Elearning March - April 2016

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March / April 2016 Volume 12 Issue 1 • www.2elearning.com

>> Why Is the LMS/TMS Market Tripling? Pg 30

>> Secrets to Successful LMS/ TMS Implementation Pg 39

Pg 18

When you succeed, we do too.

Salesforce University is honored to be acknowledged as a 2015 Learning! 100 winner.

SA LES FO RC E

Salesforce University offers training and certification for the world’s #1 CRM solution—the only training and certification that comes right from the source.

With intimate knowledge and eye-opening insights from the people who know it better than anyone else, we help you get to success faster by empowering you to unleash the full potential of your Salesforce.

www.salesforce.com/training

Empower your employees to take the lead

Create a culture of knowledge sharing with Versal’s interactive peer-to-peer eLearning platform.

Course creation Author management Interactivity

Real-time collaboration Learner management Mobile-ready

Visit versal.com/business for a free trial. versal.com/business Š Versal Group, Inc. 2016

Contents

MARCH / APRIL 2016 VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1

>> Cover Story: The Second

Digital Decade: 6 Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore. PG 18

From Google to Uber, from artificial intelligence to algorithms, it’s becoming a different world. Learning professionals should be poised to take advantage of these new technologies.

By Amy Webb

>> Essentials 11 12 13 14

Special Section: The Second Digital Decade

News People on the Move Trendlines Deals

22 A World of Innovation & Growth Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, takes on drones, 3-D printing and more in his keynote speech at the 2016 Consumer Technology Show.

22

25

Three Tech Trends That Will Re-Invent Training Dr. Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for the Consumer Technology Association, believes that the “Second Digital Decade” is driven by three trends: ambient sensing, aggregated learning and nascent technology.

By Catherine Upton

27

Cool Tools To Use In Learning As seen at the Consumer Technology Show, these cool tools have implications for those involved in corporate training.

By Catherine Upton

PG 24

>> Features 30

Why Is The Learning Platforms Market Tripling in Size?

Most industry analysts have been projecting some pretty big increases in market potential for LMS (learning management system) and TMS (talent management system) purchases. The global market for these systems is expected to triple by 2020. Discover the drivers to market growth from the 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study conducted by Elearning! magazine.

By Joe DiDonato

39

Secrets to Successful LMS/TMS Implementation: It’s Not About the Technology Eighty percent of the focus on an LMS or TMS implementation must be about the business and process. The steps listed in this article should be used to help you take a fresh look at either your existing implementation or a new system.

By Chris Bond

4

March / April 2016 Elearning!

>> News 11 12 12

PG 39

Aligning Learning to Business Learning ‘Totally Changed’ Today’s ‘Generation Shift’

>> Management 15

Leader’s View Instructional Design Evangelist Nick Leffler discusses the impact that corporate command-and-control might have on learning programs.

18

Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore From Google to Uber, from artificial intelligence to algorithms, it’s becoming a different world. Learning professionals should be poised to take advantage of these new technologies.

By Amy Webb

30

Learning Platforms Buying Trends Revealed The huge growth in the LMS and TMS market is due to more than simply reaching new learner populations.

Discover the business drivers for investment from the 2016 Learning Platforms Study conducted by Elearning! magazine.

By Joe DiDonato

39

>> Tools & Practices

>> Business

16

10

You want a definition? Neuro-learning is the harmonious blend of cognitive psychology and adult learning theory, built upon the foundations of modern user experience.

By Andrew Fayad

27

Cool Tools to Use in Learning As seen at the Consumer Technology Show, these cool tools have implications for those involved in corporate training.

By Catherine Upton

The Secrets to Successful LMS or TMS Implementation Eighty percent of the focus on an LMS or TMS implementation must be about the business and process. The steps listed in this article should be used to help you take a fresh look at either your existing implementation or a new system.

By Chris Bond

The True Nature of Neuro-learning

43

Creating a Collaborative Learning Network What if training became less centralized? What if companies embraced a mesh network model and offered everyone in the company a platform to teach and learn from one another?

By Allison Wagda

Editor’s Note How far corporate training and learning has come in two short decades — and it’s due mostly to new technology!

By Jerry Roche

13

Trendlines Statistics, figures and industry trends

16

The Business of Learning The 2016 approach to neuro-learning hinges not on amazing graphics, high-tech modules or excellent delivery methods, but on the power to draw insight from your learners.

By Andrew Fayad

44

New Products See what’s new in LMS/TMS, Collaboration and Tools in this roundup of solutions.

50

Last Word: Bridging the Soft Skills Gap Today’s newest young people in the workplace have so much to offer, yet too many of them are held back because of their weakness in a whole bunch of old-fashioned basics.

By Bruce Tulgan

Elearning! March / April 2016

5

30 Sessions, 3 Keynotes, 6 Workshops 30 Sessions ELC16 hosts 4 distinct tracks to help you build smarter organizations:

>> Engaging the Smarter Workforce >> Empowering the Smarter Learner >> Best Practices of the Smarter Leader

>> Building the Smarter Enterprise

6 Workshops

Sharpen your skills, develop plans and earn Elearning! Institute Certificates at these workshop. See Page 9 for workshop details.

REGISTER TODAY & Save $300 visit www.elceshow.com

Hosted by:

At Enterprise Learning! Conference you will gain insights from leaders who successfully leverage technologies, people and process to drive performance. Learn, Network & Share with the top global learning organizations, Learning! Champions and Best of Elearning! honorees.

3 Keynotes & General Session: Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace Karie, Willyerd, Workplace Futurist & author “2020 Workplace” and “Stretch” Collaborcate! Collaborate, Communicate & Create Results Far Beyond Expectations Maxine Shapiro, Engagement Evangelist

Next-Gen Learning: The Virtual Reality Experience Anders Gronstedt, Founder, Gronstedt Group

Evolution of Work: Megatrends Transforming the Workforce Kevin Martin, Chief Research Officer, Institute for Corporate Productivity “Developing the Future Workforce”

Partners:

Enterprise Learning! Conference is a B2B Media Company, LLC brand. Learn more at www.elceshow.com

$300

Save Where Leaders Meet to Build Smarter Organizations via Register by 4/30 Learning & Workplace Technology. www.elceshow.com 60+ Industry Thought-Leaders:

Engage with global learning leaders at ELC16 including: >> Ascension Health >> Salesforce >> Cisco >> SAP >> Dale Carnegie >> Scripps Health >> Intel >> Shaw Industries >> Liebherr Mining >> USAA >> NASA >> US Dept of Defense >> NATO Allied Command and more...

Who Should Attend?

If you are responsible for business or agency performance, employee development, training, education, learning or talent strategies, you should attend ELC16.

CLOs, Learning, Talent, HR, Training Leaders, Agency Directors, EVPs, VPs, Director, Sales, Marketing, Operations, Customer Care, Finance managers, and executives aspiring to the C-suite attend ELC16..

Register Today: www.elceshow.com

Workshops: June 6th Conference: June 7th – 8th, 2016 Tours: June 9th, 2016 Expo: June 7 & 8th, 2016 ELC Online: September 8th, 2016

Celebrate Excellence at Enterprise Learning!

Conference 2016 Come celebrate learning excellence at ELC16, where we honor: The Learning! 100 top global learning organizations, Learning! Champions who have made significant contributions to the learning industry, and the Best of Elearning! solution providers named bestin-class by users and practitioners. Network with leaders from all industries in this celebration of excellence.

MARCH / APRIL 2016 VOLUME 12 ISSUE 1

Catherine Upton Group Publisher >> cupton@2elearning.com

Online@

2elearning.com Trending Topics

The CLO Is Becoming Relevant Once Again

By Rory Cameron http://www.2elearning.com/insights/ item/56420-the-clo-is-becoming-relevantonce-again How to Engage Online Learners

By Emma King http://www.2elearning.com/insights/ item/56409-how-to-engage-online-learners Build a Smarter Organizaiton Via Consumerization http://www.2elearning.com/top-stories/ item/55911-using-consumerization-to-builda-better-learning-organization

Most Popular Web Sessions

E-learning Trends, Predictions and Practices http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56456-e-learningtrends-predictions-practices Mobile Learning Strategies https://presentations.inxpo.com/http:// www.2elearning.com/web-seminarsseries/item/56017-mobile-learningstrategies

Events

Enterprise Learning! Conference June 6-8, 2016, Anaheim, Calif. www.elceshow.com

8

March / April 2016 Elearning!

Jerry Roche Executive Editor >> jroche@2elearning.com Joe DiDonato Editor at Large >> jdidonato@2elearning.com

Claire Johnson Managing Editor >> editor@2elearning.com Adam Weschler Manager Digital Programs >> aweschler@2elearning.com JW Upton Vice President >> JW@2elearning.com

Marguerite Hoffman Event Operations Manager >> operations@2elearning.com Kim Lewis Art Director >> production@2elearning.com

Beverly Miller Print Production Manager

Dianne McCauley Controller

Contributors: Chris Bond,Bluewater Amy Webb, Webbmedia Group Andrew Fayad, eLearning Mind Allison Wagda, Versal Bruce Tulgan, Rainmaker Thinking

Elearning! Media Group is the property of B2B Media Company LLC 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139 • 888-201-2841 • 951-547-1131 www.2elearning.com Elearning! magazine is published bi-monthly by B2B Media Company LLC, 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139. Application to mail Standard Class is filed with Sheppardville, KY Post Office.

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June 6-8, 2016 | Anaheim, CA

Building Smarter Organizations

Save $300 Register by 4/30.

Sharpen Your Skills at ELC16

& Earn Elearning! Institute Certificate Upon Completion Workshops start at $175. Register at www.ELCEShow.com Driving Distributed Team Success -A behavioral approach to the team collaboration problem

Smarter Brains for a Smarter Organization

The Bottom Line for Engagement

How to Build a Leadership ‘TV Network’ to Compliment Learning

By David Coleman, CEO, TeamSkillsPro 45% of those using collaborative tools are not happy with them, and 55% don’t believe the collaborative tools they have, can support distributed work. In this workshop, you will: Assess your oranization’s Collaborative Index; Identify the 6 areas for “Collaborative Leverage”; Reveal the pain points of distributed teams; Examine collaborative tools to use and how; And, how to improve team productivity.

By Steve VerBurg, President, Dale Carnegie Training of Orange County The Bottom Line for Engagement is a workshop designed to provide you with the tools necessary to create a value-driven culture that will raise confidence levels and make employees feel inspired, enthusiastic, and empowered to achieve higher levels of performance.

Participants will learn the critical actions they must consistently demonstrate to drive engagement with their employees.

The Balancing Act: Blending Flipped, Online & ILT

By Dr. Melissa DiGirolamo Tata Consultancy Services While millennials are extremely comfortable with technology, there are other professional areas where they fall short. In this workshop, you will learn how to: Engage millennials; Implement flipped classrooms; And, design effective induction programs for any audience.

Hosted by:

By Margie Meachum, Chief Freedom Officer, Learningtogo We have only recently begun to understand the inner workings of the brain, thanks to neuroscience.

In this workshop, you will learn how to: Evaluate your organization’s mindset and list key areas of development; Identify at least two ways to make training more “brain aware”; And, create a road map towards the new reality using tools and templates provided in the workshop.

By Emma King, Vice President of Learning Strategy, INXPO, Inc. In the Netflix age, easily accessible, well-organized video is always ON and available for our consumption, anytime, virtually any place. Real-time, “live” video communication enables leaders to connect with employees around the world in a powerful, effective and highly interactive way that engages employees better than written or video-only communications. In this workshop, you will learn the keys to organizing and creating a ‘TV Network’ centered around video messages from key Leaders within your organization.

Video isn’t going anywhere; learn how to harness the power!

Marketing Secrets to Personalizing Learning

By Jack Kosakowski, Principal, The Creation Agency Personalized, predictive and collaborative. The same tips and techniques used

by NetFlix and GM, can be leveraged by the training department. Join this session, lead by an expert digital marketer to discover: How to collect learner behaviors; The tools to analyze behavior; And, the most effective content to deliver at the right time and place. This workshop will begin with an introduction to digital messaging, funnel (action) tracking and, data analytics. This is the perfect place to start to discover how to personalize, predict and connect learners effectively.

Learning! 100: Flight Simulator School From Civilian to Fighter Pilot in 2 Hours

Leave the civilian life behind and step into the world of the fighter pilot.

Experience the thrill of aerial maneuvers at 600 knots and air-to-air combat in an authentic military flight simulator and feel what it’s like to take the controls of a fighter jet flight simulator. Attendees are invited to relax in the Officers Club and watch all the aerial action on 10 large LCD screens.

