Second Calendar Curator Joins to Help with List of Free Webinars

I've received very positive feedback and lots of good ideas on the concept of having a combined calendar of Free Webinars. The really nice thing about the way Jon Udell has set up his elmcity project (the system we are using) is that it acts a lot like social curation on RSS sources as provided by Browse My Stuff, but brings together designated calendars instead of blogs or other RSS sources.

In English, that means that we can have many different people each own their separate calendar and we can bring it together.

The initial list of calendar entries, we added ourselves. But I'm pleased to announce that we've just signed up our second calendar curator - Coaching Ourselves. Their events are now appearing in the listings:

Free eLearning Webinars

For now you won't be able to necessarily distinguish the source, but we will work on exposing that in the future. One of the recommendations we've already received.

It is exactly because we can distribute the load of keeping this list current that makes me think this will work really well in the long run.

If you are doing webinars that would be of interest to workplace learning professionals, please contact me: akarrer@techempower.com.

Outsource Training to Customers

The Business of Learning (see Free Online Conference – Future of Learning with Recordings Here) event went really well. One of the really interesting ideas came from Allessandria Polizzi who is Group Manager for Accountant Training & Relations at Intuit. Her role is to make sure that accountants are trained on the Quickbook products.

You can see Allessandria at 21:30 of the following video:

If you have problem seeing the video you can view them here as well.

Intuit used to produce the content themselves, but they have transitioned to hiring their Accountants (their customers) to produce the training content for them. This includes a varied mix of solutions - webinars, seminars, self-paced eLearning. One of the examples of how they did this was to give the Accountants camcorders and software (along with training) so that they could produce small training pieces. One example that she mentions is a video piece on mobile access showing how they can access client information from the beach via a mobile device.

There are 100 accountants who produce training for them as compared to 12 in her organization. These accountants are experts in using their software. They add legitimacy to the content. Many of these accountants already provided training to their end customers, so providing training to other accountants was an easy extension.

It's an interesting idea and something that can be applied in many other domains. While this is similar to having SMEs produce the content - I think that Intuit takes it a bit further with how they are engaging and paying them. They also audition/test their customers. They spread the work pretty wide.

Free Webinars

Have you ever wanted to have a single list of the various free webinars brought together in a single place?   In conjunction with eLearning Learning, we are working with Jon Udell (thanks Jon) to use his calendar aggregation technology to bring together a list of free webinars that we believe will be of interest to learning professionals.

Free eLearning Webinars

Let me know if you think this will be valuable. 

Integrated with Best of eLearning Learning

We are planning to include events that are coming up in the Best of eLearning Learning each week.  We just did exactly that for the post:

Learning Management Systems Flash Technology - Best of eLearning Learning

where we listed three upcoming webinars.  Hopefully another reason to subscribe to the best of eLearning Learning.

Get the Word Out

Hopefully this can grow to address both sides of this need – consumers and producers. 

As a consumer, I seem to randomly run into webinars like you probably did when I just announced: Free Webinar - Models for Learning in a New World.  Because they hit me somewhat randomly, I most often don't schedule it into my calendar at that time.  I know that I'll make a decision later about the event.

As a producer, I know that getting the word out on a webinar can be very difficult.  I will publish the information about the webinar I just mentioned on my blog, but that hits exactly the same audience.  I will tweet about it.  Hopefully a few people will Retweet.  But it doesn't reach all that wide.  I'm hoping that this will become a good way for producers to get the word out.  By the way, if you are producing events that will be of interest to a learning professionals audience, then drop me an email.

Thoughts and Ideas

We are just beginning this process.  We have some ideas on where this will go and how to make it better, but I would really like to get your input.

Is this a good idea?

What can we do to make this better?

Free Webinar - Models for Learning in a New World

I'm doing a free webinar in a few weeks where I will be discussing some of the major trends that are affecting models of learning.  I think this will be an interesting discussion and I welcome your participation.

Models for Learning in a New World

This is a very interesting time to be a learning professional. Fragmentation of jobs, increasing concept work, and constant change all put a premium on learning. At the same time, we are seeing an explosion of information sources, greatly increased accessibility of experts and expertise around the world, and new tools emerging every day. This environment means that workplace learning is changing. We have to look beyond formal learning solutions towards solutions that support self-directed and social learning.

In this session, Dr. Karrer will discuss the big picture trends that are impacting workplace learning. He will present how learning solutions are evolving in organizations to meet changing needs. Holly and Monika will discuss a model for learning that integrates various learning strategies that combine formal, performance support and informal learning.

Come join this interesting presentation and discussion around models for learning in a new world of learning.

Presenters:

Dr. Tony Karrer, TechEmpower, Inc.

Holly St. John Peck, Peck Training Group, LLC

Monika Ebert, Different Lens, LLC

Date/Time: Tuesday, August 25^th 10-11 AM Pacific, 1-2 PM Eastern, 5 PM GMT

Register for the Webinar

Personal in Personal Knowledge Management

Great dialog between Harold Jarche and Stephen Downes around Harold's PKM process …

Stephen Downes wrote in response:

… what does the concept of a ‘method’ here imply? That there is a ‘best’ way to manage knowledge an information? Isn’t that what we’ve learned there isn’t? It’s a pick-and-choose sort of thing: the way we manage information has a lot to do with the information, and a lot to do with who we are and what we want the information for …

Harold responded with Other PKM processes where he shows some other models and states:

To be clear, my intention is to show what works for me and perhaps some part of this may work others. All of my articles on PKM are descriptive, not prescriptive. Take what you need, as there are no “best practices” for complex and personal learning processes.

Harold and I have discussed this exact issue before and we are both on the same page that Personal is really important word in Personal Knowledge Management.  Studies of Personal Information Management say that what works is often highly personal.  However, a lot can be gained from sharing approaches and practices.

Anyone who has seen me present know that I give a big caveat with the word Personal on the slide.  While I use the words, "you should" … what I mean is that "you should consider and maybe try" … not necessarily "you should adopt" …  What works for me, may or may not work for you.

However, there are some people who take that to mean that they can be successful continuing to use the same approaches without being aware of, considering or trying alternatives.  That's a real mistake.  And Harold and Stephen are great at trying to provide ways to think about and think through these alternatives.

So, while I push a lot around tools and methods for work and learning:

• Tool Set 2009
• Work Skills Keeping Up
• Top-Down Strategy
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
• Collaborate
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• Search
• Browser Short Cuts
• Pre-network with LinkedIn
• Network Skills
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Blog Learning

and the list goes on. ( In fact, Work Literacy is pretty much this topic. )

This is a good opportunity to add the same caveat:

The real intent is to provide context, alternatives and suggestions of where things might apply.  Your mileage will vary.