Chirp of the Day: Kindle for the Web

Amazon announces  that Kindle for the Web will expand to enable anyone with access to a web browser to buy and read full Kindle books - no download or installation required. For the first time ever, bookstores, other retailers, authors, bloggers and other website owners will be able to offer Kindle books from their own sites, let their readers start enjoying the full text of these books instantly, and earn referral fees through the Amazon Associates Program for sales made through their sites. Website owners can embed the Kindle for the Web widget in a matter of seconds and start offering Kindle books. 

What is your 2011 learning budget?

Chirp of the Day: Great FREE resource from Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)

Again, why are you spending a fortune on corporate learning content and systems when it is all out there for free?
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has a site called WeKnowNext.com that offers free videos from leading business people.

ABOUT

Trends in the Workforce
Today's workforce is rapidly changing. Now more than ever, organizations are responding to the new realities of the workplace, and this means:

• Developing strategies to boost productivity in challenging times
• Retraining workers for the new economy
• Creating a workplace culture that attracts talent and improves retention
• Finding innovative ways to manage rising overhead costs
• Staying ahead of generational trends to improve management approaches

All of these things affect the workforce, your business and your people. In today's world, success translates into how well you adapt to these trends.

WeKnowNext.com

WeKnowNext.com is a forum where business leaders and thought leaders can explore and discuss trends in the workforce, and share real-life examples of success. It's sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) because as an organization, and through our members, we're responding to workforce trends everyday and we understand how important it is to know what's next.

The Evolving Role of HR

As the workforce grows more complex, the role of HR is changing and companies are beginning to tap into HR's unique expertise to help navigate trends in the workplace. HR professionals are becoming "people strategists" working directly with the most senior levels of management to keep an eye on what's next, so companies can increase profits and remain competitive.

About SHRM

As the largest membership organization devoted to human resources, with more than 250,000 members in more than 140 countries, SHRM helps members - and those they work with - respond and adapt to the new realities of the workplace. SHRM and its members are helping large and small organizations anticipate and respond to transitions in the workforce.

Chirp of the Day: The world's worst boss

Chirp of the Day: The world's worst boss by Seth Godin on his blog

The world's worst boss

That would be you.
Even if you're not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your career, your day, your responses. You manage how you sell your services and your education and the way you talk to yourself.

Chirp of the Day from Knowledge@SMU: Managing social media: An exercise in managing organisation

 From Knowledge@SMU: Managing social media: An exercise in managing organisation

Relates to my prior post: How much will you pay for my free content?

"MasterCard kick-started this process some three years ago, with the internal sharing of daily news clips. These clippings include content from traditional newspapers, but more importantly, everyday conversations that occur within the digital space. It was a small step, but it went a long way in raising the organisation's awareness of the changing communications landscape. "We want to work with our executive team across the world to help them understand that you can use social media to engage," Issokson said. It is also important to consider where communication 'sits' within an organisation, he added – because communications teams that have a direct reporting line to the executive committee or CEO tend to be more effective at their jobs."

Chirp Of the Day: Analyzing Effective Leaders: Why Extraverts Are Not Always the Most Successful Bosses

From Knowledge@Wharton: Analyzing Effective Leaders: Why Extraverts Are Not Always the Most Successful Bosses

How much will you pay for my free content?

Since the inception of ChirpLearning, I have been trying to make people aware of all the high quality free content that is out on the Internet. When you combine access to this content with the opportunity to connect with hundreds of millions of others on social media sites, you create an extremely powerful and valuable free resource for learning. My question remains: why are you paying for systems and content when you can utilize an exponentially more powerful and free resource to let your employees learn what interests them, when they have time and where they want to do so?

The primary excuses will be no tracking or you are nervous about a renegade employee. Let me address these two concerns. First, no reporting or tracking. What are your utilization rates now? 3-5%across your target population? And you need to track this? What exactly does tracking tell you? Does it actually tell you the impact that your programs are having or just show how many people are fulfilling a mandate from above? Also, if you utilize a system like ChirpLearning to send out links to people about relevant topics, you can get tracking with some existing, albeit rudimentary tools, like bitly. My guess would be that utilization rates for targeted and timely content would be significantly higher than you have today.

How about the renegade employee who spills company information. How many of you have heard the story of the person that hit reply all instead of reply and sent out a nasty, embarrassing email. What was your recourse? With an open community like LinkedIn and the others, the renegade employee can be neutralized by others as well as offer a learning opportunity.Besides, that employees is probably already using these sites without your knowledge.

