Free webinars for May

The warm weather has finally found us—it may finally be safe to put away those winter woollies and dig out the sandals. Keep that springtime optimism high by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Using Technology to Drive Just-in-Time Learning (Free for ASTD members)

In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to quickly attain and apply new knowledge is the hallmark of top performance. But with employees geographically dispersed and constantly on the go, how can you ensure that your people are empowered with the information they need to excel? This webinar will show how you can use technology to put learning at the centre of integrated, people-centric talent processes and deliver contextual learning that addresses on-the-job challenges.

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creativeship: Leadership Is SO Yesterday

Creating a sustainable company in a world of unprecedented technological advances, globalization, and shifting economic drivers is one of the greatest challenges facing decision makers today. Fostering this environment requires that companies invest their time in a series of interrelated priorities. Join Creativeship author Bob Kelleher as he challenges you to:

  • Learn how to crystallize your "Purpose" to build your EVP (Employer Value Proposition)
  • Make the business case that employee engagement is key to corporate success
  • Build a high-performing culture
  •  Introduce innovation throughout the workplace
  • Leverage social media as a key tri-branding tool

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating a High-Performance Team (Free for ASTD members)

Is your team achieving exceptional results, or just doing okay? Is your team operating ethically? Is your team operating sustainably, or burning people out and pulling rabbits out of hats to make its numbers? The old leadership models are no longer viable when it comes to creating high-performing teams. It’s time for fresh approaches that challenge long-held leadership assumptions and practices. In this webcast you'll take a step back to learn best practices from 61 organizations in 11 countries, including Google, Zappos, Infosys, Cisco, eBay, GE, Toyota, Xerox, successful start-ups, and non-profits such as Mayo Clinic and KIPP.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Engaging Millennials: New Training Strategies for a Connected Generation

Is your organization evolving its learning technology and learning environment to deliver continuous, just-in-time training, and enabling informal and social learning for a workforce increasingly comprised of Millennials? Training has to go beyond the classroom and beyond basic online delivery if you want to engage—and get the best from—a generation that is used to a different way of interacting with people.

Join Claude Werder, VP Corporate and Product Development of Brandon Hall Group, and training and coaching expert Jan Slater as they share ideas for maximizing training effectiveness for the emerging workforce.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Turn Your Organization’s Leaders into Powerful Presenters

In surveys, employers consistently say that verbal communication is the most important skill they want in their employees. For internal meetings and sales, presentation skills are essential. But how do you train employees to improve these skills? In this webinar, Ellen Finkelstein provides a syllabus for teaching presentation skills to the presenters in your company. You’ll learn why Death by PowerPoint is no longer acceptable and how you can lead the presenters in your organization to greater levels of accomplishment. What you learn may even increase sales in your company!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Fostering Career Growth of Young Professionals in the Government Community through Collaboration (Free for ASTD members)

It’s a long climb to the top in any organization, especially in government, as new entrants must understand protocols and culture to excel in their careers. The ability to collaborate, network, and develop as a professional is critical to rising professionals entering government agencies and information technology companies. Join the webcast to learn how the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council's Associates Program is helping compress the learning curve for new employees coming into the government and corporate world.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating a Mobile Learning Environment for a Connected World (Free for ASTD members)

With today’s on-the-go, mobile workforce, companies must train their employees wherever they are. The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets has enabled people to work from the office, at home, or on the road. This is forcing training leaders to rapidly design and adopt mobile learning strategies. This webinar explores how mobile learning environments are helping companies deliver engaging, interactive training to today’s mobile workforce

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Delivering Content in an Increasingly Mobile World

More than half of the phones sold in the U.S. are smartphones, and Gartner predicts that tablet sales will outpace PC sales by 2017. This reality has many organizations rethinking how they approach learning content and environments. What does a mobile-ready environment look like? What content is appropriate for mobile delivery? Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Dan Medakovic, VP Learning Solutions at Blatant Media, as they explore how mobile delivery can be leveraged for learning.

