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The limits of visual working memory and how we apply it in learning design
We all know that our ability to keep multiple things in our mind is limited. Four things is a common benchmark, and the article “When four is not four, but rather two plus two” suggests it might actually be two on each side of our brain. And yet we see so many learning experiences ignoring…
Need to get out of a Pickle?
Do you remember the super fun and engaging microlearning project we did with WorkSafe New Zealand and AKQA called “Pickled”? It was a series of learning games that made it to the finals of the Mobile Experience category at The Webby Awards, which received over 13,500 submissions from over 70 countries. That’s right, Pickled was such a hit! Guess what?…
Supporting Farmlands Co-operative with their transformation
Farmlands Co-operative is taking their employees’ development and growth to the next level with a whole new learning experience to be rolled out this year, and it starts with Totara 17. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be partnering with them and support their vision to become reality as they roll out new functionality this…
Articulate’s new microlearning option in Rise 360!
We are really happy to see Articulate‘s new microlearning option in Rise 360! Our learning designers love its simplicity. The one-click access to #learning activities allows learners to quickly get into the learning instead of negotiating multiple layers of navigation. This approach is particularly valuable for busy professionals who want to maximise their time. Whether you’re on…
Ready to start a more formal learning journey?
It’s always great to connect with like-minded leaders about supporting the development of their teams. We had a great chat to Matthew Hayter from Projectworks about the connection between learning, capability and performance. Why people learn is always a personal decision to a degree; progressive organisations understand that the old boundaries between work and personal…
Z Energy responds to new supply chain opportunities
How do you measure learning experience going forward? That was the big question for Julie Fitzgerald from Z Energy when partnering again with Synapsys in 2022 – this time to help develop a company-wide learning and training platform with a focus on understanding supply chain models. Our Managing Director, Phil, recently sat down with Julie…
Staying Current in a Changing World
We know that transformation and adaptability are key to organisations thriving and growing. But transformation can be hard. Remaining current though? That’s much easier. Or is it? What is ‘current’ is subject to change, and might not be current in six months’ time. So what does ‘current’ mean for us, and the work we do?…
Bringing our Stands to Life
At Synapsys, our Stands reflect both how we think and are the main drivers of the work that we do. Our Stands are what we believe in and what guide us as individuals and as a business. So what are they? Whakarerekē whaitikanga – we stand for meaningful change and the discipline to execute it….
The role learning plays in transformation
“Since I joined Synapsys a few months ago,” says Jo Parag, our General Manager Customer and Client Relationship Manager, “I have come to appreciate our positioning line of ‘Learn to Transform’. On the surface it’s a simple statement but dig a little deeper and the complexity and strength of this statement for both our clients…
Learning as you go
It’s fascinating to see how organisations are responding differently to the challenge of exploring their relationship with Te Ao Māori. Interest in Te Reo Māori is palpable, and there is a growing recognition that Tikanga Māori is an important demonstration of a commitment to recognising diversity – being inclusive. More and more though we are…
Gamification in Learning: Partnering with Z Energy
Z Energy is one of New Zealand’s largest fuel distributors, and a long-term partner of Synapsys. Z Energy first engaged Synapsys’ services when Z took over the company from Shell, and were responsible for developing a learning and training platform for pilot Z Energy sites around the country. Having now established themselves fully –…
So where does our story begin?
At Synapsys, our name and our brand tell our story. We think of the synapses in the brain as the spark of creative thought, but they are also central to how we remember, and how we tell our body to take action. Synapsys stands for creative thought and action – we have a meaningful impact by…
What are our Stands?
At Synapsys, our Stands reflect how we think and drive the work that we do. What are they? Whakarerekē whaitikanga – we stand for meaningful change and the discipline to execute it. Tiakitanga Whakawhanaunga – we stand for trusting relationships and support both eachother and our communities. Manawanui – we stand for courage and speak our truth with…
We have some big news!
Synapsys’ very own Learning Design Lead, Maire Smith has been selected as a Judge for the upcoming New Zealand Association of Training and Development (NZATD) Awards! In being selected, Maire is being recognised for her significant contribution to learning – did you know that she has even been a recipient of an NZATD award in the…
Have you heard of Au Consulting?
Au Consulting are leaders when it comes to implementing cultural change here in Aotearoa. Using the combined strategic, cultural and educational expertise of their consultants, Au Consulting are able to support and guide organisations to connect more authentically with Te Ao Māori. Synapsys recently worked with Au Consulting on the creation of several micro modules and…
The latest Pickled cases are live!
