivity to help people achieve greater success and well-being. Research in positive psychology shows that people who experience more positive emotions achieve higher levels of success. This webcast teaches participants how to apply positive strategies in order to enhance employee performance and engagement.

Thursday, June 13, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Let’s Get Real about Training Evaluation – Part II

In today’s resource-strapped business world, there exists greater pressure than ever to demonstrate the value of training to the organization. In this two-part webinar, Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick will share practical ideas for maximizing the value of training while minimizing investment. In Part 2, Wendy Kirkpatrick will share four practical ways to implement a “real” training evaluation strategy, even with limited resources. Beginning with the concept that “the end is the beginning,” she then will provide tactics to utilize before, during, and after training that will both increase and document the value delivered to the organization. Participants will come away with ideas they can implement quickly and inexpensively in their own organizations.

Thursday, June 13, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: T+D: Building the Business Case for Employee Recognition (Free for ASTD members)

We all understand that employee engagement is critical to business success. Sometimes, however, organizations think of it as a soft and non-urgent business imperative. But engaged employees help you maintain an advantage over your competitors and help grow your business. The challenge is to excite your workers and continually maintain their engagement. Join us as we define the key drivers of employee engagement and prescribe a formula for success. Learn all the factors that motivate engagement from case studies, and learn how performance-based metrics can help you track your progress. Develop a road map for effective measurements, metrics, and processes to enhance your organization’s commitment to engagement.

Friday, June 14, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Ensuring Learning Transfer: An Introduction to the 6Ds (Free for ASTD members)

Training improves performance and provides a competitive edge if it is transferred and applied on the job. But for many training programs, transfer is the weak link. In this fast-paced and interactive webinar, the leaders of ASTD’s Learning Transfer Certificate Program will explain how training professionals can increase learning transfer. They will share the two key questions that must be answered for transfer to occur, and will introduce the six disciplines required to ensure a positive response. A handout with notes and job aids will be provided.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Imbedded Learning: How a Sales Portal Became a Competitive Advantage

Join Brandon Hall Group’s David Wentworth, Sr., and Bob Sullivan of PinPoint Global Communications, along with Barbara Brooks and Karen Stockla of Prudential Annuities as they share research on the need to make learning a business tool and the story of how Prudential accomplished this and forever changed how learning was viewed in that organization. Our presenters will discuss the critical path Prudential took to integrating multiple business tools into a single sales portal that focused on providing product training, development tools, marketing materials, business intelligence, sales metrics, and prospect data in a single location that supported business outcomes.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Re-thinking Change and Implementation: Myths/Truths/New Ideas

In this session, Lance Dublin shares the myths/truths distilled from 30 years of successes and failures, covering the change lifecycle from awareness to adoption to adaption to full integration. The key objective of this webinar is to challenge all of us to re-think what we know and have done, and to generate new ideas. So, please come prepared to share as well as listen. This is an opportunity to evolve an approach together for organizational change and program implementation based on our collective experience and learning.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Best Practices for Citizen Engagement Initiatives (Free for ASTD members)

Focusing on novel ways for the public to engage and impact the local and federal government process, this webinar will feature a joint presentation by the founders and officers of Citizinvestor and POPVox respectively, regarding transforming government through citizen engagement. These founders will talk about their process for capturing and stimulating engagement with an eye toward how aspects of their processes might be applicable across other areas of government.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Leading Virtual Teams

Virtual teams often face difficulties solving problems, making decisions, generating innovative ideas, and reconciling differences. When team members don't meet with each other face-to-face, it can be harder to build rapport, develop trust, and establish meaningful collegiality. Team members multi-task, leaders fall back to presenting endlessly, and the work goes sideways. Join us as we help you tackle the common challenges that go along with leading virtual teams. Our speakers will describe and demonstrate several practical skills and methods you can use right away to help team members and leaders improve the way they collaborate and perform.

Thursday, June 20, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Benefits of Effective Teams

We all know that the majority of work in an organization is conducted in some type of team environment. Individuals cannot be productive by operating independently. They must be able to communicate, persuade, and rely on each other in order to successfully achieve both minor and major initiatives that drive business results.

Research shows that the impact of a dysfunctional team can negatively affect organizational productivity and quality by more than 44%. With globalization and dispersed workforces, there is more need than ever to find effective ways to collaborate and communicate. Join Brandon Hall Group’s Rachel Cooke and Claude Werder as they share recent research on team effectiveness and show how social learning technologies can provide teams with effective communication strategies.

Thursday, June 20, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Jiffy Lube University – A Success Story (Free for ASTD members)

Learn the simple strategies used by Jiffy Lube to transform an outdated training program into the #1 ASTD 2011 BEST Award winner in just seven years. This interactive presentation is filled with practical ideas and proven methods designed to help enhance any corporate university.

