LearnNugget #7

I am in my mid-40’s turning 45 this year. My wife will hit the big 4-0. They say 40’s is the new 30’s, but that’s only if you take care of yourself along the way.

I love my wife dearly for many reasons and one in particular is her overwhelmingly attention to health conscious eating. I’m a big guy by nature and I love my food, although I need to learn portion control as I can throw down a pizza pie alone!

As with every new year it brings with it a spirit of anew; a spirit of “starting over” or “changing of the guard” in respect to habits. With this new spirit my wife and I have been getting more and more interested in “clean eating” better known as whole foods and whole food ingredients.

That being said, we’ve been doing very good at planning out a week’s menu and shopping for those ingredients to accommodate several recipes. We tried the ‘Monday is fish,’ ‘Tuesday is Soup & Salad,’ etc. but that doesn’t work all the time. Instead we simply plan out a series of menus that have variety based on our schedule and mood. If we’re too busy or tired, there’s a 30-minute recipe. If we’re in a good mood and want a glass of wine, we have a more “gourmet” style recipe available.

We both work at the same company and we drive together as often as we can. On the way home last night, we were both in a sort of funk. I was simply mentally exhausted from a day of chasing problems and she was experiencing signs of an awful cold coming on. The planned menu was Tilapia and whole grain rice = Boring!

On the ride home we often listen to the local AM news station. On most nights at the top of the hour is a segment called “Food for Thought” which are a few minutes long that offer suggestions and tips in the kitchen. This time they were talking about how to spruce up boring pancakes. When I hear the word “pancake” my ears perk up and I was pleasantly pleased at what I learned.

Did you know you can mix ham & cheese in your pancake batter? If you add an egg or two also, you’ve got one well-rounded breakfast cake! There were several suggestions and I tried three: 1) The previously mentioned ham & cheese. 2) Cinnamon & apple chunks. 3) Sliced bananas that go on after the batter is poured. Dinner last night were these pancakes…I had two of each!

Portion control – Schmortion control…I found a new favorite!

Reluctant to learn

I will be the first to say that I believe everyone should be open to learn something new every day, but I was reluctant to spend an entire day in a workshop with as little notice as 4 PM the previous day…

Learning something new everyday still spurs a sense of discovery and excitement in me. Just yesterday I learned you can mix ham & cheese with your pancake batter (see LearnNugget #7), however that’s just a chunk of something of interest to me. Boy, they were yummy!

I was greeted back to work after a long restful holiday vacation with a with an email inbox that looked I’d been spammed constantly for days and a voicemail inbox full to capacity. It took 3 days just to catch up! That was last week.

This week is much better but now it was focusing on picking up where I had left off on several projects. During the time I was off, one of my co-workers who was managing a third-party workshop had left the company. This new responsibility fell on another co-worker’s desk and bless her heart, she’s doing the best she can.

One of the ongoing projects that was left hanging was a 1-day seminar workshop (is a seminar and a workshop the same thing?) on communication. Savvy Communication to be exact.

We were in a pinch because we had a contract with the company who provides this training seminar so we had to fill the room. By 4:00 PM on Tuesday, we had only 5 people signed up. My boss suggested I attend and to consider it personal development and that I would earn CEU’s. More appropriately she said, “Are you busy tomorrow?” (with a tilt of the head and a Scooby Doo look on her face). When your boss asks you a loaded question like that, there is only one answer!

National Seminars Training (a division of Rockhurst University Continuing Education Center, Inc.) hosts and delivers several great workshops, one of which is titled “Savvy Communication.” This particular seminar was facilitated by Dr. Casey McNeal who is an international motivational speaker and is dubbed “The People Expert.”

As the title suggests, I was reluctant to respond to my boss’ request, and I was even more reluctant when I walked into the room the next morning. I’ve attended several of these type ’seminars’ on communication, people skills, personality differences, etc. I’ve even read “How to win friends and influence people” by Dr. Andrew Carnegie! So I wasn’t at all expecting to be impressed with a new “spin” on the same subject. I will admit that communication as a whole is a perishable skill. A skill that needs practice everyday whether it be speaking, writing, or influencing techniques.