Maybe you want to help a farmer spraying gorse on a steep slope, or you might be keen to assist Tate and his team with a bit of welding in an online game? Back in 2019, Synapsys partnered with Worksafe New Zealand to develop the learning design for an online game suite that would help…
Webby award finalist!
Wow! Pickled! – the microlearning we collaborated on with WorkSafe and AKQA last year – is a finalist for the Webby Awards in the Mobile Experience category! It’s great to see this international recognition of best-of-the-internet! From over 13,500 entries from over 70 countries, this nomination puts the Pickled! experience in the top 10%. Pretty…
How long does it take?
One of the first conversations we have with many of our clients starts like this: I’ve already done a full learning needs analysis and gathered all the content; how fast can you develop an e-learning module for me? People seem quite surprised when we still want to go through a Discovery process before giving a…
Shining with Rise
In the last few months, we’ve worked with several clients
to make e-learning modules in Articulate Rise, where previously we would have
used Storyline.
Right now seems a good moment to look back and think about what made Rise the best solution for these projects, how to get the most from it, and what pitfalls exist for the unwary.
Pickled!
We are thrilled to have worked on the new WorkSafe/ACC gamified microlearning site ‘Pickled’, which went live on Friday!
Knowledge Management rides again?
Remember the Knowledge Management wave that moved through in the early ’90s? Large repositories of live shared process documents that gave everyone a shared view of how things were done…. Whatever happened? LMSs came along, instructional content was easier to digest and maybe more effective… Perhaps it’s time in the L&D space has come again…
Notes from the Learning Technology Group
Learning Technology Interest Group (LTIG) in Christchurch is a collaborative group in the region made up of people and organisations with a strong interest in leveraging technology to improve learning in their organisations. Synapsys plays a pivotal role in the group, by organising the events and communications of the group and encouraging members to present,…
EdTech Christchurch Launch
We were delighted to lead the South Island launch of Edtech on Tuesday 6th. A large group braved ugly weather to hear from a panel representing the education, government and corporate sectors talk about challenges and successes we all share in the space of learning technologies. Genuine access and engagement continue to be challenges. It’s…
We have the technology, do we know what to do with it?
As always, the Deliotte Global Human Capital Trends challenges and informs the L&D sector. Careers and Learning is now the number two priority, well ahead of leadership development, digital platforms and analytics. Careers now average 60 years, jobs 4-5 years, and the half-life of a learned skill is now 5 years. Do the maths. We’re…
Immersive Learning; Not just the look
The trends in gaming are often a great indicator for learning design too. More recently we’ve seen a massive pull towards the AR/VR world with an emphasis on an immersive experience. Recently Synapsys worked with one of our partners looking at how we can provide more immersive virtual reality utilising a high-end headset. Immersive is…
Engaging your team with system change: no frills, big impact
Last month I was running a requirements workshop with a Synapsys client who are at the start of their journey with Learning Management Systems. For the uninitiated, a requirements workshop aims to pull together all the different things that an organisation wants its system to do. It’s not about the functionality of a LMS but…
Practical Augmented Reality becomes… reality
Augumented Reality (AR) made it into the mainstream almost overnight with 2016’s Pokemon Go mobile game. That fad seems to be well and truly over for all but a committed few, and the costs at the time put it out of reach for more practical applications. Now Apple and Google have both recently released free…
Digestible Analytics in Business and Learning Systems
Analytics are great aren’t they? The ability to really track real-time data at a depth and level to give you all the information you could possibly want. Ask a data person how much data is too much and that’s like asking a graphic artist how much resolution is too much. But for the rest of…
LinkedIn 2017 Workplace Learning Report
The LinkedIn 2017 Workplace Learning Report put together by Britt Andreatta is worth a look if you are interested in: Workplace learning trends What areas L&D programmes are focusing on The Grenier Curve for thinking about your organisation’s stage of growth and the next transformation it’s likely to go through. It’s drawn from North American…
Engaging learners through interactive video
Many people are already using video to deliver training, but traditional video can only go so far to meet learning needs. Interactive video, where questions, branching, and other interactions can be added to enhance the experience, has been becoming more mainstream and easier to create in the past couple of years. We’ve been particularly impressed…
New Staff On-board: July 2017
We warmly welcome Karen Gillie and Nigel Young to our team at Synapsys. A former lecturer in adult learning, Karen has been designing workplace L&D for most of her career. She has extensive experience in matching technology to organisational requirements and is responsible for managing our LMS implementation projects. Nigel has over 20 years’ experience…
Notes from ATD Atlanta 2017
