Where I Live

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Tricia Ransom

I live in Chicago in a neighborhood called Hyde Park .

Here is the sidewalk along the park .

We have wonderful bookstores ,

Abandoned churches ,

Modern architecture ,

Hidden spaces ,

And some delis .

There is so much more to this neighborhood including the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Lakefront, restaurants, and the wonderful people. If you get the chance, come visit Hyde Park…hopefully you’ll love it as much as I do. To see a bit more, click here to see my photographs, and here to see my husband’s.

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Twitter and Training and Thoughts

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Tricia Ransom

So a classmate of mine just asked if he could interview me for a course. Of course I said yes – who doesn’t feel that oomph in your gut when someone flatters you enough to want to interview you?  So then I got to thinking, why would anyone want to interview me about anything? And you know what? I think I’d interview me! I have years of experience, which means I have years of stories about what not to do!

Seriously, we had a great conversation moving from how to use Twitter and Social Media in training to the state of our industry to recruiters and candidate care to PhD programs. Of course, I had an opinion on all of it!

So let’s talk more about Twitter and Training. He asked how to use Twitter in training, especially in a corporate setting. You know, that’s a hard one. I think that for instances where an organization as a whole is going through a shared experience (for example, in a power company when a storm hits and lines are down),  they can use Twitter to push out links to relevant information to help everyone keep up-to-date and on the same page.

But what about more ordinary corporate learning? The old-fashioned ILT type of learning? Does Twitter have a place there? I’m not sure. I can see it being great to help create and grow Communities of Practice, say for an induction training program. I can also see it used with a geographically disperse group to communicate things such as “look on our wiki, I’ve updated it” or “Who’s responsible for the presentation”. But I haven’t seen or heard of a way that it will replace what we currently have, like PowerPoint. In my humble opinion, it’s an additional tool to use, not the only tool.

Having said that, I do think that Twitter has profoundly changed the way we communicate. I’m not just talking about the 140 character limit. What I mean is the shift in the patterns of communication. We now put stuff out there and wait for others to comment or act on it. Click here to read my detailed thoughts on it. My point is that with Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) we can communicate with others on our terms and our time…we don’t have to have an immediate conversation – it can last seconds or days and can grow or shrink at will.

So, let’s loop this back to delivering learning if at all possible. What does this communication on our terms mean for delivering training? I think that we must use creativity to develop learning which incorporate the changes wrought by Twitter and other Social Media. For example, no more 5-day sessions with a single instructor and a 200 slide PowerPoint.

The questions to ask ourselves are:

How can we use Social Media, or aspects of it in our training?

Can we have shorter chunks?

What about many people facilitating extremely brief segments?

Can we have open conversations rather than presentations?

Can we deliver it electronically rather than face-to-face?

Do we prefer to see each other instead of a computer screen?

Is there technology or a process or a theory that can help guide our efforts?

These are questions I don’t necessarily have answers for, and which will change depending on your client. However, I think they are well worth exploring. In fact, I’m going to try to incorporate some of these ideas with my next training session. I’ll let you know how it goes!

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Blogging ‘n Me: What I’m Learning About Myself

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Tricia Ransom

I’m over halfway through my experiment to see if I can post to my blog every day for seven days in a row, and I’ve learned several things about myself.

Note: These are really high-level realizations. I need more internal time to process deeper self-awareness:

  1. Before I start writing a post, I run through several possibilities in my head. I’m not talking just titles, I mean the first couple of paragraphs at least. If I can get two paragraphs to pop into my head, then that’s what I’m blogging about.
  2. I like the way I write. The more I do this, the easier it is to write and phrase.
  3. Some days it’s impossible to come up with a good idea to write about. Other days, well, I can’t keep up with the thoughts! Honestly, I thought I was more creative than it turns out I am.
    • I firmly believe that writing is like a muscle, and you have to exercise it. I’ve been a literary couch-potato for the last few years, so of course it’s going to take me some time to get back into the swing of things.
  4. I think about my work a lot, and connect seemingly random things to it — like snakes in garages. It’s a very good thing, to like what you do for a living.
  5. I’ve also realized that I like to write, and I like to help people. That’s one reason why I’m a trainer! The other reasons are that I like to talk and tell people what to do, but I’m working on changing the whole telling-people-what-to-do thing.
    • My least effective training sessions have been where I’ve told people “click here. Scroll there. Type this.”
    • My most effective sessions have been when I’ve said “We’re going to learn together today. Does anyone have any idea where we should click to close this screen? What do you think we should type in this field? Where do you imagine that icon is on the screen?”
  6. I like to learn. My mom always says “You’re never too old to learn”. I’m learning how to blog, how to do Social Media, how to be a better wife/daughter/sister/friend, just learning everything! I’m even trying to learn how to knit. Here’s a picture of my scarf that I’m knitting…at this rate, it’ll be 2015 before I finish it!

