Greetings!

In this Issue:

• Training Magazines' 2006 Solutions Winner "ASPCA" Low-Cost Training Solutions for PPT to WBT
• PowerPoint to Web-based Training Best Practices
• Empowering Your Organization With PPT e-Learning

What does the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals (ASPCA), IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Capital One, Xerox, Kaiser Permanente, Healthways, Inc., Reuters Business Division and Capella University have in common? Each is being honored with a Best Practices Award at Training Magazine's Training Solutions Conference and Expo 2006 in Denver Colorado October 23rd. When the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was looking for cost effective ways to train officers in safety issues and keep them up to date on the latest animal cruelty statutes, they turned to ASK International for help. "One of our greatest challenges was figuring out a web-based solution that was affordable, easy to update and supported ASPCA's training team maintenance", states Dr. Eric Parks, President/CEO of ASK International.... Learn more

The good news is PowerPoint is easy to use. The bad news is PowerPoint is so easy to use you can end up making revision after revision after revision, etc. Most web-based training development cycles include a storyboard review, a programming phase, alpha/beta review and final release. When developing with PowerPoint you typically collapse the storyboarding and programming phases into one. This saves time but makes it so easy to add new content the program can often exceed course length and/or go through many extra revision cycles. The award winning America Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) program was originally targeted as a 2-hour web-based training course but it ended up being 3 hours. The best solutions to control for lengthy revision cycles are.... Learn more

I was scheduled to speak at a Online Learning conference in Los Angeles in the worst possible time slot… the last hour of the event. The expo hall was closed at 2:00 pm, people were leaving to catch their shuttles to the airport and I was scheduled to speak from 3:15 to 4:15 pm along with a dozen other presenters. Speakers call this the Siberia of speaking slots, a typically cold, barren place where 5-6 attendees is considered a crowd. To say the least I didn't expect many attendees to stick around so late in the day. As I set up my computer 15 minutes before my presentation, only a few people sat in the large room with seating for 60. I felt relieved that a few people were there… at least I wouldn't be speaking to an empty room. As each minute passed people streamed into the room, 10 minutes later all 60 seats were filled. I was stunned. There was standing room only. I would like to think it was my charismatic speaking style but I have been assigned to the Siberia slot before and never attracted more then 5-6 attendees… So why was this presentation so important? What attracted so many people to attend? ... Learn more