Learn and Lead

Links for 2009-10-21 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

How Do I: National Portal of India
Indian Govt site provides you with information and useful links to avail various Citizen Services being provided by the Central & State/UT Governments in India.

5 Reasons Why You are Not Being Promoted

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:36:00 +0000

I came across Dan McCarthy’s blog recently. Dan is a practitioner in the field of leadership development for over 20 years and is currently the Manager of Leadership and Management Development at a Fortune "Great Place to Work", "Training Top 125", and "High Impact Learning" (HILO 80) company. He has a great blog on leadership that I would encourage you to subscribe to.

Dan wrote a great post Head’s Up – You are About to be Promoted or Fired where he shares why you might get promoted or fired. I think there’s also a third script: the status quo script. While you may not be fired for things you do (or don’t do), you may not get promoted either. Here’s what the script might be why you are not getting promoted:

Status Quo script:

I have some good news - you are keeping your job. Unfortunately we aren’t promoting you. Here’s why:

You are not seen as a leader amongst your peers. You do your job well enough. However you don’t inspire others, either within your team or amongst your peers. People respect you for doing your job with the best intentions and spirit but don’t really look up to you for taking them to the next level.
You don’t take initiatives. If there is a new opportunity, you don’t volunteer. You don’t seem to have new ideas. You usually wait to be assigned tasks and you are happy to do what is assigned to you, which you do well, no doubt. Perhaps you are content and satisfied with your current role.
You are not adding value to your current role. For example, your role is not just to create and present the report, but also work towards improving what you are presenting.
You are not visible. You don’t participate in company initiatives. You avoid official social gatherings. You don’t participate in cross functional teams. You shy away from taking credit for the good work you or your team does. You rarely share what you know, people don’t really see you as a node of reference.
You resist change. If there is talk of changing process or tools, you resist it. Your first reaction to initiatives is that it can't be done. It is too hard to convince you about the new ideas or changes and too much time needs to be spent with you to onboard you. People see you as an impediment to new ideas.

Picture by

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronin691/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Dream Job redux

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Are you complaining too much about your job? Wondering what your dream job is? It might be a better idea to stop complaining before it is too late. Would you like to lose this job?

Video found via Mohitoz on the Rocks blog.

10 Tips for Better Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:34:00 +0000

A question was asked on Twitter for some tips on running better meetings. I sent out a series of tweets and then added a few more to make this blog post.

Here are my tips for better meetings:

Question the need: Ask yourself, do you even need the meeting? Do what you can over email to avoid meetings.
Have an agenda: Not points to discuss but decisions to be made. If the meeting is to review progress, make sure you have status against goals.
Keep'em short: Schedule shorter meetings. Force participants to take decisions in the short time.
Review actions: Review status of actions in last meeting. If no action for 2 meetings, question if you really need the action.
Have the right participants: What are you expecting each participant to contribute? Do you have the decision makers in the participants? Do the participants know what's expected from each of them?
Summarize actions: Not just summarizing the actions but also be specific, who is required to do what and by when.
Avoid gimmicks: Just stay focused and have the meeting. Don’t have silly gimmicks that are supposed to make meetings more effective. You don’t really want to start measuring meeting effectiveness, passing tokens etc. Hey, you’ll probably end up in having more meetings deciding the gimmicks.
Who is running the meeting: Identify who is really running the meeting? The meeting chair should help participants stay focused on the meeting agenda.
Be prepared: with your agenda, data and decision points. Better preparation means shorter meetings.
Follow the hygiene: of being on time and stopping on time.

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a-barth/ / CC BY 2.0

Happy Diwali

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:32:00 +0000

Wishing a very Happy and Prosperous Diwali to you and your loved ones. May the new year bring cheer and happiness for everyone. Praying for peace and prosperity all around.

Photo by me.

Analysis Paralysis and Lizard Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:57:00 +0000

Seth Godin talks about quieting the lizard brain within us and finishing what we started. He says thrash the ideas up front, don’t get scared about shiping the product and start thrashing the idea later in the development stage. Of course, we also have the analysis praralysis syndrome where we might spend too much time in analyzing the idea without ever starting it. You don’t finish what you don’t start, right.

