Archive for January, 2010
Posted on January 3, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
What are the key challenges preventing e-learning success?
Considering first the three elements outlined above, what prevents success in the creation and implementation of an e-learning system? While there are numerous obstacles preventing the success of any endeavor, the e-learning ., because they are relatively new and somewhat unknown, certainly create their share of pitfalls, and then some. Obstacles can often be found in every aspect of e-learning…from content development through delivery to effectiveness.
Let’s examine the issue, then, as a body of mistakes:
i.Wrong approach to content development:
Although desired outcomes are the same for traditional training and e-learning, instructional design methods often fail to account for this. In simple terms, to be effective, e-learning. must find new ways to involve the student in the learning process. The material will be ineffective if delivered simply as a textbook. It must become totally interactive so that we can replace (to some extent) the classroom instructor with increased student involvement. This means relying more heavily on exercises, quizzes, simulations and assignments than we would in a traditional environment; we need to duplicate to the extent possible the “see, do” method of training, allowing the student an opportunity to practice the new learning. And we need to do this frequently throughout the course.
ii. Wrong authoring tools:
The tools you use to create e-learning. must align with your training objectives. Authoring tools enable instructors or designers to build courses and supporting materials such as quizzes and simulations. Consider: Do you really want to propose training your current instructors in the use of Captivate? How about Flash?
Remember, too, that today virtually all software packages that are used to create
e-learning courseware require licensing. A relatively simple program that converts PowerPoint to a SCORM compliant Flash package, such as Articulate Presenter, can cost upward of $1,400. And that’s per seat! This feature is built into the eLeaP system and is free.
Authoring programs that are platform specific (e.g., Windows XP) will require maintenance in order to keep them current with new technology. This, of course, is generally not free; unless, that is, you are using a hosted e-learning platform that is essentially “rented” (such as eLeaP), and includes upgrades and maintenance. Programs such as these are often known today as Software as a Service, or SAAS (and sometimes simply SAS).
However, there are going to be occasions where you may require specialized training tools, for example if you are training students in the use of a particular software package. In this case, you can use programs such as Captivate or Camtasia that simulate the actual working environment and allow users to develop skills without affecting “live” data. If you lack the resources in house for doing this, a third party contractor might be a good choice. Or even better, if you are using a system such as eLeaP, you can find specific expertise through its customization capabilities.
iii.Wrong system employed for training:
The systems you use for courseware development, delivery, learning management and assessment must integrate with one another. Think of them as tools. But remember, to a hammer, everything is a nail.You must, therefore, choose a Learning Management System with the flexibility to host a variety of courseware types…from interactive simulations to Flash video to real-time problem solving. For example, have a look at e-learning Learning Management System (www.telania.com). It has the flexibility to host virtually any type of courseware that is SCORM compliant. A lack of this flexibility will severely limit the materials that can be delivered to the student.
You must also consider the system’s ease of use. As with the eLeaP system, students must be able to gain easy access and find an intuitive interface that requires little or no training. The system must work on virtually all platforms using any standard web browser. It must operate flawlessly so that, from the learners’ perspective, the fact that the content is being delivered electronically is secondary to the learning process.
iv.Wrong level of investment:
There are many systems available today that require virtually no startup funding and that can be deployed in practically no time at all, e.g., the eLeaP LCMS. Why, then, would you want to consider a system that costs upward of $250,000 to start and requires a significant amount of resources to implement? After all, these are not full-blown ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems that must integrate all organizational functions.
Avoid the heavy sales pitch that uses the scare tactics of systems integration capabilities. Generally speaking, a simple Application Programming Interface (API) can be developed at minimal cost to integrate any LMS into the organization’s Learning and Development recording system. Also keep in mind that many of these complex Learning Management Systems require a good deal of expensive, specialized technical support and training just to create courseware that is compatible with the delivery system. Again, the fact is that systems such as eLeaP require no programming or startup costs at all, deployment support is free, implementation and online training is free and 24/7 customer support is free. Download your free e-learning white paper here.
Caffeinated Content
Posted on January 4, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Creating a Learning Exchange Marketplace
Learning Exchange Markets uncover hidden innovation which is often at the fringes of an organization. Within a Learning Exchange Market, a shift of emphasis occurs between the participants from debates and discussions to generative dialogue, which must be in place for true forms of sustainable innovation to emerge. During the learning exchange process, multiple conversations – both strategic and envisioning, are allowed to occur at the same time. 