Classroom training and in-flight instruction are provided to ensure a challenging aviation- adventure that you won’t forget.

Register at www.ELCEShow.com Save $$ by registering by 4/30.

Partners:

Enterprise Learning! Conference is a B2B Media Company, LLC brand. Learn more at www.elceshow.com

Editor’s Editor’sNote Note Entering the ‘Second Digital Decade’

W

elcome to the Second Digital Age. We are now beyond the Internet and mobile devices. We are entering a decade of intelligent systems, driven by sensing technologies, aggregated learning and nascent technologies.

This special edition of Elearning! magazine focusses on the trends, technol-

ogies and business processes of the “Second Digital Decade.” We reveal how this decade will transform learning and development.

We start things off with “Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore” by Amy Webb on page 18. She discusses pertinent subjects like deep learning, smart virtual personal assistants, Uber and algorithms.

Next, we present Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, and his views expressed in the keynote at the Consumer Technology Show (CTS) (page 22). We then reveal the “Three Technology Trends That Will Re-invent Training.”

Finally, there’s a roundup of the “Cool Tools” that learning and development professionals may see in their toolsets in the not-too-distant future (page 27).

We then change focus to learning platforms — the largest software investment learning executives make to support talent development. In this article, Joe DiDonato asks, “Why Is the Learning Platforms Market Tripling?” He reveals the drivers and motivations from our recently released 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study (page 30). We can’t end the discussion without addressing the “Secrets to a Successful Implementation” (page39).

Hold on to your hats … it’s a wild ride into the Second Digital Decade!

—Jerry Roche, executive editor

10

March / April 2016 Elearning!

News

What the Cloud Can Do for HR In the last couple of years, there has been a shift both from vendors and buyers toward Cloud/SaaS Core HRMS solutions, which might include talent, workforce management, payroll, core HRMS and emerging talent solutions. Statistics from a new survey:

>> 43 percent of organizations have a major HR systems strategy initiative. >> More than 50 percent of purchased core HRMSs are SaaS solutions. >> 20 percent of organizations are currently evaluating their technology vendor and solution options. >> 39 percent are conducting some level of HR analytics.

The whitepaper notes that wearable technologies and tools supporting talent acquisition efforts “may feel like fads, but the concepts underpinning these technologies — social individualism and tomorrow’s Internet of Things (IoT) — are here to stay.”

—Download the whitepaper: www.Sierra-Cedar.com/survey

Aligning Learning to Business In an annual survey of HR and L&D professionals, flexible learning, big data and better employee communications were found to be key enablers that help align learning more closely to business requirements.

The survey indicates that “finding and retaining the best talent” is still the top concern for global businesses (28 percent) and that “aligning training and development with business needs” (24 percent) is going to be a key objective. Yet, 44 percent of organizations are struggling to make sense of “big data” and not fully utilizing its benefits.

Other findings: Blended Learning - 63 percent of companies audited said that “blended learning” will continue to be the primary approach for corporate learning as opposed to pure face-to-face training or standalone e-learning.

Big Data - Maximizing the use of HR data was hit by a barrage of internal issues. The five major obstacles listed: lack of management support (31 percent), lack of know-how in collecting and using data (24 percent), budget constraints (16 percent), global implementation issues (16 percent), and understanding data privacy issues (13 percent).

Mobile Learning - 35 percent of businesses now use mobile devices for corporate learning, while almost one in five companies plan to implement a mobile learning strategy within their organization within the next three years.

Communications - 98 percent of organizations agreed that good communication is “very important” or “important” for overall business success. However, the “lack of management support” (27 percent), “intercultural differences” (23 percent), and the “lack of foreign language skills among employees” were the top reasons stunting strong communications.

—Source: www.speexx.com

92% of Internet-connected devices run software ‘with known vulnerabilities.’

—Cisco’s annual security report

Organizations Prefer Technology For Informal Learning Activities According to a new report, organizations want a learning solution to capture learning that may already be taking place informally — on the job, through coaching and mentoring, and through social connections and knowledge sharing.

It reveals that business leaders/HR executives are dissatisfied with traditional and formal learning solutions and that they would prefer an option to include learning technology that focuses on informal settings.

Key Findings:

>> 24 percent are appealing to diverse learning styles by planning

to adopt new learning delivery modalities, such as online and/or mobile.

>> Spending is expected to increase by 87 percent over the next two years.

>> “Best-in-class” organizations are 78 percent more likely than others to use user-generated content for learning.

>> “Best-in-class” organizations are five times more likely than others to use a social LMS.

—Source: www.docebo.com

Elearning! March/April 2016

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News

‘Generation Shift’ Obvious In the Workplace of 2016

World of Learning Has Totally Changed In Predictions for 2016: A Bold New World of Talent, Learning, Leadership and HR Technology Ahead, author and industry analyst Josh Bersin explores 10 key factors that will impact the HR and learning marketplace this year.

“In the area of learning,” he writes, “the world has totally changed from that of ‘instructor-delivered’ to ‘informal’ to now ‘employee-owned.’ We, as employees, now have total control of our own learning, so we expect our companies to offer us video content, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and lots of external access whenever we need it. The role of curation and content management is becoming central to L&D.’” Engagement is another key, Bersin insists: “The topic of engagement seems to have appeared on every website, every vendor tagline, and in every article I read. No longer is engagement a once per year problem; it is a continuous and alwayson issue. A new class of tools and practices now lets us create what I call the ‘feedback culture’ that gives us engagement data all the time.

Pulse tools tell us when people are unhappy, conditions are unsafe, or when managers are misbehaving. Just as the external world is transparent, so is the internal world.”

—Source: www.bersin.com

There is a “Great Generational Shift” under way in the workforce today, according to author Bruce Tulgan (see “Last Word” in this issue).

“This is the post-Baby Boomer shift that demographers and workforce planners have been anticipating for decades,” he writes in a new whitepaper, which points out that the “youth bubble” is much larger in Africa, Most of Asia and Latin America.

For instance:

>> 62 percent of the Nigerian workforce is aged 24 and younger. >> 48 percent of the Indian workforce is aged 24 and younger. >> The only country in which workers 51 years and older out-number those 24 and younger is Germany.

>> In the U.S., 34 percent of workers are 24 and under, 30 percent are 51 and older.

“The generational shift presents a whole new set of challenges for employers, employees, and for managers at all levels,” Tulgan concludes.

—Source: www.rainmakerthinking.com

People on the Move

Grovo’s new vice president of People is JORIS LUIJKE. Recognized as one of the most progressive forces in HR, Luijke joins Grovo from Squarespace, where he served as vice president of People for two years. Previously, Luijke helped Atlassian rapidly scale from 130 employees to 700 employees.

Other recent hires: vice president of Content MOLLY LINDSAY, for12

March/April 2016 Elearning!

merly of Boundless; senior director of Sales MICHAEL ROSENBERG, formerly of Square and iCIMS; and director of Engineering ANTHONY FERRARA, formerly of Google.

GREG FLYNN has been promoted to CEO of Brainshark. Flynn is a co-founder of the company and previously served as president.

Flynn will now direct strategy

and lead all day-to-day operations. Appointed to Brainshark’s board in 2014, Flynn has also been a member of the leadership team since the company was founded. He has been instrumental in building and solidifying Brainshark’s reputation as a leading provider of sales enablement solutions.

JOE GUSTAFSON, Brainshark founder and previous CEO, has been appointed chairman of the company’s board of directors. In his new role, Gustafson will continue to provide input into Brainshark’s strategic direction and will remain active in developing key corporate relationships.

BILL DONOGHUE is the new chief executive officer at Skillsoft Corp.

He had been supporting Skillsoft in an advisory capacity for the last few months. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer of TES Global, a company focused on education technology. He has more than 25 years of executive experience. Meanwhile, CHUCK MORAN, Skillsoft CEO since its founding in 1998, will continue to serve as the company’s board chairman. He will work with Donoghue and the company’s owners, Charterhouse Capital Partners, on the strategic direction of the business.

Trendlines Cloud Computing Gains Credibility and More Users The majority of enterprises in the U.S. plan to increase their spending on Cloud computing by as much as 50% in 2016, according to a new study.

At the same time, nearly 30% will maintain their current spending, and only 6% will reduce their Cloud computing budget.

The survey included 300 I.T. professionals who work at medium and large enterprises using a full-service Cloud computing platform. It found that 47% identified increased efficiency as the main benefit of Cloud computing.

The highest priority cited for enterprise Cloud usage is file storage, at 70%, followed by backup and disaster recovery (62%), application deployment (51%), and application development and testing (46%).

The survey suggests that Cloud service providers can appeal to enterprises by leveraging features that correspond to these prioritized tasks.

The study also measured the Cloud computing services used and the Cloud infrastructure implementation processes practiced.

—Source: http://clutch.com

Technology in Learning Increases Net Revenue A new report provides new insight into how the role technology plays in learning may evolve in coming years.

Key findings:

>> Almost 90% of associations use some form of technology to enable or enhance learning.

>> 52.8% of associtions that use technology for learning have in-

creased their organization’s net revenue from educational offerings.

>> 31.5% of organizations that report using technology for learning

say they use technology to repeat, reinforce or sustain learning after participants complete an educational product or service. Another 29.4 percent say they plan to in incorporate it this year.

>> Among five emerging types of learning (micro-learning, massive

open online courses [MOOCs], flipped classes, gamified learning, and micro-credentials), micro-learning shows the highest rate of adoption – and arguably the greatest potential for growth. While only 18.1% currently offer micro-learning, 33.3% have plans to incorporate it this year.

>> Close to 50% integrate the data they collect in their learning technology platforms with the data from other technology platforms.

Global corporate e-learning growth through 2020: 11.41% —Sandler Research

It’s Time for HR to Move From Metrics to Analytics “The challenges in today’s business environment require new approaches to remain competitive in an ever-shrinking world of global competition,” according to a new whitepaper now available. “By graduating from metrics to analytics, HR professionals and leaders can better understand the contributing factors that are impacting their organization and take the right actions to implement programs that will provide a true competitive advantage.”

For instance, in the area of employee performance, “companies need to look beyond metrics, such as ‘performance appraisal participation rate’ and ‘median performance rating,’ to analytics. When it comes to analyzing performance to drive business success,” important factors that must be analyzed are pay for performance, top talent characteristics and career progression.

These insights are part of a report from Visier titled “The Datafication of HR.” —Source: www.visier.com

>> 42.2% of respondents said that someone at their organization

holds the title of chief learning officer (CLO) or a similar C-level title that references learning, education or knowledge.

—Source: www.tagoras.com

New Report Explores Learners at Work A new report, “The Consumer Learner at Work,” reveals that employees believe online learning has a positive impact on their job performance, while only 42% say that their company provides the relevant resources to further their career.

More statistics from the report:

>> 70% are motivated by technologies that allow them to network and connect with each other

>> 90% download apps to further their learning, evenly divided between education-based productivity tools

>> 12% use curation tools to facilitate access >> 80% say Google or other Web search resources are either essential or very useful to work-related learning

>> 66% rate self-paced e-learning courses as essential or very useful >> 70% use their own smartphone for learning >> 52% their own tablet for learning >> 29% find online content uninspiring —Source: www.towardsmaturity.org/

Elearning! March/April 2016

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Trendlines Future Learning Practices: Must Satiate Learner Desires If social media principles are not part of your corporate learning program, in the very near future, they should be.

According to a survey of 700 learners that his organization recently completed, only 8.5% felt that “e-learning courses are usually of a higher standard.”

The survey also determined that the two main factors in learners’ acceptance of learning courses were: 1 Easy access, anytime, anywhere, and 2 Courses that take an hour or less to complete.

“The influence of social media was clear from many comments, with one respondent suggesting ‘some form of social collaboration

and someone who comes in once in a while to facilitate reflection,’” Smith observes. “Another noted, ‘my biggest issue with e-learning is the limited ability (or total inability) to interact with the session leader and fellow participants.’ This was borne out by 49% suggesting ‘being able to correspond with fellow students’ would add to the appeal of a course, while 53% would value course rankings, and 48% would appreciate reviews from previous students.”

—More info: www.nextdmedia.com

Deals ADT has agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm APOLLO GLOBAL MANAGEMENT in a deal that values the home-security company at about $6.93 billion. The all-cash price tag represents a 56 percent premium over a pre-close price. The transaction marks one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in recent years. ADT has more than $5 billion in debt, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, and a so-called enterprise value of close to $10 billion.

