GenXers Key to Company Future

GenXers Unite!! 

Today I ran across interesting commentary, TEDX and white paper by Dr. Mary Donohue, CEO Donohue Learning. Her expertise is generational and social sciences in terms of learning. I found it refreshing to hear someone state the obvious (well at least the obvious to a GenXer) that we should be paying attention to the Gen X group as they are the intellectual capital of our organizations and the key to every company's future.

Like I said as a GenXer I've known this for awhile. I manage day to day interactions and projects with both boomers and millennials not only at work but at home and in a volunteer arenas as well. In Dr. Donoue's white paper, The Marcia Moment, she describes GenXers as those who are getting really tired and ask what about me just like Marcia did in her famous Brady Brunch episode. I've heard this from more than one GenXer in just this the past month and last week from my husband. While Dr. Donohue's work spoke to me on a personal level, well validated my own thoughts which always makes us GenXers feel good, how does this all tie to learning which is what my blog is about anyway?

In her white paper she describes this "what about me" frustration as being a generational communication challenge. She talks about attempting to meet that challenge with a change in job culture from Manage Me to Develop Me. This is a big deal for us in the learning field as our model for traditional training must fit into the new Develop Me dynamic. If we are developing them they won't feel ignored and won't ask "what about me". Moral of the story -- Treat the GenXer well, very well by creating learning opportunities that will satisfy the Develop Me dynamic.

Forget Millennials and Boomers GenX Will Save The Workplace. Retrieved on 5/2/2017 - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mary-donohue/generation-x-workplace_b_16271164.html 

The Marcia Moment, The Death of the Manage Me Workplace. Retrieved on 5/2/2017 - http://www.donohuelearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Final-White-Paper-Marcia-Moment-Copyright-Donohue-Learning-1.pdf

TEDX talk on a similar topic: How to get along with Boomers, GenXers and Millennials by Dr. Mary Donohue. Retrieved on 5/2/2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtDxPcQ8GJg

Corporate elearning trends 2017

https://elearningindustry.com/elearning-industry-trends-shape-corporate-learning

The .film Namespace is a Viable Top-level Domain for the Film Industry

The .film Namespace is a Viable Top-level Domain for the Film Industry

Instructional tools for iPad

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/10/excellent-audio-recording-apps-for-ipad.html

The Behavior Wizard

http://www.behaviorwizard.org/wp/

Most of the behavior change strategies, however, boil down to the following three “levers”:

1. Increase the number of triggers leading to the desirable behavior.
2. Enhance ability to perform the behavior (make it easier to do)
3. Amplify motivation for doing the behavior with intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

Apple announcement makes Flash for mobile dead and HTML5 will lead the way

Apple announces that Flash 11.1 for mobile will be the last one. Big changes in elearning are headed our way so you better start learning about HTML 5.
http://mashable.com/2011/11/11/flash-mobile-dead-adobe/

how to lead virtual teams

Just finished an interesting webcast by Lee Johnson on eleading: maximizing the power of global virtual teams. While I'm not currently leading a virtual team myself I have spent the last 10 months developing training for a virtual workforce. A big take home point is that all management whether face to face or virtual begins with good management skills. Amen to that!
Lee has targeted the most difficult obstacles as building trust and positive relationships with the team and the complications that come from the use of electronic communication. The good news is that these can be overcome and when they are, there is a big reward in terms of productivity.
So if you set and clarify goals of the team and the inviduals while fostering a sense of trust by building relationships your team members one-on-one you can be successful.

Linked In Groups

Currently I'm the only instructional designer on my training team at Ascend One. I am not not new to this. In fact I've spent most of my career on teams where I was the only one with my knowledge set. So I have begun the search for networking opportunities with other instructional designers again. In the past I've reviewed blogs via my RSS reader and posted questions but that usually didn't have a fast enough response time to be helpful at the very moment that I needed. I recently experimented with the groups in Linked In and have been extremely happy with the results. I joined the Adobe Connect User Group as well as several other user groups and find that I normally get a response within a few hours of posting a question. It truely has been a great experience. If you haven't tried them out, you should!

New Horizon 2011 Report

A great report but here's a good summary.

Inspirations from Martha

I find myself being caught by surprise at least once or twice a week with the way that technology is pushing the limits of my imaginations. As a child I watched the Jetsons cartoon with amazement and wonder. It wasn't just Astro the funny dog or Penny the cool teenage girl but all the things they could do in their home. All the technology. The instant meals at the press of a few buttons, the video phones, the flying spaceships for every day travel, etc. When I look at the way a magazine can actually come to life using all the great tech tools of today, yes it takes my breath away. Things that I could have only imagined back in the 80's in film/video art school are coming to the masses. Well you may be surprised by my Martha Stewart inspiration but her digital issue of Living is just simply amazing. It inspires me to go back to my roots and to figure out how to apply this in my instructional design. Thoughts flood through faster than I can take note. So thank you Martha!

