Well, it's been some time since we posted something here. We've been busy, busier than we've ever been in our history.
1. We are providing guidance and development for a powerful business in the financial services industry (yes, there are some shining stars out there). They have us analyzing their business processes, documenting them, automating them, and writing the training materials so they can scale their business.
2. We are still engaged with Jones University/NCTI in developing field manuals for the broadband industry. So far, we've covered MPEG and are now finishing up advanced digital devices.
3. Along with NCTI, we've uncovered a big gap in guidance and practice when it comes to the cable industry's roll out of business-grade telephone service. Standard telephone company industry guidelines, designed over the past 50 years to protect both the network and customer equipment are NOT being put into practice. Heck, they are not even known or taught. We are working with the major standards bodies to get everyone talking and implementing best practices to ensure reliability, accuracy, and quality.
4. Our Social Networking guidance is quite popular. We've been invited to talk at a local Rotary club lunch next month. Even with 30 Million people on Linkedin, there is a bit of confusion on how to use it, especially in these tough times.
5. New eLearning applications continue to pop up. TechSmith released Snagit 9 and Camtasia Studio 5. Our initial evaluation of Snagit 9 has us scratching our heads. We like the library approach but miss the speed of 8. Also, 9 has a glitch so that the one-click feature dissapears at random. For now, if you have Snagit 8, wait until the bug are fixed before moving to 0.
6. Illiteracy in the workplace continues to get worse. We are seeing major complaints from new clients who want to lift the professionalism of their workforces. This concern covers emails, general correspondence, report writing, "Death by PowerPoint," reviews, blogs, texting, and other forms of communications. We're working on it but feel it is another result of a permissive approach to managing employees and not following through on managing expectations. We can hold remedial classes all day, but the real answer is can managers really motivate their employees anymore to be the best they can be? We think we know how to help them.
All for now.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Don't have time to read 1000 words? Use TagCrowd
Face it, we are always strapped for time. Today somebody suggested I look into Perceptual Control Theory - PCT says that how we perceive changes to our environment determines our behavior. To get a better idea about PCT I found Dr. Powers' talk about it from 1990. It was quite long and instead of reading through, I copied the text and pasted it into http://www.tagcrowd.com/ the result is shown in the illustration to the left.
teachITnow presented at SFTA event
Last night, about eighty people showed up for our talk on Linkedin and other social networking tools that help to build a brand on the Internet.
With more and more companies trying to understand what it means to be "Web 2.0," last night allowed us to share our experiences in developing our brand.
I would like to acknowledge Jay Berkowitz and his 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing, too. Jay spoke at the May event and his suggestions are working for me and teachITnow.
Much of what we presented last night was a result of that investment in time.
I hope this event was valuable to all. At the SFTA we strive to make workshops like this relevant to our membership, so please tell me what else you would like to hear about.
You can download the PowerPoint we used at www.teachitnow.com/SFTA.
With more and more companies trying to understand what it means to be "Web 2.0," last night allowed us to share our experiences in developing our brand.
I would like to acknowledge Jay Berkowitz and his 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing, too. Jay spoke at the May event and his suggestions are working for me and teachITnow.
Much of what we presented last night was a result of that investment in time.
I hope this event was valuable to all. At the SFTA we strive to make workshops like this relevant to our membership, so please tell me what else you would like to hear about.
You can download the PowerPoint we used at www.teachitnow.com/SFTA.
Monday, June 16, 2008
It's Monday and we're farming for great links.
We just got this link off of the Teach and Learn Online group on Google. It's worth a look.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/textbookdisclaimers.pdf
Some groups we suggest include:
Teach and Learn Online (TALO) - Google Groups
trdev - Training and Development - Yahoo Groups
elearningDev - Yahoo Groups
Hot New Links:
Looking for the right video tutorial? Stop searching each video site one at a time. Use this valuable tool from video fetcher.
http://www.videofetcher.com/search_screen.cfm?s=eLearning
While we love LinkedIn for its social networking among professionals, we also like Spoke.com
It is like Hoovers on steroids. You get access to email top leaders of thousands of companies.
www.spoke.com
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/textbookdisclaimers.pdf
Some groups we suggest include:
Teach and Learn Online (TALO) - Google Groups
trdev - Training and Development - Yahoo Groups
elearningDev - Yahoo Groups
Hot New Links:
Looking for the right video tutorial? Stop searching each video site one at a time. Use this valuable tool from video fetcher.
http://www.videofetcher.com/search_screen.cfm?s=eLearning
While we love LinkedIn for its social networking among professionals, we also like Spoke.com
It is like Hoovers on steroids. You get access to email top leaders of thousands of companies.
www.spoke.com
Thursday, June 12, 2008
ASTD Ft. Lauderdale Chapter Meeting
Tonight I met a great crowd of people. I learned a lot from them as my talk on e-Learning unfolded. We had a small intimate discussion about what was going wrong in their attempts to design, develop, and deliver e-Learning. Some shared their own experience in using it effectively. What struck me was that we all still need to keep the conversation rolling along until we understand how to convince our teammates about the value of well-written e-Learning.I promised to provide a link to the PowerPoint slides. Here it is in pdf format. Click here to load in Acrobat Reader or right-click and select target as... to download and save.Thanks again for a great evening!