Thursday, June 20, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Enlightened Onboarding: Your Path to Accelerating New Sales Rep Productivity

The skills and knowledge required to be successful in sales are greater than ever. Yet while selling is getting harder, the amount of time and resources dedicated to onboarding efforts is declining. Join us for a webinar featuring Jim Ninivaggi of Sirius Decisions as he shares sales onboarding best practices that drive productivity in new sales hires. You’ll learn:

  • The importance of establishing a sales onboarding system
  • How to leverage emerging technologies (mobile, social, video) to create a virtual onboarding program for new sales hires
  • Ways to measure new rep time to productivity

Friday, June 21, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: Going Mobile: Creating Practices That Transform Learning (Free for ASTD members)

Presented by Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) CEO Kevin Oakes and John Polaschek, Senior Manager of Learning Technology at Qualcomm, this webcast examines how organizations are implementing mobile learning and developing their mobile strategy in the current technology-based landscape.

Monday, June 24, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life! (Free for ASTD members)

In today’s ultra-competitive world, getting superior results faster is absolutely critical to success! However, the hectic speed of life makes it easy to become sidetracked by things that steal priority and make us less effective. People are hungry for ways to get ahead, to win, and to accelerate results both personally and professionally.

The Strategic Acceleration approach is based on three pivotal concepts: Clarity, Focus, and Execution. Once understood and deployed, Strategic Acceleration will have a powerful, long-term positive influence on the results and success that so many people want.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Building a Workforce Strategy with Skills-Gap Analytics

More than 83% of organizations with a skilled labour workforce state that it’s difficult to find employees capable of addressing their growing hiring needs today. Major workforce shortages in critical skilled roles are predicted at a global level by 2020 in healthcare, high-tech, and manufacturing. Businesses and governments alike are quickly realizing that long term-strategies for growth, innovation, and market share must include a workforce strategy based on data and analytics. Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for Brandon Hall Group, as she shares recent research on developing workforce strategies to address growing skills-gap issues.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Fixing Leadership Development Programs & Developing Effective New L&D Initiatives

As a Human Resources executive, trainer, and consultant, Ralph Jacobson used many of the conventional approaches to leadership and change management training. He found most did little to help the organization achieve its strategic objectives. Despite billions of dollars spent on leadership training, employee engagement surveys suggest low morale and followership. Authors such as Pfau/Kay, Gary Hamel, Barbara Kellerman confirm the assessment.

Learn and explore a counter-intuitive yet powerful approach that results in leadership and change management training that is less costly, easier to implement, and more impactful than traditional approaches.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating a Mentoring Culture: What You Need to Know and Do (Free for ASTD members)

Mentoring requires a culture to support its implementation and fully integrate it within your organization. It is more than simply a self-sustaining program. This webcast is designed for those who are responsible for some or all aspects of designing, developing, or implementing mentoring programs. Dr. Lois Zachary will walk you through how to create a vibrant mentoring culture by creating a shared vision of organizational mentoring, assessing organizational readiness, and then designing appropriate mentoring opportunities. You will learn about the eight hallmarks of a mentoring culture and the specific processes you need to apply to support all of the mentoring that occurs in your organization.

Thursday, June 27, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Is the Unit of Learning Still a Lesson? Can the Lesson Survive Social and Mobile?

A shift is taking place in today’s learning environments that requires us to change our approach to learning – creating smaller, shorter, more targeted and relevant learning experiences. In today’s mobile and social learning environments, can and should the “lesson” still stand as the centre of our learning models? Takeaways of this event include:

  • The business case for creating a learning environment, over a learning course or program
  • Approaches to downsizing your lessons
  • Practical tools for creating a learning environment
  • Award-winning case studies of organizations that have created contextually relevant intelligence

Thursday, June 27, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Many Faces of ROI: Analyzing Training’s True Value

In our evolving global economic landscape, ROI is more important than ever in demonstrating the accountability of learning systems. But even powerful metrics have their faults. ROI calculations can seriously misrepresent and overstate the business contribution of a learning solution, and should therefore never be allowed to stand alone when communicating results. Enter the new view of ROI – the ROI Quality Analysis reveals the truth and communicates the real business contribution. Join this webinar and take away powerful tools that you can quickly and inexpensively apply to business strategies, HR software, and learning solutions to improve and communicate value.

Thursday, June 27, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Demystifying the Open-Source LMS (Free for ASTD members)

Considering an open-source learning management system? Will an open-source solution give your organization the reliability, robustness, ROI, and flexibility that it really needs in a learning management system (LMS)? Join us as Lambda Solutions and Elearning Experts, two organizations with decades of experience using and supporting open-source initiatives, explore the truths and myths surrounding open-source LMSs.

 

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

Free T&D webinars for April

Spring has sprung, and crocuses and daffodils are brightening the scene. Infuse your April with some springtime energy by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: Good Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era

Good companies—those that are good to their employees, their customers, their communities, and the environment—make more money than their less worthy competitors. Yep—it’s true. Come hear economist Dr. Laurie Bassi share the hard-nosed evidence, describe the convergence of forces behind these findings, and discuss what this means for HR and learning professionals. You’ll leave armed with powerful new evidence and a fresh perspective you can use to get the resources you need to help your organization be “good company.”

