Organization Clarity (OC) blog collections on Google Plus part 1

I have created two collections on Google Plus for the Organization Clarity (OC) blog and public usage, these are just basic logos and a bunch of ROI mockups. I have posted about twenty-two ROI mockup images and about twelve Organization Clarity blog wallpapers. I am just testing some images because of the lack of content out there and for our own use, my audience (you) and I. You may notice that for the Organization Clarity blog wallpapers I focused on using the Blogger address first, that is because this site gets the most views however I will be working soon on the Wordpress site of the OC blog.

I love creating my own images even as basic as they are, this way I have the freedom to tighten up the image and manipulate it as much as I want. I hope that everyone can enjoy these images and add them to their day to day blogs. I will be adding more images as time goes on, to increase, the amount of materials that students, professionals and anyone else can use. I used Microsoft Powerpoint and Paint.Net for these images so they are very basic, however, visuals are very important in presenting information, with this fact very well known, you will be seeing these images in future posts on the Organization Clarity (OC) blog.

Organization Clarity (OC) blog wallpapers collection:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QSGUHE

ROI mockup images collection:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QbAhCE

Organizational Clarity: “ETEC 524: Example Technology-playtesting Reflections: Affordances of Video” blog

This is a great blog that discusses why video should be used in the learning process explaining how video captures the learner’s attention. Plus, how watching is more effective than reading and how the rapid presentation and control of video in the learning process is highly effective. Please click the link to learn more:

ETEC 524: Example Technology-playtesting Reflections: Affordances of Video: 

I hear lots of kudos for YouTube and how engaging it is to use videos for instruction, but blanket statements applauding YouTube as “great!...

Writing of the Blog Organization Clarity from an OD Perspective

For the posts on Organization Clarity, I usually do not have a straight forward plan or monthly schedule of what I am going to write about or when I will write about it. Everything is very fluid I write at my desktop, text content to my main email via phone and even hand write some of the posts with pen and paper (pad) the reason why I am posting this information is because as any Organizational Development professional can tell you nothing goes as planned. 

Life happens, family, holidays, school, work, etc., these all become or can become major deterrents to writing blogs or planning an effective training schedule for your organization. For example, we have all seen employees that had to reschedule mandatory training sessions from a prior time, separate from other employee sessions because of the reasons that I aforementioned.

So with this in mind, I try to keep as versatile and flexible as I can with anything I do, as should any Organizational Development professional should, when it comes to completing projects or working on continuous like this blog. So please remember to be flexible as possible and will be successfully in all you do.

Organizational Clarity: Explanation of the OCAI Assessment presentation

To explain the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument even further there is a slide share presentation by Yeliena Prokhorova from Enterprise’s Strategy Department, called “Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI): Practical Training” each slide is chockfull of information. The slides go from “What is Organizational Culture?” to a short analysis of Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture this helps explains what Organizational Culture is, what the assessment is about and basically why you should take the assessment.

Even though the slide share usually requires a LinkedIn account to download you can still view the slideshow by clicking on the link below. I really like how in-depth and brief the presentation was detailed the sequence of tasks of the OCAI assessment, knowing what the OCAI assessment is about may change your answers a bit, knowing about it, the assessment or with anything actually beforehand changes the outcome of what a person may decide.  

In this case, it may change how the person answers the questions naturally to with some type of skepticism or more analysis of a question, than if there was no or was a lack of knowledge when taking the assessment.

Click upon the presentation here:

http://www.slideshare.net/annaskiteva/encolloquium

Organizational Clarity as a Blog is A+ material

Good news I started this blog as part of a final project for my Learning Technologies class at Roosevelt University, and when I created the proposal for the project I wanted something with wide berth and something that would amaze my fellow students and the Professor. Great news it worked! I got an A for the class!

I knew I mentioned tech issues, free downloads commentary about issues facing Organizational Development in my proposal so covering it all in one or two posts I knew was impossible. So writing 30 plus posts was a challenge but alas I got my A! and a successful blog.

I will still, will be posting and talking about OD related issues in the near future. I will hopefully have more designs, logo, for free downloading purposes in the near future so happy reading and thanks to all of you who helped make this blog great!

5 Things You Should Know About E-learning

I recently read an article called “5 Things You Should Know About E-learning” by Sravanthi Reddy G, the author makes a five-point presentation, about the basics of E-Learning, but I look at it as five ways to overcome resistance to adding E-Learning to your organization’s training repertoire. 