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Sales Training (Free for ASTD members)

Companies spend about $20 billion a year on various forms of sales training. Yet many sales leaders report low ROIs from sales training initiatives. In this webinar, Norman Behar and David Jacoby of the Sales Readiness Group discuss five essential factors that can help you achieve sustainable success from your investment in sales training programs.

Friday, May 10, 2013, 9AM–10AM PST: Leadership Development for Millennials: Why It Matters (Free for ASTD members)

This webinar is based on the ASTD/i4cp research report Leadership Development for Millennials: Why it Matters. Join us as Jay Jamrog, Vice President of Research for i4cp, and Tammy Erickson of Tammy Erickson Associates discuss the report’s examination of how organizations are preparing the Millennial generation to manage and lead effectively, now and in the future.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Learning on Demand: How the Evolution of the Web Is Shaping the Future of Learning

The evolution of the Web has fundamentally changed the business models for creating value. More than simply designing instruction, we as instructional designers need to ensure our content is valuable to our audience. This means our role in designing content must play into the larger ecosystem of the business. Looking at five principles that have fueled and sustained the Web’s growth and evolution, we can extract key insights into creating valuable content consistent with the Web’s own evolution.

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: People Development – Engaging, Building, and Expanding Your Talent

Our world is changing dramatically—how we live, how we work, and how we perform. In order to keep up, learning must also change and evolve—sometimes dramatically. Brandon Hall's latest research on relationship-centered learning traces the evolution of learning models over the years and reveals some interesting findings. Key topics include:

  • Practical approaches to making development the centre of your engagement and performance programs
  • The impact of effective people-development strategies
  • What technologies best support the relationship-centered learning model
  • Real people development stories connected to real business outcomes

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Virtual Learning Environments: Redefining the Training Experience

As organizations continue to expand globally and training budgets continue to decrease, developing effective learning programs has become a significant challenge. Learning management systems and basic online learning tools have fallen short in providing an engaging learning experience, resulting in a need for more effective training programs. In this webinar, Tom Masotto will demonstrate how virtual training enhances learning retention and improves learning outcomes. Learn how to re-engage your employees by providing easy access to interactive training programs.

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Attention! How to Get It and Keep It (Free for ASTD members)

Have you ever watched a movie that kept your eyes riveted on the screen? Your online presentation may not have car chases, but you can use Hollywood's attention-grabbing techniques to keep your virtual audience on the edge of their seats. Join Roger Courville, author of The Virtual Presenter's Handbook, as he reveals how to design engaging slides and interactions for attendees—wherever in the world they happen to be. Attendees will learn:

  • Three movie techniques that work in virtual presentations
  • How to polish your presentation—no design skills needed
  • Tips for increasing the "aha!" factor of your presentation
  • Two voice skills anybody can use to stimulate thinking

Friday, May 17, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Build Micro-Scenarios: Snappy, Fast, Engaging

The demand for fast, on-the-go learning plagues eLearning designers, developers, and leaders. Many of us are still stuck with the very old and antiquated “data dump” and “learners must learn” paradigms. How do we develop eLearning content that teaches content yet is also short, concise, snappy, fast, and instant? In this webinar, Ray Jimenez addresses the following questions:

  • Where is the juncture between good learning content and snappy, fast, engaging micro-scenarios?
  • What are the characteristics of a good micro-scenario?
  • How do you “fit” big content into micro-scenarios?
  • What is the step-by-step process of building snappy, fast, and engaging micro-scenarios?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Tin Can API: What Do the New Standards Mean for You?

There isn’t a learning professional today who would tell you learning takes place only in the classroom. It happens every day, everywhere. Anything from reading a book, having a conversation, watching a video—even playing a game—can be a learning experience. The challenge is to figure out an efficient way to capture those experiences as data that can be measured, reported, and analyzed. Rustici Software has developed a set of standards for tracking these learning experiences. Please join our panel of experts as they discuss Tin Can API, and what it can do for you.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Aspects of Performance Improvement

In this webinar, Hale Associates President Judith Hale introduces three interdependent aspects of performance improvement : (1) the systematic process, ( 2) the consulting process, and (3) the brand-building process. All three aspects contribute to improving the performance of people, work teams, and organizations as a whole. You will gain insights about performance improvement, political prowess, and personal branding—as well as three tools for explaining performance improvement to others and guiding their own professional development.

