DevLearn ‘09 Recap – What an Awesome Conference!

I’ve just come home from DevLearn 09. DevLearn is the eLearning Guild’s annual developer conference held in San Jose. This is the second time I have gone there, with this year being the first time I have spoken at the event. It was fantastic fun, holding lots of revelations and surprises. Now, tired but happy, begins the real work. The work of consolidating the notes, following up on the contacts made (some virtual contacts finally made real… I always love when that happens) and trying to make some steps to implement the great ideas I picked up there and talked over with new and old colleagues.

Read more

Our DevLearn Presentation – Stop Building It From Scratch: Creating Reusable eLearning Components

I’ll have a full recap on the conference later, but for now, here is our presentation deck. Enjoy!

Additionally, we have a handout to help you decide if building an API is right for you:

he Iona Group is pleased to announce that it is working with Campus Vena, a division of Veolia Environnement, to develop an eLearning orientation module as part of their Veolia Induction Program for new managers. The module will be developed using Iona’s Doctum® Learning Development system. In order to meet the learning objectives of the course and to effectively influence this particular audience, additional functionality is being developed in Doctum. The additional functionality will provide a user interface that reinforces the key message and provides real-time feedback to the learner. “This eLearning module must do more than just educate our new managers. We want it to influence their attitudes and their sense of pride about Veolia and the people they will lead,” says Gina Gardner, Training Manager for Campus Veolia.

Campus Veolia is a new division of VENAO LLC (Veolia Environment North America Organization) established in April 2008 in Lombard, Illinois. It forms part of the VE Campus network which is present in 14 different countries, the largest of which is in France. Campus VENA is headed by Ronnie Bennett who successfully set up and ran the Campus in the United Kingdom for 7 years.

An appropriate title for my first blog post, don’t you think? My primary focus at The Iona Group is in our Learn practice area. This practice area focuses on helping our clients develop and deliver effective learning programs. Our work is primarily in the area of eLearning, although we work hard to recommend the right solutions for our clients and eLearning is not always the right approach.

In any case, I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately about what makes good learning and what makes it successful. When you think about it, learning in a corporate setting ultimately has one purpose and one purpose only: to change behavior. To achieve positive business results we need the right behaviors to change, but that is a different topic. What I want to focus on here is how to get people to do things differently from what they are currently doing.

There are three things that affect behaviors: beliefs, attitudes and knowledge. Often, corporate learning only focuses on one of the three: knowledge. This can be problematic because knowing what do to and doing it are often two different things. For instance, think about smoking. There is overwhelming evidence to support the negative health effects of this activity and this information is widely available. And yet, according to a 2006 study by the US Department of Health and Human Services, every day 1,300 children between the ages of 12 and 17 try their first cigarette and go on to become regular smokers. So information alone is not always enough to change people’s behavior.

When I sit down to work on a project with a client I always ask three questions: Who is the audience? What is the message and what do you want people to do differently as a result of your message? What I find is that in general, people have thought a lot about the message and only a little about the audience and what they want the audience to do differently after receiving the message.

A great example of this is safety training. Safety training can be some of the most important learning companies offer their employees. But simply providing people with safe practices and procedures does not necessarily mean they will be followed. The key is to affect people’s attitudes about safety – that it is important and change their belief that following safe practices and procedures – whatever they are – will make a difference. In a recent series of safety training and messages we worked on for one of our clients, we did this by tying our messages to the idea of people returning safely home to their families every day. By connecting safety at work to its impact on loved ones at home, we aimed to produce a more lasting and effective message that would result in people taking safety to heart.

By beginning with the end in mind, and focusing on how to impact peoples’ knowledge, attitude and beliefs, training will become more relevant, more interesting and more personal, resulting in learning that will change behavior and achieve the desired results.

Welcome to my blog. My name is John Feser and I am one of the partners and owners of a creative communications company called The Iona Group. We work with Fortune 100 companies, small and medium sized business and non-profit organizations to help them creatively and effectively communicate their messages. If this sounds too much like a marketing message and more abstract, I apologize. It is always interesting when I describe Iona because what we produce is so diverse (corporate websites, HD video, eLearning, computer interactives), yet how we go about producing these various forms of communication is so incredibly similar. If you would like to learn more, check out our website at www.ionagroup.com.

I am fascinated by how we as humans communicate with each other and how our communication affects how we work and interact. I am interested in everything from our use of technology, to the written and spoken word as well as the impact it has on our relationships, our society and our culture. Obviously, communication is pervasive in every aspect of our lives; so much so that we tend to take it for granted.

