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…
Celebrate Your Name! What’s in a Velsoftian Name?
What's in a name? March 4-10 is International Celebrate Your Name Week, established by American onomatology hobbyist Jerry Hill in 1997. He suggested reserving the first week of March for people worldwide to celebrate their names. Each day…
Stephen Brookfield – Critical Analysis
In Engaging Practitioners in Critical Analysis of Adult Education Literature, Stephen Brookfield is trying to “...encourage students to acquire the habit of asking certain critical questions each time they are confronted with a piece of published academic writing.”…
Olympic Team 2024 Paris!
Two weeks ago, I outlined the Olympic sports that the various Velsoft Head Office personnel could compete in at the Winter Games, which will wrap up for 2018 in PyeongChang on Sunday. Well, I received a great deal…
What’s new in web writing
Confession: This is my first attempt at writing a blog. While conducting research on how to accomplish this, I read blogs from numerous websites. Many of the pieces were interesting and entertaining reads, but a few I didn’t…
9 Secrets to Creating Open Communication in the Workplace
In any organization, open communication is the most important single factor for success. This is also essential in creating a positive work environment. Open communication begins by letting everyone in the company know how the company is doing,…
How to Spot a Good Training Program
The gold painted letters on the frosted-glass door read, “A. Trainer, Private Eye,” and told her she was in the right place. She knocked. “It’s open,” a whiskey-soaked voice called. She entered and stared at the lanky figure…
Olympic inspiration
What great moments do you remember from past Winter Olympic Games? Several specific instances stick in my mind, and like me, they’re Canadian as well: Brad Gushue talking to his mother (who wasn’t able to attend the Olympics…
Diversity Quick Reference Guide
More than ever, a workplace is a diverse collection of individuals proud of who they are: their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, their ethnic background, and all the other components that make an individual unique. One of…
Racism From the Eyes of a Child
Dr. Mathew Knowles hopes his new book begins conversations about racism. “It takes you through some interesting dialogue and that’s what I want, I want folks to really dialogue about this.” Released on Feb. 12, Knowles wrote Racism…
Velsoft at the Winter Olympics
The 2018 Winter Olympics start in South Korea today, and this got me thinking about what it takes to be an elite athlete. These individuals have to be resilient, selfless and patriotic, along with possessing a sense of…
Four essential steps to supporting diversity in your workplace
Diversity is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the condition of having or being composed of differing elements: variety; especially: the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization. But…
Training Trends for 2018
Because of my work in online education, my students asked me about my thoughts regarding training trends and continuous learning for this year. This is what I shared with them: People prefer training in small pieces they can…
Help end workplace sexual harassment
Oprah Winfrey summed it up succinctly in her Golden Globe Awards speech as she accepted the Cecil B. de Mille Award for Lifetime Achievement at this year’s gala. “Their time is up.” The global media leader, philanthropist, producer…
Groundhog Day at Velsoft Head Office
Surprisingly, Groundhog Day has been around since 1887! It started from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow and sees its shadow that it will go back in its burrow and we will…
Being a Team Player
I was not a team player while I was growing up, as I didn’t play any team sports. That is, unless you count the one summer I found myself in right field with blackflies swarming around my head,…
Thanks for the memories
As you all know by now, our Project Manager Rachael is leaving us for greener pastures (a government job). I started to think about what that would mean for Velsoft, and all the relationships she has with clients. That…
Healthy Workplace Culture – Making Your Business Better
An excerpt from Making Your Business Better, Velsoft's January softskills course release. What is a healthy workplace culture? It is the environment in which employees interact with each other and carry to the outside world via networking, customer…
Don’t Burst my Happy Bubble
I was recently asked what my 2018 resolutions are. My response: I have no resolutions per say, rather affirmations or reaffirmations. I would like to reaffirm areas in my life that provide continued growth and development, and this…
Our Muppet Selves- Velsoft Revisioned
It's time to play the music It's time to light the lights It's time to meet the Muppets on the Velsoft Muppet Show tonight... I wasn’t sure what to write about this week until I was checking my…
7 Tips on Using Humor in the Classroom
Are you naturally funny or part comedian? If not, don't despair! You don't need these traits to inject classroom humor into your training. Using the following guidelines can help you to see humor in the everyday things that…
Workplace Harassment Quick Reference Guide
Politicians, CEOs, actors, TV hosts and others have been recently forced to resign over harassment allegations. This points out just how broken our workplaces have been -- how we've allowed improper behavior to lurk in what should be…
Refresh: It’s all new (again)
What have I learned since coming on board with the Velsoft team a few months ago? I now know what a learning management system is, why search engine optimization is important, and a little bit about marketing. I…
Velsoft’s MicroLearning HipChat Experiment
My interest in Microlearning led me to consider ways that could be used to deliver these nuggets of training. At Velsoft, we use HipChat to communicate as a company (All Velsoft), groups (Marketing, Managers, Production) and promote events…
Working with Slack Teams
An excerpt from Velsoft’s new course Slack for Business, which focuses on Working with Slack Teams. Once you have set up your Slack account and created a team, you are ready to start working with your team. Inviting Members…
Donald Schon: How Professionals Think In Action
Donald Schon, in his influential books Educating the Reflective Practitioner and The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action, argues that we need to look at how adults learn in practice. He introduces the notions of ‘knowing-in-action’, ‘reflecting-in-action’…
Icebreaker: Cup Challenge
The Cup Challenge Icebreaker is an excellent way to form a connection between your participants and see that working together is better than working alone when trying to generate ideas. This is an especially good icebreaker for a…