Training Alliance April 2012

Tr a in ing All ianceCommunication, Knowledge, Learning:FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE

Vol. 1 - Issue 2 - April 2012 magazine

www.trainingalliance.ca

WORDS OF WISDOM FROMEDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY GURUCLAUDE MARTEL

SPOTLIGHT

WEBSITE STICKINESS:You don’t have to bend overbackwards to get it!

BALANCING IMAGES AND INFORMATION:Using infographics for corporatecommunications and training

FROM NEWBIE TO EXPERT:The big stretch to greattraining documentation

Car

toon N

amin

g Cont

est!

Car

toonTraining Alliance Magazine is

adding a comic to the maga-zine and we are seeking input on naming it.

The comic is a single panel style cartoon, like an editorial cartoon, focusing on business and more specifically business-related to training, graphic communications and/or digital solutions. The comic will appear in Training Alliance Magazine as well as online via Facebook and other social media channels on an informal timeline.

Here are 2 sample cartoons.

Your suggested titles should: • be one or two words • have something to do with business or training

To enter your suggestions, go to www.trainingalliance.ca and click on the "Cartoon Contest" link. There, you will be able to enter your title suggestion, name and e-mail address.

If your suggestion is selected, Studio 7 Communications will design one exclusive comic strip for you or your company - based on one of your business issues or humorous stories - and you'll get a digital copy and a hard copy for yourself. (You will need to send us a pic of yourself and/or company logo).

The “contest” closes on Friday, May 18th, 2012, and we'll announce the winner on June 1st.

We're looking forward to seeing your suggestions,

ThanksThe Studio 7 Team

BALANCINGIMAGESANDINFORMATION

01TRAINING ALLIANCE MAGAZINE - FEBRUARY 2012

Editorial:

Striking a balance between knowledge, communication, and learning.

If you take a close look at this month’s issue, you will notice the critical importance of powerful communications across multiple contexts, modalities, and audiences.

• Successful e-commerce websites communicate virtually everything a customer would want to know in person to create an equivalent buying experience. • Successful infographics epitomize the old expression of a picture being worth a thousand words by creating succinct and engaging images that appeal to a reader’s intuition. • Successful planning and design of training materials transforms processes and procedures into both a library and a delivery channel for a company’s collective knowledge.

Although seemingly disparate, each of these topics illustrate how a balanced approach to knowledge, communication, and learning can help you achieve greater success in getting your messages seen, heard, and most impor-tantly understood.

These concepts are further brought to light in our spot light feature on Claude Martel. Mr. Martel’s vast experience as President of EduConsillium and chairman of the Canadian E-Learning Enterprise Alliance gives him unique insight on the state of e-learning today and in the near future. We’re sure you will find Mr. Martel’s comments both useful and enlightening.

The Studio 7 Team

Content:

08

SPOTLIGHT: WORDS OF WISDOM FROM EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY GURUCLAUDE MARTEL

Education technology guru Claude Martel shares his insight on the current and future state of e-learning.

02

WEBSITE STICKINESS:You don’t have to bend over backwards to get it!

Simple rules on improving your website’s customer experience.

by Edouard Rotondo

04

BALANCING IMAGES AND INFORMATION:Using infographics for corporate communications and training

How to apply infographics to your corporate and training communications.

by Eric Wrazen

06

FROM NEWBIE TO EXPERT:The big stretch to great training documentation

An instructional designer’s perspective on trans-forming information into teachable knowledge.

by George Saridakis

02

WEBSITE STICKINESS:You don’t have to bend over backwards to get it!by Edouard Rotondo

Websites. For many companies, a website epitomizes an elusive key to financial abun-dance that somehow never quite seems to be within grasp.

15 years ago, a plethora of businesses rose to prominence by offering the design and development of websites as their launch pad into the digital market. This was both great and not-so-great for clients who knew noth-ing about the Internet or the revenue poten-tial that it would ultimately possess.

Seizing the elusive formula demands two particular insights: understanding what creates stickiness on a website, and under-standing what goes on behind the scenes. For now, we'll be focusing on stickiness and what businesses need to know before they hire an Internet development firm.

03TRAINING ALLIANCE MAGAZINE - APRIL 2012

“The concept ofweb stickinessrelates to anythingabout a websitethat encourages avisitor to stay longer.”

The New Frontier

Many Internet-based companies have known more success than any brick-and-mortar company could ever hope to achieve. The entire consumer-based consumption model has been rewritten for online purchasing and it continues to evolve.