CAREERBUILDER and CAPELLA EDUCATION CO. now have an exclusive partnership to offer a program called RightSkill that aims to fill talent gaps for employers and help job-seekers advance their careers. Set to launch this spring, the collaboration represents the first time that real-time labor data will be paired with competency-based education to design educational programs directly aligned with the needs of employers. The programs are designed to be completed in less than 90 days at low cost — money that will be refunded to the job seeker if he or she doesn’t find placement within 90 days of completion in the designated field.

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP has acquired digital learning company RUSTICI SOFTWARE LLC and has bought a 30 percent stake in learning analytics firm WATERSHED SYSTEMS INC. Learning Technologies will pay $26 million to

14

March/April 2016 Elearning!

acquire Rustici, a Nashville-based elearning software company, from its founders in cash and shares. In addition, the company will pay $3 million to buy a 30 percent stake in Watershed.

ENSPIRE’S leadership simulations now live under a new name: ABILITIE (pronounced ability). Abilitie’s global network of certified facilitators has decades of experience facilitating leadership development programs and coaching executives. It serves clients of all sizes in a broad range of industries with leadership programs deployed in more than 20 countries

by Fortune 500 clients.

The edtech company DEGREED has announced a $21 million Series B investment to fuel further expansion.

Jump Capital led the round, along with Signal Peak, Rethink Education, Deborah Quazzo and other existing investors. This investment comes on the heels of a Series A funding, announced last April. The capital enabled a more aggressive sales strategy, robust product innovations, and an expansion of marketing activities.

The company accelerated from three to nearly 100 clients last year.

JIVE SOFTWARE and EGNYTE have a new partnership that will connect their respective Cloud-based services. The integration will sync content between Jive’s business collaboration platform and Egnyte’s enterprise file-sharing repository.

Essentially, customers of both brands

will be able to collaborate on content stored in Egynte while within Jive from any device or location. The integration hints at more and more Cloud companies warming up to shared services to woo customers looking for simpler data management options.

MAERSK, a worldwide conglomerate in transportation and energy, has selected CORNERSTONE’s learning management system (LMS), Cornerstone Learning and Cornerstone Connect, Cornerstone’s social collaboration application, to deliver learning and development and ensure compliance across its organization. The agreement, which was signed in fall 2015, provides Maersk with solutions to help their employees access important training courses and collaborate with their peers, no matter their location or network connection, via mobile, collaborative and offline learning capabilities.

COMPLIANCEPOINT, an information security assessment and compliance services provider, has a new alliance with INSPIRED ELEARNING, a leader in security awareness training, to deliver comprehensive Security Awareness Training solutions to their customers.

The new solution offers role-based learning, customized training curriculums, supplemental material to keep the security message visible over time, and extensive reporting and analytics. There are many other

unique features available, as well as the ability to support multiple languages.

U.K.-based CAPITA has acquired BRIGHTWAVE, an e-learning company that specializes in designing learning solutions to improve performance in businesses. 75 employees in Brighton, England, will transfer to Capita as part of the deal.

The acquisition will boost Capita’s digital learning capability, allowing it to better meet the needs of customers who require a learning provider to increase their performance.

HR.COM has entered into a partnership with EVERWISE, a company with a model for mentoring and talent development for human resource executives. HR.com community members who want to be mentored in the Everwise program will be able to connect with a mentor and take advantage of the full range of development resources and support provided by the platform. In addition, members can also serve as mentors to others who are looking to advance in their careers.

REMOTE-LEARNER will relocate its corporate headquarters from Waynesboro, Va., to Denver, Colo.

Remote-Learner’s services include hosting and support for Moodle, the world’s most widely used learning management system, and other leading open-source solutions.

Leader’s LastView 3 Questions For... …NICK LEFFLER, INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN EVANGELIST IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, WHAT KIND OF IMPACT CAN THE CORPORATE BUREAUCRACY HAVE ON EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND LEARNING? I’ve seen what corporate command-and-control leads to, and it’s not good for anybody, organization or employee. Getting their job done the best they can is the first priority for employees. If something gets in the way, then they’re going to find a way around it.

If an organization must secure themselves by putting up barriers, before erecting those barriers, other equally effective ways for employees to get their work done should be in place.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THOSE WAYS? First, there’s the extra effort it takes to work around the legal department. If an organization demands everything be approved by legal, yet doesn’t reduce the effect it has (timelines, back-and-forth, etc.), it’s going to backfire. Companies should put the necessary resources in place so legal reviews don’t affect deadlines and push through at the same speed as any other review.

Then, there are corporate barriers to communication. Email isn’t the most effective way to collaborate on a document or exchange video files for review. If barriers are in place to share files and collaborate on documents, employees will probably go to external methods. Even a barrier as small as needing to sign into a firewall is big enough to make an employee avoid security measures.

If there’s no good place on an organization’s network to drop that video to have the subject-matter expert review, it’s going to be stored in Dropbox. That reduces the barrier for the employee and allows work to get done faster.

Finally, what about working conditions? Long before any barriers or security measures can be put into effect, money needs to be invested at providing an alternative solution that’s just as good or better.

Employees demand a place that’s easy and quick to get their work done. If that doesn’t happen, then work will move off the organization’s network and to third-party services. It may even move to employee-owned devices.

WHAT IMPACT MIGHT SECURITY HAVE ON EMPLOYEE LEARNING? Organizations need to do a thorough analysis of the cost of securing their network — the true cost. That means not just accounting for the cost of shutting services off or securing those services (which makes them more difficult to use). It also means accounting for the cost of opening other services to replace them or making those secured services just as easy to use.

Employees want and deserve their information now so they can get work done better and faster. It’s the organization’s responsibility to let them have it.

—Nick Leffler has a master’s degree in instructional design and technology and works as an instructional designer, pioneering new ways to empower workplace learning.

He writes on the topic of workplace learning and the challenges that Training & Development departments have to overcome to align with businesses and serve them better. Find more of Nick’s writing at www.technkl.com/blog.

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Businessof Learning The True Nature of Neurolearning Neurolearning Is ‘the Harmonious Blend Of Cognitive Psychology and Adult Learning Theory, Built Upon the Foundations of Modern User Experience.’

I

BY ANDREW FAYAD

t was author and education expert John Dewey who said, “We do not learn from experience.

We learn from reflecting on experience.”

It’s surprising to think that such a radical idea came from someone who was born in 1859.

Dewey probably didn’t know it at the time, but his ideas were firmly rooted not only in human nature, but also in neurology. Today, we know much more about the brain and the way it adapts and learns, proving correct what may seem like an old-fashioned theory.

Taking what we now know about the brain’s response to information, the 2015 approach to neurolearning hinges not on amazing graphics, high-tech modules or excellent delivery methods, but on the power to draw insight from your learners. Dewey was right: It’s insight — not experience — that propels education.

INSIGHT INTO NEURAL PATHWAYS When learners grasp a concept with a deeper level of understanding, that insight actually has a biological effect on the brain. Insight activates the largest part of the brain: the cortex, which is responsible for both thought and action, so activation is a necessity for truly impactful learning.

Most people think of the brain as a hard drive, where pieces of information can be stored individually and accessed when necessary. But the brain isn’t a hard drive, it’s a spider web. Each layer of learning connects to previous experiences, memories and past insight, creating an entire web of knowledge

The brain isn’t a hard drive, it’s a spider web. that is supported and connected to other parts of the brain. When you cause learners to go deeper than a shallow understanding, you physically thicken those connections between topics and memories for better recall. The stronger the connections, the better recall the learner has and the more effective the e-learning.

CAUSING REFLECTION As Dewey said, there’s no learning without reflection.

But what does that really mean? In short, many

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e-learning initiatives are simply wasted because administrators and facilitators fail to give learners sufficient time to think about what they’ve learned, gain insight on the topic, and strengthen those neural pathways for later recall. When an e-learning module is over, learning managers simply move on, setting their learners up for “learning amnesia.”

Time for reflection doesn’t necessarily mean a quiet period for thought. Reflection refers to any activity or task that causes learners to reframe what they’ve learned in order to create a personal connection to the subject matter. Here are some modern ideas to apply to Dewey’s vintage advice:

>> Ask different questions. You know what

you want your learners to get from a training session, so ask the right questions.

What are the three objectives of a lesson, for example, or how could this be applied outside of the classroom? >> Make engagement a choice. Forcing learners into the same learning path as everyone else can result in a tenuous connection at best. Instead, make engagement a choice: Offer different avenues for learning, so each type of individual has the chance to learn at his or her own pace and choose the topics and information that most interests him or her. >> Find learning moments. The classroom shouldn’t be the only place for learning. By finding learning moments and encouraging learners to recall what they know, you cause them to reflect on their experiences and continue strengthening those neural connections.

A piece of advice that was uttered so long ago by Dewey may seem outdated, but when applied to modern neurolearning, it results in new insight and understanding. By pushing learners to autonomously do more than simply go through the motions of training, the post-class reflection, discussion and practice become the most important factor in turning learning into understanding and action.

—The author is CEO and managing partner of eLearning Mind.

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jumphead

The Second Digital Decade: 6 Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore.

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BY AMY WEBB

FROM GOOGLE TO UBER, FROM A.I. TO ALGORITHMS, IT’S BECOMING A DIFFERENT WORLD. Is your company poised to build the next Uber? Have you started imagining how cryptocurrencies could be used to shore up your company’s digital security? Have you considered that the algorithms your company uses might inadvertently be lying to you?

At the end of each year, I apply a framework to surface the most important emerging trends in digital media and emerging technology for the year ahead. It analyzes consumer behavior, micro-economic trends, government policies, market forces, and emerging research within the context of our continually-evolving tech and digital media ecosystem. My colleagues and I use a core set of five attributes to look for emerging patterns: contradictions, inflections, oddities, coincidences and inversions.

Those attributes help us identify a set of likely trends on the horizon. Then, we put each trend through what we call The Five Questions: 1) Where/how are people wasting their time?

2) Where/how are people having difficulty with technology?

3) Where/how are people looking for information?

4) Where/how are people stuck?

5) How do people want to be perceived?

The Five Questions help us qualitatively and quantitatively assess whether or not that pattern is actually a trend that will stick in the future. We also pressure-test the ideas Elearning! March / April 2016

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techtrends borne out of the trends we identify. Current technology offers great opportunity – along with some unusual new challenges – for managers in all industries. Here are six.

TREND 1: DEEP LEARNING Artificially intelligent computers are now capable of deep learning using neural networks, which you can think of as brain-inspired systems capable of translating pixels into English. Toward the end of 2014, Google researchers unveiled a new project that uses neural networks and deep learning to identify multiple elements of a scene without human assistance. Its software “learned” how to think by processing vast quantities of data. For example, deep learning will eventually allow robots to recognize objects they haven’t seen before and navigate to new locations on their own. Deep learning intersects with numerous fields, and it will soon aid in manufacturing, medicine, retail, utilities, and beyond.

TREND 2: SMART VIRTUAL PERSONAL ASSISTANTS SVPAs started entering the market in 2013.

At the time, they used semantic and natural language processing; data mined from our calendars, email, and contact lists; and the last few minutes of our behavior to anticipate the next 10 seconds of our thinking. Most of those original apps have now been acquired. Emu was acquired by Google, Donna was acquired

by Yahoo, Cue was acquired by Apple…and the list goes on. When it was still active, Emu was a clever stand-in for a personal secretary. It would monitor the conversation and automatically make suggestions as two people texted.

For example, if you asked your friend to see a movie, Emu would immediately geolocate both of you, suggest a nearby theater and show films and times, then check your calendars for your availability. It would even display a preview for you to watch. Once it determined the best time for you to meet, it would help you purchase tickets and enter all the data into your calendar. And it did all of this inside a

In the near future, comsumers will begin to see ‘smart virtual personal assistants’ baked into their mobile phones.

single mobile application.

In the near future, consumers will begin to see SVPA technology baked into their mobile phones. For example, Google is quietly starting to release a new SVPA function for Android users that detects when you’ve parked your car, marks your parking spot for you on a Google map, and helps get you back to it once you’re ready to start driving again.

All without you explicitly asking it to do so.

Marketers, credit-card companies, banks, local government agencies, political campaigns, and many others can harness SVPAs to both deliver critical information and to better read and understand constituents.

TREND 3: ‘IT’S LIKE UBER...’

In spite of harsh criticism about its business practices, 2014 was a banner year for Uber. With a $40 billion paper valuation, the simple app connecting drivers to passengers is now worth more than Halliburton Corp., Aetna, General Mills, Delta Airlines, Kraft Foods, and Charles Schwab.

Uber’s fast growth is due to lightning-fast consumer adoption, and that’s because Uber does two things very well. First, it monetizes downtime. For professional drivers, Uber is a fast, easy way to find riders. It’s also been a boon for people who’ve lost their jobs, offering them a way to make money when other jobs are hard to find.

