Free January 2013 Webinars

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

See you online!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free November webinars

Well November, and winter, is officially here! Keep warm and dry by signing up for free webinars being offered this coming month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learning Meets Big Data: Using Analytics to Create Learning that Works!

Over a third of learning organizations stated that their top priority in 2012 was creating a learning strategy. Why? As an industry, we are still struggling to measure the effectiveness of the learning we create and tie it to business performance. Developing a sound learning strategy requires direction, data and an honest assessment of what’s working and what’s not with your organization's learning. Stacey Harris, the VP of Research from Brandon Hall Group, and Mark Hellinger, CEO of Xyleme, will discuss insights on rethinking the idea of learning analytics. New research highlights how consumer driven learning is changing the market, and how new technologies can help you not only address those changes but do a better job at connecting your learning efforts to performance outcomes. We’ll share key practices in evaluating your learning; focusing on content, users, and business outcomes.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: What to do When There’s too Much to do: Reduce Tasks, Increase Results and Save 90 Minutes a Day (free to ASTD members)

Are you tired of hearing "do more with less"? Many people are already working as long and as hard as they can, and "productivity improvement" classes can be hard to swallow. Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, turns time management on its head and shows overwhelmed professionals how to actually DO LESS and ACHIEVE MORE. They'll produce greater results and create significant impact on organizational goals. Laura teaches her latest thinking using this innovative workflow formula to reduce to-do lists, reduce commitments, reduce distractions, reduce the glut of information, reduce inefficiencies, and reduce energy expenditure. Past clients using these systems and methods report savings of 90 minutes a day and higher productivity than ever before.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: eLearning Content is Everywhere! How to Bring it Alive with Online Video Presentations

Everywhere you look, eLearning content is begging to be captured and put online. Every time an expert gives a lecture, an executive keynotes a conference, a techie gives a chalk talk, a product manager briefs a sales team, or a manager hosts an orientation, valuable content is being created. In this webinar, led by internet content pioneer Michael Kolowich (the Emmy-winning TV news reporter who founded ZDNet) you'll get practical advice on how to capture and deploy multimedia online presentation material in a way that captivates and engages an audience at a very modest production cost.  Michael will show a case example of how one of the world's leading medical schools is using online presentation tools to deploy a brand-new Lectures On Demand series for pay-per-view and subscription continuing medical education programs.

Thursday, November 8, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Evaluation Practices, Promises and Barriers: How do YOU Measure Up?

On one hand, we say we honor evaluation, that we are eager for evidence and data. On the other hand, most reported practice is far from enthusiastic about metrics.  Today’s economic climate has increased accountability in organizations and required training and performance professionals to look in a data-driven way at their influence. At the same time, technology-delivered training, learning management systems and a host of tools has increased possibilities for data collection.  Are organizations using these tools?  And if so, to what ends? Join Dr. James Marshall, faculty member of the Department of Educational Technology at San Diego State University to learn more about evaluation promises, practices and barriers and give you an opportune ity to examine your efforts in light of the possibilities. How do you compare to the reported efforts of our respondents? How can we all do better?

Thursday, November 8, 2012, 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 is time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? Over 30% of organizations in a recent Brandon Hall survey had plans to replace their existing LMS solution. Most of them look forward to the transition with dread and concern. Can they make a solid business case for the change? Will the transition impact business processes or mission-critical learning needs?

Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Saba's Shruti Kala, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, as they share insights that can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. They'll discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions for creating a strategy for the upgrade, as well as tools and tricks for preparing your organization for a limited-impact change.

Thursday, November 8, 2012, 11AM – 12PM PST: 10 Best Practices for Engaging Live Online Learning (free to ASTD members)

You have the lofty goal of developing interactive, dynamic and memorable live online training, but what can you do to keep virtual learners truly engaged and participating?  Join this webinar to hear Sheri Jeavons, founder of Power Presentations, discuss how to deliver effective, engaging online sessions that will leave your attendees eager to learn. Discover:

• Tips to convert in-person training into live virtual sessions        
• Delivery techniques to keep your learners engaged        
• A content development format to create a compelling 5-minute introduction      
• Best practices for training online with the GoToTraining tool      

Friday, November 9, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Designing Virtual Training for a Global Audience

One advantage of the virtual classroom is the potential for global reach.  Participants no longer need to fly long distances to attend a class; instead, we can bring the classroom to them! However, when incorporating international participants into your virtual training classes, it’s important to design sessions with global audiences in mind. In this interactive webinar, you’ll learn three principles to consider when designing for global audiences – how to:

• Design virtual sessions with a multicultural mindset
• Create a comfortable learning environment for all participants, including international attendees
• Apply cultural adaptations to virtual training designs

Friday, November 9, 2012, 11AM – 12PM PST: Get Your New Hire Salespeople Up to Speed…Fast!

Hired and fired! It’s the revolving door of hiring salespeople and firing them 90 days later for poor performance. You loved them in the interview, but somehow they flopped on your team. Many sales leaders and business executives point their fingers at the sales people for failing to deliver on expectations. However, those fingers should be pointed at the executives if a structured salesperson onboarding program is not in place. Top performing companies don’t perceive adding headcount to the sales team as hiring, but rather as a corporate investment in revenue. Join Lee Salz, leading sales management strategist, for this virtual training to learn how to protect that investment and ensure a high rate of return. In addition, you will also receive Lee’s eBook titled “Sales Person Onboarding Best Practices”

Tuesday, November 13, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Exploring Innovation in the Learning Landscape

Explore teaching and learning strategies that foster innovation. Discover practical ways that businesspeople and lifelong learners incorporate innovation into their work. David Wentworth, Senior Analyst with Brandon Hall, and Laurie Burruss, Senior Director of Education at Lynda.com, explain the key tenets of innovation, and discuss the role and benefits of questioning, experimentation, observation, associating seemingly unrelated concepts, and sharing. Topics to include:

• How to produce innovators, not just subject matter experts
• Lessons from curious and creative risk takers and real-world leaders
• Case studies and best practices

Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Can Social Learning Succeed Alongside an LMS?