Case in point: In 1999, an online company called Zappos.com was founded. What did they sell? Shoes. You might think that, of all personal items someone may want to try before buying, shoes would be at the top of the list, or very close.

However, by 2008, Zappos declared $1 billion in online annual sales of shoes and accessories. ONE BILLION. Beyond proving that a new paradigm for consumer buying habits now existed, this jaw-dropping number in online shoe sales demonstrated that there was an e-business strategy that could leverage it, even selling products previously reserved for a face-to-face experience.

Stickiness - A True Online Client Experience

The concept of web stickiness relates to anything about a website that encourages a visitor to stay longer. This is important to understand, as it brings us back to several concepts that any business should know about when building their website.

Amongst other things, online success comes from recreating a customer's buying experience: one that closely resembles what they undergo when they are physically inside your business. This includes:

• Getting to Know You: If you were talking to your clients, what would you tell them about yourself? What would they want to know? • Experiencing your Products/Services: Showing your products is no longer enough to close the deal: You need to build interaction into your website so that the users can "feel" what they are going to buy. • Buying Safely: Crossing over to the new frontier of e-commerce demands that you assure your clients that their purchases are just as secure and refundable as they are in person. • Walking Out at Any Time: Don't harass your clients; nobody likes a pushy sales person.

• Getting a Good Deal: Coupons, rebates, sales! Just keep in mind that some business reputations are lessened if they are negotiated. Figure out where you stand. • Providing Feedback: Listen to your clients and respond to them in a timely manner. Adapt to your online community's needs. • Getting Personal: When possible, enable your clients to tailor their online shopping environment to create an intimate connection with your offerings. • Feeling Supported: A good support system is also critical for those clients that need to contact you for any reason. • Finding Things Easily: Web ergonomics are relatively straightforward. But take some time to understand your clients and design a website based on their shopping needs.

Now that you have an understanding of the basic rules, your goal doesn’t have to be getting it all perfect on the first try, but to apply the rules of stickiness well enough to materialize your website's immense business potential. So take some time to think about what a true online experience would be for your clients, and build from there.

searchsoa.techtarget.com

04

BALANCING

Using infographics forcorporate communications and trainingby Eric Wrazen

IMAGESANDINFORMATION

Having been a frequent traveller in the US, the infographic had cemented itself into my in subcon-scious purely by chance. Regardless of my destination, the one thing that I could count on was that a copy of USA Today would be at my hotel room door every morning. How much of the paper was read depended on how busy I was on any given day, but without fail I would at least skim the front page and glean some quick current facts from the daily “Snapshot”.

Samples from USA Today online, March 15, 2012

05

Excerpt from Mashable.com,A Day in the Life of the Internet [INFOGRAPHIC], March 06, 2012

I never thought much about the value or impact of those colourful little squares of knowledge until I recently noticed that the “infographic style” has been flourishing as the cool way to present information on popular websites like Mashable.com and in magazines like Wired and Fast Company.

The history and origin of infographics can be traced as far back as cave drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the development of geographical mapping. However, for our usage as a modern tool for communication and learning, we need not go further back than 1982 and those Snapshots from USA Today.

An infographic is simply a way of presenting information in a compact and visually pleasing way. It can be seen as the PowerPoint presentation distilled to the essential components of concept and data. For business, as well as for corporate learning, it makes sense to consider the infographic not only as an alternative to the PowerPoint presentation, but as its evolution to a simpler form. The key difference between the PowerPoint presentation and the infographic is the shift from sequential information to visual representation.

Creating an effective infographic requires the ability to identify the key data in your content and devise a compelling way to visualise it. Rules for creating an effective infographic include: • Use colour schemes that are appealing and not garish or overly contrasted • Use icons and imagery that are instantly recognizable and universally associated with the content • Summarise your information into concise data points • Change font types and sizes to differentiate between data types • Change background colours to separate data into logical blocks • Don’t overload the viewer – too much information will reduce your desired impact

The number of visual rules may seem overwhelming at first, but the good news is that you don’t have to be a graphic designer in order to create infographics yourself. Believe it or not, PowerPoint can be a great place to start building infographics. It allows you to choose backgrounds and colour schemes, and to manipulate text, icons and images. The following example was created entirely in PowerPoint using icons and images from royalty-free image sets.

