In 2002, I was working as a director for the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce when I attended a national conference for chamber executives. At the general session, in a room of 400 people, the speaker asked everyone under the age of 40 to stand up.
I was one of about a dozen people who stood up. I was 29 years old.
The people sitting at my table – all over the age of 40 – cracked a few jokes about my age and their associations’ aging board of directors. No one seemed to take the concept very seriously.
And why would they? There are enough Baby Boomers to lead for at least another decade, maybe even two. Right? Wrong.
In just three short years, 7.3 million Baby Boomers will retire, leaving a significant leadership gap in their wake. Associations, healthcare, government, banking, manufacturing – nearly every industry across the globe has been threatened by the passage of the Baby Boomers and the absence of Generation X (1965-1981) and Generation Y (1982-1995).
Yes, recruiting and retaining younger generations is hard work. Due to significant social changes, the younger generations have different needs, wants, interests, and goals than every generation that has come before them.
Nevertheless, younger generations are our succession plan. Bridging the leadership gap isn’t just the best option – it’s our only option.
Consider these tips when establishing a recruiting plan for younger generations:
Relationships
Generations X and Y rely only on those who take the time to establish a relationship with them. They trust the organizations that value their participation, provide a sense of belonging, present adequate opportunities to contribute, and develop programs and services tailored to their interests and needs.
Results
Younger generations demand results, meaning, and purpose. You can’t successfully recruit them without explaining what they stand to gain. For the best results, write a compelling job description and highlight the professional and personal benefits associated with taking the position.
Balance
Generation X introduced the concept of balance to the workplace. They want the flexibility to take care of their families and personal lives, as do Gen Ys. These generations prefer flex-time, the opportunity to work from home, and a schedule that doesn’t infringe on their evenings and weekends.
Service
The younger generations are looking for ways to make a difference in their community. Generation Y especially has a broad worldview and would prefer to work in environments that actively support or engage in community service projects and volunteer efforts.
Recognition
Younger generations want to be empowered and rewarded for their contributions. Honor and recognize them at every opportunity.
Opportunity
Contrary to popular belief, Generations X and Y are not slackers. They seek opportunities to continuously improve and expand their skills, attend seminars and workshops, obtain advanced degrees or training, and network with their peers and mentors.
In 2010, the mass exodus of Baby Boomers will be a wake-up call for many who have chosen to ignore or downplay the leadership gap.
Yes, recruiting younger generations requires hard work and effort, but the opportunities for growth are significant.
Are you prepared to bridge the leadership gap? Ready or not, here it comes.
Sarah L. Sladek is author of The New Recruit: What your association needs to know about X, Y & Z. She has published articles and given presentations nationwide and is currently writing another book on the recruitment of X and Y to the workforce. Sarah is the president and CEO of Limelight Communications, a marketing communications company based in the Twin Cities. For more information, visit www.thenewrecruit.org or www.limelight-communications.com.
Will Generation Y Change the Workplace? by Brian Torkkola
A colleague and I were recently discussing the impressive facility of Generation Y with all things Web-related, and how much of Web 2.0 – blogs, wikis, social networking, mashups, and the new age of user-generated content and disintermediation – aligns so well with a generation that was raised expecting to have input. “It will be interesting to see,” I said, “how this generation and its technology changes the workplace.” “Or,” my colleague replied, “how the workplace changes that generation. After all, they are going to have to fit into a corporate structure that already exists.”
True – the influence will work in both directions – but there is reason to believe that Generation Y will have a profound effect on the workplace. Precisely how is speculative, but it is speculation that learning professionals should embrace. We need to anticipate and ride the wave of change as best we can.
There are three key reasons to believe that Generation Y is poised to change the workplace, quietly, right under our noses.
