Bottom-Line Performance

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “AppStart for iPad”, a really handy guide on how to find the best apps to get the most of out of your iPad. This week I was helping someone get setup with an iPad who had never used one before and I was reminded how useful a resource like this one can be to someone starting out.

The app’s approach is to break down the various “How do I do this?” elements that a new user might be interested in, and then give a list of the top apps that provide that type of functionality. Let’s say for example that you were just hired into a new job and you received a company-issued iPad (by the way, this is one of the fantastic perks we enjoy here at Bottom-Line Performance!). You really would like to get some sort of news reader app installed but you’re not sure where to start. With AppStart for iPad, you can just tap on the “Newsstand To Go” button and you’re provided with a list of options that the AppAdvice editors have ranked. You also get a small description, the price, and a link to the App Store to immediately download it.

While it’s true that a lot of this information can be found online, having it all combined in a single place that is available when you’re off-line is very helpful. Adding to the app’s appeal is its vintage aesthetic and the inclusion of helpful articles on common user issues like “The Lowdown on Printing – How to print with no strings attached”. More than just providing you with a list of apps to print with, the article breaks down the printing setup for an iPad whether you have an AirPrint compatible printer (tip: you’re better off if you do) or an older printer that may be supported by a third-party app.

When you’re a new iPad owner, the most daunting initial tasks after setup is figuring out exactly how to use the iPad to improve your access to information and overall workflow. This is a great way to help make that job easier for someone. Even if you’ve used the iPad extensively for over two years you’re likely to find the information helpful as a reference when you’re looking for a quick list of apps to perform a specific function.

AppStart for iPad – [FREE] (iPad Only)

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

We are pleased to announce that our friend and colleague RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez) will be guest hosting our weekly #TalkTech chat this Thursday, May 17th at 3 pm EST. RJ is a former Senior Evangelist for Adobe who now spends his time as a Mobile Learning Analyst and consultant. His blog, The m-Learning Revolution Blog, is a highly regarded resource for the latest in mLearning news, trends, and analysis. He also actively shares mLearning information via his Facebook Page.

Our staff has had many a great conversation with RJ on Twitter and the relationship is yet another example of how powerful social media can be for connecting like-minded professionals within their fields. Be sure to follow RJ on Twitter and tune in at 3 pm on Thursday as he will post three articles and topics on Mobile Web Apps, the move to HTML5-based apps over native, and the rise of enterprise BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs for us to discuss. Just use the #TalkTech hashtag to participate. More on this week’s topics:

1. The emergence of mobile web apps and what it means: The Age of Mobile Web Apps Dawns – .Net Magazine
2. New Trend? From Native Apps to HTML-5 based Apps: You’ll never believe how LinkedIn built its new iPad app (exclusive) - VentureBeat and Web journey complete, FT switching off iOS app — paidContent.

3. Enterprise Bring Your Own Device and what it means to mLearning: Learn more via the Youtube video Key Market Trends: Enterprise BYOD: IDC’s Steve Drake.

#TalkTech is a weekly chat on emerging trends in technology and how they relate to learning and design. We post the first topic at 3 pm and allow about ten minutes for open discussion, then do the same for the other two topics. Follow @BLPIndy on Twitter to stay up to date on #TalkTech and participate in the weekly chat.

As always, we will be posting a transcript of this week’s chat on Storify. We find it helpful to go back and reference the key points and ideas that participants have shared.

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “Art Authority for iPad”, an amazing virtual museum that will put over 50,000 of the worlds best artistic works at your fingertips on your iPad (a separate app is available for iPhone). You can browse the app by it’s 8 period-specific rooms that each contain a museum’s worth of content, or you can search an artist by name and view all the available pieces from their collection. The app is incredibly robust, featuring art from over 2,000 museums from across the globe.

In addition to giving you with a virtual museum to explore, the app also provides other clever features to help you get the most out of your experience. “Art Like This” let’s you immediately bring up similar pieces to your current selection, expanding your awareness of other works and artists that you might have otherwise not easily found. “Art Near Me” is a location based feature that helps alert you to what pieces are near your current location, giving you options to consider for making a day-trip to your local museum to see something first hand. You’ll likely be amazed by the number of pieces that are within a couple miles of your location! These features are part of the reason that the New York Times reported that for art on your iPad, Art Authority for the iPad has no rival.