With over 10,000 attendees and hundreds of presenters and vendors, nobody sees everything at ATD. Here are a random collection of ideas and tools that caught my attention. Evaluating learning impact From Tony Bingham’s conference welcome, IBM has sidelined big data analytics for measuring learning impact and gone to asking managers what they think…
Business Problems: Totara Solutions Workshop
Bebe and Phil ran a session on looking for technical solutions to business issues as part of the TotaraLMS conference last week. The focus of the session was to look at the issues and problems that workshop participants faced in their everyday work life. We flushed out a great range of issue – for example:…
Synapsys NZ appointed as provider on All-of-Government (AoG) Consultancy Services Panel
As part of the All-of-Government (AoG) Consultancy Services solution, New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) has established the Business and Finance category to offer eligible government agencies specialist advice and competitive solutions from a broad panel of experienced consultancies. Synapsys NZ Ltd is pleased to have been appointed as a panel provider in the Human…
Getting buy-in for measuring learning impact
I recently attended a webinar presented by Andy Webb from Applied.com on getting buy-in from your boss for learning measurement/ analytics projects. It’s worth a look here if you have time. If not, here are a few of my takeaways… Of course, your programme should be designed around your organisation’s KPIs, and you should measure…
Moving from workshops to blended learning
Many, many of our clients are looking to re-purpose workshop based learning programmes to a blended learning approach. There are numerous drivers. Cost of delivery is the most common one, closely followed by bottlenecks in availability of experts, and a concern around the lack of evidence of uptake and application of learning (“they attended, but…
ATD 2015 Panellists’ thoughts on ROI
Some thoughts from a panel on ROI at the ATD2015 conference comprising Rick de Rijk, James Kirkpatrick, Laura Paramoure and Shaun Riley… #1 We tend to frame programmes around curricula – the objectives we hope will deliver the change we’re looking for. If we framed them around the KPIs that defined success instead, we’d be…
Improving your development processes
For many organisations, a development process includes just the core of the product development cycle – the initial concepts or storyboards through to final deployment. But there are wider considerations within any development cycle that need to be addressed if you want to ensure your development process is the best it can be. There are…
Measuring the success of your initiatives
Whether you’re developing and delivering a learning initiative, or improving your L&D processes, we all know we should measure the success of what we’re doing. Clear benchmarks, clear goals, compelling evidence of the logic of us doing more with bigger budgets for the betterment of our organisation. Often we don’t though…. No benchmark to measure…
Inspirational Keynote from Sugata Mitra at ATD2015
Keynote speakers have a rare opportunity to shift thinking on a large scale. 10,000 registered for ATD2015, it looked like well over half attended Sugata’s session. He well and truly took his chance; this blogpost is no doubt a tiny part of the ripple that will spread out from the session. It doesn’t cover his…
Will LRSs replace LMSs?
Learning Records Stores are gaining traction because of their ability to track and report on informal or unstructured activity. Working with Experience API (also known as Tin Can and xAPI), LRSs provide rich data on learner activity as they move around outside of structured content typically put together and managed within LMSs. This leads some…
Global Human Capital Trends 2015; Deloitte University Press
This report from Deloitte puts Learning and Development as the third highest talent challenge facing organisations (from a survey pool of 3300 business in 106 countries). Sitting only behind culture and engagement and leadership, it got an average importance rating of 74/100. It’s up from 8th place last year. On the face of it, it’s…
Connection Culture by Michael L Stallard
Michael Stallard argues in Connection Culture that growing a ‘connection culture’ in your organisation gives competitive advantage. He argues that it helps productivity, innovation and staff retention, amongst other things. In support, he sites research that compared business units with engagement and connection scores in the bottom 25%, against others with the top 25%’s median…
Mastering Mobile Learning by Chad Udell & Gary Woodill
We all struggle to figure out how to fold new technologies into our learning experiences. It seems human nature to try and shoehorn the new tool into our existing paradigm, rather than ask how our paradigm could change. If this sounds familiar to you, Mastering Mobile Learning will be a useful tool to help you…
The New Social Learning, Tony Bingham & Marcia Conner
If you’re interested in understanding what Social Learning really is, and what it’s rationale might be, Chapter One gives you plenty to think about. There aren’t many recent trends the authors don’t touch on. Lean, BYOD, Gen Y and Millenials, 70/20/10, they’re all in there along with a strong underlying themes around passion, energy and…
Leveraging learning technologies for business impact
Summary of Retirement Villages Association Financial Sector Forum, October 2015 Presentation Recent research holds that Learning and Development has become a critical tool in meeting the global challenges in talent development.[1] We see common challenges across all sectors driving this; the need to adapt to change, retain staff, reduce cost, and find new revenue streams….