Okay, so basically what everyone is saying is move your blooming part-of-your-anatomy and get on with delivering on your great idea. Sure analyze (thrash) the idea at the start but don’t get stuck there. And then once you’ve started it, don’t start thrashing (analyzing/critiquing) the product just before you have the deliver it.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

Indian Learning Professionals and Companies on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:39:00 +0000

I have updated my list of Indian learning professionals on Twitter. I have included company Twitter accounts in the list. Feel free to leave a comment to suggest more professionals and companies who should be on the list. I have been less discerning this time and have included all professionals who have more than one tweet on the list. Also listed them in alphabetical order.

You can now use the TweepML link to easily follow these professionals on Twitter.

aanteladda - aanteladda

Education Strategist, Coach, Bridge, Entreprenuerial Catalyst, Mum

abhijitkadle - Abhijit Kadle

interests range from genetics, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, engineering, technology, computing to electronic games, media, communication, and design

Abhinava - Abhinava

biker... dreamer... sapiosexual

amitgautam - Amit Gautam

atuljog - Atul

Trainer,Executive Coach & a curious learner! Passionate abt adult learning, bringing fun and learning into training n designing content which are impactful ...

baxiabhishek - Abhishek Baxi

geek / new media guy / photowalker / microsoftie / windows7 PC / blank noise guy / critical movies fan / windows mobile

bishtumesh - Umesh Bisht

learning and development professional, digs web 3.0 , e-learning, and content

dbhasin - Dolly Bhasin

Am a Knowledge Enterpreneur with focus on Small Enterprises, Travel, Tourism, Hospitality for eLearning and emarketing

deepak1279 - Deepak

dineshmagadi - dinesh magadi

dominicrajesh - Dominic Rajesh

HR Professional with focus on Learning and Development. Motto: Help others help themselves.

elearningtyro - E-Learning Tyro

Instructional Designer and E-Learning Specialist

followVasan - vasan

e-Learning professional committed to making difference through learning solutions

gaganadlakha - gaganadlakha

gargamit100 - Amit Garg

eLearning Outsourcing, Learning 2.0

GautamGhosh - Gautam Ghosh

HR and Social Media geek. Perpetual Learner. Interested in how emergent technologies are changing Organizations. Organizations 2.0 if you please!

geetabose - Geeta Bose

Run Kern Communications -a learning solutions & usability consulting company

gJaideep - Gerald Jaideep

Innovation Initiator or Hunter/Gatherer for FireStarters

harmalbhu - Harini

Instructional designer. Love: Fiction, techie tools.Sharing Knowdlege.

indug_72 - Indu Gopinath

Jax - Xavier Roy

I get paid to write :-)

JosephineShobee - Josephine Shobana

Delivery Manager at Element K. Interested in learning, innovation, leadership, strategy…

kamalbatra - kamalbatra

kanchanshine - Kanchan Shine

Instructional Design Consultant

kapil1312 - Kapil Bhatia

Enjoy discussing Education, web 2.0 , edupunk, elearning. Hate people who block youtube and twitter in schools.

karthicku - Karthick

KavisMusings - Kavi

Blogger. Dreamer. Optimist. Coach. Believer in people and potential. Citizen of the world. Ranter in general.

lakshmanr - lakshman rajagopalan

Learning professional, Management, Leadership, enthusiastic trekker, amateur photographer, follower of techie news, avid reader

lakshmik_92 - Lakshmi Krishnan

Learning and OD professional

manishmo - Manish Mohan

Collaborative and Informal Learning, Management, Performance enhancement, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Amateur photography

Mohammedhb - Mohammed HB

mrmwrites - swamimo

Technical Writer, Blogger, Web Admin, Secretary - ITC SIG of STC, Employment Manager - STC India Chapter

MuhammadAnas - Muhammad Anas

preetamrai - preetamrai

Tracking tech and music from Africa, E.Europe and Asia

poojajaisingh - Dr. Pooja Jaisingh

eLearning Professional

rajesh_pankaj - Rajesh Pankaj

RaviBramha - RaviBramha

AVP Technology, 24x7 Learning

rjaideep - R.Jaideep

elearning professional,tech lover,future enterpreneur

rnarchana - Archana Narayan

Constantly evolving as an instructional designer at Kern Learning Solutions (www.kern-comm.com) to ensure richer learner experience

rucsb - rucsb

Web 2.0 buff,IBMer,Learning professional, Indian, geek,netizen, thought leader, luvable !

