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 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.

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 Textastic, an extremely powerful text-editor for the iPad. While Textastic is suitable for creating any simple text file, where it’s power really shines is in its syntax highlighting and completion support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, allowing you to finish complex code samples with a keystroke. If you’re not a programmer, what this means is that Textastic will recognize the format of over 80 different programming languages and provide color-coded highlighting automatically while you create your code, making it much easier to read and work with.

So how does an app like this fit into your workflow?
For me personally, I have multiple websites that I’m responsible for maintaining. Whether it is checking in on the server status or applying hot-fixes to a web-app, when we have an update that needs to be made, we need to make it right away. Before this app (and the iPad in general), that meant lugging around a laptop and all of the necessary support items (power, internet, case.) Now with a full-featured editor like this one, I have everything I need with a fraction of the weight/hassle. For example, with our Knowledge Guru eLearning game product, I can just about anywhere but still login and apply an update if needed at a moment’s notice.

In eLearning, content is and will continue to be king. However, we can’t overlook the vital roll that programming and media development play in providing effective mediums to carry those messages. Tools like this one empower developers by expanding their reach and flexibility. Textastic raises the bar for what is possible with productivity on the iPad and allows users to work differently, and that’s a great thing.

If you’re a programmer, what features would you like to see added to Textastic? If you’re not, what’s your dream productivity app that would help the iPad become an even more effective tool for you and your workflow?

Textastic Code Editor – [$9.99]

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!

When the electricity is fried at your house, do you fix it yourself?

(Hopefully you call an electrician.)

We don’t think corporate training initiatives are any different.

Have you ever taken a project on yourself in an effort to save money, only to waste hours of your time and never really get anything accomplished? What about buying a TV or appliance from an off-brand because it is cheaper, only to have it break down a few months later? Businesses need to stay focused on the bottom line, but most of the time we are actually more successful with a bit more up-front investment.

Think about it: you are at your best and most productive for your company when you are engaged in a task that you are an expert at. You probably cruise through your day to day tasks in less than half the time it takes an average joe, and that’s how your company makes money.

We see it all the time: understaffed, underfunded training departments are handed large-scale initiatives and are expected to “figure it out” on their own. Without the proper mindset and resources, these initiatives never get too far. In an effort to save the company money in the short term, a business can actually hurt its long term viability by failing to invest in important infrastructural improvements that cannot be overlooked.

Why does this happen so much with training? We think it’s because learning can seem intangible. You can’t see, touch, or taste effective learning…at least not in an obvious sense. But we believe a staff that is optimally trained and receives the necessary support to perform at a high level is actually one of the most, if not THE most important factor for business success.

That being said, you don’t always need a doctor when you feel sick. Sometimes a quick trip to WedMD.com and the local pharmacy is all you need. How do you tell the difference?

If a business need or problem is systemic or significant, than you need to get a professional. Bandaids, quick fixes, and reactionary measures will never get you there. If you are considering a “bandaid” solution to a major problem, ask yourself: “How did we get into a situation where we are desperate to find things for the cheapest possible price? Why do we need to save so much money in the short term?” Somewhere in the organization, chances are resources are getting diverted inefficiently. It’s no accident that the products and services that have been intentionally created with an obsessive attention to detail are beginning to rise to the top. Apple’s iPhone and iPad may be more expensive than an entry level phone or tablet, but most believe them to be far superior products.

All of these factors are what drive’s Bottom-Line Performance’s attention to quality design and project management versus one-size-fits-all project work. We pride ourselves on serving clients who are excellent at what they do and care about quality enough to let an outside expert maximize their learning and performance needs.

It sure beats sticking a fork into an electrical socket. Call an expert!

Social Learning is not a “new” course or LMS feature…it’s something that happens naturally.

At best, a “social learning solution” is similar to carefully decorating and cleaning your house for a dinner party. The ultimate goal is for the guests to arrive and enjoy the environment as a group, sharing stories and laughing with one another. It’s the host’s job to create the conditions for this fun, not to be the sole conduit for the  entertainment. This requires a meaningful shift from traditional top-down, command and control training programs.

