Tony Dye

Five Tech Training Basics

What are the most basic of things you want people to understand as you're providing technical training?  Here are my top five:

1. Attitude: if you can approach learning from the perspective of "I wonder how" instead of “I don’t know how,” everything will quickly be much easier
2. Doing the wrong thing won’t blow up Kansas. (OK, if you're doing system admin training, maybe change this, but for user training, eliminate the fear factor)
3. Good backups reduce risk – you get a “do over”
4. There are bad guys out there; you need to be on guard. YOU are the best defense. If you meet a stranger on the street who makes you an offer or asks for information, what would you do? Take the same attitude with electronic offers
5. Master a small number of tools, or even just one; dabble in others

Bonus thought: Technology can be your friend; don't let it be your master.  Technology can be like riding a tiger if you let it.  Don't!

 

Lighting a Fire

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
-William Butler Yeats

Is Training, especially technical  training, the same as education?  It is so true that when you have receptive students, eager to learn, that training/teaching is so much easier.  So how do we inspire this?

I have to think back to Jim LaBarr's old adage, that as soon as we transition someone's belief from "I don't know how..." to "I bet there's a way..." that the training gets easier, even fun.  The fire I want to help light for people is to create the attitude that things are possible.

How does training work at your organization?   Are people eagle to learn, or simply complacent to sit and be talked to (or at)?  Have you found good techniques for inspiring learning?

Learning, 5 Minutes at a Time

Thanks to Steve Simmons for the inspiration here.  Steve was explaining part of the theory behind Where There’s a Will There’s an A.  (I've heard the concept before, but have NOT studied this material, so this is not intended as a summary)

 

There are two concepts that would seem to apply in all training, but especially technical training.

1. Attention span is a bit like a bell curve, and for most of us it tapers off pretty quickly.  (Maybe this is just another part of ADD)  However, if we switch to another subject, the curve restarts, so by dealing with a lot of short subjects, we're likely to learn more than spending an extended time on a single subject.

 

2. When we receive teaching on a particular subject, we’re more inclined to remember the first thing said and the last.  What’s in the middle becomes brain mush quickly.

 

If you put these two ideas together, it would seem the best training would be based on many short segments, covering different topics, with each segment consisting of a great intro, a little bit of detail, then a great summary.  There's some indication that even if we rotate through a small number of subjects, the short segments still work.

 

Five minutes may not be the magic length, but it sure makes sense to NOT spend all day on a single topic (as with my earlier post on Conventional Training).

 

Can we recreate training to be lots of short segments?  That offers the potential of higher retention, as well as an opportunity for the attendees to not have to be away from the job for as long.  Can we do this? I’m willing to try!

Ad Map

This post is inspired by Keith Lowe and Laura Huckabee-Jennings.  Not being an advertising person, the term "Ad Map" made me think of schedules and projects and all such things.  Keith showed me a quickly hand-drawn map and explained it to me.  Then he clarified that Laura had introduced him to the idea.

The idea is quite simple.  Advertising is supposed to "do" something.  It should change someone's thinking, or even better, change someone's actions.  The map helps you look objectively at an advertisement and see if it meets the goal.

Laura recently published her own article about the AdMap that explains it well.  You can find it here.

I'm sure someone else has already figured this out -- it doesn't have to be just about advertising!  What about any presentation?  Or how about relationships?  Or teaching your children?  The possibilities get pretty interesting.

CIRCA Notebooks

Keith Lowe introduced me to the LevengerCirca notebook a while back.  Since my penmanship is so poor, I really wasn’t interested.  But, I did need some sort of notebook to carry around, and Levenger has a starter kit that’s attractively priced, so why not try it?  I did.  I’m hooked!

The main feature: you can put pages in and take pages out and move them around, yet they remain securely in place if you’re not intentionally moving them.  You can change covers and move pages from one notebook to another.  For a "paper" notebook, they have a lot of the feel of an electronic notebook!