Social learning is natural, effective and can be low-cost. It’s no wonder so many organizations are keen to embrace it. But most already have a Learning Management System (LMS) in place. Can the two be reconciled? Can collaborative, informal, discursive learning fit with the course- and resource-based approach of the LMS? Join Johanna Sadoudi, CEO of VITAMINDS and David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group as they explore this issue, using real-world examples. Johanna will draw on her depth of experience in the industry, having overseen L’Oréal’s LMS deployment, rolling it out to 60,000 people across 45 countries.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 11AM – 12PM PST: How Technology is Shaping the Future of Learning (free to ASTD members)

This session will introduce you to the technologies that are shaping the future of the World Wide Web and how those technologies disrupt existing web based training design. In this session you will learn the five key principles of the web that has sustained its growth; 1) The web wants to be fed, 2) The web wants to understand what it is being fed, 3) The web wants content to be viral, 4) The web wants you to know you and 5) The web wants you to communicate. Using these 5 principles, you’ll explore how to design for a web that is evolving based on these principles in a way that is significantly different from existing design methods.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: How do YOU think? And Can You Think Better for Better Results?

We all use a variety of thinking styles in our daily lives, but we tend to favor some and rarely use others-and that hurts our ability to make good decisions. Taking a thinking assessment can help you find the right balance, so you can make the best choices, in life and at work. Join Training magazine and TalentLens, a Pearson business and learn how to improve your effectiveness and that of your team by leveraging new thinking styles.
 
When you register for the webinar, you will have the opportunity to take the My Thinking Styles assessment and receive your free personalized development report. Then, during the Webinar, Dr. Judy Chartrand, chief scientist at TalentLens, will give a brief overview of the seven thinking styles and help you interpret your results. Knowing your preferred style will help you approach problems and decisions with the right mindset. Your development report will unlock a unique combination that will help you be more successful with your decisions, relationships, projects, and every aspect of your life-so don't miss this opportunity!

Thursday, November 15, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Converting SMEs to the NEW FAITH: Less Content is Better, Faster and Cheaper

When you ask an SME, “What should learners learn from the content?” the response is usually “all” or “everything”. This is the OLD RELIGION where the data is “compressed and dumped” for learners to learn. This is costly and detrimental to the performance of workers. In this webinar you will learn:

• How to approach SMEs and present costs and statistical evidence that less content is better, faster and cheaper
• How to assist SMEs to redesign the way they write content
• How to discover sources of information, cases, examples and experiences within the company that help persuade SMEs to rethink their approach
• How to conduct brainstorming for content development with SMEs following processes and procedures that will guarantee
• An effective design - short and less in content

You will also receive the “SME Content Conversion Step-by-Step Process” - an interviewing guide.

Thursday, November 15, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Understanding Analytics for the Learning Organization

The topic of “analytics” has been on fire lately – everyone is talking about it, asking for it, and trying to figure out how to use it. In a recent Brandon Hall Group survey, over 46% of organizations said that changes in business performance was one of the top measures they used to evaluate the effectiveness of their learning. There is no doubt that learning analytics are important, but data is only valuable if you know how to leverage it for sound business decisions.  

Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for Brandon Hall Group, and Vinay Nilakantan, Director Product Development and Research for Meridian, as they hold an in-depth conversation on the topic of Learning Analytics.   

Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 4AM – 5AM PST: Creating creative leaders (Special time to accommodate live participation from members and customers from around the world. This session will also be recorded for on-demand viewing.) (free to ASTD members)

If creativity and innovation are top imperatives for your organization, then you also need to build the right leadership capability. However, when we try to develop organizational capabilities for creativity we often focus on the act of creativity rather than how to lead it. Leaders have a critical role in fostering creativity and innovation to build more dynamic organizations. This webinar will provide takeaways to immediately use to bring more creativity into your organizations whether you are new to the field (of creativity) or already a practitioner. Take advantage of endless opportunities to tap into more creative potential within ourselves, our teams, and our organizations. The more deliberate we are in our creativity and innovation efforts, the better the result. . And, what may be most surprising: You don’t need to be creative to be a creative leader (it can even be a barrier!).

Free September webinars

September is just around the corner and summer vacations are coming to an end for many of us. Sigh… But now is a great time to take advantage of the free September webinars coming up to brush up our skills, learn about new industry trends and bring a fresh focus to our work. So take the few minutes, look over the list of webinars below to see what interests you. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

See you online!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: No Time for Training? Options that Work.

You’re juggling a million things but you know it’s important to have some strategic time and learn new things. How can you facilitate brief sessions with your staff to keep learning and strategy alive? Join Lou Russell, CEO, Russell Martin & Associates to learn ideas for learning within the chaos, ways to leverage technology to create communities and thoughts on how to chunk out existing resources into sound-bytes.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 1PM – 2PM PST: Special Webinar - How to Measure and Increase the ROI of your Exhibit

Making the decision to exhibit at a conference is difficult these days. The cost of exhibiting continues to increase. Exhibit budgets are often difficult to justify. Top executives and financial executives are demanding more accountability. In some cases, executives are suggesting that if you cannot show the value of exhibiting, you should skip the conference.