This approach actually accelerates results toward action-oriented activities while also empowering the individuals who will become responsible for the deliverables. It works miracles for companies working on becoming a learning organization. And your idea can’t get bagged or pushed aside!
One of the primary tools applied to Learning Exchange Markets is called ‘Open Space’ …..
The ‘Open Space Technology’ Concept
(as described from Co-Intelligence Inst.)
” In my experience open space is based on the belief that we humans are intelligent, creative, adaptive, meaning- and fun-seeking. It sets the context for such creatures to come together knowing they are going to treat each other well. When this happens there is no limit to what can unfold.” Alan Stewart
Open Space Technology was created in the mid-1980s by organizational consultant Harrison Owen when he discovered that people attending his conferences loved the coffee breaks better than the formal presentations and plenary sessions. Combining that insight with his experience of life in an African village, Owen created a totally new form of conferencing.
Open Space conferences have no keynote speakers, no pre-announced schedules of workshops, no panel discussions, no organizational booths. Instead, sitting in a large circle, participants learn in the first hour how they are going to create their own conference. Almost before they realize it, they become each other’s teachers and leaders.
Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion or activity, writes it down on a large sheet of paper in big letters and then stands up and announces it to the group. After selecting one of the many pre-established times and places, they post their proposed workshop on a wall. When everyone who wants to has announced and posted their initial offerings, it is time for what Owen calls “the village marketplace”: Participants mill around the wall, putting together their personal schedules for the remainder of the conference. The first meetings begin immediately.
Open Space is, as Owen likes to say, more highly organized than the best planning committee could possibly manage. It is also chaotic, productive and fun. No one is in control. A whirlwind of activity is guided from within by a handful of simple principles.
[For managers with concerns for loss of control, the principles below will seem ridiculous, and the Open Space approach may drive you crazy - but only for awhile ... Once you see how much work actually gets done, and how happy everyone is while doing this process, you'll never have a (so-called) normal meeting again!]
The ‘Open Space’ Principles:
1. Passion & Responsibility: The most basic principle is that everyone who comes to an Open Space conference must be passionate about the topic and willing to take some responsibility for creating things out of that passion.
2. Whoever comes are the right people.
3. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
4. Whenever it starts is the right time.
5. When it is over it is over.
6. The Law of Two Feet (see below):
“If you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t learning or contributing, go somewhere else” (or move to another level of awareness and participation). This law causes some participants to flit from activity to activity. Owen rejoices in such people, calling them bumblebees because they cross-pollinate all the workshops. He also celebrates participants who use The Law of Two Feet to go off and sit by themselves. He dubs them butterflies, because they create quiet centers of non-action for stillness, beauty, novelty or random conversations to be born.
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Open space conferences can be done in one day or less, but the most powerful go on for two or three days, or longer. Participants gather together briefly in the morning and the evening to share experiences and announce any new workshops they have concocted. The rest of the day is spent in intense conversation. Even meals are come-when-you-can affairs that go on for hours, filled with bustling dialogue. After a few days of this, an intense spirit of community usually develops that is all the more remarkable considering that participants are all doing exactly what they want.
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Open Space conferences are particularly effective when a large, complex operation needs to be thoroughly re-conceptualized and reorganized — when the task is just too big and complicated to be sorted out “from the top.” On the assumption that such a system contains within it the seeds of everything that needs to happen with it, Open Space provides it with an opportunity to self-organize into its new configuration. For this to work, however, the system’s leaders must let go of control so that true self-organization can take place.
Open Space Technology is also a delightful, useful tool for any group of people who are really interested in exploring something that they all care deeply about, and is one of the simplest, most brilliant combinations of order and chaos that I have yet found. It has been applied in thousands of meetings around the world with between five and one thousand participants. It can be effectively used by virtually anybody. Owen has provided excellent instructions in his books, below.