In addition to using PowerPoint, there are resources on the web that will allow you to create customized infographics online. Visual.ly is just one example. It currently offers some basic infographic templates, but will soon launch customization features that will allow you to create you own infographics with your own data.

Once you’ve become familiar with creating infographics, you can apply this skill in numerous ways. A well thought out infographic can add colour and flair to your corporate presentations, annual reports, or company newsletters. In training situations, you can draw attention to specific objectives within e-learning modules, give your job aids some extra appeal, or even make post-training evaluation data just a little more interesting.

Resources and Further Reading:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/snapshot.htmhttp://mashable.com/follow/topics/infographicshttp://visual.ly/http://blog.visual.ly/how-to-create-viral-infographics/

TRAINING ALLIANCE MAGAZINE - APRIL 2012

Sample from Studio 7 Communications, March 2012

Sample made using Visual.ly Twitter template, March 15, 2012

“The Future of E-Learning”

The Reporters Toolkit

Training documents have been known by many forms and names: manuals, e-learning modules, standard operating procedures, stan-

dard works, or user guides. If you think that all that is required is to have a company Subject Matter Expert (SME) or two

write down their thoughts, think again. Aside from the fact that they already have a full workload that can

limit their time to spend on internal documentation projects, many have internalized their expertise

so deeply that they are not able to properly transfer their knowledge. This is why com-

panies who are keen on protecting their intellectual capital frequently call upon

external resources to bridge the gap. What follows is the process of how

an instructional designer (ID) stretches their abilities to effec-

tively capture your content.

06

The big stretch to great training documentationby George Saridakis

FROMNEWBIE

TOEXPERT

TRAINING ALLIANCE MAGAZINE - APRIL 2012 07

Step 1: Identify Key Contacts

You may have one expert whose price-less wisdom you want epitomized in a manual, but you may

also have more. In fact, one additional expert or

semi-expert perspective can be very valuable in

validating and complement-ing your primary expert’s

perspective. An ID would thus ask for access to the SMEs they can rely on to obtain the most accurate representation of your content.

Step 2: Collect, Collect, Collect

Before diving into a discussion about the program content with the SMEs, an ID asks to be sent everything the client has that is related to the content being documented; forms, flowcharts, manuals, notes, and other random documents thrown in for good measure. Amongst all this random documentation will be pieces that form elementary notions, enough to start a respect-able conversation with.

Step 3: Converse, Converse, Converse

With rudimentary notions set in place, the ID can speak with the

primary SME to further familiarize with the

content. The next challenge, one that

always presents itself in an expert and newbie dialogue, is ensuring that the

Follow-up and continuous improvement

Depending on the resources available, the training docu-ment may be subjected to one or more passes of quality control with some ensuing minor adjustments. In addition, the document may evolve over time, and companies may elect to touch up their documents on their own, or return to the ID for updates and sequels. This recurrent relationship benefits both parties: the ID benefits from repeat business, and the company benefits from having an “on call” resource who is experienced at collecting, understanding, interpreting, and transform-ing their internal proce-dures into effective and robust training materials.

expert doesn’t lose the ID by diving into details too fast. The ID may have to lead the conversation back to “square one” several times during the process.

Step 4: Have a First Go

Because the SME’s time is valu-able and usually in short supply, a key strategy for the ID is to record their conversations with the SMEs, with their permission, of course. This way, the ID has the benefit of referring to the conver-sation as many times as required to understand the content, with-out having to use more of the SME’s time.

The ID then transcribes the conversations with the SME, integrates the documents and files initially collected, and associates them to the procedures they have transcribed.

Step 5: Converse Again, Using Your First Go

After a first pass at the content, the ID is now capable of sharing their interpretation with the SMEs. Together, they review the content and make adjustments and enhancements on the spot. If a second in-person meeting isn’t possible, this task can be accom-plished quite well over web conferencing software as well.

Step 6: Finalize…for now

To complete the process, all information will be properly ordered and categorized, and the ID will then contextualize it into a user-friendly training document for the benefit of the new learner.

08

SPOTLIGHTClaude Martel is a well-established practitoner and educator in the training and education community of Quebec. He has been at the forefront of the development and application of Human Performance Technology and distance education technology in many corporations and schools. Training Alliance had the opportunity to sit with Mr. Martel for a discussion about the challenges and potential of e-learning and educational technology in general.

In the last two decades, we have been working profes-sionally in a world that was not quite ready for us. With the massive changes coming our way in education and training, I believe that we need to become “Renaissance Individuals”, as educational technologists are trained to deal with these situations and transformations. All the factors are now pointing towards an accelerated need and use for educational technology in the next decade.