ruparajgo - Rupa Rajagopalan

Instructional Designing - My Passion

sahana2802 - Sahana Chattopadhyay

Learning evangelist, instructional designer and social learning enthusiast. Believe collaborative, participative learning is the future...

sekar_jd - sekar_jd

shaji0508 - Shaji

Design Specialist at NIIT

shana1729 - Nishana

Senior Flash Developer

shishirsh - Shishir Sharma

Project Management, Technology, Instructional Design, Learning Solutions, Amateur photography, Sketching, Languages, Astrology

sreyadutta - Sreya Dutta

Instructional Designer by profession, working at Oracle.

sundararajt - Sundar Thondaman

An ardent fan of social media..learning consultant in the enteprise space..venturing into management consulting, and life skills training...

svsm67 - Sonia Sant

thoughts - Geetha Krishnan

Learning professional

togetherinlife - kaushik

Love.Life.Great Parents.Training,Blogger.Speaker.Travelling.See India.Trekking.Himalayas.Reading.Long Drives.Yoga.Beer.Making Mistakes.Explore Life Everyday!

VaiVai - Vaishnavi

An Instructional Designer by profession, passionate about literatures from across the world and enthusiastic about new experiences!

vijeesh - Vijeesh Shankar

learning - mobile, classroom, web, social, informal..(a-z of learning :-)

write2tg - Taruna Goel

“A learning professional” – an instructional designer, trainer, recruiter, supervisor, mentor, coach, change initiator, training manager…and more.

Learning Companies

24x7Learning - 24x7 Learning

24x7 Learning is India’s premier Intellectual Infrastructure partner

Astutix - Astutix Learning

Effective Learning - Delivered!

niitimperia - niitimperia

NIIT Imperia Center for Advanced Learning has been specially created to provide quality Management Education to working professionals.

NIIT_Imperia - NIIT Imperia

NIIT Imperia offers world class senior management programs with IIM Calcutta available for working professionals and organizations at NIIT-Imperia.

NIITLtd - NIIT

This is the official Twitter site for NIIT Ltd.- leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia's No.1 IT Trainer

niituniversity - NIIT University

The NIIT University is a not-for-profit institution offering UG, PG and Doctoral Programs in IT, Edu Technology, Bioinformatics and Biotechnology.

trainingdotcom - Training.com

Training.com is an eLearning initiative by NIIT to provide convenient, personalized and affordable training to students and working professionals.

Shift Happens 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Still wondering about the power of Internet, digital media, convergence and if you should be on the social media bandwagon? Here’s version 4.0 of Shift Happens series.

Also see Version 3.0, Version 2.0 and Version 1.0.

Do we Learn More from Successes or Failures?

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:20:00 +0000

Amit Garg asks whether we learn more from successes than failure. He mentions an article on Science Daily that suggests brain cells learn more from successes than failures. Well, at least that’s how monkeys learn based on a research by scientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory according to the article. Do read the interesting conversation ongoing on his blog post.

Do organizations learn from successes? Do they even attempt at learning from successes? I don’t think organizations and managers do a good job at learning from successes. And I am as guilty as anyone else of this. The whole management review governance structures are built around learning from mistakes and ignoring successes. We have goals and measure progress against these. If our goals are consistently being met, there’s hardly any time spent on reviews. However if the goals aren’t met, or a perhaps a project has gone bad, we spend inordinate amount of time doing root cause analysis and identifying corrective actions. Of course root cause analysis and identify corrective actions are absolutely required and we really can’t afford not to do these. We do need to prevent problems from recurring and look for ways to continuously improve the process. However we hardly spend any time in learning what we might be doing right when goals are met, or from projects that went well.

We celebrate successes but don’t necessarily attempt to learn from them formally as much as we attempt to learn from mistakes. Our former Creative Director would go sore screaming at managers including me, (not literally, don’t get me wrong now) on why we weren’t looking at the 9 projects that went well instead of trying to find out why 1 project went bad.

Why don’t we learn from successes? Could it because it is harder to learn from successes? Or perhaps successes are expected from each of us and we are just doing our job when we succeed. And if we are already doing our job well, what’s to learn?

It would be interesting to know if there are any formal methods of learning from successes, like there are for learning from failures. Any best practices from organizations out there?

Photo by:

Coda / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Links for 2009-09-20 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Online Database of Social Media Policies
A great repository of social media policies of companies. Useful if you are planning to create one for your organization. Some links are dead links, but most are valid. Link via Twitter.