Online New Hire Training

I've been working on a 13 day New Hire online training course for about 4 months. We are finally nearing the end of this exciting project. Coordinating the gazillon final details is challenging. Currently I'm researching the best approach to the train the trainer course and how to inform our stake holders on the final state of the material as there have been many updates. As I find some material, I'll be posting them here.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County Training Forum, October 20, 2010

University of Maryland, Baltimore County Training Forum, October 20, 2010

Getting Maximum Business Impact from a Comprehensive Approach to Enterprise Learning

Check out the details.

Wikis, Wikis, Wikis

Great resources from Tony Karrer about using Wikis in learning. It's something I've been talking about all week so glad I came across this blog post!

Continuing Education | Training Moves With the Times | Chemical Processing

Continuing Education Training Moves With the Times Chemical Processing

Intersting article on the trend toward blended learning enviornments that use short targeted online sessions to augment traditional classroom training.

Intersting tech tool discoverd on BW Tech Meeting

As an instructional designer who used to be an instructional technologist I still yearn to hear about the latest and greatest tech toys. As a mom of two kids with a full time job I find it hard to keep up. Finally Todd Marks of Mindgrub has moved his BW Tech Meetings to an online format and is archiving it. I just finished listening to the July 29th meeting.
Coolest item: the Flipboard for the ipad!http://www.flipboard.com/
It allows you to create a personalized magazine from all the different social medial that is important to you. You can have facebook, linked in, twitter and RSS feeds. What a great way to pull all this technology together.
Now how can we apply this to workplace learning. Just imagine your employees being able to create a magazine that contained only the information that was important to them. How much more targeted would their learning be. Can't wait to see how this plays out in the market.
Another interesting topic was how Hollywood perceives technology in their movies. How will the predications play out from shows like Star Trek, Back to the Future, The Jetsons. I found this discussion entertaining and interesting.
Great job Todd!

Orientations for SMEs

At ASHA we have a great relationship with our online conference vendor iCohere. It has been enlightening to work with a talented group of professionals who listen to your concerns and respond in ways that you didn't even imagine. Robyn and Jim at icohere put together a wonderful orientation for our presenters/SME's which covers what to expect during their recording sessions. The program provides information in a short, concise manner, allows presenters to become familiar with the icohere staff (all the work is done remotely so this personalizes it a bit) and clearly states goals and procedures.
Great job Robyn and Jim!
http://icohere-presentations.com/presentations/HowTo2010/RecordingYourASHAPresentation/player.html

Joint effort pays off!

In 2007 I had an idea. Why don't we include a short snipet of our programs on their product description page in the ASHA online store.
Three years later after working with the marketing and the web teams, we finally have about 8 products with short 2-3 minute samples.

Here's what we did:
1) I reviewed each program and picked out 2-3 minutes worth of the most relevant and representative portions of the program (showing video clips, interactive exercises, graphics, animations, etc.)
2) We hired our regular video vendor, Vision Creative, to capture the clips, add music, use a standard template that we created and provide us with the finished clips
3) Our web team than added to Utube and marketing added the link to the store page

We're still working through some technical issues but currently they are up even if they aren't perfect. The clips have a dual purpose as well. They are put onto a DVD in a running loop so that marketing can show them at conventions and conferences in the ASHA store.

One email blast has already been sent to members with a link to the clip and it generated more sales than ever before!

Here's an example:
http://www.asha.org/eweb/OLSDynamicPage.aspx?Webcode=olsdetails&title=Instrumental+Examination+of+Adults+With+Dysphagia%3a+Anatomy+and+Physiology+Series

Communities of Practice Webcast

We are currently hosting our online conferences with a wonderful vendor whose platform is just perfect for social learning enviornments and networking or what most of us call Communities of Practice. This link goes to a recent webcast about the topic.

Communities of Practice (CoP): Case Studies in Program and Technical AssistanceAn Executive Panel Discussion and Community of Practice (CoP)
DemonstrationMay 25, 2010
A Complimentary Educational Webcast from iCohere

New web programs rolling out for sale!

Work on four self-study web workshops has beeen going on for about a year. A few weeks ago two of the four went "live" in our online store (www.asha.org/shop).
The Anatomy and Physiology web workshops involved the creation of 3D animations with a great vendor, Vision Creative. The animations enhanced the learning experience for participants along with some learning checks to make sure they understood what they were learning. Working with our subject matter expert, a 3D animator and our normal team made this an exciting project!

Most successful online conference in ASHA history!

Our online conference for SLP's was a huge success due to the joint efforts of my wonderful collegues and our partnership with icohere.
Overall participant satisfaction with the conference was 4.71 on a 5-point scale—extraordinary!

Looking forward to keeping the momentum going by learning more about great elearning!
The New Generation of e-Learning Delivery webinar next week should provide more insight into our future conferences.
http://www.trainingindustry.com/webinars/3-30-10webinar.aspx

Have a great day!