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Why “Big Data” Requires Small Stories
From predicting the weather to anticipating disease outbreaks, computers enable us to gain useful insights from massive data sets. However, while a skilled analyst can scan a sheet of numbers and spot the important trends, most people do better when data is presented within a simple, logical, [...]
Good News for “Boring” Trainers: You Don’t Have to be Entertaining to be Effective
Maybe because of movies about "inspiring" educators, or perhaps because of fond personal memories of a "funny" teacher in school, most people wrongly assume that you need to be an entertainer to be an effective training facilitator. Combined with a general aversion to public speaking, [...]
5 Types of Stories Your Audience Can Actually Learn From
Whether told around a campfire or in a YouTube video, stories can help teachers and leaders engage an audience. But not all stories are equally effective for all purposes. Just as there are different genres of books and movies, there are different types of learning and leadership [...]
Cancel That Flight: How NGOs Can Stop “Training Tourism”
For many NGOs, the standard training model is to fly people across continents and oceans to attend workshops, often with the hope that participants will pass the knowledge along to their colleagues back home. Suggesting that organizations replace these meetings with online and/or local training sessions can [...]
Is Training Ever “One and Done”? Affordable Ways to Extended Learning
Most expert trainers are realistic about how much they can improve someone’s performance in a one-off workshop. The trainers we work with often say “I’d love to coach people for a few months or a whole year, but the organization won’t pay for that, at least not [...]
Organizations Can’t Create Mentorships, but They Can Train Mentors
A generation ago, the word “mentor” rarely appeared in training or business literature. These days, a Google search on mentoring will turn up thousands of articles and white papers. There are even apps companies can use to match junior staff with potential mentors - basically the mentoring [...]