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.

CSTD Calgary Symposium - May 2013

If you work in Calgary or happen to be in Calgary area May 29 - 31, 2013, CSTD (Canadian Society for Training and Development) is hosting a Learning and Development Symposium. You’ll connect, create, and collaborate with your peers from a variety of industries across the country. With a leading edge program offering you choices of case studies, enterprise learning strategies, and a stream dedicated to the core skills required of the profession, you’re sure to discover the answers you need to deliver the learning your organization values.

Top 10 eLearning authoring tools...do you agree?

I follow a lot of industry related blogs and recently came across an interesting article from the E-Learning 24/7 blog. Based on a variety of criteria, the author Craig Weiss created a top ten list of eLearning authoring tools (In a recent list ranking the top ten most influential people in the world for e-learning, Craig was listed as number four.) I was surprised at what tool came out on top and which one was a close second.

I'm now curious about what other eLearning experts rankings are and will do further research. In the meantime, take a look at the list and let me know if you agree with Craig's rankings.

Surviving the Test of Time

 In 1956, Benjamin Bloom (along with a group of collegues) identified three domains of learning: Cognitive (Knowledge), Affective (Attitude) and Pyschomotor (Skills). Trainers and instructional designers  usually refer to these as KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude), the end result of an effective learning event or experience. Although Bloom's Taxonomy has been around for over 50 years it's still respected by learning professionals to this day. 

One of the many things I learned as a new instructional designer was Bloom's Taxonomy and I've continued to use it over the years so I was really interested in an email I received from eLearning Guild today about a new research report they've just released.

In Cecelia Munzenmaier's report, Bloom's Taxomony: What's Old Is New Again, she describes the history and revisions that Bloom's Taxonomy has gone through and examines how it's being used. She describes why it has endured despite criticism and how it can help instructors, instructional designers, and educators of all kinds. The revised version is worth examining since it now makes it easier to precisely target a learner's desired performance. The new emphasis on cognitive processes addresses a weakness in the original taxonomy and it has also been updated to include new digital technologies like social media. It's definitely worth the read.

The eLearning Guild is offering it free to members. Membership is free if you haven't already joined.

2013 Training & Development Conferences

If you’ve had a chance to read some of our past blog posts, you’ll know that Stephanie and I believe that it’s as important to continually educate ourselves as it is to help our clients educate their employees. Reading articles, books, white papers, research articles, and blog posts, following industry tweets and attending webinars and online certification courses are great sources of educational material – and we continue to pursue these. But it’s also worth looking at larger events. They give us the opportunity to meet industry experts in person and learn first-hand about the latest research and topics that particularly interest us. It also gives us the opportunity to meet lots of other like-minded learning professionals.

We all have busy live and it takes time to find what’s out there and locate the conference that’s the right fit for our needs and interests.  So with this in mind, I’ve compiled a list of links to a number of popular T&D conferences that are being offered in 2013. I hope they inspire you!

January 30 – February 1, 2013

ASTD TEchKnowledge conference, San Jose, California

Focuses on the design and delivery, management and strategy of technology and learning.

February 15 – 20, 2013

Training 2013 conference & expo, Orlando, Florida

Training Magazine's conference for learning professionals.

March 13-15, 2013

Learning Solutions 2013, Orlando, Florida

Focuses on maximizing performance with learning technologies.

April 12-14, 2013

ISPI, The Performance Improvement Conference 2013, Reno, Nevada

Learn about performance improvement from industry leaders.

May 6-9, 2013

eLearning DevCon 2013, Las Vegas, Nevada

Focuses on delivering practical eLearning development and management skills.

May 19 – 22, 2013

ASTD 2013 International Conference & Exposition, Dallas, Texas

Focuses on workplace learning and development.

June 18-20, 2013

mLearnCon 2013, San Jose, California

Focuses on every aspect of mobile learning including management strategies, platforms, operating systems, authoring tools and technologies, content design and development, and best practices.

October 23-25, 2013

DevLearn 2013, Las Vegas, Nevada

Focuses on what’s coming next in the world of learning, what the leaders in the field are thinking and doing, and how new technologies impact management, strategy development, and learning development.