Commenting Made Easier

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:03:00 +0000

I have made commenting easier on my blog. Simply select the post you want to comment on by clicking the title of the post. Scroll to the bottom of the post and write your comment in the comment field. Select one of the profiles as your identity and post your comment. Simple!

I don’t have a defined and documented comment policy but will stay with common sense. No spam, no trolls, no hurting sentiments, etc. Anonymous comments are fine, though I personally would encourage you to at least leave your name.

You can do this on your Blogger. Select your blog from the dashboard and go to Settings. In the Comments tab, select the Comment form placement as Embedded below post.

How to be a Successful Technical Writer

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Swaminathan Moothy of Society for Technical Communication (STC) invited me to speak at their regional conference in Chennai. I shared what I think is needed to be a successful writer. I spoke about skills companies are looking for in a technical writer, tips on how to manage technical writing projects, and career options for a technical writer.

It was quite a learning experience. The audience was a group of technical writers with varied experience and I got to learn new things. Here’s my presentation on being a successful technical writer.

How to be a Successful Technical Writer

View more documents from Manish Mohan.

Links for 2009-09-17 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

What is Connectivism?
Doc that uses Ertmer’s and Newby’s “five definitive questions to distinguish learning theory” (Distinguishing One Learning section, para 1) to provide a framework to organize various theories - Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, Connectivism.

Links for 2009-09-15 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design
Collection of info from multiple sources on budgeting time and money for developing training

Yammer Adds Outlook Plugin

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:47:00 +0000

I wrote in my experiences with micro-learning in corporate environment that one of the challenges to micro-learning environment is the competition it faces from email and IM. Well, Yammer has released a new Outlook plugin. The plugin adds a Yammer pane inside the Outlook window, integrating Yammer with one of the most used application in the enterprise. Looks like an interesting and enticing move. Will this help in micro-learning’s adoption? Wait and watch…

Agile Instructional Design Team Structures

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:19:00 +0000

I have been reading about agile development lately. One of the key components of agile development is team structuring. Typically in large organizations, content development teams are organized either as functional teams or as project teams with larger organizations typically having functional structures in place. Agile methodology suggests a more project structure. Teams work dedicatedly for the project, preferably located close to each other.

Having seen both functional team structures and project team structures, I believe both structures have their inherent strengths.

Advantage Project Teams

Projects can be completed faster. Decisions are taken faster since the complete team is working only on one project (or a few dedicated projects). There are fewer formal hand offs between functions and therefore fewer opportunities for communication gaps. There is lesser waiting time for functional resources to be available. There are fewer review/approval cycles for each function.
Project teams are generally more cohesive. There is better understanding between members of the project teams. The team is more aligned to the project. Functional teams are also cohesive but more towards the function than the project.

Advantage Functional Teams

Utilization is better in functional team structures. This is specially so in larger teams. Functional experts can move from project to project faster without having to wait for one project to complete. They don’t need to be idle while waiting for client feedback, SME inputs, or any anything like that. Number of people required in each function is better optimized and you have lesser redundancy in terms of people required.
Functional teams are more scalable. Critical skilled resources when available in a functional pool can be better utilized across the projects. Also training and development of new hires is probably easier in a functional team.
Provides individuals with growth opportunities in functional areas. This is more so in the Indian context. Typically growth is seen as change in designation, preferably when the designation has ‘Manager’ in it. Functional team structures provide more opportunities for individuals to be functional managers. Growth in project teams is fairly hierarchical. You need to become a project manager to ‘grow’.

Both team structures have their inherent strengths. The trick is to leverage the strengths of each team structure and see if best of both is possible. Which one you choose depends on many factors, like the size of the organization, skill level available, maturity of people, scalability required etc.

Whether you chose project team structure or functional team structure, in both cases there are some common things that are a must to have a successful team/project:

Common goal, vision
Frequent and open communication
Mutual respect for each function
Good project planning and tracking
Workflow tools (more so in larger projects)

Additional reading:

Sumeet Moghe: Of Project Spaces and Project Managers, Agile Re-explained
Harold Jarche: Instructional Design Needs More Agility
Jay Cross: Agile Instructional Design
Wikipedia: Agile software development

Photo credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/karthikc/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Links for 2009-09-13 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Instructional Design Models
Repository of links to various instructional design models. Worth a bookmark for future.