Reason 1: Gen Y has the power of numbers For the first time in history, four generations exist within the workforce – Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y (or Millennials):
Estimated US Workforce by Generation1
Number/Percentage
Generation Y (1981-1999)
74 million/31.2%
Generation X (1965-1980)
60 million/25.3%
Baby Boomers (1946-1964)
76 million/32.1%
Traditionalists (1900-1945)
27 million/11.4%
Very soon, Gen Yers will outnumber Baby Boomers in the workplace. Over the next 3 years, between 6 and 7 million more Gen Yers will join the workforce while more and more Boomers leave.2 Currently, nearly two experienced workers leave the workforce for every new Gen Y worker. Researchers predict that by 2010 there will be as many as 10 million more jobs than workers.3 Thus, the much-sought-after Generation Yers will have extraordinary influence over employers, but will also feel the burden of supporting an aging society.
Reason 2: Gen Y is the first generation of “digital natives” In 2001, Marc Prensky characterized Gen Yers as the first generation of “digital natives,” contrasting them with their “digital immigrant” elders. Presky wrote, “Today's students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a ‘singularity’ – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called ‘singularity’ is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.”4
What’s so significant about being a “digital native”?
Consider that Gen Yers’ formative experiences with technology differ from those of any previous generation. Traditionalists listened to the radio. Baby Boomers watched TV. Gen Xers played with primitive PCs and video games. In contrast, the digital natives of Gen Y grew up with the Web and email, cell phones, instant and text messaging, gaming stations, and file-sharing. A common conclusion that researchers have drawn is that the level of interaction with this ubiquitous digital environment causes Gen Yers to think and process information differently from their predecessors.
For example, the table below compares the conclusions of some respected thought-leaders about Generation Y:
Characteristics of Generation Y
Downes5
Martin & Tulgan6
Absorb information quickly
Operate at “twitch speed,” expecting instant response and feedback; become bored easily
Prefer random “on-demand” access to media
Expect to be in constant communication with their friends
Are as likely to create their own media as purchase a book or CD
Are independent, multi-tasking, entrepreneurial thinkers
Have an uncanny facility with technology– a facility that makes even Xers’ skill look elementary
Easily create web sites & blogs to share information; make their voices heard
Gain instant access to people and information around the world
Possess a sense of empowerment that still baffles less techno-savvy adults
Thrive on challenging work and creative expression
What’s striking is the empowerment that Gen Yers derive from their technological prowess, their hyper-speed operations, and their expectations of instant communication, feedback, and accomplishment.
What’s more, the participatory Web 2.0 of blogs, wikis, social networking, tagging, mashups, and user-created content of all kinds, has become the medium of choice for Gen Yers, and it is a medium that both supports and influences the traits common among many Gen Yers described above.
Reason 3: Generation Y is the first global generation In the 1920s and ‘30s, radio brought the voices of presidents, prime ministers, and dictators into American living rooms. In the 1960s, television brought images of assassination, war, and space travel. And now the Web enables the immediate exchange of ideas, opinions, music, and video between people in countries around the world, unmediated by broadcast networks or businesses.
The focus of business, technology, and culture in general is more global now than ever before. For example, Merrill Associates published an article in June, 2004, entitled “Generation Y: The New Global Citizens,” where they argued that it doesn’t matter when a generation is born per se, but rather what happens during the formative years. The authors noted that, while demographers disagree on Gen Y’s date boundaries, they do agree “that this group of young people are best known as Global Citizens” and that “these young people make up the most globally aware and racially diverse generation in history.”7
Futurists Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown forecast that Generation Y may be the first generation in U.S. history to have many of its members leave the U.S. to pursue large portions of their lives, if not their entire adult lives, overseas.8 And the ability to opt out of the U.S. with ease and work anywhere gives Generation Yers unprecedented mobility. We’re already seeing signs of this new mobility with the rise of medical tourism and with Boomers retiring to exotic-and-cheaper locales.
How Gen Y could influence the workplace I honestly believe that we’ve entered an entirely new digital era, where the techno-savvy Generation Y has the power, skills, and drive to revolutionize the workplace. And as more Gen Yers enter the workplace, we’re likely to see their impact on the workplace in three likely trends:
Trend #1: Multiple, Simultaneous Careers
Gen Yers love challenges, think entrepreneurially, multi-task, and get bored easily. These traits beget parallel careers. Why would anyone want to become too dependent upon only one career – are you crazy?! Change happens too fast now, the reasoning goes.