Tonight I met a great crowd of people. I learned a lot from them as my talk on e-Learning unfolded. We had a small intimate discussion about what was going wrong in their attempts to design, develop, and deliver e-Learning. Some shared their own experience in using it effectively. What struck me was that we all still need to keep the conversation rolling along until we understand how to convince our teammates about the value of well-written e-Learning.I promised to provide a link to the PowerPoint slides. Here it is in pdf format. Click here to load in Acrobat Reader or right-click and select target as... to download and save.Thanks again for a great evening!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
teachITnow to Present at ASTD Chapter Meeting
ASTD June Chapter Meeting
Speaker: Doug Marlowe
Topic: What's Wrong with My e-Learning? or "Please Click Next to Continue."
Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Time: 5:30 - 8:30 pm
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise
Doug will present a paper on "What's Wrong with My e-Learning?" The talk will cover the pros and cons of e-Learning in light of its history and use in business over the last 20 years.
For more information, go to http://www.astdftl.org/.
Speaker: Doug Marlowe
Topic: What's Wrong with My e-Learning? or "Please Click Next to Continue."
Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Time: 5:30 - 8:30 pm
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise
Doug will present a paper on "What's Wrong with My e-Learning?" The talk will cover the pros and cons of e-Learning in light of its history and use in business over the last 20 years.
For more information, go to http://www.astdftl.org/.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Business Writing Redux
A curious thing happened last month. I was asked to teach a course on business writing to a local hospital's IT department. It seemed that the IT Director was sick and tired of reading illiterate memos, reports, and letters. Her biggest complaint was that her people had forgotten how to write a formal letter with concise paragraphs. In addition, spelling, punctuation, and grammar were in need of CPR.
The first step in fixing a problem like this is to get everyone to agree on a standard reference book. The book I chose to use as a text for the course was the Business Style Handbook, by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene. In addition, I like to use The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin.
Well, it took about six hours and we covered punctuation, grammar, spelling, formal and informal styles, writing exercises, discussion, discussion, and more discussion, especially about how to separate the new-speak of texting from the business-centric world of a professional life.
I'm hoping that the result of the workshop was that the participants came away with a commitment and confidence to write better. The feedback immediately after and a few weeks later was very positive.
In closing, everyone can benefit from learning (or relearning as the case may be) proper English usage. If we allow ourselves and our employees, managers, and coworkers to abuse the language, then we allow our society to descend into babble, where neither of us truly understands what the other is saying.
Comments?
The first step in fixing a problem like this is to get everyone to agree on a standard reference book. The book I chose to use as a text for the course was the Business Style Handbook, by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene. In addition, I like to use The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin.
Well, it took about six hours and we covered punctuation, grammar, spelling, formal and informal styles, writing exercises, discussion, discussion, and more discussion, especially about how to separate the new-speak of texting from the business-centric world of a professional life.
I'm hoping that the result of the workshop was that the participants came away with a commitment and confidence to write better. The feedback immediately after and a few weeks later was very positive.
In closing, everyone can benefit from learning (or relearning as the case may be) proper English usage. If we allow ourselves and our employees, managers, and coworkers to abuse the language, then we allow our society to descend into babble, where neither of us truly understands what the other is saying.
Comments?
Training in the UK
In March, I went to the UK for a month-long training assignment for a major telecom company. In four weeks I visited over a dozen sales offices in Scotland, England, and Wales. It was my third time over and I have to say I had been unimpressed before. Training overseas has its unique challenges. In Scotland, the dialects take some time to decipher. In England, it's their wicked sense of humor, and in Wales, it's both.
But as I said, before, the UK seemed grayer, dismal, lazy and stubborn. This time I found a new energy. The learners were enthusiastic, engaged, attentive, supportive, and motivated. In addition, management was firmly behind the initiative and once I started training, the news of my visit traveled fast.
In each of my training assignments to the UK, I've attempted to blend classroom, self-paced, and e-Learning together. So far, the feedback is this, "Ditch the CBT and give us classroom training with web-available simulations."
Works for me and when I showed them their software simulation, they ate it up and it spread like wildfire across 600 sales desks.
A month-long assignment seemed like forever when I landed in Heathrow Airport in London. It went fast, too fast.
Some tips for England Travel
1. Avoid Heathrow - Try Gatwick instead
2. Always buy your train tickets before 6PM the day before
3. Tipping is not common, but I still did it.
4. Avoid the fast-food restaurants, too expensive. Try the all-night take-aways instead. Personally, I rent an apartment/flat with a kitchen and stock up at Sainsbury's or Tesco. Eating out gets to be a bore after a few days.