From arguing that it has been around for a long time to easy ROI measurability when it is used for training purposes, these are five brief reasons that you can add on to an argument to increase E-learning in your organization or finally get the go ahead to introducing it. I have seen the difference that an E-learning presence can make in an organization, I have worked at organizations that have it and do not and the differences are literally night and day.

The Main excuse for resistance is not about money although it is a factor, it is just knowledge about E-learning is limited due to fear of technology and belief that it is a fad. Two resistance points that are easily denounced with reason #2 and #5 but points that readily come up time and time again, if you see the same thing happening in your organization I urge you to click on the hyperlink below and read the article about E-Learning to educate yourself and your organization’s E-Learning dissenters

Here is the hyperlink to “5 Things You Should Know About E-learning” by Sravanthi Reddy G:  

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/5-things-to-know-about-elearning

Creating the YouTube channel from an Organizational Development standpoint.

For a class in my graduate studies, I was introduced to creating a video or tutorial online, so I picked something for this assignment that everyone could use when starting out with their own individual google account.

As Organizational Development (OD) Professionals you may need to create, produce and distribute video presentations regarding OD or for whatever your organization needs, this generic tutorial will help you take an existing google account and create a YouTube playlist of all your videos. Videos for your personal use to watch over and over again, or for (again) your Organization usage, creating and posting videos on YouTube or even linking videos posted by others for official repeat usage.

Here is my video called “YouTube playlist with existing google account”:

 https://youtu.be/QCrys2xH8MU

This is the step by step script I used for the video it may help with creating the YouTube channel:

• Today we are going to create a YouTube playlist with an existing Google/Gmail account, for this to work you will, of course, need an existing Gmail account. For this process, I will be using google chrome as the primary web browser.
• Since google chrome is my browser of choice it gives me the Gmail button at the start up screen to start the sign in process. However, if Google chrome is not your web browser of choice, you can do what I am doing here and type in Gmail.com into the address bar and it will get you to the same sign in screen, either way, is fine.
• Since my Gmail account is difficult to spell I am going to cut and paste it in the “enter your email” box and hit the “next” button, will get you to the password screen.
• This will get you to the password screen where you can see my Gmail profile picture, name and email address above the password box. So I will just type in my password and hit the “sign in” button.
• This brings me back to the Control-Protect page don’t worry just go to the right-hand corner on the page where there is a series of boxes and click on it.
• There you will automatically see a bunch of applications plus an option for YouTube click on to that button.
• This will take you to youtube.com
• Now think of a few videos you want to add to a playlist and type the subject into the search box up above.
• For this, I want to start with something in Organizational Development as you see it will automatically come up so I type that into the search box.
• Now as you scroll down the search you see a number of videos, for this, I will just choose one, John Curtis’ video will be fine, so click on the hyperlink for it.
• Usually, I turn down the volume, so it does not disrupt the process.
• Now I move my cursor under the title of the video to a plus icon on the left that has “add to” next to it and I click it.
• An Add to box, will come up with an option for “create new playlist” for this Gmail account. I simply hit the “create new playlist” button then I will name it: “Organizational Development” now I have an established channel so if I want to add additional videos at a later time to it I can.
• For now, I have completed creating a YouTube account for this Google/Gmail account. With a playlist, you can watch a collection of videos over and over again without continually searching YouTube for the ones you prefer to see multiple times.
• All you have to do now when logged into your existing Gmail account is type in youtube.com as you see here, now you will go to the left and there is a library section where your playlist will be listed. Click on to the playlist you want the screen to the left will reflect the playlist selection on the next screen. To start it, all you have to do is go up to the “Play all” button to start the playlist anytime you want.
• And with that, this concludes how you create a YouTube playlist with an existing Google/Gmail account using Google chrome as your default browser. Thank you.
  

Organizational Clarity blog, now on Twitter!

To extended the reach of the Organizational Clarity blog not only is it on Google Plus with Blogger.com but also Wordpress.com, but that is old news! Now, I have added Twitter to the social media sites this blog will post to therefore you can now see our posts upon:

 https://twitter.com/9_5_mprosser

Now you can friend and follow the Organizational Clarity blog up on twitter also you can quickly comment on the posts too!

