Does Telecommuting Increase Performance?

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The pros and cons of telecommuting have probably been debated ever since the word “telecommute” was introduced in Webster’s dictionary about 38 years ago (Hartford Business.com). But a new, scientifically relevant study by Stanford researchers and one of China’s largest travel-agents has shed some light on the performance, productivity, and financial impacts telecommuting can have on an organization.

The study, which has not been peer reviewed, focused on call-center employees. You can download a copy of the study presentation (PDF).

The presentation highlights the researchers’ findings that the telecommuters (treatment group) performance was significantly higher than the non-telecommuters (control group). This includes more calls taken, more hours worked, and less attrition.

You can read more detailed summaries of the study at Slate and Smithsonian.com. Thanks to lifehacker for the original heads up on this study.

Learngevity is a learning services company that helps organizations improve performance through custom analysis, training, performance, and business process solutions.

The Top eLearning Authoring Tools

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Learning Solutions Magazine has a useful article written by Joe Ganci that compares the  top seven eLearning authoring tools. It includes an effective table that compares the tools across six categories, including Best Use, Interface, Can Insert, Platforms, Publish To, and Cost. Take a look and see how the tool you use compares to others. And if you are looking for an authoring tool, this is a nice starting point for your tool evaluation and selection.

Authoring Tools Comparison

Learngevity is a learning and development consulting firm located in Sonoma County, California. We help organizations improve performance using learning and development solutions, including the evaluation, selection, and implementation of eLearning authoring tools.

SCORM Cloud LMS

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This is the second post regarding SCORM Cloud. I discovered SCORM Cloud when searching for a plugin that adds learning management functionality to a WordPress site. According to Rustici Software, SCORM Cloud’s publisher, it’s a:

…hosted player that allows you to connect learners to learning anywhere on the web.

SCORM Cloud is a hosted player, but the learning content can’t be anywhere on the web. From what I can tell, the content needs to be hosted on the SCORM Cloud site and then embedded and accessed from a site for which SCORM Cloud has developed integration. In this case, I am focused on a WordPress site. Other types of sites you can embed content hosted at SCORM Cloud include Moodle and a Google Apps domain.

SCORM Cloud is not going to rival a robust learning management system, but it does have some nice features you can use to deliver web based, self-directed learning content from your WordPress site and track it.

To see SCORM Cloud in action, enter your name and email address in the appropriate fields below and click Start Training to launch the learning module I created and then embedded with SCORM Cloud. This covers plugin setup, uploading a course, and embedding a course.

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Click 'Start Training' to take your training.

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Communicating With Executives

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As performance improvement gains a higher profile within executive offices as a strategic element in the success of an organization, it becomes increasingly important to know how to communicate with executives and business leaders. Gary DePaul has put together a great guide titled Five Behaviors Needed When Communicating With Executives over at ISPI’s PerformanceXpress.

The “persuade with data” behavior stuck in my mind immediately, especially where Gary writes:

Here is what to avoid doing: Persuade with your credentials. Having a PhD, CPT, or PMP might get you noticed, but executives want evidence rather than trusting in your expertise.

Gary’s article is a quick read and has some valuable communication tips.

Learngevity provides learning and development consulting services to businesses of all sizes.

WordPress As An LMS

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Just stumbled upon the SCORM Cloud plugin for WordPress. At first glance and a review of the web site, It looks like a very cool plugin that has basic LMS type features. It allows you to deliver learning and evaluation resources with your WordPress site and track usage. Combined with a good community and CMS plugin, you could really build out a lightweight LMS on top of WordPress. This could be great for organizations that don’t need all the bells and whistles of an enterprise level LMS and want to keep the investment at a minimum. The SCORM Cloud plugin is free. I’ll be digging in to the plugin a bit deeper over the next few days and will report my findings.

SCORM Cloud

Learngevity provides learning and development services to businesses of all sizes, including consultation on open source software that can help organizations manage and deliver their learning content.

Why Startups Should Train

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I just came across a great article by Ben Horowitz (Netscape, Loudcloud, Adreessen Horowitz) on Why Startups Should Train Their People . Ben’s not a trainer, but a manager, CEO, and venture capitalist. And he comes at this from a practical point-of-view, which makes it much more powerful. There are some great nuggets here for us trainers, instructional designers, and performance improvement professionals. Maybe some things we have forgotten over the years? Simple things, such as clearly setting expectations during the training of how/why/and when what is learned should be put into practice.

My favorite part of the article is when Ben states:

“Ironically, the biggest inhibitor to putting a training program in place is the perception that it will take too much time. Keep in mind, that there is no investment that you can make that will do more to improve productivity in your company. Therefore, being too busy to train is the moral equivalent of being too hungry to eat.”

The advice in this article can be applied to any company, not just startup companies. So spread this one around to all your clients and potential clients.

 

Ten Ingredents of Great (Learning) Games

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If you are using multiplayer games to train and improve performance, just like anything else there is a recipe for success. This great article by Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read over at the ASTD Learning Circuits blog identifies the Ten Ingredients of Great Games . The article is a quick read and guaranteed to have place in your design toolbox.

And the top ten are…

  1. Self-Representation with Avatars
  2. Three-Dimensional Environments
  3. Narrative Context
  4. Feedback
  5. Reputations, Ranks, and Levels
  6. Marketplaces and Economies
  7. Competition Under Rules that Are Explicit and Enforced
  8. Teams
  9. Parallel Communications Systems That Can Be Easily Reconfigured
  10. Time Pressure

How To Find The Perfect Slide Design

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PowerPoint slides are a given for any type of presentation these days to such an extent that we have all seen the same slide designs thouands of times. If you want to ditch the same basic PowerPoint template you’ve been using for the past several years and you need some fresh design ideas, Slidefinder.net is your friend.

 

Essentially, Slidefinder crawls the web for PowerPoint presentations based on a keyword or words you provide. When it finishes crawling, it presents it’s findings as thumbnails. Postion your pointer over a thumbnail and a summary for that slide and the presentation it belongs to appears. When you click on a thumbnail, Slidefinder loads thumbnails of each slide in the set. You also have the option to embed a preview of the presentation in your own site.

Slidefinder can also be added as a search engine in your browser and as an add-in for PowerPoint.

Quickly Grab Video from DVDs

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Do you need to incorporate DVD video content in your training materials? Well, thanks to DVD Knife (thanks Lifehacker for the heads up) you can quickly grab (with proper permission of course) only the clip you need from any DVD. Just mark your start and end points and DVD Knife does the rest. You’ll need to convert the resulting VOB file to a video format you can use with your project.