We’ve been listening! Our customers are telling us they want Blueline innovation… but at a lower cost and with high value. We’ve borrowed a little bit of seasonal North Pole magic to make your wishes come true.

Today, we’re introducing lower cost-alternatives to Blueline custom training solutions. But we’ve got a few other surprises under the tree, including innovative methods for saving on travel costs, implementing mobile learning, and sharing training and communications resources.

Introducing a new suite of high-value, low-cost solutions from Blueline Simulations:

eBooks: The contemporary online elearning solution that can also be delivered via iOS, Android and Blackberry mobile devices.

Imagine your favorite interactive “magazine” format (e.g. CNN.com or the Wall Street Journal Online). As a learning and communication tool, these eBooks are incredibly effective… and are far more accepted by the new generation of learners than old school rapid development platforms like Captivate, Lectora and Articulate.

And the new technologies introduced in 2011 enable our team of developers to design eBooks that will run on all Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad), as well as Android devices and Blackberry’s new Playbook tablet.

In other words, it’s a single solution for a broadly distributed audience operating on multiple operating systems. The applications are endless, and we’d love to show you some of the innovative ways we’ve put eBooks to work for our clients.

Journey Maps: The simpler, faster, lower cost alternative to a Blueline Blueprint –when only a picture will do.

A Journey Map is a smaller, 11 x 17 rendering that visually depicts complex messages. By design, these highly flexible images can carry change messages quickly and efficiently through your organization over a variety of media. The icon-driven approach, simple timeline presentations, and short marketing-style copy have been proven to be the perfect combination when rendering complex systems with simplicity and emotional engagement.

The value of the Journey Map just keeps going: The primary design elements of the document can be isolated and delivered as individual graphics for use in other applications. For example, individual icons may be placed within explanatory documents in Word format, or used in online documents. Our clients have used the Journey Map elements to add context to their company intranet, employee handbooks, strategy presentations, internal communications branding, and more.

Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT): Transform your classroom training into high-impact, virtual-instructor-led training online and save tens of thousands of dollars in travel costs.

At Blueline Simulations, VILT is much more than a “web meeting.” Today we are creating engaging, interactive learning events… while still saving time and money. We are exploring this new medium with:

•         Immersive story lines and passports

•         Collaborative team-based activities and assignments

•         Socratic discussions, remote synchronous role-plays and networking

•         Rich interactive debriefs

•         …and more.

Yes, it can be done. And when it all comes together, it is a thing of beauty.

Want to learn more about how cost effective it is to make learning a competitive advantage for your business? Call the talent management experts at Blueline Simulations today!

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Just ask our clients — Blueline’s signature Blueprint Learning Visuals are incredibly powerful tools for driving change and engaging audiences. But many clients have been asking for a simpler, faster, less expensive alternative to visually depict complex messages. Introducing the newest category in Blueline’s solution suite: the Journey Map.

Whereas Blueprints are designed as concentrated learning experiences, Journey Maps are built to move. A Journey Map is a smaller, 11 x 17 rendering that visually depicts complex messages. By design, these highly flexible images can carry change messages quickly and efficiently through your organization over a variety of media. The icon-driven approach, simple timeline presentations, and short marketing-style copy have been proven to be the perfect combination when rendering complex systems with simplicity and emotional engagement.

Our clients immediately recognize the Journey Map’s unique ability to deliver important messages with power and retention.  And what they discover soon after is that it can also be used as a cognitive organizer, with a series of images and icons that can be repurposed to create continuity across other applications – from the company intranet, to employee handbooks, to strategy presentations, to internal communications branding.

From collaborative "napkin sketch" to professional rendering to multiple applications, the Journey Map is an incredibly adaptive tool that keeps delivering value.

When creating a Journey Map, our Art Director and master artists collaborate with our clients through a simple three-step process that speeds development and keeps costs low:

1. An initial “napkin sketch,” developed in collaboration with you. We will facilitate the process in which we help you render your strategic messages in a rough, metaphorical format.
2. A first draft of the full image in highly polished Adobe Illustrator format (also known as “vector art”), accompanied by the copy messages.
3. A final rendering, with individual icons and image elements isolated for you to apply to other communications.
   

   The visual approach to the journey maps have proven to be effective in rendering robust information in an accessible, graphical format.

