Technological Applications 1

Technological Applications Applied to Business Training

LeShawn Starling

Thesis Paper EMDTMS-Laura Monroe Feb 28, 2009

Technological Applications

Abstract

The efficiency of todays Business Training is the essential component to the success of businesses all over the world. Trainees working for these companies are struggling to understand ideas and methods displayed in training materials those example reference standard sales skills in the corporate training environment. My goal is to integrate Technological Applications into Business Training to help develop the structure for which training will be successful for all participants no matter their age. One of my key strategies will be to create applications that will be delivered in a series that develop employees skills by chunking information. Another key strategy will be that the employee will be able to take the online training from just about anywhere, but will be held accountable in a live chat, where they will apply their learning skills. Being that the economy is going through a recession, business trainings need a more efficient way to present materials for new employees as well keeping seasoned veterans in an effective ongoing training process.

Technological Applications

Table of Contents

Introduction Thesis Statement Educational Significance Definition of Terms Literature Review Current Solutions Proposed Solutions Integrated Solutions Conclusions Suggestions for Research References

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Appendices

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Technological Applications

Introduction

Todays businesses are struggling to stay alive in a tight economy with everything from downsizing to restricted resources. Every month businesses are free falling deeper into the most frightening word of all Chaos. The first step to avoiding this ever-nearing Chaos is to create new nimble businesses capable of adroitly responding to the chaotic conditions produced by constant change (Hagel, J., & Brown, J.S., 2008). As the economic challenges grow, organizations that are unable to execute cultural change initiatives will find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage. The future lies within technological applications that can provide

wonderful opportunities to enhance learning during training. Every company must realize that the beauty of using technology is that everyone will use communication to learn from each other. Further more, employees utilizing collective intelligence to leverage changing times will seek out new information for the common good (Hagel, J., & Brown, J.S., 2008). If every workplace has a focus on Human Due Diligence, they would consistently succeed in predictable, competitive work settings that have changes from prosperity to critical. This environment calls for gathering information, planning, and engaging in actions related to the impact of change that will affect the companys future.

In a world filled with unending organizational transition, the critical challenge after key decisions are reached is how they can be efficiently implemented (Hagel, J., & Brown, J.S., 2008).

Thesis Statement
Corporate Trainees are struggling to understand ideas that are reflected to be company best practices and methods that maintain an atmosphere that the company has set forth and displayed as training materials that example reference standard customer focused sales skills in the corporate training environment.

Educational Significance
I would apply my topic in a business setting by utilizing applications to empower employees to make their training become an easy transition to new ideas. For example, I will try to make business applications that present new information simpler and easier to approach. This approach will be to make an interactive series of interactive tutorials that allow the learner to apply what they are learning in the training environment.

My research will be applied globally by making the multimedia tutorial available online for surrounding stores and districts. This is very important because it will also save the company money in the long run. Additionally, it will allow a larger population of staff to be trained without having to travel to a traditional training area. The site will be available from home, but will have a requirement to apply the skill learned in the workplace before moving on to next training. The goal of this project is to apply applications to business training, which I plan to integrate dealing with difficult people, team building exercises, and the most important client loyalty. This areas are a must when trying to train a group because if one person gets off track that could possibly drag the whole team down. I plan to incorporate sources that help guide development in people skills, which is what business is all about.

Technological Applications will be applied to different mediums by using varied

material that will help Multiple Intelligences learners. For instance, in my creation of my thesis the following multiple intelligences will be considered: Linguistic intelligence for word smart learners, Spatial intelligence for picture smart learners, Bodily-Kinesthetic for body smart learners, Musical intelligence for music smart learners, Intrapersonal intelligence for self smart learners, and most important will Interpersonal intelligence for people smart learners. Integrating these intelligences into my design will help to ensure that no trainee is let behind.

Definition of Terms
Brand Awareness- is a marketing concept that refers to a consumer knowing of a brands existence. Client Loyalty- is a model used in strategic management in which company resources are employed so as to increase the loyalty of customers and other stakeholders with the expectation that objectives will be met or surpassed.

Team Building- is taking a group of individuals that may have differences and linking them for a common purpose. Reference Standard- a standard of service that is set by a company as a best practice to keep every store uniform to provide the same quality of service. Recession- is a contraction phase of the business cycle, or period of reduced economic activity. Human Due DiligenceCollective intelligencee-LearningHuman Intelligences-the ability to create a solution and solve problems that one encounter in real life.

