Startup – Close Up- EVONIR
New Orleans City Business POSTED: 11:52 AM Tuesday, March 13, 2012 BY: Jennifer Larino, Staff Writer Editor’s note: The Startup Close-Up profile introduces readers to new companies in the New Orleans area. Make sure to cast your votes at the end of the profile as whether you think the company will succeed in the long run. The Evonir staff, from left: Richard Exnicios, Ken Bagot and Clayton White. (photo by Frank Aymami) Business: Evonir Headquarters: New Orleans Employees: 7 Established: September 2009 Product: Evonir’s flagship software is a learning management platform that helps the military and other large employers offer access to on-the-job training from any device. The startup has also developed software that helps police departments manage...
Anatomy of a Lifelong Learner
Kellye Whitney - 3/19/12 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) Using his own learning philosophy as fuel, Jim Dunn has built a strategic learning function at Texas Health Resources that is attracting notice from the business and the industry. It all started with a performance review and a white lab coat. Jim Dunn, chief learning officer for Texas Health Resources (THR), began his career as a research scientist at Georgia Tech, where he ran several of the university labs involving toxicological testing. His next move was to Amoco Corp., where he became a regulatory toxicologist doing pretty much the same thing. Six years passed. Dunn was tired of the lab coat and only having mice for company, so when his supervisor learned he wanted to shed his solitary work...
How to Facilitate True Learning Transfer
Raed S. Haddad - 2/8/12 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) Learning is more than the acquisition of knowledge — it is also about its application. CLOs must make learning stick to improve performance, productivity and bottom-line results. In November 2010, Josh Bersin noted in his “Business of Talent” blog that the chief learning officer has a split personality and is actually three people in one: a chief culture officer, chief performance officer and chief change officer. But this leaves out one central role: the chief application officer. While CLOs must ensure program offerings align with the business strategy and put an organization on a path toward change, none of this is attainable without a plan to make learning stick and improve performance,...
Survey: Business Leaders Plan to Maintain, Increase Training Budgets
Camberley, U.K. — March 27, 2012 A staggering 93 percent of British business leaders plan to either maintain or increase their training budgets during the next year, according to research published by global e-learning company SkillSoft. Further, the research highlights the importance that businesses place on their training needs, with just 3.6 percent of businesses planning to reduce their training budgets during the coming year. The independent study, conducted by OpinionMatters on behalf of SkillSoft, took place at the end of November 2011 and involved telephone interviews with more than 500 CEOs. The results revealed that 31 percent of businesses plan to increase training budgets by 10 percent during the next year. This figure rises to 41 percent in the...
Saving America Money
Babak Salimi - 10/20/11 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) The U.S. Internal Revenue Service saves millions of dollars, time and resources annually by using real-time, virtual collaboration technology. Businesses are always looking for ways to save money, and government agencies are no exception. However, adjusting the routine to cut costs can be hard on employees. According to Lori Ann Jacobs, the virtual environment (VE) program coordinator at the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), agencies don’t accept change easily. “We like to do it the way it’s always been done,” she said. But sometimes change is necessary. In 1997, the government established executive order No. 12862 to set new customer standards and audit requirements for various...
Recession Resilience
Victoria Ryan - 2/22/11 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) HD Supply Utilities’ nine-month transformation from classroom to virtual learning delivery was required by the recession and a necessity for the company. HD Supply Utilities is a major business for HD Supply, a multi billion-dollar wholesale distribution company providing a range of products and services to professional customers in the infrastructure, energy, maintenance, repair, improvement and specialty construction markets through 10 lines of business. HD Supply Utilities was one of the last to be hit by the recession, but in mid-2008, the effects were obvious. By November 2008, all classroom training was postponed, and the Utilities Learning Team (ULT) had to come up with a solution. The ULT...