There is a difference between following the herd as it adopts a new technology…and approaching the tools and technologies as an artist to craft something truly unique and wonderful. A few examples:

• James Cameron’s “Avatar” was the first movie to use 3D, and the results were breathtaking. But movies that have used 3D since then have not had nearly the same effect on audiences. When it is only being implemented to follow the latest trend in moviemaking and maximize the profit that can be made in movie theaters, the final product will not be as enduring or entertaining.
• QR codes and social media links are being slapped on all sorts of advertisements. Some of them are highly effective and drive traffic to carefully considered experiences and knowledge sources…but most of them are merely an after-thought. The “everybody’s doing it” mentality is never a precursor of success.

So, L&D professional…as savvy as you are, are YOU currently working on an initiative that would add social media buttons and sharing features into a course or game just because you can? This might be a good move, but there are plenty of things to consider first.

We learned this through our launch of College Hoops Guru, the latest question pack we created for our Knowledge Guru game engine. It uses repetition and spaced learning to carefully guide learners towards mastery of a set of objectives. We like to sprinkle in a new batch of features and user interface improvements with each go-around, and this time we added Twitter functionality. While our staff had lots of fun tweeting our scores and interacting with the game during testing, we did not see much use of the social sharing features from the game players. No matter how smartly you place a button in a user interface, if it is not part of the authentic user experience, it will not be utilized. We only saw a few players take advantage of the ability to tweet their score.

So, what’s the secret ingredient you need to get social sharing features utilized in your learning solution? Proper set-up and the right audience. Make sure you clearly introduce and articulate how social media sharing can and should be used within your course or game. Show the benefit to the learner and make them believe they will gain value from using social as they learn. Make sure resources and learning materials are easily available and relevant within social media.

Most importantly, your users must be comfortable and familiar with social media if they are to use it within your learning experience. If you are planning on introducing your team to Twitter for the first time, make sure they have plenty of time to adapt to the tool and become comfortable with using it in their daily workflow. Teach them about Personal Knowledge Management and how social media can help them achieve this. Show them how Twitter will add real value to their careers, then let them explore. If your audience is already social online, all the better! But you still need to encourage them and show the benefit.

College Hoops Guru’s social sharing features are highly useful within a dedicated group of learners, particularly when encouraged to do so by a facilitator. If you want your learners to use social media within a course or game, you will need to actively encourage and support this behavior when introducing and managing the learning experience. Inviting them to the dinner party is not enough: you have to set the table.

We have been working on a few projects lately that need to work for students across the globe, and it begs the question: what impact does culture have on learning preferences?

 

My disclaimer for this post is that I’m not advocating that we teach to “learning styles.” There is more and more data out there actually arguing AGAINST catering to learning styles.

However, my question is – How much should culture influence my design? And how much does my own culture influence the way I design courses?

I first suspected that I don’t want to design to culture, and here’s why: The question was, “This a German audience. They just want facts. Will they want to do hands-on activities?”

My first response was, “Yes!” I think that German audiences would hate death by PowerPoint as much as an American audience. However, wouldn’t there be different tolerance levels for the types of activities based on culture? How can we plan for that in our learning designs? (I would be willing to do a global tour and explore cultures to study it…I wonder if that’s in the budget?) Of course, how different is an industrial German city’s business culture from that of America? Not so different, compared to how foreign American culture seems in other parts of the world.

Social media and increased connectivity are resulting in a more homogenous culture and unified learning preferences. We use the same gadgets and websites as our friends abroad…or at least that is the direction things are headed. But this does not mean we are quite “there” yet. A recent client trip to a rural area of Arkansas introduced me to a demographic of Americans I had never come into contact with. It soon became clear that a reliable 3G signal and WiFi are taken for granted by American city dwellers. For these individuals, the online learning experiences we often design and advocate for our clients would not be a viable solution.

It goes without saying: different cultures have developed customs, values systems, and aesthetic preferences that will shape their learning experience. The difference is particularly vast between Eastern and Western cultures. The music, religious practices, and dietary preferences of these people differ in many ways. Through these experiences, brains become wired differently and anticipate different experiences. Will this affect learning? Probably…but I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here.

