T+D Blog

Free resources from Brandon Hall

When deadlines hit, it's hard to keep up with my reading. Thus, my best-you-might've-missed list of links and resources has morphed into a semi-regular (rather than weekly) feature.

But I still try to post something on Fridays for your reading pleasure. So, this week, it's a free case study and a link to a free webinar from Brandon Hall, an e-learning consultancy. Everyone loves free stuff, right?

Brandon Hall recently published a report, "Linking Training to the Business Goals: In-Depth Descriptions of How IBM, Toyota, and Others Earn Executive Support for Training." Taken from that report is a 13-page free case study of how one company, Avaya, linked training to business goals.

Brandon Hall is also offering a free webinar, on November 3rd at 4 pm ET, Design for the Live Online Classroom: Creating Great Interactive and Collaborative Training Using Web Conferencing. The webinar will be led by Jennifer Hofmann, an expert on synchronous online training who has written quite a bit for Learning Circuits, and be based on her recent BH report of similar title.   

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Another installment of free webinars

Here are the latest free webinars to arrive in my inbox.

Proactive Strategies for Capturing and Consuming Expert Knowledge. Tuesday, October 25 at 1:30 pm ET or Thursday, October 27 at 8 am ET.

Corporate Mentoring: Grow Your People and Organization. Wednesday, October 26 at 1 pm ET.

LCMS 2006: What Works. Tuesday, November 1 at 2 pm ET.

Value Creation and Measurement in Learning Environments. Wednesday, November 2 at 2 pm ET.

E-Learning Solutions for Small- to Mid-Size Companies. Wednesday, November 2 at 2 pm ET.

The New Learning Landscape: Death of the Corporate University. Thursday, November 3 at 2 pm ET.

Creating Effective Communication for the Online Environment. Tuesday, November 15 at 3 pm ET.

Learning Content Management Strategies for the Future. Wednesday, November 16 at 2 pm ET.

Free research and webinar on e-learning maturity

SkillSoft is offering a free 56-paged research report, written by Josh Bersin and Associates, that documents the use of e-learning within 526 companies and identifies four stages of program maturity.

The blurb reads:

"What are the evolutionary stages of corporate e-learning? At what stage of e-learning maturity is your organization and how does it compare with other companies? 'The Four Stages of e-Learning: A Maturity Model for Online Corporate Training' details the corporate e-learning market and identifies the stages of growth and maturity common to many learning organizations. Based on interviews and surveys with more than 500 executives and learning managers, the study describes how corporate learning changes with the adoption of new technologies and learning resources."

In addition, SkillSoft will host a free webinar with analyst Josh Bersin to detail the research findings and answer questions.

Topics will include:

• the planning and budgeting required for each stage of corporate learning
• the technologies, resources and challenges characteristic of each stage
• the relationship between corporate culture and learning stages
• the importance of understanding where your organization currently fits and where you’d like to be.

In addition, participants will "learn about the evolutionary stages of corporate learning; the characteristics of each stage; how their organization compares to other learning organizations surveyed; factors to consider when trying to move to the next stage; and the latest trends in learning content, technology and services."

Two more free webinars

Notices about these webinars arrived in my inbox recently. The price for both can't be beat!

• Conducting Business in China: Opportunities for Corporate Training Companies is sponsored by TrainingOutsourcing.com and will take place Wednesday, August 24th from 2 to 3 pm EDT. "China’s rapid growth has created an increasing demand for corporate training products and services. Join ranks with top US companies that have secured huge profits through international exchanges of products, services, labor and information with China as you learn what it takes to position your company to penetrate the world's sixth largest economy."
• E-Learning Strategy: A Framework for Success is sponsored by BlueStreakLearning and will take place Wednesday, August 31st at 2 pm EDT. "During this session, we will review the components of an organizational e-learning strategy and why it is important to address each of these critical success factors. This interactive session will give you an opportunity to interact with the presenter around the strategic components."

Free webinars and teleseminars

Here are the latest free online and on-the-phone sessions to hit my inbox.

Rapid Training and E-Learning With Macromedia Breeze. There are many options for attending this session; dates range from August 9 at 11 am ET to August 18 at 2 pm ET, with many sessions in-between.

Global Telework: Trends and Practices for an Interconnected World. The Human Capital Institute offers this webinar (for community members only, but community membership is free) on Tuesday August 9th from 12 pm to 1:30 pm ET.

Why Should Anybody Buy From You? How Online Product Training Can Give Your Company A Competitive Edge. I mentioned this free seminar from Bryan Chapman of Brandon Hall last week, but I thought I'd include it again here as a reminder. It will take place Wednesday, August 10 from 1 pm to 2 pm ET and Thursday, August 11 from 3 pm to 4 pm Hong Kong time.