In addition to increasing your personal cultural awareness and art appreciation, the arts have role to play in sparking our creativity and informing our designs. I’d like to share two quotes with you that I think speak to this better than I could:

“In my own philanthropy and business endeavors, I have seen the critical role that the arts play in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities….the arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.”
–Paul G. Allen, Co-Founder, Microsoft

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have lots of dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solution without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
–Steve Jobs

So maybe you haven’t made time in quite a while to visit a museum or perhaps that Bachelor of the Arts degree could use a refresher. An app like this one lets you use the most cutting edge technology of today to bring some of history’s best works to you.

Art Authority for iPad- [$4.99 (Currently on sale half-price)]

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

BLP Employees Create an Original Song and Music Video to Support Dayspring Center in Indianapolis

We are never at loss for creative energy at BLP. Even in the midst of client projects and marketing efforts, our talented staff finds ways to pursue artistic endeavors and build their skills in new and exciting ways. As Sharon Boller, president of BLP says, “Giving back is such an important part of our company culture, it’s great when we can blend skill-building for ourselves and our clients with ways we can impact the community where we work and live.”

Today, BLP employee Steve Boller (who is also a singer/songwriter), has released his newest single, “Choose to Hope.” It’s about making the choice to love and give back, even when it isn’t easy. We think you’ll love it.

But it is about more than just the song. Steve is donating 100% of the proceeds from song downloads to Dayspring Center, one of our main charitable partners. The temporary homeless shelter serves families in Indianapolis by providing them the ways and means to lift themselves out of homelessness.

Nick Shelton, Sr. Multimedia Developer at BLP, directed, and produced the greenscreen music video and animated the whole thing using AfterEffects. The final product is amazing, and we think it really showcases our expertise in video as well. In fact, the skills we are showcasing in this project show the incredible potential of AfterEffects and greenscreen video and how they might be used as part of a multimedia learning experience. Believe it or not, the entire video was filmed with our HD video camera in front of a green screen in our office parking lot!

No matter what creative talents and abilities your staff possesses, chances are there are plenty of innovative ways you can leverage them to build more skills within your organization, or even to support your charitable initiatives. While Steve will obviously benefit musically from having such a fantastic video, BLP has also benefited from the opportunity to fine-tune and showcase our video creation skills. It’s exciting to think about how a video of this caliber could be integrated into a higher end learning solution to really drive value and engagement. Does your staff have any talents that you could integrate into your business in innovative ways?

Want to watch the video, hear the song, and give back? Just follow the links:

Watch the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjm4Ys5AjWI&&hd=1

Download the song and “Pay What You Want” to make a larger donation: http://choosetohope.org

Or, Download the song on iTunes

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This weeks’ app is Infographics, which provides you with an ongoing selection of informative and fun infographics from Column Five. Whether your interested in learning more about the “Profile of a Self-Described Mac User Vs. PC User“, or you want to dive into the demographic makeup of “Who Are Social Gamers?“, you’re bound to find great content that you’ll find useful and entertaining.

Packaged in a simple, but effective design, the app gives you with most of the features and functionality that you are likely to want.  Your primary navigation is by topic, including News, Business, Tech, Education, Offbeat, and more.  In addition to providing a search field for you to seek out specify content that you are interested in, you can also mark your favorites for later retrieval or share them via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

With the abundance of information in my regular data stream, I find reviewing a well-designed infographic to be a refreshing way to absorb data and consider the relational impact that the designer is using the data to convey.  If you do too, I encourage you to download this app and check it out for yourself!

If you do install it and find an info graphic you think is particularly effective, share it with me on Twitter (@bpenticuff) and let me know what you found most compelling about it’s design.  I’d enjoy hearing from you!

Infographics – [FREE]

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

College juniors, seniors, and recent grads: this one’s for you.

