What’s Your Tag Line?

Many years ago a recruiter connected with me. During our conversation he asked me what's my tag line. My tag line, what's that? I asked. He said, you know, like someone is a "Problem Solver", or "Deal Closer" etc. You need to have a tag line that describes you, he said to me.The conversation got me thinking. Before that time I had never thought what was my tag line. After some thought, I chose "Enabling People" as my tag line. I like to enable people deliver better, by creating an…

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The Learning & Development Change Grid, by Don Taylor

Donald H Taylor, chairman of LPI, LSG & the Learning Technologies conference explains how Learning and Development Departments need to change their attitude to risk in order to keep pace with the rest of the business in today's modern world. He describes 4 quadrants in which L&D departments fit: Learning Leadership, Unacknowledged Prophet, Comfortable Extinction and The Training Ghetto and explains how and why all L&D departments should join the quadrant of Learning Leadership.

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What Kept Training Managers Awake in 2012?

So what kept training managers awake during 2012? What challenges they have been facing? During last year I was fortunate enough to be in touch with training managers of various companies in India. While not statistically conclusive, here are some general trends I noticed from my various conversations.Cost: Almost all training managers are pressurized to show some cost savings. Mostly this is resulting in passing on pressure to reduce costs on their training vendors. Cost seems to be their single biggest challenge these days.Uncertain Business Environment: There’s a constant challenge…

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Questions I Want To Explore In 2012

I am promising to myself to read more and blog more in 2012. Here are some of the questions I want to explore in 2012.What’s changed in the learning and development industry? I will be completing 20 years in the industry and yet I feel the more things change, the more they remain the same.How are the CxOs and Business Heads really viewing talent development? While most CxOs say that talent development is a key driver to the growth of their organizations, what are they really doing about it?What’s keeping…

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Career Paths for Trainers

Someone asked a question on the career growth paths for trainers on one of our internal forums. And about the same time I came across this interesting blog post which talks about not worrying about career path and living your career story, written by Jason Seiden. It is from Dan McCarthy’s list of 20 Best Leadership Blog Posts of 2010. Just loved the way Jason explains the need to dump career paths and focus on building your career stories. . So, what could be a Trainer's career stories? While it…

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Progress so far – Unofficial Salary Survey 2010

It’s been a slow start to the 2010 Unofficial Salary Survey of eLearning, Content Development and Training jobs. You can now view the responses by following the Responses link.Some highlights so far:Functions that have participated are Instructional Designers (33%) and Technology/Programmers (22%), followed by Project management (17%) and Graphics and Media (11%).Most participants have 10 years work experience (28%) followed by 5 and 3 years (11% each).So far the survey seems to be dominated by male responders (72%).Only 28% people switched jobs last year.Mostly people from elearning/training vendors have participated…

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Unofficial Salary Survey 2010

It’s time to launch the 2010 Unofficial Salary Survey for elearning, content development and training jobs in India. There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Content Developer, Technical Writer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Content Integrator, Tester, Editor, Trainer, Training administrator, SME, or any other role involved in elearning, content…

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Solve a Business Problem or Create a WBT?

I had an interesting chat conversation over the weekend with a budding instructional designer.ID: I wanted to discuss about Instructional approaches ID: Suppose there's a client who says " they have been using ILT that has not been successful, their mentors are not motivating enough& nw wants to change it to a WBT.......and target audience are senior &middle level managers well versed with sales, dealing with retailers etc..... And I've to give them 2 approaches.....do u hv any ideas? Me: why is their ILT not successful? ID: their mentors are…

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Learning Formats in 2020

Geetha Krishnan asks "what kind of learning formats will be in vogue in the year 2020, specifically with respect to corporate training?" My short response that I left as comments on his post is given below. Don’t miss out on other comments on his post from experts in the industry.Man (as in generic human, not intended to be sexist), has forever learned from teachers, gurus. Knowledge has been passed down through ages by the teachers/gurus. The medium changed over the years. The common thread that I see is that the changing…

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