765 - Bring Your Parents to Work Day; Right Handed Learning Design Bias

Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie - April 1, 2013.
#765 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology.
55,939 Readers - www.masie.com - twitter: emasie - The MASIE Center.

1. Bring Your Parents to Work Day!
2. Big Data Expands: Maps of What Learners Aren’t Doing.
3. Right Handed Designer Bias in Usability.
4. Mobile Apps Monitor and Feedback on Word Usage.

1. Bring Your Parents to Work Day! After the success of “Bring Your Daughters to Work Day”, there is now a growing interest in “Bring Your Parents to Work Day”, pushed by both helicopter style parents and underutilized retired parents of workers.

“Bring Your Parents to Work Day” would allow highly involved and concerned parents to meet the colleagues and bosses of their kids.  Just as they did in K to 12 school settings, parents are often able to advocate for higher performance ratings once they meet their children’s evaluators.  Some parents might even help their children redecorate their work spaces or cubicles.

It will also be valuable for the older retired parents of some employees.  These parents can come in and be deployed as meaningful one-day assistants, leveraging their skills and experiences of decades of work.  In some instances, the retired parents can even be deployed while their children are on vacation, filling in for them on key assignments and committees.

Clearly, many organizations will find the “Bring Your Parents to Work Day” program challenging!  But, in an attempt to bridge generational differences and reach for new levels of Work/Life balance, it is being embraced by some companies with a passion.  Several underfunded Venture Startups have gone so far as experimenting with “Bring Your Parents to Work Week or Work Month”, in order to save compensation levels.  While State Labor Departments are concerned about the legality of these practices, few want to take on the ire of the newly engaged parents on this issue.

2. Big Data Expands: Maps of What Learners Aren’t Doing: Increased interest in “Big Data” has pushed several LMS companies to expand reporting capabilities to display patterns of Learner Non-Activity.  While traditional reports indicate which learners have met competency levels or participated in certain learning programs, the LMS was never pointed at massive and complex patterns of non-participation.  Now, managers can see 3D displays indicating:

* What Books or Articles Are Not Read by Workers?
* For Each Learner, What Activities Do They Never Do?
* Which Video Titles Draw the Fewest Workers?
* Which Presenter Send the Most Webinar Participants to Early Departure?
* Whose Emails Are Most Often Not Read?

Many learning analysts believe that tracking what learners Don’t Do is even more important than tracking their active participation.  One LMS company is experimenting with a gamification offering that would provide “points” to learners who most effectively skip the most content, while still meeting legal certification. These points can be traded in for a vacation day or lunchroom vouchers. Big Data can focus on what learners aren’t doing as great predictors of workforce participation patterns.  We might even issue a “Didn’t Do Transcript” for each learner in the future.

3. Right Handed Designer Bias in Usability: University of Brazio recently published a study focusing on the difference in eLearning designs created by left vs. right handed designers.  It seems that visual placement of content and buttons shifts dramatically based on the hand bias of the designer.  They looked at “directionality distinctions” in screen design and the impact on learning effectiveness.  Not surprisingly, they found that eLearning modules developed by left handed designers worked best with left handed learners.  Eye movement, mouse movement and logical flow of content was optimized better for left handed learners when design was done by designers of the same hand dominance. But, the least effective designs for both left and right handed learners resulted in design teams that had 1 left handed and 1 right handed designer.  “Collaboration in design often results in a mushy and fuzzy approach that underwhelms both types of users.” said Dr. Framer, head of their Hand Design Bias Lab.  The next study will look at allowing the learner to indicate their left or right hand preference - yielding a distinctly different design.  Even Google is considering moving their ads to the left side for users that more often place their mouse nearer to the Q, A or Z keys on their keyboards.

4. Mobile Apps Monitor and Provide Feedback on Word Usage: “How do I stop saying the word NO in my responses to employee questions?” or “I must remember to say ‘Service Contract’ to customers during sales conversations in the store!” These requests are not easy to implement as they both require a worker to alter their daily conversational habits.  But, now there is an App that links voice recognition with Performance Support to provide immediate feedback when you utter something on your NO or YES list.  For example, the App can monitor your use of the words: “NO”, “NO WAY” and “Never Happens” and provide you with a gentle buzz on your smartphone each time they are spoken.  If the frequency rises above a certain level, the buzz can be longer and you can even set it up to send you or your coach a direct reminder.  Or, it can be upgraded to provide a quiet whisper in the earpiece of an employee, via Bluetooth connection, when they forget to offer the highly profitable service agreement.

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Each year on April 1st in the United States, we celebrate April Fool’s Day with several TRENDS that may not be totally real, yet!  Hope you enjoyed and have a great April 1st. Feel free to send me a note to emasie@masie.com

Yours in learning,

Elliott Masie
Host, Learning 2013

email: emasie@masie.com
twitter: @emasie

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