You are here: Home / Archives for American Society for Training & Development

Learning 2010: The Continuing Power of Collaboration

December 31, 2010 By

Looking back at what we learned this year produces some interesting conclusions—not the least of which is that it wasn’t so much a year of trying to create something entirely new, but, rather, a time to step back long enough to survey what surrounded us and learn more effectively how to use the collaborative resources we’ve been given: wikis. Shared document tools including Google Docs and Dropbox that are helping us incorporate cloud computing into our training-teaching-learning efforts. Web-conferencing tools ranging from WebEx, Dimdim, and TalkShoe to Google Talk and Skype for the delivery of just-in-time learning. And LinkedIn discussion groups and Twitter as a way of seeking and exchanging information that contributed to more effective learning for everyone involved rather than as a way to simply tell others where we were sitting and drinking coffee or waiting for a bus to arrive.

What remains at the heart of this learning process is the power of collaboration face to face as well as online, and what made 2010 so fruitful for so many of us was the way we managed to work together in a variety of often overlapping settings to the benefit of learners and our learning colleagues. If you haven’t yet hopped on the train, let’s take a ride together to see how these tools and how collaboration have been serving us and may well end up serving us even more effectively in the months and years to come.

The ALA Learning Round Table provides a natural starting point. In addition to providing an ongoing collaborative forum for face-to-face exchanges at American Library Association conferences to promote and support effective learning opportunities for members and prospective members, it has been developing a wiki where trainers can post as well as seek resources developed by their colleagues. The Round Table’s monthly online meetings further advance its mission of helping trainer-teacher-learners collaborate to produce resources and results that we would otherwise not enjoy. And ALA Learning—the blog where this piece is being posted—not only provides us impetus to collaborate through sharing articles but also contributes to the larger goal of drawing together trainers who are working within or working side by side with libraries rather than leaving all those one-person training offices and libraries without formal training programs in a frustrated state of isolation.

Another productive community of learners where collaboration is the order of the day is Maurice Coleman’s biweekly online T is for Training discussions. Interested regulars—the “usual suspects”—and guests frequently interact during these online hour-long free-ranging conversations via Talkshoe on a variety of topics of interest and importance to those involved in workplace learning and performance, and those discussions helped open doors this year to routes of exploration such as the possibility of helping promote the development of libraries as social learning centers. They also led to additional collaborations including the webinar Maurice and I designed and delivered in October 2010 to more than 400 participants for WebJunction—another great collaborative forum for trainer-teacher-learners in libraries. All of these tools and resources are easy to access and/or use, and they are well worth considering for workplace learning and performance programs.

The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) remains yet another gathering place at the local, regional, and national levels face to face as well as online for many of us. Opportunities for productive collaborations abound at many levels: through membership on Chapter boards and collaboration at national conferences, through learning opportunities provided via webinars, through postings on LinkedIn discussion groups, and through groups including the National Advisors for Chapters which meet face to face and use a variety of online tools and posted online documents to do business throughout the year.

My own familiarity and comfort with collaboration via wikis took a quantum leap this fall when I was accepted onto the New Media Consortium’s 2011 Horizon Report Advisory Board; all 40 of us from countries all over the world did all our work asynchronously, online, via the wiki which leads to completion of the report; among the pleasant surprises, given the small number of people involved in this worldwide project, was the discovery that ALA Learning colleague Lauren Pressley was part of the group.

If anyone remains unsold on the powerful benefits provided by collaboration and the use of the social networking tools we’ve been exploring, Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner’s new release, The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media, may prove to be the tipping point. As James Surowiecki notes in The Wisdom of Crowds, those who engage in collaborations are often the most prolific and successful at what they do (pp. 162-163). And that, of course, remains a lesson well worth absorbing anytime—not solely in the year just ending.
N.B.: Those interested in exploring the theme of collaboration through a variety of tools and other resources will find plenty of options in “Community and Collaboration in an Onsite-Online World: An Annotated Bibliography.”

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Paul Signorelli’s “Getting To Know Me” Post

January 19, 2010 By

1.   Your One Sentence Bio
I was born; have been deeply immersed in writing, training-teaching-learning, and working with libraries and nonprofit organizations for many years; am honored to sometimes be mistaken for ALA Learning colleague Peter Bromberg when the two of us are lucky enough to be on Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training podcasts at the same; and plan to die someday—which, I believe, covers all bases.

2.   Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
You’ll find me blogging here at ALA Learning and at Building Creative Bridges. I came up with the name because “Librarian In Black,” “Library Trainer,” and “(almost) Bald Trainer” were already taken by writers better than I’ll ever be, and Building Creative Bridges seemed like a good way to describe what I hoped to accomplish through the blog and everything else I’m doing.