Literature Review
Multimedia for Learning This source will assist me by guiding my usage of principles and approaches, which will ensure the effective use of methodologies to relate technological applications to business trainings. The Design and Development section of this book will be a guide to the planning, design, and development of my media project. Also I plan to use this source to detail my creation of tutorials, which will be used to present my series of trainings. For example, I am creating a tutorial using the guidelines from this book to help me produce

effective materials by utilizing its specific steps. Multimedia for Learning is very reliable because it displays a variety of teaching and training multimedia that explains how and when to use the multimedia learning tools to set up a productive training environment. The design and development that is provided in this resource will be equally important to support the needs of the business minded learners that will be trained. Out of the Box-Strategies for Achieving Profits Today and Growth Tomorrow through Web Services Out of the Box is an examination of how Web services can provide agility and help leaders in any business realize their companys true earning potential. Giving details that refresh the approach to Information Technology through growth platforms, bottom line savings, and web connections to applications and data through web services. It is a practical road map for the information age. The assistance that this book gives for my thesis paper is that it gives out of the box approaches to Information Technology. For example, Web services provide a catalyst to help managers break out of the organizational, structural boxes that prevents higher level of achievement. Working out of the box takes your training to the next level to really get through and make a difference in business training.

This source introduces methods that are out of the box for achieving profits today and growth tomorrow, which is a keeper in this stiff economy. Additionally, I feel that Out of the Box is the direction of many companies as downsizing is occurring due to the

economic situation. Using Technology to Build Community in Professional Associations This source deals with the art of professional associations that increasingly rely on technology to convene members in the conduct of their business best practices. This site assists me in writing my thesis paper by helping me to use principles of adult education to exemplify the transition into utilizing innovative technology. Additional, this source will help me to understand that generational differences can enhance the development of community and build social capital in associations. Using Technology to Build Community is a reliable because every employee or trainee should have a sense of community or the team is not going make a happy work environment. How People Learn- Brain, Mind, Experience, and School How People Learn examines the findings of research in learning to the actual practice of learning. This book also provides theories and insights that translate into action and practice in the learning environment. I will use this resource to help with the learning strategies that will to create the perfect learning environment. This book will help me understand how people learn and apply that knowledge to the training process. I will apply this book to my research by understanding how to utilize the brains learning through effective educational goals that will encourage the mind to think. This book is written by a National Academy Press which is a committee on

Learning Research and Education Practice, so I this book a considerably reliable resource considering the research and education practice that is put into the reading. Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers-50 exercises Quick Team Building get results in just 15 minutes fine-tuning the motor of a business, which is their employee. There are 50 detailed strategies that exercise the leadership ability of a business manager to effectively coach and lead their team. This resource assists me in my research because it covers best practices that can be used in the business environment to help develop and lead employees to wonderful achievements in the corporate world. This information in this book is essential for building new teams, improving communication, and strengthening team dynamics. Quick Team Building is a reliable source because it is a book that is a tried and true exercise routine developed by a busy manger. This book has some of the most effective games for interpersonal and intrapersonal development that I have ever seen in one book. E-Learning Teams and Their Adult Learning Efforts in Corporate Settings: A Cross Analysis of Four Case Studies This online source is a series of four case studies that analyzes Adult learning in the Corporate E-Learning World. This source will help me to understand real world issues with adult learning in the corporate world. This source brings ideas and thought in the corporate environment that are real issues or situations that happened as opposed to just being an idea that someone thought of without the relevance to the work environment. Additionally gives me a full-scale look at strategies that are currently being

used in the e-learning setting. This source was recently published and details real world situations that happen in the corporate environment, which I think are the most important because who feels it knows it. For instance, this article will be used as a roadmap to challenges in the corporate environment. Leading at edge of Chaos-How to create the nimble organization Leading at the Edge of Chaos tries to prepare the leaders of the future for the kinds of challenges that result from Chaos. This book gives you the assumption that the future of business will be steeped in Chaos. This book goes very in depth with tips and strategies to build leadership skills. This book is a reliable source because Daryl Conner, which is a professional in the managing field, writes it and his leadership ideas helps me balance orders to eliminate chaos. This source assists me in writing my thesis paper by adding the leadership strategies, which I feel are very important when conducting training. Additionally, it provides skills that help coordinate the organization for collaboration. Leading out of Chaos is going to be a cornerstone for my thesis because in the corporate world there is a lot of chaos from the damaged economy to the poor employees that are getting laid off. This book will be a motto that serves as inspiration for Applying Technology to Business Applications. One-Minute Manager

One-minute manager is a guide to helping managers in being readily available to coach on the fly and make split second decisions. For example, productivity is the name of the game for businesses and One Minute Manager has the answer. I have found that putting the One Minute Manager to work is a great book that includes details on how to quickly manage and keep your business profitable through easy best practices. For instance, I love the ABCs of management, which means Activators, Consequences, and Behaviors, as they are the guidelines for being effective. Activators are what a manager does before performance, Behaviors are what a person says or does, and Consequences are what is a manager does after the performance. Most companies spend all their time looking for another management concept and very little time following up the one they have just taught their managers (Blanchard & Lorber, 1984). This is the number one mistake of all companies, trying to do new training, but not reinforcing them and giving the chance to develop.

