ASTD President and CEO Tony Bingham, and long-time workplace educator and business writer Marcia Conner, are collaborating on a new book to be released in Spring 2010 that examines the use of social media for learning. The book will present stories and case studies of companies using social media effectively. Bingham is inviting members to collaborate on this project by sending their stories and ideas for case studies.

YOU CAN HELP! Is your organization using social software for learning? Are they thinking about it? What questions would you like answered in this book? Email your ideas or background about your organization’s use of social media in learning to press@astd.org and help Tony and Marcia make this a book as powerful as possible. Be sure to include your contact information so the writers can get in touch with you for more details.

Tags: international, book, social media

Categories: International

Women have come a long way in the workplace, helped by legislation and the recognition by many companies that diversity and gender is something they should "get." But diversity's move into the mainstream corporate world has its disadvantages. It can make more subtle discrimination harder to spot and tougher to deal with.

And news about gender often tells a different story to the happy corporate spin about progress for women at work.

News outlets reported on Monday for example that two guardians of Britain's historic Tower of London have been suspended after the first woman warden or "Beefeater" in the Tower's 524-year history accused them of harassment. "If you talk today to people in the workplace they construct the workplace as gender neutral," said Elisabeth Kelan, author of a new book, "Performing Gender at Work."

"They assume that gender no longer matters in 2009 because the issue has long been solved."

Kelan calls this phenomenon "gender fatigue," which she says will make it more challenging to tackle the discrimination that still happens in the workplace but in more subtle ways.

"Gender fatigue actually refers to the phenomenon that people lack the energy to construct the workplace again and again as gender neutral despite the fact that discrimination continues to exist."

Read the full article.

Tags: london, gender issues, workplace, diversity

Categories: International | News

(From AllAfrica.com) Accra — Mining giant AngloGold Ashanti has admitted first time since its operation in Ghana that it had not been good listeners with respect to its business culture, traditions and way of doing business in the country.

"We have previously made the mistake of underestimating local skills, while not looking to support our high level skills with the appropriate global operating and technical skills.

The net impact is we have too many expatriate working in areas where local Ghanaians should have the requisite skills and we are short where we see very specific global technical skill requirements," said Group Chief Executive of AngloGold, Mark Cutifani.

Cutifani was delivering the first in the series of annual AngloGold Ashanti Lectures on Business in Africa at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Cutifani noted that it was imperative for governments and its local partners to consider as a priority area, an investment in local needs and allocate capital to help support the infrastructural development in those areas of investments.

"When governments look to partnering us in investments we must first understand what the local needs are, and allocate capital to help support the infrastructural development within those areas and also do more for the development of new industries that can live beyond mining."

Read more.

Tags: ghana, africa, skills, development, public sector

Categories: International | News

(From the Daily Mail) A number of major firms have banned employees from accessing Twitter, after it emerged that time wasted on social networking websites was costing businesses £1.38billion each year.

A survey published today found that 57 per cent of workers use sites such as Facebook and Twitter during office hours, spending an average of 40 minutes a week posting messages and sending 'tweets'.

The social networking sites have already been banned by many large firms and some City banks.

Tags: uk, social networking, web 2.0

Categories: International | News

(From thegovmonitor.com) The Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, today announced that all apprenticeships and vocational education training packages will be reviewed to ensure that they include relevant green skills by March next year, and that all courses will be revised to include the new green skills by the end of 2010.

Read the entire article.

Tags: training, business news, australia, green, green training

Categories: International | News

PETALING JAYA, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- Australia's Victoria state government is willing to assist and exchange experiences with Malaysia in the area of skills and vocational training.

State minister for regional and rural development, skills and workforce participation Jacinta Allan said, among the areas could be in teacher training, co-curiculum development and quality and regulations.

"There is the opportunity to share ideas, materials and learning," she told Bernama after delivering a lecture, 'Woman in High Office', at the Monash University, Sunway Campus here on Wednesday.

She arrived in Malaysia yesterday for a two-day working visit where she held discussions with officials of the higher education ministry and ministry of rural and regional development.

Read the entire article.

Tags: training, business news, australia, malaysia

Categories: International | News

LAST month, Kevin Rudd made a speech, which although not heavily reported, set the government a significant objective and will form an important marker for its success.

In an address to the Australia New Zealand School of Government, he set out his ambition to reinvigorate the public service to be more effective and efficient. This does not sound too sexy, but given the public sector accounts for more than 40per cent of the domestic economy, reform is vital. What is more, in many areas the public sector is in serious need of improvement.

The Prime Minister said: "We need a more sweeping reform driven by a long-range blueprint for a world class, 21st century public service." He also established an advisory panel to develop such a plan.

Whatever the plan, it is vital that public sector reform is not left entirely to the public sector. Business should take it seriously and attempt to shape this reform. Like any large organisation, the public sector is difficult to change and therefore needs all the insights and pressure that can be marshalled.

Read the full article.

Tags: innovation, talent management, strategy, public sector, private sector

Categories: International | News

(PRWeb UK/PRWEB) -- The Core Metric: The Executive Committee

Recent studies have drawn attention to the lack of gender balance on boards. Now, the consultancy 20-first has launched the WOMENOMICS 101 Survey to shine a light on the most senior executive teams in the top 101 companies in three key regions of the globe. "This survey invites you to look deeper into companies, and to use metrics that distinguish those serious about gender balance from the rest. That's what WOMENOMICS 101 proposes to do," says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, author, and publisher of the new annual survey.

Key Findings:
US Leads: The US is ahead in this survey, with 89% of companies having at least one woman on their Executive Committee. The American companies with the highest number of women on their executive boards are: Kraft Foods, WellPoint, Macy's, Allstate, Pfizer, and Wells Fargo.

Read the full article.

Tags: gender issues, executives, trends

Categories: International | News | Research

I recently returned from a trip to Europe, so I’d like to share with you a brief update. In September I participated in the launch event for our new international partner in the UK, The Learning Sanctuary. I also visited our international partners and members in Ireland and the Netherlands.  I appreciated the exchange of ideas with local practitioners and gained valuable insight into local learning communities and current challenges.

The next trip is scheduled for Denmark, so I hope to share more information with you upon my return.

For upcoming events, please visit the international events calendar.

http://www.astd.org/membership/international/internationalEvents.htm

Tags: international, europe, training, uk, members

Categories: International

phrases, today's managers have to keep learning continuously, not only from their jobs but also through formal pedagogy. This is where the role of executive management programmes steps in.

Several new institutes and organisations cater to the rising demand of training of executives, as opposed to predominantly fresh graduates that enroll into B-schools. And, the enrolment numbers at executive education programmes is only going higher by the day. Take for example NIIT Imperia, which was set up in the year 2006 to address the demand for executive training.

Now, has a presence in 8 cities; and it has aggressive plans to be present in 75 cities by 2010! Other than the big players like IIMs and ISB, many other organisations and institutes like HughesNet Global Education, Apeejay School of Management, IGNOU, Reliance Webworld, NIS Sparta, 24 x 7 Learning and U21 Global are growing rapidly too, and are offering various executive education programmes.

Read the full article.

Tags: india, executives, education, management, globalization

Categories: International | News