This week, the OpenSesame management team is in Las Vegas for the Future of Web Apps, an annual event connecting web developers, business visionaries and creative technologists. (Our team will be tweeting the whole experience with the hashtag #fowa – don’t miss it!) OpenSesame is co-sponsoring this conference alongside fantastic technology companies like Windows Internet… Read more »
Last week I traveled to Salt Lake City for eLearning DevCon, a conference targeted at elearning designers and developers. On Tuesday, I shared my reflections on sessions by Jeremy Friedberg of Sponge Lab and Curtis Morley of Franklin Covey. I also attended a fabulous session from Kathleen Witjing of MedStar Health, who shared her… Read more »
Last week I traveled to Salt Lake City for eLearning DevCon, a small, focused convention targeted at elearning designers and developers. This conference gets into the nitty gritty, with sessions examining new technologies and successful case studies. This week I’ll reflect on some of the highlights of the sessions I attended last week, including presentations… Read more »
“What’s up with the kids these days?” Let’s face it: this expression is as old as time itself. You can imagine caveman dad saying to caveman son, “We didn’t have the wheel when I was growing up! You have it easy!” Yet now, more than ever, this timeless expression is infiltrating the workplace in response… Read more »
This afternoon, OpenSesame will present our business model and technology platform at the Venture Capital in Education Summit in New York in the beautiful IAC HQ building. We’re thrilled to be part of this innovative group of entrepreneurs, educators and investors looking for better ways to invest in the future of education. VCES is a… Read more »
Billionaire investor and venture capitalist Peter Thiel has stirred up a controversy in the tech and education sectors with a very simple argument: the formal education market is a bubble, both overvalued and overpriced. In addition, Thiel is concerned that too often college students end up unemployed yet overwhelmed with student-loan debt. In response, Thiel… Read more »
Six months ago I posted “Tools for Freelance Instructional Designers”, with a compilation of various tools recommended by freelance instructional designers in LinkedIn. With this update, the suggestions are categorized as “open” (free to use) and “commercial” (pay for use). Some limitations of making this kind of list – many applications have a free version,… Read more »
Last week I introduced the three statements recommended as part of the evolving standards for L&D called Talent Development Reporting Principles (TDRP). Those three statements are business outcomes, effectiveness, and efficiency. This week I want to discuss the three recommended reports which are the L&D Summary Report, L&D Program Report, and L&D Operations Report. These… Read more »
Last week my colleagues and I traveled to Orlando for the American Society for Training and Development’s annual International Conference and Expo (the cool kids call it ICE). As always, I emerged exhausted from learning, chatting, socializing and making connections with Twitter friends. And, in this case, perhaps also from the 95 degree heat. Building… Read more »
This week, the OpenSesame crew is attending the American Society for Training & Development’s annual International Conference & Expo. In honor of ICE’s international focus (more than 25% of attendees are here from outside of the U.S.!), we are thrilled to announce that our marketplace is now available in seven languages including English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, German… Read more »
The OpenSesame crew is packing up for our trip (from rainy Portland, OR) to (sunny) Orlando, Florida next week for the American Society of Training & Development’s annual International Conference & Expo (ICE). ICE is the premier international event in the professional training and development industry, featuring more than 8,000 attendees from organizations all over the… Read more »
Last week I introduced the evolving reporting standards for L&D called Talent Development Reporting Principles (TDRP). This week I want to discuss the three recommended statements in more detail. Next week, we will look at the three recommended reports. The three statements are intended to organize and standardize all the important L&D measures just as… Read more »
For the past few months, we’ve been organizing a monthly elearning meetup in Portland, OR – OpenSesame’s home town. We meet up at the Green Dragon, a local pub, and enjoy happy hour appetizers and everyone’s craft microbrews of choice. From college professors and software designers to technical writers and Second Life architects, we’ve had… Read more »
There is an effort underway by many leading L&D practitioners and thought leaders to bring reporting standards to our field. We firmly believe that learning and development should have its own set of reporting principles and standard, consistently-defined measures, just like accounting. These standards would provide much needed guidance in defining the right measures to… Read more »
Yesterday, Dan Pontefract published a thought-provoking post on the pros and cons of offering incentives to employees for participation in professional social networks like Yammer or SocialCast. (For some background reading on the useful applications of social networks in the work sphere, read our posts on What Is Social Learning? and Test Driving Yammer.) Dan’s… Read more »
A few weeks ago I shared my top apps for productivity, collaboration and learning on the job (and I think there was something about a burrito). This week’s Friday top five is free web tools. Some you might already know, some you might not. Either way, they’re awesome, and rendering many other, more expensive tools… Read more »
Regular readers of this blog will know I’m a Quora devotee. Yesterday, however, my mind was blown in a new way when I read this question: What are the benefits of having an internal training program? Maybe the questioner is just looking for some talking points for conversations with management about expanding internal training, but… Read more »
In a post last week, we studied the experience of Holly Spoth-Torres, an Alaskan Park Superintendent, as she transformed her workforce into a nimble, collaborative, problem-solving team. Now it’s time to apply her lessons learned to workforces in general. Why does engagement matter? The bottom line is that engaged employees are not only good for… Read more »
Recently the question was broached: “What I would ask a department head regarding their learning needs if I had the opportunity to be alone with them?” I have many such opportunities, from department heads to the C-Table, and some have turned out better than others. My experiences have taught me that the L&D person fits… Read more »
