Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

2013 Global Skillsoft Perspectives Recap

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by a Skillsoft Regional Account Executive, Sabrina Smith. Sabrina traditionally recaps Skillsoft Perspectives within her team—this year we’re sharing her point of view on the blog.

By Sabrina Smith, Regional Account Executive, Skillsoft

Greetings to those of you that attended Skillsoft Perspectives— and to those of you that did not!

As I sat on the plane ride home, reflecting on our week together, I jotted down a few highlights to share.  It was interesting to me that many of the sessions shared the same key themes:

• This is the era of learner engagement.
• The business isn’t going to care about learning until learning cares about the business.
• Some measurement is better than no measurement.
• Don’t be afraid of failure; it’s how we learn.

My recap to you is a little tradition I like to call the Post-Perspectives Dénouement, sort of a “Perspectives-in-120-seconds.”  My hope is to continue the conversation we started this week and that you’ll share with me your highlights as well….and for those of you unable to attend, this is my way of bringing Perspectives back home to you.   

Measurement panel discussion

I loved this panel discussion!  It was lively, rich with content, and had the “movie stars” of measurement thought leadership.  The time for viewing L&D as a cost or an activity has passed. We need to view L&D as a business driver and not wait to be asked for results.  Data is just numbers— it’s the metrics that matter.  So if you’re not delivering the “So what?” to your executives, what do you need to do differently?  Kieran’s rally cry to us was “this is no time to think,” but to act and act now, as some measurement is better than no measurement.  Try and “get over being perfect,” as it’s not going to happen, and, after all, you learn from failure.  Laurie Bassi shared with us “Let not the perfect become the enemy of the good.”  We were urged by the panelists to stop using measurement as a defensive crouch but rather as a tool for continuous improvement, and to deliver this news with confidence.

Seth Godin

Seth’s keynote, broadcast live via the Skillsoft® Leadership Development Channel™ and Skillsoft® Leadership Advantage™ (and now available in its recorded format) was a
huge highlight for me.  He shared his thoughts with us on the arrival of the “connection economy,” based on coordination, trust, permission and exchange of ideas.  That it’s the experience we pay for now.  And again a repeated theme of not being afraid of failure. We need to have a willingness to fall and skin our knees.  Seth shared that really all innovation is failing and failing and failing until something works.  Also, what resonated with me was Seth’s assertion that often urgent gets in the way of what’s important.

Professor Peter Cappelli

Professor Cappelli shared his thoughts on how to plan for talent needs and how to think about the fundamental choice between "making" talent from within, "buying" talent from the outside market, or "borrowing" it from staffing firms and other vendors. He also shared the more thoughtful approaches some organizations have adopted to develop people from within by nurturing a culture of continuous development and embedding learning opportunities in-line with work activities.  Clear from his keynote, the real opportunity for talent management is all from within the walls of your organization.

Harry Potter

And of course, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal did not disappoint!  Roller coaster rides galore, no lines, and a great time to relax and have some fun!

In closing, I hope you were also able to take advantage of the tremendous networking opportunities! I left Orlando with a slightly larger circle of connections and business cards.

So, now what?  Seth Godin talked about the crippling effect of inaction and urged us to decide before you go to bed at night which fork in the road you are going to take.  To “dare to fly close to the sun.”  Human capital is a top concern of your CEO today, and learning is at the heart of talent management transformation.  How will you seize this opportunity and embrace your business impact responsibility?  How will “learning transformed” look in your organization?

What will you start doing today? Stop doing today?

Moving the Needle at TrainingIndustry.com’s Partnering for Performance Conference

By Pam Boiros, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Skillsoft

This week, I’m presenting at the TrainingIndustry.com’s Partnering for Performance event in Raleigh, N.C. The sixth annual Partnering for Performance Conference is an event that helps learning leaders obtain the information, insight and tools needed to leverage partnerships for driving performance improvement.