________________________________________________Having amassed considerable experience in both training and education, how do you compare the two, and to what degree can training technologies be adapted to pedagogical environments? There is a fundamental difference between education and training. Education is a much broader societal tool that looks at both providing some specifically applicable skill, while providing a larger set of knowledge and skills that will help students throughout their professional life. Train-ing on the other hand should always be a razor sharp tool to address the specific business needs of an organization or a profession. Education and training are complemen-tary societal tools, to help get our workforce ready for the challenges they will face in society.

Because of their focus on shorter-term business needs, organizations and corporations have been less resistant to the use of training technology. They have been early adopters, even in times where technology was not that user-friendly, and technology allowed them to stretch their budget and to train more people faster. Now there are hundreds of organizations in Canada that have invested a large percentage of their training budgets in technology supported training.

Until a few years ago, the Education world had been more resistant to the use of technology in the classroom. To a certain point, many of the early educational technologies offered were not always adapted to the less lucrative educational field. With the arrival of specifically

________________________________________________As both the President of EduConsillium and chair-man of CeLEA over the past dozen years, you have had a front-row seat to the evolution of cutting edge technologies in training and education. In your eyes, what are the latest benefits and challenges related to these technologies? In the last twenty years, the world of educational technol-ogy has changed dramatically. We have gone from a world with rough looking and difficult to use technology, to a world where technology is omnipresent in almost all sectors of activity. Obviously the fact that technology has become more affordable and easy to use is important, but other important changes in our society are genuinely transforming training and education:

• The massive retirement of baby boomers is creating another massive effect in the global landscape. Both public and private organizations are now wondering if they will have enough qualified resources to continue to produce the goods and services our society needs. This massive societal movement is also profoundly affecting our craft, as it is pushing “educational technologists” to become more than just course developers or technology implementers. It is forcing us to become more business and finance oriented. Clients are now looking for sure and tested ways to get their employees and managers trained more rapidly and efficiently. This is a great challenge for us, but it is also an amazing responsibility. In many cases now, our solutions become a central part of their organizational talent management strategy. If you succeed, the benefits are massive, but failures may also have important and sometimes catastrophic impact on organizations.

• The new generation of “Digital Natives” is also a force to consider in a more global vision of training and education. The almost instantaneous adoption of digital technology by the younger generation

(25 and under) is creating a demand that was not necessarily there from previous generations. As this clientele is now filling our schools and is starting to reach the workplace, they will be pushing the demand for technological education. I think this is an amazing opportunity as they will accelerate the use, creation and societal buy-in of educational technologies.

• On the research side, some breakthrough research has finally given its letter of prestige to educational technologies. The 2004 landmark meta analysis research of Robert Bernard and Phil Abrami finally showed that technological education could do as well or sometimes provide some advantages compared to classroom education. For me, it was the first time that a “no significant difference” results had such a ripple effect all over the education planet. Even the US dept. of Education has generously cited the study in many of their recent publications.

• Finally, the impact of emerging economies on the training and education market will soon surprise many. Ten years ago, we were really just talking of the outsourcing market here, where companies were outsourcing E-learning production to India. Now some of the most innovative educational technologies are either targeted at emerging markets or are developed by emerging economies. The 35-dollar tablet in India is one example of large-scale innovation that will soon trickle down in the global economy. Because of their great educational needs, emerging economies are also more creative in their use of different education models. The creation of massive distance education agencies, some having over a million students, are transforming the global learning and training landscape.

In the future, the design of training and education will use a much more hybrid approach where course design-ers will need to consider the level of human interaction the learner will require to support his or her learning.

________________________________________________Despite the boom of training technologies in recent years and its penetration into Web 2.0 culture, the fact remains that some companies have yet to embrace it fully, relegating training to an auxiliary function of someone in human resources. What do you think it takes for companies to embrace training as a legitimate business driver to be invested in? I think it is normal that different organizations have differ-ent levels of adoption of educational technology. There are usually two issues in the adoption of technology by the training department.

First, we need to consider the level of knowledge and comfort of the management and design team of the training department with educational technologies. There are still a lot of training managers, course designers and trainers that are not familiar or confident with the use of educational technologies. It is only when enough of the management team is convinced that the group usually moves forward with these type of projects.

