learning re-imagined

What the Most Popular e-Learning Courseware Tells Training Leaders

By Tim Hildreth

Do you know what your audience’s e-learning priorities are for the year ahead?

Every year as SkillSoft looks back at the most popular corporate courseware across our many customers, I always find it fun to pick out the trends for the year ahead. 2009’s top 100 business skills courses included stand-by topics like Communication and Professional Development, but also showed strong use in the areas of Leadership and Management.

It is encouraging to me in these times to see companies and employees working on improving skills in these key areas. In terms of Professional Development, we can all benefit from brushing up our skills from time to time; especially when the going is rough.  In today’s fast-paced competitive world, strong leaders with solid skills are a must for any company to survive and thrive.

As learning professionals, we have an ideal opportunity to make our employees – and our companies – stronger by providing the right mix of e-learning resources to target these and other training needs within the organization. Broad-based access to e-learning courseware for communication, professional development, office skills, and more can help every employee to achieve their personal best while targeted leadership skills training let you provide your current leaders and high-potential future leaders with tools to improve their talent.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget about yourself. What do you want to learn today?  I’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

Are you a cross-pollinating sequential learner?

“Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, recognized the role of conceptual output as early as 1997 in a speech at the University of Connecticut when he said “The growth of the conceptual component of output has brought with it accelerating demands for workers who are equipped not simply with technical know-how, but with the ability to create, analyze, and transform information and to interact effectively with others.” By 2004, he had developed his views on the topic, referring to reductions in manufacturing in the United States, outsourcing to India and China, excess of supply and the global marketplace, all leading to the increasing conceptualization of economic output.”

Taking a page straight from Dan Pink and Gary Hamel, knowledge and even expertise are common, expected, cheap (sometimes free) to source, and no longer represent lasting competitive advantage. We have moved from the knowledge age to the conceptual age where creative, symphonic thinking - the ability to harness sometimes seemingly disparate pieces of information and ideas and mash them into wholly new iterations that can be applied effectively to solutions and results - are in fact the individual and organization’s competitive advantage.

Whatever field you work in, your expertise is expected, but your initiative and creativity to bring unique and signature solutions to solve unexpected problems is your brand, and increasingly also your company’s brand and identity. If this is true (and you better believe it), the future of learning is to provide more conceptual and powerful learning opportunities in which the expected learning outcomes are by nature, unexpected. Sometimes called chaotic or unstable by design, this construct suggests building learning opportunities which offer insight, ideas and parables intended for inference and application by the learner.

This calls for balancing the spoon-fed, outcome-anticipated, specific-competence results-oriented learning environments with more conceptual learning environments which treat learners as ready and able to distill ideas presented into their own signature integrated solutions applicable for their line of work and customers, whether they be internal or external.

Tom Kelley, CEO of IDEO, a premier product and services innovation company, has been a long advocate of this approach. In his book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, he describes a particular persona called the “Cross-Pollinator.” Cross-Pollinators are those types who are inquisitive beyond their particular domain expertise and explore ideas from industries outside their immediate purview, come to understand the technology, device or methods employed elsewhere and figure out how to incorporate these ideas into their own work.

How might this look like in learning environments?  To compete with the wild web, these learning environments will provide media and socially rich environments which aid learners to deduct applications from disparate sources.  The conceptual age learning environment will offer a deep portfolio of ideas and solutions garnered from varieties of domains. For example, a sales learning environment will not only offer presentation tips and niche industry knowledge but perhaps also ways in which organizations well outside their own have leveraged technology to gain their customer attention. For example, Sugarloaf Ski resort has been admired for their ability to use social media to update the faithful.

Foremost, emerging learning environments will understand that people have their own intrinsic motivators, often contrary to what their company or manager thinks is their primary motivator (drop the carrots and sticks paradigm).  When really what motivates the learner is passion, purpose and curiosity.  Learning opportunities will only resonate when they intersect with someone’s current passion, fulfills their sense of purpose and giving, and peaks their curiosity.

Learning opportunities are plentiful and the expectations are rising, and to be compelling whatever you are offering must be beautiful, unique and meaningful.

By: Shawn Hunter

What Matters Now

I suspect (hope) by the time you read this, you have already checked out What Matters Now - assembled by the editorial talents of Seth Godin, a compendium of thought-leadership from all reaches weighing in on, well... What Matters Now.

Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin, urges that there is no such thing as boring information - the sublime can be found everywhere - but only boring presentations and boring attempts at transferring knowledge.

On ignoring the skeptics, Aimee Johnson, VP of Strategy for Starbucks, echoes Paul Hawken who recently said, " Don't be put off by off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are finished."

Even Tom Peters! makes a guest appearance offering the 19 Es! of Excellence! and although his emphatic punctuation is an easy target to poke at, he is right after all.  If not excellence, then what?  Reminds me of a great quote from an interview we did with Gareth Jones, "When it's your turn to clean the grill, do it with excellence."  Because on the road to significance, everyone has a turn to dig ditches.

Dan Pink also drops by with notes on his emerging ideas about what drives us to give that discretionary 20% effort to our work, and it's not about better 'management.'  It's about encouraging autonomy around what we do, with what tools and ideas, and with whom we collaborate.  And it's certainly not driven by an edict from Management.

But dear friends, it's Elizabeth Gilbert (page 11) yet again who had me laughing out loud.  Gilbert entreats us all to give ourselves to ease.  To pause, exhale, and just for one lonely moment in this always-on go-go twitterific maelstrom, to check out and gaze at a blue sky.  Or admire your children play, or even take a nap.

If you irresistibly respond to your email alerts - those insistent lower right apparitions right? - it might be time to exhale.  'Tis the season after all for reflection, sharing, connecting, and rejoicing.  The world will still need saving tomorrow and if you take an interval for renewal, you might be all the wiser for it.  And if you haven't seen her TED Talk yet on what it means to be called a genius, you must check it out.

By: Shawn Hunter

New Year’s Resolutions: Reading more… by reading less

According to at least one study 40-45 percent of American adults make resolutions, mostly related to health, wellness, and personal finance.  One of my new year’s resolutions for 2010 is to get more reading done – both fiction and non-fiction, work and leisure. (in case you’re wondering,  no, checking status updates from friends on Facebook doesn’t count as reading!)  And, if you’re anything like me, the pile of stuff to read is constantly growing and never seems to get smaller. 

At Books24x7, we have a great way to help with this resolution.  Our ExecSummaries collection  provides summaries of the most popular business books from today's foremost business authors.  We deliver three or four each month – a number that even the busiest person can consume.   Each summary expertly encapsulates the salient points and ideas of full-length books into digestible, 8 page summaries.  Each contains the core essence of the author's work, conveying content, style and spirit.  Designed for ease of use with short passages, bulleted lists and other useful elements, ExecSummaries titles are thorough, yet concise.  In addition, MP3 audio files are available for each title, offering the option to listen rather than read which are great for use in the car, or at the gym (reminds me of another resolution….).

Think of ExecSummaries as your “personal shopper” for business books – just the key books that people are talking about and that you need to read, delivered in short form, in a manageable quantity each month.  If only it was this easy to keep up with my other resolutions!

By: Pam Boiros

The Purpose Driven Leader – Rick Warren on Peter Drucker

“Every social and global problem is a business opportunity in disguise.” - Peter Drucker

A couple of weeks ago we attended the Peter Drucker Centennial conference in Vienna, Austria and had the incredible opportunity to interview and film world thinkers and leaders who were there celebrating and discussing Peter Drucker’s legacy and the future of management and business in the world.  Peter Drucker called himself a ’social ecologist’ - which is to say he focused on understanding and improving human interaction, our constructs in business, government and communities, and that impact on our lives and environment. Another favored definition is: ‘the study and practice of personal, social and environmental sustainability and change based on the critical application and integration of ecological, humanistic, community and spiritual values’

The key words there are ‘integration’ and ‘application.’ Rick Warren, author of A Purpose Driven Life, attended and gave the opening address at the conference and spoke of the three primary characteristics that defined Drucker’s life and work: Integrity, Humility, and Generosity.

These three traits are the antidotes to the three traps of today’s leaders.  The first trap is to segment and partition our lives into work life, home life, sporting life, community-service life, etc., and instead our greatest strength comes from integrating all the disparate interactions, ideas and energies into a unified and integrated whole.  The etymology of integrity is from the Latin integer, meaning wholeness, or the unit of one.  Rick pointed out that the second trap is to focus and try to remedy what we think are our faults.  Often humility is misunderstood to mean acceptance of weakness or inadequacy, when instead humility is freedom from arrogance and pride.  And that intellectual freedom gives way to the ability to recognize the marvelous and to embrace wonder and curiosity.  And then, importantly, to be inquisitive and open to learning.  Rick had a powerful story about how each time he went to visit Peter Drucker and learn from him, he wound up trying to answer and wrestle with Drucker’s own persistent questions.