October 23-26, 2013

NASAGA (North American Simulation and Gaming Association) 2013 Conference, Sarasota, Florida

Focuses on learning professionals who use active learning methods to increase engagement, enhance retention, and improve performance. 

November 13-15, 2013

CSTD Conference and Trade Show, Toronto, Ontario

Focuses on workplace learning and development.

December 4-6, 2013

Online Educa Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The largest global eLearning conference in the world. (Thanks for the info, Bruce)

If I’ve missed an event, just drop me a line with the details and I’ll post it.

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 December webinars

It’s hard to believe that 2013 is 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 this month before the year wraps up. Hope to “see” you online.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012, 10AM - 11AM PST: Straight Talk: making Performance Management Useful to Everyone

In a recent Brandon hall Survey, over 58% of the respondents stated that performance reviews did not provide applicable performance feedback. As organizations struggle to improve employee performance in a market that requires innovation and growth to stay competitive, how are organizations increasing the effectiveness of the performance management process? Join Stacey Harris, VP of Research at Brandon Hall Group, as she shares key practices on making performance management useful to everyone. Topics discussed in this webinar include:

•  Shifting employee management models
• Positive examples of effective employee focused performance management
• Case Studies of new approaches to the performance management process

Wednesday, December 5, 2012, 9AM – 10AM PST: HTML5 is Here to Stay: How to Achieve the New Content Delivery Norm

Learning organizations are facing a technology wake-up call as they realize that most of their content doesn't translate well, if at all, to mobile devices. The typical reaction is to initiate one-off projects for converting desktop courses, applications, and their Flash based components, per the specs of every major device platform. Discover a practical and streamlined production alternative for mobile portability; one that even enhances your original content. Packaging courses once in HTML5 provides endless mobile portability. With a single HTML5 content base, your content becomes easily interactive and searchable, and portable to all mobile platforms.

Thursday, December 6, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Write it Right! Use a Seven Step Process to Develop Learning Activities

With so many learning experiences, techniques and devices to choose from, the course designer can be like a gourmet cook, carefully choosing just the right combination to achieve the desired results.  There is no excuse for the overuse of lecture as the primary and often only technique. What is the best activity?  There is no answer to this question.  It depends on your purpose. This workshop suggests a seven-step process to develop learning materials, identifies a “best use” for a variety of learning experiences, and presents a proven approach to designing discovery learning by writing adult learning steps to process any learning activity.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Neuroscience of High Impact Learning

Brain research is pointing to fresh insights about how to make learning stick. A number of the findings are counter-intuitive, pointing to new approaches and tools for learning that can significantly increase engagement and retention of learning, using a wide range of training mediums. Join Dr. David Rock who coined the term “NeuroLeadership” and co-founded the NeuoruLeadership Institute to explore the latest findings emerging from brain research as it relates to creating high impact learning experiences, giving participants new tools for maximizing their impact.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating Instant and Rapid One-Minute Learning for mLearning and eLearning

Is there such a thing as “instant learning”? Experts in mobile and social learning say that there is increased prevalence that learners retain and learn by increments of knowledge and use them as frequently and quickly as they can. The method is “recursive learning” – small building blocks of learning with close proximity to work applications. In most situations however, the difficulty for trainers, eLearning and mLearning designers is that courses and lessons they develop are more driven towards the “completeness” of knowledge transfer rather than the “immediate application” of knowledge. In this webinar, you will learn:

•  What research and cognitive and artificial intelligence sciences have discovered on “immediacy application learning”
• How to design “immediacy application learning” – steps, procedures and outcomes
• How  to merge learning content with mLearning, eLearning and learning platforms to encourage instant learning

Thursday, December 13, 2012, 9AM – 10AM PST: New Research:  Top 5 Keys to Employee Engagement through Supervisor Development

In a new Training Magazine webinar, Dale Carnegie Training reveals results of its cross industry, in-depth study of 1,500 employees to explore engagement in the workplace. The research reveals several surprises and five practical approaches managers can use to increase employee enthusiasm, empowerment, confidence and value to their organization. Attend this session and learn how to:

•  Identify which behaviors of front line managers have the most significant impact on their employees' levels of engagement        
• Make sure your supervisor development programs focus on shaping the right practical approaches         
• Learn ways to efficiently develop the skills of your front line managers by capitalizing on virtual instruction and collaboration tools and techniques
• Get the latest whitepaper summarizing this ground-breaking research

Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 10AM - 11AM PST: Rise of the Machines: Mobile Learning Comes to Life!

