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great article in the Atlantic on how employee training has evolved to include much more self-directed, outside-in kinds of learning

Excellent blog on valuable July reads by Jane Hart led me to this blog post by Thomas Handcock and Warren Howlett, July 29, 2014, CEB Blogs, a very good discussion of building productive learning cultures. They recommend three steps: 1. Right size opportunities (which on the surface sounds fine but then they say that the "best organizations limit learning opportunities to those that are most relevant to employees and impactful for the organization but then rely on their (HR's) determination of learning needs (how do employees express their learning needs in this scenario? how does it support ownership and spontaneity beyond annual surveys? Of course they are talking about BIG corporations.) and "learning maturity" which sounds condescending to me) 2. Advance the organization's learning capability (most of this rings truer to me than #1 but it may be that my perception of what they say in #1 is slanted and hypersensitive). Here they talk about "teaching employees how to learn." "this lack of learning aptitude is primarily a capability issue, not a matter of employee motivation." 3. Foster shared ownership of the learning environment (which overcomes much of my objection to what they say in #1)

Great talk on the new management, putting employees first so they can do the best job they can for customers. This includes employees rating their managers up to their CEO's, being able to outsource the boring aspects of their work, make decisions about how to do better. Knowledge technology and the web has changed the competitive nature of business, and a new model of competition is developing and will develop. The web has democratized and made management structures obsolete.

Great talk on the new management, putting employees first so they can do the best job they can for customers. This includes employees rating their managers up to their CEO's, being able to outsource the boring aspects of their work, make decisions about how to do better. Knowledge technology and the web has changed the competitive nature of business, and a new model of competition is developing and will develop. The web has democratized and made management structures obsolete.

interesting history of employee education at IBM including an early commitment to train college educated women in the 1920s

Jacob Morgan has outlined in this Forbes article from 11/11/14 the 7 Principles of the Future Employee. These are the 7 core ways that future employees will work. The 7 are: Flexible work environment; Can customize work; Shares information; Uses new ways to communicate and collaborate; Can become a leader; Shifts from knowledge worker to learning working; Learns and teaches at will.

Emanuella Grinberg reports on Better By Design including offices, hospitals, etc. The office better by design is open spaces that boost creativity and collaboration. The workplaces of the future - and, in many cases, the present - will have fewer high-walled cubicles and private offices. "The good news? Innovative companies with commensurate budgets are creating offices that bring employees together in colorful communal workstations and collaboration areas, making "The Office" look like a monochrome vestige of a bygone era. And, designers are working with companies to maintain private spaces within open offices where employees can drill down on a report or take an important phone call beyond earshot of colleagues. It's part of the "alone but together" philosophy taking hold in office design, which attempts to balance employee collaboration with privacy in an era when personal space is shrinking,"

Good companion piece to the Genius is Dead NYTimes article

helps define project-based employees, Sam Ashe-Edmunds

blog post by Daniel Newman, author of Millennial CEO on need to learn continuously and quickly.  Find the reference to IBM asking employees to acquire tech skills.  could be reference in ECO Byte #1. 

Nice blog by Danielle Holly, Common Impact, on engaging remote employees and skilled volunteers with good sources cited in the article, May 17, 2016. If everyone is remote, everyone is equal, but skilled management is still needed.

"It's not hard to sell the benefits of telecommuting to employees; it's the employers who need convincing that working from home can actually translate into increased profits. According to a recent Families and Work Institute's National Study of Employers, the number of employers offering a flexible work place increased from 34 percent to 63 percent between 2005 and 2012, indicating the option of telecommuting is quickly becoming the norm rather than the exception. Telecommuting offers many benefits to an employer, including increased employee satisfaction, reduction in operating costs and the ability to tap into a broader talent base - one no longer limited by geography."

