STEPout: WEBINARS BY EXTERNAL GUEST SPEAKERS - 2005

FEBRUARY 17, 2005 - Archived Session

Realizing Performance Centered Design
Gary Dickelman, President & CEO, EPSScentral, LLC

Since 1989, when Gloria Gery first articulated the notion of Electronic Performance Support System, organizations and practitioners have attempted to implement the vision - with varying degrees of success. Many impressive techniques have emerged to structure tasks and embed task support within the work context and to foster measurable improvements in learning and performance. In spite of many positive gains, the corporate IT infrastructure - technologies, policies, economics and management - remains one of the most significant barriers to fully implementing performance support.

A number of clever organizations have emerged to transcend the IT barrier. They have done so by creating new technologies and protocols to enable a complete performance centered system lifecycle that coexists with and complements conventional IT. By exploiting current and emerging technologies and quality initiatives such as Six Sigma and the Capability Maturity Model (CMMT), these organizations have found ways to manipulate interfaces, improve business logic and processes, simplify tasks, enhance task structuring and support, all without disturbing the traditional IT gatekeepers. In fact, they have made friends and allies of IT.

This webinar will review PCD principles, quality techniques, demonstrate real solutions that apply the principles, then expose exciting new enabling technologies and tools. At the conclusion of the webinar you will know just how far the envelope of performance-centered solutions has been pushed, and you will have at your disposal a list of tools and techniques to help make performance happen in your organization. Performance metrics, "Quality" protocols and return-on-investment parameters will be featured in the presentation.

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MARCH 16, 2005 - Wednesday - 1:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time - 1 Hour Duration

PeopleAnswers Software Demo: Insight into job applicants and existing employees
Julia Geisman, Millennium Learning, Inc.

Imagine being able to systematically duplicate your very best performers as you hire new people. Or, image being able to create a development and succession plan for all new employees in a matter of minutes. This may sound too good to be true, but PeopleAnswers has a proven track record with some pretty impressive companies. The ROI is compelling. The time savings alone for hiring managers is significant because this tool is so easy to use, scalable and predictive. PeopleAnswers was designed with the intention of eliminating dependency on external consultants and certification processes. You can literally change the future of your organization through your people.

Please sign in at least 10 minutes before the session is to start in order to assure no technology glitches.

Our 100% software-based solution enables our customers to:

• Duplicate Their Top Performers - Our software automatically compares the Behavioral DNA of your existing top performers in any and all functional areas you choose, against all your incoming candidates.
• Reduce Turnover & Hiring Costs - Our software delivers a candidate who matches your culture and 'top-performer' ideal profile, reducing turnover while lowering expenses.
• Reduce Time Spent Interviewing - Our software increases the quantity of candidates you actually consider while decreasing the overall time invested in the process. It is easy to use and helps hiring managers get better at the hiring process.
• Increase Productivity - 80% of your exceptional results come from 20% of your employee base. Replicate that top 20% and your productivity will significantly increase.

Our key differentiators over other solutions are:

• Pricing Model: We offer an annual software license with unlimited number of assessments. Our pricing model encourages extensive use of the assessment for both applicants and incumbent employees. This ensures having the right people in the right job.
• Scalability: PeopleAnswers is 100% web-based. All data is online, instantly accessible to all those in the company with appropriate user rights from any Internet connection anywhere. This gives you full ownership and visibility into the assessment, providing an effortless rollout to any business unit along with unparalleled data analysis from anywhere in the organization.
• Integration: PeopleAnswers was designed specifically for quick and efficient integration into client environments. It is built on industry leading XML technology standards. As such, PeopleAnswers can be easily integrated into virtually any HRIS, applicant tracking, or learning/development system.
• Development Capabilities: PeopleAnswers provides objective data on both the strengths and deficits of an individual relative to the job they are being assessed for and pinpoints an individual's development needs. This capability helps you develop individualized roadmaps for new hires, your existing employees, and your future leaders.
• Ease of Use: PeopleAnswers was designed for easy interpretation by the line manager independent of consultants, specialized training or a reference manual. Each assessment generates both graphical and text-based data, eliminating the need to download files and to scroll through reports. This ease of use is imperative for ensuring that managers view the tool as adding value to the hiring process.

More information: Millennium Learning or PeopleAnswers

Downloadable Resources:

• PeopleAnswers Overview (765k)
• Six Things You Should Know About Testing and Assessment Solutions (271k)

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The New Finish Line: Technology and Disciplines to Turn Learning into Results
Cal Wick, Founder and Chairman, Fort Hill Company; and,
Elad Levinson, LCSW, Director, Management and Employee Development, Agilent Technologies

The challenge in the learning and development business has always been how to help participants turn what they learn into improved on-the-job results. The solution involves three steps.

• Step 1: Move the finish line from the delivery of great education to the delivery of better business results.
• Step 2: Design learning initiatives as a complete three-phase solution from participant invitation to documentation of results.
• Step 3: Build a strong follow-through bridge that supports learning transfer and application.