In the ever changing global marketplace, employers will need to provide as-yet-unseen levels of challenge and flexibility to retain some relationship with their Gen Y-dominated network (contractors, employees, etc.) in the prime of their career. As generational researchers Dr. Carolyn Martin and Bruce Tulgan note, “Every day we hear Gen Yers who tell us ‘I would have loved to stay with this company for more than a year or two, but they just didn’t have anything left to offer me’.”9 And employer’s flexibility will expand more than many can see today, while continuous education will become immensely more critical.
Trend #2: Cross-pollination and Transparency
Gen Yers collaborate naturally, hold egalitarian values, and learn new technology with ease. These traits will provide unparalleled levels of cooperation and openness within the workplace. For example, think about open-source software being constantly improved and upgraded by hordes of egalitarian programmers around the world.
Organizations will need to loosen some control over much of what happens in their workplace. No anarchy here, but rather the need for more collaboration platforms and transparency. Technology makes it easy to track much of what was hidden only a short while ago. A segment on NPR’s Morning Edition of Digital Culture10 reported that a graduate student created a scanner that can track who is changing what on Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, some companies were caught altering what’s written about their organization. Such self-policing technology will only increase the pressure for corporate transparency. Or, if you simply Google phrases such as “open” or “naked” or “transparent” in front of “corporation”, what returns are a number of books and articles that elucidate this pending need for a more collaborative, transparent organizational business model, because organizations must alter their paradigms and processes to adjust to society’s higher expectations for fairness. Instant media allows us the access and means to pay closer and closer attention to business behavior.
Trend #3: Transactional, Virtual Corporations
Generation Yers embrace challenges, technology, and speed in an increasingly flat, hypercompetitive global economy. It stands to reason then, that the flattest, thinnest organizations would match Gen Yers traits and the demands coming from global business. This “lean” company structure combined with interconnected Web 2.0 platforms provides impetus for temporary groups to form around transactions required to fulfill a short-term, shared business goal. This turns traditional business models upside down.
We’ve already seen “virtual companies” that outsourced the actual production of all of their products, but now some businesses outsource some of their functions to customers. Yes, customers. This phenomenon was first called “crowdsourcing” by Jeff Howe in an article in Wired magazine. Businesses offer the general public a chance to solve a problem or submit something of value – design for a new widget, for example – in an open call. The winner or problem-solver then reaps the financial rewards. Proctor & Gamble adopted this practice six years ago in a website called InnoCentive. They offered large cash rewards to backyard scientists to solve problems. Today, they report that 35% of their initiatives come from outside the company, R&D productivity is up 60%, and the stock returned to 5-year highs.11 P&G pays for solutions, not the inefficiency of getting there.
Final Thought I’m still left wondering just how much Generation Y will impact the workplace or vice versa. There’s so much about large corporate structures that appears resistant to change, yet there’s so much about Generation Y that’s independent.
Earlier today, that same colleague I mentioned earlier sent a link to a blog titled “Business Now: A Generation Y Perspective” with the tagline “Because We Are the Future of Business, Now.”12 Is it the bravado-of-youth or the future now?! I don’t know, but as a learning professional, I certainly wouldn’t bet against them.
Brian Torkkola joined Fredrickson Communications as an Account/Project Manager in 2005. He works with Fredrickson’s customers to identify a diverse range of custom training and web solutions, including eLearning courses, knowledge assessments, software applications, and website design. Brian has over 15 years experience in consulting, management, and training, including 7 years working as a consultant on large training and development projects for Fortune 500 and 1000 consumer product manufacturers. He has an MA in Human Resource Development from the University of St. Thomas and a BA in Economics from St. Olaf College.
Footnotes
Bartlett-Bragg, August 17, 2004.
Martin and Tulgan, p. 3.
Ibid, page 3.
Prensky, p. 1.
Downes, Vol 29, No. 1.