Now Featured on eLearningLearning.com

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:09:00 +0000

My post on blogs by learning professionals in India helped Tony Karrer identify some new blogs for his list of top blogs on workplace elearning. In the process, Learn and Lead is now a featured blog on Tony’s eLearningLearning.com site.

eLearning Learning is a content aggregation site that serves to bring all of your favorite eLearning blogs together into one site. It is a hub that pulls together content from various members of the eLearning world and make it more easily accessible to people who are searching and/or who want to stay up to date, but who don't use an RSS reader (or want someone to help filter).

The Future as Children See It

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:23:00 +0000

My soon-to-be-10-year-old son has been introduced to various ages of history thanks to a popular computer game. Out of curiosity, I asked him what ‘age’ we are currently in. According to him, we are currently in the “Touch age”. He is inspired by the iPhone and other touch screen phones he is exposed to. The next age according to him will be the “Talk age”. We will just need to talk to the machines and they will act on what we say. After that we will have the “Think age”. We will only need to think what we want, and machines will interpret our thoughts and act accordingly.

So there you are, that’s how children see the future. We have our work cut out for us.

eLearning Salaries in India - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:24:00 +0000

Amit Garg of Upside Learning posted some interesting comments about the elearning salary survey on their company blog. He raises three important points:

Salary ranges are very wide
Does variable pay work?
Recession has had a severe impact

You can see his full post here. Here’s what I responded.

1. Salary Ranges: In the survey, I asked respondents for total experience and relevant experience. As I mentioned in my post, I have considered relevant experience and this has led to some anomaly in data. However when I dig a little deeper into the data, there is indeed a very wide salary range for instructional designers. So while one person with total experience of 12-15 years gets between 3.5 and 5 lac, another person with similar total experience is in the range of 8-10 lac. One is at Manager level, which the other has listed himself/herself as instructional designer. Perhaps I need to include not just the function but also the level in the organization. Useful input for the next survey.

It is a little hard to conclude whether educational background impacted salary. Looking at the data, I personally felt that having more than just a bachelor’s degree led to higher salary but one could argue that data sample is not large enough to draw that conclusion.

2. Variable Pay: Different companies and individuals treat this differently. From my personal experience of having spoken with many people from different organizations, variable pay for junior levels is usually linked to either company performance or used more as a retention strategy (it is in most cases not paid monthly). When times are good, almost everyone gets the variable pay and when times are not good, companies have the flexibility of controlling their costs. Other than sales functions or senior level functions, I haven’t seen anyone “aggressively going after” the variable pay component.

3. Impact of recession: You are right, most people who had an increase of more than 10% were in lower salary range. However there were some in the higher salary range who listed their increases as more than 15%. These were in Project Management and Graphics/Media function. I am not sure if the increase was in the same job or did they switch jobs during the year. Another input for next survey I guess.

The sample size of respondents is still too small to draw any serious conclusions. However considering that I haven’t yet been able to find any other survey that focuses on elearning and content development salaries, I guess this will have to do for now.

eLearning and Content Development Salaries in India

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:50:00 +0000

The Unofficial Salary Survey for elearning and content development jobs in India is now closed. This year the survey received 104 valid responses. This is up from 54 last year and 10 the year before. NCR contributed with most respondents (25), followed closely by Chennai (23), Bangalore (18) and Pune (15). Mumbai (12), Hyderabad (8), Cochin (1), Surat (1) and Kolkatta (1) were the other cities. There were two responses from outside India which were not considered (the survey is for jobs in India).

Key highlights:

Instructional Designers (57) were most active on the survey, followed by Project management (22), Programmers (16) and Graphics/Media (9). Other roles that also participated in the survey but were not considered (for the want of numbers) were Sales and marketing (5), HR (1), QA (1) and operations (1).
Relevant experience was considered while analysis entries. However in some cases total experience was significantly more than the relevant experience and there may be skews on salary ranges, especially in project management function.
Salary ranges are too wide. Project managers seem to get paid more than other functions, looking at the visual patterns of the data.
Almost 60% of respondents have variable pay component as part of their salary. People with salary of more than Rs. 5 lac more likely (75%) to have variable pay. 45% of respondents with salary of less than Rs. 5 lac have variable pay.
The economy also has had an impact on elearning salaries in India. 34% did not get salary increase this year. 12.5% had a salary reduction. 33% had salary increase of less than 10%.