3.   What is your professional background?
As far as I can tell, I’ve worked for newspapers, magazines, a couple of schools in Japan, the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Public Library system, and with a variety of other groups and organizations, but if you’ve heard differently, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

4.   What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
My position as Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training for the San Francisco Public Library system had me providing orientations, software introductions and updates, and other learning opportunities for staff and volunteers; current training-teaching-learning efforts include writing e-learning courses for Infopeople and LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop)–http://www.leadonline.info/–and conducting workshops at professional conferences.
 
5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
We need to be combining sessions on practical matters (software upgrades, customer service, leadership and collaboration skills, conflict resolution, health and safety issues) with inspirational/visionary/long-term matters (how to continue serving library members and guests on site and online, maintaining libraries as on-site and online community centers, becoming collaborators with members of the communities we serve rather than one-way providers of information and services).
 
6.   Where do you get your training?
For training-learning, I try everything I can think of, including conversations with colleagues; on-site and online workshops and courses; blogs/RSS feeds; books; journals, magazines, and newspapers; webinars; conferences; speakers at ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) and ALA (American Library Association) meetings and conferences—and I’m sure that’s only about half the list.

7.   How do you keep up?
Keep up?

8.  What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing
right now?
One of the many large challenges is to recognize and respond to their increasingly huge role in being learning centers for their local and online communities while not abandoning any of the important and life-changing roles their members and guests still expect them to fulfill. 

9.   What are biggest challenges for trainers?
All too often, we have training-teaching-learning as part of our job rather than as the entire focus of our job, which leads to lots of half-finished projects, lots of stress for everyone, and less than optimum learning opportunities; focusing on our own continuing education and our primary roles as workplace learning and performance providers might be the best lesson-by-example that we can provide to colleagues whose workplace focus is equally divided to their own detriment and the detriment of those they serve. 

10.   What exciting things are you doing training wise?
Trying to be creative face-to-face and online in the way I respond to learners’ needs: delivering a synchronous online learning opportunity through live Google Chat, for example, was a fun distance-learning experiment with a University of Nevada, Las Vegas colleague and his class in October 2009.

11.   What do you wish you were doing?
Writing; oh, wait, I am writing.

12.   What would you do with a badger?
Teach it to use Google Chat so it could more effectively participate in synchronous online learning opportunities.

13.   What’s your favorite food?
Pizza.  Purchased somewhere in NY, NJ or the Philly area.  If you’re not buying pizza in one of these geographic areas it’s not really pizza.  Sorry, it’s not.  (OK, an exception for Chicago deep-dish.  As long as you qualify it.)

14.   If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want
to have with you?
A confirmed flight back to the mainland.

15.   Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds
out of a pickle?
I live in San Francisco; can someone tell me what a grasshopper is?

16.   Post it notes or the back of your hand?
No, thanks.

17.    Windows or Mac?
OK, but definitely not on the first date.

18.   Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
Can’t remember; must be an occupational hazzard since at least one other ALA Learning colleague has responded similarly.

19.   What’s your take on handshakes?
A handshake is certainly a pleasant way to avoid open warfare in a learning environment.

20.   Global warming: yes or no?
Best response I’ve seen is Jill Sobule’s “happy song about global warming”; who am I to argue?

21.   How did you get into this line of work?
My supervisor at the time told me I had to take over the organization’s staff training program if I was going to keep my job; I found that to be tremendously motivating.

22.   What is the best part of your job?
Being part of what ASTD refers to as the effort to “create a world that works better.”

23.   Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
This question reminds me of a story from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidism, which I will now paraphrase to the best of my recollection. The gist of it: Samuel, a very devout man who is struggling to be good in the eyes of the Lord, approaches the Rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, should I try to be more like Moses or more like Abraham?”  The Rabbi replies, “Rather than trying to be more like Moses, or more like Abraham, the Lord would be pleased if you tried to be more like Samuel.” And that’s all I have to say about that.

24.   Sushi or hamburger?
Depends on who is asking.

N.B.: Special thanks to Peter Bromberg for allowing me to insert, verbatim, his answers to questions #13 and #23 here. I figured if I couldn’t match his responses for cleverness, I might as well just outright steal them and see if I could further confuse colleagues about which of us is speaking (please see response to question #1, above).

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Training, Planning, and Collaborating to Build the Future

October 11, 2009 By

Trainer-teacher-learners are by nature forward-thinking and collaborative. There is no reason, after all, to invest time, money, energy, and other precious resources into helping others learn if we don’t believe there will be a payoff for everyone involved.

