Government Elearning Winter 2016

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Winter 2016 Volume 8 • Issue 3

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99 Solutions Named Pg 31

>> 2017 HR Tech Trends pg 22 >> How Corporate Learning is Using Virtual Reality pg 18

>> Learning! 100 Profile:

Express is Fashioned for Millennials pg 26

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Contents

WINTER 2016 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3

>> Cover Story:

99 Solutions Named Best of Elearning! PG 31

The 12th Annual Best of Elearning! is the learning industry’s exclusive users’ choice award. Garnering over 4000+ nominations across hundreds of brands, these 99 solutions are named best-in-class across 27 different categories. From Learning Management Systems to gamification, the best of learning is list here.

By Jerry Roche

>> Essentials 8 9 10 11

News Deals Trendlines People on the Move

22

>> Features 18 How Corporate Learning is Using Virtual Reality The world you experience when you strap on a virtual reality (VR) headset might be virtual, but the learning results are real. Four learning leaders from government, education and corporate enterprises share their applications and value of virtual reality in corporate learning.

By Dr. Anders Gronstedt

22 HR Technology Trends for 2017 How are enterprises embracing the consumerization of HR and Learning? SierraCedar ‘s HR Systems Survey reveals how overall strategy, corporate culture and existing technology will impact future buying plans. Discover how application adoption varies by organization size and technology approach as well as how leaders assess technology’s ability to meet their needs.

By Jerry Roche

26 Learning! 100 Profile: Express is Fashioned for Millennials By 2025, 46 percent of the workforce will be Millennials. At Express, the future is now. Express identified an opportunity to evolve its talent management strategy for its primarily Millennial-aged employees while becoming a fashion authority for both men and women. To support their culture, Express created an intuitive, irresistible, social and mobile learning experience for more than 22,000 mostly Millennial employees.

By Claire Johnson

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

>> Essentials 8 9

10 11

18

Salary Raises for 2017 Learning! 100 Call for Applications Where Top Talent Goes Leadership Shortage Ahead

>> Management 12

Leader’s View

The era of the serial leaner has arrived. They are curious, always reaching, making connections and seeking new experiences. This is the future workforce. Are you prepared?

By Jeanne Meister

14 Business of Learning Is the Fractal Organization your next collaborative ecosystem?

A “fractal” is a way of thinking about the collective behavior of many basic but interacting units, and in a macro sense have the ability to evolve over time. A fractal organization is the embodiment of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

By David Coleman

16 The Science of Learning Are you preparing your workforce for the business challenges of tomorrow? Organizations who deliver the best, most engaging, effective employee training today are going to be tomorrow’s winners in the marketplace.

By Dean Pichee

26 Engaging the Millennial

Workforce at Express By 2025, 46 percent of the workforce will be Millennials. At Express, the future is now. Express identified an opportunity to evolve its talent management strategy for its primarily Millennial-aged employees while becoming a fashion authority for both men and women.

By Claire Johnson

>> Tools & Practices 46 Forgetting is Easy Learners forget 70% of what they learn over a 24-hour period, so organizations need to find ways to reinforce their training to realize positive results.

By Ryan Eudy

47 3 Steps to Modernize Your

Learning Technology Considering replacing your LMS? You’re not alone! But what if you didn’t necessarily need to replace your LMS to achieve those goals?

What if you could find a flexible technology solution that worked with and around your LMS? Welcome to the modern learning ecosystem.

By Patrick Hodgdon

31 99 Solutions Win Best of

Elearning! Honors The industry’s exclusive users’ choice award recognized 99 solutions across 27 categories as best-in-class. From Learning Management systems to e-learning tools, discover what users say about these solutions, what works and why.

By Jerry Roche

>> Business 7

Editor’s Note What’s on your corporate learning wish list?

By Catherine Upton

10 Trendlines Statistics, figures and industry trends

12 Leader’s View The Era of the Serial Learner

By Jeanne Meister

13 Business of Learning Is the Fractal Organization your next collaborative ecosystem?

By David Coleman

16 Science of Learning Preparing your workforce for tomorrow’s business challenges

By Dean Pichee

17 Virtual Edge Engaging Learners with VR

By Daniel O’Brien

45 New Products 99 Best of Elearning! Solutions

49 The Last Word The Top Ten Learning Solutions

By Catherine Upton Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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Government

Winter 2016 VOLUME 8 ISSUE 3

Catherine Upton Group Publisher

Online@

2elearning.com Trending Topics

FCC Says No to Sharing Consumer Data http://www.2elearning.com/ latest-news Preparing for New Leadership http://www.2elearning.com/ ideas/item/56629-preparingfor-new-leadership Call for Learning! 100 Applications http://www.2elearning.com/ awards/learning-100-awards

Most Popular Web Sessions

CEO Power Panel: Learning in the Second Digital Decade http://bit.ly/2fWeNd0

>>

cupton@2elearning.com

Jerry Roche Executive Editor >> editor@2elearning.com

Joe DiDonato Editor at Large >> jdidonato@2elearning.com

Adam Weschler Manager Digital Programs >> aweschler@2elearning.com

JW Upton Vice President >> JW@2elearning.com

Kim Lewis Art Director >> production@2elearning.com

TJ Hume Print Production Manager >> production@2elearning.com

Contributors: Dr. Anders Gronstedt, The Gronstedt Group Jeanne Meister, Future Workplace Dean Pichee, BizLibrary Claire Johnson for Elearning! Magazine

Events

Enterprise Learning! Summit 2017 http://www.2elearning.com/ events Enterprise Learning!

Conference August 2017 http://www.2elearning.com/ events

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 Sheppardsville, KY Post Office.

POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to: Elearning! 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals in the USA. To subscribe, visit 2elearning.com. Elearning! magazine is a trademark of B2B Media Company and publishes under creative commons copyright except were noted.

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

Editor’sNote What’s On Your Corporate Learning Wish List?

T

his is the season of gift giving. The top 10 consumer gifts are mostly technologyenabled and give us insights into the technologies corporate learning needs to embrace. From Apple Watch, Playstation VR, Amazon’s Echo Dot to Fire TV Stick, we see trends in mobile, virtual reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence and video streaming. The rate of technology adoption is pressuring learning organizations to

adopt and adapt quickly.

Inside this issue, we share how talent leaders are adopting these technologies.

>> Virtual reality is expected to reach $50 billion by 2020, according to Goldman Sachs. We asked four leaders from education, government and corporate enterprises to share how they are using VR for learning (page 18).

>> The user experience is paramount to employees as seen in the HR Trends of 2017 and Learning! 100 Express articles (pages 22 and 26). With the increase of millennials in the workplace, learning leaders are embracing social, video and mobile to enhance user experience and engagement.

>> The 12th Annual Best of Elearning! Awards honors 99 solution providers nominated by more than 4,000 learning professionals. This article shares what enterprises are investing in and deploying successfully. See the complete list of solutions and what users say about them starting on page 31.

While technology may be a portion of the story, there are also key behavioral shifts. David Coleman shares his insights on the emergence of the fractal organization, a flat collaborative work structure that may be in your future (page 13). Jeanne Meister declares we are in the “Era of the Serial Learner” and what it means to leaders everywhere (page 12). Finally, Dean Pichee shares “Organizations who deliver the best, most engaging, effective employee training today are going to be tomorrow’s winners in the marketplace.” Learn more in his “Science of Learning” column on page 16.

It’s time to make that next transition. Take the first step by reading these articles from learning leaders who have been in your shoes. Create your corporate learning wish list with an eye on your future workforce, their behaviors and toolsets. And let’s keep on learning!

Happy Holidays from the Elearning! magazine team.

—Catherine Upton, Group Publisher

Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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News

Artificial Intelligence on Your iPhone

Salaries to Rise 3% Ninety-three percent of organizations plan to increase and hold salaries level in 2017 according to Salary.com’s 10th Annual Budget Survey.

The good news is twice as many companies are planning for higher budgets (and salary increases) versus 2016. By industry, Healthcare has five times as many organizations increasing salaries compared to 2016.

Percentage of Industries Giving Larger Raises in 2017 All Responders

17%

Software & Networking

11%

Business Services

18%

Financial Services

23%

Healthcare

24% Chemicals

29% –Source: salary.com http://bit.ly/2ebbDzT

Roles Expand for Senior Managers Today’s senior managers have more responsibilities than ever.

HRIQ study reveals the 14 functions of today’s HR and Talent executives manage. No surprise, learning, performance and talent management are at the top of the list.

–Source: HRIQ

Functional Responsibilities

What are senior executives managing?

94%

89%

Performance Management

Talent Management

89%

Training & Development

89%

83%

Employee and Labor Regulations

Recruiting/ Talent Acquisition

83%

83%

Compensation &

HR Compliance

72%

67%

67%

Employee Communications

67%

Executive Compensation

61%

Diversity & Inclusion

56%

33%

HCM Technology/ HRIS

Health & Wellness

Health, Safety & Security

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

Executive Compensation

At Dreamforce 2016, Marc Benioff announced the launch of Einstein, Salesforce’s AI application. The goal was to make AI easy for everyone to use. Literally, $1 billion of investment went into Einstein, and is now accessible to Salesforce customers to develop AI apps.

Enter IBM Watson.

IBM gave iPhone users in-app access to the powerful cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson, using MobileFirst for iOS apps.

This means “made-for-business apps now have the ability to understand, reason and learn based on deep data analytics,” according to IBM. “Cognitive insights are at the fingertips of professionals.

These made-for-business apps can now understand, reason and learn, pulling from deep data analytics. We’re making the apps smarter so the professional can make better, more informed decisions,” says Mahmoud Naghshineh, general manager, Apple partnership, IBM. According to Naghshineh, any Watson API can be integrated with apps based upon the use case, including IBM’s Natural Language Processing, Watson Conversation and other Watson APIs that have been optimized to work with iOS 10’s speech framework.

Applications can range from intelligent assistance to learned solutions. For example, Retail Sales Associates using Sales Assist can access data across different resources with the permission of customers -- customer databases and product forums -- for deeper insights in to a customer’s unique preferences as well as the latest purchasing trends and popular products to assist customers in choosing the right item. With each engagement, Watson gets smarter and hones in on successful outcomes.

“Watson continuously learns from previous interactions, gaining in value and knowledge over time,” IBM said. When integrated, these capabilities are designed to solve a wide range of problems, boost productivity and foster new discoveries across many industries.”

–Source: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/50845.wss

Learning! 100 Award Opens Call for Applications The 7th Annual Learning! 100 Award, hosted by Elearning! Magazine, honors the world’s top global learning organizations for high performance, innovation and collaboration. Organizations from the public and private sectors are invited to submit an application at: http://b2bmediaco. com/learn100/2017/award/form_100.php “The Learning! 100 award winners are an elite team of high performers. From small to large enterprises, this award honors those that push the limits of learning and development, to over-achieve by exceeding performance expectations,” says Catherine Upton¸ Group Publisher, Elearning! Media Group. “Learning is at the core of their success. Every Learning! 100 winner continues to inspire us with their innovation, passion and performance.”

Previous Learning! 100 honorees include Amazon Web Services, AT&T, American Heart Association, Salesforce, NASCAR, Defense Acquisition University, and Scripps Health to name a few.

Apply by January 31st for consideration at: http://b2bmediaco. com/learn100/2017/award/form_100.php –Learn more about the Learning! 100 at: http://www.2elearning.com/ awards/learning-100-awards

84% of Learning! 100 have a Chief Talent, Learning, OD or People Officer.

75% of them report to the CEO –2016 Learning! 100 Benchmark Study

Lead or Get Out of the Way

Executive who fail to adapt to changing environment risk irrelevance, according to new study by Oxford Economics.

Strong leadership pays dividends in the digital economy, where continuous innovation, rapid decision-making, and a global mindset are essential to success. Companies that get digital leadership right perform better in the marketplace. These companies: >> Report stronger financial performance. They are 38% more likely than others to report strong revenue and profit growth. >> Are building a stronger leadership pipeline. They have more mature strategies and programs for hiring skilled talent (85% vs. 64% of others), building diversity (56% vs. 48%), and succession planning (72% vs. 50%). >> Have happier, more loyal employees. Employees from well-led companies are more satisfied (87% vs. 63% of others) and more likely to stay in their jobs if given the chance to leave (75% vs. 54%).

–Source: http://www.oxfordeconomics.com/thought-leadership/leaders-2020

Deals LITMOS BY CALLIDUS CLOUD

has been on the acquisition binge. Last year closed with purchase of BRIDGEFRONT HEALTHCARE

Compliance for under $5 million. Early 2016, Litmos acquired View Central, an extended enterprise training company, for $4 million and BADGEVILLE to boost learner engagement for $7.5 million. In addition to growing customer base, Litmos has added capabilities to their portfolio.

UDACITY partners IBM WATSON, AMAZON and DIDI to

offer a new nanodegree in artificial intelligence. The new AI nanodegree will be for students who already have a level of mastery in software development. Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity claims, “At some point an AI watching you will make you one hundred times more efficient at your job, and it will free up a lot of your time. I think AI is to the human mind what the steam engine was to

the human body…I see this as positive news for the world.”

TRIVANTIS, makers of the Lectora, ReviewLink, and CourseMill, was acquired

by STONECALIBRE, a private investment firm. Brian Wall, CEO of StoneCalibre says, “We are excited to add Trivantis to the StoneCalibre portfolio, and we look forward to driving future growth in this rapidly expanding global e-learning market.”