.
There’s another rather nice feature.  You don’t have to buy the expensive pages from Levenger.  If you want to do some page design of your own, fine.  Print it, cut the sheets, then use the Circa Punch to put the neat special holes into the pages, and add them in.  Pretty much any piece of paper can be added.  I've got 3x5 cards inserted.  Newspaper Clippings.  Coupons.  Now I design my own special sheets, print them, cut them, punch them, and I have just what I want.

There is one problem, and that’s the cost of the punch.  $58!  Or, if you buy two or more, only 48.  That seemed a bit steep, so I looked on eBay, and there are quite regularly used ones (actually, new, returned, offered by Levenger).  Now here’s a side curiosity for you.  A new punch from Levenger is $58, plus about $7 shipping.  If you buy one from eBay, the shipping will be $8.  So…how much would you be willing to pay to get the punch used, from eBay, rather than buying it new, from Levenger (even though it comes from Levenger either way)?  Over and over, I’m seeing them go for over $60 on eBay.  I don’t get it

Regardless, I like the notebook, I like the pages I’ve created, and I like the whole concept.  I’d love to see some lower-cost accessories, but I guess you just can’t always get what you want.  (is that Mick Jagger I hear in the background?)

Conventional Training Doesn’t Work

This post's title may be a bit inflammatory, and it's certainly not an "always true" thing, but more and more, I'm seeing that the training we've accepted for many years just isn't working.

I've worked with organizations who have paid some big fees to have professional trainers come in for days at a time, or alternatively to send staff to half-day, all-day, or even longer courses.  Exit surveys tend to all sound the same (assuming it was a good class and a good instructor): "that was great, I learned a lot."  So if that's what people think, why am I disagreeing?  Go back a week later to those same people who were so happy with the training and ask them what they remember, or what they're actually using, and the results aren't quite so Rosy.  Maybe it's just our IT-influenced (acquired) ADD, but most people just don't do well with long classes, even on very interesting and useful subjects.  I think we've also heard plenty of evidence that real learning takes place when a topic is repeated multiple times, and even better if it's done different ways (audio, visual, mixed, etc.).  OK, so all we need to do is send people for weeks and weeks of classes, right?  I don't think so!

Is there an alternative that works?  Maybe.  I remember being impressed with the 15-minute training segments of Knowlagent used by call centers.  Jim LaBarr at Perimeter has done a lot with creating short segments (more like an hour) and then reinforcing them with regular tips and top 10 lists and other ways to keep the info current and in mind.  Yes, he still does longer courses as well, but always with some creative follows-ups.

Are we willing to focus on intense, brief, training sessions?  Lunch and Learn ideas seem to work.  The students have double motivation to show up.  On-line training (Lynda.com comes to mind, along with Knowlagent) can certainly hit a spot toward the solution.  And sometimes, training doesn't have to be called training.  Tips, how-to's, and simple process development, can sometimes provide training without seeming like training.  Of course, someday we'll create software that doesn't need training, right?  (I'm still hopefully waiting, really!)

Maybe my worst example of training that actually works is from my own experience in high school where I learned to type.  Every day, for what seemed like hours a day, for a quarter (maybe two?), pounding the keys.  It worked!  I still think it's one of the most valuable things ever.  What would I have learned in only 15 minutes a day?  Hmmm...I think that's the way my children learned to type.

Are you ready to rethink training?  Am I nuts?  Comments appreciated.

No Need to Involve the IT Department

Saw this on a website the other day.  “Because {product} is easy to setup and use, there’s no need to involve the IT department or install any extra software on the PC.”

This sounds great from a user or customer service perspective.  Why does it cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up?  I don't think it's a control thing...

Firestorm Solutions / Disaster Ready People

A few months ago, I had the privilege of meeting Brenda Pennetti of Firestorm.  Brenda and I have talked a few times about disaster preparation and how churches might be involved.  It's rather interesting stuff -- way beyond what we IT people typically think of as Disaster Recovery.  It's not a done-deal yet, but there's a reasonable chance that Jim Satterfield, the president of Firestorm, will be a presenter/partner/vendor/sponsor/whatever at the Fall roundtable.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting with Brenda, and for the first time also meeting Joni Charme, the Executive Director of Disaster Ready People. Among other things, we'll be talking about Disaster Ready People's September 23rd Disaster Preparedness Workshop for the Faith-Based Community.  If you're in the Atlanta area, you might want to check this out.  I plan to be there!

