Reading recommendation from The MASIE Center

I have been a longtime fan of this learning lab & think tank under the leadership of Elliott Masie. This past week they published the Learning Leaders Fieldbook. It contains excellent, concise information for folks in our profession who feel a need to refresh. Below is the web link, enjoy! 

 

http://www.masie.com/fieldbook

Happy Father's Day

Enjoy this upcoming weekend, whether you are a father or you have a father. Check out this link. It starts with an opportunity to reflect on good ol' Dad... http://www.teamworkandleadership.com/

ODN - Greater Dayton Summer 2009 Event

Connecting with the Community: Dayton's Future
Friday, June 5, 7:30 - 9:30 a.m.
Hosted by Sinclair Learning Center at the Miami Valley Research Park
1900 Founders Drive in Kettering
RSVP & inquiries to Terri Eastman / terri.eastman@sbcglobal.net

recommend reading 1

I'm a fan of sharing new info, so here's the first of my occasional posts with recommended reading. Feel free to comment with more good resources.

1. Article in the May '09 edition of Chief Learning Officer magazine
www.clomedia.com
A Second Look at Second Life (pp 21-27)
Personal note: I was clearly wrong on this Web 2.0 tool.
It has virtual legs in the training profession.

2. Posted on the National ASTD LinkedIn group
Emotional Intelligence Resource List
Hi Everyone,
I have created a free resource list on emotional intelligence at http://www.squidoo.com/emotional-intelligence-1
Have a look, use it if its helpful and some of your recomendations if you like.
Cheers,
Shaun Killian
Director at Australian Leadership Development Centre

April chapter mtg notes

Thanks to everyone who participated in our April 16, 2009 session “Engaging Employees Under 30.” With a 50/50 split in the audience of GenY/Millennials and Xer/Boomers, the shared insight was a win-win for everyone. Special thank you to our panel:

Patricia Clark, retired guidance counselor and career education teacher
Erin Cullin, lead trainer for Red Robin Gourmet Burgers
Kelly Kennedy, Wright State University psychology student
Amanda Minehart, Service Quality Manager at Wright-Patt Credit Union

To summarize the meeting, we each wrote one burning question about connecting with and/or engaging younger employees (under age 30) currently in the workforce. Below are the questions presented to our panel:

> How do we get younger employees to understand their changing role?
> How do you help GenY/Millennials accept that you have information and knowledge to share?
> How important is maintaining the self-esteem of the under-30 learner compared to the over-30 learner?
> Is it true GenY/Millennials can concentrate better with an iPod on?
> Regarding your career, what significant worries keep you awake at night?
> What are you going to do to facilitate change with your teaching/management style when adapting to working with a younger culture?
> What are your biggest fears of my generation (20s-30s) coming into the workforce?
> What do you feel you do differently than your parents or grandparents that allows you to effectively multi-task?
> What is the difference between a leader and a manager you respect?
> What is the toughest aspect of training for you?
> What is the worst characteristic of a boss that you have the hardest time dealing with?
> What makes you bored and impatient with training or user/instruction guides?
> What skills would you recommend students emphasize when creating a resume?
> What would you say is the average attention span of the under-30 workforce?
> Why do Millennials/GenYs always text?
> Why do you feel that it is so important to stick with the “old ways of business” instead of opening up to new ideas?
> With the baby boomer generation reaching a retirement age, a lot of management positions will be opening to a younger generation. How do you think the industry, as a whole, will shift with this influx of younger supervisors? (Creativity vs. “this is how we’ve always…”)

February mtg follow-up

Our first chapter webinar experience was great, thanks to both Brian Butcher and Michael West for leading the LinkedIn and Facebook segments of the meeting. 

Our March 19 dinner program will be an official launch of our Special Interest Groups.  The three SIGs we will be kicking off are:   Coaching, facilitated by Matt Becker  /  Leadership Development, facilitated by Jackie Smith  /  eLearning, facilitated by Verne Morland.
Our April 16 luncheon will consist of a Generation Y panel discussing learning and performance initiatives.  We are discussing future programs this year geared toward how to develop a webinar and create a podcast.  
The WOC-ASTD website also serves as our newsletter and is updated on a regular basis.  Please use our blog to post your thoughts and suggestions as well as to continue conversations surrounding our monthly program topics. (posted by Brenda Kraner)

If you were not able to join our meeting on February 19, here's a summary on the LinkedIn network. (posted by Brian Butcher) 

Roughly 15 million members are in this social network. Now there are almost 8,700 members in the ASTD Group. ASTD is one example of a large number of interest groups in LinkedIn. This one is quite active. 
During just the last seven days, over 100 new members signed up in the ASTD Group. During the past three months, roughly 500 discussions have been posted by members of the ASTD Group. As an example of content, a search on the discussion keyword "webcast" found 20 hits. Currently the news article most read is entitled "Get Out of the Training Business" from the CLO magazine, February 2009 edition. 
Coincidentally Verne Morland posted a link to this article on our WOC blog a short time ago. Various search options are available on the home 

page of LinkedIn  -- Search for People, Jobs, Companies, Answers, Inbox and Groups. 

Like other social networks, LinkedIn can be a valuable job searching resource. A related presentation is available on Slideshare under this link... 

http://www.slideshare.net/mgrey/leveraging-linked-in-for-the-job-search?from=email&type=share_slideshow&subtype=slideshow

Get Out of the Training Business

The admonition above is the title of a provocative article by Jay Cross published this month in the online version of Chief Learning Officer magazine. (Click the link to read the article.) His basic argument is that the industrial age is over and as a result:

"Training is obsolete because it deals with a past that won't be repeated. Learning will be redefined as problem-solving, achieving fit with one's environment and having the connections to deal with novel situations."

That may not be news to most of us, but what I find interesting is how clearly he lays out the ramifications.

"Next week, we will close the training department. We are shifting our focus from training to performance. Any remaining training staff will become mentors, coaches and facilitators who work on improving core business processes, strengthening relationships with customers and cutting costs

"I'm changing my title from VP of training to VP of core capabilities. My assistants will become the director of sales readiness and the director of competitive advantage, respectively. The measure of our contributions will be results, not training measures. We're scrapping the LMS posthaste. Wherever possible, we're replacing proprietary software with open source."

The article is only two pages, but Cross packs a lot of provocative material into it. I encourage you to read it and to post your comments here on our blog.