View the slide in Full Screen mode for better readability.

Unofficial eLearning Salary Survey 2009 - India

View more documents from Manish Mohan.

Experiences with Micro-learning in Corporate Environment

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:22:00 +0000

After trying out Twitter for some time, I started experimenting with Yammer sometime early this year. I would say we are still in the experimentation phase with micro-learning. I started with sending some invites and broadcasted some messages. It was a slow start with me invite some colleagues and then the pace picking up quickly as the joining went viral. People invited other colleagues and the membership soon grew (we now have more than 90 people on our Yammer network). Messages started to flow. The Yammer platform was used to generate ideas and brainstorm their implementation. The micro-learning environment opened communication between departments that traditionally had little or no interaction. People exchanged tips about frequently used software tools. Links to interesting posts were shared on the network.

And then things began to settle down. The pace at which new members grew has slowed down. The messages are now just about trickling in, only a few each week, mostly sharing external links. In the micro-learning usage hype cycle, I think we are somewhere in the shaded area in the Yammer usage hype cycle below.

Some of the challenges to micro-learning adoption:

Culture: Actually it is the culture of broadcasting yourself. Not everyone is used to broadcasting what they are doing. This takes some time to develop. We have a few champions and power users who are trying to push the usage and keep the networking going. It is important to identify as many champions as possible to get conversations going on the environment.
Training: Ok, let’s face it, not everyone knows how to get the most of a micro-learning environment. We haven’t done any training for the people using Yammer. In a survey of Yammer users, we found that most people use the Yammer web page and very few actually used the desktop application. Using the web page is cumbersome and can make participation daunting. Desktop application is ‘always on’ and provides alerts on new messages. And, more importantly, training required is also required on how to benefit from micro-learning environments, what people can expect and what is expected from them.
Competition: Micro-learning environment is new and faces competition from other more used services like email and instant messages. Yes, there are clear distinctions between the services, but people are more comfortable with email and IM. People need to see distinctive advantages of using a micro-learning environment.

The benefits of micro-learning environment are many and we will continue to push for its usage.

Opens communication across various departments of the organizations.
A great way to generate and build on ideas, not limited by the people in a room.
Easy to share links and useful info with everyone.
It’s a great tool to engage everyone in the organization.

In spite of the benefits, I am still not sure how to make convincing case for actually spending money on Yammer or another micro learning environment. I haven’t figured a compelling business case for me to go to my CEO and ask him to spend thousands of dollars on this, especially in times like these. Till then our experiment continues with the free service provided by Yammer.

Would love to hear about other experiences about micro learning in the corporate environment.

Don't Like It

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:17:00 +0000

Four ~~Three~~ people don’t like my post Great Work is Not Recognized. Would love to hear more about different perspectives.

You can add your perspective in comments to the post. If you are viewing the post on the home page of this blog, click either the title of the post or ‘# comments’ link just below the title.

Scroll down and at the end of the post and existing comments, click Post a Comment link.

Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Control vs. Influence

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:07:00 +0000

This is a guest post by S Ranganathan. I got a chance to interact with Ranganathan during a leadership development program that I attended at ISB. Ranga, as he would like to be called, is a regular Executive Coach at ISB where he partners with different trainers in their Global Leadership Program. Ranga holds a Post Graduate degree in Management from IIM Bangalore preceded by a Post Graduate degree in Mathematics from IIT Chennai. Ranga is the Founder-Director of SymIndia Training and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.—an organization based in Bangalore that caters to the high-end Consulting and Training needs in both Technology and Management Domains. He can be contacted at ranga [at] symindia [dot] com.

What is the difference between Control and Influence?

This question was triggered when I read the following statement in a book recently:

“Our main source of stress stems from our desire to control things around us, people around us, situations around us and above all control ourselves”.

I have been training many professionals on Leadership wherein the main leadership competence we discuss is Influence. The above question is indeed worth exploring in this context.