There are already sites out there that let users download textbooks for free as well as pay. Take a look at FlatWorld and its business model. This is the future, not a closed LMS with top down learning mandates.

So the next time a vendor comes in to sell you its content or platform, ask them why it isn't free.

Chirp of the Day: Talks@Google

Google's YouTube collection: Talks@Google.

Chirp of the Day: Video on Sustainability and Learning

Peter Senge, MIT professor and founder of the Society for Organizational Learning, describes learning's role in creating a sustainable organization and the key differences between training and learning. Video

Chirp of the Day: Must read article from Fast Company - The App Is Mightier Than the Mainframe

The App is Mightier Than the Mainframe

"There is a story that Google chief information officer Ben Fried likes to tell about his old job, as the managing director of Morgan Stanley. "There was this intern who came to work in the research department one summer," Fried says. "After a couple of days of orientation and getting a good look at the technology that the IT department had given him, one day this guy decides to come in with his own computer and a great big monitor. He sets it up at an empty desk near the window, and he plugs in a cellular modem to get online. He never connected to the company network at all. He used all of his own technology. And you know what? He was the highest-rated intern in his class."

Chirp of the Day: Knowledge@Emory - The Shifting Dynamics When Leaders Leave

Another great free resource for learning. Knowledge@Emory - The Shifting Dynamics When Leaders Leave

Chirp of the Day: Tackling Your Blockers

Blog post from Barb Arth, an analyst at Bersin & Co. http://bit.ly/bHnsiE

Chirp of the Day: Cool video presentation on the new world of work

"As the workplace becomes increasingly demanding, diverse and dispersed globally, the leader at the top will have to throw away the textbooks, un-learn the leadership styles of the 'command and control' era and embrace a radical, new world approach to leadership - 'co-ordinate and cultivate' today's new workforce.

Organisations are suddenly faced with a collision in the workplace: The Veterans, who, although rapidly diminishing in numbers are the epicentre of tradition, knowledge and experience; the Baby Boomers and Gen X who have lived through decades of overindulgence and luxury; then enter Generation Y, the child of the 'baby boomer' parent. Growing up in the most dynamic economy in the twentieth century they have been brought up to believe they can change the world. Optimistic, upbeat and filled with a sense of empowerment -- they are the new kids on the block and think they can achieve anything...or so their parents told them, taught they can do anything and don't settle for mediocrity - Richard Branson meets Paris Hilton."

http://bit.ly/9b9CdN

Chirp of the Day: Managing Yourself: What’s Your Personal Social Media Strategy?

An interesting article from HBR: Managing Yourself: What’s Your Personal Social Media Strategy?

Chirp of the Day: Handle Challenging Conversations with Confidence

From Ken Blanchard: Handle Challenging Conversations with Confidence

Chirp of the Day:How to keep your star employees

How to keep your star employees http://bit.ly/dBGzxJ

Chirp of the Day: Recruiters beware

Company recruiters need to be aware that they are representing the company first. Their actions can have a profound impact on future sales. The recruiter needs to be aware that the candidate they turn down today, may be a decision maker at his/her next job. A good recruiter can have a very positive impact just as a bad recruiter can have the opposite effect. Anyone have any examples of good and bad?

Start the Discussion: Return On Learning Equation

In an earlier post Why Return on Learning is the better metric to use to justify elearning in the organization 
I stated that I would try and develop a ROL calculation so people could use it within their organization to justify using the free social media platforms for elearning purposes. The difficulty in conceptualizing and creating a new ROL calculation is that a good part of the benefits are hard to quantify, unlike in a ROI type equation. That said, here is my attempt and I would appreciate your feedback and thoughts.
Let's list a few potential inputs for the ROL equation:

• Retention and Achievement (thanks Richard)
• Higher employee satisfaction
• Productivity 
• Profitability 
• Engagement
• Innovation

Retention, profitability and innovation are inputs that can potentially be quantified while the others are more ambiguous. I think the above attributes are more desirable than a traditional ROI calculation because you can use these to measure employee development and company growth over time. A firm can track retention rates, profitability and even innovation. These items are more important for the growth of a company than a measure of an investment. Investment in people and a learning culture are much different than calculating the return on a capital investment. This point is key in understanding why a ROL type calculation is important to develop and use to track and employee development.
Before I go further, I would appreciate some insight into the inputs as well as any thing I should add.

