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Improving the perceived value of training

Steve Hulse

Training and e-Learning can clearly have a positive impact on reaching business goals and increasing profitability, but sometimes it seems like the training department doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

I recently spoke with 55 educators attending a Central PA ASTD meeting. Overall it was a diverse group – corporate trainers, HR professionals, and independent consultants – so I did some instant polling to get a feel for the direction of the local training industry. It looks like a mixed bag as far as the perceived value of training goes, but investments in this area may be on the upswing. Here’s a quick rundown of the results.

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Out-learn the Competition: Using Learning Technologies to Power Sales

Luke Kempski

Even with technology playing an increasing role in connecting buyers and sellers, most buying decisions still happen as the result of person to person interactions. Your marketing program may attract the targeted buyer but fail to win the sale because your “sellers” lack the required knowledge and skills. Buyers expect your company’s representatives to have in depth knowledge about your products and services. They also expect someone who understands their unique needs to lead them through the sales process.

I see many organizations turning to technology to help improve the sales results of their customer interactions. E-Learning, social learning, and mobile sales support applications can improve the performance of everyone involved in the sales cycle.

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Using Social Media to Educate Constituents

Luke Kempski

Over the years, I’ve spoken to many leaders in state government about the challenges of educating their constituents. Too often, the knowledge possessed by government experts is not easily accessible by those who could benefit from it.

This can be as simple as a homeowner trying to figure out how to properly dispose of old, unused paint or an entrepreneur trying to properly register a new business. These are tasks we don’t do every day so when we do, we turn to the web and social media. Unfortunately, Google returns links to content that is full of legalese and people who want to sell us something. And, the expert in government who can answer our exact question is nowhere to be found.

If the U.S. military can find secure ways to encourage and support social media so should other government agencies. A video on YouTube, a blog, a Wiki or an answer through a Facebook site can guide us to improve the environment, visit a new tourist attraction, or comply with the law.

Some states like Utah, Delaware and Rhode Island are starting to get the idea.  They have Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and blogs to connect their experts to targeted communities with relevant information.  The result, improved communications, increased compliance and reduced enforcement. It may even make the public feel better about government.

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Leadership Brings Learning Technologies to Government

Luke Kempski

Government agencies face some of the most challenging training circumstances. They have to reach geographically dispersed employees and constituents with valuable training that is timely, consistent and accurate. Today, most government training leaders I talk to support using technology to distribute learning but face obstacles that prevent them from using alternatives to instructor-led, classroom style training.  These obstacles may include funding, technology infrastructure or a culture that inhibits change.

We all know that state budgets are under constant pressure to be reduced. While investments in learning technologies and alternatives to instructor-led training can decrease training costs over time, they often require greater up-front investments.  Too often, training leaders are encouraged to do what they did before for the same budget rather than propose an alternative that changes the equation.

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Innovative Ways to Educate Customers

Luke Kempski

“We don’t sell – we educate our customers.” You’ve probably heard this before.

For some businesses, educating prospects and customers is a primary form of branding, lead generation and business development. You see this in the form of user conferences, webinars, white papers, blogs and other educational marketing outreaches.

With today’s learning and social media technologies, there are new ways to educate prospects and customers and, at the same time, achieve sales and marketing objectives. These methods can help you get closer to customers and differentiate you from the competition.

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Creating Characters for eLearning

Jennifer Kerwin

When I first started as a Management Development Trainer, a colleague and I had an ongoing debate about the need to be a performer when facilitating.  We agreed that proper facilitation requires charisma and the best facilitators we knew had a personality that lent to their presentation.  However, we disagreed about who was the star of the show.  He held that to some extent the session was about the facilitator, while I argued that the session was about the content and the learner’s connection with it.  He wanted the presentation to be memorable.  I wanted to ensure learning for everyone in the room.

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Trends in Learning and Development

Steve Hulse

I recently had an opportunity to speak with a group of Human Resources professionals. It was clear from that conversation that in times of economic challenge we need to know where to invest scarce resources, particularly in terms of developing staff skills. Predicting the future is tough, but as one pundit put it, why predict the future when you can find data for the present? In that spirit, here are six emerging trends for learning and development.

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HR Leaders Tune into Learning Trends

Luke Kempski

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Human Resources Professionals of Central PA about “Trends in Learning and Development.” As part of the program, we did instant polling of the group of 50 participants. While some were part of larger organizations, most were employed in smaller financial services, construction or health care-related firms. Of this group, 80% agreed that investments in learning can provide a high return and increase their organization’s competitiveness.

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Motivating Adult Learners – Part 2

Steve Hulse

In Part 1 of “Motivating Adult Learners,” we said that adults like to learn practical information that they can put to use back on the job. Focusing on single concepts also seems to improve retention of knowledge, particularly among older learners. This time we’ll look at how and why adults learn, and what the implications are for program planning. Understanding these issues will help focus your training initiatives whether you execute your plan using internal staff or a training partner.

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Motivating Adult Learners – Part 1

Steve Hulse

 As a training planner for many years, I often was discouraged by the reaction to my programs. I would sweat out writing objectives, pore over literature to get the latest information, gather appropriate visual aids and coerce experts into speaking to our staff. But more often than I’d like to admit, the reception to training was strictly “ho-hum.” And from discussions with other training coordinators, I knew this was not an uncommon reaction. But why this response to information that should have been important – even exciting to the learners? Whether you work with a training partner or do the training using internal staff, understanding these issues means we need to look at some basic tenets of adult education.

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