Martin and Tulgan. pp. 16-17.
Merrill Associates, June 2004.
Cornish, March-April 2006.
Martin and Tulgan, p. 17.
“Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia,” August 16, 2007.
Howe, pp 1- 4.
Business Now: A Generation Y Perspective.
References
Bartlett-Bragg, Anne. (2004). “4 Generations in the Workplace”. Learning Technologies. August 17, 2004. digitaldialogues.blogs.com
Cornish, Edward. (2006). “Planning in an Age of Hyper change”, The Futurist, March-April 2006. Review of “Future Think: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change” by Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown (2005). Pearson Education/Prentice Hall. www.wfs.org/revcornishma06.htm
Downes, Stephen. (2005). “E-Learning 2.0”, E-Learn Magazine. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., Vol. 29, No. 1. www.elearnmag.org
Friedman, Thomas L. (2005). The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005.
Jennings, David. “E-Learning 2.0, Whatever That Is” from DJ Alchemi. December 13, 2005. alchemi.co.uk
Martin, Dr. Carolyn, and Bruce Tulgan. (2007). Executive Summary: Managing the Generation Mix™, Managing the Generation Mix.2d Edition. HRD Press (2006). RainmakerThinking, Inc.®. Pages 1-31. www.rainmakerthinking.com
Mayo Clinic. “Workplace generation gap: Understand differences among colleagues”. CNN.comHealth Library. July 6, 2005. www.cnn.com
Merrill Associates. (2004). “Generation Y: The New Global Citizens”. Topic of the Month: June, 2004. www.merrillassociates.com
O’Hear, Steve (edited by Richard MacManus). “e-Learning 2.0 – how Web technologies are shaping education”. Read/WriteWeb, August 8, 2006. www.readwriteweb.com
Prensky, Marc. (2001). “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”. On the Horizon, NCB University Press, Vol. 9, No. 5, October 2001. Pages 1-6. www.twitchspeed.com
“Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia,” NPR Morning Edition: Digital Culture, August 16, 2007. www.npr.org
Tulgan, Bruce. “Generational Shift: What We Saw at the Workplace Revolution”, an Executive Summary: Key Findings of Our Ten Year Workplace Study (1993-2003). RainmakerThinking, Inc.® September 17, 2003. Pages 1-10. www.rainmakerthinking.com
The More You Know...Resources for Inquiring Minds September Topic: Generations in the Workplace by Kristin Ford
Websites
I Googled and found a couple of great articles that had different perspectives, each giving an overall summary of the primary issues and communication tips for bridging the communication gap between and among generations.
www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/WL/00045.html
This article breaks down the definitions and chronology of the generations by Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials, as well as defining “cuspers” or those of us who may have the characteristics of more than one generation. It also defines workplace strategies for communicating and responding to the various generations.
http://cfaes.osu.edu/facultystaff/fiscalhr/hr/documents/
GenerationsintheWorkplace.pdf
In addition to defining the generations, this document includes a chart outlining on-the-job strengths by generation including: Job Strength, Outlook, Work Ethic, View of Authority, Leadership, Relationships, Turnoffs, Diversity, Feedback and Work/Life Balance. It also includes general outlines of career goals for each generation and communication tips for bridging the generation gaps, as well as provides further details about management strategies.
Books
When Generations Collide: Who they are. Why they clash. How to solve the Generational Puzzle at Work, by Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman (Harper Collins, 2002). The book provides hands-on methods for closing the generation gaps using effective tools to recruit, retain, motivate and manage each generation. You can create teamwork in today’s high performance workplace where, at any age, productivity is what counts.
Bridging the Generation Gap: How to get Radio Babies, Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Gen-Yers to Work Together and Achieve More, by Linda Gravett and Robin Throckmorton (Bookmart Press, 2007). One of the very best things about this book is that it is chock full of case studies – you know, those real-life things that we learn from. It also covers recruitment, retaining, motivating, and managing, as well as includes a chapter (and a case study) on Tailoring Training and Development Across Generations! What more could a group of ASTDers ask for?