My goal with this blog is to share my observations and experiences with communication and how they relate specifically to learning and human performance, especially in the workplace. I’ll explore what makes good communication work and why along with examples of ineffective communication. I welcome your comments and feedback on all my posts and sincerely hope that I learn as much from those who follow this blog as they learn from me.

I was helping one of my daughters with her homework and the inevitable question came up, “When am I ever going to use this?” While maybe a little frustrating as a parent, it’s really a fair question if you think about it. And it is one that is just as germane to adult learners as it is to my ten year-old daughter.

In corporate learning it is easy to get caught up focusing on the content of the course. Countless hours are spent making sure all the key points are thoroughly covered, that the material is presented in an engaging manner and that there is an adequate way to assess whether the learner has mastered the material. This is all well and good, and very important. But does the learner really know why they are taking the course? If the answer is, “Because my boss told me to,” or “Corporate requires it,” then don’t expect your learners to be too motivated.

If you really want to motivate people so they learn and retain the material you are trying to teach, you must first answer one important question, “What’s in it for me?” The answer to this question will be very different depending on your course content. However, it should always be personal and specific.

First, it must be personal. If you are trying to roll out sales training to your sales force and you tell everyone that the purpose of this training is to, “Improve sales so that the company can achieve a 10% growth in revenue,” people may lose interest almost immediately. But tell them that this training will make them better salespeople and that it will help them reach or exceed their monthly sales quota, and you will get their attention.

Second, be specific. Explain how the training will benefit them. For example, “This training will introduce you to various types of customer resistance and will show you some ways of handling that resistance so that you will be more comfortable and confident when you encounter objections.” There are many ways to make the learning specific. If you have information or statistics on how the training has benefited others who have taken the course, share it. If there are specific situations when your material is particularly useful, be sure to let people know that also.

Answering the question “What’s in it for me,” also provides another benefit besides increasing interest and motivation. It also provides a context for learning. If people understand the answers to When, Where, How and Why they will be using the course material, then they will be able to relate the learning to their own real-life situations. This helps greatly with comprehension and retention of the material.

So, as you are writing the outline for your next course or training piece, be sure to think about providing your learners some personal and specific reasons for how this course will benefit the learner. You’ll end up with people who are more motivated to learn and are able to better comprehend and retain the material.

Two prominent Peoria area service organizations, the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities began using Iona’s Doctum® eLearning Development System in March. Both organizations will be using Doctum to create their own, custom eLearning courses that can be delivered to employees, volunteers as well as those who use the services of Catholic Charities and the Red Cross.

Doctum, with its easy to use interface and variety of output options, offers several advantages for service organizations looking to produce eLearning content. Doctum’s web-based interface allows training professionals and individuals who have little or no eLearning development experience to quickly and easily produce eLearning modules. In addition, Doctum facilitates collaboration between individuals by providing an easy way to review and comment on modules as they are being developed. Doctum’s Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription model makes it simple for those new to eLearning to experiment without incurring the higher costs associated with purchasing packaged software or hiring outside consultants to do the work. “The Red Cross is always searching for effective ways to reach more people with disaster prevention and health education. Iona’s Doctum eLearning Development System is an exciting opportunity to expand our training.” Anne Fox, CEO, American Red Cross Central Illinois Chapter.

In today’s economic times, organizations are turning to eLearning as a way to do more for less. The “create once, share with many” nature of eLearning allows non-profits who have a large constituency to distribute learning to many people at a significantly lower cost than delivering on-site, instructor-led training. “Using this software will be a great asset for our workers and help us reduce travel costs and time away from the office for training,” says Becky Cobb, Training Coordinator/HR Specialist at Catholic Charities Diocese of Peoria. ELearning also has the advantage that it can provide people the ability to work at their own pace. Plus, once they have taken a course, it can be easily used as a reference or taken again at a later time as a refresher.

I was helping one of my daughters with her homework and the inevitable question came up, “When am I ever going to use this?” While maybe a little frustrating as a parent, it’s really a fair question if you think about it. And it is one that is just as germane to adult learners as it is to my ten year-old daughter.

In corporate learning it is easy to get caught up focusing on the content of the course. Countless hours are spent making sure all the key points are thoroughly covered, that the material is presented in an engaging manner and that there is an adequate way to assess whether the learner has mastered the material. This is all well and good, and very important. But does the learner really know why they are taking the course? If the answer is, “Because my boss told me to,” or “Corporate requires it,” then don’t expect your learners to be too motivated.

