Finding truly engaging content that is also credible can be tedious. I would like to share a global learning solution that has really impressed me. BRIDGE2THINK understands that as a learning professional, whether you’re an executive, middle manager, or team leader, there is a need for access to relevant Business Knowledge.
“Led by a team of highly experienced international solutions professionals, BRIDGE2THINK offers a unique range of products and services to meet the individual learning and development needs of enterprises around the world.”
Securing multi-year contracts with HarvardBusiness (Boston, USA) and Corpedia Education (Phoenix, AZ), Intellexis plc. (London, UK) and Distance Learning Inc. (New York, NY), BRIDGE2THINK has the ability to offer clients high quality learning tools.
The online content I found most interesting is made up of the notion of learning from the knowledge and experiences of world-class business leaders.Fifty Lessons has put together more than 500 individual lessons from over 100 high profile international business leaders. Simply put, Fifty Lessons has asked the world’s most successful business people to tell their most important lessons they have learnt in the course of their careers.This is a great tool for individuals who are seeking guidance and inspiration in their own career. What better way to learn than from the pro’s themselves!
I encourage you to take some time this holiday season and give yourself the gift of knowledge. Happy Holidays!
Another sign of the times hit the Motor City’s two biggest newspapers today, as the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News announced they are cutting home delivery four days out of the week.
“The dynamics of delivering information to audiences has changed forever due to technology,” said Detroit Media Partnership CEO Dave Hunke.
Both papers will continue to deliver the Thursday, Friday and Sunday editions, in a compact format. While the Free Press is ranked as the 6th largest Sunday newspaper in the nation, their website - www.freep.com - generates over 1.5 million visitors daily and was one of the fastest growing websites in 2008. Solid readership via both mediums. So why the change?
Perhaps last week’s bankruptcy announcement from competitor Tribune Co. sealed the deal for Gannett Corp., the nation’s largest newspaper company and the parent company of the 177 year old Free Press. As newspapers and magazines look for alternative ways to attract readership, executive editor of the Free Press Paul Anger says, “We’ve got to embrace reality, and we’ve got to embrace innovation.” Dave Hunke goes a little bit further:
“There is a day of reckoning coming for newspapers, which in my mind don’t change and change rapidly. That is a way of life that is going to disappear (for some newspapers) as early as this coming year.”
It would be a guessing game to say who in the print industry is going on the chopping block next. Publishers need to look for alternatives to the conventional methods that have landed them in this crisis. For starters: Here’s one.
Yet another free language learning website was launched today. EnglishSpeak.com is a free online English language learning service that “gives users access to thousands of audio files that include the most common dialogs and phrases used in daily life.”
$0.00 looks good on paper. But everything has a price - what about the time you spend practicing? If you don’t notice significant results after spending a bunch of time with this program, then what’s the point, right? After all, they only offer audio files for you to listen to. It’s not a truly interactive experience because it gives you zero feedback. A truly interactive language learning program allows you to practice your English and receive immediate feedback on your performance. At least this way you have some sort of an idea of how you’re progressing and if you’re ready to move up to the different ‘levels’ that EnglishSpeak.com or any of the others like EnglishClub.com or EnglishLearner.com provide.
Social forums like LiveMocha.com and italki.com encourage their members to connect via instant messaging. But what about the person on the other end of that conversation? Can you trust them to provide the appropriate feedback? These are some of the factors that make choosing to learn a language via a free site or social forum hazardous.
A Google search for “Learn English Free” returned over 70 million websites. While many of them don’t offer much beyond an eyesore, we’d love to hear what you think about some of the better sites that you have used. Have you had any measurable successes with them? Or, are you more interested in a program like BusinessWeek BSL? Drop us a line here, or on Twitter.
I have been using a fabulous new voice conferencing service for volunteer projects and select meetings at neuroLanguage for the past several months. Calliflower, offers free conference calling services. Looking for an inexpensive way to practice your English speaking with your friends and colleagues - check out Calliflower.