Every Journey Map visual meets the highest quality standards:

1. It is a colorful and dynamic visual, graphically consistent with other solutions developed by Blueline.
2. The document will be formatted with “tabloid” dimensions of 11 x 17 inches, and delivered in PDF format. (Upon request, we can also deliver the document in Photoshop, EPS, JPEG or other graphic formats.)
3. The primary design elements of the document will be isolated and delivered as individual graphics for use in other applications. (For example, individual icons may be placed within explanatory documents in Word format, or used in online documents.)

You may be squinting to view the details of the Journey Maps depicted here. (See how engaging the approach is?) We’d love to give you a much closer look… and help you envision how your critical, strategic messages can be rendered in a highly engaging narrative/metaphorical format. Give me a call today, and I’ll tell you how.

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The Talent Management Specialists at Blueline Simulations sweep the Brandon Hall Awards

Yesterday I enjoyed a little taste of what James Cameron must have felt the night that Titanic swept the Oscars.  Ok, so this may sound overly dramatic, if you will forgive the pun. Billy Crystal wasn’t hosting, and there was no red carpet.

But in our industry there are few awards that matter as much as the Brandon Halls.  Now in its 17th year, the awards program announced yesterday the winners from 22 categories.  Entries were judged by a panel of independent senior judges, Brandon Hall Group Sr. Analysts and Executive Leadership based upon the following criteria: fit the need, design of the program, functionality, usability, innovation, and overall measureable benefits.

As Mike Cooke, Chief Executive Officer of Brandon Hall Group, Inc. put it: “This year’s winning entries were the best of the best. We are proud to recognize the award winners who have greatly improved the performance of their organization and have shown clear, measurable business results through these innovative programs.”

And in Blueline Simulation’s first year as a submitter, our client partners won five Gold Awards! 

You read that correctly: FIVE GOLD BRANDON HALL AWARDS!  Congratulations to Bank of America, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Verizon Wireless for being acknowledged as the “best of the best” by winning Gold Medals in the following categories:

• Best Custom Content: The Verizon Wireless Retail Sales Simulator
• Best Learning Game: The Verizon Wireless Retail Sales Simulator
• Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning: Bank of America Teller Readiness Simulation and Assessment
• Best Integration of Learning and Talent Management: Bank of America Teller Readiness Simulation and Assessment
• Best Onboarding Program: Booz Allen Hamilton New Hire Onboarding Program

And here is the best part: while awards in and of themselves are nice, for us the bigger reward was the opportunity to work with three of the most talented and dedicated client teams with whom we have ever had the pleasure to partner.

So how does the team at Blueline plan to follow up on this tremendous showing? We’d like to create some best-in-class learning solutions with you! Give the Talent Management Specialists at Blueline Simulations a call and find out why our client partners have been rewarded with these and other awards from Bersin and ASTD in 2011.

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Forgive us if we come across like proud parents passing around pictures of our kids. But the onboarding program we developed for Booz Allen is getting a lot of attention and…. Well, gosh, you can’t blame us for wanting to share the good news with friends like you.

Specifically, Blueline Simulations has received the highest distinctions by ASTD, Bersin and others for its innovative onboarding solutions. And in August, the Booz Allen program was featured in T & D Magazine’s “Solutions” feature. Okay, you don’t have to twist our arms: Here’s a link to the article.

It’s an exciting solution, and you really must see it. The program is built around two Blueline Blueprints™, and those dynamic, table-sized graphics serve as the launch point for a series of activities over four days of immersive learning.

We’d love to tell you more. But there we go, getting all excited again. If you wish, take a look at the article. You’ll learn more about our strategic approach, and the compelling outcomes that the legendary Booz Allen continues to enjoy from the solution.

Want to talk “onboarding?” Join us online!

We’ve got lots of resources available — detailing ways that organizations like yours can use new-hire training as a strategic onboarding opportunity…connecting them to the culture; compressing the learning cycle; and preparing them for immediate success. Come check out our Blog, articles and case studies or join Training & Development Magazine and Blueline Simulations for a free webcast later this month.

What: “Onboarding for Managers”

When: Thursday, October 27, 2pm EST.

Register for this event today!

Want to talk more specifically about how Blueline can bring best-in-industry practices to your onboarding program? Contact Blueline Simulations today.

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We’ve shared with you in recent posts about our overall work with onboarding and specifically our onboarding work with our client partners at Booz Allen Hamilton. In this post we want to disclose the results of our combined efforts there and the tools that we are utilizing in our current and future work in the onboarding space.

