A few weeks ago, salesforce.com hosted its 9th annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, CA. As a premier event for the cloud computing and sales industries, Dreamforce brings today’s technology minds together to provide attendees with the tools and techniques they need to take their businesses to the next level. And just in case you consider conference participation an indicator, you should know that this year Dreamforce had over 45,000 attendees and 270 exhibitors.

Of course, the conference was of particular interest to us as we launched the integration of Salesforce and Blackboard with Blackboard Learn for Sales. Attendees were very excited about the news! They see this new application as a way to not only certify sales reps before they go out and sell, but also as a tool to see greater sales results through a more educated team. Read more about the benefits of Learn for Sales here.

Learning Strategies, an open-source eBook recently released by the MASIE Center, provides advice for stakeholders in today’s ever-changing professional learning environment.  Editor Nigel Paine writes that “in spite of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, learning strategies are thriving,” and the book features several case studies to highlight best practices in developing those strategies.

The authors, who are senior learning executives in global corporations and government agencies, share perspectives of how their organizations are evolving and implementing unique learning strategies.  The organizations profiled in Learning Strategies include the CIA, Waste Management, Inc., CNN, Shell, and Farmers Insurance.  As diverse as these groups are in their operations and goals, there were several key themes from the case studies that are highly relevant across the professional learning sector:

Recently, the ProEd division of Blackboard caught up with Gary Woodill, CEO and Senior Analyst at Ontario’s i5 Research and author of The Mobile Learning Edge.  With expertise in both technology forecasting and e-learning developments, Woodill shared his insights as to what’s next in social and mobile learning.

Look Under the Radar to See What’s Next Woodill explained that because technology can take time to develop and catch on, looking at prototypes and start-ups is a good way to see what is on the horizon.  “Any technology that we’ll see five years from now is already in development,” he said, adding that most people have not heard of those early-stage products yet.  However, once more people start adopting these technologies, they will reach a “tipping point” and be proliferated throughout the market. So, what corporate learning trends are near this ever-important tipping point?  According to Woodill, social and mobile learning technologies will be the next developments to change the way education occurs in the workplace.  “We are still very early in terms of mobile and social.  We’re just at the tipping point for mobile.”

Education is Going Mobile Woodill emphasized that “mobility is a radical shift,” since professional education often takes place in a static classroom setting.  Though younger employees are increasingly demanding new training technologies that move away from classroom models, “they’re coming into a workplace culture that already exists and has a structure.”  While this established culture is often resistant to change, Woodill concluded that there are progressive CEOs and managers who already understand the benefits of adopting more mobile technologies in their companies’ training protocols.

This week, Blackboard’s ProEd team will be on hand at the CLO Breakfast Club in Washington, D.C. The topic for Chief Learning Officer’s stop in the nation’s capital is Learning Innovation: Development for a Changing Environment, which will be moderated by Kimo Kippen, the Chief Learning Officer of Hilton Worldwide.

As organizations deal with a slow economic recovery, global competition, and the general challenges of keep staff engaged and growing, the topic of innovation is particularly timely.  This is because organizations often look to technology to help create a setting for their employees that embraces and encourages professional development and learning.

Please join us on Thursday, September 8, at the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City for an outstanding half-day conference put on by CLO Media. Go here to register online. Hear from industry influencers Rick Crowley of ACS, Kimo Kippen of Hilton Worldwide, Mike Prokopeak from MediaTec Publishing, and others. Hope to see you there!

Blackboard and salesforce.com have joined forces to create the ultimate integration of sales and sales training! That’s right – today we announced the launch of a cloud-based learning management solution developed specifically for corporations focused on sales training and professional development called Blackboard Learn ™ for Sales.   After all, now that you’re managing your sales in the cloud, it’s only fitting that you provide your sales training and professional development there too.

Built on the Force.com cloud platform and available via salesforce.com’s AppExchange, this application gives sales reps, business partners, and service teams a single login to enroll and complete training courses on the award winning Blackboard Learn ™ platform but within the familiar Salesforce environment.

The average sales person spends several hours per day in Salesforce – but minimal hours each month on training.  So what if you could watch your sales team reach their full potential?  With dynamic and social learning directly within Salesforce, your team will WANT to engage and learn.

You want to see a positive impact on sales growth?  We’ve got it.

•    Certify reps on new products

•    Deliver training to geographically dispersed or traveling teams

•    Create targeted courses for underperforming reps