Here in the US, we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving. I’m grateful every day for so many things, including the fact that you are reading this now. Thank you! What are you thankful for today? If you’re thinking of someone in particular go tell them right now.
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
What Managers Need to Know About Social Tools
Internal social tools like Yammer, Slack, Chatter, etc are becoming pretty commonplace in many organizations. When you ask managers why they will tell you things like “Other companies are, so we should too” and “That’s what you have to do if you want to attract young talent.” Not exactly the best reasons in the world for doing anything. Whether you are a manager or not, you should be aware of how these platforms can improve the way you and your organization work.
These tools can promote employee collaboration and knowledge sharing across silos. They can help employees make faster decisions, develop more innovative ideas for products and services, and become more engaged in their work and their companies.
For some great practical perspectives on tapping into the power of these types of social tools follow people like Mark Britz ( @britz ), JamesTyer ( @jimbobtyer ) and Steve Nguyen ( @espnguyen )
https://hbr.org/2017/11/what-managers-need-to-know-about-social-tools
How we approach professional learning at Slack
Speaking of leveraging social tools, Kristen Swanson ( @kristenswanson ), head of learning at Slack shares a bit about how they see training as a way to help people do their best work, not be a distraction from it. Consider the most important thing you’ve learned in the last six months? Odds are it didn’t come from a traditional course or workshop. As learning professionals, it is important that we adopt this type of mindset. It is important and impactful!
We’re always looking for the intersection of learner curiosity and business needs. Because we spend a lot of time talking about our goals as a company, this happens quite naturally.
https://slackhq.com/how-we-approach-professional-learning-at-slack-b822283268cd
How to Create Motion Graphics with Your Presentation Software
Presentation software often gets a bad rap. But here’s the thing – the problem isn’t with the software it is with people who don’t know how to use it properly. And here is something we can all take advantage of: You can take an animation made in PowerPoint or Keynote and export it as a video file that’s great for a variety of uses. And the best part? You don’t need any expensive, complicated software like Adobe Premiere or After Effects to do it.
In this article from the Wistia blog, Trevor Holmes ( @wolfmantrev ) does a nice job of walking us through the process touching on things that will make your project a smash hit including movement, scale and opacity. All easy to do in Keynote or PowerPoint. You’ll be amazed by what you can do!
How to Create Motion Graphics in Keynote for Your Next Video | Wistia Blog
If you’re interested in going even further here is an entire video I created in PowerPoint as part of a recent project.
WebinarSuite
Webinar platforms can be expensive and complicated to set up. WebinarSuite takes a unique approach by integrating with Youtube Live to offer an affordable service with some nice features. If webinars for 20 people are enough, you can use WebinarSuite for free. (It’s only $9/mo for up to 200 people) Even with the free version, you’ll get some pro features like event registration, landing pages, and analytics. Definitely worth a look.
https://webinarsuite.com/dashboard/
Happening Hashtag
Webinar World
I learned about the Webinar World Conference via Jo Cook’s ( @lightbulbjo ) blog post. Drop in on the #Webinarworld hashtag for a little bit of all things webinar from driving registration to engagement and more.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23webinarworld&src=typd
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Mike Taylor 