How Do We Love Thee (Small Business)? Let’s Count the Ways

Not everyone can work at a huge, international business conglomerate with worldwide recognition—in fact, many of us work for and shop from small to medium-sized businesses. From time to time, we might enjoy the grand gesture of a huge sales event from a big company, but we also enjoy the daily comforts of interacting with our local restaurants, dry cleaners, mechanics, independent grocers, or even training companies. The people who have a vital, frequent stake in offering products and services we need are invested in seeing us. Together, we build relationships built on commerce and, more important, on trust.

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The Proof of the Pudding: Blending Learning Solutions to Achieve Performance

Recently, we wrapped up an ongoing project for a large client. We designed the training to support and reinforce a major process change for the organization that will lead to significant savings in the coming years. This project meant changing some integral patterns and processes for many roles across diverse divisions. We are extremely pleased our client is already well ahead of its financial savings goals in the first year!

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We Go Together… Even When It Seems Like We Don’t

When I started working at Gillespie Associates, however, I left behind daily tasks filled mostly with numbers to join a creative, word-oriented team used to much more ambiguity in their work life. For instructional designers—IDs—dozens if not hundreds of different approaches can help them translate a client‘s project from idea to award-winning training. Coming from a place where 2 + 2 always equaled 4 in a linear, defined process, I wondered how I would fit in.

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Writing Your Content: The Building Blocks of Effective Training

Do you ever find yourself listening to a friend or loved one’s story and unable to determine what happened because they forget to tell you important details? Or getting so lost in their details and asides that you lose their point? It’s kind of funny when it’s at home… but when you’re trying to understand how to perform a new task or integrate a concept into your daily routine, poor communication is a problem.

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A Shining Example of Training that Works

As a company whose business is to develop training solutions that improve employee and organizational performance, we regularly strive to prove that our training is successful and to demonstrate to our clients the return on their investment in training. Change takes time, but sometimes, the effects of training are immediate and stunning.

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How Practice Helped Me Learn the Pythagorean Theorem and Can Help You Too!

Practice is critical to the development of new skills. It allows learners to apply new skills and receive feedback on the results. The process of practicing increases learning in a way that simply reading about a skill will never do. Once you acknowledge the importance of practice, this post will help you increase the effectiveness of practice.

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FAQ: How do we develop training when we aren’t experts in the subject?

Instructional designers have a window into many worlds: we tell people how to sell surgical products, feed infants in a NICU, and comply with corporate-wide budgeting processes. Next month, we may provide guidance on preventing sexual harassment, developing new leaders, and retaining customers. How can we develop meaningful and applicable training without being authorities in these areas?

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