Why do I say that? Because I’m one of you. Because I sent out countless e-mails, filled out countless forms, and e-mailed out that “really cool” paper I wrote junior year too many times to showcase my writing skills. Guess what? It wasn’t good enough. Although I did run a company and hire interns while still in school, I never even got an interview for a real internship while I was in college….even though I tried. I had good grades and lots of extra-curricular activities, so what gives?

As it turns out, finding an internship is not as simple as checking the career board, seeing an opening and sending out the last two assignments you got on ‘A’ on as writing samples. It also turns out that reusing a cover letter and dropping in the name of the company you are applying for looks pretty weak as well. Plus, you can accidentally forget to change the company name when you are sending a bunch of e-mails at once (yep, I did that.)

The shift between academia and the workforce is an abrupt and painful one, especially if you went to a liberal arts school. Most companies are not looking for poets, artists, and dreamers when they post an internship. It’s totally great to be any of those things, and you should be…but you need to remember who you are trying to connect with. If a business is looking for interns, it means they have an immediate business need and they expect to see real results. It also means they are looking to have some work completed on a tight budget. Know this going in and you will be much more prepared. Many companies are looking to foster and develop creativity in their interns, but you still have to show that you meet the needs of today and are willing to get your hands dirty.

A few tips to get you started on your search:

• Let’s start with the introductory e-mail or cover letter. You need to be direct, clear and to the point when expressing your interest in a company. Vague statements like “I feel strongly that I would be a valuable asset to Bottom-Line Performance” tells me nothing as a hiring manager. If you are applying for a position in the first place, it is already assumed that you believe this to be true. Tell me why. Don’t just say what you think you should be saying: say what you mean and show a genuine interest.
• I never used to understand this when I was looking for work, but numbers and results really, REALLY matter. It may seem arbitrary to you because you know you’re smart and qualified, but we don’t. For every position you include on your  resume, focus on actual projects you completed and the results that followed. School is often about learning for learning’s sake, but you have to shift focus when looking for work. You may not have an experience like this just yet, but if you do, by all means show it off!
• There is also no need to tell an employer that you are punctual, motivated, driven, or creative. Those are qualitative attributes that hopefully ALL new hires should possess. Be as specific as possible about what makes you unique and show your potential employer how driven you are through how you describe your experiences and conduct yourself in an interview.
• Make sure your writing samples directly reflect the type of work you would be doing and carefully target them to your audience. BLP, and other small and even mid-sized companies, usually have a profile for every employee  available on their website. We regularly update our blog with content that shows what we are interested in as a company and we write with a general tone and style that is fairly consistent. The work samples on our website are full of the type of writing we routinely produce for clients. This is where the disconnect between academia and the work world is most apparent. Just because you received a good grade from a professor on a creative writing piece does not mean the work showcases any of the necessary job skills desired by your potential employer. If you are applying to a public relations firm, send sample press releases. If you are applying for an online magazine, send  sample articles you have written. It might take up more of your time, but I can promise you that you will truly stand out if you produce writing samples that are directly relevant to the position you are applying. It is easy to pull an old academic assignment out of a folder on your computer, attach it to an e-mail, and send it off. It takes real initiative to draft a new writing sample unique for the job you are applying. You can rest easy knowing very few (if any) other people are doing it.
• This might just be a personal pet peeve of mine, but I doubt I am alone on this. If you are a college student, there probably is no need for you to have a gaudy e-mail signature line.  Save the long e-mail signature line for when you have the corner office and let your resume and body of work speak for itself.

• This one really, REALLY important. Present yourself well on social media. These days, you might is well expect business owners will know how to find you and look at your public profile. If you are a young person, people will assume you “get” social media and know how to use it well. You need to have a nice, professional presence on every social network you maintain. Make sure your profile is free of anything that makes you look dumb or irresponsible, even if you are those things. It is easy to set up Facebook’s privacy settings so that those who are not friends with you can not view any part of your profile, but many people do not take advantage of this. Fair or unfair, employers will have a negative perception of you if they see pictures of you drinking and partying on Facebook, especially if these photos are easily found even before they befriend you. Twitter should also be a consideration: It may seem like a good idea to protect your Twitter account, but I actually advise against it. Twitter is designed to be an open flow of ideas and if you protect your tweets, I assume that you do not understand the purpose of the platform and also have something to hide. Again, employers will completely understand that it’s fun to goof off with friends on social media while still in school. As long as you avoid using profanity and talking about how wasted you were last weekend, you should be in the clear.
• Continuing on the social media topic, leverage the resources on Twitter and LinkedIn to enhance your job search. I actually found my first contract position out of college entirely through searching companies on Twitter. Participate in Twitter chats to network with HR departments and talk with other job seekers and check postings on LinkedIn groups related to your area of interest. Social media can be a fantastic research and networking tool if you take some time to explore the possibilities.

