Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Collaboration is critical for progressive organizations to succeed – so says HBR

On the cover of this month's Harvard Business Review highlights the importance of collaboration at progressive companies. Collaboration has received a lot of press, now a centerpiece and on the cover of one of the top management and leadership publications in the world. So it must be important. I agree with HBR and the other articles that discuss the merits of collaboration, social and informal learning in the marketplace. (If interested in a free chapter from the new book The New Social Learning, just click through).

One scenario described in the article Are you a Collaborative Leader in this month's HBR discusses how salesforce.com got its entire workforce engaged in their internal (now external) product call Chatter.

We believe the ability to collaborate across all levels of the organization, as well as various time zones is critical for an organization of any size to compete effectively in the today's economy.

Why? First of all, the competitive universe is much larger now than ever before. For many organizations, it is truly a global marketplace, in terms of ideas, talent, customers and competition. The customer expectations and demands are higher. A company's footprint may be larger and virtual as you attract the best talent, wherever they may live. And today's macro economy leaves much to be desired.

With this as the competitive backdrop, how do you ensure your team – no matter how large your company, division or association happens to be - is up to snuff to compete in what is arguably the most challenging business environment in decades?

To start, the leadership of the organization must model this behavior. But how? I recommend the free article, the HBR and other similar articles. You will also want to support and encourage your human resource/training leader to get the tools to get this going within your organization.

The good news: these tools are now readily available and affordable for organizations of all sizes. Many employees are well versed in collaborating in their own life, through the advent of Facebook®, LinkedIn® and other similar tools.

However, you will want to use tools that are developed for organizations, not attempting a tool like Facebook.

Start with your training. Find a tool that reinforces collaboration while you are training your team. Even if you have a learning management system, you can convert that to a very powerful social learning tool. The rest is up to you.

TOPYX® has gained acceptance as an award winning, affordable, easy-to-use eLearning technology that combines traditional learning management system functionality with integrated social learning and eCommerce all-in-one user-friendly, feature-rich software as a service (SaaS) application. TOPYX Bolt™ provides the best of TOPYX's social learning right into your current learning management system.
The result is a collaborative, engaging learning experience for users, whenever they wish and wherever they may be. Learn more about TOPYX business software solutions for corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, associations, not-for-profit organizations, and academic institutions of any size at www.interactyx.com or call 888.575.2266 x101.

About Interactyx Limited:

Founded in 1995, Interactyx Limited is a global eLearning software company providing engaging and collaborative learning experiences to learners whenever and wherever they want it.
Interactyx, the developer of TOPYX, is at the forefront of developing social eLearning software solutions that provide an engaging, online learning environment by integrating collaborative learning resources into traditional learning management system functionality. The result is TOPYX, an easy to use, fully-hosted social LMS that allows learners to collaborate and communicate like never before, including mobile devices (mLearning). TOPYX has gained acceptance as an innovative, affordable solution for businesses, academic institutions and associations of any size to deliver a complete eLearning software solution to meet the needs of today's learner that is the best value in eLearning today.

Alfred R. Novas
Chief Executive Officer
Interactyx Limited
+1.888.575.2266 x205 or +44.020.7084.6244 x205
al.novas@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Interactyx Limited Launches Social Learning Addon Software for Existing Learning Management System Infrastructures

Interactyx Limited announces the launch of TOPYX Bolt™ which provides for the social learning elements of its award winning TOPYX® social learning management system (LMS) to existing, legacy LMSs. TOPYX Bolt will extend learning management systems by providing a seamless integration of award-winning social learning features that will allow learners to easily collaborate through public and private communities that TOPYX Bolt will provide.

TOPYX Bolt delivers the same award-winning social learning resources as the TOPYX social LMS, except it “bolts on” to an existing LMS infrastructure and facilitates enhanced social and informal learning throughout the enterprise. Learners can now have access to a series of social learning features, such as forums, chat, blogs, shoutboxes, polls and many other tools to be used for collaborative learning in (private or public) subject, course and content communities.

“The concept is genius. Pure genius.” said Craig Weiss, President, E-Learn Info Advisory Services.

Interactyx Limited is a leader in the eLearning software industry with its flagship learning platform TOPYX, which engages learners and provides collaborative learning environments for businesses, associations, academic departments and eCommerce needs of any sized organization. TOPYX was recently named by the Brandon Hall Group as the gold award winners for best advance in social learning technology and best advance in learning management for small- and medium- sized businesses, and the bronze winner for best advance in learning management for blended or informal learning.

“Companies are looking to incorporate social learning into their learning and development paradigm, yet not throw out their legacy LMS infrastructure. With TOPYX Bolt, we provide an addon that delivers award winning social learning resources to an organization’s existing LMS. An organization does not need to replace its legacy LMS in order to provide social learning tools learners are craving.” stated Alfred R. Novas, Chief Executive Officer of Interactyx Limited. “The need for enterprises to keep its existing workforce and the onboarding of new employees trained, productive and fully engaged, in our ever increasingly competitive world, has never been more important. We are very excited to launch TOPYX Bolt today and provide another affordable solution to enterprises wanting to benefit from social learning.”

TOPYX Bolt is designed to be an affordable, subscription based and easy to implement solution, which extends an enterprise’s learning and development delivery model with collaboration tools geared to further engaging the learner.

To learn more about TOPYX and TOPYX Bolt, visit us at www.interactyx.com/bolt-on-social-learning-to-lms or contact information@interactyx.com.


About Interactyx Limited:

Interactyx Limited is a global eLearning software company providing engaging and interactive learning experiences to learners, businesses, academic departments, associations and nonprofit organizations of any size.

Since 1995, Interactyx has worked with educational programs to develop engaging learning solutions. Interactyx, the developer of TOPYX, is at the forefront of developing eLearning and social learning management system (social LMS) solutions that engage learners and enhance collaborative learning environments. TOPYX has gained acceptance as an innovative, affordable solution to deliver a complete eLearning software solution to meet the needs of today's learner that is the best value in social learning software.