What does it offer? Why the plug?
Calliflower offers FREE conference call planning and execution. You can now get small or large groups of people on the phone for virtually ZERO cost. Its web interface lets you book a call in about one minute. Participants can use their plain old phones or the technology savvy can call in via Skype other other Calliflower calling tools.
What else does it offer?
1) It sends the organizer and participants key SMS reminders, including notifications that callers are waiting for the organizer on the line. If you are running a tight schedule, there is nothing better then an instant reminder you can immediately dial from your phone. No more futzing around looking for call in numbers!
2) Call management control
You can now mute members of the call to dampen background noise. No more barking dogs!
In larger settings, muted participants can raise their hands through the web interface - just like back in school…a very polite method indeed.
Finally, you can record the call and get a recording of how you sounded on the call.
It’s free…so what is the catch? The answer is ZERO. If you have a flat fee long distance plan, there is no effective cost to use the service. If your participants don’t have a long distance plan, Calliflower has two free Internet based calling services that can be used. Overall, its a win win.
I wanted to share a story from BusinessWeek about Dell and how they are able to leverage their social networks to help stay connected to customers and also stay in touch with what people are saying about them.
It all started a few years ago when Michael Dell had to play catch up with a blogger and story author Jeff Jarvis, after Jarvis had wrote a blog post with the title: “Dell Sucks”. After sending an open letter to the founder, Dell finally responded. Since then, the computer manufacturer has taken a proactive stance with their customers. They’ve launched a site called IdeaStorm.com to let customers tell the company what to do, they have a team of bloggers who contribute often on a Dell site called “Your Blog” with a wide range of topics, and they’ve also launched an online outlet offering refurbished Dell computers and promoted it via Twitter to a tune of $1 million in revenue. Talk about a conversation starter…Michael Dell says:
“These conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not…do you want to be part of that or not? My argument is you absolutely do. You can learn from that. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”
Much like Michael Dell, neuroLanguage also has always kept an open door policy. If there is something on your mind, we’d love to hear from you. Submit a comment at the bottom of this thread, or leave a message for us via Facebook or Twitter and join the conversation!
It’s no secret these days that the traditional print media industry is hurting. A growing majority of us don’t even open a newspaper or magazine to get our daily fix of news, we simply open up our laptops. And now, you can search for any magazine article through Google’s Book Search, further emphasizing the gradual decline of the print media industry.
Magraker - a popular blog covering the print magazine industry - posed an interesting question following Google’s announcement: Are print magazines at the end of their life? The question was answered by Zinio.com founder Richard Maggiotto. Zinio.com is a website that allows digital subscriptions of major magazines to be emailed to reader’s Inboxes every month. An innovative service, as it allows readers to continue enjoying their favorite magazines without having to actually flip through the pages and have them collect dust in their houses. Maggiotto explains:
“I’m not trying to say print is dead. Print will exist for a long time to come. But magazines need to reinvent themselves as brands rather than paper products. They aren’t proprietors of paper—magazines don’t own the printers they’re printed on. They own the content.”
This “reinvention” he speaks of needs to come very soon for a large number of magazines, or more could face the same grim fate as Ziff Davis and Tribune. The reality is that the advertising money is drying up for a medium that isn’t reaching enough people as it used to.
But the news is not all bad, though.
BusinessWeek is an example of one major print media publisher who has taken the lead in the online magazine market. Granted they are already one of the most reputable and established brands in the magazine industry, they’ve managed to engage their audience online with not only the latest headlines, but also a place for their readers to improve their Business English. BW President Keith Fox says:
“Business as a Second Language helps business professionals and students polish their English-language skills while taking advantage of BusinessWeek’s unique and trusted perspectives on global business news.”
Our answer to the Magraker’s question: No, print media is not dead. But they’re certainly verging on life support if this kind of innovation and collaboration is not put at the top of the list for every publisher in the industry. Maintaining the status quo and doing battle with the massive online and social media does not seem like a viable alternative at this point.