The good news is that it is possible to measure the success of your exhibit in a very credible CEO and CFO friendly way. Attend this webinar to learn about the ROI Methodology, created by the ROI Institute. This methodology is now being used by many trade show exhibitors to show the value of exhibiting. This approach requires additional planning for your exhibit, setting objectives for implementation and impact, and conducting a follow-up to track the success of the exhibit at a set time after the show.

Thursday, September 6, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Wonders of Captivate 6!

Captivate 6 was released this summer and what a release it is! Joe Ganci, President of Dazzle Technologies has used Captivate for many years and will take you through a fun and revealing look at all the new and great features of Captivate 6.

Thursday, September 6, 2012, 11AM – 12PM PST: Learning Transfer: The Two Key Questions (Free for ASTD members)

Good training can provide significant value and a competitive edge for companies provided it is transferred and applied to the work of the trainees. And that, for many programs, is the weak link. In this fast-paced and interactive webinar, the authors of the ASTD Infoline "Ensuring Learning Transfer," will explain what learning professionals can do to facilitate learning transfer. They will explain the "two key questions" that must be answered positively for transfer to occur and they will provide practical guidance on how to influence the answers to those questions. A handout will be provided in advance.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Integrated Learning Analytics Strategies & Best Practices for Success

Understanding the results your learning programs have on your organization’s top and bottom line can ensure greater success of your learning initiatives. Having the right tools in place to track and analyze in real-time is key. Learn how integrated analytics can make your organization more effective. You’ll interact with our speakers as we demonstrate the impact of integrated analytics on the top and bottom line. You will learn how to add value through tactical, strategic, quantitative and qualitative measurement, go beyond ROI to the strategic use of learning analytics, mitigate the risk of bad data in, bad data out and succeed with improving the bottom line                    

Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Five Earth-Shattering Topics for Management Development That I Learned from my Friends (Free for ASTD members)

Management is management. Leadership fundamentals don't change. Right? Wrong! While some of our longest held beliefs about management and leadership are still relevant, the fundamental skills that all managers will need to succeed in today's business climate are shifting. During this webinar, Lisa Haneberg will share the trends and new topics that your management development programs ought to be addressing. She will share specific examples from several experts whose work is on the edge and pushing our thinking about management forward. This session will be high energy, offer high intrigue, and be highly actionable.

Thursday, September 13, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Transition from Training to Coaching

Training and coaching go hand in hand. Research shows that when training is reinforced with coaching, learning increases significantly. Join Tim Hagen, training expert and founder of Sales Progress, as he reveals specific strategies for how you can enhance and extend your training results with coaching. Learn why managers are resistant to coaching, the #1 barrier to coaching and how to overcome it, why trainers need managers to coach and more.

Thursday, September 13, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Employee Development on a Shoestring: Developing Talent Outside the Classroom (Free for ASTD members)

With training budgets slashed 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. While classroom and online training is a popular and first-in-mind development method, it can be costly and complex. In addition to possibly being out of reach for budgetary and cost-to-productivity reasons, even when training is available it may not be the only or the best way to address learning needs. 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, consider the requirements and specifications of three specific employee development ideas, and begin to develop a strategy for implementing new employee development methods for your organization.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 12:30PM – 1:30PM PST: Proof that Stories Improve Comprehension and Retention

“Too long.” “Too costly,” Too wishy-washy.” “Fluff.”   Many eLearning leaders and developers are skeptical about the use of interactive stories in eLearning.  Anecdotal and scientific research in educational institutions suggests that stories facilitate learning.  However, in the corporate world, stories are discouraged and misunderstood. In this session, Ray Jimenez will present a research report on “Story Impacts Learning and Performance.” The research covered 500 respondents who participated in a controlled and blind study to evaluate two types of eLearning: one with stories and another without stories.  The results show the impacts on comprehension and retention and the engagement levels of the learning.  Furthermore, the findings suggest that stories, although add development time, actually reduces learning time and therefore reduces the costs of eLearning project. The session is a research presentation, question and answer session and small group discussions on the impacts and applications of the research findings. 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Role of Intuition Smarts in Workplace Innovation Training

A renewed focus on innovation in business means a lot more training is needed.  One of the things that might not be top of mind in designing an innovation training program is intuition skills.  Yet, if everyone had intuition smarts, innovation would be a cinch. Arupa Tesolin, an expert in workplace intuition skills explains why you need to include intuition skills in your training program and how to position it alongside other innovation skills.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Research-Based Learning: 15 Years of Balancing Research and Practice (Free with a free eLearning Guild membership)

As workplace learning-and-performance professionals we have passion and good intention but are unable to maximize performance because we are infected with misinformation about how learning really works. While scientific research is a good starting point for building a base of common knowledge for our field, many of us rely more on opinions and poorly conceived benchmarking. In this session, join Dr. Will Thalheimer, who has spent the last 15 years working to bridge the gap between research and practice. He’ll share some of his research findings, talk about the state of the industry, and make recommendations on how to create best-in-class eLearning and transform our organizations into ones that truly maximize on-the-job performance.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: How Free is Free? A Look at Open Source LMS vs. Off the Shelf Solutions

The concept of open source software is nothing new, and more companies are exploring this option when it comes to their LMS as a way to save money. Often the idea of a free (or nearly free) solution with endless configuration and customization potential is too attractive to pass up. Join David Wentworth, Senior analyst with Brandon Hall Group and Dan Medakovic, V.P. Learning Solutions, from Blatant Media’s AbsorbLMS as they explore the ins and outs of open source solutions, with a focus on data the experiences companies have had using these tools as well as insights into the true cost of ownership of these systems.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 1PM – 2PM PST: Help them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want

To reach new levels of performance there must be a link between what the individual employee is passionate about and what the organization needs to grow its business.  One way to insure that linkage is for every manager to be held accountable for having solid development discussions with their employees.   Research suggests that if an individual is challenged in their position, finds their work to be meaningful, and believes that their manager truly cares about their growth, their engagement will be high. In this session Bev and Julie will share the research from their new book to demystify the Individual Development Plan (IDP) conversation.     

Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why We Needed a Social LMS: The AMD Story

Is your organization struggling with how to leverage social learning within your overall learning strategy? Do you see the value of social learning, but aren’t quite sure how to implement it within your organization? The reality is, every organization uses social learning, which is the informal transfer of information from one learner to another. The challenge all organizations are facing is to harness the power of social learning and formalize it so that its power can be used throughout the organization. Learn about exciting findings on Relationship Centered Learning, how it’s changing the face of learning for organizations, what social learning is and the components that make up a social LMS, and AMD’s Dave Stachura, Manager of Global Sales Enablement, who will present AMD’s story of implementing social learning, through a social LMS, throughout their organization.

Thursday, September 20, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Top 10 Practices for a Successful LMS Replacement

Based on Brandon Hall’s most recent LMS Trends survey, one out of every three organizations is looking at replacing their Learning Management System. When the time comes and replacement is inevitable, the first step shouldn’t be product demonstrations – but rather the development of a replacement strategy. A little up front work goes a long way towards a successful LMS replacement and implementation outcome. Partnering effectively with your current LMS provider is critical to ensure a smooth transition. Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for Brandon Hall Group, and Jason Marceau, VP of Operations from Meridian as they outline key elements of an effective replacement strategy, and key practices for successful replacement implementations.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: For Optimal Learning, Mix It Up

There’s a lot of buzz about using social and collaboration tools to dramatically boost learning results. What does such an approach mean for your investment in LMS? In this webcast, explore the optimal mix of learning approaches and where, when, and why it makes sense to incorporate social learning with formal, LMS-based learning.

Thursday, September 27, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thiagi and Tracy’s Favorite Jolts for Webinars

Jolts are quick and powerful learning activities designed to jump-start your sessions in less than 5 minutes and provide an emotional impact resulting in surprise and discovery. Your participants will sit-up, listen, learn, and gain instant insights into your training topics. In this session, Thiagi and Tracy will share their favorite jolts and debriefing activities that are especially designed and adapted for the use in webinars including selecting and adapting jolts for webinars to effectively achieve your performance objectives and learning how to leverage your participant's introspection and interaction with follow-up debriefing activities.                                                                        

Free webinars for May

The sunshine and fresh spring air is finally here! So “freshen up” your learning by taking advantage of some (or all) of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: The ROI LIE: The Facts Behind Why Training ROI  is Undermining Credibility

Training is a business function, so why doesn’t management treat Training as a business function? Training's credibility within an organization can be fragile, and management often questions attempts to prove Training’s worth and validity. In recent years, concepts such as Training Return on Investment (ROI) have been touted as the solution to Training’s credibility gap, but has a focus on Training ROI helped or hurt Training’s position? Learn how to identify why the subject Training function is unable to gain management support. You’ll then help develop credible solutions to build support for the subject Training function and demonstrate sustainable business results, all while learning how to demonstrate training results in business terms for your own Training function.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Basics of ROI Workshop

Never before has ROI been of such importance. The ROI Institute’s ROI Methodology is the most documented approach to measuring and evaluating learning and development programs. Join Patti Phillips, President and CEO of the ROI Institute as she presents the key elements in the ROI process including: five levels of evaluation that have served as the foundation for the ROI methodology since the 1970s, six types of results generated by the chain of impact, ten steps in the ROI Methodology process model and twelve guiding principles that support the ROI Methodology.

This is the first of a four part series. Part two is offered May 29, 2012.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Create a Powerful Connection with Your Audience

Teachable moments begin with transforming an audience, but an audience will only change if you resonate with them. Attend this webinar to hear presentation innovator Nancy Duarte demonstrate a new way to create a powerful connection with your audience. Nancy will show how to communicate with carefully crafted messages and how to train learners so they are transformed and help their organization succeed.

Thursday, May 10, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Making Learning Easy: The Impact of a Unified Learning Environment

Is learning in your organization more difficult than it needs to be? Research shows that feedback, career development, and training opportunities rank as top factors for increasing employee engagement; yet most employees say they simply don't get enough development opportunities. For some organizations the culprits are real funding and resourcing issues, but Brandon Hall Groups research has found that for many organizations it is actually complex systems and poor processes that can lead to difficult learning situations. Join Dave Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Saba's Naren Patil, senior director of product marketing, as they explore both process and technology improvements that can have a real impact on making learning easier and more accessible.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Eliminating the “Terrible Too’s” of Workplace Training

