11.30.2008

Social Networking, Informal Learning, Twitter, & Gaming

iMac & iBook

Improved collective performance: Investing in Web 2.0 - Knowledge Board

We are all very familiar with social networking platforms such as MySpace, Flikr, YouTube, Twitter, Bebo and Facebook. They are almost household names. This is not so of a new generation of social networking technology, which is being used to provide software services under trading names such as Ning, CollectiveX, Sossoon, Hiitch, Huddle, Mzinga, British Telecom's Workspace (project management), Clearspace, and even Microsoft's Sharepoint.

How does management respond to this? Traditional senior and middle managers, who have been taught to assure operational predictability by securing tight control over workforce behaviour and events, must be prepared to manage in a different and more subtle way. The reward for a controlled implementation, approached with a high degree of professionalism, is a system which will likely reap benefits for all involved.

Informal learning - the next big thing? - Training Zone

We are on the threshold of a paradigm shift in learning. We have new learning environments and tools that enable us to access knowledge more effectively and to share and collaborate in better ways.

Why I Love Twitter - O'Reilly Radar

  • Twitter is simple
  • Twitter works like people do
  • Twitter cooperates well with others
  • Twitter transcends the web
  • Twitter is user-extensible
  • Twitter evolves quickly

Not playing around: Army to invest $50M in combat training games - Stars & Stripes

The Army has created a video game unit and will invest $50 million over five years on games and gaming systems designed to prepare soldiers for combat.

KM Asia: keynote on social computing - Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge

Includes podcast and slides (pdf). "What's new about the new economy is that work is conversation" - Alan Webber, Founder of Fast Company. "It always has been, we just forgot about it for a while" - Dave Snowden.

Immersive Learning Simulations - DevLearn ILS slides

DevLearn ILS slides
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: devlearn elearning)

11.25.2008

eLearning, Layoffs, Training, Internet, & Interactive lectures

Time

Economic Crisis Boosts E-Learning - Science Daily

The present world's economic woes are opening up new opportunities for innovative forms of education and training such as informal learning, e-learning and blended learning. Faced with shrinking budgets, the use of learning technologies is becoming increasingly attractive for businesses.

What Toyota knows that GM doesn't - edgehopper

Toyota has a special culture, deep-rooted values, and respect for their workforce. Toyota's tradition is to NOT lay off employees during hard times. This tradition hasn't really been put to the test until now. And Toyota has stuck to its guns and its values.

Call center 'soft skill' training pays off for Motorola - Search CRM

Since the training, the division has seen a 10% rise in customer satisfaction and a 56% improvement in resolution rates, according to surveys conducted before and after the training.

Generation Y biggest user of U.S. libraries - Computerworld

Internet users were more than twice as likely to patronize libraries as non-Internet users, according to the survey. Sixty-two percent of Gen Y respondents said they visited a public library in the past year.

Pew report examines early online adopters - Digital Perspective

Internet adopters see themselves more as co-creators instead of simply users. I tried to think of another technology revolution that could say the same, users as co-creators, and couldn't come up with one.

Internet helps bring workers up to speed - Daily News

According to the 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project, 22% of adults who viewed video online watched educational or training programs - more than sports, politics or music.

Interactive Lectures... - BUDAKBAIK

From best summary to essence.

Interactive Lectures (part 2).... - BUDAKBAIK

From fictional case study to job aid.

11.17.2008

Training, Context, Disruptive Realism, Wunderkammern, & Numbers

The Well
The Well

The value of training - IBM

A company will lose 10 to 30% of its capabilities per year. By year three, an organization has retained only 41% of it original capabilities, dwindling to 24% by year six.

Context as Memory - Green Chameleon

Externalising our memories is also something a function that taxonomies fulfil, and is my official reason why I never allow anyone else to tidy my desk. It may look a mess, but whenever I have to sift through things to find that bloody document I know is in there somewhere I'm also being re-cued on all those interesting things I set aside to look at later. Brain science tells us that we forget things so as to be able to focus our continuing or repeated attention on things that are important to us. It's a filtering and discarding mechanism. We remember things if we are reminded of them. Also see, Ask a gardner what she knows, in a garden.

Disruptive Realism - cnet

Associate Creative Director Dave Hoffer has coined a new term: Disruptive Realism -- an expression presented in an everyday context that disrupts peoples perceptions about different things. Expression can mean many things and it a way it's art but it's also much more expansive a term than just art.

Blogs as Wunderkammern - Cabinet of Wonders

The blogging format invites blog collections to intermingle transparently: people can "add" to their catalog of items through blogrolls, blog memes, and, especially, polite appropriation: as blogs work with one another, greater Wunderkammern are created.

You are 80% less likely to die from a meteor landing on your head if you wear a bicycle helmet all day - Bad Science

We all love big numbers, and we're all fooled by big numbers, because we're all idiots. That's why it's important to think clearly, and ignore all newspapers.

11.09.2008

Story Telling, Minimalism Instruction, Blogosphere, & Internet vs Books

Ice Cream.JPG

Dion shows how to give good interview - Signal vs. Noise

On stories and narratives. . .