I look forward to presenting the results of a recent joint research project partnership between Skillsoft and the learning industry metrics leader KnowledgeAdvisors.  I am co-presenting along with John Mattox, Director of Research for KnowledgeAdvisors.  Built on the results from Skillsoft’s 2011 Moving the Needle: How Skillsoft Learning Impacts Performance of Individuals and Organizations report, this new study compared the 2011 findings to two new benchmarks: classroom training and in-house developed elearning.  A previous blog post recapped the key themes of the study. 

If you’ll be at the Partnering for Performance event, please attend my session Wednesday, May 1 at 1:15 p.m.   If you’re not able to attend, follow the discussion about the event on Twitter via the official tweets from @TrainingIndustr. 

Interested in this study?  We’ve published a whitepaper containing the results, Challenge the Status Quo with a Smarter Approach to the Global Talent Crisis. Download your complimentary copy today.  

Attend tomorrow’s Conversations in Leadership webinar featuring Liz Wiseman

Conversations in Leadership is a Skillsoft webinar series featuring business experts and best-selling authors from the Skillsoft®  Leadership Development Channel™ and  50 Lessons collection. The November webinar will feature Liz Wiseman discussing her book Multipliers.

Hear from today’s leaders–get valuable insight for your business
Shawn Hunter, Executive Producer of  the Skillsoft Leadership Development Channel™, hosts Q&A sessions with innovative thought-leaders and best-selling authors to discuss the latest insights from the world of business. We’re excited to offer this content free of charge to the general public – you don’t have to subscribe to the Leadership Development Channel or 50 Lessons to access this information! You’ll hear directly from top business leaders and authors – a great way to improve managerial and leadership skills.

Attend a complimentary webinar on November 6
Please join us tomorrow, November 6 at 1 p.m. EST for a conversation with Liz Wiseman focused on topics covered in her book, Multipliers.

By extracting people’s full capability, Multipliers get twice the performance from their team—they use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. Learn the five practices that can help you become a Multiplier and inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations.

Register today!

Throw Back Thursday: performance reviews

We receive so much valuable content from our customers, partners and internal subject-matter experts. On Thursdays, we thought it would be fun to do a “throw back” and bring back an older post that was valuable to our audience. Today’s throw back is on mobile resources that support performance reviews.

Mobile Learning Support for Performance Reviews

By Ann Gebreselassie, Learning Consultant, Skillsoft

As the end of the year approaches, you may be deep in the performance review process. Skillsoft offers many tools and resources to assist your organization during the performance management cycle, as several of my colleagues have recently written about on this blog. Skillsoft also offers mobile learning solutions to help support managers as they prepare to conduct performance reviews.

As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, has your life-long-learning strategy kept pace?  Certainly there is still value in face-to-face learning interactions.  Both formal, as in a classroom setting, or informal as in mentoring, traditional methods of learning are not going to disappear.  With the globalization of business, and the advanced technologies that support it, the need for quick and agile learning opportunities has risen as a priority.  In particular, the more senior your role within an organization, the more necessary it becomes for your learning and development to gel with hectic schedules.

Here are some examples of ways that Skillsoft supports continuous learning on-the-go for leaders at every level of an organization, including solutions to help managers prepare for performance reviews:

• Skillsoft® Books24x7® ExecSummaries™: These 8-page summaries provide a synopsis of some of the top business books.  Written by the authors themselves, ExecSummaries are perfect for a quick read on a tablet.  Some of my personal favorites include: The Truth About Leadership, Multipliers, and Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary.

Establishing program metrics & aligning communications

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by Tera Gillen, Manager of Inside Sales, Skillsoft.

By Tera Gillen

Successful programs come in all shapes and sizes but no matter what the contract value, audience size or product(s) sold, all programs have one thing in common — they’re evaluated by the company’s stake holders to determine its success.

Success can be measured by metrics such as total course completions, number of training hours fulfilled, knowledge transferred to job role or learner feedback.