In 1992 Brandon Hall Group launched their first report on technology enabled learning and the changing direction of the learning industry, at that point the internet was in its infancy and true web based multi-media learning was impossible. Over the last two decades, business and learning leaders alike have continued to strive for relevant learning that was accessible where and when the learning communities needed performance improvement efforts. Today, both the internet and the learning industry have matured, and the possibilities are endless, so why are so many organizations still using old approaches and old ideas to try and meet the learning needs of a new workforce? Join Mike Cooke, CEO of Brandon Hall Group, and Dan Cooper, CEO of eJ4 as they share their unique business perspectives and industry research on learning efforts that exceed leadership expectations.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Impact of Business-Led Learning (Case Study – Techtronic Industries)

Techtronic Industries is a $3.7 billion global company. No organization grows to that size - and continues to grow - without a keen sense of what is contributing to its success. Proving the impact of business-led learning is Matt De Feo, Senior Vice-President for Sales, Training and Recruiting at Techtronic Industries. Since he joined the company in 2006, Matt DeFeo has made sure that rigor also applies to the learning and development function. In this presentation, sponsored by Certpoint Systems, Matt and Rachel Ashkin, COO of Brandon Hall Group will discuss the impact of business-led learning. Matt will also share several instances of proving the value of learning, and some hard-won lessons along the way.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Virtual Training:  Building a Global Training Strategy

As enterprise organizations expand to support a globally dispersed employee base, providing regular training and updates becomes a significant challenge. Live physical training sessions and events, simply don’t scale globally and cannot be implemented quick enough to keep up with the constant requirement for new information. By building a virtual training strategy, enterprise companies can effectively deliver real-time training that can be accessed by any employee or partner, from anywhere. In this webinar, learn how webcasting and virtual environment solutions enable you to create virtual learning centers that can be customized to expand your training to multiple theaters and various languages. From delivering individual training broadcasts, to building virtual corporate universities, this presentation will highlight how to increase the reach and effectiveness of your training programs, including:

Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to make Technical & Compliance Training and eLearning Fun and Engaging

“Boring”. “Tedious”. “Painful”. “Do I have to?” These are the moans and complaints of learners as receivers of the data-dump type of very technical and compliance forms of eLearning. Technical and compliance elearning can be fun and definitely help people learn when we shift the design by focusing less on just the technical view and instead, considering the learner’s perspective. Ray Jimenez, Chief Learning Architect of Vignettes for Training will present ideas on how to make this shift possible.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Effective Workforce Planning and Development Starts with a Talent Audit

Have you conducted a Talent Audit lately? Organizations regularly conduct financial audits, risk audits, and technical audits – but a Talent audit is often overlooked. Over 66% of CEO’s, in a recent PWC Global CEO survey, said that the lack of the right skills is their biggest talent challenge. The term talent is subjective, but it assumes that someone has the right competencies, background, personality traits, and motivations to exceed expectations. An effective talent audit will help you identify your talent needs and assess your organization against those needs – and most importantly provide concrete details on how to best fill the gaps. Join Stacey Harris VP of Research, Brandon Hall Group as she details key practices in conducting a Talent Audit that helps identify skills gaps, development needs, and talent opportunities.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: 10 Steps to Employee Engagement

More than 70 percent of employees are either disengaged or neither engaged nor disengaged, according to a recent Avatar HR Solutions survey. Lack of engagement quickly leads to lackluster results, productivity losses, and low organizational morale. But in today’s world where everyone is expected to do more with less, how can organizations not only boost engagement but empower their employees?  Discover best practices from two employee engagement experts to learn how to foster employee engagement and empowerment.

Thursday, May 24, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Five Keys to Realize ROI from Social and Mobile Learning

The average sales rep loses more than 80 percent of the knowledge learned within 90 days after a formal training program. How can you help ensure the effectiveness of your sales force when they lose their knowledge so fast and don’t have time for a refresher course? You can become a strategic partner to your business by enabling sustained know-how and sales excellence through continuous social learning and by rapidly sharing know-how — anytime and anywhere. Join this session to learn how to enable sustained sales excellence with social and mobile learning and enable top-line growth.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Collecting Data (ROI)

A variety of data collection techniques exist to help you capture the information need to measure the success of your training programs. Join Patti Phillips, President and CEO of the ROI Institute as she presents the types of data collection methods available for each level of evaluation, options for timing of data collection at each level and sources that provide you the most credible information.

This is the second of a four part series. Part three is offered June 12, 2012.

Thursday, May 31, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Interactive E-Learning Made Easy with Articulate Storyline

You want to build more than click-and-read elearning, but you don’t have the programming skills to do it. That’s where Articulate Storyline comes in. It helps you build highly interactive elearning with no programming required. Join TomKuhlmann, VP of Community at Articulate as he discusses key elements of interactivity and shows you how to build them with Storyline.

Free December webinars

Christmas and the New Year are both just around the corner but there’s still time to take advantage of a few more free training and development webinars on a variety of interesting topics. Hope to “see” you online.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Experience is the Best Teacher – Capturing and Deploying Experience using Simulations and Immersive Learning Techniques

In this workshop, you’ll learn a methodology for capturing and ultimately deploying simulations which translate specific experience into learning modalities that engage the learner and help them apply the simulated experience to real-life situations. The result of this approach is that Simulations, once thought of as unrealistic because of cost and time, can become a key part of any organizations learning portfolio in a very practical manner.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011, 11:30AM – 12:30PM PST: Engaging Your Workforce Through Development and Career Pathing

Organizations need to begin to think about recognition differently—both in terms of development and career-pathing. They need to take into account a number of important factors, including feedback, mentoring, education, sponsorship, career management and work/life balance.  Join Stacey Harris of the Brandon Hall Group as she shares her latest research in these key areas, detailing proven, award-winning practices of how organizations of all sizes are engaging their workforces and recognizing valuable employee assets through various development and career-pathing opportunities.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Talent Management System Selection: Top 10 Questions to Ask Yourself and Your Vendors

Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for Brandon Hall Group as she shares insights on the Top 10 Questions to ask your organization and the Top 10 Questions to ask prospective vendors when researching talent management system options.  She’ll take a deep look at questions like; real global needs, or process automation readiness as well as issues like solution provider testing processes or actual support offerings.