"Something successful entrepreneurs should aim to have: Conviction. Being an entrepreneur is not the easy road to success. Sure, you're your own boss-making the conversation in which you ask for a raise far less awkward-but the hours are long, the market always crowded, the naysayers plenty. There will be discouraging news. But the ability to stand behind your decisions is essential. No one else can tell you what you want for your company, and don't let them try. Drive. As an entrepreneur, time is not on your side. The best-laid plans are those that are executed as swiftly as possible. Don't sit on an idea or wait until you've had a chance to "sleep on it." Act now. Innovation. The original brainchild might have been the thing that got you excited enough to take the leap into entrepreneurship. But longevity will depend on continually coming up with new ideas, from products to ways to market them to which audiences to target. Not all of these ideas will be winners. But having them is not optional. Inspiration. You may be your only employee. Or you might have a team that looks to you to engage them, foster their talents, and involve them in the bigger picture. Those employees who feel excited about, and part of, the overall vision will be encouraged to grow alongside you, and work hard for you. Focus. Establish your daily, weekly, quarterly goals and go after them. Connect dots on a daily basis. Avoid distractions, and distracting people. Independence. It's a lonely road, entrepreneurship. Though your goal is to foster community within your company, there will be days when you wish everyone else would be willing to work as hard as you are, to want it as much as you do. But realize that your company's success does mean more to you than it does to anyone else. Be willing to go the road alone on those days when everyone else has seemingly pulled off for lunch. That's what'll make the difference."

Blog post by Microsoft for Work, May 19, 2014. Excerpt: "Social, collaboration, and communication tools give your employees the power to get work done anywhere, on any device. Instant messaging tools can connect colleagues for immediate answers, while sharing documents lets workers collaborate in real time on projects. Giving employees a place to voice seemingly crazy ideas can, in the end, help your business capitalize on new opportunities and deliver better customer experiences. As long as you have policies in place for internal and external social media, your organization can expect the same high level of work, while raising the bar for innovation. And remember: Implementing social solutions doesn't have to be complicated. You can seamlessly weave too"

Jacob Morgan of Chess Media Group also constructed this infographic on the current and future worker, entitled The Evolution of the Employee. Good overview of the changing nature of how work is morphing from content based to learning based skills and expertise. From Forbes, 9/02/14

How a nonprofit used the personal Twitter "brands" of its employees to expand its reach with news media and other key audiences.

Interesting blog post by Jane Hart on building an enterprise learning network within an enterprise social network. Is the WLS going to be an enterprise learning network? Perhaps not in the usual sense of an organization with employees comprising a workforce. But perhaps it can use some of the same techniques advocated by Hart below: Under Part Two 1. new social approaches to training and online learning--backchannel learning, online social workshops ("participants with a lot of autonomy, so that they participate in the ways that they feel more comfortable and best suits them..." ); tiny training aka microlearning--short bursts of learning ten minutes long... 2. Innovative Learning Initiatives--social onboarding, social mentoring 3. Continuous series of learning activities and events 10 minutes a day - provide a daily link to a place where individuals can spend just 10 minutes learning something new. Note: 10 minutes a day, each weekday adds up to around 6 days of training in a year! Live chats - run regular live Twitter-like live chat sessions on different topics. They might just take place over 1 hour or be a longer all-day event that people can join in at any time. Hot seats - put one of your people (e.g. CEO or a leading expert) in the hot seat for a period of time, and encourage employees to ask them questions. Book club - organise a monthly time for conversation around a book of interest. Lunch'n'Learns - ask someone to lead a short informal session on a topic of interest to them. This might be purely conversational or involve a web meeting or face-to-face meeting, with the ELN used as a backchannel. 4 - SUPPORT OTHER PEOPLE-BASED LEARNING SERVICES Your ESN provides the opportunity to set up and support other learning activities in private group spaces. A Learning Help Desk service (aka Learning Concierge service) which provides an advice centre for ad hoc learning and performance problems. - See more at:

CEO Aaron Skonnard of an online trainer company for web developers advocates for learning among employees, March 20, 2014 and shares his tips for same.

has interesting stats on training and finding skilled employees, up to 1/3 of employees are contingent workers, 2013

interesting assessment in Washington Post from April 2013 of who creates jobs, big corporations, SBA-defined small businesses (t the smallest businesses.

blog post by Megan Conley/Emily Wilson, SAP Business Innovation, 12/22/14. Could have been written by us. Excerpt: "How can your business make sure it doesn't disappear? The answer may surprise corporate learningyou: Create a business culture that fosters life-long learning. Encourage employees to be students throughout their career Although this advice seems like a no-brainer, only a small number of companies are actually making this transformation. Fewer than 10 percent of businesses worldwide have succeeded in creating a learning culture. Yet, 70 percent of executives believe learning and development is a key part of business strategy."

an interesting case study of a large company embedding Yammer (ESN) in a 130,000 employee setting. Anna Carlson interviewed Jennifer Hayward from Telefonica, 6/2014.