Second, Uber provides a seamless payment interface. Riders don’t need to carry cash or even a credit card, as the entire transaction is handled via a simple mobile interface.

Uber’s success has inspired hundreds of other entrepreneurs who want to emulate the best features of the company.

So expect to see lots more new, Uberish delivery and intermediary businesses, including fast grocery delivery, helicopter rides, portable ATMs, alcohol delivery, inhome massage service, dry cleaning and laundry, iPhone repair, personal shopping, medical marijuana, dog walkers, and onsite car mechanics. Meantime, consumers will respond to one-click transactions that process payments in the background – meaning there’s a great opportunity for established retailers, transportation companies, banks, and others to leverage what’s becoming standard consumer behavior.

TREND 4: OVERSIGHT FOR ALGORITHMS In its essence, an algorithm is simply a set

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of rules or processes that must be followed in order to solve a problem. In the coming year, we will also begin questioning the ethics of how algorithms can be used, and we’ll scrutinize the tendency of some algorithms to go awry. Programmers are adding subjective judgments to algorithms and allowing them to deliver answers. As a result, those in the big data space are increasingly misclassifying objects, data and even people.

Numerous stories exist of algorithms wrongly identifying terrorism suspects at airports. High-frequency trading algorithms once nearly destroyed the stock market. A glitch in Amazon’s algorithm caused the price of one of its products to spike to $26,698,655.93. During the next several months, managers should discuss how to include accountability systems for algorithms.

TREND 5: DATA PRIVACY Ongoing breaches have continued to dismantle the public trust. According to a Pew Internet and Society poll, 91 percent of Americans surveyed either agreed or strongly agree that consumers have lost control of their personal information and data. Whether it’s fear of a third party monitoring our mobile phone activity or concern about the safety of online transactions, people are increasingly concerned about their privacy, and they’re pointing the finger at business, not maleficent hackers.

So now, businesses must work to meaningfully encrypt their data, and they must make a public showing of the measures they’re taking to safeguard personal info.

One new area of particular note: digital consent. Lawyers could soon use our personal data against us in court. Fitbit data, processed through a third-party analytics tool, was used in a courtroom late in 2014, around the same time that the FTC began investigating Fitbit’s practice of selling users’ personal data to advertisers. We will see growing demands for digital consent agreements and increased transparency.

TREND 6: BLOCK CHAIN TECHNOLOGY The block chain is the transaction database that’s shared by everyone participating in bitcoin’s digital system. It’s how the cryptocurrency promises complete

anonymity while using a crowd-regulated public ledger system. Think of the block chain as a sort of distributed consensus system, where no one person controls all the data. Even if Bitcoin itself never really gains traction, block chain technology has enormous promise. For instance, some people argue that a block chain system would have prevented the mas-

a trustee, or other middlemen.

In some way, each of these tech trends will affect your business in the coming year.

The best way to prepare for coming disruption is to learn as much as you can, discuss implications with others in your company, and then commit to launching small experiments internally to help you see the trends in motion.

“During the next several months, managers should discuss how to include accountability systems for algorithms.”

—Amy Webb, founder and CEO, Webbmedia Group

sive credit card breach at Target. A new company, Blockstream, plans to turn the block chain into a universal platform that can be used for anything requiring signatures or authentication. It would let people participate in “trustless” transactions, where buyers and sellers work with an intermediary like an escrow manager,

— Amy Webb is the founder and CEO of Webbmedia Group, a digital strategy firm that advises an international client base on near-future emerging technologies and digital media trends. She is also a Visiting Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. More info: www.webbmediagroup.com

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The Second Digital Decade:

A World of Innovation & Growth ‘TECHNOLOGY CAN CONNECT US ACROSS BORDERS, LEADING TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT WE HAVE IN COMMON, NOT WHAT DIVIDES US.’

BY GARY SHAPIRO EDITED BY JERRY ROCHE Innovation and growth are who we are.

Our industry continues to expand, creating new markets. We’ve embraced America’s burgeoning start-up economy. We’re touching almost every part of consumer’s lives.

Innovative technology holds the promise to empower each of us. Our industry is literally changing the world, solving some of our most complex challenges and improving lives across the globe.

Billions of intelligent products and services are now woven into the fabric of our daily lives. They connect each other.

And these products and services also, more importantly, connect us to each other.

Connected devices that are constantly learning and discovering new ways of doing everything, and they are improving how we live. They’re creating a new era where intelligence and data are the new currencies.

It’s a new world of choice. New delivery models actually save resources in many different ways.

DRONES In 2016, more than 25 companies will be in our drone marketplace, up 208 percent over last year. And we estimate that over 400,000 drones were sold in the U.S. this past holiday season. Think about lives in 22

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remote villages that are difficult to reach with medicine; they’re not getting it through drones. We’re also talking about getting products to homes, first to rural areas but eventually even to cities where rooftopto-rooftop deliveries will become a reality, relieving traffic congestion below. And think about if your child gets lost in a forest: Don’t you want a search-and-rescue drone looking for your child? It’s so much efficient and effective than thousands of volunteers combing the forest. Or in disaster relief: Needed supplies can be brought to remote areas with drones.

But there’s also economic issues: changing jobs and how we do things. Think about wedding photographers, think about farmers analyzing their crops, think about inspecting bridges, or even real-estate agents trying to show a different vision of where a home is by capturing an aerial shot.

3-D PRINTING [It] will totally change how we get things.

When the space station astronauts broke a tool recently, it would have taken three months to have a new tool shipped to them. Instead, they used a 3-D printer and got it replaced in hours. 3-D printers can also make prosthetic limbs. And doctors are increasingly printing 3-D surgical models like kidneys, which allow them to practice before they do actual surgery.

And in disaster areas, we’re also starting engineers putting together 3-D emergency shelters. Of course, in business, 3-D printing allows us to go to market so much quicker with rapid prototyping.

AUTONOMOUS AUTOS Another new delivery model, which will be huge, are self-driving or autonomous cars. The potential applications include door-to-door food delivery, carpool support.

About 30,000 Americans lose their lives each year because of car accidents.

Most of that will go away.

It will not only save lives, but driverless cars will improve lives for seniors, people with disabilities, and even children. It will reduce accidents and congestion; it will increase safety, make us more efficient and give us time we didn’t have before.

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innovation Indeed, autonomous, electric and connected cars are a driving force of innovation. They will change our entire concept of mobility.

THE SHARING ECONOMY All of this is part of a bigger transition affecting our economy, a rapid growth of the sharing economy. The sharing economy

world — a world of competition and choice. New entrants are important to our economy. They create jobs; they improve lives. And innovation, of course, changes everything. [New] products can solve realworld problems. They make us healthier, they improve our well-being, and wearable devices and smartphone apps actually

‘[We’re] creating a new era where intelligence and data are the new currencies.’

—Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association creates jobs and influences the overall economy. The Wall Street Journal calls the sharing economy “a green shoot in a postindustrial age.” Sharing is green, but it also enhances consumer choice, lowers barriers to entrepreneurship, and increases the uses of capital. In 2014, access to affordable transportation brought in $156 million to local establishments in just two cities, San Francisco and L.A. Now, anyone can be an entrepreneur by offering under-used resources, from parked cars and spare bedrooms to specific skills and everyday chores. People can supplement their fulltime jobs with extra work with companies like Air B&B and Uber. [These companies] also bring services that are critical to areas not served by public transportation of people that can’t drive. With these services, people can visit, live and commute to areas outside of those served by existing hotels, taxis and public transportation — and they also save lives. Study after study has proven that ride-sharing services reduce the risk of drunk driving. MADD recently reported that alcohol-related crashes fell by 60 incidents per month for drivers under 30 in California since its ridesharing service began.

TECHNOLOGY’S IMPACT What we’re up against is old rules that impede innovation and block a safer 24

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change our behavior. Already, one out of 10 Americans is wearing a fitness tracker.

By harnessing and sorting individual data, health care can be more personalized, democratized, and much more effective.

Plus, technology can identify early-onset diseases, offer preventive health benefits, assist and manage chronic conditions, and provide more effective remote care of loved ones. We need technology to help take care of our aging society. Tech makes the world a healthier place for everyone, even those who can’t access or afford basic medical care. Sensors and smart apps combined together help combat cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Facial recognition, voice analysis, facial micro-cue technology and stress detectors are all coming together to make the world safer. Of course, we have to balance them against privacy concerns.

What are the billions of interconnected devices through the Internet doing?

We’re saving energy: Real-time data from thermostats are already helping to avoid brown-outs and black-outs. In health care, there’s analysis and correlation of massive data that will affect how we treat people generally and individually. It’ll make us healthier.

Weather. Cars are going to be able to collect information on their temperature, whether their windshield wipers are

moving, whether they just hit a pothole, even when they pass a car accident — and they’ll be immediately able to send that information to the cars behind them, thereby avoiding accidents, skidding, all sorts of things. First responders can come to the scene and immediately know the occupants, whether they are alive and what their condition is. Does this violate privacy? No, this helps save lives.

Even in aircraft safety, engine turbine blades send data to a server that analyzes their integrity, and of course in natural disasters, we learn so much immediately.

This is the power of technology. This is the power of innovation. Of course there are going to be roadblocks and naysayers.

There are those will see how bad guys use technology to threaten our security and privacy. We can never fully guarantee that the products and services our industries produce won’t be used for evil.

But I believe that technology can help us fight back and help protect us. Technology can connect us across borders, leading to a better understanding of what we have in common, not what divides us. So we can continue to pursue public policies that protect our safety and fundamental rights while allowing all these green shoots of innovation to thrive.

We need government to let the marketplace work, instead of trying to force its own rules that hamper entrepreneurs and innovation, whether it’s in health care, digital health, agriculture, communication, or even the ability to educate more broadly. The age of intelligence and data is going to allow us to improve lives on a scale that we have not seen before. [New] products not only hold the promise of making our lives better, they hold the promise of making our whole world better for us, our children and our children’s children. We have a bright future in front of us.

— Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), formerly the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Data in this article can be found at cta.tech/salesandforecasts. The Consumer Technology Association produces annual consumer electronics studies that are available on its website. Watch Shapiro’s speech: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=X9BmTsLWaEs

The Second Digital Decade: 3 Tech Trends That Will Re-invent Training

BY CATHERINE UPTON The consumerization of learning is being driven by the technology in the hands of consumers. At the 2016 Consumer Technology Show (formerly CES), Dr. Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of CTA, presented the state of the consumer technology industry and the trends to watch.

categories. This is documented by the size of Eureka Park, the Innovation Center of CTS ’16, which grew from 29 exhibitors to 500 in 2016.

The Second Digital Decade is driven by three key trends.

We are entering the Second Digital Decade focused on ambient sensing and aggregated learning.

AMBIENT SENSING The conversion of analog data to digital data allows us to count steps, calories, etc., and place it within context. For example, WeMo sensors are placed in the diapers of newborn infants in hospitals to monitor infant temperature, movement and breathing rates linked via Bluetooth via their onesies garments. Smartphones are now hub devices with microphones for monitoring a home’s security. A Whirlpool dishwasher, linked via a nest thermostat, can be turned on and off.

We are past the era of siloed apps and now entering the era of intelligent systems: the interaction of networked devices.

The future is about digits and data.

Today, 88 percent of consumers have a computer in the home. There are 330 million cellphone subscribers in the U.S.A. We are now entering the “Second Digital Decade” focused on ambient sensing and aggregated learning. We are moving to a focus on meaningful data versus the possibilities. Today, 51 percent of technology buys are in cellphones, televisions and personal computers. Next year, these categories will account for less than 50 percent due to growth of the emerging

TREND 1:

This is all possible due to the lower cost of sensing technology. It once cost $7 per axis per motion; now it is less than 50 cents. Imagine hosting garments with biosensing capabilities for railroad engineers that will alert when fatigue sets in. Or alcohol toxicity levels of security personnel, truck drivers, health-care workers or peace officers.

The sensing of emotional responses is also possible via video facial reactions and bio-sensing. We see some of this having positive effects on HR video recruiting.

Video facial reactions can measure emotional reactions to real-time interviewing, and they can even estimate age. Marketers are particularly interested, as biosensing allows them to collect emotional response to content, ads, polls, etc. and change triggers based upon interactions.

Imagine presenting training content and — via facial scanning — knowing what resonates with learners, and what does not in real time.

‘New consumer technology will have far-reaching effects on our daily lives.’

—Dr. Shawn DuBravac Chief Economist, Consumer Technology Association

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innovation

TREND 2:

AGGREGATED LEARNING Most of us experience aggregated learning when we use Netflix. It consists of predictive and customized experiences based upon our personal actions. By giving more access to our environments, sensors can record time of day, biorhythms, moods, etc., and constantly collect information — present or absent.