Chirp of the day: Should you "friend" people you manage and/or work with?

A recent story, Norton warns teachers not to ‘friend’ students, made me think about the perils and benefits of "friending" people at work. Anyone have some good and/or bad stories about "friending" a coworker?

Chirp of the Day: Share your bad boss stories

Share some stories on examples of bad bosses. I once was giving a presentation at an industry event and my boss kept raising his hand and asked questions he knew I did not know the answer to and he then proceeded to answer it himself.

Chirp of the day: The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (And Very Few Have)

From HBR: The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (And Very Few Have)
http://bit.ly/b8fQn2

Chirp of the Day: How to Build Effective Frontline Managers

How can your frontline managers be expected to keep your people happy when their hands are tied by those in positions of greater authority? http://bit.ly/dwoIF7

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Chirp of the day: Gartner Identifies Social Communications and Collaboration as a Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011

Social Communications and Collaboration.  Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking —social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise. (2) Social collaboration —technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing. (3) Social publishing —technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr. (4) Social feedback - gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.  Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.
http://bit.ly/dkfuIm

Why Return on Learning is the better metric to use to justify elearning in the organization

Return on Learning (ROL) is a better metric to use when trying to determine the benefits of investing in elearning programs for your organization. Most firms look at Return on Investment (ROI) as the key metric but I believe this is a faulty gauge as it does not focus on what should be important: are your employees learning and do you have a learning culture to drive success?

ROL is more important as it allows an organization to focus on allowing their employees to learn how and when they can. That is why using social media  is so powerful as it eliminates the focus on the bottom line and places the emphasis where it should be: on the learning. ROI provides a static snapshot of the investment, while ROL looks at the totality of the return on promoting learning in an organization over time. ROL is a continuum whose benefits are seen in higher employee satisfaction, productivity and profitability (see here for details).

The skeptics will say that to justify an e-learning program, the CEO/CFO will demand to see the return on the investment. Again, the focus is on the bottom line and shortsighted as e-learning translates more powerfully to the top line over time, something that is harder to calculate but no less powerful.

The use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. are so powerful because they are spaces that employees can leverage on their own time and for things that help them. These platforms are informal learning in its most powerful form as it promotes learning from others and facilitates "leader" as teacher (with the leader being the subject matter expert not the person who happens to have a C in their title).

The interesting question is what should the formula for ROL be so you can use it in your organization to justify the use of social media for learning. Over the next few weeks I will try and develop a formula for ROL and would love to hear your input on what you think should be included in the calculation.

Chirp of the day: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media

 I guess we are not the only ones recognizing the power of social media in the enterprise.http://bit.ly/bVCaRF

Chirp of the Day: Advice from Peter Drucker

The Daily Drucker for October 14: Continuous Learning in Decision Making http://bit.ly/9C6IFq 

 

Chirp of the Day

Chirp of the day: Knowledge@Wharton is a great site for business related topics.Knowledge@Wharton

Chirp of the day

Chirp of the day: Red, Jackson, Gen Y & Loyalty http://bit.ly/bWMl5h

Why social media is the future of learning in the enterprise

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, LinkedIn, Ning, Digg, etc. Besides the obvious, what do all these services have in common? These types of platforms are the future of learning in the enterprise and firms need to understand the power of these sites and integrate them into their employees lives to develop a true learning culture.

How many groups do you belong to on LinkedIn (please join ChirpLearning's group)? How many times do you review information on LinkedIn and gather information that you can use in your everyday life? LinkedIn has become an invaluable tool for me as I am able to research firms, read timely and relevant information in groups that I joined because they were relevant to me, and network with people from different areas of the business world. LinkedIn has become almost as important to me as email.

How about Facebook? While I tend to use it more for my personal life, I have seen the power of how useful information can direct people to a corporate site. You are able to find what is important to you and filter out as much noise as need be. How many times do you go to another site based on a post on Facebook versus using Google search? Why should this power be blocked and discouraged in the corporate world?

Youtube? Just a place for music videos or inane clips? My son is trying to learn the guitar and he will go to Youtube to find beginning guitar lessons to help him learn how to play. You can also watch all kinds of lectures by world renowned experts. And again, at your pace and for subjects that interest, or perplex, you.