Before we come to the differences between Control and Influence, let’s notice that both of them have some commonality too:

- To challenge the current situation (than accept status-quo mutely)

- To cause a change in the thinking/behavior of others

- High belief in oneself

- High energy levels

Now, let’s focus on the differences between Control and Influence: Here is how I see it… when Person-A is interacting with Person-B…

Aspects to Consider	Control	Influence
Verbal Language	Judgmental, Comparing, Extreme	Balanced, Apt
Tonality of the Person-A	Threat, Command	Care, Respect
Emotions Triggered in Person-B	Fear, Guilt, Greed (Stress comes from here!)	Joyful Motivation
Final state of mind for Person-B	Insecurity, Helplessness (in extreme cases even Revengeful)	Trust and Security
State of Mind of Person-A (if he/she experiences failure in the attempt )	Anger, Irritation (Stress comes from here!)	Acceptance, Introspection
Communication between the two persons	One-way, Instructional	Two-way, Discussing
Possible techniques used by Person-A	Shouting, Closing channels of communication, Walk-outs, Broken-record (on final decision) (Stress comes from here!)	Polite persuasions, Objective and data-based, Open channels of Communication, Broken-record (on outlook and analysis)
Timing chosen by Person-A	Appropriate moment for Person-A, many times last-minute!!	Chosen appropriate moment for Person-B, Early in cycle
Information shared	Very selective	Open to any information
Final state desired by Person-A	As ‘required’ by Person-A!!	Outcome of open discussion
Attitude of Person-A to „home-work‟ to be done before dialog	Not necessary	Very essential
Body Language	Aggressive, rude (sometimes projected submissiveness)	Assertive
Listening demonstrated by Person-A	Poor	Active Listening
Listening demonstrated by Person-B	Poor	Active Listening
Self-esteem of Person-A	Requires development	High
Self-esteem of Person-B (during and after the dialog)	Reduced	Maintained, Increased
Basic Temperament	Agitated, Restless	Calm, Excited
Belief in Higher-self	Low	High

Please note that the above aspects have NOT been listed in any specific order. These are just different aspects as I could fathom!

Links for 2009-08-12 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

25 Resources to Get You Started with PHP from Scratch - Nettuts+

I Don't Want to Measure!

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:31:00 +0000

Now don’t get me wrong. I love measurement. Heck, I measure everything, Everything! I am the epitome of measurement. Okay, perhaps that’s stretching it too far but you get the picture. I believe measurement is a critical step to bring about any change and improvement. Yet, I have been shying away from measurement lately. Well, I am still measuring but am generally becoming resistant to pushing the envelope too far on measurement. Which got me thinking.

When does measurement become a pain in the wrong part of our anatomy? When do we start resisting measurement? I think this happens when:

we stop playing the game and become score keepers. When measurement becomes an end in itself.
measurement starts to be more difficult and time consuming than the actual work that you are trying to measure.
we look for absolute precision in measurement when accuracy is all that is required.
it is just hard to measure softer parameters and kills the fun of actual work, like trying to measure creativity, innovation, culture, learning etc.
we are afraid that measurement will be used against us in performance appraisals, or for comparing us with peers.
one measure will lead to the requirement of measuring another, will lead to… …

When have you resisted measurement?

Pic by HeyThereSpaceman.

Links for 2009-07-31 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Xtranormal | Text-to-Movie
This is so fantastically cool. Make 3D movies with players almost instantly. Of course, you need to have a good script for good results. But its great to get started.

New Technology - The Threat to our Information

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:34:00 +0000

If you are struggling with use of Web 2.0 technologies and services in your workplace, this might help. Thank you Norman Lamont.

New technology - the threat to our information

View more presentations from normanlamont.

Why an Updated LinkedIn Profile is Important

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:34:00 +0000

I recently discovered how I can effectively use LinkedIn to find potential candidates for recruitment. I simply update my status message with what I am looking for and get responses from interested candidates. Okay, I know this isn’t really new but hey, it’s new for me. Anyway this post isn’t about this discovery of mine.

I received a few responses to my status updates. These were from people I know and have worked with in the past. Unfortunately, a few of the people who responded did not have an updated LinkedIn profile. Their profile simply listed the jobs they held but had not details about what they did in each job or their achievements. Since I knew these people personally, I had a good idea of their profiles and the jobs they have held since they moved on. However I possibly couldn’t forward their profiles to my other colleagues because of their incomplete profiles. Lost opportunity!

I recommend that you update your LinkedIn profile with details of what you did in each job you held. Include your achievements too. Consider LinkedIn profile your updated and most recent résumé, even if you are not actively looking for a job. And do remember to write a Summary and Specialities too.