Developing an Organization-Wide Mentoring Program. Also sponsored by HCI and requiring free community membership, this webinar will take place on Wednesday, August 24th from 12 pm to 1:30 pm ET.

Talent Engagement: Moving from Employee Satisfaction to Commitment. This HCI session will take place on Monday, August 29th from 12 pm to 1:30 pm ET.

How to Save Money on Outsourcing and Buying Products/Services for your Training Department. This teleseminar takes place via phone, not online, on September 27. You have to subscribe to the One Person Training Department's free ezine to find out the time and how to call in.

These webinars and teleseminars are the ones that I thought were most relevant to my readers. But there are more listed here (HCI) and here (Horizon Wimba) and here (One Person Training Department). 

As always, I provide these listings as a service to readers and make no guarantees about their quality or usefulness.

One more freebie (and potentially more)

Notice of another freebie landed in my inbox late yesterday.

Bryan Chapman, e-learning analyst for Brandon Hall (a well-known e-learning research company), is presenting a free webinar on "How Online Product Training Can Give Your Company a Competitive Edge."

The webinar will take place on both August 10th at 1 pm to 2 pm EDT and August 11th at 3 pm to 4 pm Hong Kong time.

According to the release, the session will addresss

• establishing a forum for sharing product knowledge
• repurposing product information as part of structured training courses and for just-in-time learning
• adapting product knowledge for difference audiences
• working across lines of business
• deploying product knowledge to a global workforce.

Not only is the webinar free, but attendees will also be registered to win prizes, such as a subscription to Brandon Hall Research's LMS KnowledgeBase (valued at $995) and a $125 gift certificate to Powell's bookstore. Not bad.

More free stuff

A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of links to free webinars, downloads, and so forth. This is another installment along the same lines.

(And by the way, if your organization is offering anything similar--free podcasts, online sessions, worksheets, tools, etc.--let me know and I may post the link here if I think readers will find it useful.)

Now on to the freebies!

1. E-learning guru Elliot Masie is offering a free audiostream or podcast (you can choose how to receive it) on compliance and learning. According to his newsletter, up to 40 percent of new programs and learning spending is on compliance-related topics. The 12-minute audio segment covers

• growth of e-learning for compliance topics
• risks of lowering motivation of learners with too much compliance-based learning
• compliance segments or objects vs. courses?
• compliance management: new roles for lms and learning systems
• syndicated compliance content.

2. I received a press release about an new service called Talkr, which is supposed to convert text-only blogs to podcasts. I haven't tried it out but it sounds intriguing.

The service offers free podcasts from several of the most popular online blogs and then, if you sign up for a free membership, you can listen to up to three additional blogs for free. (As well as podcast your own blog, I think.) Subscriptions that let you listen to more feeds are also for sale.

If anyone tries it out, post a comment and let us all know how well it works.

3. Speaking of Thiagi, I just found out that ASTD released a new book by him this week. Our online store is offering a free chapter of Interactive Lectures. It

• covers advantages and disadvantages of the lecture method
• lists seven categories of interactive lectures
• and explains more about how the book is set up.

4. Another great place to get free stuff is Learning Circuits's Try It column, where I write up free web tools and free trials of software programs. (I'm always looking for good items for that column as well, so feel free to submit a link.)

That's all for now, but I'll post more free goodies as I find them.

Free stuff! (including webinars)

Everyone loves getting something for nothing. Here are a few free summer finds.

• E-book on "My Most Memorable Teacher or Trainer." Elliott Masie offers this feel-good PDF made up of 170 pages of contributed memories. 
• Audio messages from Ken Blanchard. The well-known speaker and consultant, author of The One-Minute Manager, was just inducted into Amazon.com's Hall of Fame for being one of the top 25 all-time best-selling authors. As a gift to customers, Amazon is offering these short audio clips from Blanchard on leadership principles and business performance issues.
• Free webcasts from the Human Capital Institute. Titles include "On the Line: the Manager's Role in Performance," "The Future of Work: Adapting to the New Workforce Composition,"  "Metrics on Organizational Leadership," and more. Attendees must be HCI Community members, but community membership is free.
• Webinar on findings from "The High-Impact Learning Organization: What Works in the Management, Operations, and Governance of Corporate Training." Bersin and Associates present findings from their in-depth study in a free webinar. (This is a bargain, as it will cost you almost $1500 to buy the study.)

Hope you enjoy these free summar goodies, all!