The 10 Commandments For Leadership

By Don Boykin (Originally titled, What I Wish I Had Known Before I Got Into Management)

Leaders don’t start out as leaders. For example, we started out as writers, then someone put us in a leadership position. The inclination is to drift back to what we know (i.e. writing). What often gets missed here is the connection we should make with those whom we lead and work. Everyone is looking for someone to follow.

10 Commandments

1. It is always about people and relationships.
We tend to focus on the work, rather than the people. Don’t do it! We have to keep our eyes on the people.

2. It’s more about being than doing.
Dr. Henry Blackaby says that leadership development is synonymous with personal growth. The best thing a leader can do for their organization is to grow personally.

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Online Training: Retention is Everyones Issue

Outside of the corporate and university eLearning models user retention often runs amuck. It is common to experience as much as 20-50% attrition writes David P. Diaz. In some cases I have witnessed as much as 30-70% for those organizations that do not attempt to stem the flow of abandonment.

Considered the most significant barriers to online learning are:

1. Technical problems
2. Cost of and access to the Internet
3. Time and support for studies
4. Personal motivation
5. Technical skills
6. Academic skills
7. Social interactions
8. Administrative/instructor issues

From Keith Tyler-Smith’s Abstract – Early Attrition among First Time eLearners: A Review of Factors that
Contribute to Drop-out, Withdrawal and Non-completion Rates of Adult
Learners undertaking eLearning Programmes

Some favorable strategies I have given to companies in need have been the following…

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SEO: The Elusive Target

Everybody wants to be number one. No, I am not talking about sports teams, but Web site rankings on Search Engines. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it it known today, is a discipline (and lucrative job if you’re well versed) that has been around since the first Search engines hit the Web. Early on, SEO was used in a desire to get your site listed at the top of search listings. Being amongst the first listings, data showed that the greater the chance you had of being clicked on. More clicks, more traffic. More traffic, more money, And so it went for early engines such as Inktomi, AltaVista, Yahoo!, and others.

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Has Your Web Site Got Attention Deficit?

By E. Brown

The two boys slowly crept up toward the mouth of the ancient cave, unaware of the danger that lurked within….

Have I got your attention?

Authors Thomas Davenport and John Beck of the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change say the economy of the future will be one based on attention. Acquiring, maintaining, and managing attention will be key to the business paradigm of the future.

This certainly has interesting implications on how we might strategize business for the years ahead. Yet today, capturing the eyes of Web surfers and then keeping them is a goal no one with a Web site will refute. We, as content developers and sellers, need to be the most concerned about this because we have businesses to grow and bottom lines to keep.

What are ways by which we can hold the long-term attention of our online visitors and customers? Davenport and Beck suggest some of the following Attention Structures that promote “stickiness”…

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