If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, simply add me to your network. On my LinkedIn profile, click Add Manish to Your Network, select Other and put in my email manishmo [at] hotmail [dot] com. Please do provide some introduction about yourself in your initial connecting message.

Great Work is not Recognized

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:15:00 +0000

I recently read this in one of the blogs that I follow (which unfortunately I can’t remember, apologies).

Great work is not recognized by managers, exceptional work is. Great work is expected from you anyway.

This is so true. I have heard many people complain that they got no recognition for the work they did. In some cases they said they got no recognition for the great work they did.

So how can we do exceptional work that will be noticed and recognized? Well, to start with stop focusing on getting recognition and start focusing on doing an exceptional job. So many of us spend hours worrying about not being recognized for our great work. I suggest we start worrying about doing an exceptional job. Recognition WILL follow. Exceptional work never goes unnoticed and consistent exceptional work is ALWAYS recognized. True, there may be projects where you felt you did an exceptional job but didn’t get recognized for it. However if you spend time worrying about it, you will take your focus off the next project and end up doing, well, a great job but not an exceptional job. So stay focused and don’t let small disappointments come in your way of doing an exceptional job all the time.

Photo by: bowbrick / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Staying Up to Date with Instructional Design Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:43:00 +0000

I recently came across a question posted on the eCube LinkedIn forum that I responded to. While the question was how a person in between jobs could keep their instructional design skills up to date, I think it is important even for those with the jobs to keep their skills up to date.

How can an experienced Instructional Designer with very limited experience in current instructional design software tools update their skills in order to be recognized and considered as a candidate for e-Learning positions? How does a person in transition keep their instructional design skills up to date in order to effectively compete for instructional design jobs in today's job market?

Start reading a lot of blogs by other experts and connect with other learning professionals through your comments. It is always hard to know which blogs to follow. Here are the blogs that I follow, or you could also browse through the blogroll on this site.

Twitter is another great tool for connecting with others. This will give you an insight into what's happening in the industry and help you stay up to date.

If you are up to it (and I strongly recommend that you do make an effort), my advice would be to start writing a blog to articulate your learning. Your blog will be a useful showcase in your job interviews (I am of course assuming that you will write about learning/instructional design).

I would also recommend that you learn various tools used in elearning. These tools are usually easy enough to get started and learn on your own. You could easily work with the demo versions of the latest tools and to get your hands dirty.

Creating your elearning portfolio will also be useful to showcase your capabilities. Tom Kuhlmann makes a compelling case for creating your elearning portfolio.

And if you are indeed in between jobs and want to stay up to date, I would advice you to start picking up small freelance assignments. No better way to stay in touch with what's happening in the industry by actually being hands on.

Have You Participated Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Manish Mohan) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:56:00 +0000

Update: Survey is closed for the year. You can view the elearning and content development salaries in India for 2009 here.

Have you participated in the Unofficial Salary Survey for eLearning / Content Development Jobs in India for year 2009 yet? More than 60 people have participated in the survey so far. Join the growing number of people who have already participated. Some highlights of responses received so far:

So far, Chennai and Pune are leading with most participants, with Bangalore and NCR following closely. Hyderabad and Mumbai are the other two cities that have participated.

Most participants are Instructional designers (55%), followed by Project management (19%) and Technology/programming (15%) functions.

This year 24% had no change in their fixed salary over last year, while 40% had an increase of less than 10%. Nearly 4% had a decrease in their fixed salary over last year.

Most (72%) instructional designers with 2-4 years experience have fixed salary in the wide range of 2.5 lac to 5 lac. Nearly 55% of IDs with 4-6 years experience are also paid in the same range. The salary range is quite wide for other roles too.

Almost everyone with more than 8 years work experience has variable compensation in addition to their fixed salary, while about a third of people with less than 6 years have a variable compensation component. Nearly 60% of project managers with less than 8 years experience have variable compensation component. Graphics/Media folks seem to be the only ones without any variable compensation so far (of the very small number that have participated). 67% of people in companies with more than 1000 people have variable compensation, while this is only 36% for companies with less than 1000 employees.

Watch this space for more detailed analysis sometime next month. Have a suggestion of what you want to see in the analysis? Leave a comment on this post.

There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.

This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Tester, Editor, Trainer, SME, or any other role involved in developing elearning or any other form of training content.

Click Unofficial eLearning Salary Survey of India 2009 to launch the survey. Answer a few simple questions to participate.