Online Articles

By Brandon Williams, Consultant, The Educe Group If you build it, will they really come? Drive the adoption of enterprise-wide social learning technology by creating thriving online communities of practice. What Is a Community of Practice?

By Joe Cortez, Interactive Media Specialist, Signature Worldwide Technology has driven us into some new, unforeseen territory in the last few years. Before, when you had a problem with a company (or its level of perceived service), you would have to call an 800 number and navigate through a touch-tone menu of options just to speak to someone who hopefully could resolve your problem. Today, instead of dealing with the company directly, you can express your dissatisfaction through a public medium such as Facebook or Twitter.

As balanced scorecards have become increasingly common tools used to manage entire businesses, many training and development professionals have tried to adapt them for use in our profession. For example, ASTD developed its Workplace Learning and Performance Scorecard in 2006, and Ajay Pangarkar and Teresa Kirkwood published their Trainer’s Balanced Scorecard in 2009.

By Bill Whitmore, Chairman, President, and CEO, AlliedBarton Security Services There’s a direct connection between engaged leadership, workplace security, and organizational success, regardless of your product or service. Psychologist Abraham Maslow identified safety and security as among the most basic human needs on the road to self-actualization—achieving one’s full potential. It, therefore, follows that if your employees don’t feel safe and secure, they’re not going to do the best job for you.

By Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson

By Hank Moore, Corporate Strategist How can women and minority business owners be most successful? See yourself as a plus to the business world, not as a liability. We are all minorities operating in the whole, as do professional specialties within the company’s big picture. Through diversity, each element blends and supports others, as does the corporate visioning process. Major public sector contracts require qualified minority subcontractors. Select partners, and show good faith efforts to procure and execute contracts.

By Mark Satterfield To set the stage for what I’m about to share, let’s focus on something that would appear to be “a blinding grasp of the obvious.” In order to get more referrals, people need to know who you are and what you do. You need to be top of mind when opportunities arise for people to send business your way. Now, if you sell a tangible product, this may be relatively easy. Need tires? Go to Bob. But what about when you sell services, especially high-value services that don’t lend themselves to a 10-second elevator pitch?

An empowering, unifying, and uplifting experience is what conference attendees were a part of when musical motivator Drum Cafe kicked off  the Training2012 Conference & Expo in Atlanta February 13-15.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP While the information we gather with all our senses can be vitally important, we human beings prefer the visual medium over all others. Our brains just work that way: We possess the ability to differentiate and process subtle differences in light intensity, color, and movement almost instantly, even though images tend to contain much more information than other sensory inputs.

By Ty Kiisel, Manager, Social Outreach, AtTask, Inc I work with a team of mostly young people. Except for the fact that I’m a 50-something guy who rides a Harley rather than a 20-something guy who rides a bullet bike, there’s no real generation gap among my colleagues. Of course, there are some age-related differences, but, for the most part, they are minor things less associated with work and more related to fashion and other personal preferences.