Toronto, Canada. May 01st, 2017: MindMuze, a Canadian learning innovations company, and CommLab India, a global technology-enabled learning solutions provider have now joined forces! This collaboration will prove greatly beneficial for corporate learning in Canada by offering industry-leading learning design and rapid course development services.
 
Established in 2006, MindMuze is a pioneer in developing electronic performance support systems (EPSS), to improve the time to productivity of employees. The company works with some of the largest corporate organizations in Canada such as Loblaw, Harry Rosen, Cara, and Service Inspired Restaurants.
 
CommLab India has been delivering custom e-learning solutions to 100+ delighted organizations in 30+ countries, since 2000. With customer delight as its main focus, CommLab leverages its large, talented design and production workforce to offer rapid development solutions, as well as translation and location services, at a very attractive price point.
 
Working in tandem, CommLab's highly skilled and experienced development team and MindMuze's global project management expertise will offer Canadian corporations and organizations premiere digital learning content development and mobile conversion services.
 
“We are extremely proud to be associated with CommLab India and hope our individual strengths will drive the partnership to great results in enhancing the quality of training in Canada”, said John Towsley, CEO of MindMuze.
 

About CommLab India
 
CommLab India is a global e-learning company that has been providing custom learning solutions to more than 100 organizations in 30+ countries for the last 17 years. Its learning solutions include e-learning course development, m-learning solutions, translation of online courses and hosting and managing of training materials on LMS.
 
CommLab India helps organizations achieve their business goals through just-in-time product knowledge training, ERP implementation trainings, compliance training programs and much more.

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About MindMuze

Established in 2006, MindMuze is a pioneer in developing electronic performance support systems (EPSS), to improve the time to productivity of employees. The company works with some of the largest corporate organizations in Canada and is focused on assisting organizations in staying current with innovative education technology strategies and solutions. 

MindMuze is a network of partnerships between world-class software providers, subject matter experts, instructional designers, creative directors, developers and project managers – all of whom share the same vision for creating powerful learning experiences, primarily at the moment of need.  MindMuze values never-ending improvement in all that they do and win-win relationships with all of their partners. 

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Submitted by John Towsley, Founder, MindMuze


One of the fundamental decisions to be made when implementing Electronic Performance Support (EPSS) revolves around content. Should your organization publish content specifically purposed for EPSS? Or, can and should you use what already exists?

Most organizations have existing content created to support employees in their roles. This may be in the form of vendor documentation, help files, system simulations, quick reference cards, eLearning and more.  The content naturally is saved in a myriad of formats, from MSWord docs to Adobe Flash files and everything in between. It is usually stored in an equal or greater number of storage devices and locations from SharePoint servers to Content Management Systems, Learning Management Systems, Social Media sites, Shared Drives and yes even user’s local workstations!

So, should you publish new content specifically for EPSS or leverage what you have? The answer is YES!

Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher of Applysynergies (www.applysynergies.com) espouse a “two clicks and ten seconds” principle for learners to access EPSS content.  I wouldn’t argue that, especially since it is based on solid research.  The question is "two clicks and ten seconds" to access what?

Well, they further put forward that the content should be contextual, and just-enough. So how does this inform your decision? I finally got my mind around it through a basic understanding of DITA (Darwin Information Technology Architecture) model. Wikipedia is a good place to start. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture )

This stuff can get pretty heady and complex but I found for EPSS beginners the basic construct of: Task, Concept, and Reference goes a long way in helping to solve the content publishing dilemma.

If you really get into it check out http://dita.xml.org/ or Chris Benz 2010 article in learning solutions, http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/524/what-is-dita-and-why-should-you-care .

Simply put, you will want to seriously consider reworking and republishing content at the task and concept levels. You can focus on the high impact content that employees will most frequently search for to perform their jobs. In "two clicks and ten seconds" they will want you to point them to the steps and give them the option for a quick explanation. Your content may not be readily available in that format but it won’t be too time consuming or expensive to create it for the most important tasks.

