Desert Wave Enterprises
PO Box 2361
Alice Springs NT 0871
Australia
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Dear [firstname]

Here is the latest edition of HRD Alert! to which you subscribed.

If you have trouble reading this, an online copy is available here. You can load it into your browser or save and read it off line.

With the Silly Season almost upon us, the next issue will be the last HRD Alert! for 2003. The first issue in 2004 will be sent at the end of January. Remember when we were all counting down to 2000 - when the world was supposed to end or at least be disrupted by the Year 2K software problems? Seems like just yesterday doesn't it?

Next year I intend to add value to this newsletter by arranging some special deals with suppliers of relevant goods and services. Keep your eye on the left column. If you know of anyone with something useful to offer a training target audience, please let me know.

On the home front, during the past fortnight I've had my grandson Tory stay a few days with me as he had chicken pox and my daughter couldn't send him to child care. There was noone else to look after him, so he arrived at 8 am and left around 5.30 for three days. He's a high maintenance little guy and apart from the fact that he ran me ragged, I'm astonished at how much he has learnt in such a short time. He loves buttons, but hasn't reset my PC now for a while. He can insert and extract a floppy disk in my Dell and even gets the disk the right side up. At his age, we learn by watching others and his powers of observation seem keener than I've ever known.

As an educator, I wish we could somehow retain the level of interest and information absorption of the young well into our thirties ... or later. But alas, by the time they've spent a year or two at school much of the keenness has gone. Why is that? Well, I guess I could fill a book with ideas about why, but today's not the time to do that.

The first topic this edition discusses the new mode of communicating which seems to be evolving ... quick, short communicating in the main. But I'll let you visit those topics and the Worth a Look topics yourself. No point in over doing it eh?

Until next time, yours in HRD

Robin Henry
Principal Adviser

Communicating and the New Technology
With the advent of email and the Internet, a new way of communicating is slowly evolving. This is leading to different styles of verbal and written communication and will become the business/community norm within a decade. It will impact on training. More ...

Making a Buck from Presenting
If you know something about training and can present fairly well, you'll never be short of a dollar. If you happen to be famous - or even infamous - you can do very well. People are hungry for information. You have information. You can sell it to crowds who will happily pay to hear what you have to say. More ...

National Skills Report Released
The Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) recently released the National Skills Report. The report discusses the 'drivers of industry skills needs' and, among other things provides some findings that will help you decide where you should be heading in terms of your professional development or from a business point of view. Even non-Australian readers will find trends being paralleled in their own countries. More ...

Worth A Look
Several sites that are worth visiting include the Global Education Network site, Thinking Edge and Training Cafe, all of which have something to offer the busy HRD bod. Oh, and there's an up to 50% reduction in CCH books that you can check out at the CCH site. More ...

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Imagine this scenario. Wife and husband arrive home from work and the following conversation takes place:

Husband: 'Hello darling, how was your day?'
'Not bad ... do you want to hear about it?'
'Um, give me the brief, hypertext version ... I've got to get ready for golf.'
'Okay. There are just three things worth reporting:

1. I had a wonderful delivery ... young mother had a baby girl
2. The accounting office called about my leave pay
3. I got a quote for my new sewing machine'

'Great. Tell me if your leave pay is enough for you to buy me a golf buggy for Christmas?'

Is this the way of the future? Are we becoming so busy that to save time we'll eliminate unnecessary chatter, list topics up front and then select those topics we want to discuss. Our writing is certainly becoming that way. Perhaps it's an exaggeration to say it may become similar for the oral word, but we are seeing differences in written communication. These, and the expectations they create will have an impact on how we train.

While the opportunities to change the way we communicate are limited, I believe writing will change in the following ways:

• It will become less personal and friendly and stick strictly to the content (we're all in a hurry and haven't got time to write or read waffle)
• The flipped triangular method used by journalists writing for news media will become the norm, especially for business writing
• Some of the written methods will flow into verbal communication
• More shorthand/shortforms will be used with hyperlinks
• We will use fewer words and alternatives will fall out of favour

Why do I believe this? I believe I can see it happening. The new technology has created an 'instant satisfaction' mentality. We buy over the Internet and receive electronic goods immediately; we click on a link and an autoresponder delivers an email ... perhaps with an attachment. The pace is quickening. We have short relationships, fast food, same day service, do-it-yourself this and that.

We demand things NOW! We receive so much information that we have to discriminate ... which emails will we delete and which will we read? It it doesn't get our attention fast, it's dead!

Education and learning need to meet this demand for instant satisfaction. Just-in-time learning and training are everywhere. No longer do people want to store large quantities of facts and figures ... they want to know where to get the information when they need it: 'Just-in-time-information'. The Internet's perfect for it.