FACEBOOK and OCULUS committing to invest another $250 million to help developers accelerate the proliferation of high-quality VR content. The company has already invested $250 million in VR content so far, and now it’s doubling down. The company also announced it will put $10 million toward supporting VR app and video creators of diverse backgrounds, including women and people of color.

Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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Trendlines News

Where Top Technology Talent Will Go Next?

Virtual Reality Explodes to $50 Billion by 2020 Virtual Reality (VR) market is poised for explosive growth.

Currently valued at $1 billion by Deloitte Global, VR is projected to exceed $50 billion by 2020 , according to Goldman Sachs. Like most consumer technologies, growth is fueled by the adoption of consumer devices, in this case VR gear and VR content.

To spur development, eight of the top ten technology companies have invested in VR. It all started with Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus Rift, which leads in current headset market share with 3.6 million units sold.

Projected virtual reality headsets unit sales worldwide in 2016 (in million), by device Samsung Gear VR

5 Oculus Rift

3.6

HTC Vive

2.1 Sony Morpheus

1.4 Other

0.1

Unit sales in millions

But, the market is shifting. Google’s recent launch of Daydream mobile VR platform; $100 million investment in VR development grants to create VR content; upgraded YouTube Channel software; launch of Google’s Pixel Smartphones; and new VR headset launch in October, is positioning Google to be an alternative VR for mobile source.

Video games and entertainment are the largest VR market segments accounting for$18.9 billion of the market by 2020.

Enterprise VR applications will generate 54% of VR sales with Healthcare and Engineering leading the enterprise market.

–Source: Statistics.com

Where they go investment dollars tend to follow. “Talent is often the canary in the coalmine,” says Chris Bolte, co-founder and CEO of Paysa, a big-data platform providing market insight about compensation and retention.

While top talent is found at Uber, Google, LinkedIn, Amazon and Salesforce, there are some shifts in the wind according to Paysa’s Company Rank algorithm.

Companies to Watch in 2017: >> Docker >> Veritas Technologies >> Expedia >> Cox Automotive >> Twilio >> Lyft >> Braintree >> Stripe >> Twitch >> Tesla Motors >> Prosper Marketplace >> Okta, Inc. >> Lending Club >> Zulily >> Credit Karma >> Snapchat The biggest talent comeback stories of 2016 occurred inside of Starbucks, Hulu, Websense, Adobe, Capital One, Frontier Communications, Netflix, and Fidelity Investments, all of whom are rebounding from previous lows.

–Source: https://www.paysa.com/company-rank

Global 2020 VR/AR Market Share, By Use Case In billions (USD)

n Videogames $11.6 n Healthcare $5.1 n Engineering $4.7 n Live Events $4.1 n Video $3.2 n Real Estate $2.6 n Retail $1.6 n Military $1.4 n Education $0.7

–Source: Business Intelligence, Goldmansachs.com 2016 http:// bit.ly/2dITXQi 10

Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

‘Employees of well-led companies are more satisfied (87%) and more likely to stay in their jobs if given a chance to leave (75%) --Oxford Economics Study

Impact of Immersive Learning With millennials dominating the workforce, enterprises are grappling with engagement strategies. Millennials actually view more online videos than TV. This generation of workers has spent more time playing video games than in formal school. This new generation of workforce demands more immersive learning, reports Anders Gronstedt, Ph.D., Gronstedt Group.

A growing body of research proves the effectiveness of immersive learning approaches: >> Video games are 14% more successful than traditional learning, according to a meta-study of 65 studies. >> Vertical video has nine times higher viewership than horizontal on the phone, according to research by Snapchat. >> Learners retain 33% more from virtual reality than standard video, according to Stanford research.

–Experience Intuit’s Security Training at: https:// youtu.be/_3VLx0pXSYs

Leadership Shortage Dead Ahead Today, 33% of the current workforce is eligible to retire and half of them are in leadership roles. Meanwhile, 85% of HR leaders say their leadership pipelines are lacking, and 30% report struggles filling senior management roles. According to HR, only 25% of those leading today’s organizations are highquality. Yet, 39% of enterprises offer Leadership Development Programs. Employees indicate 15% of the training they receive prepares them for their next position.

In contrast, those with highly developed leadership training are: >> 8.8 times more likely to have high quality leadership >> 9 times more likely to financially outperform their industry peers >> 7.4 times more likely to have highly engaged leaders –Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Global Leadership Forecast by DDI, Global Workforce Leadership Study by Workforce Trends

85% of HR leaders say their leadership pipeline is lacking.

–Global Leadership Forecast

People on the Move

CATRIONA BARBATO joins

Rite Solutions’ Commercial division as Director of Client Engagement and Principal Solution Architect. Catriona brings 20+ years of applied experience in the learning industry to her new role.

Catriona joins a reputable team of Learning and Performance experts at RiteSolutions, many of whom where long time employees of Vangent, a recent acquisition by Rite Solutions.

TechSmith Corporation, appointed WENDY HAMILTON as CEO. She succeeds William Hamilton, TechSmith’s co-founder and president, who will transition to Chairman of the Board. Wendy has served as EVP since October 2015. Previously, she was global head of life sciences at Thomson Reuters and technology consultant at Accenture.

Saba, cloud-based Talent Management solution pro-

vider, added three industry veterans to its leadership team. EDWARD HAYDEN, Chief Financial Officer; JOHN HIRAOKA, Chief Strategy Officer; and JASON HOFFMAN, Vice President of Information Security, join Saba’s executive team to help lead the next phase of growth for the company. In March, new CEO PERVEZ QURESHI was appointed with the goal of scaling Saba’s business. Pervez was previously President of Epicor Software NEA and Accel backed Mindtickle, hired MARC WENDLING as its VP of Sales. Marc comes in with over 18 years of experience building and leading sales teams in technology companies. He will be responsible for scaling MindTickle’s go-to-market efforts, and taking its value proposition to a wider set of companies.

Apple hires Carnegie Mellon University professor RUSLAN SALAKHUTDINOV

for Director of AI research.

SALAKHUTDINOV works in the fields of deep learning and neural networks. The topics he’s worked on run the gamut, and include recognizing objects in images and actions in videos.

Xyleme appointments GREG SCHOTTLAND as their new President and CEO. He will succeed Mark Hellinger, who has stepped down from his role as CEO and will take an active role on the Board of Directors.

Greg has served in Engineering and Operations roles at Xyleme since 2011.

Previous tenures include Lockheed, CodeStream and Advanced Software Technologies.

Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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Leader’sView The Era of the Serial Learner Insights into the Future of Work

BY JEANNE MEISTER

M

uch like serial entrepreneurs, serial learners are intellectually curious, always reaching beyond their current role to learn something new, make connections out of seemingly unrelated topics, and seek out new networks and experiences. Companies are providing access to MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) and other free learning assets as a way to encourage employees to take ownership of their learning and development. As Randall Stephenson, CEO and Chairman of AT&T has publicly said, “If you don’t develop new skills, you won’t be fired, but you won’t have much of a career.” This notion of serial learning is becoming crucial to career growth, and companies committed to understanding the future workplace are getting out in front of this!

Three macro trends are leading to an increase of serial learners and they include:

Jeanne Meister, partner, Future Workplace.

I. LIFE-LONG LEARNING SECTOR OF EDUCATION MARKET PROJECTED TO GROW 30% The higher education marketplace is going through a seismic shift. The size of the education market in the USA as estimated by GSV (Global Silicon Valley) is estimated at $1.6 trillion. This is projected to grow to $2.0 trillion by 2020. We also see that the life-long sector is projected to grow 30% over five years. This sector ranges from 38 MOOC providers like Coursera, EdX and FutureLearn, plus a host of organizations offering personalized learning experiences such as Degreed, PathGather, EdCast and CAEL. Today, what you learn directly impacts what you earn, and as the shelf life of knowledge for all roles grow shorter, the need to be a serial learner has never been more important. This trend is driving organizations to supplement their corporate learning with a host of free learning assets, from MOOCs to Ted Talks and podcasts.

II. MILLENNIALS AND GEN Z DRIVE PERSONALIZATION IN THE WORKPLACE Millennials (born between 1982 and 1993) and Gen Z (born between 1994 and 2009) are estimated to be more than 60% of American workplace by 2025. Members of these generations expect the workplace to resemble how they live their lives: on-demand and personalized to their needs. This means companies are differentiating their employer brands by offering Millennials and Gen Zer’s not just a job but a workplace experience. This experience includes access to smart technologies at work, on-demand learning personalized to their individual needs, a culture which inspires growth and development, and a workspace which nurtures community, enables choice and promotes health and well being.

III. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ENTERS THE WORKPLACE Artificial intelligence is poised to transform the workplace. Today it is a $15 billon dollar industry and it is expected to be more than $70 billion by 2020. We are half way through a century long transformation moving us from automating physical work to automating knowledge work. This will mean some jobs will be lost. The World Economic Forum anticipates a loss of over 7 million jobs by 2020. But, new jobs will also be created like Data Scientist, YouTube Content Creator and Learning Experience Designer. In addition to impacting jobs, AI will leverage machine learning and natural language processing to improve such HR processes as recruiting new employees, on-boarding and developing employees. A host of AI empowered bots are entering the workplace; such as Talla, for handling recruiting, x.ai for scheduling and calendar coordination and Gridspace for meeting follow ups.

Over the next five years, the combination of these trends will change the workplace in a way we have never witnessed before. These trends will propel employees to take charge of their learning and become serial learners, to grow their skills and avoid job obsolescence.

—Jeanne C Meister is partner in Future Workplace and co-author of “The Future Workplace Experience: 10 Rules For Mastering Disruption in Recruiting and Engaging Employees.”

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

Businessof Learning Is The Fractal Organization Your Next Collaborative Ecosystem?

M

BY DAVID COLEMAN any of you have never heard of fractal organizations. I hadn’t until I talked to a colleague working on the Hyperloop project, which was described as a “fractal organization.” The fractal organization may be your future collaboration ecosystem.

Most organizations today are top-down command-and-control hierarchies that have to grow through acquisition rather than expanding from within. Oracle is a great example of this (having just recently acquired NetSuite). In nature, mathematical constants are both random and scalable. Look at the leaves of a fern, or the organizational patterns on some seashells. Even vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli. Fractals are often thought to be infinitely complex, because, at all levels of magnification, the pattern is the same.

With about 100 years under our belts around command-and-control hierarchies, we know that they might work well for the Army but are not agile or stable enough to work well in today’s chaotic business environment. On top of that, they tend to create “silos” and foster miscommunication, and in essence are not great for collaboration no matter how good the technology.

Hierarchical organizations create harmful stress and internal competition, because there are only so many spots at the top of the organization. This causes the members to hoard information. I witnessed this directly in the big five consulting firms when I did research on them around collaboration in their organizations. The stress can cause absenteeism and employee turnover, and creative individuals got tired of corporate politics and found more creative environments.

David Coleman, Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies Inc. (CSI)

FRACTAL SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS Author Janna Raye identifies the properties of the fractal system: Emergence: Agents in the system interact in random ways. Interaction patterns emerge from these behaviors that affect the agents in the system as well as the system itself. A good example of this is a termite hill.

Co-evolution: Systems are in their own environment, as well as being a part of another, larger environment. As the larger environment changes, the system does also, but because it is part of the larger environment, it also changes the larger environment. For example, think of a person as a system in a larger system (environment) called a business. As a person changes his or her behavior, it also changes the behavior of the business, showing a co-evolution of these systems.

Sub-optimal: Fractal systems do not have to be perfect to thrive in their environment, and only have to be slightly better than their competitors. Putting additional energy into making the system better tends to be wasted energy, as these systems tend to trade off increased efficiency for greater effectiveness.

Requisite Variety: The greater the variety in the system, the stronger it is. That is why diversity in our organizations is so important — not just of races, but of thought, approaches to problems, attitudes, etc. Fractal systems have lots of ambiguity and contradictions, but rather than seeing these as “bad,” they are seen as a way to create new possibilities to adapt to a changing environment. Democracy is a good example of this.

Shared Purpose: Like ants, honeybees, geese or schools of fish, all of these organizations have shared purpose and shared values among all their members. These create pattern integrity, and often high levels of participation in ideas and solutions for continuous improvement, which helps with decision-making at functional levels. Leadership is universal, which enables the competition energy to be directed outward instead of inward.

Information Sharing: Hierarchical organizational structures cause information silos. In a fractal organization, all members share information iteratively and make decisions collectively in response to constantly changing conditions.

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Businessof Learning FRACTALS AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES One major feature of fractals is their “self-similarity,” meaning different sizes of similar attributes within the larger whole, ad infinitum. In nature, you can have individual actors (like a school of fish, or a flock of geese) all working together for the common outcome. Both fish and geese display interdependency, relying on each other. Systems in nature also have scalable structures at every level, and at each level, there is a different organizational pattern. Some examples of this type of system are living organisms, a nervous or immune system. a corporation, and economy or even a society.

So if this is true for mountains, coastlines, tree bark and even wiggles, why not organizations?

What this implies in organizations is the application of complex systems theory, with tight feedback loops, autonomous cooperating actors, and a simple and limited set of rules governing the system.

This is the basis for the agile movement in programming today. It also seems to be one of the best approaches to how large organizations can stay creative and innovative. Fractal organizations can do so by climbing “the fractal ladder,” enabling the sustainability of innovation.