Coming up with the name "Organizational Clarity" the Organizational Development way

When it came to naming this blog there was the idea but not the title, add to that it was just an idea I had for some time, however when the opportunity came to produce a blog for a class project it was like the universe aligned! Part of Organizational Development is learning to use a resource like time, time management is usually the term floated around, but also realizing there is an opportunity to change or create.

That is what has happened here, so as with any program, product, or project you need a “catchy” name to sell not only to the people working on (me) the project but all the stakeholders involved. I admit I had the articles and various topics I wanted to talk about but the name I was at a loss, so I sent out to a group text to collaborate with my wife is a recent Roosevelt University graduate and a friend who is attending DePaul for a degree in the field.

That is what has happened here, so as with any program, product, or project you need a “catchy” name to sell not only to the people working on (me) the project but all the stakeholders involved. I admit I had the articles and various topics I wanted to talk about but the name I was at a loss, so I sent out to a group text to collaborate with my wife is a recent Roosevelt University graduate and a friend who is attending DePaul for a degree in the field.

Although I came up with the majority of titles I needed their feedback to see if the title was again “catchy” to an audience like them, like this blog will, hopefully, be helping. After a while, I came up with “Organizational Clarity” and because it is the goal basically of Organizational Development is to come up with a means to bring clarity to the policies, procedures, and products that an organization wants to implement or streamline for a better Return on Investment. So I got a “go ahead” vote for the title and here we are but I do like to mention some of the titles that did not make it:

• “The ever evolving Organization”
• “The Evolution of organizations”
• “Organizational Development, Organization Evolution”
• “Organization Evolution”
• “OD Happens”
• “OD collective”

As you go through the list you can see how the title would definitely affect how readers of this blog would have reacted if one of those titles were used instead. In Organizational Development it is necessary to collaborate with other professionals, or in this case, I used a small test audience to gain the necessary feedback I needed to produce the result I required. Basically, standard Organizational Development methodology at work so my thanks to Joyce Prosser and Tanya Carranza on their feedback, (always important to recognize contributions!) and I look forward to creating more Organizational Clarity in the near future.

Confused with learning technologies

When working with technology in the field of Organizational Development (OD) you have to be part tech guru part tech expert, although these sound like the same thing they are not. When I say part tech guru I mean more along the definition lines of a teacher, because clients will at one time or another want to use the latest technologies to streamline their business practices and evolve in the marketplace to stay competitive.

Therefore, being a teacher of learning technologies is not just limited to the employees who use the application and the professional who introduces it, but the client as well. You will need, to sum up, tons of knowledge to quickly explain what learning technologies are good for them.

Sometimes an organization will want you to thoroughly explain the choices but when there is time, and usually time is a resource that is not always found readily available. But to this, you must also be a little bit of a tech expert so you will need to know terminology like LMS and LCMS the difference between the two learning systems and how your client systems are compatible (or not) with the various system choices.

In regards to that, I have found an article called: “Confused with learning technologies? Choose your best option” By Abdul Razzaque Hussain which gives an overview into three aspects you and your client will need to consider when deciding upon implementing learning technology systems into the organization. This is great for OD professionals, students, and anyone with any interest regarding using learning technologies in their organization just click on the link below for more information:

Confused with learning technologies? Choose your best option

Organizational Clarity blog: about me and this blog.

This is a Site with blogs, and soon web pages that will have a focus on the multiple aspects of Organizational Development. Originally started as a class project the information posted here will occur on an ongoing basis.

As I have stated to one of my Professors:  I want this site to have “Organization Development (OD)" as a recurring theme, adding articles and videos directly regarding OD, to adding commentary that is along the lines of OD about various business articles I have read recently. Basically to illustrate the point that once one graduates with a degree they will still need a body of work outside the classroom to show how they stay relevant to other like-minded professionals in the field, while also providing a place to network and find additional resources (about OD) throughout their career…”

I think one of the main things I have found upon online is the uneven availability of resources for OD professionals, there are a few sites that have tons of great information presented by individuals and organizations on a significant scale. Then there are a vast numbers of individuals (and organizations) that present a minuscule explanation or information about what Organization Development is and the resources that can effectively explain or do the job of an OD professional.

My hope is to gain that middle ground between the two groups (I have aforementioned) with the information that I post upon this site periodically. In the hopes that it corrals the majority of these different aspects to become a resource that professionals, students, and individuals with an interest in the field can use.