An example of aggregated learning is the word error rate from automation, which has dropped to 5 percent, accelerating our voice-to-text improvement over the last decade. Soon, we will voice-activate many text-based commands.

We are changing our interactions as well. Systems are now sharing information across devices. Our cellphones share information with the entire system, like meeting

K-12 schools were early 3-D printer users... expecting to reach 152 million units sold.

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calendars across devices, CRM, LMS, etc.

Another system-sharing example includes driverless cars, whereby the car ahead of you can report road conditions to other vehicles on the road, altering course automatically and without the driver’s intervention. No more skidding off the road from black ice or rear-ending vehicles ahead of you from sudden stops. GM’s recent investment in Lyft is as much about the technology as passenger fares. By 2020, self-driving cars will number 1 million. And by 2025, half of all cars will be autonomous. Imagine the many repetitive actions trainers take in preparation of a new hire and how shared intelligent systems could provide literal on-the-job training on talent’s first day of employment.

TREND 3:

NASCENT TECHNOLOGY Have you used Google Cardboard yet?

You will never shop for cruises the same way again. With virtual reality (VR), we can walk through the ship before buying a cabin or itinerary. It is the marketers’ next advertising and entertainment platform. More than 1 million Cardboard units have been sold. Meanwhile, Oculus pre-order was launched in January and sold out within hours. Other vendors like HTC and Sony are featuring eyewear, games and 360-degree cameras for use in virtual reality. Today, companies like

WEVR and Samsung host and share VR content and public channels. VR is moving away from animation into reality with the 360-camera. Think GoPro 360 degrees in the learning environment. The possibilities and experiences are endless.

Companies like WeVR and Samsung host and share Virtual Reality content and public channels.

Wearables, drones and 3-D printers round out the nascent technology categories. Wearables were just under a $5 billion industry in 2015. Think sensing for clothing. Wearables are a big hit in the fitness and health industries, where how one exercises or completes a particular task can be determined to reach target or not. Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer attributes Stryker, a VR training device, for improvement of his footwork and throwing motion. Industrial applications for safety training are top-of-mind for wearable technology.

Drones will reach 2.9 million units sold in 2016. Dragonfly and Fleye are brands in flight. Applications include land surveying, security, and intelligent energy utilization.

Use cases are expanding daily. Amazon and Facebook are evaluating drones for home delivery alternatives.

3-D printers are the ultimate personalization devices. Schools for K-12 were early users and are expected to reach 152 million units sold, up 38 percent from 2015. 4K video cameras, displays and content streaming are up 400 percent to 12 million units. As high-quality content streaming is delivered to the masses, the cost for enterprise learning drops. 4K viewing offers “better-than-being-there” visual experiences.

–Access this study online at www.cta.org.

Cool Stuff!

CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAINING, AS SEEN AT THE 2016 CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY SHOW (CTS)

BY CATHERINE UPTON

Watch or the like. With this band you don’t need ear buds, headset or the like to hear your Apple Watch conversation. It uses your index finder and vibrations to transmit sound to your ear. I didn’t believe it until I tried it. Found them in the Samsung Booth of innovation partners. Estimated Retail Price: $80.

—More info: www.innomdlelab.com

ON THE GO TRANSLATOR LogoBar is a hand-held device that you can wear around your neck or place on your key fob. Go to any country, and this device will translate between any two languages.

In my case, English to Italian, or Spanish or Chinese, depending upon where I travel next. Best news, you don’t need the Internet or international phone. It is entirely standalone! Bad news is it you have to buy another LogoBar if you want more than one language translated. Target retail price is $99 each.

—More info: logobar.com A WEARABLE WATCH YOU CAN HEAR THROUGH TipTalk is a wristband for your Apple

3-D SMARTPHONE SCREEN TRANSFORMER Neth3D Mobile offers the 3D Screen Transformer and Protector. It protects your favorite smartphone with a specialized screen protect, and allows you to see 3-D without glasses using the Net3D application. The surface feels like a holographic paper, but is thin, lightweight and easy to apply and remove. Just think, 3-D videos at the switch of a screen protector.

—More info: http://neth3d.com BUILD BRAIN POWER & TURN OUT THE LIGHTS Imagine with a thought, you can change your environment. BrainCo demonstrated a prototype of Focus1, a brain-control device that consists of a cap, software and Bluetooth-enabled devices. When wearing the cap, you train the software to “read” your thoughts. You can control Bluetoothenabled devices, like lighting, a robotic

arm, vision goggles and other tasks with a thought. Designed by a group of scientists from Harvard and BIT, Focus1 empowers your brain to control everything. Applications include communicating pain levels, training disabled limbs, and communicating at a distance with others. The use of the device also has shown improvements in users concentration and brain activity.

—More info: www.brainco.tech VIDEO EMOTIONAL ANALYTICS APPLICATION What do you get when you pair live video with emotional analytics applications? You see what the person is feeling on video.

At CES 2016, ooVoo debuted Intelligent Video, with partner MIT’s spinoff Affectiva.

Affectiva’s Affdex emotion-sensing technology, when coupled with ooVoo’s high-quality video chat SDK, analyzes facial expressions in real time to discern a user’s emotions, e.g., whether a person is engaged, amused, surprised or confused. With this layer of emotion measurement, Intelligent Video is poised to transform personal and business interactions as it enhances mobile video communications with a more engaging and authentic experience.

The market opportunity for Intelligent Video is significant, as individuals seek more intimate relationships with con-

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CESproducts nections, and businesses look to develop stronger and more nuanced relationships with their customers. The applicability of Intelligent Video will cross a wide range of industries and consumer interactions — from HR recruiting and job interviews, to market research focus groups, as well as consumer applications, such as an app that broadcasts the vibe of a chat room.

—More info: www.oovoo.com

VIRTUAL REALITY STARTER KIT You don’t have to be a game developer to launch virtual reality. Today, 360-degree cameras help you jumpstart the creation of your learning environment via video.

The Vuze VR Kit includes a panoramic 4K-resolution camera with lenses mounted in 306 degrees. The Vuze camera is almost pocket size. The kit includes Vuze Studio to install on your computer and the Vuze app for your smartphone. Studio generates automatic VR movies, real-time stitching, editing and 3-D effects. VR headset, minipod and selfie stick are included. Package retails for less than $2,000. Powered by HumanEyes technology.

—More info: www.vuze.camera VIRTUAL REALITY 3-D CAMERA, SOFTWARE VideoStitch is a Virtual Reality solution that includes video capture software, editing, and support. Use your own 360-degree camera and headset, or package it with 28

March / April 2016 Elearning!

VideoStitch products. From industrial training applications to creating live video courses for learners to attend virtually.

—More info: video-stitch.com VIRTUAL LEARNING SERVICE Lenovo’s first software-as-a-service (SaaS) application comes in the form of an AirClass virtual learning service. With the AirClass Activity Stream, instructors and students can share documents, photos, videos and comments that can be reviewed or updated anytime, even when class is not in session.

Plus, AirClass is connected with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Office 365 Apps to make sharing even easier.

AirClass is built on top of the Stoneware Cloud platform that Lenovo acquired in 2012. What makes it different is that the cameras on the devices can be used to capture and analyze the level of attention being paid to any given presentation.

—More info: https://www.airclass.com VIRTUAL REALITY CONTROL AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Being immersed in a virtual environment for the first time is a life-altering experience. But after entering one, what can you touch or control? Rink offers you handheld controllers to reach out and touch anything in the virtual environment. Another Samsung innovator lab partner, Rink works with Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and more. I.T. senses your hands and fingers with low latency. 360-degree hand tracking, finger movement sensing and mobile VR support are enabled.

—More info: www.rinktech.co

UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE BETTER Traitify has taken Myers-Briggs to the photo gallery. This personality API lets you understand people in ways that were previously impossible. People see the world in pictures, not words. In Traitify, people see a series of pictures and simply respond “ME” or “NOT ME.” The visuals stimulate thoughts, emotions and experiences left uncovered by traditional assessments. Use Traitify’s API to capture information during on-boarding, profile management and voila! — instant, actionable data to create better matches, efficient teams and make smarter recommendations.

—More info: traitify.com

PROJECTOR MAKES ANY FLAT SURFACE A BIG SCREEN Meet Beam. It can turn any flat surface into a big screen. It is a powerful projector equipped with a smarter computer. Beam is easy to set up and control with the Apple or Android app. You can screw it into any light socket or use the included power cable to place on any flat surface. No more bulky LCDs. Beam is portable, affordable and interactive.

—More info: beamlabsinc.com

Elearning!

Web Seminar Series

You are Invited!

Join us for these engaging, live and free sessions with today’s thought leaders.

REGISTER FREE TODAY HOSTED BY:

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Government

Learning Anywhere: Mobile, Social, and Virtual

Thursday, April 14, 2016 | 1:00 PM PT/ 4:00 PM ET Speaker: Cynthia Clay, CEO, NetSpeed Learning Solutions The promise of “learning anywhere” is beginning to be realized with the increase of mobile devices and online platforms for synchronous and asynchronous learning. Your organization may already be experimenting with mobile learning, or you may still be sitting on the fence questioning what mobile can do for you. While 70% of training is still delivered in the classroom, virtual learning strategies now include mobile learning reinforcement, learning on demand, immediate access to information, coaching feedback, and online communities of practice.

This webinar explores what mobile learning is (informal, bite-sized, and portable), as well as what it is not (an eLearning experience on a smartphone). By the end of this 60-minute webinar, you’ll be able to: >> Use mobile strategies to amplify social and virtual learning >> Avoid the pitfalls of simply transferring eLearning programs to mobile devices >> Capitalize on virtual facilitators in the online learning mix >> Bring NetSpeed Fast Tracks Mobile to your organization.

REGISTER FREE: bit.ly/20XTvdK

Engaging the Smarter Workforce

Thursday, April 21st | 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET Speakers: Steve VerBurg, President, Dale Carnegie Training of Orange County, and David Coleman, CEO, TeamSkillsPro & founder, Collaborative Strategies According to Gallup, only 30% of the workforce is highly engaged and passionate about their work. Yet, driving employee engagement is a critical business driver for productivity (22% higher for highly engaged workforce) and higher retention rates (25% higher.) The Magic Question: How can you drive engagement across the smarter workforce?

In this session, we bring two thought-leaders together to share their insights on engagement and collaboration within the enterprise. David Coleman has always said “it’s the soft stuff, not the hard stuff that is difficult.” The first step in improving team collaboration is to understand your organization’s Collaborative Culture. Steve VerBurg joins the discussion with a focus on employee engagement. The bottom line for engagement is to create a valuedriven culture that will raise confidence levels and make employees feel inspired, enthusiastic, and empowered to achieve higher levels of performance. Steve will reveal the three pillars of engagement to apply to your teams.

REGISTER FREE: bit.ly/21uY5SZ

Learning Platforms: Trends & Practices

Wednesday, March 25th, 2016 | 10:00am PT/1:00pm ET Speaker: Joe DiDonato, Editor-at-Large, Elearning! Magazine The Learning Platforms market is predicted to triple by 2020. Discover how learning leaders are leveraging learning and talent systems to drive enterprise performance. What are the key business drivers for sourcing new systems? Which features are hot and which are not? Who are the brand leaders and laggards? Join Joe DiDonato when he reveals the findings of the 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study.

Bonus: Each attendee will receive the 2016 Learning Platforms Executive Summary complimentary.

REGISTER FREE >> bit.ly/1TaknZ2

Elearning! Web Seminar Series is a product of B2B Media Company LLC www.2elearning.com

Why Is the LMS/

Triplin

in size?

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/TMS Market

ng

THERE ARE DEEPER REASONS THAN SIMPLY REACHING NEW LEARNER POPULATIONS, WHICH IS THE MAJORITY REASON CITED BY A NEW SURVEY.

BY JOE DIDONATO Most industry analysts have been projecting some pretty big increases in market potential for LMS (learning management system) and TMS (talent management system) purchases. What piques our interest

is the projection that the global market for these systems is expected to triple by 2020.

And this has been less than five years after several founding fathers in the LMS space had said that “the LMS is dead in its current form” at Elearning!’s 2011 Enterprise Learning Conference and Expo.

Included in the statistics are learning content management systems (LCMSs) and human capital management systems (HCMs). There are approximately 500 vendors in this LMS/TMS/LCMS/HCM space globally.