According to Raye, a “fractal” is a way of thinking about the collective behavior of many basic but interacting units, and in a macro sense have the ability to evolve over time. A fractal organization is the embodiment of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

A fractal is a pattern, a form of sustainable ordered chaos, while an organization is “an ordered arrangement of things (people).” Fractals have self-organizing principles, and fractal organizations are seen as “an emergent human operating system that mimics nature in its capacity for creativity, adaptation, vitality and innovation.”

Switching from a hierarchical to a fractal organization supports more cooperative work, provides better information flows, more room for advancement, lower turnover, and eliminates the view that there is a scarcity of resources.

People in these organizations are seen as “complex adaptive systems” and emergent behaviors arise out of organizations like this.

Self-organization is the key to self-adapting systems evolve and adapt to new challenges. In living systems, we see cooperation and symbiotic interactions (like in an ecosystem). We also see that reflected in many organizations today; for example, both Salesforce and Slack have created large ecosystems of developers that add value to the original product.

Some fractal companies are like Pixar — core leaders in the center — and all firms are arranged as arms around the leader. Then in the arms, each team has a leader, and info is funneled to the center of the organization to the leaders, needs for resources, and then allocated flow back out.

Although we are just starting to see these fractal organizations as we move from the industrial age to the information age, we are starting to see the demise of hierarchy and the flattening of organizations.

One type of these flatter organizations are fractal organizations, which are inherently collaborative.

This bodes well for more modern organizations that are adopting the fractal nature.

—Sources: “Fractal Organization Theory” by Janna Raye, The Journal of Organization Transformation and Societal Change. http://www.fractal.org/fractal-systems.htm —David Coleman is the Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies Inc. (CSI), a San Francisco-based industry analyst and advisory services firm. He is the author of “the collaboration blog” and author of four books on collaboration, the latest two being: “Collaboration 2.0” and “42 Rules for Successful Collaboration.” Email david@ collaborativeshift.com.

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

and you won’t need to replace your LMS

We make it easy to deliver Smarter Learning and Analytics

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Science Lastof Learning

I

Preparing Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow’s Business Challenges

s your workforce prepared for tomorrow’s challenges? Maybe you’re thinking -”my workforce isn’t even prepared for today’s challenges, let alone future challenges.” Regardless, providing employees with the knowledge and skills they need has never been more important – or challenging. And the stakes couldn’t be higher… organizations who deliver the best, most engaging, effective employee training today are going to be tomorrow’s winners in the marketplace.

Dean Pichee, Found and President of BizLibrary

TODAY’S TRAINING CHALLENGES The modern worker has changed. The average worker is checking their smartphone nine times an hour and are typically interrupted every 5 minutes on the job. Since the year 2000, the average attention span of a person has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds – 1/3 of the attention span of workers has completely disappeared (Time).

The modern workplace is also changing rapidly. We are running our organizations lean and mean… so managers often feel that they can’t afford to have their people “off-the-job” and training for long periods of time. Fitting in training is often viewed as a secondary objective.

Finally, the shelf life of knowledge and skills has shortened dramatically. Today the shelf life of knowledge is much, much shorter with technological changes and other factors. Experts believe our knowledge and skills must be updated roughly every 18 months or we risk extinction. It’s never been more important for workplaces to use technology to blend learning new skills into their employee’s jobs and create a culture of learning.

ENTER MICROLEARNING AND LEARNING TECHNOLOGY Thanks to YouTube and other streaming video platforms we now understand that not only do employees desire to learn, but their preferred format for learning is video. We also know they prefer shorter videos to longer ones. Research shows the ideal length of an online training video is 6-7 minutes. This type of microlearning creates 50% more engagement than other training methods.

Microlearning also works well because the programs offered by many online training providers today are designed for any device and any size screen. This is important as many organizations and industries need training available in remote locations where a traditional computer setup is not available or feasible. Fortunately, most of us carry our little video players (aka smartphones) at all times. And since we’re checking them nine times an hour on average, training has never been more convenient!

LEARNING RETENTION AND SCIENCE So you’ve found an online training partner with a large library of microlearning content and you’re working on a marketing initiative to roll it out to your employees. Great! Isn’t that all you need to create the behavior changes and performance improvements your organization expects to see? Unfortunately no, research by neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists tells us that no matter how great our training programs are, employees will forget about 70% of what they’ve learned within 24 hours of learning it.

Don’t throw your training plan out the window just yet, however. Let’s talk solutions – solutions based on what science tells us about learning and retention.

It turns out that testing knowledge isn’t just a way to measure how much your employees know, it’s also a great way to increase their learning, and their long-term learning retention. When the brain is asked to retrieve information, it tags it as important and is less likely to forget. In practice, asking employees a series of quiz questions and other memory “boosters” related to the training they have taken, spaced out over strategic intervals, can increase learning retention by as much as 300%!

THE RIGHT MIX We certainly have challenges as HR and workplace learning professionals today. Combining a library of microlearning content that is curated and updated, and a post-training reinforcement plan is the perfect foundation for your training program. Get the mix right and your on your way to preparing your workforce for tomorrow.

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

VirtualEdge Engaging Learners with VR

BY DANIEL O’BRIEN

T

he virtual reality (VR) market is a $15 billion hardware market. It is projected to reach $50 billion by 2020, according to Goldman Sachs.

VR technology today divides into two types: rotational and positional. In rotational VR, you are seated or standing and look around a 360 environment, but cannot move within it. There is one point of view: looking at things around you. Samsung Gear, Google Daydream and Google Cardboard are rotational VR. The typical VR experience with Google Cardboard ranges from 5 to 20 minutes.

The second type is positional VR. This environment lets you move around within the VR space. It can be composed of mixed reality, using a video layer over a VR environment. A mixed reality environment lets people approximate what a user is seeing within a VR application in a 2D view. Positional VR can scale to many users in a single shared space.

VR Enterprise Applications Other Gov./ Defense 10% Media/ Entertainment 10% Medical 20% AEC 20%

Product Industries 40%

(auto, CPG, Aerospace, Shipbuilding)

THE VIVE EXPERIENCE Vive is a positional VR solution. You can be seated, standing or moving within a room. You can literally stand in the center of the content (think “Star Trek” holodeck experience.) Kids to grandparents use Vive with ease because it’s natural to interact within the environment. Given the immersion, Vive experiences tend to last longer — an hour plus for users without fatigue.

To use Vive, you need a PC and headgear. There are 100,000s of Vive users globally and we are shipping about 1,000 units per day, to customers.

PC prices to run VR have dropped considerably in the past year. Nine months ago, there were no PCs on the market to support Vive. Now there are nine models at a much lower price point.

VR applications run the gamut from games and entertainment to enterprise uses, especially medical.

We see examples of automotive VR for design of cars. Designers can work in VR collaboratively in the same space. This type of application can reduce the time and cost of product design.

VR applications like test-driving a car, viewing real estate, or visiting a travel destination are all in development or deployed today. The medical field has recently created a surgical theater where an MRI of a brain can be displayed in space, and doctors can walk around the brain in VR. The National Park services also launched a series on 360-degree VR experiences and 2-D video on Facebook.

GETTING STARTED IN VR You are probably sitting on digital content you can use for VR. It is a matter of reorganizing it into a 360 experience to allow you to move around. IKEA created a VR kitchen and let users select colors and layouts before buying. This brought buyer’s remorse to zero.

When developing VR, we recommend building cross platform as much as possible. Instead of scaling up from Cardboard, you should develop for full functionality, then scale down to the user’s platform.

LEARNING GAME CHANGER The HTC Vive has VR learning experiences, like the Apollo 11 VR Experience. The developers, Immersive VR Education LTD, created an environment of 1960s-style living room with a TV showing JFK’s speech about going into space. The user is then transported into a space capsule sitting next to Buzz Aldrin and landing on the moon. My young son used it and shared with me what he learned; historical quotes and his successful moon landing. Four weeks later, I asked my son about the moon landing, and he could still recall with great details his experience.

We have A/B tests that measured VR versus reading of material. It found VR tested higher in retention one day and 90 days later versus readers alone. VR is a game changer in retentions.

It’s these experiences that are changing how we interact with digital content and engaging people.

Vive users typically spend 45 minutes to an hour in the VR experience versus 10 minutes for Cardboard. Now, that’s an engaging experience.

– Daniel O’Brien is Vice President, VR at HTC.

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How Corporate Learning Is Using Virtual Reality Today

BY ANDERS GRONSTEDT, PH.D. Imagine if a technology came along that allowed your students to transport themselves to any time or place, real or imagined. Imagine if this technology could be used to create a “flight simulator” for any skill, where students could practice and learn under the same conditions where they will use their skills. And imagine if this technology could also allow students to step into the shoes of a customer or a colleague of different gender, ethnicity, or culture. That technology is here.

It’s virtual reality.

The world you experience when you strap on a virtual reality (VR) headset might be virtual, but the learning results are real. Football quarterbacks have seen decision-making skills improve by 30 percent. Fear of public speaking has been reduced by 20 percent. Unconscious bias has been reduced in study after study. All after just a few sessions in virtual reality.

MARCHING WITH MLK The virtual reality learning revolution has already begun. “We have purchased 360-degree cameras and virtual reality headsets and empower faculty members to create their own VR video,” says Robbie Melton, Ph.D., Associate Vice Chancellor of Mobilization Emerging Technology of the Tennessee Board of Regents. Her list of virtual 18

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reality use-cases is already long: “One of our educational professors shoots wrap-around video in the classroom to transport future teachers to real-life teaching situations.”

The Tennessee Board of Regents supervises 47 campuses with 173,000 students and has a strategic plan for virtual, augmented, and mixed reality and holograms. Several professors use free virtual reality assets.

“One of our professors is transforming his Humanities Curriculum so that when students study about Martin Luther King’s Washington March, they can now experience the march through the immersive technology of virtual reality” says Melton.

The Tennessee higher education system is not just using virtual reality as a consumption tool, but a creation tool as well. “HTC Vive brings hand controllers so we can now do art projects in VR and AR,” exclaims Melton. Virtual reality painting programs like Google Tilt Brush can be used for everything from 3D sculptures, to whiteboarding of calculus assignments; and from prototyping of new products, to architectural design.

Virtual reality has been particularly empowering for students with disabilities, according to Dr. Melton. “Someone in a wheelchair can experience going down a virtual ski slope or swimming in an ocean.”

This sixth-largest system of public higher education in the United States is launching a major longitudinal study to research

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virtualreality the learning retention impact and rate and performance achievement and outcomes of virtual and augmented reality after six months. “Our assumption is that VR/AR are going to beat video or any other medium by 75 percent,” says Dr. Melton.

Would you bet against these tech titans?

Perhaps not. But learning organizations are not yet jumping in with both feet. Anthony Rotolo, Courseware Manager at the Defense Acquisition University cautions that, “We’re still in the hype cycle, we get

‘Our assumption is that VR/ AR are going to beat video or other medium by 75%.’

– Robbie Melton, Vice Chancellor, Tennessee Board of Regents

FACEBOOK BETTING THE FUTURE ON VR The fervor for VR could easily be dismissed if it only came from educational leaders and smaller technology startups. But when Mark Zuckerberg is betting the future of Facebook on the new technology, there’s reason for learning leaders to pay attention. Zuckerberg was so impressed by the possibilities of VR that Facebook spent $2 billion to get a piece of this growing market, acquiring virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR. While the first generation of VR is aimed at the gaming and entertainment markets, Zuckerberg argues that VR is “the next major computing and communication platform after phones.” When Facebook launched it was mostly used for text-based updates. Today the newsfeed is filled with pictures and self-playing videos.

The next step is to capture entire scenes, in 3D and 360 degrees. Most of the other digital media giants, including Google, Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft are pouring billions and jostling for leadership in the nascent virtual and augmented reality market.

enamored with technology solutions in search of a business case.” He doesn’t think VR is a panacea. “It has an obvious role to train a bomb squad, but I have a hard time seeing it used to teach something like an earned value management formula.” Rotolo is taking a wait-and-see approach for now.

“I’d want to see a couple of years of performance before the government applies it to e-learning. It’s prudent to wait until VR is more mature and proven.”

Other organizations are piloting VR in small scale. Lehigh Valley Health Network, a hospital group with seven campuses in Pennsylvania, looks for low-risk, highreward VR projects. “We’re trying to prototype and find correlations between VR training applications and performance improvements. We have to prove that we can change metrics,” says Virginia Cooney, Senior eLearning Designer, adding: “If I can reduce error rates with catheter insertions through VR training, that would be a big win that we can build on and get funding for larger VR programs.”

VR SIMULATIONS Technical skill training like this can be a good start for a virtual reality pilot. “You use the same criteria as any simulation: Is it too expensive, is it too dangerous, or is it otherwise too impractical to practice in real life?” Argues Anthony Rotolo of the Defense Acquisition University. “VR has to pass that test of suitability.” Emergency response, product installation or repair, and healthcare procedures are usually good candidates for virtual reality learning.

Lehigh Valley Health Network has a large physical simulation center where actors play patients, but it’s a limited resource with a schedule filled to capacity. Virginia Cooney doesn’t think that will be replaced any time soon, but says: “as we keep acquiring new clinics further away we need to look at virtual solutions.” Her team has run 3D immersive multiplayer training programs on the desktop for years. They started in Second Life and have transitioned through several 3D platforms. “The most recent project is a 3D immersive orientation for nurses,” says Cooney.

The new challenge is to transition from the desktop monitor to virtual reality headsets, where a student can experience full body immersion. “The advances in haptic feedback are important for us too, recreating the sensation of cutting into a body, for instance.”

EMPATHY MACHINE For all the excitement about using VR as technical skills training simulator, there might be just as many opportunities to use it for soft skills training. Virtual reality has proven to be the most visceral approach to experience the world from people with different gender, race, age, or nationality and reduce bias against them.

Stanford University’s Director of Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Jeremy Bailenson argues that, “For about 12 years now, we’ve been running study after study showing

‘The new challenge is to transition from the desktop monitor to virtual reality headsets, where a student can experience full body immersion.’

–Virginia Cooney, Lehigh Valley Health Network

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‘We should think of VR not as a media experience but closer to an actual experience.’

–Jeremy Bailenson, Director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab

that feeling discrimination firsthand while walking a mile in someone else’s shoes [through virtual reality] is a better way to change attitudes and behavior.” Bailenson and his team have validated the so called “Proteus Effect,” in which the behavior of an individual, within online virtual worlds, is changed by the visual characteristics of their avatar.

Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab has even conducted experiments simulating the feeling of being a cow in virtual reality.

Subjects donned a VR headset, got down on all fours, and when the simulation was turned on found themselves in a virtual pasture. The scene transitioned to the holding pen of a cattle truck, where a haptics system simulated the vibrations of the moving truck as it took them to the slaughterhouse.

The study found that people felt more connected to the animals than those who simply watched the simulation play out on a screen and ultimately might be less likely to eat meat. This ability to be embodied as a different person or even a different species is why virtual reality has been hailed as “The Ultimate Empathy Machine,” by film maker Chris Milk. Imagine the opportunities to build this kind of empathy in sales and service training, coaching skill development, and diversity and inclusion programs.

VR HEADSET MARKET The current generation virtual reality headsets range from a cardboard box for a few dollars to a $3,000 computerheadset bundle. If you’re a New York Times subscriber, you might already own a VR headset. It recently provided over a million subscribers with a fold-your-own cardboard box, including plastic lenses, magnets, and Velcro. Just drop almost any smart phone into the “Google Cardbaord” box and experience VR for yourself. If you own certain models of the Samsung Galaxy, you can get a $99 GearVR headset, which

offers a step up in comfort and quality from the cardboard box. With the new Google Pixel phone, you can buy a similarly priced Google Daydream headset. These mobile headsets provide a good entry point to virtual reality. They work well for shorter and more linear experiences, such as a 360-degree spherical video.

At the high end of the virtual reality market, Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are locked in race for market leadership. The HTC Vive comes with laser cameras and a very long cord connected to a PC that allows you to roam around a room up to 15 times 15 feet large. Using hand controllers, you can see representations of your hands in the virtual space. A clever visual overlay in the virtual scene indicates where the real-life walls are to keep you bumping into them.

Both Microsoft and Oculus Rift have announced headsets that will occupy the middle ground between mobile and PC tethered headsets. These devices will have trackers built in, rather than relying on external laser cameras, making them easier to set up and use. They are expected to hit the market sometime next year.

Which virtual reality headset will be the winner? Or will we see a balkanized Mac vs. PC-style war of competing standards?

Only time will tell. My advice would be to keep an open mind and not put all your chips on one system, yet.

But, the real breakthrough with augmented reality will be eye wear that projects holographic images on top of the real world. “Augmented reality is the real game changer,” says Robbie Melton of the Tennessee Board of Regents. “We have three HoloLenses in our classrooms already.” The Microsoft HoloLens is a see-through headset that projects holographic images on top of the real world. “The HoloAnatomy is unbelievably impactful, it revolutionizes anatomy and physiology teaching”, Melton said Melton is an industry veteran who puts the new technology in perspective. “I’ve been in the learning industry for 45 years, I hail from the time of chalkboards; virtual and augmented reality is by far the biggest technology revolution of my career.”

–Anders Gronstedt, Ph.D., (anders@gronstedtgroup.com) is president of the Gronstedt Group, a digital training agency that custom develops learning games, simulations and online video.

AUGMENTED REALITY On the heels of virtual reality is its cousin “augmented reality” (AR) or “mixed reality.” We all got a taste of a crude form of AR via the explosion of Pokémon Go. Virginia Cooney at Lehigh Valley Health Network is already plotting a Pokémon GO-style game for orienting new med students to her campuses: “They will get to know the new campus by walking around and finding the equivalence of poké balls and answer questions.”

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2017 HR Technology Trends

THE “SIERRA-CEDAR 2016-2017 HR SYSTEMS SURVEY” TRACKS TRENDS IN HR AND LEARNING PHILOSOPHY; AND IN TECHNOLOGY SELECTION PURCHASE AND IMPLEMENTATION.

BY JERRY ROCHE

We are now embracing an era when both enterprise and personal technology options are improving almost by the day. So several important considerations must be taken into account to help decide how our organizations will respond and benefit from new HR and learning technologies. Among them: how overall strategy, corporate culture and existing technology will play into future plans.

STRATEGY: Strategy is both a key component when it comes to a technology environment and a significant opportunity; for instance, more than 40 percent of organizations are looking at improving or developing a new enterprise HR systems strategy this year. This is a key issue for most organizations.

For large organizations (more than 10,000 employees), the goal is most often to transform the technology environment, creating a more modern architecture that can support new user experiences, mobile access, and full-data analysis requirements. Research has shown that organizations are taking multiple pathways forward and are leveraging this opportunity to rethink their enterprise view of HR technology.

Among mid-market (2,500 to 10,000 employees) and small businesses, HR technology adoption has become a key to success. Organizations with higher-than-average HR technology adoption in these categories saw almost double the revenue per employee, and a 12 percent increase in their overall HR, talent and business outcome metrics. These organizations also are 75 percent more likely to be viewed as strategic partners by their business leaders, and they are 10 times more likely to be in the top 10 percent of organizations when it comes to social responsibility initiatives.

CULTURE: Three specific HR outcome models — talent-driven, data-driven, and topperforming organizations — can alter decisions. In a world of constant digital change, organizations need to completely rethink their perception of technology investments. In today’s Cloud-based environments, organizations have shown that continuous change management models improve decisionmaking across the entire organization.

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2017HRtechnologytrends FIGURE 1 – OVERALL APPLICATION ADOPTION SIZE Large organizations continue as higherthan-average adopters of all application areas over the aggregate, especially in the areas of service delivery and BI/analytics.

Medium organizations are often focusing on new growth and optimizing their workforce. We see higher levels of adoption in administrative and social applications.

Small organizations are lower-thanaverage adopters of all application areas, although it is important to note that they purchase enterprise-wide HR solutions at much earlier stages than they have in previous years.

Cloud-based technologies also allow organizations to develop more valuable relationships with their workforces, clearly defining their expectations and the employee value proposition in a tailored employee experience.

TECHNOLOGY: Now that there has been a shift both from vendors and buyers toward Cloud/SaaS HR solutions, foundational technology questions are refocusing.

This year’s survey shows a 25 percent increase in organizations evaluating Cloud solutions for non-HR technology, and an increase in large organization initiatives to integrate both HR and non-HR technologies. The key questions for many organizations come down to cost, security and long-term value propositions for a full Cloud solution.

The new non-negotiables are focused on user experience, roadmap strategies, and tailored relationships. For instance, there has been a 40 percent increase to 66 percent of organizations that identify “poor user experience” as their primary reason for giving vendors a low satisfaction rating.

The next generation of technology is meant to be invisible and ubiquitous in our lives, and it’s expected to perform as an intelligent system. More than 5 percent of organizations are already using some form of machine learning, wearables and sentiment analysis tools as strategic parts of their HR systems strategies.

Now for some specific facts and figures, based on Sierra-Cedar’s most recent research: 24

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SPENDING PATTERNS This year, just 42 percent of organizations believe their spending will increase in 2016–2017, while 7 percent feel their spending will decrease. That represents a slight slowdown in spending plans from last year, but it’s still very healthy when compared with 2013’s spending plans following the recent recession.

Small organizations are the fastest growing segment of “new” HR technology buyers, so vendors will need come to the table with a compelling reason for them to increase spending next year; 57 percent of small organizations are on target to simply maintain their existing HR technology spending. However, each year, smaller and smaller organizations invest in HR technology.

HR SYSTEM EXPENDITURES On average, total HR technology costs can range from $100 to $500 per employee annually. These numbers change dramatically based on the number of systems implemented, amount of internal resources versus outsourced resources, global scope of an organization, and the complexity of an organization’s service and support needs. These global numbers are generally helpful only as a ballpark figure, but do provide us with a lens through which to review year-over-year annual expenditures per employee — and it might be surprising to note that the total overall HR technology costs have seen a slight decline over the last few years.

HR TECHNOLOGY RESOURCING STRATEGIES Knowing that spending doesn’t provide the only indicator of what an organization can accomplish when it comes to its enterprise HR systems strategy, a new question was added concerning an organization’s plans to increase or decrease certain roles across their HR function over the next year. Immediately, corporate learning and development initiatives claimed the top position for increased hiring plans for 37 percent of the organizations that responded to the survey — and only 5 percent plan to decrease these initiatives.

Following just behind L&D was 33 percent of organizations planning to invest in hiring HR data analytics personnel.

Twenty-nine percent of organizations also plan to increase talent management headcount this year.

IMPLEMENTATION PLANS, TIMELINES, MODULES Fewer organizations (17 percent) are planning to make solution changes in the next 12 months as compared to previous years, but more are planning movement over the next 24 months. Organizations with low user experience scores are four times more likely to have near-term plans to replace their current vendor.

Once an organization has decided to either replace or upgrade an existing solution, the next focus becomes timelines and costs. Implementation timelines have been a constant challenge for organizations dealing with on-remise solutions, particularly for large global organizations.

Two- to three-year implementation

FIGURE 2 – ADOPTION BY TECHNICAL APPROACH When we look at adoption levels by an organization’s approach to its technology deployment strategy, we see that organizations with high Cloud adoption (Cloud deployed for HRMS, Payroll, WFM and TM applications) have higher levels of HR technology adoption in all categories when compared to low Cloud adoption (25% or less Cloud deployed HR applications) organizations.

FIGURE 3 – HR TECHNOLOGY GAP ANALYSES After years of organizations venting their frustrations, this year more than 60 percent of them feel their current HR systems applications are either “Always” or “Most of the Time” meeting their business needs. In all categories, high-Cloud organizations are twice (sometimes thrice) as likely to feel that their HR applications are always meeting their business needs.

Since feature and function gaps are no longer major issues, the factors that will move an organization to replace an existing solution have more to do with issues such as service and support, integration, and overall vendor relationship.

timelines for enterprise-wide HRMS environments were not uncommon for organizations, especially when these solutions were implemented alongside other enterprise-wide solutions.

In the last few years, we have seen a decrease in overall implementation timelines, particularly for licensed environments, but also for Cloud/SaaS solutions. Less customization, greater access to APIs, and pre-developed connectors for integration, along with more adequately trained implementation partners, have all led to a reduction in overall implementation timelines over the past three years.

At this point, there are fewer onpremise implementations than Cloud/ SaaS implementations, since very few organizations are aggressively selling their on-premise solutions.

LEARNING APPLICATIONS Because of complex learning needs,

large and medium organizations are much more likely to have high levels of learning application adoption over small organizations. Sierra-Cedar anticipates continued shake up in the learning space over the next few years as enterprise software packages continue to invest in their new learning solutions, and many niche learning players coming out of the consumer learning space (like Degreed) are trying the change the concept of who owns an employee’s learning record.

Although Cornerstone OnDemand focuses heavily on its talent management modules, it continues to be one of the largest providers in the learning space and holds the highest level of application adoption at 19 percent; for large and medium organizations, Cornerstone OnDemand sees an increase forecasted adoption in the next 12 months. Other companies that are expected to grow substantially are SuccessFactors Employee

Central, Saba, Health Stream, Oracle HCM Cloud (which is being rolled out separately from the Oracle Taleo/Learn solutions).

Moderate growth is likely to come to NetDimensions and SilkRoad.

SumTotal and Skillsoft — now combined organizations — continue to hold large adoption shares in learning across all organization sizes. It is likely that many organizations use Skillsoft as a secondary learning solution along with their primary learning management system (LMS), but decreases are projected in adoption rates for this vendor for both applications.

—Research for Sierra-Cedar conducted

by Stacey Harris, vice president of Research & Analytics and research consultant Erin Spencer. The “Sierra-Cedar 2016-2017 HR Systems Survey White Paper, 19th Annual Edition” can be found at www. sierra-cedar.com/wp-content/uploads/ sites/12/2016/10/Sierra-Cedar_2016-2017_ HRSystemsSurvey_WhitePaper.pdf Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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Learning! 100 Profile:

Express:

Fashioned for Millennials

BY CLAIRE JOHNSON

By 2025, 46 percent of the workforce will be Millennials.

According to a report from the National Chamber Foundation, Millennials expect close relationships and frequent feedback from management, viewing their managers as coaches or mentors. Their managers — rather than the corporations themselves — can earn the loyalty of Millennial employees by keeping their word. Management can reduce the risk of Millennial employees leaving a company by maintaining a positive relationship with them. Findings indicate that the main reason that this age group leaves a company is directly related to a superior.

At Express, the future is about those Millennials. “We structure our learning and development for them,” says Adam Zaller, Vice President of Organizational Development, Express. “The average age at Express is 27, and at the retail stores it is middle to low 20s.”

Realizing this, Express identified an opportunity to evolve its talent management strategy for its primarily Millennial-aged employees while becoming a fashion authority for both men and women.