Kristin Ford is the Owner and President of PC Training Source, an independent consulting firm representing multiple vendors of online and computer based training products and services. Kristin has held solution based sales positions since 1987.
Are you frustrated by clients who think training is the only solution to their performance problems? Do you wish you could influence your customers to do the right things? Would you like to improve your consulting skills?
Becoming a trusted advisor to your business partners is difficult when you face the pressure to produce immediate results to poorly identified problems. This workshop will introduce you to a model that will guide you through a consulting engagement, help you leverage your credibility and expertise, identify root cause problems, and provide effective solutions to business problems.
Meet the Presenter Marilyn Condon is an organizational consultant with 35 years experience as an internal and external consultant. She works with leadership teams to define strategy, build and execute successful business plans, and develop stronger, more effective leadership skills. She has presented this workshop to hundreds of Human Resource and IT professionals who were looking to develop a more consultative relationship with their business customers.
Learning Objectives
In this interactive, hands-on workshop you will learn to:
Enhance your consulting skills with the six-step consulting process model.
Leverage your credibility to build strong client relationships.
Learn how to avoid things that can go wrong in the consulting engagement.
Assess your skills as an internal consultant.
Last Chance to Register! Register online for this workshop or download a flyer and submit by mail or fax.
Registration/Cancellation Policy Please register early as space is limited to 75 participants, and ASTD-U workshops fill quickly. If you must cancel your registration, please do so before Monday, September 10 in order to receive a full refund. Those who register and do not attend will be billed.
September Monthly Program: Does Distance Training Actually Improve Performance?
Distance training is the fastest-growing trend in the training and performance improvement world. Millions of employees are going through some form of distance training in a wide variety of topics: sales skills, compliance training, management development, safety training, and so on. Billions are spent on this training. The question is, “Is distance training actually improving on-the-job performance?”
As anyone who has spent time in the training and performance improvement world knows, the only evaluation about 95% of all training gets is “What do the ‘smile sheets’ say?” Few programs are evaluated at the “I learned it,” “I used it,” “It made a difference” levels of evaluation. The same can be said of distance training.
Case studies, such as those described in The e-learning Fieldbook (Van Dam), Distance Training (Schreiber and Berge), Sustaining Distance Training (Berge), e-Learning and Beyond e-learning (both by Rosenberg), suggest that distance training is effective, but these reports use the same loose evaluation methods and standards that are used with most training programs. While stories of success can be compelling, they are often not carefully examined for evidence of real performance improvement.
This lack of a rigorous examination of distance training’s successes and failures is particularly concerning, because a major part of the allure of distance training is its promise for training large numbers of people in a short amount of time and doing this economically. The fact is, there are few reports of thorough examinations of these claims made for distance training.
To truly have an impact on performance, distance training must first use the best principles of performance-improvement thinking as the basis of its design. Second, performance improvement professionals must understand how distance training will be held accountable by the executives who sponsor distance training initiatives. Finally, executives who make high stakes decisions about distant training must be aware of their own standards for how they hold distance training accountable for results.
At the conclusion of the session, participations will:
Understand the risks of implementing ineffective distance training.
Understand how to assess the effectiveness of distance training.
Understand how distance training is held accountable by management.
Attend this program and you will learn how to use two job aids:
Accountability Checklist—to assist in determining how distance training is held accountable in their organizations.
Assessment Worksheet—to assist in assessing the effectiveness of distance training.
Meet the Presenter Paul Hardt, Ed.D. is a faculty member at Capella University, specializing in Training and Performance Improvement and Adult Education. He received his Doctor of Education, Human Resource Development from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
October Monthly Program: Branding the Stakeholder's Experience – Building Your Service Commitment
As part of the Training and OD Department, you know that consistently delivering stellar service ultimately leads to customer loyalty and a strong brand.
Stellar service occurs when you:
Exceed customer expectations.
Do something extra that makes customers feel special.
Have an interaction that is positive, memorable, and meaningful for the customer.
