Author Archives: Al Novas

Do you have the right learning management system in place to support onboarding new hires? Today, the United States government reported better than expected employment statistics – a net addition of 200,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in the month of December 2011 and a drop in the unemployment rate to 8.5%. The feeling is we may have finally seen the bottom of this much extended recession in the U.S. While these results are still not great, and certainly elevated from just four years ago, it does indicate we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel – and it is not a freight train. As we end the first week of the new year with this encouraging news, … Continue Reading »

Collaboration is critical for progressive organizations to succeed – so says HBR On the cover of this month’s Harvard Business Review highlights the importance of collaboration at progressive companies. Collaboration has received a lot of press, now a centerpiece and on the cover of one of the top management and leadership publications in the world. So it must be important. I agree with HBR and the other articles that discuss the merits of collaboration, social and informal learning in the marketplace. (If interested in a free chapter from the new book The New Social Learning, just click through). One scenario described in the article Are you a Collaborative Leader in this month’s HBR discusses how salesforce.com got its entire workforce … Continue Reading »

More evidence presented yesterday on the importance of collaboration in the workplace as a key element of success. In BusinessWeek, Christine Crandall writes (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2011/id20110318_758366.htm) that in a survey spanning 17 different industries, common patterns of the survey’s top performers emerged. Collaboration and communication were among the attributes between successful and struggling companies. Obviously, this does not come through osmosis. With the support and leadership of management, the culture and staff development needs to support a collaborative environment. Using current technology, especially social learning management systems which were built from the ground up with social, informal learning that reinforces a collaborative, sharing environment is a critical element to ensuring attributes of success can be ascribed to your organization. We can help… … Continue Reading »

The U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning a continued improvement in the reduction in the filing of unemployment claims in their weekly reporting. The DoL also reported U.S. job openings fell, indicating a firming up of the job market. The National Federation of Independent Business’ small-business optimism index increased 2.7 points in October. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that wholesale investory increased 1.5%, suggesting an increase in business confidence. And of course, the results from last week’s election and QE²… Are you ready to support getting you new hires to becoming productive as quickly aspossible? Do you have the tools to make that happen? As most of the world was hunkering down for the past two years, certain … Continue Reading »

Ever feel sometimes that you don’t get the joke?  I wonder if that is sometimes happening with respect to eLearning.  Cegos Group, Europe’s largest learning and development company, recently completed a survey that showed that employees wanted more eLearning (by 25%) and eLearning 2.0 (by 33%) (eLearning 2.0 is built around collaborative learning, using Web 2.0 tools such as blogging,  forums, shoutboxes, etc).  In addition, 75% of employees want more peer training and learning – social learning. Which led me to thinking about some memorable quotes from one of my favorite movies - Wall Street… Gordon Gekko asked Bud Fox “What are you twelfth man on the deal team – last to know.”   Do you think the HR function is getting it? Is HR … Continue Reading »

In this week’s issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, an interesting article on Salesforce.com (appears on page 34) with respect to the utilization of social networking tools in its CRM product. Salesforce.com’s Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff called “Chatter” the “most successful software release, ever”. Some 82,000 of their customers are using Chatter over the past couple of months. Benioff indicates that through harnessing social technology such as Chatter, Salesforce.com has experiences a 40% reduction in emails internally, more proactive in problem solving and keep a better pulse on big deals within the organization. Everyone has experienced social networking (Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter™, etc.) on their own. How are you leveraging social technology tools in your company? Survey after survey indicates a … Continue Reading »

We know you are out there. Over 40% of those surveyed by ELearning! magazine recently intend to drop their current LMSs. Moreover, larger companies are looking to spend over $780,000 on the replacement. In the movie The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s character was provided invaluable, brief advice: “Just one word – plastics.” If you are one of those executives contemplating throwing out your old legacy clunker of an LMS – and you should, may I offer you similar sage advice “Just one word – SaaS.” And given less than 10% of LMS owners are utilizing the SaaS model for LMSs right now and considering spending three-quarters of a millions dollars in this economic environment – there are a number of you … Continue Reading »

Each quarter, the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) publishes the Learning Executive Confidence Index reflects a “modest sense of optimism among learning organizations” in Q4 2009. Of the top 11 areas measured by the survey, the top six impact areas within learning organizations measured by the survey: · Reduced travel for learners and trainers – 57% and 44%, respectively ·Greater shift to eLearning – 49% ·Greater reliance on informal learning – 34% ·Greater reuse of existing content – 33% ·Greater usage of Web 2.0 technologies – 27% All of these points are areas where TOPYX® can assist any organization. As you consider ways to keep your learning organization competitive in an increasingly competitive environment, where your current team … Continue Reading »

I imagine we all are looking forward to the end of this recession and grow the top line again. The National Association for BusinessEconomics (NABE) reported yesterday that hiring and capital spending will increase over the next six months. NABE reported in its Industry Survey that demand in Q3 2009 increased for the first time in five quarters, while the number of companies adding jobs doubled from July 2009 to October 2009.   The questions are: Are you ready for this? Do you have the tools to support the training of your new hires? Corporations are recognizing the need to retain new employees and enable them to more quickly achieve productivity in their new capacity and environment. This has resulted … Continue Reading »

A recent report of 700 learning professionals conducted by the American Society for Training & Development entitled Transforming Learning with Web 2.0 Technologies found that Web 2.0 technologies is still “bleeding edge” when used within corporate training functions.  Only 9% of companies use Web 2.0 technologies in a major way within their learning function. My last blog – Collaboratories: How can you compete with the most innovative companies in the world? – discussed how the most innovative companies in the world embraced the collaborative learning that is facilitated by the Web 2.0 in their R&D and business processes.  However, it appears most are slow to adopt. Fortunately, the report the future appears brighter than the present.  In the same report: … Continue Reading »