According to Zaller, “[Millennials] are always connected, multi-taskers who are very socially aware. They have more friends ... two-and-a-half times more than Boomers. Because of this, they are influenced by their peers; they seek 26

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status among the peer group; they tend to ‘crave experiences.’ In our development programs, we focus more on the experiences and activity and less on the classroom or the course.”

To support this culture, Express’s organizational development team created an intuitive, irresistible, social and mobile learning experience for its more than 22,000 mostly-Millennial employees. The program has pushed limits and established an engaged employee population that’s driven customer experience scores and internal engagement scores to their highest levels while decreasing turnover to its lowest rate ever during the three years that it’s been implemented.

“It’s Uber personalization and individualization,” continues Zaller. “It’s not one size fits all. Simplicity is king, and experience and activities are paramount to actual courses. And most importantly, it’s all about smartphones.”

How does this translate into learning and development? Millennials wants more communication. “Everyone has that one thing they are phenomenal at … provide them a talent management framework so they can socialize that,” suggests Zaller.

THE EXPRESS TALENT DEVELOPMENT PLAN At Express, all training programs are designed to organizational competencies.

“Over time, people can use the

About Express Originally launched in 1980 as Women’s Express, owned by The Limited, in the famed Water Tower Place on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, Express as a brand has undergone several major transformations, becoming a company beloved by Millennials (born 1980-2000) and Generation Z (born after 2000).

Today, most Express shoppers were born after the clothing company was founded, and the company has done an excellent job of successfully targeting a specific age range (18-35). Catering to both men and women, the company is now independent of The Limited and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, generating $116.5 million in net income during the 2016 fiscal year.

In a world saturated with fast fashion, Express has managed to set itself apart from the competition — partially through its high-quality product at reasonable prices — but also through its high level of customer service and brand consistency. Express has a loyal customer following, and customers know what to expect when they walk into any of the company’s more than 650 stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. This is where consistency is key, and with Express’s hiring and training programs, customers get the same experience in each store, no matter the location.

fashionedformillenials

competencies to measure against and grow their career at Express,” shares Zaller. “It’s by [job] layer and area of focus. You can see at the contributor, manager or director level, what’s appropriate at that role, the manager above you, so you can formulate a career development program just from our competencies.”

collaborative spaces. They can connect and see what everyone else is doing, or share ideas that they have.”

Communication is key to the Millennials and Express took “a riff ” off of what millennials use to communicate today. Millennials use a range of social mediums and the learning experience

‘We conduct focused development so your “native genius” can shine.’

– Adam Zaller, Vice President Organizational Development, Express PERSONALIZING LEARNING Express’s talent program starts with an individual’s personal aspirational vision of what he or she wants to do with his or her career.

They look at courses and classes, articles and books to gain some knowledge from; then the experiences follow. “It really starts at how we create a meaningful experience for you, so you can grow your career,” says Zaller. “It’s really important to provide Millennials the space to share what they are really great at in these 28

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needs to reflect this; Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and Periscope.

“What we love most is that our environment looks like Facebook meets Twitter meets learning site,” adds Zaller.

“You can’t tell where there are classes or courses, or where there’s an activity stream where someone is saying this is a great article, or have you considered this idea.

It all molds together to create a curated experience for somebody.”

The learning platform, supplied by Saba, enables team members to find their own online development in bite-sized chunks that appeal to them. By switching to a user-driven learning platform, Express supports blended learning at a personalized level: providing each employee with personal, relevant recommendations of classes, content and expert connections that help each succeed at his or her job.

The new learning ecosystem enables individuals to opt-in and access learning in areas of interest, resisting a one-sizefits-all approach. The system provides real-time recommendations, builds personal networks, promotes social collaboration, and provides direction for each of the more than 22,000 associates at Express. Prescriptive analytics provide each employee with personal, relevant recommendations of classes, content and expert connections that help them succeed at their job.

“Whether you are walking down the hall, at your desk or in a store, you’ll have the same experience with learning,” reports Zaller. “You have bits and bytes of learning and communications based on your courses, articles, or activities of interest … over 20,000 people adding to the site on a daily basis.”

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AT EXPRESS The Express Essentials for organizational competencies describe the leadership skill set needed at a specific level in the company. They are cataloged to focus on key behaviors. Outlined as a map, the competencies are shown at each level and how they build upon each other in each area of focus. The maps help employees create individualized development plans and evaluate the competencies needed to further grow in each level of the company.

The competencies keep employees on track with their goals every day, and management integrates them into the mid-year and annual review process.

In order to develop the best leaders in the retail industry who create an engaging environment consistent with the brand’s values, Express focuses on a few core programs at each level that drive leadership behaviors. As part of its talent management strategy, Express wants to drive employee

self-development through the creation of a personalized and meaningful experience.

Using data and analytics is an essential asset to shape the talent management experiences and to provide the best results for evaluation.

There are five key talent priorities that support Express’ leadership initiatives: >> Increase the importance of engagement through communication. >> Encourage employees to socialize their native genius to grow the company’s overall knowledge. >> Encourage personalization and individualization. >> Leverage knowledge nuggets instead of large traditional courses. >> Implement a modern, easy-to-use talent management platform which leverages experiences and activities to drive knowledge.

BUSINESS IMPACT The program is doing well, based on the results the organizational development team tracks. Since the program’s implementation in 2013, Express has been able to spend less on development while experiencing the following positive results: >> Reducing employee turnover by 14 percent year-over-year. >> A 100 percent improvement in associate engagement scores. >> An increased Net Promoter Score by more than 80 percent. >> The ability to spot potential employees with high potential. (Half of all field district managers are alumni of Express’s high-potential program.)

WHAT’S NEXT With its loyalty program being titled ExpressNext, the company is always looking toward the future. Zaller shares they are planning to invite people to post their own videos, create quick knowledge nuggets and expand their leadership programs.

#SquadGoals Express has a highly-engaged audience and a highly-recognized brand. With big-name brand ambassadors showcased in all forms of marketing, customers and employees feel an attachment when they see their favorite celebrities pictured in the brand’s clothes in marketing materials and on social media. Express works with well-known faces, such as superstar athlete Kris Bryant who led the Chicago Cubs to the 2016 Major League Baseball World Series title, and it-girl model Karlie Kloss, who’s perhaps one of the most recognized faces of Taylor Swift’s squad.

Express does everything in its power to make employees feel like part of its own squad. Retail isn’t glamourous and can be a grueling environment — customers can be difficult and it requires employees to dedicate long hours, often on nights, weekends and over the holidays — and it’s comforting for employees to know that their employer cares and appreciates all of the hard work and dedication that goes into such a customer service-centric job. Express makes each employee feel valued in the long-term with its training program taking each individual’s interests goals into account. Constructive feedback and frequent check-ins make employees realize their longterm goals are attainable. More than that, the day-to-day is what strongly motives the Millennial workforce to choose and grow with a company. Things like free snacks and meals during overnight floor sets when merchandise is changed; a flexible return policy so employees don’t get bogged down arguing with unsatisfied customers; generous discounts; and a team mentality are what keeps employees smiles authentic while they’re going to work each day.

More than half of Millennials volunteer and, according to a report by the National Chamber Foundation, Millennial employees who often participate in workplace-sponsored volunteer activities are more likely to feel positive, loyal and satisfied than those who never volunteer or volunteer infrequently. Those that participate in volunteer work with their companies are more likely to recommend their companies to friends. Also in line with Millennials’ desire to do good for others, Express sales associates volunteer thousands of hours each year, and the company provides its staff with the flexibility to explore that passion in both their local communities and on a global scale through its partnership with the MGF Touch Foundation, which supports nonprofit organizations around the world that work to end human trafficking.

Rookie of the Year and MLB All-Star Kris Bryant is a legend in the making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twPg-gKIcA8

Like most Millennials, model and Express spokesperson Karlie Kloss has an altruistic approach on life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piS0jDDMnks

—Sources: “The Millennial Generation: Research Review,” National Chamber Foundation, https://www. uschamberfoundation.org/sites/ default/files/article/foundation/ MillennialGeneration.pdf

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You...

Create learning programs that deliver results!

Innovate, collaborate and outperform your competitors!

Master budget woes to woo your employees, customers and partners.

Now let us honor you and your team’s excellence.

Apply now at www.2elearning.com/awards/learning-100-awards Application open 10.1.16 to 1.31.17.

Government, non-profit and educational organizations can apply free.

99 Solutions Named Best Of Elearning! 2016

The 2016 “Best of Elearning!” awards honor best-in-class solutions across the learning and technology marketplace.

Celebrating their 12th year, these honors are bestowed across 27 different categories for which Elearning! Media Group accepted nominations.

Best of Elearning! awards are the industry’s exclusive users’-choice awards.

All nominations are made directly by users of solutions, and more than 4,000 nominations were received this year.

“We are honored to recognize these 99 solutions providers as Best of Elearning!

2016,” says Catherine Upton, Group Publisher, Elearning! Media Group.

‘The number of nominations and winning organizations is a testament to the innovation and engagement of the learning industry.”

The Best of Elearning! awards formalize the recommendation and purchase process for the learning community.

Research indicated 85 percent of learning professionals recommended a learning solution to a peer over the most recent 12-month period, and 61 percent claimed that award recognition “impacts their decision” to consider a product or service.

Since 2005, four companies have been recognized every year. They are Adobe, Cisco, Skillsoft and Articulate. This year, BizLibrary, SAP, and Articulate lead with four honors each. Additionally, Adobe won three categories and INXPO two.

Repeat winners from last year are SumTotal, DominKnow, Bizlibrary, Vubiz, Articulate, Adobe, INXPO and TransPerfect.

Last year, Bizlibrary won three awards and Adobe two.

NOMINATION PROCESS Elearning! Media Group community members, subscribers and wider learning community were invited to nominate their best-in-class solution providers via an online ballot between June and October of this year. The ballot was open-ended with only categories designations stipulated.

No short list of brands were provided.

At close, the ballots were reviewed and validated. Editors verified product types and categories before counting. The top vote earners in each category were identified as finalists. Those with a 10 percent lead over all other products in a category earned category winner status.

The balance of finalists earn an Award of Excellence.

To learn more, visit www.2elearning. com/awards/best-of-elearning-awards.

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bestofelearning!

Honoree Spotlight LMS CLOUD

LMS ENTERPRISE

Winner: Litmos LMS, a Callidus Cloud Co.

Winner: SumTotal Learn, a Skillsoft Co.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Litmos has more than 3 million users and is used by large enterprise companies, SMBs and not-for-profits. It is easy to build courses, assign them to learners, and accurately track the results. Litmos is a hosted training system, so administrators don’t need help from the I.T. department to set it up and get started. Content is added in the form of modules; custom branding is available; and users can take advantage of a training scheduler and learner training profiles to make certain users are being exposed to content that they need. Users can access the API to seamlessly share information between Litmos and other systems. Single sign-on can be enabled so that users don’t have to remember their Litmos password.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Established more than 30 years ago, SumTotal’s Learn connects the dots between the skills and competencies people need to be better at their jobs — delivered in the context of what they are trying to accomplish — and prepare the organization for tomorrow, to measurably improve performance. With adaptable learning plans, a visual timeline of priorities and tasks and individualized insight into learning progress contextual actions are a click away, and people have visibility into the measurable impact of their efforts.

Learning recommendations, personalized to every individual’s needs and preferences, keep people engaged in continuous learning effortlessly. Engaging and responsive mobile design and notifications make it easy for every role to engage with the learning they need on-the-go or from remote locations, whether online or offline, to ensure learning is prioritized and accessible when and how people prefer to consume it.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Simple, easy-to-use interface for both administrator and user.” >> “Module form makes it easy to replace individual modules when we release a new or improved feature.” >> “Best set of features for the price.” >> “Easy, reliable and affordable.”

PHONE (866) 812-5244

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LCMS

Winner: DominKnow Platform, DominKnow Learning Sys. PRODUCT INFORMATION The DominKnow Platform is a Web-based authoring and publishing solution that helps teams collaborate in real-time, share and re-use content, and easily engage subject-matter experts in the review process. Content is ready for delivery from virtually any location — all from a singlesource. It offers all the features needed to create engaging, media-rich learning experiences, including customizable testing, flexible interactions and animation creation, advanced variables, branching, audio/video recording, software simulations, and system and author-created templates. The platform outputs HTML5 content that is WCAG 2.0 Level AA and WAI-ARIA compliant and publishes to SCORM, AICC, xAPI (TinCan) and PENS standards. Content is ready for delivery from virtually any location — the Web, your own LMS or LRS, the desktop, mobile apps, or document formats.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Second in usage only to email among employees.” >> “Month over month, over half our employees come back, so they really see the value of it.” >> “With the reporting function, we’ve been albe to say how we’ve invested in our people and how it has helped our business grow.”

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Allows for collaborative (SAS) approach as well as an intuitive design.” >> “The best e-content manage system enhanced using multimedia u-learning technology and complying with latest learning specifications/standards in all platform aspects.” >> “Robust environment for content development.”

EMAIL connect@sumtotalsystems.com

PHONE (613) 800-8733

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Organizations offering customer training realize a 17% revenue improvement according to Aberdeen Group. Take the first step and by download Elearning!

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Elearning! eBook is published by Elearning! Media Group, a B2B Media Company.

Learn more at: 2elearning.com 888-201-2841

bestofelearning!

Honoree Spotlight OTHER LEARNING PLATFORMS

CONTENT AGGREGATION

Winner: Bizlibrary Collection

Award of Excellence: OpenSesame

Winner: Bizlibrary Company College

PRODUCT INFORMATION The BizLibrary Collection contains thousands of employee training videos on key topics your employees need including business and soft skills, leadership, sales and customer service, human resources compliance, I.T., software, industryspecific content, workplace safety and more. Content formats offered meet the needs of all types of learners from short, micro-video lessons, to more in-depth video courses, interactive video programs and e-learning courses. Many of the lessons and courses include quizzes and additional support materials to extend the learning process, increasing both retention and the return on training investment.

Administrators can deliver employee training videos across platforms: desktop, mobile and tablet.

PRODUCT INFORMATION OpenSesame makes buying and selling e-learning courses easy. Users can preview courses, read reviews and research sellers in the marketplace. Administrators can buy courses with no subscriptions or long-term commitments and use them instantly in any learning management system. Let us do the heavy lifting, so you can focus on choosing the best courses for your employees. Buyers can personalize their interaction either through browsing the extensive listing of courses online or interacting with one of our content specialists to custom build their training catalog. Sellers can stick with the learning management system they know best and can rest easy knowing their material is protected.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Not just the biggest but the easiest platform I could integrate into an enterprise LMS in 15 minutes, while many content vendors struggled immensely over months to get to the same spot.”

PRODUCT INFORMATION BizLibrary’s learning management system is conveniently organized into three tiers to allow users the option to customize their solutions based upon the needs of their respective organizations.

All three tiers offer approval agents, branded website design, a personalized user experience, online and dashboard reports, self-regulation or administrative course assignments, a Cloud-hosted online learning center, certification of completion, social ratings and reviews, a course recommendation engine and email messages and reminders. The second tier of the program, Content Management, offers management of custom documents, links and videos; a quiz and survey builder; the ability to add custom courses, embed video and learning assets; and community social learning and collaborative application.

Learning Management, the highest tier, offers all of the previous benefits in addition to classroom management and on-the-job external training, certification management and virtual classroom integration via WebEx or GoToMeeting.

PHONE (503) 808-1268

EMAIL ande@bizlibrary.com

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Great library of micro-learning.” >> “Depth and width of the collection are staggering.” >> “Competency guides and live support help to develop curriculum paths and curate the robust content.”

EMAIL ande@bizlibrary.com

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Get Smarter in 2017 at Since 2008, EMG has produced the Enterprise Learning! Events hosting top global learning leaders and best-in-class technologists in exclusive hybrid events. In 2017, we advance this practice with live streamed events from onsite venues. The events offer the option of face-to-face networking with learning leaders or convenience of live streamed participation. All focused on solving today’s business problems. Each event is focused on dedicated themes and is broadcast to 2000+ industry professionals.

Enterprise Learning! Conference 2017 The High Performance Organization | elceshow.com August 2017

At ELC17, meet the 2017 Learning! 100 who are pushing the envelope for innovation, collaboration and performance. Attendees are focused on driving business results leveraging learning, HR and talent strategies. This intimate executive forum provides maximum networking and dialogue. ELC17 will be live streamed to an extended online audience. ELC17 is also host of the Learning! 100 and Learning! Champion Awards celebrations.

Enterprise Learning! Summits | theelsummit.com | 2017

Mark your calendar for these 1-day conferences across the USA focused on dedicated topics. From improving employee engagement, building leadership skills and bench strength, or increasing collaboration, this senior executive forum format provides the perfect environment for optimal networking, collaboration and dialogue.

In partnership with Best of Elearning! Awards, attendees will experience the bestin-class learning technologies up close. The Summits are live onsite conferences with streamed online broadcasts of selected editions. Discover how to attend, sponsor or host a Summit by visiting: http://www.2elearning.com/events

“The [Enterprise] Learning!

Conference is one of the best events to attend. There is something new to learn every year.

The event’s focus on technology and learning impact is important for every learning leader to know about. We need to attend events like this so we can learn from one another and stay current.”

– Dr. Christopher Hardy, Global Director, Defense Acquisition University, Dept of Defense

Building Smarter Organizations | 2elearning.com/current-events Monthly 2017

Every month, Elearning! Media Group hosts live web seminars on the industry’s hot topics. From Going Mobile, Personalizing Learning or Virtual Reality, these topical sessions feature industry experts, thought-leader panel discussions, and original research findings. View the current schedule at: http:// www.2elearning.com/current-events

Enterprise Learning! Events are a product of Elearning! Media Group, produced

by B2B Media Company LLC. www.2elearning.com 888-201-2841

jumphead

Honoree Spotlight TMS

OTHER LEARNING PLATFORMS

Award of Excellence: ej4 Thinkzoom

Award of Excellence: Skillsoft SkillPort

Winner: SAP SuccessFactors TMS

PRODUCT INFORMATION Thinkzoom is ej4’s comprehensive video training platform. With several interactive tools and resources, Thinkzoom helps employees during and after training. Thinkzoom allows administrators the knowledge of which videos their employees are watching and how well they comprehend the material with its built-in interactive exams. Score requirements can be set and additional student materials can be provided so learners can put their knowledge to practice. Thinkzoom also has a comprehensive reporting feature that allows administrators to create custom reports based upon users, groups, courses and topics. Understanding which courses are popular and which are lacking participation can help measure training progress and communicate future training goals.

PRODUCT INFORMATION SkillPort is a modern Cloud-based content delivery platform that delivers highly targeted learning —when and where people want to learn. SkillPort technology, in conjunction with Skillsoft’s unique combination of content, service and experience builds talent and delivers powerful business outcomes. SkillPort offers a full learning experience as a standalone learning platform, or it can be easily integrated with existing business and I.T. systems. The system offers a variety of learning modalities to match individual learning styles; a rich user-experience with a beautiful, clean user interface; analytics, reporting, measurement tools; extensive search and discovery capabilities; personalized learning recommendations, featured topics and curated learning plans; social and collaborative learning to connect users across each organization; and mobile access.

PRODUCT INFORMATION SAP SuccessFactors provides a complete, recruit-to-retire solution across all talent processes, and comprehensive content such as skills and competency libraries, job descriptions, goal catalogs, as well as legal and coaching content. In addition to content, SAP SuccessFactors talent management solutions are provided with a foundational set of capabilities, including Talent Insights, Talent Search, Basic Jam, Job Profile Builder, and SAP SuccessFactors Presentations. The solution includes modules that expressly target recruiting, onboarding, learning, performance & goals, compensation, and succession & development.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Easy to implement, easy to use, engaging and rewarding for our learners.” >> “Able to train all departments (including remote employees) with relevant, and customizable content.” >> “Easy to upload, with a lot of good native content.”

EMAIL sales@ej4.com

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WHAT USERS SAY >> “We’re leveraging SkillPort to align content to strategic training needs.” >> “Being able to choose new courses keeps our catalog from getting stale and allows us to meet emerging needs as they develop.”

PHONE (866) 757-3177

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Ease of use.” >> “Has made us more effective and helped us to keep our people engaged.” >> “You’re not just getting software; you’re getting all of the experience of SAP in deploying the software in many companies and industries.”

EMAIL successfactors.en@sap.com

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

•

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.

•

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

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bestofelearning!

Honoree Spotlight HR TECHNOLOGY

Award of Excellence: SAP HCM Cloud PRODUCT INFORMATION Empower, engage, and develop your talent – with human capital management (HCM) software from SAP SuccessFactors. The cloud-based human resource management solutions support the needs of multigenerational, global, and contingent workforces. Administrators have access to collaborative tools for onboarding, workforce scheduling, payroll, and more.

The software allows organizations to foster a culture of continuous learning and professional development for better business results. Core human resources and payroll functions deliver flexible and efficient global human resources processes. The talent management feature helps attract, develop and retain talent to achieve business results and prepare for the future. Time and attendance management functions optimize the deployments and utilization of each employee’s working time. Human capital analytics increase the success of workforce strategies with reliable and real time, relevant insight.

WHAT CUSTOMERS SAY >> “We will save close to $1.2 million per year.” >> “Frees up our people to do what they do best.” >> “Allows accessability from all our facilities around the world.”

PHONE (800) 872-1727

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I.T. TRAINING

Award of Excellence: Skillsoft I.T. Skills Library PRODUCT INFORMATION Skillsoft provides a wide array of integrated learning types to continuously develop and maintain IT skills — including short expert-led videos, video-based e-learning courses, live web-based instructor-led training, free live mentoring services, certification test preparation, and access to tens of thousands of full text online books. It offers support for more than 100 professional IT certification exams from leading software, hardware, networking, web service companies and professional organizations. Leading experts and mentors provide an affordable fast track to IT certification and offer test preparation designed to improve pass rates.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Combines courseware, Books 24x7, videos and live learning to provide a well-rounded array of modalities to impart I.T. information.”

PHONE (866) 757-3177

I.T. TRAINING

Winner: ej4 Software Skills Training PRODUCT INFORMATION Ej4’s “plug and play” content fits any organization, providing information that is always ready to use. Short formats and on-demand availability facilitate training, making it available to everyone, anytime, anywhere.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Video format allows you to see the applications being used in ways that learners can relate to.” >> “Easy to use; excellent information; adaptable; current.”

EMAIL sales@ej4.com

Honoree Spotlight SOFT SKILLS

Winner: Bizlibrary Business Skills PRODUCT INFORMATION BizLibrary’s Business Skills Training program include videos and coursework on topics ranging from planning strategic relationships and managing body language.

Other series contain several parts, for example, Measuring Employee Engagement discusses what passes for employee engagement at many organizations, how to measure employee engagement, and how you can improve employee engagement.

Other lessons include successful time management and mastering social media.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Able to customize a professional skills program as well as compliance courses and even office ergonomics.” >> “Soft skills trainings are helpful, not just in the workplace, but in every facet of life.”

EMAIL ande@bizlibrary.com

Award of Excellence: BCI Win-Win Negotiations

Award of Excellence: ej4 Business Skills Library

PRODUCT INFORMATION BCI’s Win-Win Negotiations training helps individuals tap into their own strengths and experiences, hone their skills, and align around a proven framework — so they approach every negotiation with a plan, and with the confidence to achieve their goals.

Lessons help users increase profits through well-planned collaboration and concession strategies, shift from using tactics to planning, while reinforcing key corporate values, focus upon interests and issues and avoid dangerous positions, enhance communications by developing a common negotiation language and build strong relationships with customers, partners and colleagues.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Ej4’s Business Skills library contains the courses needed to effectively run any business. The Business Skills library contains courses covering professional productivity, communication skills, sales, project management, leadership, supervision, safety, presentations skills among others. The library is made for employees with varying levels of experience ranging from from recent hires to experienced managers.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Absolutely vital training delivered in a systematic way.” >> “We realized it’s not always about one person winning; it’s best when everyone can walk away feeling like a winner.”

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Quality micro-learning that easily understandable and digestible in a video format.” >> “Easy to use, excellent information, adaptable, current.”

EMAIL sales@ej4.com

EMAIL support@bakercommunications.com

SOFT SKILLS

Award of Excellence: Vado Management Dev. Learning Track

courses help build the skills needed to manage individual and team performance, engage and retain employees, and contribute to the organization’s success. They offer bite-sized content, video and mobile access.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Vado’s management courses are designed for supervisors, managers and leaders who are responsible for leading, coaching and inspiring employee performance. These

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Their approach to chunked learning and real-world, direct applicability engages the learner to be an active

participant in his/her learning journey.”

>> “Content from experts yielding

expertise transfer, plus collaborative work that exploits each content partner’s transforable value proposition.”

EMAIL info@vadoinc.net

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Honoree Spotlight LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Award of Excellence: Vado Leadership Development Learning Track PRODUCT INFORMATION Research shows that 70 percent of development happens on the job, and Vado provides off-the-shelf e-learning courses that help learners apply learning on the job through step-by-step instructions and exercises. The combination of short videos followed by step-by-step instructions help learners put into practice the learning they just completed, which means organization leaders are confident that the transition from learning to application on the job actually happens, and organization capabilities are increased. Vado’s new Remote Leadership Toolkit is designed to equip managers with the tools and skills required to successfully manage others remotely.

Award of Excellence: Bizlibrary Leadership and Management

Award of Excellence: ej4 Leadership Development

PRODUCT INFORMATION BizLibrary’s leadership and management courses cover everything from discipline and accountability, high-performance coaching, handling disagreements at work and everything in between. They also cover helpful topics such as managing remote employees, succession planning, handling team expectations and making the transition from co-worker to boss.

Users get unlimited access for their first 30 days free.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Ej4’s “plug and play” content fits any organization, providing information that is ready-to-use now. Short formats and on-demand availability facilitate training, making it available to everyone, anytime, anywhere. Leadership Development is part of the company’s Business Skills library and touches on everything from transformational leadership and building an effective leadership team.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Terrific variety in the contemporary, quality videos.”

EMAIL ande@bizlibrary.com

WEBSITE http://vadoinc.net/contact-form/index.php

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Quality micro-learning that easily understandable and digestable in a video format.” >> “Just a tremendous resource to have.”

EMAIL sales@ej4.com

TRANSLATION & LOCALIZATION SERVICES

Winner: TransPerfect Translation & Localization PRODUCT INFORMATION As the world’s largest privately held provider of translation services, TransPerfect uses a rigorously tested network of industry-expert linguists and

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full-time quality managers to ensure that the work it delivers is second to none.

TransPerfect offers multiple levels of service based on client needs, ranging from draft/summary translation up to certified translation, featuring a multi-step translation and review process to ensure the highest level of accuracy and meet the evolving needs of global businesses.