These sites are where people are learning, both informally and formally for both their personal and professional enjoyment. These sites are the future of corporate learning, especially as they become even more ingrained in our everyday lives. I have a challenge for you: search out an interesting group on LinkedIn or find a useful video on YouTube and send it out to your team, manager or business colleagues. Use a site like Bit.ly to track the click thru's to see how powerful this method can be and realize the future of corporate learning.

Chirp of the day: Creating a culture of employee engagement

Chirp of the day: Creating a culture of employee engagement http://bit.ly/bC3EVp

Chirp of the day: Video on Team building and handling conflict

Interesting video on how team building and handling conflict. Do you have any successful methods to build teams or handle conflict?
http://bit.ly/daPx8Y

Chirp of the Day: 12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert

Great tips on how to use Google more efficiently. Also a great blog if you are interested in Inbound Marketing.

 http://bit.ly/9pdLkd

Different uses for ChirpLearning

Communicating/Sharing with team members

Communicating/Sharing with other people that face similar dilemmas

Communicate successes to common problems

Conducting Informal Training/Education

Mentor others

Social Groups: Ask for particular subgroups to be setup on our Linkedin group: http://linkd.in/9rvwUx 

What other things can you think of for utilizing the different ChirpLearning platforms?
FaceBook: http://on.fb.me/cTgTDr
Twitter: ChirpLearning
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/9rvwUx
Youtube: In development
Website: In development

Chirp of the Day: When picturing them naked doesn't work

A good site for presentation and public speaking skills.
http://bit.ly/bCbD8D

Is the customer always right?

South End chef boots whiny patron.Spotty service sets off ‘nightmare’ diner. 

http://bit.ly/dgXAQf

Have you ever had to deal with an unruly customer or actually refused someone's business? Please share.

Chirp of the Day

Chirp of the Day: Poor Time Management and Gossip Top the List of
Workplace Pet Peeves http://bit.ly/cV8yUN
What are some of yours?

Chirp of the Day

How do you give negative feedback and still make sure it is still constructive?

Interesting article on giving feedback: Do You Make These 19 Common Mistakes When Giving Constructive Feedback? http://bit.ly/aDu3cT

Youtube advice on giving constructive criticism:http://bit.ly/bjGlbP

What is a "Chirp?"

Start Chirping!

What do we mean by ChirpLearning, or more specifically a “chirp?” A chirp is a quick burst of sound or information. Think of a bird outside that chirps. What happens? Another bird chirps back and then another. Maybe a bird fly’s off. These chirps set off a series of actions telling the animals that they need to respond in some way. They are communicating and learning. Quickly.
Traditional learning within an organization involves finding some free time from your busy day to log into a cumbersome LMS, find the material you need to review, complete the course, take a test, sign off that you completed it to earn credit and then, somehow, take that 40 minutes of information and turn it into something useful in your everyday job. Is this how we should be learning? Is this the most efficient use of our time? What is the return to your organization and your employees? If you are in charge of learning at your firm, what is the rate of utilization? I bet it is not very high.
Think about the last time you learned something useful for your job. Was it from a test or were you in the hall talking to a colleague or in a meeting where someone came up with a new and creative solution to a problem? This is how we learn and apply.
So this is the mission of ChirpLearning. Utilize the most popular (and free) social media platforms, places that your people are already using, to provide a place they can informally interact with others from across the world to learn and share new ideas and get their problems solved immediately. So start chirping.

Why pay for expensive systems and materials in today's web 2.0 world?

Why pay for costly materials, systems and software and travel when there is so much available for free. Here is some from MIT’s the Sloan School.
http://bit.ly/bHhDBl

Interesting article given the mission of ChirpLearning

Can social networking provide a practical way to help prepare new managers for their duties? Considering the rapid growth of social networking adoption among younger workers, this is a question well worth asking.
http://bit.ly/bqVxj3

ChirpLearning: A social way for professionals to learn from each other

Share, Learn, Apply.
ChirpLearning is a way for professionals to utilize social media to communicate and learn from other each other on a variety of business related topics. Our mission is to utilize the broad reach of social media to promote and foster informal learning.
Members can post questions, provide links to articles, mentor others and other topics to promote learning within the enterprise.
Join us on Facebook: ChirpLearning
Join us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChirpLearning
LinkedIn Group: ChirpLearning
Youtube: ChirpLearning