Should we take culture into consideration when designing a learning experience? Well, yeah…but depending on the cultural differences of your learners, a one size fits all approach may not be quite what’s called for. It all depends on how different your learners really are.

My best recommendation would be to create a dead-simple user interface that will be easy to use for any human being, then make small changes to the text and script of your course to account for the varying cultures you are writing for. There may be a need for some subtle changes in your approach from one area to the next, but the best learning solution will be effective regardless of cultural variations. People are still people. 

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!

I love apps that find ways to use existing technology in new and interesting ways, and this app is a PERFECT example of that! The app is Twirdie and it combines Twitter with Golf to give you an amazing simple, but fun way to think about social media and play golf at the same time.

So this is how it works (so simple, it’s genius):
You type in a word and then Twirdie will count how many times that word was used on Twitter in the past 60 seconds. Whatever number that is, your ball will move that many yards towards the hole. The challenge for you is to use more popular words when teeing off (Note: “Bieber” will really make that ball fly) and less popular words as you get closer to the hole so you don’t over shoot. Each hole has Gold, Silver, and Bronze goals for you to try finish the hole in under those tries.

While it is an iPhone and not an iPad app, it is compatible with the iPad and uses an art style that retains a quality appearance even when 2x stretched to fill the larger screen. There is a free version that is fun and lets you try out the basic premise of the game, or for 99 cents you can buy the full version and play your friends online, get on the leader boards and even earn achievements.

It’s a lot of fun to play and guess how popular various words are on Twitter. The fact that it only uses the last 60 seconds means that the content will always be fresh and that knowing what’s in the zeitgeist will give some players a slight advantage in estimating word value. How can an app like Twirdie help you stay tuned in to what is happening on social media?

Twirdie – [Lite Version | Full Version - $.99]

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!

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!

How many years of formal education have you received in your life? 16? 18? 20? We like to think we are pretty smart, but what did we really learn?

 

The technological advances of the industrial revolution created huge demand for a certain type of individual: follows instructions, sticks to procedure, generates predictable results, easy to manage. The pedagogical practices of schools adapted to meet these demands. Think about standing in straight lines, sitting in rows of desks, or reciting things as a group. Ever wonder why?

Unschooling is essentially the idea that an educational system which is founded on the age of industrialism trains students to achieve in only a strict narrow focus. The lack of freedom in choosing the path of education and the constraints of focusing on what is deemed important by industry or society, squashes.  Ewan McIntosh on edu.blog laments that the failure of a factory style, one size fits all education became “depressingly clear” when an elementary aged child expressed his sole learning goal was to “get a five” on a standardized test. Gone is the ability to express free thoughts or articulate a higher level goal for learning than to “get a five.” Proponents of unschooling argue that the output of our education is people unable to operate without strict regimens and parameters. In contrast, an education where students are free to create, find their talents and focus on what they enjoy and our naturally good at creates people who are more confident, creative and entrepreneurial.

So this got me thinking about organizational learning. If 70-80% of an employee’s learning occurs through informal networks and people do learn without a learning intervention, do we really need to put more structure around these informal networks? The corporate side of me wants to put a framework and structure around informal learning. After all, unfocused, misdirected learning is a road to inefficiency – right? Or wrong – is it actually a road to discovery, creativity, and self confidence? Should we unschool our corporate learning and how much do we unschool it?

In business we like to say we give freedom to team members; set them loose to identify creative solutions; “think outside the box.” However, getting outside the box at work has risks associated with it. When you step outside the box you may come against deeply ingrained corporate culture. You risk ridicule, even failure. Is the message people hear more like … think outside the box, but don’t go too far outside the box, at least be anchored to the box?

If I think about applying structure and framework to informal learning, am I really saying to put a box around it, so that everyone feels safe, but little is actually gained? Where do the entrepreneurial ideas come from if people aren’t confident in expressing new ideas or they aren’t free to discover things on their own?

How much structure is the right amount? Is the best thing we can do for informal learning to just get out of the way? What is the best path to effective learning without inhibiting discovery? Considering the drastic shifts we have seen in the economic landscape, perhaps it is time to allow ourselves to step off the assembly line and back in the sandbox, free to imagine and create.