Most of all, have confidence and make every effort to pursue a position you feel strongly about. Your passion and enthusiasm will be your greatest asset when applying for a job or internship. Go ahead and expect to NOT hear from most of the places you apply, trusting in the fact that your efforts will eventually pay off and you will find a position you like. Don’t be afraid to take the extra step and do the little things that will help you stand out from the pack.

With a score of over 1 billion points in the final round, #1 seeded Jefe beat out YingYang215 to win College Hoops Guru. 

We will be in touch with him shortly to see if he prefers the $25 app store gift card or $100 donation to a charity of their choice that battles homelessness!

 

College Hoops Guru is now open to play!

In February, we announced a three-part experiment to assess how mobile (at least tablet mobile), social, and gaming can work together to help people learn. We did our first experiment with a game called Gridiron Guru. We created learning objectives, devised questions, and published a game that used repetition over time to help people learn the content. Its goal was to help people master some basics associated with the rules and strategy behind football…just in time for the Superbowl. We got a ton of great feedback, which we’ve incorporated into Part 2 of our Learning Lab.

March: The Concept Gets Refined

For our second game, we’re using the inspiration of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. (Bet you can tell that we employ several sports fans, huh?). Why sports? Because we wanted an experiment that would be broad and accessible. If we immediately dove down into a geeky topic (such as the science of learning), we feared we’d lose people before we ever got them intrigued. Besides, we figured families everywhere have at least one person diving into all the games on TV…a learning game to help the casual fan understand some basketball strategy concepts is both fun and helpful.

This game assumes you already know the basics of basketball – the difference between a center and a shooting guard, for example, and that throwing the ball into the basket gets you points. We’ve designed learning objectives focused on using statistics to do game prep, in-game coaching, and crafting buzzer beater strategies. We once again use repetition and feedback to help you learn.

Don’t’ like basketball? Know nothing about it? You can still play!! This time around, we are using Twitter in a variety of interesting ways to let social learning happen. If you follow theKGuru on Twitter, you will see all kinds of tips, hints, and learning aids to help you with the toughest topics. Don’t be shy… send him a tweet when you get stuck and he will be sure to respond. You can even tweet your progress as you increase your score and earn medals and badges.

This game also has a unique twist that GridIron Guru did not – an escalating level of competition so we can see the effects of competition on involvement and learning. The regular game round opens promptly at 8:30 am on March 20th and ends at 5 pm on Friday, March 23rd…but we’ll be far from finished. That’s when we’ll take the top 16 scores from our regular round of play and “seed” them into a bracket, just like the NCAA tournament. For the next 3 days, you will have a chance to test your skills in our Grab Bag round and try and amass the highest score. You’ll see questions from the earlier rounds as well as some questions on basketball rules and this year’s NCAA tournament. Take a look at our bracket:

Get Your Guru On!

At 9 pm EST on Tuesday, March 27th, we’ll end the Grab Bag round and announce our overall winner. If you make it to the top, you will get to choose your prize: a $25 app store gift card OR a $100 donation to the homeless charity of your choice. 

Want to play with us? Click here to sign into College Hoops Guru and be part of our learning lab!

On Tuesday, February 28th, Bottom-Line Performance hosted “Cracking the QR Code,” an interactive scavenger hunt through Central Library in downtown Indianapolis. Yes, they still have a card catalog on the premises.

Participants split up into teams of two and three and used QR readers on their smart phones to scan clues all over the library.

We learned that QR codes are a worthwhile training solution for orienting people to a new facility or building. The game-y aspect of the scavenger hunt was great for those who enjoy competition, but might not always be needed. We recommend maintaining a competitive element to a scavenger hunt to engage employees and make it fun.

