Velsoft’s Tattoos Revealed for National Tattoo Week
It's amazing the number of tattoos you see these days. From tiny ones like Ed Westwick and Jessica Serfaty’s matching heart tattoos or Miley Cyrus’s portrait of her puppy Emu and Pablow the blowfish, to larger tattoos like Demi Lovato’s…
Join other businesses in making safety a priority
According to the International Labour Organization, an agency of the United Nations, every day people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. This is more than 2.78 million deaths annually. And each year 317 million…
Microsoft Power BI Quick Reference Guide
Microsoft Power BI is a powerful collection of software, apps, and services that will help you analyze your organization’s data and uncover insights and trends. You are able to link and model data in Power BI and create…
Four Management Tools for Generating Ideas
Generating ideas is important to business processes. There are a number of methods to generate ideas, as well as to reduce the number of ideas, to achieve better consensus. Here are four tools for producing them: 1. Brainstorming…
Why Michael is giving back
When Michael Harding started out to raise funds for children in need, he didn’t know his family had once benefitted from the same spirit of giving. The Chief Happiness Officer at Velsoft Training Materials is one of the…
Preventing Workplace Harassment
I recently finished reading a book that I received for Christmas – Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand. (Spoiler alert: I’m going to write about an incident that takes place in the novel.) One of the characters, Jennifer, is…
What Makes a Good Training Program?
It’s all about needs. You need students (staff) and you need material. In this chicken-or-egg scenario, it makes no sense to have one without the other. You need buy-in from your staff, since they have to want to…
Life Lessons I learned watching The X-Files
As an avid fan of The X-Files I've watched most episodes at least twice. Not only are they entertaining and thought provoking, they also teach some very good life lessons. In honor of Friday the 13th, I've compiled…
Working With Files in GSuite Google Drive
Working with Files As Google Drive acts as an always available storage space for your files, it is important to learn how to manage those files and add new ones. Over the course of this topic you will…
Decisions – The Good and Not So Good
Like Star Wars, you cannot have the light side without the dark side. This is true of most major decisions — there are pros and cons. The good and not so good! This also applies to taking on…
Five Strategies for Creating Sticky Training
Many of us know instinctively what strategies help us to learn and retain information. Using these natural strategies when trying to teach others creates sticky training. 1) Simple Keep it short and sweet. Bullet points and short phrases…
National Walk to Work Day at Velsoft
Today is National Walk to Work Day! I don't walk to work, and I’ve heard and said all the excuses possible: I live too far away, I need my sleep, I have to pick up groceries on the…
How to choose the right productivity suite for your office
If you’re looking for a recommendation about which office productivity suite to use, you won’t find it here. Why? I’m not an expert in computers or software. But what I can tell you is that I’ve read a…
Is your company a progressive employer?
Do a bunch of these words describe your company? Innovation, opportunity, growth, caring, achievement, adaptable, purpose, flexibility. If they do, then your organization might be considered progressive. Think about your definition of a progressive employer, and whether the…
At Velsoft, Intrapreneurship Works!
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…
Becoming a Progressive Employer Quick Reference Guide
Many people like to think of themselves as progressive in some fashion, but is this usually the case? Employers can be considered progressive for numerous reasons, from the way they treat their staff to their approach to technology.…
What are Velsoftians Reading Right Now?
At a tech company like Velsoft you would imagine everyone would be reading CHIP, Computer Power User, WIRED or other top technology magazines. It turns out that this is not the case at Velsoft. The staff here seems…
Measuring Training Results Quick Reference Guide
There are lots of good reasons to offer training, and even more reasons to participate and take training. But there is also an accountability element requiring measuring training results. We need to ask ask ourselves: What was the…
Michael Welton: Dialogue and Adult Education
Education professor Michael Welton, true to his Habermasian roots, sees society through a ‘learning lens’ and puts dialogue at the centre of his critical perspectives of adult education. Unlike the traditionalists who emphasized specific content knowledge learned in institutional…
A workplace challenge for the International Day of Happiness
Are you happy when you’re at work? Because today is the International Day of Happiness, I’m writing about how to increase contentment in your job. If you haven’t heard of the Day of Happiness before (I hadn’t until…
Favorite Green Things at Velsoft
Planning to wear green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? While that's what most people do (legend has it that wearing green makes a person invisible to leprechauns that will pinch someone if they see them), the patron saint of…
A little girl’s determination, other inspiring athletes
When Ava Foote lost part of her right hand in a household accident last June, it looked like her hockey playing days were in jeopardy. But fast forward nine months, and the now eight-year-old is back on the…
Velsoft eCourse Design and Development Process
Managing Customers' eCourse Expectations The Velsoft eCourse Design and Development Process ensures the sales, production and project management departments work together to manage internal and external expectations. Establishing a collaborative relationship from the beginning ensures we build a…
Body language, Outlander and delivering your message
In the Outlander book series, written by Diana Gabaldon, Jamie Fraser has the ability to hide his feelings behind an impassive face. However, the heroine of the story — Claire — doesn’t share that particular skill. “He gave…
Taking a trip with Sway
I’m planning a trip to England for later in the spring, and as I was researching Microsoft’s Sway application, I decided I have to use it during my vacation. I’m an avid photographer and scrapbooker, documenting special occasions…
When the Cat’s Away the Mice Will Play
Jim is heading out for a much-needed weeklong vacation in a climate much better than ours. The usual thought is that when the cat's away, the mice will play. Obviously, whoever coined this phrase did not know Velsoft!…
Empowering women leaders
Young women are raised to think they don't have the natural skills to succeed in a “man’s world,” writes Reshma Saujani. But the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code says she’s hopeful that this will change, and…
The Benefits of In-House Training
When we stop learning, we start to stand still. It’s true in both our personal lives and careers. But we can avoid inactivity and keep our momentum with training. What better place to experience training than in your…
Creating Cards in a Microsoft Sway Project
This is an excerpt from Velsoft's March computer course release: Sway. Create Cards In the last section, we learned that a Microsoft Sway project is made up of cards. These cards provide an easy way to create, organize,…
Nonverbal Communication: Eight tips to rock a business presentation
You are confident. You have rehearsed. You have a powerful, logical argument. You are ready to take on the task of presenting your points in a way that does not distract from your argument. In business presentations, the…