Today’s news of the Tribune filing for bankruptcy underscores the challenges associated with counting on print advertising revenue in a down economy. As a marketer, I can attest that online advertising is a surefire way to demonstrate a return on advertising marketing dollars. Print advertising is much tougher to justify if its not tied to a measurable outcomes - especially in a down market.
Some of today’s publishers, including the Christian Science Monitor and PC Magazine have cast aside their print revenue models in favor of selling online ad space. BusinessWeek, one of the larger weekly business publications has elected to leverage its content into the expanding language learning market.
Check out Business as a Second Language and see how their content is now being commercialized into the $30 Billion dollar language learning space.
Why team with neuroLanguage and our Practice Platform?
Zero capital investment - getting your content published into an interactive language learning format is cost neutral. All we need is a special feed from your web site and our software does the rest
Fast time to revenue - our underlying technology can automate the entire content transformation process. Your stories, photos, and multimedia files can be transition to our Practice Player very quickly
Plug into an expanding channel - neuroLanguage and its channel sales partners can bring your content into an established dialogue with enterprise and government sectors that are spending money on language learning for their staff and constituents
Generate new subscription revenue right off your website.
Click on this link to learn more about the neuroLanguage Practice Platform. Interesting in learning more? Contact us for an introductory dialogue.
The social networking train is leaving the station. The question is: are you on board?
The membership numbers of Facebook and MySpace are in the hundreds of millions and are constantly growing. Micro blogging powerhouse Twitter is steadily gaining momentum worldwide, millions of people are posting threads on their blogs each day and social bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious are making it easier than ever to spread the word – whatever it may be, in many different languages.
So where does online language learning fit into the social networking space?
The answer is simple: online language learning revolves around social networking. Nicola Robinsonova of Learnitlists.com contributed a great article on the UK version of TechCrunch a few months ago focusing squarely on how social networking has evolved into a place for people to learn different languages – hence her company’s popular application on Facebook. Her article outlined the growing number of language learning social websites that focus on community and collaboration.
Forums like LiveMocha.com, VoxSwap.com, MyLanguageExchange.com, italki.com among many others all jumped on board that train. They’ve all proven to be popular places for people of different dialects to gather and practice different languages online, with ‘feedback’ from practice partners. All of these sites may have large memberships, but authenticity issues are constantly called into question. How do you know if the person on the other end is genuine? Do they even speak the language? How do you know? Are you getting your money’s worth? If it’s a free service, are you simply wasting your time and energy waiting for a response and feedback?
On the other side of the coin, neuroLanguage has come up with an interactive software platform that focuses squarely on learning the English language. In fact, we’ve partnered with the leading business magazine – BusinessWeek – to develop Business as a Second Language. This is not a social network – it’s an interactive, software tutor that gives instant pronunciation feedback and grades ones reading, pronunciation and comprehension progress across the BSL community. There are no phonies or legitimacy issues here. Granted there is a fee for this software, but it’s focused on one language – English.
The Crunchies are internet-technology awards endorsed by TechCrunch - the world’s leading technology blog, as well GigaOM, VentureBeat and Silicon Alley Insider. We are aiming to get nominated for the Best Technology Innovation Award. Click on the icon below - it’s easy and only takes a few seconds. Deadline for nominations is December 10, 2008. Nominate now and nominate often!
If you’re currently signed up for a free trial subscription of BusinessWeek BSL, we want you to give us your feedback. Good or bad, we want to hear from you.
Simply fill out a comment form at the bottom of this post and let us know how your experience with BSL has been to date. Think of this as a chance to practice your writing with the English skills you’ve learned with BSL. It also gives us an opportunity to make the necessary adjustments and improvements to the program and improve your overall experience.
If you’re currently not registered for the free trial version of BusinessWeek BSL, you can sign up here and automatically be entered into the contest where we’re giving away Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS gaming systems.
