MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

2009 PILAR learning award winners announced

Today MindLeaders has announced the winners of the 2009 PILAR (Performance Improvement and Learning Achievement Recognition) Awards for industry-leading results and innovation in learning programs.

The winners include a state agency that used elearning and other initiatives to do more training with less budget, a marketing group and the vendors of the LA "Dodger Dogs" who both got 100% participation in their learning programs, a law firm who's using elearning to boost competencies, annual reviews, and management practices, and a second-time PILAR winner, this year for integrating elearning with book publications to train the world.

We'll be presenting the cool crystal obelisk to the award winners at a special banquet and corporate event in February. Huge congratulations to all!

The winners of the 2009 MindLeaders PILAR Awards are:

• Best Blended Program: Texas Parks & Wildlife of Austin, TX. This agency is responsible for some of the finest outdoor recreation in the world, including hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, and bird watching. When their budget funds were reduced, instead of cutting out vital training, the agency found a way to offer more options than ever while saving the state money by striking a perfect balance between elearning and instructor led training focused on management business skills.
• Best Marketing Program: Questar Corporation of Salt Lake City, Utah. This natural gas-focused energy company has core operations in the Rockies and Midcontinent. Questar took advantage of a top-down philosophy within the company to leverage executive support and consistent communications throughout the organization to create award-winning learning results.
• Best Measured Results: SIGMA Marketing Group, LLC, of Rochester, New York. SIGMA Marketing Group specializes in Direct Marketing Analytic Services. They combined a strong partnership with MindLeaders, a well executed marketing plan, commitment and follow-through to build 100% completion rates as well as a measurable increase in employee satisfaction survey scores.
• Most Innovative Channel Partner: Computer Assisted Learning of Quezone City, Philippines. Computer Assisted Learning is a second-time winner of a PILAR Award! CAL has paved the way for the publication of a series of books designed for three learning levels: the Awakening Series (Pre-School), the Exploring Series (Elementary), and the Experiencing Series (Secondary Level). MindLeaders online courses were integrated as enhancements or electives that allow for more skills-focused training for the early collegiate stage, training for the unemployed, and for technical training in government agencies.
• Best First Year Program: Clougherty of Los Angeles, California. Over 1,700 people work for Clougherty Packing, LLC, serving high quality meats in several countries. Their Farmer John® brand is synonymous with the Los Angeles Dodgers, producing the "Dodger Dog" at Dodger Stadium for over 50 years. In the remarkably short time frame of 10 months, 100% of Clougherty learning program participants had participated in their training, thanks to Clougherty executive sponsorship of the program and close collaboration with the MindLeaders Professional Services team.
• Founders Award: Perkins Coie of Seattle, Washington. Perkins Coie is a large international law firm based in the Pacific Northwest with offices around the United States and in China. Their primary goal in partnering with MindLeaders was to deliver competency-based learning while streamlining their annual performance review process. They have nailed those objectives in record time in addition to secondary goals of promoting lifelong learning and improving management practices.

Study with MindLeaders, pass your certification - guaranteed!

Taking a certification exam requires preparation, commitment, and money. Serious effort and career succession plans are on the line. Want some extra confidence that, when test day arrives, you're properly prepared to pass? To get all Cajun-chef-y, at MindLeaders, we'll "gar-on-tee" that you're ready!

Our Certification Guarantee says that if you pass our study guide courses with at least an 80% score, you will pass your certification test or you'll get your money back. We're that confident that our study guides cover every objective and give you all the tools you need.

There's some back story to the Certification Guarantee. We've just now added this page to our web site and a big splashy Flash piece to the home page, but in reality, we've had this guarantee in place for years. Somehow, as time passed, a lot of people forgot that it was there.

But a month or so ago, a "Whatever happened to..." conversation brought the Certification Guarantee back to life. (Kind of appropriate for Halloween!) So we're dusting off the pledge, shining it up, and putting it in a place of honor so that everyone knows about it.

Study up and get certified. Give new skills and confidence to your IT teams or your project managers (this covers the PMP, too!). We gar-on-tee it!

Thanks for the vote!

MindLeaders is a finalist for a 2009 “Best of Elearning!” Award and we’re just so excited about it. Of course, part of the thrill is that the Best of Elearning awards are the only reader’s choice awards in the market. That makes the honor extra special to us. We appreciate all those readers who took the time to nominate us, and are so happy that we have had a positive impact on your learning experience. Thanks for the vote! (And keep taking those courses!)

As long as I have you here, we’d like to know what topics you’d like to hear more about. We want to make sure this blog (and any other content) we create is addressing your interests. So don’t be shy! Leave a comment and let us know what topics you’d like to hear more about. You could even point us to posts from the last year that you’ve found to be particularly helpful. We appreciate the feedback!

Keep up with ADA, FMLA, and H1N1 news with our latest courses

MindLeaders has released 27 new elearning courses, with a special focus on the latest in human resources regulations and flu health.

We've updated the "Managing within the Law" series to include the latest regulations for ADA and the FMLA. And for those who subscribe to our Health and Safety package, new courses have been added about the Swine Flu and the H1N1 pandemic.

All of our newest courses are in the following series. These courses are automatically added to your course lists for everyone who has course package subscriptions.

• CompTIA Network+ 2009 (N10-004)
• Managing Within the Law: Complying with ADA Requirements as of 2009
• Managing Within the Law: Family and Medical Leave Act as of 2009
• Visio 2007
• Health and Safety
• Swine Flu
• Pandemic: H1N1 Flu
• Identity Theft: What is it?
• Respirators: Change Schedules
• The Ozone Standard
• Powered Industrial Trucks - Part 1
• Powered Industrial Trucks - Part 2
• Powered Industrial Trucks - Part 3
• Shift Workers
• Boilers

Enjoy the latest, and as always, please let us know any questions or requests!