Thursday, December 8, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Design Lively eLearning with Action Mapping

In this webinar, you'll learn a quick way to replace dry information with creative, high-energy activities. Learn about a four-step process that will help you:

• Brainstorm lively, engaging activities that help learners apply new knowledge on the job

• Identify what content really needs to be included and what can be cut

• Convince your subject matter experts to agree to the cuts

• Design materials that intrigue and challenge learners--and change their real-world behavior

Thursday, December 8, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Brandon Hall Group Award Winners Webinar Series: The Cisco Learning Network: A Social Success Reaching 480,000 Members

The Learning@Cisco team focused on creating a new way to communicate and collaborate, through Web 2.0 social networking tools including shared wikis, blogs, discussion boards and using web-based learning tools to provide rich feedback and a collaborative learning environment. As part of Brandon Hall Group’s Award Winners Webinar Series, join Jeanne Beliveau- Dunn, VP and GM for Learning@Cisco, as she shares how Cisco has taken e-learning from a cost center to an important strategic element, a valued customer resource, and a key driver of Cisco's continued success.

Thursday, December 8, 2011, 12PM – 1PM PST: AAA University Case Study on Content Management: Creating a self-sustaining learning model

How do you effectively meet the learning needs of over 8,000 internal and external learners, across 23 states – in a federation business model - with a shrinking learning function?  You create a learning system that is self-sustaining and powerful. Join Scot Lake, Sr. Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group and key members of the AAA University, at AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange as they share their approach and workflow for creating business information and training materials which leverages metadata-driven content aggregation. They will also share how, leveraging a Learning Content Management System (LCMS), they’ve designed their program to support dynamic content delivery that meets the unique needs of their diverse audiences.

Monday, December 12, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Instant Learning through Story and Experience Sharing

Do you feel at times you have to cram too much content into short lessons? So the tendency of the designers is to compact and squeeze big content lessons. The problem is that learners can't learn instantly compacted lessons. However, instant learning happens by using experiences and stories and embedding the content. This session shows you how to create instant learning by applying tested methods in cognitive sciences, social and behavioral sciences. You will learn step-by-step methods and see live demos from real-life cases on how stories and experience can fast track learning.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Top Ten Challenges When Implementing Blended Learning

This session addresses the most common challenges an implementation may encounter when designing and implementing a blended learning solution, and provides strategies on how to anticipate these challenges and minimize their impact. Technological, organizational, and instructional concerns will be addressed.

Thursday, December 15, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Benefits & Barriers to Social Learning: Discuss, Network & Share

What are the leading benefits & barriers to implementing social learning? Jeanne Meister, Partner of Future Workplace and best-selling author of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop & Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today co-author is joined with Glenn Scott (Global Leader - Technology-Enabled Learning) of P&G to discuss benefits and barriers to social learning.

Learn:

• Key benefits & barriers of social learning as uncovered in leading best selling book, The 2020 Workplace

• How to anticipate barriers and communicate benefits

• What you can do to overcome barriers

• Participate in group poll on crowdsourcing your benefits and barriers

• Discuss a plan of action for moving to build a business case for social learning

• How P&G has used social media to drive innovation in building the learning brand and making connections to learn together

This webinar will also share pre work for our session entitled (Social Learning: Drivers, Practices & Business Alignment for Re-Imagining Learning) on FEB 13th at Training 2012.

Monday, December 19, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Getting Great ROI from Attending the Training 2012 Conference

This thought-provoking webcast will explore how conferences are being evaluated from the participants’ perspective.  It shows how you, as a potential conference participant, can judge the ROI of a conference in advance of attending.  It presents a system to track what you do with what you learned, including impact and financial ROI. In this session, you will also be given an opportunity to measure your ROI for attending the Training 2012 Conference.   This offer includes participating in a collaborative study to show your ROI for attending.

Free November webinars

Check out the free training and development webinars this month on a variety of interesting topics. Hope to “see” you online.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: 11 ½  Tips for Designing Slides and Interactions for Live Online Training (members-only webcast)

In a short-attention-span culture, it can be challenging for trainers and instructional designers to engage online learners. Fortunately, many issues of getting and keeping attention can be solved before getting in front of class. Join Roger Courville, webinar expert and author of The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook, to jumpstart your success when designing slides and interactions for the virtual, instructor-led environment.

To register, go to http://www.astd.org/ and click on the Webcasts tab.

Thursday, November 3, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best Practices in Upgrading Learning Technologies: Reduce Fear and Create a Strategy for Success

Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for Brandon Hall Group, and Saba's Naren Patil, senior director of 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.

 

Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Making Money with your LMS: Innovative Ways to Extend the Reach of your LMS

Extending the use of learning technology to external channels and audiences not only creates avenues for increased revenue, but also creates unique occasions to increase brand awareness and marketing impact. Join Scot Lake, Sr. Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Matt Gilley, Co-Founder of Intellum, as they share real life examples and key practices in leveraging learning technology to increase value and reach multiple audiences across existing internal and external supply chains.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Low-Cost, Best Practices for Converting Instructor Led Training to eLearning

This presentation will discuss the key differences in the design approach between ILT and e-learning. It will also provide insight into the e-learning development process. What roles are required? How do you estimate development time and cost? What are the trade-offs between different types of development tools? What new tools (such as storyboards, testing scripts, etc.) are required?

Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Is Mobile Learning Right for You?

Mobile Learning creates a unique channel of communication that can be personalized for the individual learner and their learning style.  Mobile learning offers the ability to have just in time/just for me learning access to highly relevant content that can be immediately put to use by the learner. But is Mobile Learning right for your organization and how do you decide? This session will delve into the decision-making criteria and key considerations that should drive an organization’s assessment of Mobile Learning.

Friday, November 11, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: 10 Cases of Bungled eLearning Implementation – Lessons Learned

In this session, Ray Jimenez will share his 10 most bungled up elearning implementations - horror stories that after resolution breathed life and improved the eLearning programs and systems. Ray will share specific cases and real-life events from his 15 years implementing elearning projects. The experiences and real-life cases help you take a closer look at implementation issues and how to avoid them.

Tuesday November 15, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Blended Learning in Mid-Sized Organizations: Deliverting Engaging Learning to Today’s Audiences

When it comes to employee performance, the two critical factors that influence improvement are motivation and ability. The best learning experiences consider both of these performance needs. Creating a learning environment that meets these goals, while engaging today’s diverse learning audiences, can be challenging for any organization, but it is especially challenging for today’s quickly growing small and medium-sized business market. It requires multiple learning approaches and effective delivery. Join Scot Lake, Senior Learning Analyst for the Brandon Hall Group, in a discussion on the key practices of designing and delivering effective blended learning programs.  Hear about award winning examples with solid business outcomes that have inspired and engaged their audiences.

Tuesday November 29, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Structured Sharing: Orchestrated Spontaneity

Join Thiagi and Tracy Tagliati who will explore a special type of training activity that facilitates mutual learning and teaching among participants. They are called structured sharing activities, because they provide a flexible strategy that creates a context for a dialogue among participants based on their experiences, knowledge, and opinions. They will share several structured sharing activities, and will give you the resources to develop more.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Stop, Look, Listen and Apply – Adding Contemplation in eLearning

Leading critics of technologies like Sherry Turkle (author Alone Together) and David Brooks (author of The Social Animal) and suggest that the abundance of technologies, while there are great benefits, also forces people to imbed gazillions of knowledge and information, but failing to process the information into useful and valuable to impact performance. In this session, Ray Jimenez will share four case studies on how to add the contemplation process in the eLearning design.

Free October webinars

There are a multitude of free training and development webinars this month on a variety of interesting topics. Hope to “see” you online.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011, 11AM – 12PM PST: Low-Cost, High-Impact Training on Demand

Join Kendra Lee, president of KLA Group, and Knoodle's Kelly Smith to learn about cost-effective, quick, and easy strategies for creating and implementing on-demand learning in your small or mid-size organization. You will explore moving from a "push" training model to a "pull" one, in which content comes from subject matter experts and peers rather than corporate trainers, how to repurpose training courses into learning nuggets that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and how to incorporate social learning tools into your training arsenal.

 

October 5, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25 or 28, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Create and deliver Self-Paced Training in 30 minutes or less

You’ll learn secrets to help you create training in minutes by infusing your presentations with audio, video, surveys and more, engage your audience through interactive and collaborative learning and deliver training anywhere, anytime with a 100% hosted solution.

 

Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 9AM – 10AM PST: Chaos is not Performance: Learning Project Management for Stability

Join Lou Russell, President and CEO of L+EARN and Russell Martin & Associates learn how to organize and prioritize your individual scalability.  Get things done and be more effective.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: The New Learning Architect

The new learning architect designs environments that help specific populations take maximum advantage of multiple learning opportunities. To do this, new learning architects need to understand the unique characteristics of their target populations and the business challenges those populations face. New learning architects need to find the right balance between top-down and bottom-up learning initiatives, between formal and informal learning. Join Clive Shepherd, author of The New Learning Architect as he explains what it means to be a new learning architect and how becoming one could transform the contribution you make to your organization.

 

Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Today’s Innovations, Tomorrows Trends: Learning Technology that Meets Learners Expectations

Join Scot Lake, Senior Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Jeff Whitney, OutStart’s Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, as they discuss the innovations, the challenges, and the real-life successes around today’s innovations in learning.

Thursday, October 13, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Presenting and Training When You’re Not in the Room: Virtual Training, Webinars, and Video Conferences

Join Jeff Hiller, Senior Trainer and Workshop Leader , from JB Training Solutions who will give you the inside tips and techniques you need to deliver effective presentations and training sessions when you’re not in the room. Through interactive exercises, you will learn strategies for conveying a strong, clear message to your target audience remotely.