Thursday, May 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: 7 Creative Ways to Combine Training & Coaching into Powerful Performance

The world of training is changing. The days of all-day workshops and seminars are well behind us. Employees need to be developed, but little time is allowed for the old traditional ways. In this webinar, seasoned Coaching Strategist Tim Hagen discusses specific ways of combining training and coaching to deliver powerful performance results and explores:

  • Seven easy-to-use training and coaching combinations
  • The top five reasons training and coaching must be combined
  • A unique coaching method guaranteed to raise any trainer or training department’s value
  • Why trainers must be trained in a coaching methodology
  • How to get managers to coach their employees

Thursday, May 23, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Sales Onboarding at DHL – A Gold Medal Case Study

The Goal: Grow DHL Express’s market share and increase its EBIT (Earnings before Interest and Taxes) by 20 percent from 2011 to 2013 and ensure that DHL Express becomes recognized as the best sales force in the logistics industry.

The Plan: Increase the effectiveness of DHL Express’s 6,000-person global sales force, reduce the time to productivity for new hires, and attract the best salespeople. In this case-study webinar, DHL executives will tell the story of how STR designed and implemented a game-changing sales-performance program for DHL that engaged the entire global sales force in 14 languages so that it attracted top salespeople, reduced staff turnover, increased customer loyalty, and became known as the best sales team in the industry.

Tuesday, May 30, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Beyond the Mobile Hype: Making Learning Fit in a Mobile World

Over 50 percent of organizations that participated in Brandon Hall Group’s annual Business Focus survey stated that mobile technology was going to be an important topic for their organization this year. We’ve shifted how we live our lives, make money, and even communicate to fit the new mobile world—we also have to change how we think about learning. Join Learning Analyst David Wentworth Sr. and CERTPOINT Systems CEO Ara Ohanian as they share recent research, exploring practical and effective ways to ensure that learning is effective and relevant in today’s mobile environment. Takeaways include:

  • Key practices in streamlining mobile performance support  and knowledge sharing with mobile learning
  • Practical approaches to meeting learning goals with a broad mobile learning strategy
  • Award-winning case studies of effective mobile learning strategies

Free T&D webinars for April

Spring has sprung, and crocuses and daffodils are brightening the scene. Infuse your April with some springtime energy by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: Good Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era

Good companies—those that are good to their employees, their customers, their communities, and the environment—make more money than their less worthy competitors. Yep—it’s true. Come hear economist Dr. Laurie Bassi share the hard-nosed evidence, describe the convergence of forces behind these findings, and discuss what this means for HR and learning professionals. You’ll leave armed with powerful new evidence and a fresh perspective you can use to get the resources you need to help your organization be “good company.”

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: State of Sales Training, 2012

This webinar is based on the ASTD/Blackboard research report, State of Sales Training 2012. Presented by Lee Perlis, senior marketing manager for Blackboard ProEd, and Paul Terry, general manager for Blackboard ProEd, the report provides insight into sales training efforts within various organizations so that members of the sales training community can tailor their programs to help each sales team member reach his or her full potential. Nearly all the respondents (94 percent) reported that sales training helps them do their jobs better.