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: State of Sales Training, 2012

This webinar is based on the ASTD/Blackboard research report, State of Sales Training 2012. Presented by Lee Perlis, senior marketing manager for Blackboard ProEd, and Paul Terry, general manager for Blackboard ProEd, the report provides insight into sales training efforts within various organizations so that members of the sales training community can tailor their programs to help each sales team member reach his or her full potential. Nearly all the respondents (94 percent) reported that sales training helps them do their jobs better.

Monday, April 15, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: How to Make Yourself Indispensable with Strengths-Based Career Choices

Learn the secret to becoming indispensable by shaping your career around your natural strengths. Hear from HarperCollins author Ingrid Stabb on using the Enneagram StrengthsFactors model, how to communicate your type advantage in the workplace, and how to use your strengths to give yourself an edge.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 5AM – 6AM PST: Mission Critical: Managing Compliance Training in Europe

Almost every organization has to deliver some sort of compliance training. In some companies, it may be as simple as communicating the internal rules. In others, it can be a matter of life or death. Companies in Europe and around the world face constantly changing regulations from a myriad of external bodies and agencies—with different drivers, strategies, and assessment methods. Join David Wentworth and Ray Ruff as they walk through some of the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 2012 Compliance Survey, identifying global trends and looking at some of the challenges facing companies in Europe and beyond, as well as best practices across various industries.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Net Smart: How to Thrive Online

How can we use digital media to help ourselves and our learners become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In his latest book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold shows how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and—above all—mindfully. Howard’s book outlines five fundamental digital literacies: online skills that help with attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information and network smarts. In this session, Howard will talk about how attention works and how we can use our attention to focus ourselves and our learners on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information; the quality of participation that empowers the best of bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online-community participants; and how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Transitioning a Federal Agency Business Unit to Telework

Many people in the federal government and beyond have heard about the USPTO's wildly successful telework transition program. Danette Campbell, Senior Telework Advisor for USPTO, and her team will present best practices for transitioning a business unit to a telework environment. They will walk you through the challenges and successes of implementing a telework program, using the USPTO as a case study. This session will provide you with useful ideas for managing such transitions in your own organizations.

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Executive Onboarding: Manage through the Stages of Onboarding, from before the First Contact Well Past the First 100 Days (Free for ASTD members)

Leadership transitions are some of the toughest challenges people face—professionally and personally. Nearly half of new leaders fail in their first 18 months. Often, those failures are the result of crucial, devastating mistakes made in the very beginning. The business world is changing rapidly; we’re all new leaders all the time, and we must treat the next 100 days as the first 100 days of the rest of our careers.

Learn how you can take charge, build or rebuild your team, and deliver better results faster than anyone thought possible—and how you can coach others to do the same.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leveraging the Best in Culturally Diverse Professionals (Free for ASTD members)

Your workforce is becoming more diverse, whether your company is nationally or globally focused. As your professionals expand in culture, race, ethnicity, or gender, it’s critically important to know how their motivations, communications, and needs are different. You can no longer use one “playbook” to effectively manage this changing workforce. This webcast will address some critical factors for success in motivating and managing the 21st-century workforce. 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Solving the 5 Biggest Challenges of Coaching and Developing Leaders (Free for ASTD members)

When you think about coaching developing leaders, do these questions swirl through your mind?

  • What is the best way to get leaders to trust me?
  • How do I get them to share what's really going on?
  • How do I get inside their heads?
  • How do I help them get results with speed and impact?
  • How do I prove to them that I can help them?

This webcast will address each of these challenges. You will also learn how to establish a deep level of rapport with leaders and establish their trust, access their personal and unscripted thoughts, help leaders get results quickly, capture their undivided attention in a convenient and practical way, and demonstrate proof of your effectiveness and their results.

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS?

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’s time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? This webinar can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. Join us to discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions, including:

  • Insights on business strategies for change
  • Selecting solutions for the future, not just today
  • A technology migration framework, highlighting both the risks and the rewards of migration
  • Tips for preparing your organization and data for a straightforward change
  • Insights into managing expectations and change-management goals
  • Award-winning case studies and practical steps to help you make a successful transitio

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Needs Assessment for Organizational Success

Needs assessment gurus Roger Kaufman and Ingrid Guerra-López present the four tiers of needs assessment, as detailed in their latest book Needs Assessment for Organizational Success (ASTD Press, 2013). As the authors state, "Analysis is important and useful only if you have evidence that what you are dealing with is the actual problem. Otherwise, you might think you are dealing with the actual problem, when in fact you are merely dealing with a symptom. The consequence is moving ahead, only to find that you implemented useless and expensive cures." Learn what is meant by Mega, Macro, and Micro needs assessments, and discover how to put an ounce of good assessment to work for your organization.