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LMStrends As we looked across the industry, we suspected that the growth might be coming from a strong movement toward online offerings by universities. We speculated that pressures of escalating costs and tuitions were prime drivers to entice colleges and universities to move to the more cost-efficient online delivery modalities. But equally important, it seemed that going online was helping smaller and more aggressive university systems like Southern New Hampshire University to extend their reach to more students across the nation, without the burdensome infrastructure cost of classrooms, dorms and campus facilities.

We also speculated that the growth might reflect a similar movement in the corporate and public sectors, as they also tried to extending their reach to more employees and to their extended enterprise of customers and partners. In order to determine if those hypotheses were correct, we decided to ask our broad readership base

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March / April 2016 Elearning!

It’s apparent that the top business drivers in the expanding market encompass more than just getting to more learners. – Joe DiDonato, Elearning!

Magazine some probing questions.

The answers we received show that there are much deeper business drivers than just simply reaching new learner populations, which is the overall reason selected by 62% of the respondents. Improving employee engagement is the second-most selected reason, given by more than 52% of the respondents, followed

by improving the user experience (50%) and shortening the time to competency (49%). Toward the bottom of the list of 20-plus business drivers are reasons like improvement of compensation management, expanding global business, shortening the time to market, and helping to attract new talent. Even lower are reasons that have to do with more accurate re-

porting and compliance tracking.

It became apparent that the top business drivers encompass more than just getting to more learners. It is also about seeking better engagement and user experiences for diverse learner bases. That marks a major shift from organization-centric factors to more learner-centric drivers than we’ve seen in prior surveys. Previously, we saw a very strong bias on acquiring the tools that helped departments better manage the education and training process. Although those factors still come up as key “musthaves,” it now seems that as a community, we just expect those controls to be present.

It’s our look to the next level of maturity, the factors that impact the learner experience that seem to be driving a lot of the renewed activity in the space.

The areas that “user experience” encompasses are still being defined by the industry, but it’s apparent that it is more than just the engagement aspects that are being lumped into this criteria. There is talk about including reinforcement training capability to improve topic retention, along with other science-based pedagogies that are still being debated by our learning community. These would include factors like the spacing of learning venues, the type of testing to be employed, and similar items that impact the learner.

TWO BIG TRENDS One of the areas that we measure yearly is the number of respondents who plan to add, change or replace their systems. The good news is that the movement seems to be relatively flat from prior years. On the LMS side, 33% of the 355 respondents are looking to add, change or replace their systems. On the TMS side, 31% are planning on doing the same. In the past, that number has ranged from the middle 30 percents to the low 40 percents.

The other big trend we see is the rapid movement away from on-premise installations of LMSs and TMSs. Nearly 63% of our respondents now use Cloud and SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions.

And now that vendors have proven that their infrastructure can be equally — or more — secure than installations behind a company’s firewall, it frees up organizations to stay more current with releases from the vendors. In the past, upgrades

were stalled because the underlying platform (such as Oracle) had to be upgraded as well. That meant coordinating with the rest of the company on that platform upgrade before new versions of an LMS, LCMS, TMS or HCM could be installed.

That held up a lot of the new feature sets that companies were pushing hard on the vendors to offer. Now, however,

33%

Those Purchasing a New LMS Within 12 Mos. Source: 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study, Elearning! Magazine

this rapid movement toward Cloud- and SaaS-based systems has allowed both the vendors and their clients to take immediate advantage of newer releases as they become available.

Overall, 86.5% of all respondents own an LMS, LCMS, TMS or HCM system. That’s up from 82% in our last survey. And those planning to add, change or replace their systems are planning to spend an average

of $1.1 million, up from $968,500 in the prior survey.

Corroborating the aforementioned business-driver trends, the single most important factor when purchasing an LMS, LCMS, TMS or HCM is “user experience.”

Dropping to the bottom of the list are factors like customer testimonials and the size of the client base. So unless the vendor can point to positive learner experiences, quality and great customer service, it is likely to lose the deal to a competitor.

‘MUST-HAVE’ FEATURES Topping the list of “must-have” features in the LMS portion of the survey are course tracking and completion, assessment and testing, and certificate program support.

But once these administrative-type factors are assured, more than 78% of the users say that “mobile deployment” capability is a must-have feature. This capability speaks directly to getting to more learners. And we should keep in mind that “mobile” means more than just phones. There are more than 95 devices in the mobile class, including tablets and laptops.

Lowest on the list of “must-have” features are support for augmented reality (AR), ecommerce and collaborative authoring.

On the TMS side, the top “must-have” features are 360-degree evaluations (84.6%), followed by five features that are all very close to one another in the 69+% range: career management tools; integration with other HR systems; learning content; performance planning; and succession planning and management. At the bottom of the list were payroll, communications and MBO support.

When asked about a range of LMS satisfaction criteria, respondents’ highest-

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LMStrends rated criteria — reliability — achieves the top score of 2.03, where 1 is excellent and 5 is very poor. That’s a B+, while criteria like “integration with external systems (MOOCs, Lynda.com, etc.)” scores a 3.04. That translates into a C+ rating.

Scalability was the second-best criteria, which is another testament to the work being done by vendors in the Cloud and SaaS arenas. Other top pain points include integration with internal systems, as well as new features being made available by vendors.

And when we asked what the most important factors were in selecting a TMS or HCM system, integration with internal systems, user experience and quality are the clear front-runners. And as we saw in the LMS section, customer testimonials and award-winning solution are way down at the bottom of the list of important factors.

FOCUS ON LEARNING? When asked about extended enterprise versus internal learning audiences, respondents say internal audiences still dominate the use of these systems, but that the extended enterprise is also

$1.1 Million

The Investment Planned for New System Source: 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study competing for attention. Almost 80% of the respondents report that they are focused on internal audiences. But adding up the customer, reseller, channel and supply-chain partners, it’s surprising to see that 72.9% of the respondents also are chartered to address these extendedenterprise audiences.

So clearly, this multi-chartered focus is driving many external audience needs from system users. When you consider the nonemployee audience, that usually means

functionality around e-commerce, certifications and similar customer- and partnerfacing learning activities is being requested.

And to satisfy those needs, it’s going to take the same types of functionality that we’re seeing with internal audiences — such as mobile functionality; tracking and recording; and managing the records for all of those constituents.

ABOUT USER EXPERIENCE The focus that our survey respondents have on user experience is about the quality of the education being put forth — from creating compelling digital learning experiences for educational purposes, to reinforcement and micro-learning experiences that help users grasp content in other ways.

What does the term “user experience” encompass? It’s everything from the way we use graphics, sequence tasks, display information, use animation, provide controls for manipulating those animations, and a host of other aspects that determine how well users will learn a topic. This notion is further refined by how each user learns, so it necessarily includes the body of knowledge presented by Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences, as well as the user’s age, his or her level of content expertise, previous experience, and perhaps even common conceptions of learning.

Thus, user experience is made more complex by notions of how we acquire knowledge, how quickly we forget what we’ve learned, and even the spacing between the learning venues. And making matters more controversial in a world where answers can be found in a matter of seconds, the discipline of testing itself is coming under scrutiny. All of these are part of the conversation — and part of the difficulty of arriving at a standard approach.

But we already know a lot of those user experience answers for our own areas of endeavor, so we can look to this area as one that will expand for the LMS, TMS and HCM vendors in the future.

SUMMARIZING… In the combined global LMS/LCMS/TMS/ HCM market, organizations are making their learning more ubiquitous. That’s as true for higher education as it is for corporate and government entities. In the higher

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March / April 2016 Elearning!

Celebrate Excellence

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Come celebrate learning excellence at ELC16, where we honor: The Learning! 100 top global learning organizations, Learning! Champions who have made significant contributions to the learning industry, and the Best of Elearning! solution providers named best-in-class by users and practitioners.

June 7th Learning! 100 Awards Reception & Dinner 5:00 PM- 9:00 PM

Celebrate the top performing learning organizations across the globe, on Tuesday, June 7th. Network, Learn and Share with leaders who are the most innovative, collaborative, and high performance organizations with amazing learning cultures. Get a glimpse into the top 20 organizations who are profiled this evening. Come to celebrate and make lifelong connections with honored learning leaders. *

June 7th Best of Elearning! Keynote & Awards Luncheon 10:30 AM - 12:45 PM

Celebrating 11 years, The Best of Elearning! is the exclusive industry Users Choice Awards.

More than 4,000 users voted for these 100 best-in-class solutions across 27 categories. Celebrate the technologists and innovators that enable the learning industries many advances. Then, visit selected solutions providers in the Exhibits Hall for a personal demo. ** Produced By: Partners:

June 8th Learning! Champion Keynote & Awards Luncheon 10:30 AM – 12:45 PM

The Learning! Champion Award recognizes individuals for exceptional contributions to the industry. The Champions are innovators, thought-leaders, trail-blazers, mentors, rookies, creative consultants, and high performing professionals that positively impact the learning industry. Celebrate their accomplishments and share their insights when you return to your teams. **

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LMStrends

DISCOVER MORE

education space, there seems to be a rush to market for MOOC offerings, as well as the creation of online degree or microcredentialing courses.

In the corporate space, where the industry once focused on only a subset of employees and extended enterprise partners and customers, the learning function is extending its reach to be more all-inclusive.

And lastly, in the government space, organizational agencies are trying to reach out to constituents. A good example is the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which is making training and coaching available on its new website. Each of these extensions of the learning infrastructure requires the technology platform that helps to make this information and learning available, both when it’s needed and where it’s needed.

Contrary to the expert predictions in 2011 that the LMS was dead in its current form, the LMS market is now projected to be very robust during the next several years — and further, it will triple by 2020. Although we need to wait and see, it does seem that when 36

March / April 2016 Elearning!

In the corporate space, the learning function is extending its reach to be more all-inclusive. organizations need to deploy education to a widely-dispersed population of students, there is still no better solution than these foundational systems.

—See the entire survey: www.2elearning.com “Resources/Research & Whitepapers” Source: 2-16 Learning Platforms Buyer Study is accessible at: www.2elearning.com

Web Seminar Series Learning! Platforms Trends & Practices by Joe DiDonato, Elearning! Magazine March 24, 2016 10 am PT/ 1 PM ET Discover how learning leaders are leveraging learning and talent systems. What are the key business drivers for sourcing new systems?

Which features are hot and what is not? Who are the brand leaders and laggers?

Join this session, when author Joe DiDonato reveals the findings of the 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study.

Bonus: Receive the “2016 Learning Platforms Executive Summary” free for attending.

—Free registration: bit. ly/1TaknZ2 2016 Learning Platforms Buyer Study Discover what is driving this multibillion dollar marketplace. This 30 questions survey of 355 executives reveals business drivers, top brands, Must Have new features and more.

Download the executive summary free at: bit.ly/1OVyWrh Purchase the 20-page report for $295 at: bit.ly/1OVyWrh

Leading Learning executive chief Learning officer graduate certificate George Mason University’s ECLO Graduate Certificate provides aspiring CLOs with the competencies of learning leaders so that they can align learning opportunities with business needs and demonstrate the value of the learning enterprise to organizational performance.

The Executive CLO Graduate Certificate is a cross-disciplinary program drawing on the expertise of faculty members from the School of Business and the Learning Technologies Division of the College of Education and Human Development.

executive cLo graduate certificate at a glance: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Learning with real-world, project-based activities and case studies Leading-edge, integrated curriculum delivered by expert faculty Online courses augmented with 6 weekend, on-campus class days Classes start this fall Program completed in 8 months 18 credit hours

create, implement, disseminate and diffuse a vision of change that includes learning and non-learning solutions that have a systematic, measurable impact on organizational performance.

Learn more at business.gmu.edu/ecLo

jumphead

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March / April 2016 Elearning!

Learning and Talent Systems It’s Not About Technology

EIGHTY PERCENT OF THE FOCUS ON AN IMPLEMENTATION MUST BE ABOUT THE BUSINESS AND PROCESS.

BY CHRIS BOND

The steps listed in this article should be used to help you take a fresh look at either your existing implementation or a new system.

Questions are swirling today about the value proposition of a learning or talent system. Do these systems provide real value? Do the systems meet the expectations of users? Are the systems helping you do a better job of developing people? The answers can all be found in the alignment of the systems to the true needs of the business.

I was recently speaking at a conference and asking about the implementation of the attendees’ learning and talent systems. One question that I asked received a very telling response. I asked, “When you were about to implement your brand new system, how many of you looked at your business processes, mapped them out and used these processes to guide your implementation?” Less than 1 percent had taken this approach. That led me to a second question, “How many of you are happy with the value your learning or talent system provides for you today?” Only about 5 percent answered that they were happy. This is very typical of what we at Bluewater see in the marketplace today. Most people are not happy with their learning and talent systems,

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learningandtalentsystems but most are also being guided, incorrectly, by the idea that an implementation should happen quickly and painlessly. No need to map business processes when we can just turn the technology on, right?

