Content about Dan Cooper

March 23, 2012
A Rant on Big Meetings

Traditional big meetings are the ultimate lose-lose. The organization spends tons of money and yet has little to show for it. Why? Because the entire focus is on the content and not on the attendees. All that matters is what’s being shown versus what’s being learned.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

A special piece of the classroom experience is a standard ritual in organizations—the traditional “big meeting.”

A front-line Marketing specialist attended the annual two-day sales extravaganza. The meeting consisted of a steady stream of product manager presentations for full eight-hour days, with a 15-minute break in the morning and afternoon.

February 28, 2012
Core Competencies: Setting Training Up for Failure?

Letting the Training department assume responsibility for core competencies sets you up for failure. You’re not in a position to implement organizational strategies. What you can do is provide a direct link between the core competencies your organization has chosen and your department’s specific training offerings in terms of employee competence.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

When it comes to training, the “competence” word gets thrown around a lot. The assumption is that everyone knows what it means, but that often isn’t the case. You need to make sure you know which of two definitions you’re talking about, and what the training department is signing up for.

Core Competence

January 30, 2012
Flipping the Classroom at Work

In a flipped classroom at work, lectures are delivered outside of class via online video, and classroom time with teachers is used to do homework and work through any difficulties.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

One of the standard creativity techniques is “reversal.” This is where you take some established idea, suggest the exact opposite, and then see what the potential benefits might be. It’s exactly what educators are doing with one of the most fundamental assumptions of classroom teaching.

December 29, 2011
Training as a Strategic Advantage

Everybody talks about time-to-market of products and services. It’s a B-school staple. But there’s another angle to agility: Training departments must provide a strategic competitive advantage in the time to market of information and skills.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

It was an impressive example of out-executing a competitor. On a Thursday, a distributor for a major consumer goods company found out a competitor was going to roll out a new product to grocery stores over two weeks starting the following Monday. The competitor was offering to buy an end-aisle display, and in return wanted the retailer to discount the new product 30 cents below cost. The competitor’s message was that the retailer would still profit from “market basket add-on” because of the draw of the product on sale.

November 29, 2011
What’s Your Refresh Learning Strategy?

Ask a training professional about a certain skill set for employees and you’ll often hear something like, “Oh, we trained them on that two years ago.” The built-in assumption is, once you train employees on a topic, they’ve mastered it forever. But you can’t expect your learners to remember the six buying influences after seeing them once and never hearing them mentioned again. There needs to be a training vehicle to remind them of what they learned and reinforce its usage on the job.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

Ask a training professional about a certain skill set for employees and you’ll often hear something like, “Oh, we trained them on that two years ago.” The built-in assumption is, once you train employees on a topic, they’ve mastered it forever.

October 27, 2011
Training Fact or Myth?

In doing research on the effectiveness of video-based e-learning media, I ran across some useful facts that are commonly quoted on the Internet. But after digging a bit deeper, it turned out many of those facts are not true or were misrepresented. So as a trainer, how do you make sure you’re using the right information for your organization?

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

In doing research on the effectiveness of video-based e-learning media, I ran across some useful facts that are commonly quoted on the Internet: