E-learning blog: Learning re-imagined

The Perspectives Experience: Not Your Typical Vendor Conference

We are pleased to bring you a guest blog post today from one of our customers, Sarah Cooper, LMS analyst for Waste Management, Inc. Sarah uses SkillSoft’s KnowledgeCenters to help engage learners at Waste Management with a different approach to learning. Today, she is sharing her thoughts on SkillSoft’s Annual Perspectives User Conference.

By Sarah Cooper, LMS Analyst, Waste Management, Inc.

Vendor conferences can have one of two outcomes; good or bad. Perspectives is not good or bad, it is outstanding!

Last year I had the opportunity as a customer of SkillSoft to attend the Perspectives conference. Only knowing about the services that our company had in place, I was unsure what this conference would offer, and how it could benefit our team. Prior to the conference, SkillSoft posted the agenda for the conference along with all the sessions they were going to offer. I was shocked. There were so many other products and solutions that SkillSoft offered, and I had no idea. Along with the sessions pertaining to their products, SkillSoft also lined up well-known, influential keynote speakers. Among last years, keynote speakers were Jeanne Meister and Tim Sanders. Both speakers gave outstanding presentations. Tim Sanders spoke about continuous learning, emotional intelligence and discussed his book Today We Are Rich: Harnessing The Power of Total Confidence. Jeanne Meister’s presentation centered on the 2020 workplace and how all generations will be together in the workspace. She also spoke about her book The 2020 Workplace. Both speakers were engaging, insightful, and I personally gained insight on topics that I had never sat and thought about, and came home with more books to read!

Perspectives 2012 Innovation in Learning Awards Are Now Open!

Here is another Perspectives 2012 update from Melynda Hilliard, SkillSoft’s Events Marketing Manager. She will be sharing updates throughout the next few months. Stay tuned for more exciting details!

By Melynda Hilliard

Do your learning programs empower others at your organization and make an impact?

It’s that time of year again… nominations for SkillSoft’s annual Innovation in Learning Awards are now open! SkillSoft recognizes clients each year for their outstanding learning programs and innovative ideas. We honor companies that help enable effective learning environments by leveraging SkillSoft products and services.

Our award categories are designed to recognize organizations of all sizes and industries, covering several subject areas of learning. By offering awards in ten categories, we hope to single out an organization for a particularly inspirational program in a specific area, such as IT training.

Training is Not Just for the Big Guys

In today’s economic climate, it is more important than ever for businesses to have a skilled workforce to help with the strategic growth of the enterprise. For Small to Mid-Sized Businesses (SMBs), developing and retaining a skilled workforce is vital to their success. Unfortunately, many SMBs are so focused on staying afloat that they don’t realize that training their employees can go a long way in strengthening their overall business.

In a recent article on SmallBusinessTrends.com titled 11 Tips for Building and Managing a Team, a question was posed to the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs:

“What one employee management tip would you give entrepreneurs who are building their team?”

The number one response:  “Train Them.”

Don’t Go it Alone… SkillSoft Provides Content Alignment Tools and Resources

By Molly Scholes

An important challenge many organizations face is how to create a meaningful learning strategy that is aligned to strategic business initiatives and impacts performance.  Business impact should be the most important goal for any type of learning intervention offered to employees.  In order to impact the business, learning must be targeted, relevant and often – quick!  SkillSoft can help your organization design this type of learning program with various tools and services.

Content Mapping

As a SkillSoft customer, your organization likely has access to thousands of learning assets including courses, books, videos, job aids, simulations, leadership tracks, and more!

It’s an overwhelming task to think about reviewing all of these resources to find the specific content that is most applicable for your program objective.  Let SkillSoft identify the most applicable resources for your organization based on a competency or business initiative.  SkillSoft will map the most relevant learning resources to up to 60 business skills competencies or initiatives once annually at no charge.

KPMG Discusses the Benefits of Attending Perspectives

KPMG's Rachelle Hansen enjoys the Perspectives user conference because the focus is on learning--not product sales. Hansen says she learned more about learning at Perspectives 2010 than throughout the rest of the year! Registration is now open. Visit http://perspectives.skillsoft.com/2012/?srcid=blog for more details.