July 18, 2011

Russell Associates is excited to announce that Agribusiness Market Leader, Mark Jewell was recently selected by ASTD to speak at the Regional Conference in Minneapolis, MN, held on November 14 & 15, 2011. Mark recently completed his Master’s Degree program through Colorado State University – Global Campus. His degree program was Organizational Leadership, and his key focus was Change Management. During the ASTD Regional Conference, Mark will be presenting the topic of his Master’s Capstone Project which focuses on new ways to capture Informal Learning in the workplace.

Mark’s words on the topic:
“As I was choosing a topic for my Capstone Project, required to complete the Master’s program, I became enthralled by the statistic which states 70-80% of workplace learning happens informally. I was convinced that there must be something available with today’s technology that would help harness more of the informal knowledge transfer. What I came across were a number of communications services known as Social Business Solutions. Basically they are communications platforms that allow an organization to become more social, more connected, and more open across the organization.

Take for instance the time knowledge workers spend looking for information. A knowledge worker spends 25% of their time just looking for info – and they find it successfully only 50% of the time. That means, if on average, employees earn $56,000 per year, an employer spends $14,000 per year having employees look for information that they only find half the time. Social Business Solutions enable the organization to improve that figure dramatically.

In my talk at ASTD, I’ll be presenting some information on Social Business Solutions, but also, and perhaps more importantly a decision making model that helps organizations justify the use, and decide which solution is right for them based on culture, technology needs, and themes pulled from communications and learning theories.”

If you would like more information about Social Business Solutions you can contact Mark via email at mark.jewell@intratrain.com. To register for ASTD 2011 Regional Conference & Expo simply follow this link: http://bit.ly/astdregionalconf

We look forward to seeing you in November at ASTD Regional Conference in St. Paul, MN!