Yes You Khan!

Khan Academy grew out of a simple attempt to help. Shortly after graduating from college, Salman Khan, who holds a total of four degrees from MIT and Harvard, began tutoring his 12-year-old cousin in math. He made simple instructional videos, each about 10 minutes long, that focused on a single concept.

Getting Uncomfortable with Creative Tension

It’s been a few weeks since the ATD conference in Denver, and I’ve had a chance to reflect on the flood of new information and ideas that ensued. For me, the overriding refrain from the conference was “creative tension.”

Interview with Marcia Conner co-author of The New Social Learning

Social (adj.): Pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations; seeking or enjoying the companionship of others.

Social learning, says Marcia Conner, one of the authors of The New Social Learning (with Tony Bingham, ATD Press, 2010), is almost redundant. “I dare you to find a single example of learning that is not social,” she says.

Conner has worked with the world’s largest corporations to create sustainable cultures, which are collaborative and empowering rather than constraining with rules and policies.

Tuning into Your Team’s Creativity

Springtime, with its budding leaves, colorful blooms, and greening grass—as well as its association with spring cleaning and home improvement—also seems an ideal time to focus on creativity; specifically, on inspiring creativity to blossom in your company’s employees. Whether you’re planning a departmental retreat, a team building offsite, or just an hour-long brainstorming session, there’s much you can do to help your group come up with new ideas.

Impressions from Bersin 2012

Three themes were brought home to the 400-plus attendees at Impact 2012, a conference presented by Bersin & Associates last month in St. Petersburg, Florida: Transform, Personalize, Glocalize. These themes were highlighted from the kickoff keynote by Josh Bersin and continued throughout two full days of programming that used the themes as tracks for the learning sessions.

How Social is Your Organization?

Many organizations see the energy and engagement generated by their employees’ use of social media and wonder how they can harness that energy to benefit the business. Yet many companies have made a common mistake, say Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald of Gartner, Inc., an approach they term “provide and pray.” Just to provide the tools and the space for social media is insufficient, say Bradley and McDonald, authors of The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

A Decade of Change – How the World’s Problems Become Business Problems…

[feat-img-left] Interview with Geoffrey Brewer, co-editor, Decade of Change The first decade of the 21st century was one of tumultuous change, and the Gallup Management Journal was there to cover the effects of change on businesses, organizations, and leaders worldwide. The Journal’s editors have had a front-row seat as Gallup’s visionary thinkers, offering their take […]

The Top 7 L&D Pinterest Boards

[feat-img-left] We scoured Pinterest and came up with the top seven boards for L&D inspiration. Most of the boards emphasize eLearning and technology and surprisingly, many of the pinners are outside of the U.S. Here they are, in no particular order: Amy Roche – Roche, an instructional designer at Penn State University, has put together […]

A 2012 Prediction That Will Come True

Interview with David Weinberger

Why did you write Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now that the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room?

Weinberger: Actually, the book began as something else. I worked for a year on an outline for a book about what’s happening to business expertise in the age of the Internet. I realized that I wanted to take a step backward and look at what’s happening to knowledge in the age of the Internet.

Dinosaur? Necessary Evil? Critical Strategic Tool?

Is the learning management system (LMS) as we know it dead? Not at all, judging from the number of calls that Clarity Consultants receives each year from clients seeking help with selection, implementation, integration, and maintenance. But although those calls suggest that the LMS is alive and well, they lead to an additional conclusion: selecting and implementing an LMS is difficult. There are many choices on the market, and those choices are morphing into talent management systems, social learning systems, and systems tailored to specific industry verticals.

Games Make Communications Serious Fun

[feat-img-left] “In The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today (HarperCollins, 2010), authors Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd note that several trends are combining to create the workplace of tomorrow. Currently, members of five distinct generations are in the workforce. Members of the youngest generations have grown up in a […]

The 2020 Workplace: Predictions for the Next Decade

Although the global economy is still down and unemployment is still up, the global talent shortage will be acute by 2020. This and other findings are revealed in The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today, by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd (HarperCollins, May 2010). The authors discuss how members of five generations are combining to create a new workplace paradigm, one that requires an innovative approach to recruitment, reputation, responsibility, and learning.