Since the onboarding program at Booz Allen Hamilton launched in November 2009, more than 8,000 employees have participated.  Survey results both objective and subjective reveal that the more engaging and interactive program has netted positive results in many areas:

1. Reduction of risk and better adherence to compliance starting in week one. New hires have an improved awareness and understanding of critical firm compliance policies which enhances decision making that could vitally impact the firm’s credibility and legal culpability.

2. Productivity gains attributed to the job readiness of new hires going through the program. Data collected from internal surveys reveal higher (6% average increase) levels of perceived job readiness and impact among new hires participating in the enhanced onboarding program relative to the legacy program. When asked if new employees receive the onboarding they need to perform their roles effectively, employees rated the program a 4 out of 5 or higher 75% of the time. This is a full 23 points above the benchmark norm.

Booz Allen Hamilton estimates that for each day the organization’s new hires are not productive, the firm could lose up to $1 million dollars in potential revenue. Clearly the new program has contributed significant monetary gains.

3. Attrition rates for employees with tenure of 6 months or less have been reduced by four percentage points since the launch of the enhanced onboarding program. This is six percentage points below the norm of similarly-tenured staff at other benchmark companies.                                                                                                                                                            When new hires have a good understanding of the organization and the culture they are joining, in addition to insights about their journey ahead based on immersion into simulated real life situations with real life decisions, they are more grounded and well-suited for what lies ahead – not surprising.

4. The firm has experienced increased levels of new hire affiliation and engagement. A few of the most revealing facts include:

* Greater than 95% of participants acknowledge the program had a positive impact on their impression of the company. This has contributed to the decline in attrition as mentioned above.

* Interactivity and networking components are two of the most commonly mentioned positive attributes of the enhanced onboarding.

* Program surveys indicate that the firm’s enhanced onboarding program is outperforming the legacy program in 6 out of 7 survey question categories, including environment, logistics, guest speakers, instructors, objectives, and ROI.

* 96% of participants have rated the enhanced onboarding curriculum, ROI, instructors, and program logistics higher than comparable components of the firm’s legacy onboarding program.

The complete and immersive approach to onboarding at Booz Allen Hamilton promotes accountability while creating value for new hires, their managers, and the firm in a variety of ways.

But we haven’t stopped with this success. At Blueline Simulations we customize solutions to meet the unique needs of our clients. And those needs are varied when it comes to onboarding programs. We want participants to be engaged. We want attrition rates to be low.

We want the solutions that we create to be the best that have been experienced and we have lots of creative solutions for accomplishing that.

Gone are the days when live classroom training that involves travel, meeting space and logistics are required.

By making the most of remote meeting technologies such as GotoMeeting and Adobe Acrobat Connect, the possibilities are limitless! We are taking advantage of these tools and others like them to facilitate training remotely.  The use of storylines and journals, live and archived interviews, individual and team assignments completed remotely or live, chat, polling, remote whiteboard and breakouts all ensure that the level of engagement and retention remain high.

We look forward to sharing more with you about our successes and ideas in future blogs.

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If you recall in a previous post we shared the “secret sauce” that distinguishes the onboarding experiences Blueline creates for its clients.  Now let’s look at how the four elements we identified amount to a “quadfecta” and form an award-winning onboarding program for Booz Allen Hamilton.

1. Context – Blueline created two immersive classroom-based experiences for Booz Allen new hires. First, a Blueline Blueprint learning visual engages new hires in a visual and interactive tour of Booz Allen’s history and culture. Learners work in teams to answer questions, move along a visual timeline of events, and interact with illustrated data.  They see the “big picture” and gain insight into the core values, seminal events and cultural underpinnings of this distinguished organization.

Next, a simulation situates participants in the role of a consulting project team at Booz Allen. Through competition, experiential learning and teamwork, they make decisions and experience consequences that fast-forward them through the learning curve of “what is it like to work here?”

2. Impression – We never get tired of hearing participants in the onboarding programs we create use words and phrases like: “Wow” or “I’ve worked at a lot of companies and have never experienced something like this…” or “This really demonstrates a commitment to employees that I’m excited about.” Blueline and Booz Allen have had the pleasure of being awash in these comments every time this program is run.

3. Engagement and fun – Koosh balls and Lincoln Logs may equal fun in some training experiences, but to what end? Booz Allen new hires represent some of the most experienced and intelligent former military, corporate and government talent in the world. Blueline’s definition of fun in this, and frankly, all of our efforts, is much more sophisticated. In Booz Allen’s onboarding program participants debate ideas (that’s fun for geniuses), compete (of course), and explore information (root cause analysis anyone?) in ways that keep them wanting more.