And finally Rick echoed Drucker’s advice that management and leadership was a liberal art yet a practical calling, and we all need to focus on what we can give and contribute in generosity.  The third trap is to hoard.  It’s no accident that to be miserly with time, energy, resources, talent, etc., is to be miserable.  From Peter Drucker to Rick Warren to you, pause to keep Integrity, Humility, and Generosity ever present.

You can see Rick Warren’s address here.  Doris Drucker’s address starts at about minute 35 and Rick Warren’s presentation at about minute 52.  Enjoy!

By: Shawn Hunter

Thanksgiving - The Perfect Mix

Thanksgiving is before us. I cannot believe it. It is time to mix family, food, wine, laughter, and likely a few age old family stories that can’t seem to go untold. It should be a really fun time; seeing family that you haven’t seen in a while; catching up with friends and loved ones. And yet, the holidays often become very stressful; overwhelming… so many moving parts.

Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like I’m writing about something other than Thanksgiving? We spend a lot of time at SkillSoft discussing our assets; and we have many of them! It’s like a huge Thanksgiving meal; so much food, so little time. So, what is someone supposed to do when it gets confusing?

SkillSoft KnowledgeCenters aggregate relevant data around a subject, so learners can gain access to courses, Books24x7, Business Impact and Challenge Series titles, mentoring, Learning Sparks, Learning Roadmaps, and other assets. And, it’s all about one subject – leadership, management, project management, Oracle, Six Sigma, Java, and many, many others. So, in essence, KnowledgeCenters provide only the assets you need around a particular subject.

Now, wouldn’t that be nice for Thanksgiving? My Thanksgiving KnowledgeCenter would include all the great food, some family (but not all!), good friends, wine, a beautiful sunny day, and perhaps a time limit, so it’s not awkward when it’s time to say goodnight.  I’d leave out the family drama, the arguments that tend to resurface around the holidays, and the guilt associated with not getting to see everyone who I’d like to see. 

I’ve just described my ideal Thanksgiving in a package. That’s what a KnowledgeCenter is. It’s a universe of learning around one topic, where every asset is handpicked just for you!

Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble!

By: Rachel Levine

Be The Market Surprise

Much of the conversations we get engaged in with customers often involve discussion of “How did other companies do it?” - discussions around benchmarking processes.  Yet most of the emerging ideas in leadership and talent development we hear from eminent thinkers, researchers and writers warn of benchmarking to mediocrity.  Stuart Hart, author of Capitalism at the Crossroads, has a dynamite quote buried in the middle of his book:

“A smart strategist gravitates toward ill-defined and ambiguous opportunities.  That is because once everything has been defined and reduced to standard operating procedure, there is no money left to be made.” - Stuart Hart

The point he is making, and the same point Jeffrey Pfeffer, Jonas Ridderstrale, Lynda Gratton and others have made in our interviews, is the same - to be the market surprise, instead of be surprised, you need to create unique and original ways of conducting your business.  Lynda Gratton calls this “signature processes.”  Red Hat is a great example.  We were chatting with a senior executive at Red Hat and I explained part of a presentation we could provide which would showcase companies with leading implementation practices and he stopped me and said, “Look I don’t mean to interrupt but I can’t bring that story in here.  At Red Hat we do it the Red Hat Way.”  He went on to say of course they don’t ignore the market landscape or operate in some creative oasis, but that once they make a bet on a product or service, they execute their way.  By doing it the Red Hat Way, they also build great culture and engagement because everyone feels they are part of true creation.

A lifetime ago around 2001, while leading a small start-up we got together our customer research and stories and dreamed up an online system which could aid the learner and leader to use, apply, track, and campaign on our video learning assets.  Then we built the system and when we took it on the road test, people said, “Oh you’ve built an LMS.”  A what?  “You’ve created a a Learning Management System, although it’s got some stuff we haven’t seen before.”  We had indeed built an LMS before we had ever heard of one.  Instead of benchmarking LMS vendors (whom we didn’t know existed), and listening to our customers instead, we created something unique and did it with passion and energy because we believed in our originality and our ability to create a killer app.  The tip coming from emerging leadership is this: pay attention to the market yes, but be bold and original in what - and importantly how - you execute.

