I just returned from Boston where I spent time with a leading health care organization.  It's the third time in the past three weeks where discussions centered on mapping career growth for individuals and aligning training with competencies.  While competency management is by no means new, we're finding renewed interest in it for a number of reasons.  One reason is that organizations are realizing they are going to be faced with an exodus of significant knowledge in coming years due to the demographic shift and baby boomers leaving the workforce.  That's going to drive a need for greater organization...

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An important element to any commuication is understanding your audience. This criticality of audience familiarity likely increases for the authoring and presenting of training. Regardless of the type of training (procedural, technical, behavioral, etc.) it is important to understand not only the demographics of the audience but also their background and culture.   As the training materials are developed, audience demographics, background and culture always play an important role in determining the best approach to gain attention and stimulating recall of prior learning. But culture and background...

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We engage with many organizations on the topic of leadership development and it's approached from a variety of perspectives. They range from the viewpoint of a discretionary training investment to a strategic imperative vital to the growth of the business. What's become very interesting to is how leadership manifests itself in the current economy...and what organizations are doing to implicitly develop the character of leaders during these times. We can teach people all day in a classroom what they should and shouldn't do in various leadership situations. But difficult times challenge the character...

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Here are a few quotes I like to keep in mind whenever I think I have all the answers. Everything that can be invented has been invented. --Charles H. Duell, Office of Patents, 1899 There will never be a bigger plane built. --A Boeing Engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people. Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality. --Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861 We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." --Decca Executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles With...

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I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown. [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.747944&w=425&h=350&fv=bgColor%3DFFFFFF%26file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fmovies%2FTimBrown_2008P-embed-PARTNER_high.flv%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26fullscreenURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fflash%2Ffullscreen.html%26forcePlay%3Dfalse%26logo%3D%26allowFullscreen%3Dtrue] more...

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