Monday, April 15, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: How to Make Yourself Indispensable with Strengths-Based Career Choices

Learn the secret to becoming indispensable by shaping your career around your natural strengths. Hear from HarperCollins author Ingrid Stabb on using the Enneagram StrengthsFactors model, how to communicate your type advantage in the workplace, and how to use your strengths to give yourself an edge.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 5AM – 6AM PST: Mission Critical: Managing Compliance Training in Europe

Almost every organization has to deliver some sort of compliance training. In some companies, it may be as simple as communicating the internal rules. In others, it can be a matter of life or death. Companies in Europe and around the world face constantly changing regulations from a myriad of external bodies and agencies—with different drivers, strategies, and assessment methods. Join David Wentworth and Ray Ruff as they walk through some of the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 2012 Compliance Survey, identifying global trends and looking at some of the challenges facing companies in Europe and beyond, as well as best practices across various industries.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Net Smart: How to Thrive Online

How can we use digital media to help ourselves and our learners become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In his latest book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold shows how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and—above all—mindfully. Howard’s book outlines five fundamental digital literacies: online skills that help with attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information and network smarts. In this session, Howard will talk about how attention works and how we can use our attention to focus ourselves and our learners on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information; the quality of participation that empowers the best of bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online-community participants; and how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Transitioning a Federal Agency Business Unit to Telework

Many people in the federal government and beyond have heard about the USPTO's wildly successful telework transition program. Danette Campbell, Senior Telework Advisor for USPTO, and her team will present best practices for transitioning a business unit to a telework environment. They will walk you through the challenges and successes of implementing a telework program, using the USPTO as a case study. This session will provide you with useful ideas for managing such transitions in your own organizations.

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Executive Onboarding: Manage through the Stages of Onboarding, from before the First Contact Well Past the First 100 Days (Free for ASTD members)

Leadership transitions are some of the toughest challenges people face—professionally and personally. Nearly half of new leaders fail in their first 18 months. Often, those failures are the result of crucial, devastating mistakes made in the very beginning. The business world is changing rapidly; we’re all new leaders all the time, and we must treat the next 100 days as the first 100 days of the rest of our careers.

Learn how you can take charge, build or rebuild your team, and deliver better results faster than anyone thought possible—and how you can coach others to do the same.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leveraging the Best in Culturally Diverse Professionals (Free for ASTD members)

Your workforce is becoming more diverse, whether your company is nationally or globally focused. As your professionals expand in culture, race, ethnicity, or gender, it’s critically important to know how their motivations, communications, and needs are different. You can no longer use one “playbook” to effectively manage this changing workforce. This webcast will address some critical factors for success in motivating and managing the 21st-century workforce. 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Solving the 5 Biggest Challenges of Coaching and Developing Leaders (Free for ASTD members)

When you think about coaching developing leaders, do these questions swirl through your mind?

  • What is the best way to get leaders to trust me?
  • How do I get them to share what's really going on?
  • How do I get inside their heads?
  • How do I help them get results with speed and impact?
  • How do I prove to them that I can help them?

This webcast will address each of these challenges. You will also learn how to establish a deep level of rapport with leaders and establish their trust, access their personal and unscripted thoughts, help leaders get results quickly, capture their undivided attention in a convenient and practical way, and demonstrate proof of your effectiveness and their results.

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS?

Your business needs are changing fast, and so are the demands placed on your current learning technology. Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Do you have that nagging awareness that it’s time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? This webinar can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. Join us to discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions, including:

  • Insights on business strategies for change
  • Selecting solutions for the future, not just today
  • A technology migration framework, highlighting both the risks and the rewards of migration
  • Tips for preparing your organization and data for a straightforward change
  • Insights into managing expectations and change-management goals
  • Award-winning case studies and practical steps to help you make a successful transitio

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Needs Assessment for Organizational Success

Needs assessment gurus Roger Kaufman and Ingrid Guerra-López present the four tiers of needs assessment, as detailed in their latest book Needs Assessment for Organizational Success (ASTD Press, 2013). As the authors state, "Analysis is important and useful only if you have evidence that what you are dealing with is the actual problem. Otherwise, you might think you are dealing with the actual problem, when in fact you are merely dealing with a symptom. The consequence is moving ahead, only to find that you implemented useless and expensive cures." Learn what is meant by Mega, Macro, and Micro needs assessments, and discover how to put an ounce of good assessment to work for your organization.