TTN TIDBITS

A breath of Fresh Air  -by Joel Arnold, TTNLearning

Sometimes when the air in our vehicle stales during a long trip, or if we’ve endured a truck’s billowing gray smoke seeping into our air vents, it’s always a good idea (weather permitting) to roll open the windows and let in a big dose of fresh air.

When you feel yourself or your company starting to stagnate, one of the best ways to let in a dose of fresh air is to attend a conference, workshop, or seminar. To meet others in your same field or line of business, to garner innovative ideas and new perspectives, to realize that you’re not alone in your endeavors – can be incredibly invigorating. This is where some of the best networking occurs. There’s nothing like meeting a potential client, customer, or vendor face-to-face. There’s nothing like bouncing ideas off of others in a related business, or to listen to success stories and learn from the not-so-successful stories.

Conferences, workshops, seminars and other face-to-face networking opportunities – like breaths of fresh air. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t wait until you or your company are almost out of air.

ZigOn: Pursuing Dreams

 "Think about the following story while you consider what success means to you. As two brothers entered their adult life, one completed college and became a highly successful lawyer while the other preferred the outdoors and traveled the country working as a park ranger, outdoor tour guide, seasonal crop worker, etc. The lawyer kept writing his vagabond brother to come live in the city, settle down, and pursue a 'respectable' career. In an effort to persuade him, he would send his brother a picture of his BMW and write on the back, 'My car,' or a picture of his uptown condominium and write on the back, 'My house,' or a picture of his 40-story high rise office building with 'My office' written on the back. The other brother, finally tiring of the nonsense, put an end to the letters when he sent his lawyer brother a poster of the beautiful majestic Grand Teton Mountains in Wyoming. On the back of the poster he simply wrote, 'My backyard.'"

Actually, both of these men were successful. They just had different objectives for their lives.

I suspect that most of us would prefer to follow the life of the brother who had that beautiful majestic view in Wyoming. Message: You have lots of choices. As long as they're honorable, I encourage you to pursue those which fulfill your dreams because you will never be successful or happy pursuing someone else's dream.
 

TTN Tutorials

TTN now has exciting new tutorials that are flash-based videos with narration!  These will walk new users and site administrators through some of the functionalities within the TTN LMS. The tutorials provide easy to understand step-by-step instructions on various training features such as reporting, bulk user uploads, and the TTN file cabinet... with more tutorials to be added soon!

To have these tutorials added to your account email us!

Business Speaking

RosettaStone, our language learning partner recently highlighted two news articles on the importance of language in the workplace. Click on the links below to read more!

Foreign-language knowledge can improve career options
Experts say knowing a foreign language can open up jobs for the average worker in a number of sectors, including the health and service industries. Language coach Elizabeth Kruempelmann suggests seeking out native speakers of the language to practice with. "Once you get over the fear of speaking, learning becomes much easier," she said, as "it's the speaking that companies are looking for." Metro (Canada) (7/13)

Businesses seek workers with multilingual skills
Recent research shows that employers are increasingly demanding that workers be trained in the languages of countries that are emerging business markets, including basic conversational ability to aid in cultural understanding. People who speak Mandarin or Cantonese are as desired as those who speak French and German. Businesses are also looking for workers with Russian, Spanish and Arabic language skills. ExecDigital.co.uk (U.K.) (7/10)

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Star Team Dynamics

Learn from the mistakes and successes of companies and organizations who have implemented teams. Learn what decisions and steps will enable your organization to: Decide when teams are right for your situation. Plan and design a team-based culture that will support everyone's success (an often neglected step) and redistribute the power. Help staff gracefully make the leap to teaming by implementing Star Teams. Maintain high performance of maturing teams. The Star Team Dynamics approach balances its focus on the people and the process to assure commitment, accountability and results. By respecting the intelligence and diversity of team members, and the years of experience of managers, this book helps each one make the transition. It provides ready-to-use tools, techniques and processes to set up your structures in a way that will be both resilient and responsive to the warp speed and information avalanche of these amazing times.

Click here to place your order while supplies last!