Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category
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A Learning and Development Professional’s Continuing Education
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012Finding a way to put professional development into your working life is not easy to do. There are groups you can join, and you can follow people on social media (though often there’s too much information to comfortably consume). Professional groups and user communities can be helpful. For myself, I find a lot of value with Adapt meetings (a non-profit group that helps connect L&D pro’s with Technology), and heading up to Boston for Adobe User Group meetings (when the stars align for a sitter).
In the end though, it often comes down to the need for “Train-The-Trainer”. Some places will bring in a TTT course for their Learning and Development staff, though usually the success or failure of a trainer rides on the end of class evaluations.
I’ve been asked to use a huge variety of evaluations, mostly made by the site or by the training company I was contracting with. Generally they fall along the lines of “Did you find the class to be valuable” or “Was the trainer prepared?” These (as you may know) are known in the industry as “Smile Sheets” and what they really measure is how good the instructor was at making the students feel good – good about him or her, good about themselves, good about the material… you get the idea.Â
What do you do when that feedback is not enough? If you’re truly dedicated to teaching then it’s not enough to have people like you – they have to “Get it”. Teachers/Trainers – you know what I’m talking about. It’s that moment when the person you’re working with clicks into understanding. Their eyes sparkle and they smile or sit a little taller in their seat. It’s really addicting – if you do training (I’m using training and teaching interchangeably)Â you ride that feeling like a wave. Having an entire class really click-in is a huge energy boost. Having people not click-in feels horrible – it’s like death by paper cuts. To stay in the field you need to keep fresh. Bad habits develop over time, little things you don’t even notice.
So what do you do if you’re an independent or in a workplace that doesn’t have the time, or money to spend keeping trainers sharp?
Make it yourself
You can make your own Train-the-trainer class – I had to. Sign up for webinars, regardless of the topic. Go to seminars, user group meetings, anywhere where people are presenting. Keep doing this. Then do it some more. You’ll be making little comments in your head “Oh – never say that” and “Ooh, that works” while checking what the view is like from the student seat. It doesn’t need to be work related – I recently was at a dance seminar and saw a really talented dancer struggle with the multiple levels of students in the class.
Find the people you want to learn from. One the things I’ve enjoyed doing is building a list of people that are my touchstones for certain topics. For example, will always listen to Cindy Huggett, Lieve Weymeis, Cathy Moore… The list goes on for a while. This helps me for my own development and as a great shorthand for my students. When I teach Adobe classes, I will often say “you can always trust Deke – his info is solid!“. I do this because Deke Mc Clelland is not only a great trainer but also a really good resource.
So what can you do?
Here are a few things you could build into your own personal TTT program.
Webinars
(AKA Online Training, Virtual Training, that stuff you dread…)
- Sign up for a free webinar service, one that let’s you record the meetingÂ
- Give your friends some free 20 min class. Those videos will be very helpful.
Screen recording
- Sign up for Jing or some other screen cast recording service (Jing has 5 min free).
- Make a video on one feature or term from your work.
- Show the video to someone else, perferably several other people
Live video recording
- Record yourself presenting to a room. A real room; one that is NOT full of your people. This is the brutal one. DON’T watch it the same day!
- Watch it
- Cry
- Do it again
Your Turn
What have you done to keep your skills sharp in your work?
Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.
The iPhone 4 deal at Radio Shack
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010Advice for current iPhone users on getting the upgrade deal and activating the new phone.
Hi -
I posted a twitter link a few days ago about the deal that Radio Shack has on upgrading to an iPhone 4.
I was able to turn in my 3Gs and move up to a 32gb phone for $125. If you do this (and are a current AT&T iPhone subscriber) and have a previous phone that you can put your sim card in then you will still have a working phone and will get your new one in the mail in a few days. If you don’t have an old phone, spent the $20 on a cheap phone in Radio Shack and you’ll still have your working number – from the outside no one will know that you don’t have “your’ phone. You did back up your phone to iTunes before you went to radio shack, right?