The second factor is mostly centered around the ability of the training department to sell this expertise to the rest of the organization. As the use of technology may require additional funding and implicates other business units (HR, IT…), the training department must take a leadership role to integrate the technological training strategy in the organization’s strategic business processes (talent management, custumer service, production…).

It is usually when these two conditions are met that technological training really picks up in an organization. Otherwise, the use of training technology often remains at the level of pilot projects and peripheral use.

tailored, cheaper and much more user-friendly technolo-gies (like smart boards and virtual classrooms) and the availability of better and free digital educational resources like the Khan Academy, education is also jumping on the bandwagon. Multiple provinces and states have programs to modernize the classroom with the integra-tion of technology. At the same time, numerous colleges and universities have created or expanded their distance education unit. Many educational institutions are now trying to reach students on a larger scale. Education will be a fascinating domain to follow over the next decade, as fundamental change brought forward by educational technologies may finally start to transform an education system in need of modernization.

________________________________________________Leveraging technology for learning has certainly proved to be a viable strategy, but at the same time, the proliferation of live seminars, workshops and other more traditional learning events makes a legitimate argument for sustaining a “human touch” to training initiatives. How do you reconcile the two methodologies? First, we should never be opposed to the use of technol-ogy in classrooms. Educational technology can be used as much to support classroom delivery as it can be used for remote access to education and training.

Most of the research of the last two decades has shown that the “human touch” provided by teachers and peers might be important but not always central to the learning process. The amount of research that demonstrates that learners can learn as effectively with fairly autonomous technology is now impressive. There are also multiple ways of providing the “human touch” that are supported or combined with technological education. You can now talk to a teacher or tutor online and collaborate in team-work virtually. The technology has come a long way to support communication and collaboration over the last few years.

The demand is also growing rapidly. The general accep-tance of distance education institutions, the growing demand from emerging economies, and the new genera-tion of digital natives are greatly supporting the rapid development of educational technologies for both schools and corporations.

Finally, I believe that we are finally moving to a more intelligent and flexible design of digital courses. In the last two decades the design of online courses was often limited by the technological capacities of the tools we were using. As the choice and sophistication of tools available increases, course designers finally have the choice of instructional strategies that can more closely meet the needs of the organizations and the learners.

I believe it is a great time to be an educational technolo-gist as we are getting to the point where technology, demand, and instructional possibilities are all at a mature enough stage where we can bring significant results to corporations, academic institutions and society in general.

________________________________________________How do you adopt your training strategies for small companies who are enthusiastic about learning technologies but don’t yet have the budget to accommodate all that they desire? When we consider all the technological possibilities available to train using technology, there are many that can now be fairly easily adapted to small businesses. There are now low cost LMS services, fairly low cost authoring systems and virtual classrooms that small businesses can afford. Now if the company does not have the staff, there are also many suppliers that can produce and host the material for them at a fairly low cost.

One on the key challenges in this case, is to keep the expectations of the company in line with their means. Too often, small companies would like a large production on a small budget. This often ends up causing difficulties as the instructional product created rarely meets the client’s expectation.

________________________________________________Your position as professor in Concordia University’s Educational Technology program gives you unique access to the minds that will be shaping the future of learning methods and technologies. Would you like to share some of your insights into what interesting directions the new up-and-comers will be taking us in the coming years?

The world of educational technology is currently in transi-tion in so many different ways. First and foremost, the technology is getting cheaper, more flexible but also much more user-friendly for both course designers and users. Because more people have access to the tools, more interesting and ingenious solutions are coming forward. A web site like the Khan Academy started on a shoestring budget and is now a major force in the educa-tion field. This could not have been done with the technology available 10 or even 5 years ago.

WORDS OF WISDOM FROMEDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY GURU

Claude Martel



























WORDS OF WISDOM FROMEDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY GURU

Claude Martel

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TR A ININ

G

ALLIAN

CEmagazine

Issue 2

, April 2012

Publisher:

Studio 7 Communicat

ions, Inc.

Editors:

Edouard Rotondo,

Eric Wraz

en

Contributing W

riters:

Edouard Rotondo,

Eric Wraz

en,

George Sa

ridakis

Contributing A

rtists:

Joelle Fo

ster,

Sacha L

efebvre

Art Desig

n/Direction: Jo

elle Fo

ster

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Training Alliance Magazine is published by Studio 7 Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from is strictly prohibited. Studio 7 Communications, Inc. does not accept liability for omissions or errors.

Training Alliance April 2012

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