- Books: Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology, Harrison Owen, The Millennium Organization
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HOW TO CREATE A LEARNING EXCHANGE MARKETPLACE
(by Discovery Fuel)
Download Discovery Fuel’s Design Packet For Creating Your Own Learning Exchange Marketplace
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Click on image to download Learning Exchange Market planner
Learning Exchange – SCHEDULE
(3 1/2 hour evening sample)
6:15 Check Bulletin Board for Announcements
6:30 Mission Statement
6:40 Brief Introductions
6:50 How It Works
7:00 The Exchange Market
7:30 1st Period Sessions
8:00 2nd Period Sessions
8:30 Share Learning
9:00 End
Learning Exchange – PROCESS
1. Write Down Session Proposals
2. Questions are as Appropriate as Answers
3. Verbally Announce Your Session
4. Post Session on Schedule Wall
5. Combine Proposals, Negotiate Times
6. Period A Sessions Begin, Take Notes
7. Integrate Notes into One Report
8. Period B Sessions Begin, Keep a Log
9. Integrate Notes into One Report
10. Note Sessions A and B may be Merged
11. Group Reporting of Sessions Begins
12. Bulletin Board To Post Ideas, Notices
13. Info Exchange meetings are bi-weekly.
14. Results Incorporated at Bi-weekly Strategy Meetings and Continued at Next Info Exchange Meeting
Learning Exchange – PRINCIPLES
· Whoever comes is right. Whatever happens … happens.
· Leave personal status outside. Bring ideas and knowledge inside.
· Be passionate about the topics. Take responsibility for creating things out of that passion.
· Law of Two Feet: If you aren’t learning or contributing, increase participation, or move to another session.
· Stay focused on topic
· One person talking at a time
· Shift ‘Yeah-But’ responses to ‘YES-AND’
· Listen with empathy, suspend judgment
· Encourage & build on the wild ideas of others.
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Download Discovery Fuel’s Design Packet (pdf file) for creating a Learning Exchange Marketplace. For more information contact us for a chat.
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Posted on January 5, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Communication: Differentiating Debate, Discussion, & Dialogue
I have been asked to clarify the difference between ‘debates‘, ‘discussions‘, and ‘dialogues‘ (note wikipedia incorrectly clumps discussion into the same definition as ‘debate’). Below is a first attempt at trying to evolve our understanding of these three primary communication processes. I ask for your feedback, and also for your own insights on this matter.
The intent here is to help organizational change processes be more conscious and more effective by becoming aware that how we communicate with each other strongly effects meeting outcomes, as well as how well thsoe outcomes sustain the desired changes. In short, this is all about how we make conscious decisions that influence positive change.
Our world is in dire need of evolved decision-making techniques that can provide us with a better way for sharing and choosing solutions that are healthier for ourselves and the planet. Effective communication is the glue that allows for real, sustained change to happen. Note that communication colors all levels of organizational development, including its methods of leadership, its ability to learn, team work and collaboration, and the sustainability of innovation itself.
DEBATE = Language is manipulated with the intent to cripple other viewpoints (argumentative). Change is hard to come by with this approach. However, it is useful for keeping an existing systems in place. Energy comes from the lizard mechanisms in the brain, which attempt to protect and defend. The person with the most power over another is seen as the best leader. This process is not good for creating change except at conscious predetermined places in the process where challenge generates a different thought process that can bring clarity and assurance on choices that have been made.
DISCUSSION = Questioning each other comes from a predisposed positioning (having an agenda). Change is possible but usually can not be sustained due to the process being based on a questioning process that makes each feel someone has to win. Others often loose their identity to consensus. It’s based on a sudo-democracy process whereby everyone unconsciously assumes that there is a best answer, thus only one viewpoint is ultimately chosen. Occasionally discussion moves into dialog, but usually it moves into debate.
DIALOG = Collaborative inquiry with an openness to possibilities beyond each others own beliefs and views. Communication about communication happens allowing the creation of a safe environment; a place where the unexpected and insight can happen more freely. Everyone’s viewpoint is allowed whether or not others agree with it. All work to wear the shoes of the one speaking and seek to integrate diversity rather than extract the best answer. It stands for the power of the question is valued more than answers. The challenge for creating change is that too often dialog does not move toward decision-making and action.
TRILOG = Ideally, all three forms of conversation are useful if used in tandem with each other. Dialog is to be used during the early envisioning stages. Discussion during the goals and strategy-making stages, but only at the point when decisions have to be determined. Debate is useful to challenge a new system against an old one. It must be used very consciously however, because otherwise power over can destroy all previous efforts. Dialog should again be used to close a group’s process because it brings us back to our humanity and to what’s most important, which are the relationships. They are as important (or more) than the outcomes generated by the group, for it is what becomes the foundation for sustaining the determined change.