(Rule #1 for all Apple users – never bring in any device without doing a backup first – even if you are going to the genius bar for a new battery, back up first!)
Now I want to let you know what to do AFTER you get the phone. At the bottom of the post is a list with the steps in it. Between here and there is a small rant about the process with a few warnings in it.
Once you unpack the phone ,you will probably have a small piece of paper inside that tells you to sync to iTunes and that activation of you phone can take 12-24 hours. Please don’t believe that.
First of all, that’s absurd.
Second of all, it’s not accurate.
You will want to start iTunes and check for updates under the iTunes menu. You need to be on the most current version. I had a moment when my heart stopped after I did this and connected my phone to iTunes. I got a message that I could not restore my phone from the current backup because “the phone software was too old”. It will let you start a new one instead of restoring – don’t.
Go to the iTunes menu and check for updates with the phone connected. You will get a nag screen that the iTunes is current and then you should get a firmware update from 4.1 (which is how the phone ships) to 4.2
If your phone is still saying “pending activation – this may take a while” like mine did, you may be tempted to call Radio Shack – don’t. I did and the advice I got was giggle-inducing. You see, the version 4 phone has a smaller sim card in it. I was told to put my old sim into the new phone. When I told them the sim was the wrong size and the phone HAD a sim in it (You can cut the old sim – don’t. It has a perfectly good sim inside already). I was told to call 611 to get to AT&T from my new iPhone. However until you activate the new phone you can’t make calls with it. After hanging up, and shaking my head, I called 611 on the phone that had my old sim in it – the phone that I had been using for the last two days. You will end up needing to talk to the rep from a land line or different phone because your call will be disconnected when the new phone is activated – but calling from your sim gets you to a person with your account active, fast. Once I explained what I wanted the rep was able to help me with everything including resetting my voicemail password (I forgot my pin).
So.. the short version is this
- Sync your phone to iTunes before you go to get the new phone
- After filling out all the paperwork at Radio Shack to get a new phone reset it to factory specs (Settings –> General –> Reset)
- Update ITunes
- Sync your new phone and update to get the firmware to 4.2
- Call 611 on another phone to get AT&T to finish activation.
Done, Done and Done.
Creating documents with an easy screen capture
Saturday, November 6th, 2010Screensteps
My husband found this software and I am going to try it out. If you make documentation with screen captures like I do, you might find this helpful. I will post more on this after I’ve had a chance to play with it.
Open Office
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010If you need a simple and free office-like set of products, check out Open Office.
http://www.openoffice.org/.
I use Office for Windows and Mac, Google Docs, and Open Office depending on which machine I am using. Now, it’s a given that I’m a bit weird, but don’t worry software geekdom is not contagious.
80 of the most useful Mac tools and utilities
Saturday, September 4th, 201043 folders strikes gold again
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010http://www.43folders.com/2010/02/05/first-care
Open .exe files on your Mac
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010Huzzah!
FileJuicer is my new favorite thing!
Try it if you have a mac – there’s a demo (and it’s cheap)
Truly Brilliant Software
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Have you ever been present at the beginning of somthing new? I had the distinct pleasure of seeing something today at Photoshop World that was so forehead-slappingly obvious as an unmet need that I actually made a scene! I was such a total goofball that I ended up on video and will be one of the “user viewpoint” videos on their website.
No, I’m not kidding.
If you have ever wanted to be able to really keep track of your artwork, photos, office files, and all the little things you put into presentations, then you must see this…
http://www.gridironsoftware.com/products/flow.html
This is a new software that is only in beta at the moment. it will map and track your workflow. It will help you not lose files or delete/break connections that you need fo printing. Please check it out!
From the Blog
- WordPress, I both love and hate you
Saturday, April 28th, 2012 - A Learning and Development Professional’s Continuing Education
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 - Photoshop CS6 Sneek Peek #3
Monday, February 13th, 2012