Delivering stellar service builds a long-term relationship between your customers and your organization. In short, delivering stellar service helps create loyal customers.
In this interactive workshop, we will walk through an essential tool for leading stellar service in your organization. What you learn will give you a standard by which you can align the processes, systems, and behaviors affecting the customer experience – even the behind-the-scenes activities customers never see, but feel every time they have an interaction with your department. You will leave the session with a new perspective on how to boost your department's and organization's commitment to excellent customer service.
Meet the Presenter Rosalyn Laves is a Strategic Account Manager with AchieveGlobal focusing on the Healthcare Market. AchieveGlobal is the world’s leading training and performance improvement company. She has worked with healthcare institutions to improve patients' and family members' experiences with the institutions, reduce employee turnover and build the management skills necessary for the future. She has also done extensive work in helping institutions examine their processes and systems that impact the patient’s experience, measure the need for training and the effectiveness of that training.
She has been a member of the Houston ASTD Chapter for over 20 years, has served as Vice President of Programs and was the 1999 Houston ASTD Chapter President. She is also an active member of the Society for Human Resources and HR Houston, and Houston OD Network. Roz holds B.A. and M.Ed. degrees.
The Top Three Reasons to Attend the ASTD-TCC Regional Conference
by Sharon Leah
Whatever you need—renewal, inspiration, learning, valuable network connections, facts, friends, insights, opportunity, even a tax deduction—you can find it at the 2007 Regional ASTD Conference at RiverCentre in St. Paul, Nov. 13-14, 2007.
Talk to just about anyone in our profession and you will hear a similar story: Life in the world of workplace learning professionals is filled with more changes and challenges than ever. One of the best antidotes for the stress that all brings is to take a break from your routine and do something that will help you build your professional skills and your abilities. The ASTD-TCC Regional Conference is what you need, and here’s why:
#1: Learning
Julie Berg with HRD Consulting attended the conference last year, and she’s coming back again. I asked her to tell me about the best thing she took away with her last year. She said she was inspired. “Watching John Sweeney (from Brave New Workshop) renewed my interest and respect for the skill of improvisation and its application to training. And I was in awe of the accomplishments of my colleagues when I listened to Norm Schultz and his team when they described their work with Schwan’s Company.”
Well, John Sweeney and Norm Schultz are back, and they join many other talented professionals to bring you new inspiration for 2008. You can also see David McNally, Dr. Ken Bartlett, Dr. Faith Ralston, Bob Mosher, and 32 other presenters, who will share their expertise on everything from change management, succession planning, tools for better communication, successful distance learning, training and measurement, and coaching; to trends in workplace learning. Choose from 24 breakout sessions at the conference on November 14. There will also be three pre-conference workshops on November 13: Organization and Leadership Development by Dr. Ken Bartlett, Professional Skills Development by Dr. Faith Ralston, and e-Learning solutions by Bob Mosher.
The conference events and sessions will be great. There’s no doubt about that. The people you meet, and the learning that happens in creating those relationships, will be the icing on the cake. LaChel Hird with LarsonAllen said, “Reconnecting with some members that I hadn’t seen at meetings, and gathering good ideas to share with my work team,” were the best things about the conference last year. More than 400 people attended last year’s conference, and the plans for 2007 are to attract 500 industry professionals to the workshops and expo.
There are two reasons I’ll stand in line: to see a good movie or to meet a book author. Writing a book is a huge accomplishment. Getting a book published is an even bigger accomplishment, and I enjoy meeting the people who have done it. There will be several book authors at the conference, and I and many others will be in line to get their signatures scrawled on an inside page in copies of their books and to be part of their sessions.
#2: Networking, Networking, Networking
It would be a good week if you met two people who could help you solve some of your most-pressing business challenges, increase your influence and successes in your organization, or enlarge the scope of your business. It would be a great week if you met four people who could do these things for you. Now think about what it would do for your future business to meet 10, 15, or 20 people, all of whom know someone who could help you or provide the solution to a problem or challenge. Julie Berg said that attending the conference last year helped strengthen relationships with future business partners. In addition, she got referrals for potential project work, too.