For more than 14 years, I have been working with companies to help them assess business needs, select learning and

tem can do.

4) And the overall user experience is not considered in the purchase.

That covers about 95 percent of failed implementation issues.

If you have a system today, my recommendation is to fix it rather than replace it. The steps described below can and

LMS purchases now are combined with performance, succession, recruiting, workforce management, compensation and even HRIS. –Chris Bond, CEO, Bluewater talent systems, implement and even operate these systems. A trend I have noticed while completing more than 400 projects over the last few years, is one simple fact: 80 percent of the focus on an implementation must be about the business and process, with 20 percent of the focus being on the technology.

As an industry, we have gotten this wrong for so many years because our focus is on technology. Technology itself does not solve problems; it only enables the user of the technology to solve a problem.

Implementation failures occur fundamentally because of four key factors: 1) Everyone is in too much of a hurry.

2) The business processes in the learning or talent systems are established on the fly.

3) Configuration is not driven by what the business needs, but by what the sys40

March / April 2016 Elearning!

should be used to help you take a fresh look at your existing implementation, not only for when implementing a new system. As your business is going to change over time, you must proactively and regularly re-align your learning and talent systems with the needs of your business.

Step 1. Getting Started - What can we do to achieve a successful implementation or renewal of a learning or talent system?

Start where it all begins: with understanding what drives your business. What are your business drivers? These are not your departmental drivers, but rather the corporate goals and objectives regarding revenue, profitability, enablement of your people, and so on. What keeps the doors open at your company? That will provide a huge insight into your business drivers.

Document these goals, as you will use them later in the process.

Step 2. Create a Map - Map your training and people development objectives and align them to your business drivers.

If you find elements of your training and development organization that do not match up to your business drivers, consider eliminating these elements. Once there is an agreed-upon understanding by all stakeholders and an alignment of your business drivers and training and development objectives, it is time to move onto functionality.

Step 3. Functionality Functionality and technology must come last. They are enablers of what you are trying to achieve.

Technology is not the solution, but it will help you get there. The idea is to put your organization in a position to take advantage of the technology you select. Many organizations skip this step and, while they intuitively understand the needs of the business, there is a gap in the actual knowledge of how to get the technology to do what you need it to do. This is because there is an incomplete understanding of the operating methodology required by the business.

THE VALUE PROPOSITION Increasingly, I am seeing the business drive requests for talent. These are not the simple job requisitions of years past.

Rather, they are deeper requests that understand the value of talent in the business. I have spoken with numerous CEOs who are concerned about the future of talent within their business and their company’s inability to identify who has the skills necessary to drive the business forward. Therefore, the work you do with learning and talent systems is crucial to helping the business understand what talent is available, along with current and future talent gaps and opportunities. This is no longer just about developing leaders. It is about enabling your company’s people for long-term success. Done right, the use of learning and talent systems can finally provide information that will help business leaders make decisions about the future.

Note where I started. It is all about understanding the business and mapping processes to inform how the business

If the user experience is wrong, then it does not matter what you have in your system. needs to interact with your new or renewed learning and talent system, today and in the future.

LMS VS. INTEGRATED TALENT MANAGEMENT Reviewing a sample of the organizations we work with, the LMS-only purchase of the past is becoming rare for companies

who are doing an in-depth review of business drivers, processes and development needs. Of more than 200 projects we worked on just last year, 76 percent were focused on learning, development and talent management. Of the numerous selection projects we worked on, only the extended-enterprise projects were LMS-only. LMS purchases are still the number one learning and talent system purchase, but now they are combined with performance, succession, recruiting, workforce management, compensation and even HRIS. This is occurring because the need for data in managing talent and the development of people is becoming increasingly important, and the LMS-only approach is limiting. These organizations saw the need to align not only learning and development, but also the ability to measure performance, implement career paths, measure competencies, and identify succession plans for the 90 percent of the organization who are not executives. The HR, learning and development organizations and others found that mapping the

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learningandtalentsystems needs of the business first revealed a bigger role that their organization could play in the bigger business.

Of the 76 percent of projects that were learning and talent focused, the majority used learning, performance and succession tools together to achieve objectives. But do not focus on performance reviews only, since the performance component of a talent system includes development plans, goals, competency mapping and skills analysis. The idea of including components of a talent system with learning is to provide tools to help analyze gaps in talent against the needs of the business while developing knowledge of where development really needs to happen. Finally, the use of these tools can also provide a degree of personalization and personalized learning.

IMPORTANT ITEMS Your roadmap for implementation and the overall operating plan must be tied together. There are seven key elements that should be the focus of your planning.

Each of these elements will help you focus on specific areas where we see great success or failure.

Let’s start with the most important item for creating a proper working environment and that is user experience. If you get the user experience right then the rest of the system flows. If the user experience is wrong, then it does not matter what you have in your system. User experience extends not only to the user interface but also to the user workflow.

Second is content. Content is king.

Without great content, the system will not drive any business impact.

Third is all about people. You must establish proper governance of the system, a proper approach to change management and, finally, an administration plan. Do not overlook the needs of your people.

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The data we collect in the learning and talent system can transform a business — but it is only effective if we can report on it.

The fourth item is technology. Keep it simple, as it will become a foundation of your operating environment.

Fifth: map all business processes and continually update these processes over time. Know how your business operates in detail.

Sixth, create a data strategy. Know what data you need in your system, what data operates your system, and what data you need out of your system.

Finally, it is all about reporting. I am not sure that I would ever purchase a learning or talent system if I were not 100 percent sure it would provide the reports I need to inform my business. The data we collect in the learning and talent system can transform a business. But that data is only effective if we can report on it.

In this diagram, you see all seven categories their impact on each other. If one area is not addressed, then the wheel will fall apart. If all are addressed, then the wheel will turn properly and drive the business of your organization.

We began with questions about whether a learning or talent system truly offers value, if a system can meet the expectations of the user, and can it help you better develop people. As we see, the answer to all of these questions is not so much about the system, but rather about how the system and the use of the system is aligned — and kept aligned — with the evolving objectives of the business as a whole. Proper selection, implementation or renewal of your system is a result of proper planning. Do the work required, spend a little extra time, get to know your business and the results will speak for themselves.

— Chris Bond, president and CEO of Bluewater, has been transforming the learning and talent management fields through his articles, speaking engagements and consulting services for almost 15 years. More info: www. bluewaterlearning.com.

TipsCollaboration Tips Creating a collaborative learning network for

Peer-Driven Training

BY ALLISON WAGDA, VP CORPORATE STRATEGY, VERSAL One of the benefits of online software is the potential to break down communication silos and create a network effect within a company. For example, Google Docs allows for easy collaboration and access to shared files.

No longer do documents and spreadsheets sit lonely on one employee’s computer. Group messaging apps like Slack create a culture of open and transparent communication. The value to companies may be hard to quantify, but it’s easy to see.

In the world of computers, data networks are usually either based on a hub-and-spoke model, whereby all communications filter through a central point;, or a mesh network, where different nodes relay communications directly with one another.

In the corporate world, most training is analogous to the hubandspoke model, where content is created by and filtered through a central hub of talented e-learning professionals. But a new generation is entering the workforce. It’s more digitally savvy than ever.

Members of this generation are great communicators, and they enjoy collaborating and sharing their knowledge with peers.

What if training became less centralized? What if companies embraced a mesh network model and offered everyone in the company a platform to teach and learn from one another? What if elearning professionals became the architects of a culture of knowledge sharing — facilitators of learning?

Peer-based learning is not new, but the challenge of interconnecting a workforce and offering an environment where

anyone can contribute hasn’t been available. Course creation software itself often required training, or was only available to a handful of select employees. LMSs have done a great

best way to unlock the promise of learning is by empowering students.

For forward-thinking LMS suppliers, lessons learned in the classroom can be used to build

The best way to unlock the promise of learning is by empowering students. job of offering learners access to content, but have never embraced the idea of widespread authoring management and collaboration.

Based on experience in the tech-enabled classroom with hundreds of thousands of teachers over the past three years, we’ve learned that the

an entire management and collaboration ecosystems around interactive course creators.

Imagine a course created by a product manager, which can then be cloned by sales, marketing and customer support and modified for their needs.

Or a new employee on-boarding course created concurrently by current employees around the company.

What you should be looking for in a new platform is one that empowers your company’s best experts from any department — product, sales, marketing support and more — to contribute to the collective knowledge of your workforce — and to learn from one another. The result? A powerful network of knowledge sharing, created and facilitated by the strategic vision of the training team.

—Free trial: versal.com/business

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NewProducts: LMS/TMS New TALENT SUITE EXPANDED The SumTotal Talent Expansion Suite Winter 2016 release empowers individualized development to maxi-mize employee engagement and organ-izational capabilities. Highlights: >> Configurable Dashboards engage and empower your people to take an individualized approach to development by presenting a comprehensive amount of critical insight through multiple views. >> Development-Focused Widgets with the drag-and-drop flexibility to focus on important insights and actions with a single click. >> Intelligent Learning Recommendations, leveraging a “big-data” algorithm to surface personalized learning activities and content. >> Enterprise Search makes it seamless to browse, discover and pinpoint information and resources. >> Theming and Branding deliver pointand-click personalization capabilities that go beyond a simple logo on a page.

—More info: www.sumtotalsystems.com/ Winter2016 RESTFUL HOSTS DIVERSE LEARNING ACTIVITIES Grovo’s learning solution for the enterprise now has three new product features that arm learning and development teams with the data and tools to quickly scale effective learning programs throughout their organizations. With Grovo’s new user management API (“RESTful”), “Events” and “Powers” capabilities, learning administrators can now coordinate diverse learning activities from a central hub to drive efficacy.

The “RESTful API” was designed to reduce administrative burden so managers can spend less time managing learning and more time improving it. It allows learning administrators to quickly synchronize user information, along with user performance and training data, across their entire learning ecosystem.

—More info: https://www.grovo.com GET SINGLE-SIGN-ON ACCESS The modern, Cloud-based ExpertusOne LMS integrates with other systems through 44

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an open API library, giving learners single sign-on access. Securely support multiple learning audiences, inside and outside of the organization, with ease and scalability to hundreds of thousands of learners.

Features:

>> Grants every employee global, 24×7 access to your learning resources.

>> Connects your entire workforce in realtime.

>> Makes learning efficient, relevant and engaging.

>> Optimizes courseware investments with granular content.

>> Integrates with your CMS. >> Puts portal proliferation in check.

—More info: www.expertus.com/solutions/ workforce-learning KLAXOON CONNECTS LEARNERS Klaxoon, a new interactive training solutions development company, has launched a cross-device learning platform that is designed to support customized online, interactive learning activities on any smartphone, tablet or laptop without installing software on the client device.

The KlaxoonCloud software-as-a-service platform lets up to 1,000 people connect to the service at once, where they take part in local or remote meetings, webinars or inclass or virtual learning courses. Educators and trainers can use Klaxoon Session to upload their own content and create 20 different types of activities with that content, including quizzes, surveys, brainstorming activities and live messaging.

—More info: https://klaxoon.com/

DOKEOS LMS EASILY CONFIGURABLE Dokeos Manager is a complete and flexible LMS. Thanks to an intuitive interface, you can manage your train-ing curriculum in just a few clicks.

Features: >> Customize your interface at no added cost. >> Deliver your training to PCs, tablets and smartphones. >> Straightforward course planning: define each training stage for your course participants. >> Organize your training curriculum with ease, then integrate it with your own modules (quizzes, workshops, webinars, etc.). >> Set prerequisites to reach different stages of your training course. This easy-to-use feature ensures participants acquire the right skills to move to the next level. >> Configure to your visual needs. Develop an original and unique graphical universe for your training courses.

—More info: http://www.dokeos.com/ product/dokeos-manager/ CREATE ELEARNING PLATFORM LIKE NETFLIX The Create eLearning Platform is a learning management system (LMS) that claims to be “like Netflix for training and coaching.”

This mobile-friendly e-learning portal allows users to build, host, deliver and track e-learning, as well as unite all their online training and coaching. The LMS software can be accessed in the Cloud, offline and offgrid — and it is SCORM compliant.

Create eLearning’s LMS makes it easy for users to understand all the skills and competencies within their business and spot the gaps. It also allows users to build classes quickly and efficiently; build once and use over-and-over; track all training, coaching and mentoring actives and investments in one place; report on progress, link back to profit, customer satisfaction and efficiency, as well as make it easy for the best practices happening within their business to be more widely circulated.