A lot of musician interviews wind up with a pulling-teeth vibe where you can sense the artist would rather just let the music do the talking. "Dion Pays Homage To Guitar-Rock Giants," an audio interview with the singer-songwriter on NPR, is the opposite of that. You can sense he can't wait to tell stories about his music and his peers.

It's a great lesson for anyone who's trying to promote something. If you just show up to plug something, it's easy to tune out. But if you give your audience a story they want to hear and/or teach them something interesting, they'll eagerly pay attention.

del.icio.us Tidbits: Minimalism - Williams Instructional Design, LLC

The minimalist design model holds that people learn more efficiently and use products more successfully by working more with the product and less with the documentation. Developed by Dr. John Carroll around 1982, the minimalist model is the subject of many papers in the human factors and documentation fields.

Who killed the blogosphere? - Nicholas Carr

While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there's still a "blogosphere." That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate forum where individual writers shared their observations, thoughts, and arguments outside the bounds of the traditional media is gone. Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they're part of a "blogosphere" that is distinguishable from the "mainstream media" seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.

The Internet vs. books: Peaceful coexistence - Los Angeles Times

"The Internet is a volume in our library," Ackerman says, "a colorful, miscellaneous, and serendipitous one -- but not a replacement for books, and certainly not an alternative to spending time in the world and just paying attention to things." Moulitsas believes it's the future, and the old guard needs to get with the times.

11.07.2008

eLearning, Training, mLearning, AARs, & Generation Y

eLearning Learning Launched - eLearning Technology

eLearning Learning is a jump off point. The content comes from other places. Right now these are mostly posts from bloggers, but you will soon see other kinds of content appearing. The bottom line is that eLearning Learning is trying to help find and navigate the world of eLearning.

Training your way out of the recession - Times On Line

Britain's employers are being urged to "grow their own" after researchers at Cranfield School of Management discovered that investing in training not only saves money but is more effective than shopping around for talent.

With training budgets often the first to go in a recession, this research demonstrates that growing your own is an effective way for organisations to obtain the skills that they need while saving money.

How Widespread is Mobile Learning? - Kapp Notes

Two external reports point to only a few organizations actually implementing m-learning.

One is by the Masie Group and that study revealed that only 3%, or six of the 204 organizations surveyed were deploying mobile learning widely throughout the organization (although 21% did indicate that they have implemented it in some areas of their organization).

Another study by the eLearning Guild of survey of 940 of its members indicated that only 9% or 84 organizations had actually implemented m-learning.

Designing mobile eLearning courses - eLearning Slam

Before embarking on creation of a mobile accessible course you will want to understand how the learner's experience changes when they view your course through a mobile device. Mobile devices are typically used in a very distraction-filled environment. Via: Gary Woodill of Workplace Learning Today.

Blog>> There's Something About Failures - Green Chameleon

What really struck me was how frank those people were, in talking about what they would improve. It was tentamount to confessing that they hadn't quite done such a good job. This is remarkable because as career soldiers surely their performance bonus hinges on, well, their performance. Why were they so willing to broadcast their own failings, I wondered. As far as i could tell, it had to do with the person leading the AAR. As the head honcho, the commander set the tone for the session. Because this was a staging exercise for a larger one to be held the following year, he was emphatic about how important it was to surface mistakes so that we wouldn't repeat them the following year.

Managing The Generations - Forbes

There is a difference between Gen X and Y in terms of collaboration and independence. When I asked Gen Xers how often they wanted to interact with their boss, many said twice a week. I'm a boomer, I would've said twice a year! Ys would say twice an hour.

11.02.2008

Geary Rummler, Workflow, Harley-Davidson, & Education


Geary Rummler speaking at Vision 2006 conference by Sandy Kemsley

A Day of Great Sadness - Dr. Geary A. Rummler Has Passed Away - The Pursuing Performance Blog

"Geary A. Rummler - how many performance improvement professionals of many stripes did you influence - both directly and indirectly!?! Tens of thousands minimally I would venture. Probably hundreds of thousands. And his influence won't stop now. It will continue." Guy Wallace also posted an update.

Whither Training? Less in the Classroom, More in the Workflow - Allison Rossett

When work and learning happen at different times and in different places, as is the case with classroom based instruction, there is cause to worry about transfer. Will the skills, knowledge, and attitudes picked up in class in March help with responding to customer inquiries in May? This is where blended learning contributes. Via Guy Wallace of The Pursuing Performance Blog.

Learning from Harley-Davidson's comeback - Signal vs. Noise

From 1973-1983, Harley-Davidson's market share went from 78% to 23% as Japanese manufacturers flooded the market with high quality, low priced bikes. Unable to compete on price against the Japanese producers, Harley had to establish other market values and improve quality. A Case Study of Harley Davidson's Business Practises looks at the management, marketing, and manufacturing techniques that brought the company back.
    1985 Corporate Results from Hoover's Company Profile Database:
  • Net Sales $288 million
  • Net Income $3 million
  • Earnings per Share $0.09
    1995 Corporate Results from 1995 Annual Report
  • Net Sales $1.35 billion
  • Net Income $112 million
  • Earnings per Share $1.50

Top 50 Education Companies - Inc.

The fastest growing education companies (includes corporate training) in America.