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Friday
Dec311999

21 - Books on Tape Growing Rapidly as Learning Tool; Coping with No-Shows in Training Events

1. Books on Tape Growing Rapidly as Learning Tool: ABC News has reported a 20% growth in the books on tape marketplace. Commuters, travelers and others are gobbling up taped editions of books in all categories, from fiction to business topics. Tom Clancy has even written a new book that will ONLY be released on tape. Training departments should take note! This should be added to your menu of delivery systems. Off the shelf training topics as well as easy to produce in-house training tapes can be made available to your workforce. Consider sending a "pre-work on tape" to attendees of upcoming learning events. We have used this model for our conferences with great success. Also, keep an eye on the internet delivery option for books on tape. Audible.com (http://www.audible.com) is a venture into this area.

2. Research on Training Trends From Hill Associates: Thanks for TechLearn Trends Reader Rob Lauer, for pointing us to a recent in-depth survey on training demand and delivery approaches. This study was conducted by Hill Associates and was conducted by telephone in late 1997. Hill Associates published the bulk of this study at http://www.hill.com/press_releases/survey/

3. Coping with No-Shows in Training Events: This is a growing problem, even in times where the demand for training is rising. Organizations report no-show rates from 5% to 20%. In some organizations they have taken to over-booking to compensate for no-shows. Keep in mind that most no-shows are NOT the fault of the LEARNER. We have found that the bulk of no-shows are triggered by managers and supervisors, making a last minute decision that the cost of absence from the office is too great. Focus your no-show prevention efforts on the managers.

Some tactics that seem to work include: greater amounts of contact with managers prior to the course, focusing on learning objectives and benefits to the organizational; telephone confirmations to managers 2 weeks out, which can be combined with needs assessment; greater levels of tuition for repeat no-show departments; a one to one conversation raising the trends of no-shows issues. We have found that many managers are not aware of the true cost of no-shows. We would be interested in hearing readers's comments on no-shows.

4. 320 Attend TechLearn Announcement - Wednesday Session Still Open: We had an overwhelming turnout to our telephone conference announcement last week. The 25 minute telephone conference included a listener survey on change rates and a quick overview of the TechLearn program and process. If you missed this or would like to join us for the next call, it is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 11th at 2:04 PM (Eastern Time). Just go to http://www.techlearn.com and reserve a space on the call - instantly receive the dial-in instructions.

5. MASIE Center Trip to Middle East, Asia & Australia Planned: I am honored to be presenting keynote speeches at several international training, learning, technology and HR conferences in the month of March. We are interested in meeting up with TechLearn Readers as Cathy and I travel to United Arab Emirates, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. If you are in these regions and would like to get together for a chat about learning and technology send an email to emasie@masie.com. The 2 conferences include: Abu Dhabi: http://www.adcci-uae.com and Australia AITD Conference (send email to cathy@masie.com for contacts)

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