I’m here to say that not only was I thoroughly impressed, but also that Dr. McNeil’s enthusiasm and expertise kept me engaged and entertained the entire day! He is a superb speaker that uses real world personal and professional examples, not just academic theory.

If you’ve attended one of these, then you know exactly what I’m trying to convey. If not, I encourage you to get in touch with National Seminars Training and find out for yourself!

Challenges, Plans, Predictions for 2009

This month (or should I say the year’s first) on The Learning Circuits blog the Big Question is “Challenges, Plans, and Predictions for 2009”

I’m a week behind writing my New Year’s message. My goal is to post at least once a week this year. Is this a sign that I’m already into the second week and have not posted and that I’ve failed? Or can I write two before next week to catch up so I don’t feel guilty? Challenge: This blog. Plans: Fulfill the goal to post once a week. Prediction: Looking back a year from and reflecting on this post…

I digress…

It is also fitting that since I’m in Memphis and today is Elvis’ birthday a shout out to the big guy wherever he is.

In retrospect, last year was a big challenge for me personally and professionally. This year’s challenges, plans, and predictions are always so clear this time of year as we usually have this renewed sense of newness. Ya’know…new year, new ideas, and such.

My attempt here is to point out challenges, plans, and predictions I’ll face professionally within my organization as well what I see in the industry.

Challenges:
Professionally – Our biggest challenge is being carried over from last year. We learned a great deal implementing an LMS for the first time into a large corporation with 50k+ users. There are still many environmental issues, technical challenges with the various network connections, and more importantly content development that is reusable and easy to manage and update. The more awareness and attention an LMS receives, the more demand the business requires of it. We’re at a crossroad where that demand has yet to prove a benefit, yet we have limited budget and set of skills to produce the content to show the appropriate ROI to increase the development team, thus supporting the increased demand. Whew!

Industry – As a whole the industry is going to be challenged as a byproduct of the economy. Budgets are being slimmed and with that the costs to upgrade, maintain, and purchase eLearning systems, tools, and content will be challenging for many companies. The challenge for training departments will be to prioritize what is really a need vs. a want and providers of systems, tools, and content will have to look at creative ways to continue to support the industry without pulling their own rugs out from underneath themselves.

Plans:
Professionally – Our plans for this year are to upgrade our LMS and tweak some of the existing functionality. With our system being on-line now for about a year, we have identified several areas that we can improve while other areas we ‘thought’ would be a benefit have proven not to work as well as originally planned. As for content, our plans are to carry on with what I would refer to as our biggest success last year by organizing our content and creating a library of templates and source material. To continue with that success, my plan is to compile everything into a media library similar to a content management system. I know, I know, you’re thinking “Why not just use a LCMS?” Well, that thought had occurred to me/us, but as indicated above our budget is trimmed as well. We bought a LMS with what we could afford and at this point we are not at a place to convert of upgrade to a full LCMS.

Industry – I don’t think I’m quite qualified to speak on how the industry is planning on facing the new year. I saw a lot of energy around rapid development tools and techniques last year and my assumption is that energy will carry over with companies leveraging how they can incorporate rapid development tools and techniques into their workflow.

Predictions:
Professionally – In a fast-paced retail environment we can predict sales trends and customer behaviors. However, because of that pace it’s rather difficult to predict the eLearning efforts. The LMS is the backbone of delivering eLearning (at least in our environment) and its acceptance among the enterprise will determine the pulse for more content. I predict by this time next year we’ll have more full and rich content as more and more users will see how beneficial eLearning can improve their knowledge and awareness.

Industry – Mobile learning was the big buzz this time last year. Where mobile technology works in one industry it doesn’t work in another. Web 2.0 technology has really taken off in the past year and social networking has become almost a normal collaborative vehicle. I predict more learning networks formed with smaller groups, like the Learning Town! and Work Literacy networks.

Thank ya, thank ya vury much!