Customers or staff - who comes first? Trainee excuses, Designing and using quizzes & crosswords, Energy in training, 9 tasks for manager-leaders, Tips for demonstrating software...

_____________________

Fast Company reports that Marriott is making training shorter and faster:

Marriott International decided it had to change its approach to training in recognition of millennials' multisensory, rapid-fire style of information consumption. "They have exacerbated the need for brevity--on-demand, short sound bites," says Michelle Lapierre, a baby boomer who helps run Marriott's global salesforce of 415 people across 70 countries. She's now developing bite-size "edutainment" training podcasts so workers can download information to their cell phones, laptops, and iPods as they need it.

_____________________

Who is more important - the customer or the employee? A nice conundrum to chew on in a training session, and a chance to slip in discussion about 'internal customers'. See the debate at http://tinyurl.com/qjroz for a good range of opinions.

_____________________

We accepted the excuse of the two trainees that there had been 'an emergency at work' and they had to leave, but when we packed up later, this note was found where they were sitting - busted!

_____________________

And One More Thing... If you're a mac user you know about Steve Jobs, head of Apple. If not, you've probably still heard of him as a great presenter. Carmine Gallo analyses his methods and notes his now-famous final clincher:

At the end of each presentation Jobs adds to the drama by saying, "and one more thing." He then adds a new product, new feature, or sometimes introduces a band. He approaches each presentation as an event, a production with a strong opening, product demonstrations in the middle, a strong conclusion, and an encore -- that "one more thing!"

_____________________

Quizzes & crosswords

Q&A Interesting software for producing Quizzes and Crosswords - print them out or publish online.

_____________________

Energise your training

A great bunch of ideas and tips on how to add more power and energy into training. From Katie Mangett who presented recently at the CHART conference.

_____________________

Nine tasks for manager-leaders

A good article, and the bonus is the three action steps at the end:

Step 1: Review the nine tasks and determine which one or two tasks would, if focused on, increase your effectiveness as a manager-leader.
Step 2: Describe the current state (what's not happening), and then describe the desired state (what outcome you want).
Step 3: Write three measurable actions that you will take to get the results you want.

_____________________

Tips for training/demonstrating software

Excellent advice here at Marketing Sherpa on how to 'sell' software. That's actually what you have to do if you want software to be used by chefs, front office, wherever...if they don't 'buy' the benefits it won't get used!