If you’re a newbie in this field, as I am, attending the conference may be the single best thing you do for your career this year.
#3: You Deserve It!
Let someone else plan the schedule and put on the presentations, while you learn, network, visit with old friends, meet new people, browse through books, and get inspired.
The conference is being held in a great city. You will enjoy St. Paul and the RiverCentre. The skyway connects it to hotels and restaurants in downtown St. Paul, and there is ample connected parking. You never have to walk outdoors if you don’t want to.
You can download a full conference brochure and register online here.
September Begins New Year for Entrepreneur SIG Starting a Business: How to Take the Entrepreneurial Leap
Whether you’re an experienced business owner, toying with the idea of starting a business, in the planning stages, or you’ve already launched, you’ll learn something new from Ed Hennen, an experienced executive from the Minneapolis office of SCORE.
Ed’s presentation will kick off a new year for the ASTD Entrepreneur SIG, a special interest group for ASTD members and non-members featuring topics of interest to entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneur SIG – kickoff meeting for the new season!
Date:
Tuesday, September 25
Time:
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Place:
Ridgedale Library conference room
Come network with entrepreneurs and professionals considering the leap, and benefit from ideas shared among participants. The presentation is free, and you’re welcome to bring a bag lunch. Pre-registration is not required.
Ed Hennen is a sales and marketing executive with more than 20 years of strategic financial product experience involving new product development, selling to targeted customers and getting desired results in dynamic environments. Ed retired in July 2004 from Farm Credit Leasing, and manages the Minneapolis SCORE Speakers Bureau.
ASTD-TCC Special Interest Groups (SIGs) by Tim Gustafson
SIG leaders have been busy planning another great year of SIG meetings. In September, five SIGs are scheduled:
On September 13, the eLearning SIG starts the season with the topic of Electronic Performance Support Systems presented by Bob Mosher, Global Chief of Learning Strategy for LearningGuide. We expect a large turnout for this presentation and will hold it at New Horizons of MN, 4510 West 77th Street, Edina, MN 55435. Kristin Ford and Noelle Hudak are the leaders.
On September 14, the Diversity SIG, which has outgrown its space, will meet in the basement of the Lake Como pavilion. Lila Kelly leads this SIG.
On September 19, the Coaching SIG starts its new season at the Edina Library. Coaching Generation X and Y is the topic. Lucy Dotte joins Karen Lanson as leaders.
September 25, the Entrepreneur SIG meets with a new leader and stronger business focus. A presenter from the SBA SCORE office will present. New SIG leader Diane Autey joins Carol McCormick to lead this group.
September 26, the Training SIG returns with evening meetings drawing 15-20 participants. Jay Kasdan continues leading this group.
We also have new leaders for a Spirit in Work SIG starting sometime this fall. Christine Rozman and Nicole Dodge are working on the details.
The Organizational Career Development SIG is also planning to return this fall.
The 2007 Regional Conference & Expo has posted a new Podcast interview with closing speaker David McNally. Also posted is the interview with kickoff speaker John Sweeney.
Visit the Conference archives on the website. This area holds past conference exhibitors, photos, podcasts, and presentation handouts.
Cheri Wittenberg, Editor
Kristin Ford
Andrea Winkelman
Sarah Brammer
Kirsten Rewey
Lynae Steinhagen
Nicki Machler, Layout
September Spectrum Contributors
Sarah Sladek
Brian Torkkola
Kristin Ford
Marilyn Condon
Rosalyn Laves
Paul Hardt
Sharon Leah
Diane Autey
Tim Gustafson
What would you like to read?
If you have ideas for articles or information that could be shared in Spectrum, feel free to contact the editor, Cheri Wittenberg, at cheri.wittenberg@us.hsbc.com.
Upcoming Spectrum submission deadlines and topics:
Submission Deadline
Topic of Focus
October
September 14
Collaboration as Key Component in Project Management
November
October 12
Diverse Learning Styles
December
November 12
Informal Learning Solutions
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