TWORK...TWITTER TWEETS AT WORK

HOW I TWEET:

1. Answer the question "What is INTERESTING?" rather than "What are you doing?"
2. Use your Follow Friends to filter the most relevant Tweets for your interests.
3. Retweet so that anyone Following me can use me as a filter for interesting news.

Once your Twitter account has "hundreds" of Followers, it's interesting that more and more Followers start Following you non-stop after a certain point, eh?

HOW I FIND NEWS:

My Friends' Tweets have acted like a springboard to a wealth of informative sites.
Hashtags can be used like bookmarks when I Retweet these informative sites, and I can go back through and connect these to my own work;
if I'm lucky, by the time I go back to the hashtag, others have added similar Tweets under the same hashtag.

HOW TO GET RELEVANT FOLLOWERS

If you are promoting your business, you don't really want "anyone" to Follow your business' Twitter activity. You want relevant Followers that are actually interested in becoming a customer someday, right?

For marketing purposes, Tweets need to be sent in volleys of three to eight at a time, as close to each other as possible (you might consider using 3-8 multiple Tabs in your browser to achieve this).
One pattern that still seems to attract new Followers to you:

Tweet 1: interesting business news
Tweet 2: relevant information that is Trending at the moment
Tweet 3: your advertisement, promotion, or marketing
Tweet 4: interesting news
Tweet 5: relevant information that is Trending with a Hashtag at the moment
Tweet 6: your coupon (ala Dell)
Tweet 7: personal insight
Tweet 8: interesting business news

RESULTS: This model is used by people that perform SEO and SEM, and using it will give you at least the same number of interested Followers as the number of your Tweets...

IMPORTANT: Most of your Tweets ought to include links for full articles or for marketing links.
Marketing links need to go to "painless" actions...
think email subscriptions, automatic enrollments, satisfaction guarantees, and discounted payment pages with items already "in the cart."

LIVE AND SHARE IDEAS THAT WORK

MULTIPLE FLAVOURS OF CERTIFICATION

The lifelong CIU certification recently developed at IRM is specifically geared towards a software application that manages associations and non-profit organizations.







There are more generalized certifications for training professionals that can work hand-in-hand with virtually any software system. A few examples are as follows:





INSTRUCTIONAL SKILLS WORKSHOP (ISW) PROGRAM

The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) Program is a comprehensive three-tiered instructor development program that serves as the foundation for several professional development activities.

The second tier is the University Teaching Certificate (UTC) Program.









CERTIFIED TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONAL

Obtaining a CSTD designation demonstrates you have a thorough understanding of the common body of knowledge of our profession. Both the Certified Training and Development Professional (CTDP) and the Certified Training Practitioner (CTP) designations are based on the competency categories outlined in the Training Competency Architecture, commonly called the 'TCA", a common body of knowledge for the training and development profession.







TECHNICAL TRAINER CERTIFICATION

Individual trainers may pursue certification of their skills as a trainer. Applicants who are full members in good standing and have successfully completed the Advanced Train the Trainer seminar may apply to be certified as a Professional Technical Trainer (PTT) for a period of three years. Members may apply for recertification. The PTT certification is valid only for full members in good standing.







TAP LEARNING SYSTEM

The Training Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the status of L&D practitioners to that of genuine Professionals. True professions demand a credible Qualifications Framework and continuous professional development. As a career trainer, you may feel that traditional certificates in training practice, often achieved many years ago, may not reflect the full range of practical skills you need in today's fast-moving L&D world.

FRANKLIN COVEY'S TIME MANAGEMENT...MOBILE

Blackberry seems to have created a digital version of Franklin Covey's Pagefinders.

Pagefinders are clear plastic bookmarks that can be moved (like a normal bookmark) to today's date in your Day Planner.

The neat part is that you can write your list of to-do items on the plastic using eraseable felts.

That way, you can see (through) your list of Tasks while you're working on your Calendar;
the next day, you simply move the unfinished Tasks over by one day.

ALL TOGETHER NOW
With BlackBerry Calendars and Tasks, the Due Date and Name of each Task "lands" on the Calendar, next to each of your "real" Calendar appointments.

However, incomplete Tasks will need their Due Date adjusted manually. Sigh.

That means my digital organizer is almost as good as paper and plastic!

:)

GETTING THINGS DONE...MOBILE TASKS

How does Windows Mobile and Blackberry fair when it comes to sorting out your list of tasks?

Allen recommends using contextual Categories (I used to to mine by topic, until I saw the light).

Windows Mobile works like Outlook, and I can drill-down using combinations of Categories.
For instance, any Tasks that have both @GroceryStore and @Pharmacy.

Blackberry shows one Category at a time.
For instance, use @GroceryStore for your snacks.

Sweeet.

ACADEMY CERTIFICATION - from on-site training to webinars to e-learning...

Initially transformed on-site training to a blend of telephone consultation, synchronous webinars, and on-site training, which dramatically reduced expenses and increased efficiencies.  Later, we moved training content to movies, online documentation, and a collection of articles in our knowledge base.
Took one-on-one consultative projects and 'flipped' the work back to the clients, using online documentation, shared spreadsheets for data transformations, and data import validation.  Developed an industry-first certification process for on-boarding of new clients, new staff, and new users through an online educational Academy, with automatically provisioned certification process.
Access to the online training Academy movies and certification exams was given to both internal staff and over 500 organizations across North America, amassing over 100,000 end users.  The yearly completion rate for certified IRM Users was approximately 95%, and the advanced IRM Administrator certification rate was approximately 85% per year.