It’s no surprise, therefore, to see that local, regional, and national groups of trainers are providing replicable examples of how to produce magnificent results with a modicum of effort even during the challenging times we’re facing. Members of the American Library Association (ALA) Learning Round Table, for example produced two sell-out training workshops at the 2009 ALA Conference in Chicago this summer while other groups were struggling to attract minimal audiences; we also once again presented a first-rate “training showcase” open free of charge to our colleagues throughout ALA.

Training and other professional groups around the world, undaunted by the difficulty of attracting participants, are producing “future of library” conferences and panel discussions to inspire like-minded colleagues.  ALA itself, this summer, had a standing-room-only panel discussion on the topic.  The University of Arizona has sponsored conferences for several years. The Colorado Association of Libraries, Queensland (Australia) Department of Education and Training, and Southeast Florida Library Information Network have all recently been involved in future of library conference planning, and a “Future of Libraries within the Framework of Sustainable Development” was held on the island of Guadeloupe in June 2009.

An earlier article for this blog detailed the successes achieved by trainers in the Mt. Diablo Chapter of the American Society for Training & Development in attracting and retaining new members; at the heart of the success were the collaborative efforts of a few of us who improved the Chapter’s speaker series so it provided effective training for the trainers it is meant to serve.

Similar successes have come from another informal group of trainers meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area: the Pacific Library Partnership Staff Development Committee (formerly the Library Staff Development Committee of the Greater Bay Area). Seeing how this group operates suggests that we are far from living in a protracted dark age for training in spite of training-budget cutbacks.

The 10 to 12 core members of the group, in planning our fifth annual future of libraries conference this year, recognized early in our planning process that attracting attendees would be a challenge, so we made some key decisions. We would continue to rely on the individual skills of our planning group to use available resources—attracting an enthusiastic speaker whom we knew we could afford, enticing local presenters who were willing to volunteer their time to be part of what we were developing, relying on a combination of a first-rate publicist on our committee and additional well coordinated marketing efforts undertaken by other members of the committees to do much more than we have done before in reaching prospective paid attendees—without letting any part of the process become overwhelming for any individual member of the planning group.

A key to our continuing successes—and this year’s event was another profitable endeavor even though attendance was, as anticipated, considerably lower than it has been in better times: approximately 100 people compared to the sell-out audiences of 220 we have had in previous years—is that we employ a combination of well defined roles and a willingness to step in wherever needed as our time allows.

As is the case with every successful group I work with, I see an amazing ability for my colleagues in this training group to accomplish a lot in very little time (one face-to-face meeting every other month), combine skills to attain a well establish goal (producing conferences and other training events with real value to the people who attend them), and donate a very limited number of hours of work (five to 10) between each meeting so the projects stay on track. If we see that we need to increase our marketing and other promotional endeavors, we coordinate our efforts to combine personal contact, email messages, and the use of listservs to reach our audience. If we discover that we’re not attracting the presenters whom we need, we continue sharing resources by phone, email, or face to face until we have a winning package.

The result is that we continually produce events we’re proud of offering—events which inspire our audiences with useful and easily adapted ideas they can apply when they return to work. And we have fun—which, I believe, is the real future of libraries, training groups, and everyone we touch through all the work we do. For by showing others how easy it can be to achieve significant and long-last goals, we are offering the best we have to offer as trainer-teacher-learners.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Filed Under: Professional Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Creating “Literary Salons” for Trainer-Teacher-Learners

July 16, 2008 By

An interesting thing is happening in the San Francisco East Bay area: a local chapter of the American Society for Training & Development is becoming the trainer-teacher-learner’s version of a literary salon, and its community of members has increased by nearly 33 percent (from 62 to 82 members) in less than six months.

 

Here’s how it’s evolving: Three of us who work on programming for the ASTD Mt. Diablo Chapter’s monthly two-hour dinner meetings at the Crow Canyon Country Club in Danville decided to build off of the Chapter’s tradition of bringing in the best available speakers on the interrelated topics of training, leadership, and human resources; we encouraged presenters to use engaging, cutting-edge presentation styles while playing off of the camaraderie which existed within the small group of 10 or 15 repeat attendees.

 

Chapter member Steven Cerri, presenting on the topic “Why Most Training Isn’t Sticky and What to Do About It” at the Chapter’s April meeting, didn’t just cover the topic effectively; he frequently called attention to the techniques he was using and, as a result, kept the event lively, personal, and sticky for the audience he was addressing. And that’s when the magic began: the regulars had never been shy about engaging speakers and each other throughout the monthly formal presentations, but they upped the ante—and made the experience memorable—by being part of the discussion rather than sitting back, listening passively, and politely asking questions while Steven stood before them. And when the hour-long formal program was over, people didn’t quickly empty the room. The discussion continued informally for at least another half hour.

 

Daren Blonski, VP of Leadership Development for Sonoma Learning Systems, inspired an equally engaging exchange the following month on the theme of what trainers need to know to function effectively in multigenerational workplaces. We worked together, as he prepared his PowerPoint slides, to incorporate a Cliff Atkinson Beyond Bullet Points style to his presentation—creating a visual narrative flow from slide to slide without using much text. The level of engagement between Daren and the other participants—it would be inaccurate and unfair to refer to them as an “audience” in this context—was electric. Daren didn’t even use all the slides he had prepared; he took advantage of the lively interactions to cover the material, and the discussion continued informally for almost 45 minutes after the monthly meeting was formally adjourned.

 

Provokare Presentations Founder Roberto Giannicola, at the Chapter’s June meeting, took the process over the top. With visually stimulating slides, a puckishly engaging sense of humor, and a presentation virtually free of bullet points (except when he was using them to show how ineffective they can be), he set an enormously high bar for all presenters who will follow him at Mt. Diablo Chapter dinner meetings. He facilitated a very lively discussion on how the combination of  imagery and storytelling creates effective learning experiences, and it was again with reticence that everyone parted ways nearly an hour after the meeting ended.

 

It hasn’t taken long for the word to spread. That small community of regulars in March has quickly expanded so that the Chapter’s meeting last night, featuring ASTD Senior Chapter Coach Scott Wilson (based in Washington, D.C., but traveling under the auspices of ASTD to serve as keynote speaker for the event), drew 32 participants—nearly half of them first-time attendees, and two of them returning after at least a few years away from the Chapter. One after another, they confirmed that they were drawn to Scott’s presentation on “Current Reports and Best Training Practices from ASTD’s National Office” because colleagues have been telling them about the “incredible energy” that is coming out of the Mt. Diablo Chapter presentations and discussions. And, of course, it was no surprise to find two people standing outside in that warm summer evening weather 90 minutes after Scott’s formal presentation ended last night. Which suggests that we may not be far from seeing after-meeting discussions which exceed the two-hour time frame for the formal dinners and presentations themselves.

 

For more information about the Chapter’s activities, please visit its website.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Community, Training-Teaching-Learning, and CLENE

July 10, 2008 By

I’m not part of WebGen: I didn’t grow up wired, online, and connected to the world 24/7, and I do appreciate moments as well as hours of solitude. But, like most people who are honest about what is most important to them, I also value, crave, and am nurtured by community. So being in Anaheim for the annual American Library Association (ALA) conference earlier this month and spending every moment I could with colleagues in the library training-teaching-learning community provided lots of food for thought on the theme of what makes communities thrive when the Web 2.0 world and the face-to-face world of conferences with thousands of onsite participants converge.

 

The loosely knit community of trainer-teacher-learners who work in libraries throughout the United States—and who often feel incredibly isolated from each other, as evidenced by exchanges in the LibraryLearning Google Group started by Lori Reed less than a month ago—suddenly seems incredibly intimate and welcoming when you attend an American Library Association conference.

 

The central point of this convergence, for me, is my membership and increasing participation in CLENE—the Continuing Library Education and Networking Exchange (CLENE) training group. Right behind it are the overlapping connections resulting from the joint memberships and associations many of us seem to share through our affiliations with groups like Infopeople and the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), and the online community of bloggers who so frequently and effectively build a sense of community where none might otherwise be found.

 

Although there were more than 20,000 library staff members in Anaheim for the annual conference, those of us interested in training-teaching-learning kept running into each other everywhere we went, and a large part of it was due to the community we’ve created through CLENE and its series of workshops; meetings; discussions; and its training showcase.

 

The group, like Infopeople, is fluid rather than rigidly structured. It’s welcoming. And it’s like being part of a large family where somebody is always bringing someone else home for dinner without bothering to phone ahead, knowing that there somehow will be enough food for everyone so no one will go to bed hungry that night. It’s the kind of group where everyone around the table jumps into the conversation, and everybody goes away enriched. It’s the kind of group where you’ll find the same sort of arguments and hurt feelings that come up whenever people let their guards down and say what they’re thinking, but we know that we’re not going to let the arguments and hard feelings go unacknowledged or unresolved. The result is that we’re always ready to get together again as soon as we possibly can to eat and talk some more.

 

And when we part ways, there’s already that numbing twinge of implied loss as we realize we probably won’t see each other again for at least six months—until we reconvene for the next conference which brings us all together. But what remains is the strength of collegial exchanges and the warmth we manage to create through a community of learning which benefits all of us and all we touch.

 

For more information about CLENE and how to join the group, please follow this link.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Filed Under: LearnRT News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,