About Room Geometry = One final point to make here is this: Be aware of the geometry of the room in which people gather. If shared views are the choice, be sure to stage the room with multiple small circles in mind. If one person’s opinion is to be impressed upon the group, then line up the chairs in straight lines without breaking up the group. I for one almost always choose to use circular geometries because it seems to appease the need for all to feel like they are participants rather than merely receivers of information. A room’s geometry needs to be considered at all levels of a community’s decision-making hierarchy including company meetings, town hall meetings, city council meetings, board rooms, and living room gatherings.
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To bring in more of a trilog approach (with an emphasis on ‘dialogue), use this collaborative design tool during your next meeting: Create a ‘Learning Exchange Markeplace‘. For more information, contact Vic Desotelle at DiscoveryFuel.com
Posted on January 6, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
The Ecology of Leadership: A Twist on the Idea of Professionalism
In our attempt to be ‘professional’, it seems that our society has become afraid of our own human-ness. Have we lost our sense of how to be with each other in the messiness of our humanity?
I was reading my LinkedIn Groups this morning and came across Mike Smith’s ‘Life Back West’ thoughts on people, teams, organizations, effectiveness and success (thanks Mike!). Now, it may seem that I jump around here a bit, so buckle your seat belt and see if you can stay with me on this …
So, after reading his short blurb on leadership that caught my eye, I went to Mike’s blog planning to oppose what I anticipated would be a description of an old belief system that suggests, if we are professional, our feelings are to be suppressed in the workplace.
Instead, Mike described how his young son has inspired his professional nature to include expression, compassion, and emotion. Having a young boy myself, I can totally relate to how he and I allow each other space for emotional expression. But then, why is it that we are not allowed too much expression at work without being sited as a problem?
It seems that our society has become afraid of our own human-ness. Have we lost our sense of how to be with each other in the messiness of our humanity? For me, today’s sorely needed emerging leaders can not be likened anymore to the stoic guy on a horse 
riding off into the sunset after he single-handedly saves the town from Godzilla. Why? Because this guy (usually someone we all aspire to be) rarely shows the kind of emotion that allows for each of us to change ourselves – a collective transformation. Rather, the so-called hero tends to be about eliminating a problem by taking out the people that go with it. This doesn’t work anymore.
What if instead, we began to choose our leaders (at least in part) based on how well they have learned to express their emotions, and how well they exemplify ways to share the messiness of their own humanity, while also being able to hold space for others to do the same?
I propose that we dare ourselves to allow more messiness in the workplace by helping to teach and “lead” groups through spells of negative emotion, rather than try to find ways to avoid or expel it. No more heroes of elimination. The key here is teaching groups or teams to hold space for their peers during their time of need, rather than expect the so-called leader to do it alone. This is known as collective leadership, or an ecology of leadership. And I believe that, using this approach, gold can be found within the mines (minds?) of our organizations, which will generate amazing new forms of innovation. Why? Because the form and function of all innovation is the result of the expression of the group (or company) who created it. Seems we may have forgotten the fact that companies are made of people, from which products and services are an outcome; and not the other way around?
Daniel Goleman’s talk on TED points to this evolved form of leadership that I speak of here.
It starts with what he calls a ‘human moment’, which are the times when we are paying full attention to the person(s) we are with. He suggests that there is zero correlation between intelligence and the awareness of another (this is known as compassion). Yet we hire our leaders and managers almost completely based on their level of intelligence and rarely rate them based on their ability to express themselves, to show compassion, or their ability hold a group through troubling periods. Why is that?
Also interesting is that he correlates the rapid growth of information to compassion, and it makes sense! Creating this new synergy of perspectives begins to define what I like to call an ‘ecology of leadership’ – a new process of thought and relationship-building. It is an evolved form of collaboration where, as we become more present to the relationships in our lives, it actually helps to form a unified ‘whole’ world that works better, while also increasing personal identity and individual value at the same time. How cool is that?!
Now, this is a bit of a paradox because our increasing access to information often pulls us away from being present with each other. But we have to remember that both are happening at the same time. What I am trying to suggest is that an ecology of leadership, along with increased awareness of our relationships, is changing the meaning of ‘professionalism’. It is morphing into something completely different than we know it today. In ecological terms, this means that even the concept of “the leader” has lived out it’s time, and we now need to consider what a collective leadership can look like. This evolutionary process will empower each of us, rather than just a mere few of us, and can then be carried into any group dynamics to help generate a deeper form of authenticity, purpose, and meaning within ourselves and our companies.
