David Kelly’s Curated L&D Content for the Week of 12/3/18

This week’s curated content includes links exploring the following:

• how bots can improve human-centered design
• What it’s like to be an elearning freelancer
• A case study of VR being used in training and recruiting
• a great resource for slide design inspiration
• free courses to learn about machine learning
• common rules we may want to break to enhance creativity

Using Bots To Improve Human-Centered Experience Design by Ken Dec
Bots are increasingly becoming a normal part of a customer experience. While bots are essentially technologies that humans can interact with as if it were a human, they are also a great source of improving our human-focused design skills. This post explores that potential, not only looking at how bots can be more effective than humans but by looking at the insights we can draw from the interactions users have with your bot.

A Day in the Life of an E-Learning Freelancer by Trina Rimmer
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work as an independent elearning professional instead of being an employee of a company? This post takes a look behind the curtain of that world, looking at a sample day from an independent’s life. While the day itself is interesting, I most appreciate the closing of the article that looks at both the advantages and disadvantages of working as an independent. If you’ve ever considered making that jump in your career, this is a great read.

Hyatt Taps Into Virtual Reality to Hire 10,000 Young Workers by Sarah Fister Gale
Admittedly the title of this article gave me some pause, as it seemed to imply “VR is for young people”, but beyond that red flag is a very interesting story. It presents a use case that touches upon some of the unique affordances of virtual reality, including the ability to expose people to an environment they may be unable to visit physically, and the ability to give people the opportunity to explore what a job may be like before they even apply.

100+ Creative Presentation Ideas That Will Delight Your Audience by Orana Velarde
As someone that speaks at events often, I’m always looking for sites that can inspire the designs for the slides I use to support my talks. This post is a treasure trove of just such inspiration. While the post is positioned to support presentation design, in reality, it’s valuable to improve any slide-based content, including business presentations, training content, and more.

Amazon opens up its internal machine learning training to everyone by Mallory Locklear
Machine learning is a term that is emerging quickly into our world, and with good reason. It is a technology that is poised to disrupt many of the digital interactions we have every day. But might machine learning mean for learning and development professionals? The truth is, that question is a bit further down the list for most of us. There’s foundational knowledge about machine learning (as well as the related topics of artificial intelligence and deep learning) that is needed in order for us to apply these topics to the context of our work in education and training. This post explores courses that Amazon Web Services has made freely available to help people learn about these topics. While the courses are pointed towards developers, there are also courses that cover more basic concepts on the topics as well as business-focused applications of machine learning.

Want More Creative Content Ideas? Break These 6 ‘Rules’ By Kim Moutsos
Creativity is a major asset in almost any field, and it’s especially important for people that create content. It can also be a challenge, especially in a world that provides tools and templates that can sacrifice creativity in the pursuit of productivity. This post looks into that world, examining some of the “rules” we follow in the pursuit of productivity that might be best broken at least on occasion in order to enhance creativity.

Allocate your Remaining 2018 Budget Towards 2019 Learning

When I was working in the financial services field, the end of the calendar year was always a bit stressful. There were a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest was the “Use it or lose it” paradigms that existed around our budgets year-over-year. If we didn’t use the funds that were budgeted, it would logically be assumed that we didn’t need it, and would therefore not be allocated the following year.

When this happened, one of the best ways I was able to allocate some of those funds was to book some of the next year’s professional development for my team. Whether it was a course, a conference, or something else, it was a great way to use the funds in a way that supported the individual, the department, and the organization.

If you find yourself looking to book 2019 professional development opportunities with your 2018 budget, here are a few options to consider from the eLearning Guild:

• Join us for the Learning Solutions Conference and Expo, taking place in Orlando in March. Registration for the conference is currently open, with our sessions, keynotes, and more already posted.
• Prepurchase your conference and workshop registration for Realities 360 or DevLearn 2019 by adding a Premium Content Package to your eLearning Guild Membership.
• Get a year’s worth of online learning events by adding a Plus Content Package to your membership, which includes six 1-day online Spotlights and four two-day online Summits and more.

Using 2018 budget for 2019 professional development is a great investment. Please feel free to reach out to the eLearning Guild with any questions you may have about how we can help.