5. Edinburgh - The George Hotel - Outstanding
6. Newcastle - The Royal Station - Victorian decay but close to everything
7. Birmingham - The Home Serviced Apartments on Granville - Outstanding, even amazing
8. London - The Chelsea Cloisters - Quiet, clean and comfortable in Kensington.
9. Avoid Heathrow, I can't say it enough and avoid British Airways, too.
10. London - Harrods is a must. I felt like I was five years old.
11. London - Portobello Road is the place for gifts.
12. London - Walk everywhere.
13. Fall, Winter, Spring, everyone wears a scarf. Get a long one and don't tie it, loop it.
14. Visit Stratford-on-Avon and see Shakspeare's grave.
15. Watch footy (football) especially Manchester United.
16. F--K is a common adjective, adverb, verb, and other colorful parts of speech.
In March, I went to the UK for a month-long training assignment for a major telecom company. In four weeks I visited over a dozen sales offices in Scotland, England, and Wales. It was my third time over and I have to say I had been unimpressed before. Training overseas has its unique challenges. In Scotland, the dialects take some time to decipher. In England, it's their wicked sense of humor, and in Wales, it's both.
But as I said, before, the UK seemed grayer, dismal, lazy and stubborn. This time I found a new energy. The learners were enthusiastic, engaged, attentive, supportive, and motivated. In addition, management was firmly behind the initiative and once I started training, the news of my visit traveled fast.
In each of my training assignments to the UK, I've attempted to blend classroom, self-paced, and e-Learning together. So far, the feedback is this, "Ditch the CBT and give us classroom training with web-available simulations."
Works for me and when I showed them their software simulation, they ate it up and it spread like wildfire across 600 sales desks.
A month-long assignment seemed like forever when I landed in Heathrow Airport in London. It went fast, too fast.
Some tips for England Travel
1. Avoid Heathrow - Try Gatwick instead
2. Always buy your train tickets before 6PM the day before
3. Tipping is not common, but I still did it.
4. Avoid the fast-food restaurants, too expensive. Try the all-night take-aways instead. Personally, I rent an apartment/flat with a kitchen and stock up at Sainsbury's or Tesco. Eating out gets to be a bore after a few days.
5. Edinburgh - The George Hotel - Outstanding
6. Newcastle - The Royal Station - Victorian decay but close to everything
7. Birmingham - The Home Serviced Apartments on Granville - Outstanding, even amazing
8. London - The Chelsea Cloisters - Quiet, clean and comfortable in Kensington.
9. Avoid Heathrow, I can't say it enough and avoid British Airways, too.
10. London - Harrods is a must. I felt like I was five years old.
11. London - Portobello Road is the place for gifts.
12. London - Walk everywhere.
13. Fall, Winter, Spring, everyone wears a scarf. Get a long one and don't tie it, loop it.
14. Visit Stratford-on-Avon and see Shakspeare's grave.
15. Watch footy (football) especially Manchester United.
16. F--K is a common adjective, adverb, verb, and other colorful parts of speech.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Learning Office 2007
We have been asked recently to hold a class for a company about to move from Office 2003 to Office 2007.
Just when you thought it was safe to try something new, here comes mass confusion. We expect tears, screaming, fist fights, and a number of resignations.
Office 2007 is one of the most advanced office suites to hit the market in a decade. We love it but... and this is a big BUT, you are going to feel stupid the first 20 times you open it...maybe 50.
Now, you may be asking, what's so different?
Everything! The most common shortcut icons are gone (but you can put them back), the menus are now iconized with fewer drop down choices. There are way more clicks to get anything done but there is way more control over what you are doing. And don't get us started on the new amazing features...throw away your Photoshop and Corel!
Initially, you will tell yourself, "%^$*&" and stare at the screen in disbelief. Even the snotty kid with the tattoos and nose piercing in IT won't be able to help you, even your 14-year-old daughter won't be able to help you (as if she would anyway). You are on your own...but now you have us - TeachITnow. We're experts on Office 2007 and are teaching it in class in South Florida right now.
More to come, maybe screenshots and links to our vids on Youtube.
later---Doug
Just when you thought it was safe to try something new, here comes mass confusion. We expect tears, screaming, fist fights, and a number of resignations.
Office 2007 is one of the most advanced office suites to hit the market in a decade. We love it but... and this is a big BUT, you are going to feel stupid the first 20 times you open it...maybe 50.
Now, you may be asking, what's so different?
Everything! The most common shortcut icons are gone (but you can put them back), the menus are now iconized with fewer drop down choices. There are way more clicks to get anything done but there is way more control over what you are doing. And don't get us started on the new amazing features...throw away your Photoshop and Corel!
Initially, you will tell yourself, "%^$*&" and stare at the screen in disbelief. Even the snotty kid with the tattoos and nose piercing in IT won't be able to help you, even your 14-year-old daughter won't be able to help you (as if she would anyway). You are on your own...but now you have us - TeachITnow. We're experts on Office 2007 and are teaching it in class in South Florida right now.
More to come, maybe screenshots and links to our vids on Youtube.
later---Doug
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