The company can translate from/to more than 170 languages, using more than 5,000 native-speaking linguists.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Benefits include customer service, range of languages provided, time to production, cost/quality and responsiveness.”

WEBSITE www.transperfect.com

TRANSLATION & LOCALIZATION SERVICES The world’s top companies trust TransPerfect to help them excel in the global marketplace.

TransPerfect turns global goals into worldwide achievements. From translation, localization to multicultural communications, we are your best-in-class partner. Thanks to our customers who voted TransPerfect Best Translation & Localization Solution 3 years running.

Got 3 minutes? Learn how GlobalLink can help you streamline multilingual content managment. Scan the QR code to view the video

TransPerfect Global Headquarters 3 Park Avenue, 39th Fl New York, NY 10016 Tel: +1 212.689.5555

Change the face of your

global training When the time comes to extend your learning and development modules around the world, leave the heavy lifting to us.

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Courseware & Portal Translation Software & Graphics Localization Multilingual Audio/Video Recording Live Interpretation for Classroom Training Cultural Consulting Services Online Platform for In-Country Review

For more information, contact: eLearning@transperfect.com

bestofelearning!

Honoree Spotlight SALES TRAINING

Winner: ej4 Selling Skills PRODUCT INFORMATION Selling is part art, part science, and all about the approach. Your team will be able to move prospects down the funnel with ej4’s cutting-edge sales training content. A number of courses are available including Retailer Hot Buttons: Transaction Size, Selling to Different Customer Roles, Building Great Sales Relationships, and Determining Customer Needs.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Our salespeople have more confidence knocking on doors, and have vastly improved sales skills.” >> “It’s taken us three calls less per customer to sell them on our products, and I tie a lot of that to the training.”

EMAIL sales@ej4.com

COMPLIANCE TRAINING

Winner: VuBiz WHMIS PRODUCT INFO Vubiz provides full-service e-learning content, development and delivery software with solutions that are flexible in practice. By having thousands of hours of off-the-shelf content available for purchase as-is or tailored to a specific client situation, it offers a number of compliance courses including preventing and stopping sexual harassment, equal opportunity and affirmative action courses for managers, content about the Americans with Disabilities Act and Alternative Dispute Resolution.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Easy to use, excellent content and price.” >> “Sound content; adult learning principles paid attention to; and clarity.” >> “Excellent customer service from the VuBiz team, quick response time, great at customizing info when needed, and overall great team to work with.”

WEBSITE http://store.vubiz.com/store/ContactUs

Award of Excellence: ej4 Workplace Compliance Library PRODUCT INFORMATION ej4’s Workplace Compliance library keeps users in legal compliance with federal and state regulations while sharing best practices for the workplace.

The Workplace Compliance library contains titles covering diversity, workplace conduct, workplace harassment, fair labor standards, and a number of human resource issues revolving around hiring practices, medical leave, termination, and more.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “[The ej4 team is] real good at figuring out what it is that I’m envisioning.” >> “We’re changing behaviors, we’re setting standards...”

EMAIL sales@ej4.comVubiz

GAMIFICATION

Winner: Gamelearn Pacific Serious Game PRODUCT INFORMATION Pacific offers learning in video game format and is designed for the development of leadership skills. It was launched with the aim of becoming a practical manual on how to run and manage high-performing teams. Pacific turns leadership into a survival adventure to develop management 42

Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

skills such as defining roles, responsibilities and objectives; analyzing the needs of the team, improving processes and increasing motivation; resolving conflicts within the team; improving communication for the delegation of tasks; encouraging teamwork and performance orientation. Developed in 3-D animation and HTML5 language to be adaptable to a variety of devices, Pacific is available in eight languages and requires only an Internet connection.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Funny, didactic and dynamic.” >> “The first training program in video game format for the development of leadership skills.” >> “Challenging, user-friendly, unexpected!”

WEBSITE https://game-learn.com/contact/

Honoree Spotlight SOCIAL LEARNING

Winner: Bizlibrary Community PRODUCT INFORMATION With up to five different generations present in a workplace, people see the world and the way it works differently. This can create conflict about how to complete tasks, reach goals, or run the organization.

The challenge is harnessing conflicting viewpoints and ideas and turning them into cooperative creativity for how to be both productive and innovative. An important first step to bringing together a variety of talents and ideas is recognizing the similarities that connect people.

Finding common interests, beliefs, or skills (whether work-related or not) can create a bridge over a generational division that energizes collaboration, innovation and problem-solving. To find those commonalities, it’s important for coworkers to be willing to think from a perspective different from their own, taking others’ life experiences into account and how that affects their viewpoint. With an RSS feed, community members receive HR and employee training news, tips and best practices delivered straight to their inboxes.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Works two ways: internal for our employees and even smaller teams, but also for L&D professionals who are a part of the community to ask questions and share recommendations.” >> “Easy way to get updates from the vendor and share best practices with other customers of BizLibrary.”

OUTSOURCED LEARNING SERVICES

Award of Excellence: Skillsoft Learning Services PRODUCT INFORMATION Skillsoft begins by developing a personalized e-learning program in conjunction with each client’s strategies, culture and events to leverage best practices — then working to maximize e-learning success. Skillsoft e-learning consultants, customer support and application engineers provide core program support services — a fundamental value-add. These teams deliver the expert e-learning services and advice to help clients establish general strategies for deployment and adoption of powerful learning programs.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “Tremendous catalog.” “Whenever I ask for something, they say ‘we will handle that’...I come back and it’s done.” >> “The instructors are fantastically knowledgeable.”

PHONE (866) 757-3177

MOBILE AUTHORING

Award of Excellence: DominKnow Learning Sys. Flow PRODUCT INFORMATION Flow is content-authoring software that outputs fully responsive and adaptive HTML5-conformant content that automatically adjusts depending on the screen a user views it on. Flow is built it on the same engine that powers DominKnow’s award-winning Claro. It not only offers responsive content that changes and rearranges according to the device one views it on. It also gives authors the ability to choose what content gets delivered, thus adapting to the user’s device for a more meaningful and contextual end-user experience. And it does all of this in a Web-based authoring environment that allows for collaborative development, sharing and re-use of resources, and anywhere, anytime, any platform access.

WHAT USERS SAY >> “A new authoring tool integrated in the Claro LCMS.” >> “Fully responsive with excellent, new thinking functionalities that allow you to produce truly responsive content that does not only make the content bigger/ smaller, but that actually totally adapts the content to the screen size.”

PHONE (613) 800-8733

EMAIL ande@bizlibrary.com

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bestofelearning!

COMPLETE LIST OF HONOREES LMS CLOUD >> Winner: Litmos by CallidusCloud, Litmos LMS >> Awards of Excellence: Blatant Media Absorb, ePath Learning ASAP, ICS Learning Group Inquisiq R4

SOFT SKILLS

SOCIAL LEARNING

>> Winner: Bizlibrary Business Skills >> Awards of Excellence: BCI Win-Win

>> Winner: Bizlibrary Community >> Awards of Excellence: Atlassian

LMS ENTERPRISE >> Winner: SumTotal Learn, a Skillsoft Co. >> Awards of Excellence: SAP SuccessFactors LMS, NetDimensions Learning, LearnDash LMS

COMPLIANCE >> Winner: Vubiz WHMIS >> Awards of Excellence: Ej4 Workplace Complaince Library, Master Technologies, Inc Bloodborne Pathogens

MOBILE AUTHORING >> Winner: Articulate Storyline >> Awards of Excellence: Adobe Captivate, DominKnow Flow

LCMS >> Winner: DominKnow Learning Platform, DominKnow Learning Sys. >> Awards of Excellence: Xyleme LCMS, CD2 Learning LCMS

SALES TRAINING >> Winner: Ej4 Selling Skills >> Awards of Excellence: BCI Customer Outcome Selling, Franklin Covey Helping Clients Succeed, Richardson Selling with Insights

OTHER LEARNING PLATFORMS >> Winner: Bizlibrary Company College >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate Online, iSpring Learn LMS, ej4 Thinkzoom, Skillsoft SkillPort TMS >>Winner: SAP SuccessFactors TMS >>Awards of Excellence: Cornerstone on Demand TMS, NetDimensions Performance, Oracle Taleo Cloud HR TECHNOLOGY >> Winners: Workday Workday & Oracle HCM Cloud >> Award of Excellence: SAP HCM Cloud, Infor Lawson

Negotiations, ej4 Business Skils Library, Vado Mgt Dev Learning Track, Vital Learning Motivatiing Team Members

E-LEARNING DEVELOPMENT TOOL >> Winner: Articulate Storyline >> Awards of Excellence: iSpring Solutions E-learning Suite, Harbinger Knowledge Products Raptivity SIMULATIONS >> Winner: Adobe Captivate >> Awards of Excellence: iSpring Solutions TalkMaster, Simformer.com Business Simulation Platform GAMIFICATION >> Winner: Gamelearn Pacific Serious Game >> Awards of Excellence: Trivie for Business, Allen Interactions Zebra Zapps

CONTENT AGGREGATION >> Winner: Bizlibrary Collection >> Awards of Excellence: Degreed, Inc., OpenSesame

VIDEO CAPTURE >> Winner: TechSmith Camtasia >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate Replay, iSpring Solutions Free Cam

I.T. TRAINING >> Winner: Ej4 Software Skills Library >> Award of Excellence: LinkedIn Learning, Skillsoft IT Skills Library

VIDEO PUBLISHING TOOL >> Winner: Adobe Premiere >> Awards of Excellence: iSpring Solutions River, Sony Vegas Studio, Vimeo

LEADERSHIP TRAINING >> Winner: Vital Learning Leadership Essentials Series >> Awards of Excellence: ej4 Leadership Development, Vado Leadership Development Learning Track, Bizlibrary Leadership and Management

ASSESSMENT >> Winner: iSpring Solutions QuizMaker >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate QuizMaker, Questionmark

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

ANALYTICS >> Winner: Watershed LRS >> Awards of Excellence: Intelliboard Reports, Yet Analytics Yet Core

Confluence, SAP SuccessFactors Jam, Learning@Cisco Cisco Collaborative Knowledge

PRESENTATION TOOL >> Winner: Articulate Presenter >> Awards of Excellence: Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi WEB SEMINAR SOLUTION >> Award of Excellence: Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, GetGo GoToMeeting, INXPO XPOCAST VIRTUAL CLASSROOM >> Winner: Adobe Connect >> Awards of Excellence: Cisco Training Center, On24 Webcast Elite, GetGo, GoToTraining VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT >> Award of Excellence: INXPO Virtual Learning Environment, On24 Virtual Learning Environment, West InterCall Virtual Learning Environment MOBILE APPLICATION >> Winner: Articulate Mobile Player >> Awards of Excellence: iSpring Solutions Play App, Colorado Technical University (CTU) Mobile TRANSLATION & LOCALIZATION SERVIES >> Winner: Transperfect Translation and Localization >> Awards of Excellence: Welocalize Learning Localization Svcs, Golocalise Translation & Localization Services OUTSOURCE LEARNING SERVICES >> Winner: Global Knowledge Corporation Organization Solutions >> Awards of Excellence: Skillsoft Learning Services, IBM Learning Services OPEN-SOURCE SOLUTION >> Winner: Moodle LMS >> Awards of Excellence: Kineo Adapt, Mambo.io Gamification Platform

AWARD WINNING LMS-CLOUD ENTERPRISE LEARNING THAT WORKS For too long, employee training systems have been cumbersome and complex to work with. But the need to onboard employees, introduce programs, educate staff on updated policies, and offer training to external audiences has been accelerating. Organizations today do not have the time or the patience to spend months implementing clunky learning management systems. Litmos by CallidusCloud is changing that.

Litmos is the world’s fastest growing enterprise learning platform, supporting more than 4 million users in over 130 countries and 22 languages. The Litmos cloud-based solution unifies a learning management system (LMS), the extended enterprise, and prepackaged content in an engaging platform to meet any organization’s training needs. Built to scale from 100 users to 1 million users and beyond, Litmos is highly secure, focuses on the end user, and provides time to value three times faster than conventional learning solutions.

With Litmos, organizations can engage learners anytime through native apps for Android and iOS, and they can extend their ecosystem by using prepackaged connectors and REST APIs. Litmos also provides local US support during business hours to help organizations be successful. Headquartered in Silicon Valley and backed by public company CallidusCloud (NASDAQ: CALD), Litmos is still run with the nimbleness of a start-up. It continues to experience double-digit growth and has a customer satisfaction rate of over 95 percent.

organizations to connect Litmos LMS to their ecosystem. And the user interface is consistent across devices, which helps organizations to engage their mobile workforce.

Litmos offers more than 700 packages of content. In addition, Litmos Content uses an in-house course production studio— composed of specialists in instructional design, production, research, technical operations, and program support—to develop more high-quality, mobile-friendly courses that focus on healthcare, HR, OSHA, sales and marketing, leadership, and more. The design aesthetics for these courses ensure better retention through engaged learning, and all content is available through the course marketplace.

Litmos Training Ops is an end-to-end training-as-a-business solution, enabling organizations to grow revenue, build loyalty, and reduce costs by automating the business side of training. A self-service, cloud-based platform, Litmos Training Ops delivers a sophisticated, integrated set of tools that help organizations automate and manage revenue, expense, global taxation, training credits, and other business processes so they can improve the ROI of their external training programs.