Agilent Technologies will begin the Webinar by setting a context in how they have been using new tools and approaches to increase the business value of their learning and leadership development programs. Their partner, the Fort Hill Company, will show how these technologies and disciplines accelerate and improve learning transfer and achieve better business results.

Please sign in at least 10 minutes before the session is to start in order to assure no technology glitches. We will begin the presentation promtly at 1:00!

SUPPORTING MATERIALS:

If you like, you may download Cal Wick's PowerPoint slides in advance, or as a reference.

Practicing what he preaches, Cal Wick has provided these follow-on materials to help you apply what you learned in the webinar:

• Transfer and Application Scorecard
• Executive Excellence via 6 Disciplines
• The Facilitator's New Role

BACKGROUND:

Cal Wick is the Founder and Chairman of Fort Hill Company. Cal is a nationally-recognized consultant, educator and researcher on improving the performance of managers and organizations. His book, The Learning Edge: How Smart Managers and Smart Companies Stay Ahead (McGraw-Hill), is an in-depth study of how companies can make learning a competitive advantage. His research led to the concept of Follow-Through Management®, the development of web-based Follow-Through Tools® and the 6Ds™ design process that together have been shown to dramatically improve learning transfer and results. Cal earned a Masters of Science degree as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He graduated as a Rockefeller Fellow from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The Fort Hill Company

Are you looking at the right finish line?

In his best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell explains the Power of Context — how small changes in context can produce a profound difference in outcomes. How we define the finish line for learning and development programs is such a tipping point.

The last item on every program plan I have been asked to review is always something like "closing ceremony" or "program ends" – suggesting that the participant’s work is over when the last session ends.

In fact, the real work of turning learning into improved performance doesn't start until the class ends. The objective of corporate education – to improve business and personal results – is only achieved if program participants transfer what they have learned to their work and apply it on the job.

We need to change the last item on the agenda to read “launch your follow-through” or “begin application.”

This seemingly simple change has profound implications. It sends the message to participants and to ourselves as educators that the real finish line of corporate learning is in the work place.

The implicit promise of corporate education has always been that the performance of the individuals and their organizations will improve. But this promise is fulfilled only when participants follow-through and apply what they have learned in a way that actually improves results.

Without follow-through, learning and development fails to deliver on its promise.

Pressure to demonstrate return on learning investments is increasing. Learning organizations can no longer afford to leave follow-through and application to chance.

We need to become experts in how to accelerate and support learning transfer. As one Chief Learning Officer said to me, “Some day soon my CEO is going to come into my office and ask what improvement we have delivered. If I don’t have a well documented answer, I may as well start looking for another job. It no longer will fly for me to say, ‘We delivered 6,000 hours of training’ or ‘our participants liked their courses.’”

Ideas for Action To extend the reach and impact of your learning initiatives:

1. Define a new finish line for your programs. Picture a time three months after the event and ask yourself: “What will participants be doing better and differently that benefits the organization?” Your answer should be the sole (and soul) driving force of your initiative. It defines the real finish line for your work as a learning organization.

2. Think of learning as a process, not an event. Remember that learning begins before the course and continues afterward. Ensure that each step of the process is designed and delivered to maximize transfer and application. Pay particular attention to the most-often neglected post-course period.

3. Harness the work environment to support transfer. The best-planned and -executed program will fail to deliver results if the work environment – especially the participant’s manager – does not support it. The overall plan for a learning initiative must include efforts to recruit managerial support and reinforcement.

Redefining the finish line for corporate education, and truly thinking of the last session of a course as commencement, have the power to transform corporate education and revolutionize its impact.

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JUNE 21, 2005 - Archived Session

Beyond E-Learning: New Approaches to Managing and Delivering Organizational Knowledge
Marc J. Rosenberg, Principal, Marc Rosenberg and Associates

Whether you're just getting into e-learning, or have been at it for a while, the field is rapidly changing. While online training has great promise, it can't, on its own, provide all the learning and performance support that's needed in the workplace. Enter new approaches like knowledge management, communities of practice and workflow learning. How important are they? What do they mean for the way training is managed now and in the future? How can the formal, instructional side of learning coexist with the informal, informational side, and what benefits does this integration bring? To move "beyond e-learning" as we know it, we must redefine it and focus more on an e-learning strategy that is less about 'e-training' and more about building a "smart enterprise." This presentation, based on Marc's new book, to be published this fall, looks at e-learning from a strategic perspective - where it's been and where it's going. It goes beyond a focus on technology and courseware to advocate new ways to think about what e-learning really is, and what it can, and can't do. It will challenge you to think differently about e-learning, and learning in general, and, in doing so, provide new opportunities for you to increase your likelihood of success.