If you really want to motivate people so they learn and retain the material you are trying to teach, you must first answer one important question, “What’s in it for me?” The answer to this question will be very different depending on your course content. However, it should always be personal and specific.

First, it must be personal. If you are trying to roll out sales training to your sales force and you tell everyone that the purpose of this training is to, “Improve sales so that the company can achieve a 10% growth in revenue,” people may lose interest almost immediately. But tell them that this training will make them better salespeople and that it will help them reach or exceed their monthly sales quota, and you will get their attention.

Second, be specific. Explain how the training will benefit them. For example, “This training will introduce you to various types of customer resistance and will show you some ways of handling that resistance so that you will be more comfortable and confident when you encounter objections.” There are many ways to make the learning specific. If you have information or statistics on how the training has benefited others who have taken the course, share it. If there are specific situations when your material is particularly useful, be sure to let people know that also.

Answering the question “What’s in it for me,” also provides another benefit besides increasing interest and motivation. It also provides a context for learning. If people understand the answers to When, Where, How and Why they will be using the course material, then they will be able to relate the learning to their own real-life situations. This helps greatly with comprehension and retention of the material.

So, as you are writing the outline for your next course or training piece, be sure to think about providing your learners some personal and specific reasons for how this course will benefit the learner. You’ll end up with people who are more motivated to learn and are able to better comprehend and retain the material.

An appropriate title for my first blog post, don’t you think? My primary focus at The Iona Group is in our Learn practice area. This practice area focuses on helping our clients develop and deliver effective learning programs. Our work is primarily in the area of eLearning, although we work hard to recommend the right solutions for our clients and eLearning is not always the right approach.

In any case, I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately about what makes good learning and what makes it successful. When you think about it, learning in a corporate setting ultimately has one purpose and one purpose only: to change behavior. To achieve positive business results we need the right behaviors to change, but that is a different topic. What I want to focus on here is how to get people to do things differently from what they are currently doing.

There are three things that affect behaviors: beliefs, attitudes and knowledge. Often, corporate learning only focuses on one of the three: knowledge. This can be problematic because knowing what do to and doing it are often two different things. For instance, think about smoking. There is overwhelming evidence to support the negative health effects of this activity and this information is widely available. And yet, according to a 2006 study by the US Department of Health and Human Services, every day 1,300 children between the ages of 12 and 17 try their first cigarette and go on to become regular smokers. So information alone is not always enough to change people’s behavior.

When I sit down to work on a project with a client I always ask three questions: Who is the audience? What is the message and what do you want people to do differently as a result of your message? What I find is that in general, people have thought a lot about the message and only a little about the audience and what they want the audience to do differently after receiving the message.

A great example of this is safety training. Safety training can be some of the most important learning companies offer their employees. But simply providing people with safe practices and procedures does not necessarily mean they will be followed. The key is to affect people’s attitudes about safety – that it is important and change their belief that following safe practices and procedures – whatever they are – will make a difference. In a recent series of safety training and messages we worked on for one of our clients, we did this by tying our messages to the idea of people returning safely home to their families every day. By connecting safety at work to its impact on loved ones at home, we aimed to produce a more lasting and effective message that would result in people taking safety to heart.

By beginning with the end in mind, and focusing on how to impact peoples’ knowledge, attitude and beliefs, training will become more relevant, more interesting and more personal, resulting in learning that will change behavior and achieve the desired results.

Welcome to my blog. My name is John Feser and I am one of the partners and owners of a creative communications company called The Iona Group. We work with Fortune 100 companies, small and medium sized business and non-profit organizations to help them creatively and effectively communicate their messages. If this sounds too much like a marketing message and more abstract, I apologize. It is always interesting when I describe Iona because what we produce is so diverse (corporate websites, HD video, eLearning, computer interactives), yet how we go about producing these various forms of communication is so incredibly similar. If you would like to learn more, check out our website at www.ionagroup.com.

I am fascinated by how we as humans communicate with each other and how our communication affects how we work and interact. I am interested in everything from our use of technology, to the written and spoken word as well as the impact it has on our relationships, our society and our culture. Obviously, communication is pervasive in every aspect of our lives; so much so that we tend to take it for granted.

My goal with this blog is to share my observations and experiences with communication and how they relate specifically to learning and human performance, especially in the workplace. I’ll explore what makes good communication work and why along with examples of ineffective communication. I welcome your comments and feedback on all my posts and sincerely hope that I learn as much from those who follow this blog as they learn from me.