—More info: https://create-elearning.com/

NewProducts: Collaboration tendance and event data to and from your favorite business apps with its Zapier integration.

Benefits: >> Create a custom registration form to gather needed information about your webinar attendees. >> Use its social media integration to automatically promote your meetings on Facebook and Twitter. Once enabled, AnyMeeting can send meeting announcements and updates to your feed. >> Faster slide transitions, speedier performance with PowerPoint and PDF documents. >> Webinar recording and sharing.

—More info: www.anymeeting.com VIDEO COACHING FOR SALES Brainshark for Coaching is a new videobased solution that allows sales managers to hone their reps’ knowledge and skills quickly and easily. It can be combined with Brainshark’s solutions for onboarding, continuous learning, prospecting, presentations and engagement.

Brainshark for Coaching enables managers to provide valuable reinforcement and regular feedback to help reps master pitches, presentations, demos and other sales messages, and maximize revenue potential.

Key features: >> Managers initiate individual or teamwide challenges. >> Reps perform the required activity on video and send it to their manager through the system. >> Managers can provide feedback and ratings for each key aspect of the recording. >> Reps and managers can view their respective dashboards to see the status of a challenge.

—More info: https://www.brainshark.com/ solutions/coaching

ONSTREAM MEETINGS PERSONALIZES IT Onstream Meetings allows e-learning professionals to customize every aspect of your

Web conference screen. Its easy-to-use interface is offered through a wide range of plans that are just right for organizations of any size. Some of its standout features include: real-time reports, mobile apps, and on-the-spot meetings.

With Onstream Meetings, you can set up and manage your meetings in the Cloud with no hardware or software pre-installation, training or configuration is required.

Onstream Meetings put you in control of the entire webinar process, including sending invitations, collecting registrations, emailing reminders, recording the session and distributing follow-up communications. Securely share confidential documents, and easily impart your desktop and applications with computer and mobile users globally.

—More info: www.onstreammeetings.com

ANYMEETING INTEGRATES WITH BUSINESS APPS AnyMeeting enables you to host webinars or meetings, easily and affordably. Connect AnyMeeting to leading email marketing, marketing automation and CRM platforms in minutes. Automatically pass registration, at Elearning! March / April 2016

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Magazines rank #1 out of 16 media in terms of giving readers a positive impression of advertising.

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The degree to which readers recall ads in magazines has increased by 6 percent in the last five years.

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The number of readers who took action after viewing a specific ad has increased by 10 percent in the last five years.

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Fifty-six percent of readers took action as a result of viewing a magazine ad.

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8/1/14 4:25 PM

*Sources: Yankelovich; Affinity’s VISTA Print Effectiveness Rating Service (2 and 3); VISTA Norms and Starch Adnorms

Magazines create relationships, which in turn increase sales. Shouldn’t you be part of this equation?

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NewProducts: Collaboration scheduling, inbound text messaging and more.

—More info: www.evoice.com/workforceplan CONFLUENCE HOSTS CONTENT IN ONE PLACE With Confluence, employees can organize their work, create documents, and discuss everything in one place. Features: Collaboration - Create, share, and discuss your team’s files and documents in one place that’s accessible anywhere by employees.

Knowledge management - Full search capabilities, automatic versioning and robust permissions make it easy to capture the tacit knowledge that’s often trapped in email and shared network drives.

Knowledge base - Set up a fully functional knowledge base space in a few clicks and quickly document solutions to known issues with bundled how-to and troubleshooting article templates. With Confluence’s social intranet, employees can share news and announcements across the company and have active discussions with comments, @mentions and likes.

—More info: https://www.atlassian.com/ software/confluence ZOHO OFFERS MEETINGS IN MINUTES Zoho is a user-friendly Web conferencing software tool gives you the power to hold virtual meetings and host live webinars in a matter of minutes. You can even embed the Web conferencing platform directly into your e-learning blog or website, which can significantly boost attendance rates. It’s also a great tool for e-learning professionals who wish to offer online support to their online learners without having to rely on other instant messaging platforms. >> Sales and marketing apps: CRM, Motivator, SalesIQ, Survey, Campaigns, Sites, Social, Contact Manager, Forms >> Email and collaboration apps: Mail, Chat, Docs, Projects, Connect, Bug Tracker, Meeting, Vault, Showtime >> Business process apps: Creator, Reports, Site24x7

>> HR apps: Recruit, People

—More info: htpps://www.zoho.com EVOICES COMBINES VOPI & VIDEO eVoice is a great tool for e-learning professionals who need VoIP in combination with video conferencing. It features tollfree dial-in numbers to boost your professional image, screen sharing that supports up to 2,000 users, and a free trial so that you can try out all of its features.

The eVoice Workforce Plan is the ideal solution for busy companies needing to manage dedicated phone numbers for more than 25 employees. It provides you with a better and more affordable way to manage how you set up and route calls to employees, no matter where they work.

Included features: toll-free/local numbers, auto attendant, voicemail to email and text, call routing, faxing, VIP support, call

MINDMEISTER MAPS MINDS MindMeister is an online mind mapping tool that lets you capture, develop and share ideas visually. More than 4 million people already use the mind map editor for brainstorming, note taking, project planning and tons of other creative tasks.

MindMeister is completely Web-based, which means there’s no download and no updating. Whether you’re working on Windows, Mac OS or Linux, you can always access your mind maps right inside the Web browser.

Groups can also use drafts of working documents for collaborating during the course of projects as per the nature of the assignments. Besides mind maps, it offers various templates, SWOT analysis, project planning and others. It has got the live chat feature for direct and fast communication, but it also can be used asynchronously.

—More info: https://www.mindmeister.com

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NewProducts: Content The Leadership & Management Learning Center also provides more than 350,000 content items in a wide variety of formats.

Content can be accessed online via the stand-alone platform, or it can be easily integrated into existing platforms.

—More info: https://www.ebscohost.com/ learning-resources/leadership-managementlearning-center

ONCOURSE HOSTS 10,000 COURSES OnCourse Learning empowers customers to enhance workforces, remain compliant and advance careers through technologybased personal learning.

Courses explore areas of financial services, health care, real estate, media and publishing.

Deliver award-winning content, passionate customer support, leading subject matter experts, and engaging technology for some of the most impactful industries in our nation’s economy.

OnCourse Learning boasts 3 million alumni, 30,000 hours of content, 10,000 courses and 500,000 actual learners.

—More info: www.oncourselearning.com HARVARD MANAGE MENTOR ON-DEMAND Providing accessible, scalable and expert business leadership content to employees at all levels and across the enterprise is central to developing corporate leaders.

Harvard ManageMentor is an on-demand learning and performance support resource that delivers valuable tools and content on critical management skills, when and where leaders need them most.

Harvard Business also offers content and tools that include a broad range of management and leadership insights that can be embedded in its solutions or used to 48

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augment current leadership programs.

Via LeadingEdge, there is a complete ondemand library of digital content from Harvard Business School faculty and other renowned thinkers. On top of that, its services team uses a vast content library to design blended leadership experiences, moderate train-thetrainer programs, and provide implementation services for custom learning portals.

—More info: www.harvardbusiness.org/ enterprise EBSCO OFFERS LEADERSHIP CENTER Ebsco’s Leadership & Management Learning Center is a turnkey solution that provides pre-populated, relevant content from industry thought leaders. Some of the most popular competencies are: >> Coaching & Mentoring >> Customer Focus >> Strategic Thinking >> Decision Making >> Facilitating Change >> Teamwork

LEARNING LIGHT TOOL EVALUATES CONTENT In association with The Virtual College, Learning Light has developed an e-learning content evaluation tool (ELCET).

The tool itself contains 18 metrics (criteria) that can be applied to any piece of e-learning. Depending on the complexity of any piece of e-learning, it can be subjected to 7, 12 or 18 of these metrics — and this produces an objective evaluation of “low,” “middle” and “top” e-learning materials.

In addition to the information and the many resources that are freely available on the site are a vast array of e-learning materials produced by acknowledged leaders in technology-delivered corporate learning.

—More info: www.e-learningcentre.co.uk MIND TOOLS OFFERS BUSINESS TRAINING Mind Tools offers practical online training to individuals keen to excel in the workplace.

It’s a comprehensive business training resource, with more than 25 million corporate and consumer learners using the site each year. It delivers leadership, team and personal development training to individuals, businesses, government agencies and non-profits worldwide.

With a subscription to MindTools Corporate, customers receive: >> More than 1,600 articles, podcasts,videos, workbooks and more >> 24/7 access to learning resources from any device >> Integration with existing LMS or proprietary platform >>Personal learning plans —More info: https://www.mindtools.com/ corporate/about.php

Join Federal Government Distance Learning Association The FGDLA exists to foster professional relationships to further our collective missions in the distance learning space. We:

F G D L A

Facilitate the exchange of information and the implementation of distance learning.

Guide interagency cooperation, economic application of distance learning methods, technology, and research in the Federal sector.

Develop distance learning strategies to support a blended media approach to education and training, foster research into distance learning practices and theory, and promote awareness of distance learning.

Lead efforts to promote interagency cooperation and collaboration and provide recognition of outstanding achievements in Federal government distance learning practices.

Advocate and promote the use of distance learning for education and training within the Federal government and provide a forum for sharing information and enhancing interaction for all government agencies.

Meet learning professionals from key agencies within the Federal government who support distance learning programs by joining FGDLA. Apply for Membership To become an individual member and make your own contribution, indicate your interest by requesting an invite to join FGDLA online at: www.fgdla.us This online community is where the accomplishment of much of our objectives will happen. Please take this opportunity to request an invite today and begin having a voice in collaborating with other FGDLA members.

Upon approval to join the FGDLA, you will have the opportunity to create your profile to inform other members of your interests, create a Group focused on a distance learning challenge you may be having, or contribute to a threaded discussion Forum where you have expertise and insight. We look forward to hearing from you!

Federal Government Distance Learning Association

www.fgdla.us

LastWord Bridging the Soft Skills Gap: How to Teach the Missing Basics to Today’s Young Talent

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BY BRUCE TULGAN

here is an ever-widening “soft skills gap” in the workforce, especially among the newest young workforce, the second-wave Millennials otherwise known as “Generation Z” (born 1990-2000).

I say this based on more than two decades studying young people in the workplace: The incidence and insistence of managers complaining about the soft skills of their new young workers has risen steadily year after year since we began tracking it in 1993. It affects workers of all ages, but is most prevalent among the newest youngest people in the workforce.

Today’s newest young people in the workplace have so much to offer, yet too many of them are held back because of their weakness in a whole bunch of old-fashioned basics: non-technical skills ranging from “self-awareness” to “people skills,” especially communication, as well as “critical thinking” and “problem solving.”

Here’s the question everybody asks: Are the relatively weaker soft skills of today’s young workers the result of having grown up thinking, learning and communicating while permanently attached to a hand-held supercomputer?

Surely, that is part of the story.

Gen-Zers are the first true “digital natives,” born in a never-ending ocean of information — an information environment defined by wireless Internet ubiquity, wholesale technology integration, infinite content and immediacy. Gen-Zers are always totally plugged in to an endless stream of content and in continuous dialog — forever mixing and matching and manipulating from an infinite array of sources to create and then project back out into the world their own ever-changing personal montage of information, knowledge, meaning and selfhood. They try on personas, virtually. Social media makes it easy to experiment with extreme versions of one persona or another; more or less (or much more) crass means of expression.

Gen-Zers are perfectly accustomed to feeling worldly and ambitious and successful by engaging virtually in an incredibly malleable reality — where the stakes can seem all-important one moment, until the game is lost and reset with the push of a button in a never-ending digital dance, by projecting their uniquely diverse persona(s) in their own highly customized virtual peer ecosystem.

But remember, it’s not just technology that has shaped this generation.

Every bit as much to blame is the helicopter-parenting on steroids that’s been the norm for Gen-Zers.

They have spent much of their formative time ensconced in their own highly customized safety zones — the private comfort of protection and resources provided by responsible adults who are always supposed to be looking out for them. As a result, Gen-Zers are neither accustomed nor inclined to conform their attitudes and behavior for an institution or an authority figure (especially a non-parental authority figure).

As a result, a shocking number of young people today simply do not realize just how much “just doing their own thing” makes their attitudes and behavior maladaptive in the real world of the workplace. Most of them simply cannot fathom how much mastering some of the critical soft skills could increase their value as employees — not only right now, but for the remainder of their careers.

—Bruce Tulgan founded Rainmaker Thinking, a management training firm, in 1993. This article is adapted exclusively for Elearning! Magazine from his book of the same title.

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Because licenses don’t solve business problems.

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