Check out the new MindLeaders.com!

MindLeaders has an all-new web site! We've been working hard to rebuild the site's content, look, and navigation from the ground up. Our most important goals were:

• Making everything easier: All of our company's text has been rewritten and the site's design totally rebuilt. Our primary goal was making everything simple, clear, and clean.

• Easy access to our resources: We've dedicated a top menu choice to breaking out all the information we offer: this blog, podcasts, news & events, demos, white papers (including the competency roadmaps), and our new company brochures. We want to offer value to the entire learning community, whether you're one of our clients or not, and we've given it featured space on the site.

• Easy access to support: We're proud of the top-notch service we offer to our clients, so we've spotlighted in the top menu all the ways to access our technical support and professional services and learning platform integration staff.

• Better search: The search function in our new site has been juiced up with some help from Google. Look for any term you're interested in, and you'll get side-by-side results of the content you'll find in our web site and in our course catalog.

We hope the site looks great and functions like a dream for you. If you have any comments or ideas for improvement, please drop a comment or an email to let us know! We still have plans for lots more to come!

New e-learning courses on cross-cultural business, PMP 2009, Visio, and more

New courses have arrived in the MindLeaders course catalog! The new topics include the latest PMP certification, tips for doing global business with Chinese and Indian companies, how to use Visio 2007, and the Security+ 2008 and MCTS 70-432 certification tests.

• CompTIA Security+ 2008 (SY0-201)
• Doing Business in China: A Cultural Approach
• Doing Business in India: A Cultural Approach
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Maintenance MCTS 70-432
• Project Management Professional Certification 2009
• Visio 2007

Our two "Doing Business in..." courses are specially designed to help people get information fast before a business trip, conference call, or any other kind of meeting with a Chinese or Indian company. Each of these courses offer fast tips for meetings, business meals, and general protocol.

Each lesson begins with a video introduction to the most important facts; students can watch only the video to get the information as quickly as possible, or can go on into the lesson to get more details about the customs and etiquette involved.

If you have a subscription to MindLeaders courses, these are already in your course lists. Please let us know any comments or suggestions that you have!

Sales training roadmap lists resources to build sales skills/competencies

Successful sales is about more than just following a sales process correctly. The best sales staff use many interpersonal and networking skills as they shepherd prospects into customers.

MindLeaders offers 2,500 courses and 1,000 books. Our roadmaps break down the skills that are used for important roles, and then recommends courses that will strengthen each of those skills. Each roadmap also includes a list of some recommended titles from our Reference Library.

Our new roadmap tackles the skills and competencies used in sales. We break these down into four major categories:

• The sales process
• Cultivating new business
• Finding solutions with the prospect
• Closing business

The MindLeaders Sales Roadmap PDF is available for free download. We also have roadmaps on Leadership skills and Project Management skills. Please let me know any comments you have, or if you have any topics you'd especially like to see a roadmap on.

PILAR Award open for nominations

The 2009 MindLeaders Performance Improvement and Learning Achievement Recognition (PILAR) awards are open for nominations - have you submitted your company for recognition?

Award submissions - any award submissions, although I have a personal particular love for this one - are a great way to take stock of learning programs and how they're doing at achieving their goals. Of course, they do this while also offering a chance for some useful recognition of yourself and your work.

Nominations are open until August 31, and will be awarded at another great Award Dinner event.

The award categories are:

• Best First Year Program
• Best Marketing Program
• Best ‘Blended Learning’ Solution
• Most Innovative Channel Partner
• Best Measured Results or Impact on an Organization
• Founders Award for Overall Program Excellence

Hope you'll think about applying; the 2009 PILAR PDF will give you all the information about the award and the application process.

MindLeaders joins Twitter with learning tips and ideas

While many of us within MindLeaders are on Twitter (check out our Twitter addresses), I hadn't built a MindLeaders-specific Twitter account. The big question was: what would a MindLeaders Twitter account talk about?

Our personal Twitter accounts, I think, give a great view into the cool people at MindLeaders and the e-learning and training issues and ideas that we're batting around. We had a lot of hallway conversations about what we would want a MindLeaders Twitter account to "say."

Today, we're announcing that Twitter account. Our idea is that the MindLeaders Twitter stream will share all the good training, e-learning, and learning tips and thoughts that we share with each other and our clients. A few of these might be MindLeaders-content-specific, but mostly will focus on ideas that can be helpful to any trainer or HR leader.

Please check us out on Twitter, say hello, and share the word with any other friends in the training industry. If you have any ideas or suggestions about what you'd like to see from us there, please let me know here or in the tweeting world!

2008 results for ThirdForce and MindLeaders

ThirdForce PLC (our parent company that owns MindLeaders and ThirdForce) has announced their 2008 results. It's good news of strong profits, hard to find these days, in MindLeaders' first full year as part of the company. For those of you who dig a financial read, ThirdForce's blog has posted a summary, and there's a good bit of coverage of ThirdForce's progress in the news.

For some less financially-bent news, MindLeaders launched nearly 3 million courses in 2008. Our five most popular courses of the year were in (drum roll, please):

1. Excel 2003 (twice!)
2. Customer Service (also twice!)
3. Time Management Fundamentals
4. Basics of Business Math
5. Computer Basics

To me, this list is a stark example of how much e-learning has changed, from a purely technical training medium to one that is being used by everyone, not just the techies, to learn software and business skills. E-learning has gone from being an end in itself ("Have to learn a computer topic? Use a computer to do it!") to a means, a tool that can be used towards almost any learning need.

Know of an interesting way that e-learning is being used? Please let us know in the comments!