Professional Education

Companies typically view their investments in terms of dollars and cents.   However, in the Professional Education division of Blackboard, we think about investing differently – not in terms of “cents” but in “sense.” And we believe the decision that makes most sense is for an organization to invest in its people. In a world where Return on Investment (ROI) is an integral part of the business model, we choose to focus on “Impact on Business” instead. In a white paper prepared by Tim Hill, we explore this unique method for measuring success. Click here to read the full paper.

Investing in employees can be just as rewarding as financial investments.  Employee education and training demonstrates your commitment to the learner’s career and professional development, inspiring both loyalty and success.  When done correctly, the results will point to employees’ individual growth, and your corporation’s bottom line growth.  So, is your company putting learning where it belongs? Blackboard Professional Education Overview

Companies are investing more than ever into their sales team training – more than $15.5 billion a year to be exact (according to ASTD data). But why are businesses spending all that cash on the same old training techniques? Isn’t it time for a fresh approach? ASTD characterizes this behavior as “a large investment to attain mediocre results.” Blackboard agrees. We see the value in a new way of training sales teams – and doing it more effectively with less of a cost burden on businesses. We call it continuous learning. The informal, continuous approach to learning takes content out of isolation and makes it more dynamic and fully integrated into the sales professional’s repertoire.

In a recent white paper we published, “Stop Drinking From the Firehose: Continuous Learning Offers A Better Way To Meet The Demands of Today’s Sales Training Environment,” Blackboard outlines how this new attitude toward sales training dynamically integrates both the classroom and the work environment.  Learn more about continuous learning by reading the full piece here or review some of the benefits of Blackboard as a continuous learning environment below:

In April, LIM College co-hosted Blackboard’s annual Professional & Career College Summit . This year’s theme was Student Success, and we met up with Fashion Merchandising faculty member, Nancy Miller , to talk about how she incorporates quality content into her online classroom. Watch our video interview with her below and learn some of her key suggestions for improving course content quality afterward.

A few weeks ago, I came across a book that has some interesting perspectives on informal learning. Here at Blackboard ProEd, we are all about creating blended learning environments for various audiences – whether that’s career college students, corporate employees, or military service members. The Levity Effect, written by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher, uses research and case studies to show how a new era of the casual business attitude can actually drive sales and improve results.

Today, I want to share a website by someone who is passionate about leadership, learning, enterprise 2.0, and social business (not unlike myself!). Dan Pontefract, the man behind the site “trainingwreck,” is a learning and leadership advocate who believes that the two are both a collaborative and continuous process. On his blog, he writes about the confluence of enterprise 2.0, leadership 2.0, and learning 2.0 whether that is for audiences of corporate, higher education or K-12. So is your corporate culture ready for the 2.0 world?   Take look at some of Pontefract’s ideas and you’ll see that connected, always-on learning is the key to 2.0 level success.