Objectives: In this session, you will learn:

• How e-learning is shifting from formal instructional solutions to informal workplace solutions.
• How knowledge management, collaboration/communities and performance support is changing the definition of e-learning.
• How e-learning is fitting into an overall "learning and performance architecture" that significantly expands not just e-learning, but learning in general.
• Why moving "beyond e-learning" is so important.

Audience:

• Level: Intermediate and Advanced
• Target: Managers, Instructional Designers
• Baseline understanding of e-learning as it exists today is suggested, but not required.

Handout: Click here to download Marc's handout in PDF format.

Archive: Click here to playback the archived audio and slides of this webinar (Webex)

BACKGROUND:

Marc J. Rosenberg Dr. Marc J. Rosenberg is a management consultant, educator and leading expert in the world of training, organizational learning, e-learning, knowledge management and performance improvement. He is the author of the best-selling book, E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age (McGraw-Hill). Marc is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI). He holds a Ph.D. in instructional design, plus degrees in communications and marketing, and the Certified Performance Technologist (CPT) designation. Dr. Rosenberg has spoken at The White House, keynoted numerous professional and business conferences, authored more than 30 articles in the field, and is a frequently quoted expert in major business and trade publications. More information is available at www.marcrosenberg.com. (Marc is an Emeritus member of STEP, formerly representing AT&T.)

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DECEMBER 14, 2005 - Archived Session

NoWaitMedia: A Breakthrough in Streaming Media Technology for e-Commerce, Training, and Corporate Communications
Sean Darwish, Chief Technology Officer for BroadRamp Inc and NoWaitMedia; and Greg Nakagawa, President and Chief Executive Officer for BroadRamp, Inc.

BroadRamp, Inc, of San Antonio, TX has developed a revolutionary new Internet multimedia content delivery platform, with significant technology advantages and compelling economic benefits over traditional forms of content delivery. BroadRamp's CDS™ Content Delivery System delivers a superior end-user experience, much stronger security, and an enhanced ability to generate e-commerce revenues - all at a lower cost than traditional content delivery vehicles.

In the e-Learning arena, NoWaitMedia, powered by BroadRamp Content Delivery System™ (CDS) and Zero-Wait Push Technology™, has developed an innovative new content delivery platform that is currently being utilized to deliver e-learning capabilities never before imaginable. Zero-Wait Push Technology™ can allow multimedia courseware to be delivered over the Internet to a student's PC with an immediate launch of the desired section of training, with no wait time, typical buffering or downloading of content to a media player. Moreover, the student is able to navigate throughout the video stream while it is streaming; and CDS™ platform also supports back-end database connectivity for integration with a wide range of Learning Management Systems (LMS), to include SCORM 2004-conformant LMS. Additionally, the ME-Book™ (multi-media electronic book) can replace traditional text-based materials with fully integrated multimedia-rich content, incorporating built-in searchability, narrations, multi-lingual capabilities, book-marking, highlighting, and annotations.

BACKGROUND:

For technical details, please review this document:

• Competitive Advantages

Sean Darwish Sean Darwish is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of BroadRamp Inc. Mr. Darwish has more than 15 years of experience in the management of computer technology, digital media design and development, computer information technology, and software engineering. He has served as an independent technology consultant for several renowned worldwide corporations including IBM, Datapoint Corporation, Randolph AFB, Pyramid Management Group and Tesoro Savings. Mr. Darwish served as executive vice president of Internet Technology and Communication sales and marketing at Total Access Communications where he developed several Internet applications for the delivery of nationwide high-speed Internet access. Mr. Darwish is currently also serving as the Chief Technology Officer of NoWaitMedia, a joint venture formed between BroadRamp Inc and Frontline Systems Inc of San Antonio as the government technology division.

Greg Nakagawa Greg Nakagawa is a 22-year veteran of the high-tech industry and BroadRamp's President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining BroadRamp, Nakagawa was President and Chief Operating Officer of online comparison shopping leader PriceWatch Corporation, championing several initiatives to move this transaction oriented business into a content-oriented aggregator. Nakagawa has also held many senior executive positions within major Fortune 500 corporations, most recently as President and General Manager of Sharp Electronic Corporation's US computing and displays business. Prior to Sharp, Nakagawa held several General Management positions in Dell's Product Group organizations, leading the multi-billion dollar Inspiron Line of Business, and founding and leading the beyond-the-box Internet Line of Business, which drove Dell's digital content and internet access initiatives. Additionally, Greg led the New Product Concepts organization in Dell's research division, Dell Labs, and was also responsible for all Consumer products strategic planning. In his capacities at Sharp and Dell, Nakagawa led digital content initiatives for both companies, forging a strong foundation for his current responsibilities as President and CEO of BroadRamp. Before Dell, Greg was responsible for North America strategic marketing and marketing communications for US Commercial Marketing at Acer-Texas Instruments, and has also held various sales and marketing management positions at IBM. Greg is an honors graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and has attended executive education programs at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, and IMD.

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