So, what I’ve just realized in re-reading this is that I am totally focused on learning (mine and others). I’m always thinking about what I’ve learned, what I can learn, what I think others should learn (see, that’s the bossy in me coming out), and better ways to help all of us learn. I also like to write. I guess my career choice is a good one since I get to do a lot of both!

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What do snakes in the garage have to do with training?

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Tricia Ransom

Got your attention, didn’t I? I know, I know, strange question. My parents winter in Florida, and apparently they have a snake living in their bushes…the bushes by the driveway and front walkway. Furthermore, this snake likes to cool down in the shade provided by their handy-dandy garage. Needless to say, my parents aren’t too happy, and neither am I since I’ll be visiting them in less than a week!

So now you’re probably wondering how I’m going to segue from snakes in the garage to training. Watch this! My mom’s first reaction is to hole herself up in the house and refuse to come out. Does that sound familiar? What happens when we train on a new process or procedure? Don’t many of our learners hole up in their safe-places and refuse to come out?

I asked my mom if it was a poisonous snake, or if she knew what type it was. She said, “it’s a snake”. She wasn’t even interested enough to find out more about it…and doesn’t that happen to us every day, every time we train something? I’m convinced our job is to motivate people like my mom to want to learn more about something, even if they’re afraid of it. I still haven’t quite figured out how to do this…I’m open for suggestions!

My mom is afraid, and uninterested. So she has a negative attitude. This is what I face most often as a trainer. People have a negative attitude towards the material – do these sound familiar?

We’ve implemented a new software every 2 years since I’ve been hired – why should I learn this one?

Every time you people (I really hate that “you people”) train us, something goes wrong with the training session/webinar/software/blah blah blah.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I don’t see myself as a trainer; I see myself as a salesperson and a translator. And my biggest sales job is to sell enthusiasm and interest, even if it is in a black snake in the garage. It’s not easy…anyone who’s ever done this can tell you that. But, ah, when you get that one person who says “I looked it up and that snake is on the endangered species list and is completely harmles”…there’s nothing better!

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Lessons from Photography: 9 Tips for Training

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Tricia Ransom

As I was wandering through my Twitter stream, I came across a link that said, “Lesson from the Scene: Thinking in Images – Nine Tips for Communicating Visually“. It’s a link to an article by Stanley Leary (and here’s his website right here). In it, he gives nine tips for better visual communication. It got me thinking, why can’t we use that for training? So, thanks to Stanley, here are my Lessons from Photography: 9 Tips for Training:

  1. Humanize: Stanley says “For example, to show how small something is, rather than using a ruler, put it in someone’s hand.” Ok, why can’t we do that in training? Rather than writing in the passive tense, or as if our subject occurs in a vacuum, put it in the hands of an actual person. Try including someone in the company, or someone you’ve created. What about an avatar…just humanize the subject, and carry that through the entire training.
  2. Use Good Lighting: “Usually, whatever has the most light on it will become the main subject.” So, in training, I envision this one as an axiom that says “Shine your light on what is most important!”. Focus on the need-to-know, and it will become important. If you focus on the nice-to-know or extraneous information, that will become the main subject.
  3. Try Black and White: I’ll agree, this isn’t a perfect match-up with training, but I interpret this as to say, focus on the basics. Sometimes low-tech will focus attention more than glitz.
  4. Get Closer: “Almost any photo will be better closer up.” And doesn’t this apply to your subject? Get closer to the people who are using it, who will be doing it. Get closer to the subject matter itself. Immerse yourself in it. Almost any training will be better closer up. My number one tip? Use an active voice!
  5. Watch the background: “Look around the subject. Be sure nothing is growing out of a head or sticking in from the edge on the frame”. Look at your subject. Have you clouded up the background of your story? Is there light shining on something other than the main point? Have you digressed and now have a tree growing out of your training subject? Make sure your background is clear. And if you are working on the graphics of learning, make sure the background for the slides, screens, handouts doesn’t distract from the material being presented.
  6. Consider a worm’s eye view or the bird’s eye view: “Change the height of the camera in relation to the subject; avoid making all the photos from a standing position” For training, why present the subject one way only? Can you present it via e-learning and a podcast and via informal learning? Change the way people will see the material.
  7. Seek variety: “Make plenty of photos from different angles”. My interpretation of this is to change how you get the information. Get it from people close to the subject, from people being impacted by the subject, by people developing it, everywhere! And then incorporate all of those people and their words into your training.
  8. Give it time: “Let the subject get used to being photographed. After a while they’ll relax, when the really great photos will start to happen.” For training, let people get used to learning. After time, when they relax, the great learning will start to happen.
  9. Include the environment: “Show the subject doing what they do.” And the same goes for training. Show the subject being used, by real people, in a real environment.

So, these are the nine photography tips from Stanley Leary. Do you agree? Disagree? Have any others?

 

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