For ASTD members:

Thursday, October 13, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Web 3.0 and Mobile Learning Technologies

Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst  from i4cp who will discuss various components of Web 3.0 and how they might influence the future of learning, with an emphasis on the practices of high-performance organizations. What does mobile learning mean for learning professionals and the learning function? How will it affect instructional design? What influence, if any, will device manufacturers, platform providers, and software developers have on mobile learning’s future? To register, go to http://www.astd.org/ and click on the Webcasts tab.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Developing Talent in the New World of Business

Organizations must be agile, they must be able to adapt and leverage technology to create an environment that allows high performers to grow professionally and, ultimately, develop new skills that will lead businesses into the future. Join Claire Schooley, Sr. Analyst from Forrester Research who will explore new leadership skills, competencies and how to develop leaders who have the attributes the business will need to remain competitive.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 8AM – 9AM PST:  Making 360′s Smarter and Simpler

Join Knowledge Advisors who will share industry best practices, and years of real world experience, to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your 360 degree assessment process.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Selecting and LMS: Converging your Business Needs with Emerging Learning Trends

Join, Scot Lake, Senior Analyst at Brandon Hall Group and Kenneth Fung, EVP of Product Strategy at CERTPOINT as they share best practices in selecting an enterprise learning solution that will meet an organizations business needs for today and prepare them for the learning trends of tomorrow.  Learn how key learning trends that could impact your organization in the next three years , award winning approaches to selecting solution providers that meet today’s needs and tomorrows challenges, the impact of managing and partnering with solution providers effectively and the value of an effective and well implemented enterprise learning solution.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 10AM – 11AM PST: Interactive Lectures is not an Oxymoron

Interactive Lectures involve the participants in the learning process while providing complete control to the instructor. These activities enable a quick and easy conversion of a passive presentation into an interactive experience. Join Thiagi of the Thiagi Group and Tracy Tagliati from Move, Inc. as they explore different types of interactive lectures that incorporate built-in quizzes, interspersed tasks, and teamwork interludes.

UPDATE - Free Summer webinars (July and August)

Here’s an update to the Free Summer webinars blog article I posted in late June.  The following are a few additional webinars that didn’t make my original list that sound interesting. 

JULY

Friday, July 15, 10am-11am PST: Ubiquitous Learning: Next Generation Solutions for Learning Anytime, Anywhere in Any Modality

This concept taps into the reality we've been working on that allows a learner seamlessly flow through the learning experience from desktop to smartphone to tablet to TV whenever the time or mood suits them. Apps are now available on virtually every electronic device we touch and use in our daily lives, and cloud computing models enable the ability to synchronize and manage the learning experience on whatever device best suits our environment and mood.

Thursday, July 28, 10am-11am PST: Mobile Learning Basics + (Free) Mobile Learning guide

The Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) mobile learning team recently released a mobile version of their mLearning guide on the web and in various platform stores.  This webinar will discuss the single development for deployment on multiple devices, the choices made and the lessons learning.

Thursday, July 28, 10am-11am PST: Driving Development and Growth with Performance Management

Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research for the Brandon Hall Group, as she shares business case examples of how organizations are driving cultures of development and performance, by focusing more on the human connections and less on process compliance. She’ll discuss the impact of enabling a culture of coaching and feedback models both on engagement and performance, and how organization are leveraging individual development plans as part of their strategic talent planning tools.

AUGUST

Wednesday, August 10, 10am – 11am PST: Mentoring for the 2020 Workplace

Forward-thinking companies are reinventing the meaning of mentoring and using innovative techniques to be able to scale in mass proportions to prepare for the future workplace. Based on research from the book "The 2020 Workplace" by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd, this session will cover examples from companies like American Express, AT&T, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to explore how to get talent ready fast for the upcoming shifts in the workplace.

Wednesday, August 17, 10am-11am PST: Gadgets, Games and Google for Learning: How to Leverage the Latest Technologies for Learning and Performance Improvement

This session highlights how organizations are leveraging Smartphones for performance support and mobile learning, how game-based learning is being designed to teach everyone from firefighters to sales reps to call center employees and how quick searches and meta-data are changing the landscape of how employees learn and their information expectations. Join Karl Kapp, author of four books on the topic of the convergence of learning, technology and work as he explores some of the research, thinking and examples of learning technology in action.

Tuesday, August 23, 10am-11am: An Active Approach to Leadership Training

Research has shown that experiential learning is one of the most effective ways to keep participants engaged and active throughout the learning process. This webinar will explore a variety of high-impact activities, jolts, and interactive learning strategies that have been specifically chosen to teach and apply some of the most critical leadership competencies our evolving leaders need.

Tuesday, August 23, 10am-11am: The New Role of the LCMS: Enabling New Ways of Learning

Richard Nantel, co-chief executive officer at Brandon Hall Group, will discuss how today's LCMSs allow content authors and subject matter experts to collaborate on learning content and publish it to today's various computer and mobile devices. Jeff Whitney, vice president, worldwide marketing, Outstart, will describe best practices for how LCMSs are being used innovatively in real-world situations.

Also check out an earlier blog post of other free summer webinars.

Free June webinars

The month of June offers a great variety of free T&D webinars on some interesting topics including mobile learning which has been gaining ground in the industry and garnering a lot of interest lately. 

Thursday, June 2, 2011: How to Implement Mobile Learning: Practical Considerations

Wednesday, June 8, 2011: How Learning Technologies impact training, sales and marketing functions

Wednesday, June 15, 2011: Supporting a Mobile Learning Workforce: Challenges and Solutions

Thursday, June 16, 2011: Performance "To Go": Where is Mobile Learning Going, How do We Go Too?

Tuesday, June 21, 2011: The Serious Role of Play in Learning

Wednesday, June 22, 2011: How to select an LMS for your small/medium business

Wednesday, June 29, 2011: How to Develop Elegant, Enthralling Learning Experiences

Wednesday, June 29, 2011: Best Practicies in Mobile Learning Authoring

Thursday, June 30, 2011: Using Courage to Transform the Workplace (click on View All Webinars)

Stephanie and I will be signing up for a number of the June seminars.  Hope to "see" you there.