February 28, 2013
Last week, along with ITC’s Adam Kovic, I attended the “Training 2013” Conference & Expo in Orlando. Without question, we met more knowledgeable and interested attendees there than we had ever before encountered. As you can easily guess, the hot subject continues to be e-Learning. “Less expensive,” “always available,” and “easily distributable” were the drivers for most of the attendees. Missing were concerns relating to “content accuracy & completeness,” as well as...
February 26, 2013
In an op-ed appearing in the “Pittsburgh Post-Dispatch” this month, they report that: “Federal economists estimate that 2 million jobs go unfilled today as a result of training, skills and education gaps. . . . In a report submitted last year by the Governor’s Manufacturing Advisory Council it was noted that the number of new workers entering manufacturing, coupled with the manufacturing sector’s growth, has left a staggering gap of available skilled...
February 21, 2013
In a most interesting article by Max Nisen, “The Growing Skills Gap, Explained In Three Charts,” published in BUSINESS INSIDER we read: There’s high youth unemployment around the world, despite a multitude of job vacancies. Blame the skills shortage, which 39 percent of employers say is preventing them from filling entry level jobs, according to a McKinsey report. Meanwhile in most of the world, less than half of students think their educations...
February 19, 2013
If we can only get this nation to recognize the significant differences between the two dominant learning cultures, skills acquisition will improve for everyone. I am a big believer in the development of advanced reading skills for certain career paths and for certain professions. I am also a big believer in multi-sensory based education and training for the nearly half of our population that does not assimilate reading material written beyond a...
February 14, 2013
According to an article in the August 1, 2012 Wall Street Journal by Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Justin Scheck, entitled, “U.S. Faces Uphill Battle in Retraining the Jobless” : . The effectiveness of workforce training has been debated since 1962, when Congress poured federal money into the Manpower Training and Development Act, which President John F. Kennedy called a “potent tool.” Congress has repeatedly expanded and retooled the approach, adding programs for...
February 12, 2013
We’re all familiar with the term, “Customer Service,” but I would maintain the term is woefully misleading. Customer Service, as too often practiced, is an after-the-fact function for many organizations. It exists, almost exclusively, to take care of lost (or, incomplete) shipments, non-working components or unhappy customers. Rather than focusing on the customer, its focus is on “saving the sale” for the company. On the other hand, “Customer Assurance” is a practice...
February 7, 2013
When selecting your training solutions from a host of competitive vendors, what should you do in order to separate the wheat from the chaff? If you are searching for a training vendor to support you with your training initiatives, the rest of this posting will help focus you on the criteria that should result in a good training partner. Most importantly, you should be searching for a vendor that focuses on customer-driven...
February 5, 2013
Jane Bozarth writing in “Learning Solutions Magazine” quotes Étienne Charles Wenger (best known today for his work in the field of communities of practice): “Instruction does not cause learning; it creates a context in which learning takes place, as do other contexts. Learning and teaching are not inherently linked. Much learning takes place without teaching, and indeed much teaching takes place without learning.” Bozarth continues: “In other words, knowledge acquisition doesn’t cause...