Teams move along a “game of life”-type visual; making decisions based on knowledge they acquire in experiential activities. Decisions affect consequences that earn or lose “chips.” These chips amount to points accumulated against three key dimensions that represent real-world success at Booz Allen. Events intervene, setbacks occur and promotions and accolades accumulate. We have to practically force them to take breaks!

4. A Culture Focus – There are few corporate cultures we have encountered as diverse and inclusive as Booz Allen Hamilton’s. An administrative new hire from Mumbai may be seated in the onboarding classroom next to a former full-bird Colonel. Blueline and Booz Allen collaborated intently to be sure this experience represents and includes the myriad of roles and textures that make up the Booz Allen organization. The Blueline Blueprint learning visual grounds each new-hire in the cultural foundation of the organization, then allows every participant to find him or herself in a character or a role represented in the simulation.

Stay tuned for the “rest of the story.” In our next blog we’ll share what has happened at Booz Allen since our intervention and where Blueline is going next in this dynamic onboarding space.

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Last week, I made the pilgrimage to Jonesborough, Tennessee. This postcard-perfect town boasts unbelievable views of the Smoky Mountains, but is famous around the world for another reason: it is the home of the International Storytelling Center.

Every October, more than 10,000 storytellers and story lovers from all over the world descend on Jonesborough for one common purpose: to hear and to share stories.

It’s the biggest storytelling event in the world, and its subject matter is as diverse as its audience.  Family stories. Historical stories. Ghost stories. Funny stories. It seems that all you need is a stage, a microphone, and an audience… and the opportunities to engage through stories are endless.

What does this have to do with organizational learning? Quite a bit, it turns out.

Today, more and more organizational practitioners are asking questions about the use of stories to engage their people and their marketplaces. That was the subject of my presentation, which was titled “The Stories We Create:  Narrative and Engagement in Organizations.”

Many organizational leaders have personally experienced the unique power that stories have to engage and create a shared experience and new behaviors… often without the defensiveness and resistance that accompany most linear and expository organizational communications. (For a thorough exploration of the topic, check out the rich body of work by former WorldBank Executive, Stephen Denning.)

Now imagine that you could capture the most powerful narratives in your organization in a form that is fully replicable, scalable, and engineered to create engagement and behavioral change.

That’s the idea of a Blueline Blueprint…

Here’s the idea. You begin with an organizational need: say, to mobilize activity around a key change initiative; or to make the organization’s mission and values come alive for a new employee. (Those are just examples. What is the pressing need that requires action in your organization?)

Next, the learning and change experts at Blueline Simulations work with you to create a table-sized visual that is rich in metaphors, stories, and quantitative information.

The power happens when your people pull up a few seats around the Blueline Blueprint. They explore the stories, analyze the data, and link the information to their own experience. They begin to link their own stories to the need of the organization. Action and behavior change emerge fluidly and organically.

These are the same activities that have built communities around millions of campfires over the centuries… only here they are applied strategically to create engagement around your strategic need.

The best way to experience a Blueline Blueprint … is, well, to experience it. Give us a call at Blueline Simulations. Tell us the story of your organization… where it is today, and where you would like for it to be.

Then let’s work together to create a new narrative; one that is about meaningful work, engaged people, and marketplace success.

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Our story begins with a classroom and an overhead transparency projector.

In its nascent years, corporate training was filled with the promise of alignment and change as employees were removed from the shop floor, herded into the conference room, and encouraged to scribble notes while a subject matter expert delivered information that had been deemed strategically important. Learning was largely transactional — a one-way transfer of information with learners situated permanently on the receiving end. (As for PowerPoint gosh, don’t get me started. Let’s just say the technology has only ensured that the transactional model stayed in place long past its expiration date.)

Then came the age of the knowledge worker, and organizational learning took on a different flavor. Awakened from their classroom-induced hypnosis, practitioners recalled how they learned to ride their bikes at the age of 8 (no PowerPoints!) and wondered why the same idea couldn’t be brought to the front lines of work. Many firms (including your friends here at Blueline Simulations) were intrigued by the possibility of the “discovery rich learning environment.” Using learning technologies such as immersive simulation, learning visuals, Socratic dialogue, and narrative, learners drew from their own experience and knowledge to generate awareness, insight and behavior change. This rich age of constructivist learning persists today, and firms such as Blueline Simulations continue to explore whole-brained technologies (such as our popular Learning Blueprints) to create engagement, connection, and meaning. The constructivist age of corporate learning is still young, and we’ve just barely scratched the surface.

