Magazine Articles

Most of us have either sat around a campfire ourselves and sang the words or we’ve joined along with our own or other people’s children in a sing-along of “If You’re Happy and You Know It…” followed by the random actions chosen by each singer depicting what makes him or her happy.

It seems everyone in training is getting agile these days. I’ve found at least four distinct uses of the word, “agile”—each of which is useful to instructional designers and learning leaders (and some of which I’ll discuss during my Training 2014 session, “How to Get Started with Agile Project Management Methods for E-Leaming,” at 8:15 a.m. February 4)

Farmers Insurance and Verizon are the newest inductees into the Training Top 10 Hall of Fame, joining the ranks of the 12 companies named to the hall since its inception in 2008 (Wyeth Pharmaceuticals subsequently was acquired by Pfizer Inc. in 2000).

How do you prepare for your training sessions? How do you prepare the subject matter experts (SMEs) to present in your classes? Often, we are eager to give people course content and assume the presentation process will take care of itself. That’s a mistake we can’t afford to make—especially when a training program is using multiple presenters.

Jiffy Lube International Inc., takes the No. 1 spot.

Recently, a Learning professional colleague asked us, "Why is workplace learning so complicated? Isn’t it simply about improving people's performance?"

Do you remember those divisions at universities and colleges called “lifelong learning centers”? Their name was an attempt to remind all of us who had graduated and gone on to work that learning should never stop.

If content is king, then caring needs to be queen in training. And caring, connection, and context cannot always be conveyed through an online or distance medium.

The end of the year is a time to take stock of where we have been professionally and personally over the last 12 months. Based on this analysis, we then look to make adjustments and craft resolutions to hold ourselves to those adjustments in order to achieve our goals in the following year.

More than 58 percent of mobile devices are now smart phone or tablet based, and this year alone there will be 70 billion-plus apps installed on these devices. If you haven't already started, over the next 12 months, you need to develop a mobile strategy and define how you will integrate mobile into your new courses and apps or how to supplement your training with new content, apps, and tools.