Managing eLearning: Recent Episodes
Jon Aleckson
Hosted by Web Courseworks CEO, Dr. Jon Aleckson, and Client Engagement Manager, Matt Harpold, this podcast will feature speakers who focus on eLearning technology in the association space. Aleckson and Harpold will have in-depth conversations about a variety of topics - from the importance of having the right association tech stack to the freshest online learning hype that piques every eLearning pundit's interest.
David Kelly, Executive Director of a community of practice called The Learning Guild, speaks about the impact of the pandemic on corporate learning and development. He also addresses how the association has coped with not being able to hold in-person meetings. The November DevLearn conference was held in-person in Las Vegas and he highlights how it was done safely. He discusses the headline events like the Demo Fest where practitioners are able to show off their eLearning projects. Other important topics were discussed at Dev Learn such as the growing use of Virtual Reality and workshops on authoring systems and the ongoing interest in microlearning and XAPI for improved data collection. Lastly David addresses one of the key contributions the Learning Guild makes to the corporate Learning & Development Community and that is research. Reports come out monthly on topics such as using personality testing to using video to how to procure the right technologies.
This podcast interview with Kevin Ordonez celebrates the upcoming November 10th Solutions Day in Chicago. Solutions Day provides association executives an opportunity to network and learn. With his partner Sherry Budziak they have created three organizations: .OrgSource, .OrgCommunity and .OrgFreelancer. In this interview Kevin discusses why he felt the Chicago community needed a organization that was committed to networking and education for association executives. Kevin addresses the impact on the association tech stack of consolidation. He also discusses the impact of the pandemic on associations and on their approach to online learning. He addresses the ubiquitous nature of webcams and the acceptance of virtual meetings as a plus for the association online learning business plan.
In Episode Eight Jon Aleckson and Matt Harpold interview a CourseStage LMS customer, John Poeltler, an Instructional Technologist with the American Medical Technologists association. The American Medical Technologists (AMT) is a nonprofit certification agency and professional membership association representing over 100,000 individuals in allied health care. Established in 1939, AMT has been providing allied health professionals with professional certification services and membership programs to enhance their professional and personal growth. Matt and Jon were most excited to interview John Poeltler because he cut his teeth working in eLearning for corporations like John Deere. This makes John an authority on the difference between corporate learning management systems (LMS) and those LMS’s purposefully designed for communities of practice like AMT. Originally, as it related to online education, AMT focused on providing a certification exam for medical technicians. Today, AMT is growing their online course development department and adding online coursework to improve member’s practice in the field. This includes using the LMS for virtual events that are both live and recorded. Listen and learn the difference between the approach corporations take towards online learning and the approach national associations take towards the advancement of continuing education.
Jon & Matt sit down with Celisa Steele Co-Founder & Managing Director for Tagoras and discuss the Learning Business Maturity Model, which articulates the characteristics of a mature market-facing learning business or line of business, as well as the stages that typically precede full maturity. Tagoras developed it based on the common problems and opportunities they’ve seen in through years of working with a wide range of learning businesses. The model’s framework helps you assess your organization’s capabilities and problem areas and provides a clear path so you can move from problem to opportunity to innovation by focusing on the five domains of the model: Leadership, Strategy, Capacity, Portfolio & Marketing.
Tune in as Matt Harpold and Jon Aleckson interview Hope Liu, the Senior Director, Organizational Learning for the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. The Alliance and its strategic action network of thousands of social sector leaders and partners working to achieve a healthy and equitably society that promotes access, opportunity, and prosperity for all people. We know that systemic inequities, especially based on race, are real and significant barriers to people and communities working to reach their full potential.
Hope Liu discusses how their merger with Council on Accreditation (Alliance- COA) makes for the perfect combination of an organization committed to education and systemic change and an organization like COA that enables the proliferation of best practices and standards for community-based organizations. As the Senior Director for Organizational Learning, Hope details how she selected a learning platform to be the center of the organization's online learning efforts. The Alliance started by insisting on a seamless single sign on experience for users. An older community platform was replaced by the CourseStage learning platform which had extensive authoring and catalog features. Hope Liu provides insight and how they have spread their content influence through the use of micro-sites or sub-portals. This feature allows the Alliance to provide their content to organizations under a co-branded arrangement allowing community-based organization to also do local training in the learning platform.
Dr. Deb Stone, Assistant Director of Continuing Education, sat down with Dr. Jon Aleckson to discuss how working with associations executives takes time and collaboration to build a digital strategy. Deb shares how she worked to understand the essentials of what to implement and how to prioritize her organization's digitalization.
There are many technology consultants who know associations. Delcor has remained a leader in the association technology space for decades. What is remarkable is that this “band” of experts has stayed together just as long. Lead guitar player, Tobin Conley, CAE, describes in this podcast how Delcor aligns technology strategy to association mission and goals. Tobin is a major personality and verbal at all ASAE conferences. You can tell he is having face to face withdrawal as he speaks about the importance of in person conferences. Tune in to hear his thoughts on the impact of the pandemic, the future of association technology, and especially his wisdom on learning platforms and life long learning.
Non-profits and national associations are moving to the Salesforce ecosystem in large numbers to satisfy customer relationship management and other operational database requirements. The association management system is a non-profits system of record. Matt Harpold and Jon Aleckson interview Mark Patterson of Fionta to get his perspective on choosing branded systems like Nimble and Fonteva (association management systems built on top of Salesforce) compared to tricking out a native Salesforce instance.
Dr. Jon Aleckson & Matt Harpold sit down with Jeffrey Gorton, author of "The Seven Secrets to Managing Remote Employees." Jeff, Jon and Matt discuss the source of inspiration for the book, highlight some of the major themes, and walk through the seven steps.
Dr. Jon Aleckson & Matt Harpold introduce Dr. Michael Tatonetti. Dr. Michael shares his background and focus for Pricing for Associations. Why is there a struggle for associations pricing products? They discuss the common challenges associations face for pricing products, when to include marketing, when determining product pricing and how to test your pricing.
Michael shares his experience working with associations during a pandemic. What have associations learned, and how are they applying those lessons? What do we do about virtual sponsors & exhibitors? Recommendations for discounting, coupons and bundling. Finally, Michael shares his major tip for Associations to apply to pricing.