By: Shawn Hunter

 

Nice to meet you, can't wait to learn from you!

 “If you have lunch with the same people you’ve been having lunch with for five years, you’ll probably have the same conversations you’ve been having for five years.  Have lunch with someone new!  You both might learn something!”  - Tom Peters

Some of the most fascinating and intellectually fun people I know are constantly meeting and interacting with new people.  We once spent an hour with Patrick Dixon as he stood in front of a camera and provided stacks of incredible stories and insights one after another on highly divergent topics and never once repeated himself.  I asked him later where in the world with all of his touring and lecturing did he have time to do research?  He explained his lecturing and traveling was his research.  He gets invited to all varieties of industry meetings and conferences, and as a result shares meals and conversations with players at all levels in banking, in trade, in technology, in politics, in climate change, and much more.  And he doesn’t claim to be an expert in any of these disciplines but approaches each event and conversation with an open and inquiring mind.

He has a marvelous story in which he was attending a financial trade conference and having dinner with some top executives.  Around the table, each was explaining their role in the banking industry and after one gentleman provided a lengthy and complicated explanation of his work in derivatives trading, Patrick asked, “I don’t mean to impolite, but do you understand what you do?”  The gentleman paused and said, “It’s true, what I do has become so complicated even I don’t always understand it.  Sometimes if I take a shower and have a brisk walk and clear my mind, if my boss were to call me at that moment I could clearly explain our derivatives product.”

Patrick used that interaction and story to share in later presentations on the value of trust and compliance.  The tip here is: get out of your comfort zone, have new conversations and don’t be afraid to ask a provocative question or two.  Good luck!

By: Shawn Hunter

So many emails, so little time: Read the ones that matter

We all get so much email these days; we have a work email address, a home email address, and other varied and sundry accounts to manage such as FaceBook and Twitter.  Although spam filters help with some of the true junk mail, I know that I still get a lot of things I barely read. 

Once in a while, a great summary update comes along and I just LOVE it when it shows up in my inbox.  If you do not subscribe to the alert email in Books24X7 titled “Books24x7 New Title Notification” it is the one email I absolutely love to get.  It feels like a virtual trip to the neighborhood book store.  The email originates as a Books24x7 subscriber, checking the boxes for topics that are important to the individual.  I personally love only getting titles that matter to me.  It shows little icons of the newly released titles that are on Books24X7.  Running through it takes all of 45 seconds to see what is new in my area of interest.  It helps me stay current on things happening in areas that matter to me.

One day recently, I was scrolling through the titles I saw the photo of a colleague of mine who recently recorded a “Quick Talk” for the Leadership Development Channel series.  Pamela Meyer is an author and business owner who also teaches at DePaul University, which is where I met her.  It gave me a great reason to connect with her and catch up.  It was also great to see what she had to say.  I also find books I want to dive more deeply into for my personal and professional needs, all in a short time frame.  If you do not get this email weekly, be sure you go to your Books24x7 profile (Click the “Settings” tab then click “Email Options”) and set one up.  It is a great “coffee break”!

By: Lori Neblung

What a Birdy Told Me

I have already acknowledged an addiction to Twitter. And, I am happy to write that I have found yet another reason to love the site. Twitter allows me access to events that I cannot attend.

The # sign is a powerful thing in Twitter-ville. It creates a dynamic page with whatever word(s) follow it, allowing people to virtually gather and weigh in on a topic. #sscafe09 gave the world access to SkillSoft’s Cafe held in Orlando in September. By following that event on Twitter (via searching for that ‘phrase,’) I was able to keep up with the news – SkillSoft is poised to launch the SkillSoft Leadership Advantage and showed a sneak peak of upcoming inGenius – and get a feel for what people were discussing: the power of Web 2.0, the value of social networking in a learning environment and the power that collaboration can have on learning.

I was also able to keep up with the CLO Symposium. Imagine that. I’m sitting at my desk in Nashua, NH, and simply typing #CLOsymposium allowed me to be a ‘bird’ on the wall (sorry, I had to) at the event in Colorado.

The best use of this tool is when multiple people at an event tweet about it together – all using the powerful # sign to allow other people to view their collective wisdom about an event or a topic within the event. It might take a while for people to catch on to this – but it’s a great way to bring an event home to your co-workers in real time. Let’s all meet virtually at the next event and give each other a chance to read what a little birdy said.

By: Rachel Levine