Mindmeister This is an online source that I think would be great for letting trainee network ideas and discuss best practices. MindMeister will bring a concept of mind mapping on the web for trainees in real-time collaboration. I think that ideas can be exchanged which I think will be a productive session for learning from each other. This source is a little different than the other sources, but I will use this site as a space for collaboration. Sometimes trainees do not understand certain practices or just cannot find the right track to accomplish training goals, but through networking it takes a

group of minds and makes a team.

The Relationship Edge Relationship Edge has strong best practices for starting, building, and maintaining relationships in relation to your business. This is the key to strategically influence someone during a training session. This book provides real world principles for developing strong and lasting personal relationships while maintaining an honest conversation. I think that there should be a focus on client relationships because with the economy tightening up on consumers wallet they are looking for the loyal employees that can build a lasting rapport. The information provided by this source is a great coaching tool in itself, but my focus will be on building and leveraging healthy business relationships between clients, colleagues, and managers. With the practical information on the mechanics of interpersonal relationships created in the business world, my hope is that business will become more productive. Life on the Edge: Learning from Facebook-social network provides important lessons This online article tells how Facebook is a key forum for innovation and experimentation among social groups. For example, Facebook is becoming an important site for creative talent and businesspeople to achieve visibility and build networks. Dismissing Facebook as irrelevant to business would be dangerously shortsighted

(Hagel, J., & Brown, J.S., 2008). This site has the potential to redefine business more broadly over time. For instance, application developers can connect and interact with Facebook users in very diverse ways. I like the idea of Facebook and their decision to attract application developers. For instance, this site is simple for a wide range of users and it is wonderful how these applications are integrated into the site. Edges not only spawn product and service innovations; they also catalyze business-model innovations. This edge is what I would like to display in my media project, utilizing the easy to use site idea providing engaging pre-installed business applications in a sense of community virtual world. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction From this source, I find a systematic process for administrating e-learning. I will begin with a performance analysis to determine if a training will help realize my learners realize important organizational goals by filling gaps in worker knowledge and skills related to an operational outcome and decide if e-learning will be the best delivery solution. The tradeoffs will be evaluated among various delivery alternatives such as classroom instruction, job coaching, working aids, asynchronous and synchronous elearning, or a blend of several of these. Technology can easily deliver more sensory data than the human nervous system can process. This book fills the gaps by summarizing research-based answers to questions that multimedia producers and consumers ask about what to look for in effective learning. Lastly, e-learning is a growing part of todays education as more and more schools; especially colleges have adopted to support learners at a distance. Even

corporations have started to deliver training online to save their company money and also provide more information at a faster and wider range of trainees.

Teaching and Learning Through Multiple Intelligences This book assists trainers in securing intelligence fair methods of perceiving learners and their talents, individual capacities, and approaches. My focus for the research from this book will be creating an environment that fosters the development of all intelligences. Teaching Multiple Intelligences offers practical training applications of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In an age of exploding information, none of us can learn everything as trainees inclinations and interests should guide some of their learning options. By trainers presenting information in numerous ways, this will decrease the rate at which frustration occurs. Lastly, teaching through Multiple Intelligences presents a clear representation of the eight Human Intelligences. This will be a big part of my approach to training a wide age group of learners ensuring that I am reaching every learner needs.

Convergence Culture-Where Old and Media Collide Convergence represents a cultural shift, as consumers are encouraged to seek new information and make connections among dispersed media content. For instance, convergence culture is: where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media

consumer interact in unpredictable ways in todays media driven society. For instance, Collective intelligence refers to this ability of virtual communities to leverage sites for collective discussion, negotiation, and development and they prod the individual members to seek out new information for the common good. Leading to communities closely scrutinizing any information that is going to become a part of their shared knowledge, since information can lead to more and more misconceptions as any new insight is read against what the group believes to be core knowledge.

In todays society media is used to entertain and educate. The range of media is growing and even being borrowed from the past to convey information. While creating my media project, I will try to incorporate effective media to convey my message.

The Art of Possibility The Art of Possibility provided great ideas in chapter: Framework for PossibilityThe practice of this chapter is to invent and sustain frameworks that bring forth possibility in the face of any challenge. In this realm of possibility, there is no division between ideas and action, mind, and body, dream and reality. The idea of this practice is for the leader to become their vision because a vision articulates a possibility. Most importantly, a vision is an open invitation and an inspiration for people to create ideas and events that correlate with it definitional framework.

The data finding from this book were in chapter: Being the Board-This practice is

considered the graduate course in possibility, because you rename yourself as the board on which the whole game is being played to transform the world. The power is yours to divide obligations that help keep life organized and manageable and apportioning blame works well enough to keep order in a relatively melting pot community to turn all relationships into effective partnerships in a world of fairness. The practice of being the board is about making a difference.