There are also clearly plenty of situations where QR codes would be the WRONG solution. Any time that getting the QR reader out and scanning a code for information is more effort and trouble than simply retrieving the information another way would have been, it is a safe bet that there was a better option than QR codes.

One advantage to consider: point QR codes to a defined link and then simply change the content on the link as needed. You can share a wider range of content and make your QR codes especially effective by doing this.

We also learned that a time-sensitive scavenger hunt might not encourage participants to really take in their surroundings. If they are too busy trying to rush to the next clue, they may not get all of the benefits from the experience. Nancy Harkness, BLP’s VP of Learning Services, suggested a competition where participants would have to keep track of various things they noticed about their surroundings and the team with the most things would win. This would encourage taking in the surroundings more completely.

All in all, this was a fantastic event and a wonderful opportunity to explore a technology tool’s application in a corporate training environment. Have a look at the slides:

Chances are, someone has told you how you should or should not be using Twitter recently.

Did you know that Twitter chats are a fantastic way to share informal knowledge and spark conversation within  your field or even inside your organization? Think about it: You spend all day every day sitting in your office, siloed off from the world of information ebbing and flowing all around you. What if there was a way to tap in to the collective expertise of industry experts and thought leaders, creating synergistic relationships both inside and outside your organization? This is all possible. Best of all, it’s cost-effective and easy to implement.

For the past month, Bottom-Line Performance has been hosting Thursday Tech Talk, a weekly chat on Twitter. Each week, we extend an open call for users to submit articles on emerging trends, gadgets, or tech and we curate three of our favorites to include in our discussion. You can follow along and even join in by following @BLPIndy on Twitter to see the upcoming articles and saving the #TalkTech hashtag as a search. Here’s a transcript from our chat on Thursday, 2/16:

A few tips to get you started:

-Pick a hashtag that is short yet memorable and unique: We started our Twitter chat using the hashtag #T3 and have since changed it to #TalkTech. Since Twitter limits the number of characters per tweet to 140, we thought using a short hashtag would enhance people’s experience by allowing them to fit more in to one tweet. However, we quickly realized that having a hashtag that is unique and specific to your talk is important. The stream for #T3 was always cluttered with spam and errant conversations we did not want to view. #TalkTech has been much more successful thus far.

-Brevity is the soul of wit…and good conversation: New Twitter users sometimes balk at the 140 character limit per tweet. “How will I get my point across?” Rather than being a deterrant, we’ve found that the 140 character clause actually helps participants be more concise and form their thoughts better.

-Embrace different consumption preferences: Some of our BLPers are digital natives who find it easy to rapid-fire Tweets on any topic (I fit in to this heap). However, others prefer to receive and process information at a more controlled rate. We recommend using a service like Storify to gather the conversation and preserve a record of it for easy viewing. Users who prefer to interact with Twitter at a slower pace will still benefit from the conversation by reading it later and may even become more comfortable with the medium in time. Making a transcript of your chat available after the fact will greatly enhance its value. 

-It takes time to build participation: We have been encouraging BLP employees who do not normally use Twitter to hop on and try participating in #TalkTech. It has taken some time for those not used to taking part in this medium of communication to get used to sharing thoughts in this format, but we have seen great improvement from the first week.

-Twitter isn’t perfect: The platform itself has some limitations that are worth noting: Tweets do not always load immediately when you are monitoring a keyword and the stream of commentary can become confusing for some. Remember that the added value of Twitter versus a closed off chat room is the openness of the platform itself: every Tweet being shared can be searched and viewed by anyone on Twitter, any time. There is always an opportunity for someone unexpected to chime in with a new insight. Sharing your thoughts and expertise in such a way is also a great way to improve the credibility of your organization on a chosen topic.

Our experiences with #TalkTech have been all-together encouraging and we plan to continue our weekly chats. We’ll keep posting the Storify summaries once a week on this blog.

I would encourage any organization still standing on the side of the pool dipping their toes in and grimacing a bit to take the plunge in to social media and try hosting a Twitter chat of your own. You can also try participating in one of many Twitter chats already going on. Just search for what you are looking for, and odds are you will find it!