Then, with a mouse click heard round the world, web-enabled technologies emerged and learning changed yet again. Why are we spending all of this money to fly everyone here to HQ?  Just look how much it is costing us to take our people off of the shop floor!

Sure, the early promise of e-learning was accompanied by a certain amount of disillusionment. (Click: Answer the question. Click: Advance to the next screen. Repeat.) But just as classroom designs evolved from transactional to constructivist, so did elearning.

And as the learning industry generated more and more great ideas for exercising the technology well, some new awarenesses began to spread within the organization: that perhaps it was time to end the artificial separation between doing the work and learning how to do the work; and that learning can and should be delivered at the exact moment of need.

The constructivist era has evolved into the age of integrated learning. This has spawned a broad range of performance support innovations.

In my next post I’ll look at some new ideas for delivering integrated learning — mission-critical training at the point of greatest learning impact: at the moment of need.

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Finding the right employee to match the needs of an organization is a huge investment. Businesses spend a significant amount of money on recruiting, testing and negotiating with potential candidates to fill open positions. So after spending so much time, effort and money finding the right person, how can they ensure that the new hire’s experience is as beneficial as it can be for both the employee and the employer? Onboarding plays a critical role in the answer to this question.

The argument has been made that each new hire brings their own motivations, work ethic and eagerness to contribute with them when they join an organization. And they do. But the impact that a powerful onboarding experience, that welcomes a new hire into the fold and says “this place really cares about you and the contributions that you will making and we hope that our relationship together will be long and productive” can be game changing. When working with our clients on these types of robust onboarding efforts, we often hear comments from participants about how impressed they are that a company would invest so much time on them as a new hire to learn about the company, and how helpful the experience was as a springboard into the job.

Learning Blueprints‘ (visuals) play a significant role in an engaging onboarding experience and provide an avenue for a fun way to transfer knowledge, and for new hires to explore an organization. The story told by these visuals helps the new hire see how they fit into the strategic direction of the organization, and can generate excitement about how they can contribute. Blueline Blueprints‘ help to bridge the gap between being an outsider and belonging, They also confirm that the decision to join the company was the right choice!  A new hire can connect immediately to the organization and be proud of what they joined. And, informed new hires can be more productive in their first 30, 60, 90 days of hire than uninformed new hires.

If your company’s onboarding philosophy is “let them learn by observing or asking others’ the information being conveyed may not be what senior leadership desires. The onboarding process can be formalized but fun. Learning Blueprints’ and the activities around them, involve a lot of learning and thinking, and the discussion and stories allow participants to learn from each other – not just from the talking head at the front of the room. Incorporating different methodologies also shows the creativity of the organization – even if the organization is technical in nature.

Learning Blueprints’ increase retention, bring fun to the learning process, allow stories to be told that can include past, present and future, and help the new hire see where they fit into it all. What better way to welcome the new hire!

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Your organization has much to contend with – uncertainty in the marketplace, changing customer behaviors, new technology, and employees that have disengaged.  That’s right – DISENGAGED.  The broad employee population may be thankful to have a job, but let’s face it, their focus has been challenged by the worst recession in three generations.  In fact, research consistently shows that when employees are uncertain about the organization’s future, their productivity suffers. A lot of time and energy is lost as people discuss and worry about “what could happen.”

Active learning techniques such as simulations or learning visuals have been proven to engage more effectively than any other training medium.  Now may be the time to refocus and reengage your workforce with one of these custom training solutions.  Imagine the competitive advantage you could enjoy if all of your employees were focused on the critical success factors that your leadership has identified as the keys to achieving plan this year.

Many of our clients have enjoyed tremendous productivity boosts by utilizing our learning visuals (Blueline Blueprints) to facilitate their employee’s personal connection to the business imperative – why it matters, why it must happen now, the role that each of them must play, and the benefits to them collectively and individually.

In one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, Andrew Shephard (played by Michael Douglas), in The American President, chastises Bob Rumsfeld (played by Richard Dreyfuss), saying: “we have serious problems and we need serious people Bob, and your 15 minutes of fame is up.”  Given the current economic conditions, the role of the learning leader as business advocate is more critical than ever.  In the words of Andrew Shephard, “It’s time to stand up and support the business, the time for nice to haves is over.”  If you are ready to lead, a custom simulation or learning visual may very well be the answer.

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