In conclusion, the chapter that made all other chapters make sense was chapter: Giving Way To Passion-This practice educates about the universe being sparking with generative power. For instance, if everyone could notice where they are holding back, and let go of barriers of self that keep you separate and in control, and let the vital energy of passion surge through connecting you to all the vibrancy and energy all around us. Life takes on shape and meaning when a person is able to transcend the barriers of personal survival and become a unique outlet for vital energy.

Current/Past Solutions to Thesis Problem in Practice

Positives of my current solutions are that I am trying to accommodate my presentation to fit a wide variety of learners. Also trying to keep the trainees involved the development process by taking their feedback on what can be done better and what areas

of focus matter the most. My level of creativity is great when making a lesson for the ever-growing quest of knowledge in my work environment.

Failures of my current solution are that no matter how hard I try, there are still trainees that feel left out. Also I think that the consistency and ongoing development of my training has to be improved. Because I will have a majority learners that will be into the training while I will have a few that are rebellious to the new ideas. The engagement level could be a little higher in my learning environment.

Proposed Solutions to Thesis Problem

Integration of Proposed Solutions with Current Solutions

I would like to create a web training that is similar to Facebook. This site will be created for a community of trainees that will be easy to setup and continue ongoing contributions. My trainees will be able to post into this blog type format that will present an opportunity for points to achieved and displayed as a way of tracking their achievement. For my site, I will be the administator that every trainee would have to become friends with before starting training. Once a trainee has become friends with me, they will be able to watch training videos from my profile. My advantage over Facebook would be to make a live chat forum.

Conclusion

Corporate Trainees are encouraged to understand ideas that are reflected to be best practice and methods to maintain and endure the atmosphere that the company has set forth and displayed in training materials that example reference standard customer

focused sales skills in the corporate training environment. My end result for this topic would be to improve learning through interactive technology that will assess and maintain as well as adjust to the level of experience of the trainee I want to measure the level at which employees build successful habits as opposed to just rote memorization. (I can measure the rate at which products are sold before training and after interactive training. Applying Applications to Business Training is going to be very challenging, but rewarding. I plan to involve other essential areas like Client Loyalty, Brand Awareness, and Team Building. These areas are important because if you just train employees on best practices they will be missing these supporting elements, which contribute to the success of a business. In conclusion, my overall goal is to integrate Applications into training to make learning during trainings more effective for a wide range of learners.

Suggestions for Further Research

How World of Warcraft Promotes Innovation This online article shows that online gaming can in fact increase employees ability to think creatively. In actuality, what we know today is becoming less valuable as we struggle with challenge of innovating faster and learning faster to operate in these challenging times. Many of the approaches used by WOW could be very helpful to

businesses as they strive to improve performance more rapidly in their organizations. I love how WOW is carefully structured so that anyone can join and quickly gain a sense of accomplishment through their personal dashboards. Which in turn would be a great feature to provide everyone in a company as a motivator.

REFERENCES
Acuff, Jerry (2007). The relationship edge. Hoboleen, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Alessi, S. M. & Trollip, S. R. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and development. Needham Heights, MA: Pearson Education Company. Blanchard & Lorber, K. & R. (1984). Putting the one-minute manager to work. New York, NY: Berkley Books. Conner, D. R. (1998). Leading at the edge of chaos: How to create the nimble organization. (City and Province) Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hagel, J., & Brown, J.S. (April 2, 2008). Life on the edge: learning from facebook. businessweek, Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2008/id2008042_80913 4.htm.

Hagel III, J. (2002). Out of the box: Strategies for achieving profits today and growth tomorrow through web services. City, ST: Harvard Business School Press. Jenkins, H. (2006).Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Miller, B. C. (2004). Quick team-Building activities for busy managers: 50 exercises that get results in just 15 minutes. New York, NY: AMACON. (2008). mindmeister. Retrieved November 22, 2008, from MindMeister Web site: http://www.mindmeister.com/ National Research Council (2000). How People Learn- Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Stewart, Barbara (2008). E-Learning teams and their adult learning efforts in corporate settings: A cross analysis of four case studies. International Journal on E-Learning, 7(2), Retrieved Month day, Year, from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=12&sid=e3d58f07-2e644714b5981aa68c30ff60%40sessionmgr8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ %3d%3d#db=ehh&AN=31123496

(2008). Retrieved November 22, 2008, from MindMeister Web site: www.wikipedia.com Zalon, M. L. (2008, May). Using technology to build community in professional associations. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 39(5), Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://web.ebscohost.com /ehost/detail? vid=4&hid=12&sid= e3d58f07-2e64-4714-b5981aa68c30ff60%40sessionmgr8&bdata =JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#db=ehh&AN=31828785 Zander, B. & Zander, R. (2000). The art of possibility: Transforming professional and personal life. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Appendices