Earlier this year I posted a blog about Velsoft’s MicroLearning HipChat Experiment.  The experiment was to introduce some concepts of leadership and to hopefully lead into a conversation about intrapreneurship to empower everyone in the company to come up with new and innovative ways to solve challenges. and insure that intrapreneurship works at Velsoft. Two of the people who took up the challenge were Cindy (Account Representative) and Carol (Senior Editor/Head Writer). While I can’t say that what came afterwards was a direct result of their participation in our intrapreneurship challenge, I would like to think it (and our general work environment) was at least partly responsible.

In December 2017 we put together our first ‘Whitepaper’ on ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Digital Age’. We decided from the success of this endeavor that every few months we would produce a resource to provide free to anyone who wanted it.  We started a small working group to decide upcoming resources. Carol and Cindy were part of that group.  With a true sense of intrapreneurship (whether helped by the MicroLearning or not)  in one voice they said it had to be about misconduct in the workplace. From there, they led the research, development and creation of the ‘Preventing Sexual Misconduct in the Workplace’ Guidebook and launched our Conversations That Matter series.

The success that came from that guide was amazing. Velsoft had requests from people to reproduce it, companies wanted courses developed based on the guide, old client relationships were rekindled, and new relationships were built. This all came from the extraordinary work activated from these two women.

Even more than this was the wave of enthusiasm it brought to people in the office. By the end, everyone at the head office was part of the creation of this guide, and involved in the work that came from it. Even more importantly, it started a conversation in the office that continues today. It touched us all and each of us are positively changed because of it.

Intrapreneurship works!

What’s in the Pipeline:

  • Ben is finishing off some custom projects and working with new client projects.
  • Carol is working on our next ‘Conversations That Matter Guide’, editing CA and writing blogs.
  • Jan is on vacation (and already missing the office).
  • Kevin is doing stuff.
  • Sydney is working on custom projects.

 Tech topics:

  • Implemented visual improvements to the ILT feature.
  • Updated default LMS colours.
  • Fixed an issue causing the wrong date to show for completion date on the certificate list.

Course Count:

Courses released this month:

Here is the official count of courses for both courseware and eLearning, broken down by Computer and SoftSkills.

Computer SoftSkills Total Courses
Courseware 278 167 445
eLearning 879 164 1043

What is an Intrapreneur

“A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.”

(Source: http://www.intrapreneur.com/MainPages/History/Dictionary.html)

“An employee of a large corporation, who is given freedom and financial support to create new products, services, systems, etc., and does not have to follow the corporation’s usual routines or protocols.”

(Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intrapreneur)

“People working from within a company who are accelerating change while continuing to drive business benefits.”

(Source: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681203/to-change-a-company-you-need-intrapreneurs)

What is Intrapreneurship

“Acting like an entrepreneur within a larger organization. The term is derived from a combination of ‘intra’ or internal, and ‘entrepreneurship.’ Intrapreneurs are usually highly self-motivated, proactive, and action-oriented people who are comfortable with taking the initiative, even within the boundaries of an organization, in pursuit of an innovative product or service.”

(Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrapreneurship.asp)

“Intrapreneurship is an individual’s ability to be inventive and entrepreneurial within the parameters of an organization. Being inventive requires the freedom to pursue ideas and develop them, while being intrapreneurial requires a focus on commercializing ideas to arrive at solutions that customers value.”

(Source: Intrapreneurship by Kevin C. Desouza)