If your mind is spinning a bit, it suggests that the well goes deep here. I plan to write more about this in my blogging. But for now, let us all reconsider what it means to be a “professional”, and discuss together what kind of “leadership” we want and need in this new, interconnected world of ours.
Learn more about the author, Vic Desotelle.
Posted on January 15, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Our Future and the Mistake We Continue to Make
Our future and the mistake we continue to make
You may be surprised to hear this: Taking action on our future is way less about ‘what‘ content and ‘who‘ is in the room, than it is about ‘how‘ we come together to learn. Geez, we’ve had that all wrong for a long long time.
Look below at the photo and see how this climate action conference is setup. See how one person is actively presenting to a whole ton of folks passively listening? Notice the geometry of how they are all lined in rows, which is how you place people if brain-washing is your goal. My point is this: The process and configuration that we presently use to learn when in groups is the MISTAKE that will continue to drive inappropriate choices and unhealthy decisions about our future.
Investors urge governments to address the risks of climate change.
Instead, conferences, meetings, and gatherings need to be taking advantage of the collective mind that’s in the room (and beyond) by developing a vibrant, dynamic, life-generating, learning-exchange marketplace.
In this learning exchange marketplace, a ‘collaborative design’ process is used to shape an environment from which relationship-building and information-exchange is enhanced to a very high level. In this marketplace, information is traded and moved toward meaning using a parallel collaboration process that allows for better choices to be created and thereby better decisions to be made. I call this process a ‘Co-Lab’.
A Colab taps into both a community’s collective emotional state, as well as its co-intelligent capacity, to bring out a diverse head/heart knowledge from people that rarely gets accessed in traditional group sessions. A Colab moves individual agendas into group-mind learning and reasoning by combining story-telling and metaphor-making as a key part of the collaboration process, thereby allowing for the intuitive brain to incorporate what the rational brain can not.
Furthermore, a Colab will transform a stuffy-room full of authoritative egos into a dance-hall of fun-loving folks who are sharing a diversity of ideas, morphing them into a consensus of choices, and turning them into an intelligent, strategic plan that can be rationally assessed and moved toward solution-based action. All this is done in a fraction of the time of traditional approaches (as seen in the picture), with an increased density of content being shared, received, and absorbed more easily by the majority (rather than the minority) of folks in the room.
And guess what? Rather than frustrated, adversarial, and dreading the work ahead, more people leave a Colab feeling accomplished, friendly, and ready to act! Now THIS is how to move ourselves into a future that works!
Drop the suits guys
Oh; and one more thing. Please, please! Let’s get rid of the suits, for crying out loud. Let’s allow our bodies to move with the energy of change, rather than to be stifled by the status-quo of a normalcy that is time to be changed.
For more on change, join our community at ChangingNormal.com.
For more on Collaborative Design, see how to create your own Colab.
In Spirit,
Vic 
This is the article that triggered me to write …
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Investors Representing $13 Trillion Call for Climate Action Now
NEW YORK, New York, January 14, 2010 (ENS) – The world’s largest investors today issued a statement calling on the United States and other governments to “act now to catalyze development of a low-carbon economy and to attract the vast amount of private capital necessary for such a transformation.”
The U.S., European and Australian investor groups, who together represent $13 trillion in assets, called for “a price on carbon emissions” and “well-designed carbon markets” to provide “a cost-effective way of achieving emissions reductions.”
Investors urge governments to address the risks of climate change. (Photo courtesy Ceres )
The statement was announced at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk, a meeting of 450 global investors at the United Nations that includes U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, billionaire investor George Soros and former Vice President Al Gore.
The investors said while some progress towards a global agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions was made at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, “we cannot wait for a global treaty.”
“Policymakers made only incremental progress in Copenhagen, leaving a great deal of work to be done to address the risks that climate change presents to the global economy and to investments,” they said.
Anne Stausboll (Photo courtesy CalPERS )
“U.S. leadership is critical in this regard, including U.S. Senate action to limit and put a price on carbon emissions,” Stausboll said.
“What investors need most from national and state legislatures are transparency, longevity and certainty,” said Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Asset Management and member of Deutsche Bank’s Group Executive Committee.
“Until the U.S. Congress passes climate regulation, America will be at a competitive disadvantage in the development of renewable energy and other climate change industries,” he said.
The Investor Statement on Catalyzing Investment in a Low-Carbon Economy was endorsed by four groups representing more than 190 investors – the Investor Network on Climate Risk, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, IIGCC, the Investor Group on Climate Change, and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.