A POWERFUL PLATFORM: LITMOS LMS, LITMOS CONTENT, AND LITMOS TRAINING OPS Litmos LMS is a simple yet powerful platform. Most legacy systems are over-engineered solutions with a huge percentage of features utilized by less than 5 percent of users. Litmos LMS is built with learner’s experience in mind that makes it easy to implement, administer, and manage. The platform’s open API architecture and prepackaged connectors make it simple for

ADVANCING CORPORATE LEARNING Litmos’ mission and core value proposition is to advance corporate learning by providing a learning experience that doesn’t necessarily reside in one segmented location, but in the departments where administrators work and in the applications where users spend their time. With Litmos: >> Customers will get the perfect combination of powerful search and ease of use that learners love. >> Customers can go live in 6 weeks—

many in days or even minutes—rather than in 6 to 12 months. >> Customers will achieve time to value in less than 6 months as opposed to 24 months.

CUSTOMERS

WHAT CUSTOMERS SAY: >> “The Litmos platform has enabled USIC to deliver targeted, timely and efficient learning and compliance tasks to our 8,000+ employees across the US and Canada.” Tim Gale, USIC >> “We chose Litmos because it’s extremely user friendly, you don’t need a lot of training and we love the user interface.”

Miriam Calvo-Gil, Kapco Global >> “We liked that Litmos has the ability to easily upload content, build your own content, and create courses.” Rick Galliher, 1-800-Got-Junk? >> “What I like most about Litmos is the easy and fast implementation without needing a team of people or specialized resources.” Cheryl Powers, Coca Cola CONTACT INFO: 4140 Dublin Boulevard #400 Dublin, CA 94568 +1 (925) 251-2220 sales@litmos.com www.litmos.com Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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TipsRetention Tips Forgetting is Easy

But So Is Reinforcement

BY RYAN EUDY

Learners forget 70% of what they learn over a 24-hour period, so organizations need to find ways to reinforce their training in order to realize a positive return on investment.

After budget concerns, “reinforcing training so that it sticks” is the greatest challenge faced by training and learning departments today. Indeed, “Burst and Boost” have become buzzwords in the industry, referring to best practices surrounding short-form content with heavy follow-up. This is a recognition on the part of the industry that, for training to be effective, there have to be ways to make it stick—otherwise, companies

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will never see a positive return on their investment.

The problem is built right into our brains: Research from Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard University found that the learning curve for just about any kind of information drops off exponentially, meaning that people will forget a full 70 percent of what they learn after a mere 24 hours have elapsed. This means that training programs that do not address retention are, at best, only 30 percent effective at behavioral change.

So how can L&D departments do better? There are many good psychological theories about what is conducive to remembering. In a nutshell, these theories agree that information is not so much “stored” and “retrieved” in the brain as it is connected, rehearsed, and reconstructed. Remembering

Winter 2016 Government Elearning!

information, then, is more a matter of engaging in the right sorts of activities to recall, use, and re-engage with information.

On a practical level, there are many ways to do this: FOLLOWING UP WITH THE RIGHT “BOOST” CONTENT. Summaries or recaps of critical pieces of information can prompt memory, helping employees recall what they have learned. It also refocuses their attention on what is important and helps them decipher their notes. Receiving reviews on a weekly or monthly basis can thus solidify what was learned, and can easily be done with a short “CliffsNotes” version of the training in the form of a one-to-two-minute video highlighting the main ideas.

and a team of programmers to “gamify” your training experience. You can enhance training reinforcement simply by adding some elements of competition to motivate your employees. For example, you can add badges and leaderboards to your training program so that employees can have a public display of what they have done, adding to their overall sense of accomplishment. Quiz contests can work well too: After sending out your post-training quizzes, gather the results and offer small incentives for those who complete them with a better-than-passing grade.

PERIODIC QUESTIONS AND QUIZZES. People are more likely to remember information that they must use to answer a question or figure out a problem. That kind of re-engagement is a great way to boost recall, especially when the questions require applying the information to a scenario the learner will see on the job. For example, periodic quizzes can be scheduled for two days, two weeks, and two months afterward, allowing for spaced learning— proven to be the best method for retaining information.

WHAT DO THESE ACTIVITIES ACCOMPLISH? The main aim of these methods is to reinforce what has been learned. During the process of reinforcement, short-term memories of the actual training event are slowly turned into long-term memories that can truly change behavior. This halts the forgetting curve and makes the learned information more easily accessible from memory. As a side benefit, employees feel more confident, engaged, and knowledgeable.

What’s more, training programs that succeed in doing this provide a positive return on investment over the long term. Training programs that do not take reinforcement seriously often falter as the forgetting curve kicks in.

MOTIVATION THROUGH COMPETITION. You don’t need a huge budget

–Ryan Eudy is CEO of ej4.

Ej4 is a 2016 Best of Elearning! winner. Learn more at: ej4.com

TipsLMS

3 Steps to Help Modernize

Your Learning Technology (without needing to replace your LMS)

BY NICK WASHBURN Considering replacing your LMS? You’re not alone! According to Brandon Hall, 66% of companies are currently looking for a new LMS. Their objectives? Better data and integrations, mobile capabilities, and enhanced reporting.

But what if you didn’t necessarily need to replace your LMS to achieve those goals? What if you could find a flexible technology solution that worked with and around your LMS? Welcome to the modern learning ecosystem.

STEP 1:

IMPLEMENT A LEARNING RECORD STORE (LRS) AND EXPERIENCE API (XAPI) What is a Learning Record Store? An LRS is a database that collects and stores millions of learning actions from your training. xAPI is a simple data format that technology applications can use to record experiences. It can produce an activity stream (I, did, this), with timestamps second by second, of what happens during learning events. By using an LRS alongside an existing LMS, companies are now able to get the training data they have been missing for years and more importantly, integrate that data throughout their enterprise ecosystem including their LMS, HRIS, TMS, and PMS. All of your current/legacy training can be xAPI enabled as well as new training.

STEP 2:

USE A NEXT-GENERATION COURSEWARE THAT IS DEVICE AGNOSTIC, INTERACTIVE, AND XAPI ENABLED Interactive Courseware - Most companies are well aware their training needs to be delivered via today’s most used technologies on the mobile smartphone, tablet, and PC. In fact 88% of companies are looking to improve their learner experience and to get better reporting from it. But unfortunately most LMSs are still adapting to the rapid advance of technology and still have not solved the problems around any device learning. The good news is there are now mobile and xAPI enabled courseware products like Riptide Elements that allows you to deliver your courses to any device and in any language while working

with your LMS to be compatible to current processes.

In-line Training Courseware - As more and more companies have business critical software running their companies and being used by their customers, training new employees and users in how to use their software effectively and efficiently has become key to business performance. New tools like Riptide’s Waypoints in-line training with competency based assessments allows you to make onboarding and training a native experience within your own software to test and track exactly how well users learn how to use it.

STEP 3:

LEVERAGE DATA VISUALIZATION AND PERFORMANCE ANALYTICS TO COMMUNICATE KPIS AND ROI

Tapping into the full potential of a Learning Record Store, Riptide’s Performance Analytics software brings L&D leaders the actionable data to show clear and simple ROI to the C-Suite, to Performance Managers, and to their Instructional Designers.

HOW CAN YOU GET STARTED IN TAKING THESE 3 STEPS? The best way to start is to prioritize what you want to do first, establish success criteria, and prove the principle with a pilot implementation. Ready to get started? Visit RiptideLearning.com to request a free learning technology consultation today.

-- Nick Washburn is Director of Learning at Riptide Software. Contact him at nick. washburn@riptidesoftware. com

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Elearning!

Web Seminar Series: Best of 2016

You are Invited!

View the most popular session of 2016 on-demand.

Catch up on latest trends and best practices from these industry thought-leaders.

How to Build a Leadership “TV Network” to Compliment Learning

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

Presented by Emma King, Vice President of Learning and Event Strategy & Emma Meyer, Executive Producer, INXPO View Now: http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56618how-to-build-a-leadership-tv-network-to-compliment-learning

How to Develop Competency Based Learning Programs

Presented by Jonathan Poltrack, ADL Director of Operations, Alexandria, VA Dr. Robby Robson, CEO and Chief Scientist, EduWorks Corporation & Dr. Carla Lane, Vice President, FGDLA View Now: http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56616how-to-develop-competency-based-program

CEO Power Panel: Learning in the Second Digital Decade

Presented by Dean Pichee, CEO, BizLibrary, Chris Bond, President, Bluewater Learning & Joe DiDonato, Editor at large, Elearning! Media Group View Now: http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56628ceo-power-panel-learning-in-the-second-digital-decade

Is Virtual Learning Going Prime Time for Learning

REGISTER FREE TODAY HOSTED BY:

Presented by Richie Djamhur, Head of Culture & Learning, Bing Lee Stores & host of Ritchie’s Room with 17 million viewers.

View Now: http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56500-is-virtualreality-going-prime-time-for-learning

Learning Platforms: Trends & Practices

Presented by Joe DiDonato, Editor at large, & Catherine Upton, Publisher, Elearning! Media Group View Now: http://www.2elearning.com/web-seminars-series/item/56477-learningplatforms-trends-practices

Government

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

LastWord

T

Top 10 Learning Tools

he votes have been counted, the winners selected, and the top 10 learning tools are now known.

These solutions providers have much in common. They provide great user experiences, integrate video, mobile and social components. They focus on engaging the learner like Litmos’ VR module and BizLibrary’s video content which rates 4 or higher among learners or it is discontinued. Gamelearn’s new Pacific game engages customer service training participants. Plus, learning and talent platforms offer excellent user experiences. Ready to create some exceptional e-learning? Articulate Storyline and DominKnow Claro are great places to start.

After tabulating more than 4,000 nominations across hundreds of brands, the solutions that garnered the most votes for excellence determined the top 10 tools for 2016. They are in descending order:

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

BizLibrary Collection for Content Aggregation Platform (see page 34)

Litmos by Callidus Cloud Learning Management System, Cloud-based (see page 32) DominKnow Claro Learning Content Management System (see page 32) SAP SuccessFactors Talent Management System (see page 36)

BizLibrary Company College for Other Learning Platform (see page 34) BizLibrary Business Skills for Soft Skills Training (see page 39) Vital Learning’s Leadership Essentials for Leadership Development (see page 44)

Gamelearn Pacific for Gamification (see page 42) Global Knowledge Learning Services for Outsourced Services (see page 44)

Articulate Storyline for E-learning Development Tool (see page 44)

About the Best of Elearning! Awards: In their 12th year, this is the exclusive users’ choice awards in the learning industry hosted by Elearning! Media Group. Discover new and previous honorees at: http://www.2elearning.com/ awards/best-of-elearning-awards.

Government Elearning! Winter 2016

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Do You Make the

Grade?

2

Results:

6-7 correct makes you Mensa material.

4-5 correct means you are a skimmer — and can learn oh-so much more.

Fewer than 4? This issue is your Sunday reading assignment. Try again!

1

What is the size of the Virtual Reality market today? a. $5 billion b. $10 billion c. $15 billion d. $35 billion e. $50 billion

What percentage of HR leaders say their leadership pipeline is lacking? a. 25% b. 42% c. 65% d. 74% e. 85%

3

5

What percentage of organizations are planning to improve or develop a new enterprise HR system strategy this year? a. 12% b. 35% c. 40% d. 56% e. 89%

What is the average age of Express employees? a. 22 b. 27 c. 31 d. 43 e. 49

6

Which brands earned Best of Elearning! Award every year? a. Skillsoft b. Articulate c. Adobe d. Cisco e. All of the above

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4

How much do learners retain 24-hours after a training course? a. 10% b. 20% c. 30% d. 50% e. 70% Where is top technology talent employed? a. Uber b. Google c. Amazon d. Salesforce e. All of the above

Editorial Index Best of Elearning! Awards 2elearning.com/awards/best-of-elearningawards Future Workplace futureworkplace.com Goldman Sachs http://bit.ly/1Y90UGA Gronstedt Group www.gronstedtgroup.com HTC www.vive.com

National Chamber Foundation www.uschamberfoundation.org

Enterprise Learning! Events 2elearning.com/events

Oxford Economics www.oxfordeconomics.com

Extended Enterprise Learning eBook information.2elearning.com/ extendedenterpriselearning/

Paysa www.paysa.com

Elearning! Web Seminar Series http://www.2elearning.com/events/ web-seminars-series

Salary.com http://bit.ly/2ebbDzT Sierra-Cedar www.sierra-cedar.com

pg 35 pg 33

pg 48

Learning! 100 Awards 2017 pg 30 2elearning.com/awards/learning-100-awards

ADVERTISER INDEX

IBM www.ibm.com

BizLibrary www.bizlibrary.com

pg 16, 52

Intuit https://youtu.be/_3VLx0pXSYs

ej4 www.ej4.com/trial

pg 3, 46

Learning! 100 2elearning.com/awards/learning-100-awards

Elearning! Magazine Subscriptions 2elearning.com/elearning-profile

pg 51

Litmos by Callidus Cloud www.litmos.com

pg 2, 45

Riptide

learning.riptidesoftware.com

pg 15, 47

TransPerfect www.transperfect.com

pg 41

Answers: 1)c; 2) e; 3) b; 4) e; 5) c; 6) c; 7) e

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. POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to: Elearning! PO Box 1794 Maricopa, AZ 85139. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals in the USA. Subscribe at http://www.2elearning.com/ reg/choose. Elearning! magazine is a trademark of B2B Media Company. All rights are reserved.

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Winter 2016 Government Elearning!