 

Guidelines for Outbound Email

I debated posting this tip because it is so extremely Perimeter specific. But, maybe others deal with these types of issues too. Our goal is to have good email communication. We happen to use some technologies to help reinforce the goal. It is one of our most controversial issues, and a frequent subject of helpdesk requests. Note that there are several internal links below. If you really want those documents, let me know…

 - Tony

From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:12 AM
To: _Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: Outbound Email Messages need to follow specific guidelines

Although the reasons that email messages would be blocked were communicated several weeks ago, there was only partial enforcement. Now that the messages are being blocked if they exceed the maximum number of recipients, I have been asked to list again the reasons for the guidelines, and the specific guidelines.  

Question: Since item 3 says there cannot be more than 9 names in the TO: field, does that mean that you cannot communicate with your volunteer leadership team of 12 people?

Answer: No, put the names in the BCC field. Item 2 says the TOTAL names (BCC and TO and CC) must be 25 or less.  

Jim

From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 10:29 PM
To: _Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: Reasons that certain Outbound Email Messages are Blocked

What Are the Goals for Outbound Messages from Perimeter?

1. To communicate politely, in other words, to use good email etiquette.
2. To avoid the appearance of Spam in messages we send.
3. To protect the privacy of the recipients of our email message.
4. To encourage the use of the Intranet to send messages that go to a lot of addresses. This helps us to keep our Shelby database up to date.

What Items Could Cause an Outbound Message to Be Blocked?

1 - There is no Subject line. Or you are trying to Forward or Reply to a message that had no Subject line.

2 - There are more than 25 TOTAL names in the TO line, the CC line, and the BCC lines. Notice that this is different than the next reason.

3 - There are more than 9 names in the TO line or the CC line. Notice that this is different than the previous reason. Put those names into the BCC field.

4 - A Distribution List is counts as the number of names it contains. If you put 30 names into 1 personal Distribution List in the Bcc field, they still are counted as 30 names, and the message is blocked.

5 - If a message is over 3.5M in size, it will be blocked with a message such as, "The message being sent exceeds the message size established for this user." For several ideas on how to deal with this situation, read this document P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\MessageSizeLimitOutbound.doc

6 – There are several miscellaneous reasons such as crude language, or a Subject of "Hi" or "Hey" or "Hello."

7 - The words [Spam/Warning] or [QUAR] were in the Subject line of a message you received, and you are trying to Forward or Reply to that message. Even though you didn't put those tags into the Subject line, they will cause your outgoing message to be blocked.

Even though there are other reasons, nearly all of our blocks are for one of the reasons above.

If you Reply to or Forward an email that exhibits any of the issues listed above, the message will be blocked, even if you didn't create the problems.

Shown below is the message you will get if your message is blocked before leaving Perimeter. The body of the non-delivery message is confusing and misleading when it says, "You do not have permission to send to this recipient." In reality, the problem could be any one of the various issues listed above. The Subject of the NDR (Non-Delivery Report) is always "Undeliverable: **Message blocked by Perimeter's outbound mail filter**"

To learn more about size limits, P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\MessageSizeLimitOutbound.doc

To learn more about all the other reasons a message could be blocked,

P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\OutboundBarracuda.doc

How to Make Your Word Icons Appear (or Disappear)

_____________________________________________
From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 10:29 AM
To: Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: How to make your Word icons appear (or disappear)

One of the biggest changes in Office 2007 is the Ribbon at the top of the program windows. Rather than trying to squeeze all the important icons into 2 tiny rows, there are now seven sets of icons. To access the different sets of icons, just click on the Tab name at the top (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc.). Most people like having all these icons available. But there are a few who say these icons take up too much space.

How to make your Word icons appear (or disappear) 

Double click on Home, or one of the other Tab names. This makes the icons disappear (or appear). If the icons are not visible when you Close Word, that setting will be remembered the next time you launch Word.

This works on any of the Office programs that use the Ribbon (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and part of Outlook).

__ 

Jim LaBarr