So what about all that other great content? Well, that is where Bob Mosher’s concept of Content Brokering comes in, as does the DITA Reference topic type. We can make employees aware of all the other great content, like system simulations, documentation, videos and the like through the EPSS interface. Ideally this is done without the need to exit the workflow (meaning, it is embedded).

Voila! Publish or new content or use existing content? The answer is YES!

Which vendor has the best solution? The answer to that question is simple. It depends..

Watch the blog space for an exploration of different technology approaches and their pros and cons. Suffice it to say at MindMuze while we do represent vendor solutions we act more like and insurance broker than a company agent, providing the best advice to our clients based on their situation. 

Submitted by John Towsley, Founder, MindMuze


The learning community has been talking about Performance Support and specifically Electronic Performance Support for many years. Over the past decade a number of organizations have been creating solutions for EPSS and working with “Early Adopters” to implement and drive benefits to corporations. Many if not most of these implementations have been with large multinational corporations who have a business need and the budget to drive ROI from an EPSS implementation.

In the past few years I have seen and fairly dramatic increase in the number of vendors offering EPSS solutions. As expected we are also now starting to see more affordable “entry” level software offerings.

This is what we expect to see as markets develop and emerge in any software category and it is good news for organizations looking to decrease training costs and decrease the time to productivity for their employees.

The eLearning Guild www.elearningguild.com is once again co hosting the Performance Support Symposium with their MLearn conference. www.elearningguild.com/mLearnCon This year it takes place in Austin June 12-14.  According to Bob Mosher of Applysynergies www.applysynergies.com the attendance could be “ten fold” previous years”.

Speaking of Bob Mosher, he and Dr. Conrad Gottfredson continue to provide excellent thought leadership in this field. If you are not already a member of their Performersupport community email me at john.towsley@mindmuze.com and I’ll arrange an invitation to join.

Over the coming weeks and months watch this blog space for details on the, pros and cons of different technology approaches to EPSS.

By: Admin

This six part webcast series has been designed to offer a high level overview of learning strategy and delivery. Each webcast is designed with practical take-aways and relevant examples. 

The focus is on how to apply Blended and eLearning best practices within your organization, team, or individual practice. This series aims to breakdown and illuminate Instructional Design and its practical application at the high level.

Part 6. Instructional Design Best Practices & Tips

Key Learnings: 
* Top 10 practical things you need to consider when creating learning
* Initial
* During 
* Post implementation

By: Admin

Missed our webcast this week? No problem!

View the recorded version on demand below.

By: Admin

Missed our webcast this week? No problem!

View the recorded version on demand below.

By: Admin

Missed our webcast this week? No problem!

View the recorded version on demand below.

By: Admin

This six part webcast series has been designed to offer a high level overview of learning strategy and delivery. Each webcast is designed with practical take-aways and relevant examples. The focus is on how to apply Blended and eLearning best practices within your organization, team, or individual practice. This series aims to breakdown and illuminate Instructional Design and its practical application at the high level.

Part 2. Blended Learning Strategy.

Key Learnings: 
•  Blended Learning Strategy – High Level 
•  Blended Learning Strategy – Detailed 
•  Learning Governance 
•  Learning Management 
•  Objective Management 
•  Learning Delivery

By: Admin

This six part webcast series has been designed to offer a high level overview of learning strategy and delivery. Each webcast is designed with practical take-aways and relevant examples. The focus is on how to apply Blended and eLearning best practices within your organization, team, or individual practice. This series aims to breakdown and illuminate Instructional Design and its practical application at the high level.
Part 1 Introduction to Competencies

Key Learnings: 
•  Understand what competencies and competency mapping are. 
•  Learn the benefits of deploying competency mapping 
•  Learn development processes that identify gaps and deliver training

By: Admin

Can a small or medium sized business really produce a high quality course with just an online tool? The answer is yes!  Join us as we discuss a real life case study on how an Industry expert took his Beer (yes beer) certification course online, all by his lonesome.

A 45 minute online discussion between eLearning industry professionals with no sales agenda.