Focus on achievements

When going to job interviews the advice is to focus on your achievements. I'm not even thinking of changing jobs but it's probably healthy to review what you've done in those terms from time to time, especially with an end of year review coming up.

One of my aims at work is to be an agent of change and develop the organisation and its practices, so have I done that and if so how?

eLearning

We didn't do eLearning where I worked and the operations manager and the MD had major disagreement about whether this was even a good idea and we were going nowhere with it despite the requests of clients. I got so frustrated with this situation that I designed a blended delivery model for one of our courses using half the number of face-to-face days supported with eLearning and sold a run of a program using this model to a client. Now this delivery model supports 2 of our key moneymaking programs and is about to be rolled out to a third and a brand new product - which I've been building.

Digital Marketing

We subscribed to a digital marketing tool that has SMS, email and auto-response capabilities. In 2 years I didn't see this used for more than sending out our newsletter. I persuaded - read goaded and cajoled  - a client into allowing me to use their contact list and filled a course using a promotional email and an article on our website with an application form. This was also for NGOs who are generally quite resistant to eMarketing and are not big users of technology. Using the same process we have now filled well over over 100 training places this year and it now supplements our press advertising and direct contact with clients. I've also successfully added enquiry forms to our website that generate casual enquiries.

Internet advertising

As of only last week we're also using internet advertising and it's producing results - there's been a noticeable increase in enquiries about the programs advertised. We now need to get better at converting these into actual business. Since we're quite new at this outbound marketing business that's to be expected.

Online lectures

We have used text-driven online tutorials for as long as I've worked here however the native chat feature on our Learning Management system was creaking and was only useful to revise content already covered or for very lightweight application. Now we are about to embark on a diploma level course heavily, but not exclusively, using the new tool that I selected and implemented.

 I am by no means saying I made this happen on my own but I contributed to what was quite a conservative training organisation becoming something very different and much braver and more innovative.

eLearning, the story so far...

A quick note to try and capture some of the things I've learnt building eLearning, or rather trying to build it. It's going slowly and there are reasons for that.

• Get your content together and make sure everyone's agreed on it before you get going otherwise you end up making huge changes that confuse the whole piece and yourself
  
• The same goes for learning objectives/outcomes
  
• Make sure that your reviewers review the whole thing annd don't just give you their opinion on as much as they can stomach reviewing in a single session
  
• Voiceovers are painful to record and edit, finish the design work before you get started
• Work in sections. Finish one section before moving to another - storyboarding is invaluable
• Focus - like writing you need total concentration. Turn the email off, put your phone on busy and try to minimise distractions
• There is always a better tool and a neater way of doing things - use what you have and save the clever bits for the next version

That's it for now, more when I've had some coffee.

I am a Peacock Dove, apparently

Hmm, that's a pretty marginal score. My polymath tendencies tend to screw up these type-indicator tests but interesting nonetheless.

TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE If you are a Peacock-Dove you could be more effective with less concern about how others feel about you. You can't please all the people all the time, so why try so hard? Not everybody is going to love you! Perhaps try paying more attention to your own needs and less on other people's. You might also look at setting tighter time deadlines to do things, or stop promising so much. Give it some thought. It might be a step in the right direction.

Everyone is now in for it.

Thanks to tick.com.au for the free test!

7 Habits

Trying to think up my personal mission statement as an experiment. I have not related well to the PR21C teachings - a bit too nuts and bolts and not quite enough personal change. 7 habits seems more in line with my own thinking.

Keep an eye on stuff.dataphage.com for other related bits and pieces.

January

I think we can call January a no-score draw. I've done enough to get what work there was done finished. Of course in February I'm going to change the world...