“Given that Copenhagen was a missed opportunity to create one fully functional international carbon market, it is more important than ever that individual governments implement regional and domestic policy change to stimulate the creation of a low carbon economy,” said Peter Dunsombe, chairman of the IIGCC, a network of European investors.
“Time is of the essence and world leaders from both developed and developing countries need to act now to compensate for the lack of progress at an international level,” he said.
In their statement, the investors observed that the costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are “both affordable and significantly lower than the costs of inaction,” but said developing a global low-carbon economy will require “substantially increased levels of investment from the private sector.”
The UNFCCC Secretariat estimates that more than $200 billion in total additional investment capital for mitigation is required each year by 2030 just to return greenhouse gases to their current levels by then.
The International Energy Agency estimates that additional investment of $10.5 trillion is needed globally in just the energy sector from 2010-2030 to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at around 450 parts per million, the investors noted.
Mindy Lubber (Photo courtesy Ceres )
“This equates to roughly 0.1% of the total value of world financial assets and approximately 0.23% of the total value of debt and equity securities, so this is certainly an achievable level of investment – and one that would yield returns in terms of energy savings, energy security, reduced capital expenditures for pollution control, and avoided climate damages,” they said. “But it is also well above current investment levels.”
“As powerful as these investors are, they can’t underwrite a clean energy transformation at the critical scale needed without clear rules only government can provide,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a U.S. coalition of investors and environmental groups, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk.
“Government policy can make clean energy cost-competitive by leveling the playing field with fossil fuels,” Lubber said. “Only government policy provides the long-term certainty that can turbo-charge private investment in clean energy, address the climate change threat and protect our planet.”
Click here to download the Investor Statement on Catalyzing Investment in a Low-Carbon Economy.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2010. All rights reserved.
—— End of Forwarded Message
For more on change, join our community at ChangingNormal.com.
For more on Collaborative Design, see how to create your own Colab.
In Spirit,
Vic
Posted on January 16, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Who Says It Ain’t Easy Being Green ?! (Sustainable Business Planning Workshop)
How to Create a ‘Sustainable’ Business Plan
AN ONLINE WORKSHOP
.Join Vic Desotelle from DiscoveryFuel.com for an ONLINE collaborative sustainable business planning workshop series.
This session will allow you to preview and inquire about the series, which is for small business social entrepreneurs who have dreamed of owning a sustainable business. Learn how to make a viable business plan that moves your green idea from conception to successful execution. Create a sustainable future for yourself, customers, and community through this sustainable innovation learning series. Click here for more details
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Posted on January 19, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Not Your Basic Ethics – Values Development Training
STOP !!! ... WRONG THING TO DO!
Ethics? Values? Who cares!? “YOU” better care. Did you know that each person’s underlying values and beliefs systems are what drives their actions? Those actions are how things get done by your team members. By linking individual values with your company’s principles, practices, and policies, your world becomes a happier place, with more sustained commitments from staff to get the work done. So, take a journey with us from personal meaning, to group awareness, and into enterprise value creation.
Call us about Discovery Fuel’s ETHICS WORKSHOPS to see if they are right for organization.
Posted on January 30, 2010 - by Vic Desotelle
Building an Interactive Community
Community is just as important as content when planning an eCommerce site. If done right, community features on your site will increase the number of page-views per visit, giving you opportunities to offer merchandise to your shoppers.
Community features can be used to encourage customers to return to your site. Establishing a Learning Community can help shoppers develop expertise through the interaction with other shoppers who visit your site. Asking questions, discussing problems, raising issues, and the general camaraderie that develops in an interactive community breeds a kind of loyalty that is beneficial to the success of your Web store. And loyalty breeds repeat visits.
Communities can build your business. Think about it, the more times a shopper visits your site the more familiar they are with it. The more familiar they are the more comfortable they might get making a purchase from you instead of some unknown merchant. Communities are sticky. Visitors tend to spend longer periods of time at your site than before. The stickier they are the more loyal they get. Loyalty builds trust and trust is the currency of business.
By: Douglas Adams
About the Author:
Douglas Adams is the owner of Home Based Business News , a website dedicated to increasing knowledge of home based business issues.
Be The Change !
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Workshops & Blog Postings
Creative Commons License
DiscoveryFuel.com by DiscoveryFuel.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at VicDesotelle.com.