One of the challenges in implementing a training and development initiative for the first time, is to determine what metrics to measure and why.

Probing questions can help to ignite discussions around what is important to the organization. This may require the client to have some internal conversations or bring other people on board the project. Once the organization identifies desired outcomes, Skillsoft can create a framework that allows us to quantify the results. 

New Skillsoft IT and Desktop Video Collections

Skillsoft today introduced two new collections of on-demand IT and desktop performance support videos. The Skillsoft IT and Desktop Videos are captivating, 3-5 minutes of targeted learning experiences, covering a variety of desktop and IT topics. The videos, which complement other Skillsoft content and are available on Skillport® Skillsoft’s Learning Management System, highlight specific tasks and features, and cover nearly 1,000 topics. In order to support busy professionals, Skillsoft has made the videos so that they are available on mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones.

The Skillsoft IT and Desktop Videos are the latest additions to Skillsoft’s dynamic portfolio of video based learning assets. Skillsoft has been incorporating video into its learning solutions since 2006, initially with the introduction of its media-rich Business Impact and Challenge series products, and most recently with the addition of video in hundreds of its Business Skills courses. The Skillsoft Leadership Development Channel™ and 50 Lessons offers over 2000 videos, featuring world renowned business and global thought leaders.

Give your managers tools to manage performance better

For many companies, it’s “that” time of year again… time for managers to conduct annual performance reviews. While employees may dread getting their reviews, managers often feel just as bad—if not worse—about giving them.

During this performance review cycle, help your managers get off on the right foot:

• Help them understand why performance management is important. When managers understand its importance, they’re more likely to treat reviews as a priority
• Help them plan for actual appraisals. When managers know specific steps to prepare for an effective review, it can help reduce their anxiety
• Teach them specific skills for analyzing and addressing performance problems. Teaching managers skills for difficult conversations can help reduce stress and avoidance

Expanding leadership and learning around the clock

Skillsoft customer the Odawa Casino Resort needed to ensure that learning opportunities were available to all employees, not simply those who worked first shift. Odawa also wanted to support performance management through relevant learning options. To fulfill that need, Odawa Casino chose a Skillsoft Select package containing a blend of courses on leadership development, performance management, communication skills, customer service and more. By utilizing the Skillport® LMS, Odawa employees could access learning regardless whether it was day or night. 

In the program’s first year, Odawa was able to develop consistency in leadership and improve performance across all areas of the organization.

Upcoming Webinar: Learning Through Innovation

According to Wikipedia, “innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different (Lat. innovare: "to change") rather than doing the same thing better.”[1]

The need for innovation consistently ranks as one of the most critical issues facing organizations today. Research has shown that high-performance organizations place greater emphasis on innovation than other companies.

Skillsoft is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, June 26 at 12-1 p.m. EDT to address this concept.  Join Kevin Oakes, CEO, i4cp and John Ambrose, senior vice president of strategy, SkillSoft, to gain insights and examples on how to create learning programs that increase business results – and sustain a culture of innovation and agility.

SuccessConnect 2012 Recap

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by Gary Hartman, a Skillsoft partner alliances manager responsible for partnership programs with LMS, Talent Management and Portal providers.

By Gary Hartman

Skillsoft enjoyed exhibiting at last week’s SuccessFactors’ North American User Group meeting, SuccessConnect 2012 in San Francisco, CA.  Many current customers stopped by the booth to say hello, discuss their current programs and talk about the various learning assets that Skillsoft offers. About one hundred Skillsoft customers use SuccessFactors Learning (formerly the Plateau LMS) − the fact that Skillsoft learning assets load, launch and track in this LMS is important to them.

Leadership training was definitely a hot topic and there was a lot of interest in Skillsoft Leadership Advantage.  The variety of learning modalities and the broad and deep coverage of leadership topics available in the Skillsoft Leadership Advantage series was very well received.