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Training Needs To Get Plucked

<RANT> Did any of you read the article posted at Chief Learning Officer’s site, “When Employees Hack Learning – and Why That’s a Good Thing”? If not check it out – short and sweet – and right on the money. Evidence of this "hacking" also shows up as something that many LMS administrators see in their reporting summaries as a negative signal – Course Incompletions – courses forever in “In Progress” status, and likely never to be completed. This is NOT a negative indicator of the value of training content,…

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When Does a Cloud-based LMS Make Sense?

A few years ago, I am quite certain, I would have been fighting this “cloud” concept tooth and nail. There was something about having my own staff running my own servers behind my own firewall that provided a sense of security and control. To an extent it did, and the IT staff would be the first to man the ramparts to fight off having anything living outside the firewall – much less allowing anyone outside to get into our systems. I feel their concern, and I respect the need to…

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Admiring the Problems of Our Own Success

I just stepped out of another awesome dialogue that has triggered another post. A two-part question was asked about “How to influence our training peers to step away from antiquated practices” ...AND... “How to demonstrate to senior leadership that there is a better way to drive performance”. I think both parts of that question are essential and foundational to getting us out of the current practices that are so dangerously embedded. I say “dangerous” because both training budgets and jobs are at risk if we cling to status quo. Until…

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Myopic Vision Limits Training Effectiveness

Once again, I find motivation flung upon me to grind out a new post based upon an awesome question asked this morning in one of my networking groups. The question, “Do we see a myopic view by training [L&D] limiting training’s impact?” And a second part, “What do we need to do to overcome it?” One response suggested it was not so much “myopic” as it was “funnel vision!” I heartily agree, and on either view [sorry…], if our vision does not peek through a more holistic lens to view…

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LMS Terrors – Reporting & Taxonomy…or lack thereof…

I wish I had a nickel for every time I read a post on one of my networking groups where someone asks what features they should be sure to get on their LMS. Having been down that path multiple times, I can say the chances of finding one with the “best features” are really good, because most LMSs I’ve seen have all of them. My point being this – the LMS is the commodity – the world does not revolve around the LMS – the application in which the LMS…

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Knowledge & Skills VS. Sustained Capability

The title of this post sort of implies an “either/or” relationship, and I wanted that to come across – at least initially. Why? Because these two outcomes are attained at two different stages of competency development over the span of time that learning occurs. Not only what learning occurs but where, when and how it occurs. There is no shortage of flashy jargon and countless descriptive labels used in the learning industry these days that promise performance impacts, and I am probably guilty of using most of them at one…

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The Hardest Four Years

<God Alert:>This piece is not my usual rant about some aspect of corporate learning. It still is about learning, but is tagged for the Learning About Living side of the Living in Learning blog. Some might ask, “Why combine something like this in a corporate learning blog?” I in turn would ask, “How can God not be a part of every facet of our lives, both personal and corporate?” I promise I am not going to preach, though a southern accent would be befitting of a bible thumping preacher. I…

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Buck Tradition or Risk Being Crushed By the Scope of Your Paradigm

Yikes! Sounds downright subversive, maybe even a wee bit scandalous to launch right into something at the outset, does it not? Very likely, this chapter title may imply behavior that is a little risky too. Personally, I think it is high time we view risk as a catalyst, not a restrainer...and that is not “too-much-caffeine” doing the talking. Seriously, it is time to act on the risks that threaten training as we know it, and I am not so much talking about Training –the “action” – as much as I…

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Now That Is One Ugly Baby…

Those are words a parent never wants to hear. After enduring sixteen hours of labor, my wife delivered our son, and due to general anesthesia from an emergency C-section, I was the first of us to see him. I can only imagine what the doctor and nurses must have thought, because he was one ugly baby. I’m talking pointed head, swollen lips and distorted face from being the proverbial marshmallow being forced unsuccessfully through a keyhole for over 16-hours. But this book is not about babies. It is about training.…

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