Have you started to adjust YOUR writing for the new technology?

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The world - at least from where I see it, is full of people who either tell their story or tell you how to do something for money. For example, recently I attended a combined breakfast and talk by a young, personable (and pleasantly attractive) lady who told the story of how she had gone from rags to riches in a home-based-business. Until I signed up to hear her story, I had never heard of her, her firm, or her product. Thirty-five to 40 other people were also interested enough to hear what she had to say that they paid $15 per head. Not much risk in a $15 fee when breakfast is thrown in.

All of us have information and experience that is unique. You don't have to be a Bill Clinton with high-flying stories of presidency and oral sex that wasn't really sex, to earn an income, although it helps. There are dozens of less notorious people earning a good income on the presentation circuit. True, it's easier if you are tall, dark and handsome if male or lean, shapely and stunning if a woman. But don't let your physical attributes deter you - there are many 'ordinary' people on the presentation circuit doing very well thank you.

What you have to do is find a topic of interest that lends itself to a mix of humour and seriousness; 'How to Make Your Marriage Last X Years or More', 'Being a Successful Marketer', 'Keeping Your Kids Off Drugs', 'Making a Fortune from Affiliate Programs', 'Creative Communication' and so on. I'm sure you can think of a few.

Next, chase up some sayings and jokes that fit your topic. Put your presentation together and test it. Buy some nice clothes. Get your hair and finger nails done. Buy some nice jewellery - after all, if you are preaching success, you need to look successful.

People are keen to hear what others have to say and they'll pay. Pick an interesting or unusual topic, choose a town which has few presentations, advertise widely, accept money up front and bingo!  All you need then is a slick presentation and after a while people will be begging you to speak at their venue. You can make even more money if you have something to sell while your audience is excited - books, tapes, subscriptions etc. It can be a handsome money earner.

If you aren't brimming with confidence, attend one of these motivational presentations some day and, If I'm right, by the end of it you will be saying to yourself, 'I could have done that'.

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ANTA released it's first National Skills Report in September 2003. The report, the first   released, sets the standard for what will be annual reports intended to ensure demand/supply equilibrium in Australian business and industry.

Working through The National Industry Skills Forum, key trends and issues will be identified to inform our Vocational, Educational and Training system what is required. Additionally, school leavers and others will be able to gauge which jobs are going to provide them with an income or best career options.

If the forum works, there will be fewer shortages of skilled people in areas such as nursing, construction, retailing, and teaching. This initial report highlights the changing mix of Australian society and the impact it will have on skills, training and employment in the next two decades. Job growth, now around 3% per annum will slow over the next decade. Specifically, the ageing population, mass retirement of the Baby Boomer Generation, and falling numbers of young people, will mean that demand for VET will shift from having a bias for young people, to a bias for retraining older people.

According to the report, non-training issues such as the way work is organised, recruitment policy and practice, employee relations and job design will also play an important part in meeting skills shortages.

For those starting out in their careers, the report cites the legal, accounting, finance, marketing, property and business services jobs as expanding faster than the national average. The work categories to avoid are agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and energy. Business and innovation are expected to be the big winners because of the trend to outsourcing from other sectors. Good news for home-based operators.

The most stable occupations according to the report are, nursing, natural and physical sciences, plumbers, and teachers.

If you need to read more in depth, please visit the ANTA site at http://www.anta.gov.au where you can download a copy of the report in PDF format.

Global Education Network
Is a good resource for educators and training specialists, especially those involved in e-learning. There are dozens of articles written by academics and others in the industry. You can subscribe to their newsletter and receive periodical updates.
Visit the site here.

Thinking Edge™
If you are involved with sales and marketing training Thinking Edge might be of use to you with a range of topics including:

• Attention-Interest-Learn-Decide cycles
• Heading your message in front of clients
• Positioning your value
• Building your road map
  

and much more. Go here:

Training Cafe
No, it's not a place where you get cafe training ... but you already knew that didn't you? Macromedia sponsors the Training Cafe to provide resources for educators including instructional media you can download and curricula. There is a blogging link (remember Blogs from last edition?), fora and much more. If you teach computing or wish to learn something about a Macromedia product like Flash, this is the place to go. Visit here.

CCH Australia
To make room in the warehouse for their soon-to-be-released new editions, CCh is holding a summer clearance sale. Click here to receive up to 50% off selected books, CD-ROMS journals and loose-leaf titles. Sale ends 12 December 2003 (or until stocks last!) CCH tends to have expensive titles, so a reduction up to 50% may be opportune, especially if you've seen something but baulked at the price.

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