Is your organization going mobile? Are you already delivering mobile learning but want to do it better? The rise of mobile learning is easily the largest learning technology trend of the decade and in the last two years the changes in the space have been exponential. Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst at Brandon Hall Group and Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing at BizLibrary as they talk about the rise of mobile learning and the demographics of mobile adoption. They will also present case studies from companies successfully implementing mLearning.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 9AM - 10AM PST: ASTD State of the Industry, 2012 (Free to ASTD members)

Laurie Miller, Director of Research Services at ASTD, and Christina Mandzuk, Research Analyst will discuss benchmarking data from ASTD BEST Awards Winners, G500 Companies, and other organizations from 2003 to date. ASTD estimates that U.S. organizations spent $1,182 per learner on employee learning and development in 2011. Over half was spent on the internal learning function, such as staff salaries and internal development costs. The remainder was split between tuition reimbursement (14 percent), and external services (30 percent). The content from this webinar is drawn from ASTD's 2012 State of the Industry Report.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Using Strategic Assessments to Improve Learning and Performance and Drive Business Results

Most professional trainers think of assessments as tools for measuring and certifying employees' job-related knowledge and skills. Of course, that is one of their critical functions, particularly in compliance-dependent businesses. Join Steven Just, founder of Pedagogue Solution to learn how to use Strategic Assessments to Improve Learning and Performance and Drive Business Results, which will demonstrate how an active measurement strategy can improve individual, group and business performance. 

Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: 10 Critical Questions to Ask of Your Stakeholders BEFORE Designing Any Training Program

Needs analysis is often an arduous and lengthy process - but it is absolutely necessary if you are to have a successful training outcome. Join Nanette Miner, an author and consultant in the field of workplace learning to learn the 10 crucial questions to ask of your internal or external clients to ensure that you are creating a training program that is truly necessary and one that will return significant business results.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 11AM - 12PM PST: So You Want to Design an Instructional Game? Five Things You NEED to Know (free for ASTD members)

What does it take to design a serious game? How do you create instruction that is not only meaningful and educational, but also (dare we say it) fun? What steps do you need to follow during the design process, and which steps are most critical for success? Most important, how do you even get started?

This webinar provides five practical guidelines you can use to design a game that results in valuable learning outcomes. You will learn research-based tips and techniques for designing effective—and engaging—instructional games. Join game experts Karl M. Kapp and Koreen Olbrish as they discuss five key factors you need to know to develop an “epic” instructional game.

Thursday, December 20, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Aspects of Performance Improvement

During this webinar you will be introduced to three interdependent aspects of performance improvement: the systematic process, the consulting process, and the building brand process. All three aspects contribute to sustaining changes required for improving the performance of people, work teams, and organizations as a whole.   You will gain insights and get three tools that you can use to explain performance improvement to others and guide your own development in the profession. 

Thursday, December 20, 2012, 10AM – 11AM PST: De-Mystifying the LMS Selection Process 

The LMS marketplace continues to shift and evolve as vendors consolidate and new technology features become available. Deciding to invest in a learning management system isn’t even half the battle. Once they walk through that door, companies are faced with a mind-numbing array of choices. Where do they start? Which system is right? How do you know? Join Brandon Hall Group Chief Strategy Officer Michael Rochelle and Senior Analyst David Wentworth as they walk you through the selection process, delivering concrete steps and strategies to make the journey to LMS selection far simpler. The session will also include an informative demonstration of Brandon Hall Group’s LMS KnowledgeBase and Selection Tool.