The latest news for performance, learning, HRD, leadership, training, & knowledge

The world is changed - Galadriel July 22, 2008 Tough Choices: How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain - Scientific American These findings have important real world implications. If making choices depletes executive resources, then "downstream" decisions might be affected adversely when we are forced to choose with a fatigued brain. Indeed, University of Maryland psychologist Anastasiya Pocheptsova and colleagues found exactly this effect: individuals who had to regulate their attention - which requires executive control - made significantly different choices than people who did not. Everything is fragmented - Building CoPs for knowledge flow - Dave Snowden The name brings to mind Etienne Wenger's pioneering work in observing naturally occurring use of virtual environments by engineers. The problem was that when people went from a researcher's description of what had grown naturally in the past to a prescriptive recipe, things went wrong. Students Who Use 'Clickers' Score Better On Physics Tests - Science Daily Ohio State University students who used the devices to answer multiple-choice questions during physics lectures earned final examination scores that were around 10 percent higher - the equivalent of a full-letter grade -- than students who didn't. Crisis, what crisis? The future of elearning - Training Zone 95% of respondents believe elearning works best as part of a blend. This has always been the belief of those of us with a more enlightened view of the uses and limitations of 'e' as a learning medium. The Competitive Imperative of Learning - Stephen's Web There is not a lot of critical or analytical writing on learning in the business press, so this article by Amy Ednondson is an important one. She makes the distinction between Execution-as-Efficiency and Execution-as-Learning. Bar graphs vs. Pie charts - Seth Godin I stepped on the toes of many data presentation purists yesterday, so let me reiterate my point to make it crystal clear: In a presentation to non-scientists (or to bored scientists), the purpose of a chart or graph is to make one point, vividly. July 10, 2008 A Customer-Driven Approach to Molding Tomorrow's Leaders - CLO According to conventional wisdom, 70 percent of employee development happens on the job, 20 percent through formal and informal relationships with bosses and mentors and 10 percent in the classroom. However, we are seeing a new dynamic emerge, one that suggests that 50 percent of employee development takes place through challenging job assignments, 30 percent in the classroom and 20 percent through community involvement. This theory suggests that powerful learning experiences are available everywhere and that experiential classroom instruction can be tied more closely to the job than ever before. As Baby Boomers Retire, Companies Fail to Transfer Knowledge - i4cp If experience is the best teacher, most companies are apparently cutting class when it comes to knowledge transfer (KT). According to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), just 29% of responding organizations report that they incorporate retirement forecasts into their knowledge transfer practices, and only a third add "skills gap analysis" into those forecasts. Most companies also admit they do not formally measure the effectiveness of their knowledge transfer practices. The three laws of great graphs - Seth Godin The problem with bar charts is that they should either be line/area charts (when graphing a change over time, like unemployment rates) or they should be a simple pie chart (when comparing two or three items at the same scale). New Design for My Smile Sheet - Will at Work Learning Instead of asking learners to respond globally (which they are not very good at), it asks learners to respond to specific learning points covered in the learning intervention. This not only enables the learners to better calibrate their responses, it also gives the learners a spaced repetition (improving later memory retrieval on key learning points). Older workforce requires variety of recruitment strategies - PennState Live "Today's employers will need to be innovative in hiring and motivating their workforce employees who can vary widely in age from Generation X and Y to Baby Boomers," said researchers Diane Spokus, a recent Ph.D. recipient in workforce education, and William Rothwell, professor of workforce education and training and development. "Few institutions have retention efforts under way to retain their mature workforce. But managers will need a smorgasbord approach to fully use the untapped assets of an aging workforce." July 8, 2008 The Mirror Neuron Revolution: Explaining What Makes Humans Social - Scientific American Mirror Neurons collapse the distinction between seeing and doing. Virtual training at Fort Benning While much of a recruit's introduction to the Army is the same as it has always been--firing ranges, long marches, obstacle courses, and the like--the Army is increasingly utilizing new technologies to help soldiers learn their jobs. The crowd within - Economist This suggests that the brain is constantly creating hypotheses about the world and checking them against reality. Those that pass muster are adopted. Guessing the answers to questions you do not know the correct answer to, but have some idea of what the right answer ought to look like, could tap into such a system. A hive mind buzzing with ideas, as it were, but inside a single skull. $37 billion - US and UK businesses count the cost of employee misunderstanding - Cognisco UK and US employees are costing businesses $37 billion (£18.7 billion) 2 every year because they do not fully understand their jobs, according to a new IDC white paper commissioned by Cognisco, the world's leading intelligent employee assessment specialist. Approximately two thirds of the total cost of misunderstanding reported by organisations was attributed to loss of business due to unplanned downtime (32 percent), poor procurement practice (17 percent) and settlements for industrial tribunals (16 percent). Other costs incurred include regulatory penalties and tax or revenue penalties. Long-tail economics favors the blockbuster, Harvard study finds - c/net Remember the long tail? It was the omnipresent theory that suggested there were oodles of cash to be made by monetizing a market's disparate tastes via the Web. Why sell a million copies of Led Zeppelin's Coda, when you can make a thriving business of selling two to three copies of your neighbor's garage band to Rick, two copies of a Nigerian band's tunes to Susan, and so on? As new research highlighted in Harvard Business Review suggests, the answer may well be that the real money is in the blockbuster, not the long tail, after all. Your Mashup Is Probably Legal - Slashdot "We've been conditioned to think that if you pull something off the web and use it, you're committing some sort of copyright infringement. But increasingly, the law is moving in the opposite direction. Provided you are making a truly new use of the content, you are free to make money off those copyrighted images and video and sound. June 20, 2008 Study: Social networks may subvert 'digital divide' - c/net "What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today," Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher from the school's College of Education and Human Development, said in a release Friday. Water woes, trouble, and training - Dave's Whiteboard A one-page guide to performance problem analysis, just in case the cause of the problem is not restricted to a lack of skill or knowledge. The Myth of Multitasking - The New Atlantis When people do their work only in the "interstices of their mind-wandering," with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom. Information Overload Research Group news wrapup - emaildashboard Wow. We publicly launched the Information Overload Research Group yesterday, June 17, 2008 KnowledgeAdvisors and Bassi Investments' Human Capital Measurement Portfolio Outperforms S&P 500 by 15 Percent - The Earth Times Organizations that invest heavily in Human Capital were more likely to outperform the market. The Human Capital Measurement portfolio created by Bassi Investments Inc., comprised of a subset of KnowledgeAdvisors clients, clearly shows that when an organization focuses on measuring and improving human capital impact it is more likely to generate above average returns to shareholders. Also see Investing in People who Invest in People (PDF) and The Impact of U.S. Firms Investments in Human Capital on Stock Prices (PDF). Closing the "ADDIE" Loop - The LeanLearning Blog Contrary to the belief that the interests of instructional design and learning analytics work at cross purposes, I present the case for analysis-analytics collaboration for the benefit of the learner. Hear me out, ye learned jury of courseware sponsors and learners, before you passeth judgment ... Circling the wagons against Nick Carr - c/net What is it about Nick Carr, a very bright guy, that inspires the not-so-bright guys to bring out the knives? Criticism of his recent Atlantic piece has ranged from the predictably ungenerous to the downright bitchy. So it goes. The chattering class always gets irritated when convention gets challenged. After Carr published his thoughtful Harvard Business Review article in 2003, "Why IT Doesn't Matter," many technology leaders and trade press opinion makers reacted harshly. They so caricatured Carr's nuanced thesis that they entirely missed his bigger point about IT's declining importance as a competitive asset. In the end, of course, it turned out Carr was quite right. Alaskan Airlines saves millions by rethinking check-in flow During my two hours of observation in Seattle, an Alaska agent processed 46 passengers, while her counterpart at United managed just 22. For English Studies, Koreans Say Goodbye to Dad - New York Times South Koreans now make up the largest group of foreign students in the United States (more than 103,000) and the second largest in New Zealand (6,579). South Korean parents say that the schools are failing to teach not only English but also other skills crucial in an era of globalization, like creative thinking. That resonates among South Koreans, whose economy has slowed after decades of high growth and who believe they are increasingly being squeezed between the larger economies of Japan and China. June 9, 2008 Learning, Training & Development - Defend Thyselves! - Elliott Masie in HR Management We have an obligation to create an environment where they can learn the skills they need to succeed and we have a critical need to create (and measure) the readiness of this tribe to take on tomorrow's challenges. The context of error - Cognitive Edge Innovation happens when people use things in unexpected ways, or come up against intractable problems. We learn from tolerated failure, without the world is sterile and dies. Systems that eliminate failure, eliminate innovation. The Learning Landscape Model - Will at Work Learning It's helpful to have an overall understanding of what we're trying to do in the learning-and-performance profession. The E-learning Ecosystem in organizations - The E-learning Curve at Edublogs By adapting the well-known learning curve, I developed a conceptual model that maps Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives to learner requirements as they progress along the curve. Behavioral Interview Techniques - testreadypro.com STAR is an example that is most often used for behavioral interview responses. It follows the following formula, S: Situation, describe briefly when and where the incident occurred and who was involved. You are setting the scene. T: Task, what were you trying to achieve, what was the problem or issue to be dealt with. A: Action, what action did you take independently or to assist others to get to a positive outcome. R: Result, what was the outcome of your actions, state your success and any positive feedback received or what you learned if the outcome was different to what was anticipated. Inside Outsourcing - Forbes As the risks of outsourcing loom ever larger, the rewards are growing, too. For visionaries who take advantage of its potential, there is real profit at stake. U.S. Schools: Not That Bad - Business Week "But things aren't as dire for U.S. students as they might appear in the documentary. As an academic, I have been researching engineering education and have taught many graduates of Indian, Chinese, and American universities. It can take longer for Indians and Chinese to develop crucial real-world skills that come more easily for some Americans. Yes, U.S. teens work part-time, socialize, and party. But the independence and social skills they develop give them a big advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks." May 28, 2008 Management in formation - People Management Inside one of the buildings, you might have found the eminent leadership academic John Alban-Metcalfe. He's giving a lecture to an assemble "some of the worst examples of leadership can come at the top of organisations", and citing such sources as Charles Handy while proceeding to debunk the myth of the charismatic leader. Breaking Down mLearning - mLearning Hub At the highest level we can separate mLearning into learning applied to mobile devices inside the classroom and those outside the classroom. Please note I realize the simple fact that something that is mobile means it could easily move in or out of the "classroom", however there is an important distinction between the two. Also see, iPods for Learning. Teaching in the digital world, part I: technology is not always your friend - Science Blogs Teaching an on-line course turned out to be as much a learning experience for me as it was for my students. Now, it's time to step back and reflect on what was learned. Six Dangerous Myths About Pay - Conde Nast Portfolio Off-price clothing retailer Men's Wearhouse pays higher-than-average wages and invests extensively in training. These unusual moves let it reduce turnover and compete on customer service, superior product knowledge, and sales skills - advantages that rivals can't easily copy. Beyond Blogs - Business Week Workers can fritter away hours on YouTube. They can use social networks to pillory a colleague or leak secrets. That's the downside, and companies that don't adapt are sure to get lots of it. But there's an upside to the loss of control. Ambitious workers use these tools to land new deals and to assemble global teams for collaborative projects. The potential for both better and worse is huge, and it's growing - and since 2005 the technologies involved extend far beyond blogs. So our first fix is to lose "blogs" from our headline. The revised title: "Social Media Will Change Your Business." May 26, 2008 Video games can make us creative if spark is right - e! Science News Video games that energize players and induce a positive mood could also enhance creativity, according to media researchers. However, the study also finds that players who were not highly energized and had a negative mood, registered the highest creativity. "You need defocused attention for being creative," said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State. "When you have low arousal and are negative, you tend to focus on detail and become more analytical." Also see "THE EFFECTS OF EMOTION ON CREATIVITY". Create Mobile Websites with Wirenode - Mobile Learning Wirenode incorporates media and interactivity, which may even be uploaded by the user, and there's even an analytics tool for users who like to see how many visitors/students are checking out their mobile site. Design - Human Centered Design vs Activity Centered Design? - eCube The "listen to your users" produces incoherent designs. The "ignore your users" can produce horror stories, unless the person in charge has a clear vision or Conceptual Model for the product. The person in charge must follow that vision and not be afraid to ignore findings. Yes, listen to customers, but don't always do what they say. Web users 'getting more selfish' - BBC Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave. Success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75%, said Dr Nielsen. In 1999 this figure stood at 60%. The designs have become better but also users have become accustomed to that interactive environment. Web users were also getting very frustrated with all the extras, such as widgets and applications, being added to sites to make them more friendly. May 22, 2008 Checking out animoto Blogging--It's Good for You - Scientific American Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. We're all Einsteins now - New Zealand Herald The ability to think in abstract terms underpins the scientific, material and, arguably, moral advances of modern society. Visual Architecture: The Rule of Three - Digital Web Don't flame me, bro' - New Scientist People can vastly overestimate their ability to communicate unambiguously by email in that we find it hard to take another person's perspective when communicating electronically. Similarly, a study found that people tend to interpret emails more negatively than other forms of communication, making them even more likely to respond aggressively. Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain - New York Times The aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. May 18, 2008 Unlocking the DNA of the Adaptable Workforce - IBM (executive summary) Click to enlarge Developing the workforce is the prime ingredient for an organization's success. "As any firm that has attempted to transform its workforce to meet changing conditions will attest, the journey is difficult and littered with obstacles. Understanding key workforce performance challenges and identifying the leading practices companies are using to overcome them have become central focus areas." - IBM download the complete paper Back to Basics - Metropolis In our rush to build a knowledge economy we forgot that we need a backbone. "Manufacturing is still more relevant to long-term economic development than glitzy museums or massive sports stadiums." - Joel Kotkin Think about paths instead of hierarchies - Signal vs. Noise While this short post is about web navigation, the same principles apply to all forms of knowledge in the learning and development field. "Instead of thinking in terms of hierarchy or up-front structure, I think it's better to work with paths. A path is a line that goes from a starting point A to an accomplishment B." - Ryan May 17, 2008 Recent Survey shows 36:1 development ratio for ILT - Bryan Chapman Front-End Analysis (Data Collection, Working with SMEs) = 13% (4.8 hours) Instructional Design (Objectives, Outlining, Content Development) = 13% (4.6 hours) Lesson Plan Development = 11% (3.8 hours) Creation of handout material = 8% (3 hours) Student Guide Development = 20% (7.2 hours) PowerPoint Development = 21% (7.6 hours) Test and Exam Creation = 8% (2.8 hours) Other Tasks = 6% (2.3 hours Mobile in 5 Paragraphs - Learnlets Mobile learning is not about courses on a phone. mLearning is where we really bring home the message: 'It's not about learning... it's about doing", because while there are learning implications for mobile devices, it's really about performance support. Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. What Behavior Do You Want to Change? - Business Week When we began Nathaniel's exercise, our military friend chose: "When I become less judgmental. . ." as his behavior to change. I was skeptical about his sincerity and thought his participation in the exercise would be interesting to observe. True to my expectations, the first time around he coughed and grunted a sarcastic comment rather than talk about a real benefit. Research Report on Feedback - Will at Work learning This seminal research reviews how to give learners feedback, written in a way that puts feedback in perspective, that goes deep into the fundamentals to give readers clear mental models for how feedback works. May 3, 2008 The Cognitive Age - New York Times We're moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information's journey is the last few inches - the space between a person's eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. The globalization paradigm leads people to see economic development as a form of foreign policy, as a grand competition between nations and civilizations. These abstractions, called "the Chinese" or "the Indians," are doing this or that. But the cognitive age paradigm emphasizes psychology, culture and pedagogy - the specific processes that foster learning. Is the grass greener on the other side of the pond? - Training Zone We're fascinated by the American training scene. Is their training - particularly elearning - bigger, brasher, better? Neil Lasher reports that the USA is just as fascinated by what is happening here! So, is the grass greener on the other side of the pond? Memory Training Shown to Turn Up Brainpower - New York Times Although the control groups also made gains, presumably because they had practice with the fluid intelligence tests, improvement in the trained groups was substantially greater. Moreover, the longer they trained, the higher their scores were. All performers, from the weakest to the strongest, showed significant improvement. Instructional Technologies in Human Resource Development: Impact, Models, and Changes - International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning An introduction to instructional technologies that can be used in human resource development (HRD) Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices - New York Times The students who learned the math abstractly did well with figuring out the rules of the game. Those who had learned through examples performed little better than might be expected if they were simply guessing. The problem with the real-world examples, Dr. Kaminski said, was that they obscured the underlying math, and students were not able to transfer their knowledge to new problems. We still believe there is human involvement - Nicholas Carr "Captcha" is the official term for those wavy strings of numbers and letters that you have to decipher before setting up an online email account or gaining access to other types of web sites. The acronym, coined by someone at Yahoo a few years back, stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. For past headlines: archive page - 2008 archive page - 2007 archive page - 2006 archive page - 2005 archive page - 2004

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