Will an eCornell Certificate in Project Leadership result in career advancement?

I put the following message at the bottom of most of my posts on this blog -

"Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about my experience with the eCornell Project Leadership classes, please email me at lisson@gmail.com"

The most frequent question I receive in my email box is a version of - "Has a Certificate in Project Leadership resulted in career advancement?"

I believe earning my Certificate in Project Leadership was a good decision for me, because it helped me fulfill my goals.

I wanted my employer to know that I was interested in learning and growing as an employee. I am not just here to punch a time clock and earn a paycheck. Investing my time and money in ongoing education from eCornell has broadcast that message loud and clear.

I wanted to learn skills that would make my job easier, more rewarding and more productive. The tools and strategies I learned in my eCornell Project Leadership classes have helped me to properly manage my time and better handle conflict with coworkers.

I wanted to contribute to my workplace in new ways. As a result of ideas we worked with in class and supplemental reading, I have become a more proactive employee, submitting ideas that would improve employee morale and make existing teamwork more effective.

Earning my Certificate in Project Leadership from eCornell has given me a higher quality of life when it comes to dealing with teams at my place of employment and in my personal life.

I welcome other alumni of eCornell classes to share the reasons why they took the eCornell classes and their post-Certificate employer experiences!

Upcoming Cornell webinar on Hotels and Social Media

Cornell is holding an interesting looking webinar providing information on how hotels can use their social media data more effectively with an eye toward better understanding their customers and improving their company.

These are the details, according to my copy of the eCornell Career Advantage newsletter:

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Drive Profits & Improve Decisions with Social Media Analytics
Speakers:
Steve Levigne, Vice President, McDonald's Corporation
Bill Carroll, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Cornell School of Hotel Administration
Kelly A. McGuire, PhD, Practice Director, Hospitality & Travel Global Practice, SAS
April 15, 2011 @ 11am Eastern / 8am Pacific

Join us for this session focusing on how hotels and casinos can turn the volumes of social media data they’ve collected into meaningful and profitable information. Our panel will discuss how advanced analytics is the key to transforming volumes of unstructured text data into insight about operations, revenue and guest interactions that can be shared across the enterprise.

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The sign up page is here: http://www.sas.com/reg/web/corp/1185088

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about my experience with the eCornell Project Leadership classes, please email me at lisson@gmail.com

Better by Atul Gawande - How to Improve Performance

In the book, 'Better,' Atul Gawande, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, offers five suggestions for "becoming a positive deviant."

Ask an Unscripted Question
Don't Complain
Count Something
Write Something, and
Change

Of these five, my favorite is Count Something. By taking charge of quantifying the effectiveness of my work, I can become and experiment of one and find ways to improve my own best performance.

I rely on counting something far more as a runner than I do at my workplace. How can I bring the lessons I have learned in improving my running performance to my job?

This book inspired me with stories of how health care facilities around the world have innovated in achieving their mission of improving performance - of becoming Better.

New Cornell Certificate -Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders

I received this message from the eCornell Alumni group on LinkedIn:

New Program Announcement:
Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders

eCornell’s newest online certificate program is "Marketing Strategy for Business Leaders" (see http://tinyurl.com/4ra8f3h ). This 6-course program provides the MBA-level marketing concepts and tools leaders and managers need to make informed decisions and set direction for their company, business unit, department or product line:

* Marketing Concept & Strategy Essentials
* Applied Marketing Concepts & Decision-Making Tools
* Marketing Research & Analysis
* Brand Equity: Creating & Communicating the Value of Your Brand
* New Product Successes & Failures
* Distribution Strategy & International Marketing

Request more information about this new program--including program start dates--at http://www.ecornell.com/l-marketing

eCornell recognized as Best Leadership Development Program

Congratulations to eCornell! According to their website, eCornell Won 3-of-3 at the 2010 Best of E-Learning Awards.

eCornell won in three categories at the 2010 Best of E-Learning! Awards hosted by E-Learning! magazine, including:

* Best Leadership Development Program
(eCornell’s Leadership & Strategic Management Suite)
* Best Soft Skills Training Content
(eCornell’s HR Management Suite)
* Best LMS Content Provider
(eCornell’s Enterprise Platform)

The winners in 20 categories of the “Best of E-Learning!” Reader’s Choice awards were announced at the virtual E-Learning! Summit on November 4 and will appear in the December 2010 issues of E-Learning! magazine and Government E-Learning! magazine.

eCornell repeated as “Best Leadership Development Program,” the category it won at the 2009 awards program.

“The Best of E-Learning! Awards program is the only reader’s choice awards in the market,” said Chris Proulx, CEO of eCornell. “The program is unique because it allows the buyers and users of the many products and services in our industry to provide first-hand input about their usefulness and overall impact on training operations. It’s an important measure within our industry, and we’re proud and grateful that so many of our satisfied customers voted for eCornell.”

I am proud of eCornell for being recognized as a leader in quality online education by adult professionals seeking additional knowledge to improve their skills and expertise in the workplace!

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about my experience with the eCornell Project Leadership classes, please email me at lisson@gmail.com

Validation - How to change someone's attitude

'Validation' is a Wonderful video that illustrates the positive power we have over others and can use to change other people's attitudes.



Validation is 16 minutes long, and ends up as a love story, but the first five minutes are enough to grasp the gist of the message. An honest compliment goes a long way and connects you to other people. The only sad past of this film is the fact that not one of the people who were validated by the lead character bothered to reciprocate when he was sad.

How can I act to validate others?

How can I act to reinforce the behavior of those that validate me?

How to negotiate with different cultures - The Global Negotiator by Jeswald W. Salacuse

I have just finished reading ‘The Global Negotiator’ by Jeswald W. Salacuse. Salacuse is a member of the Steering Committee of the Harvard Program on Negotiation.

Salacuse identified Culture as special barrier #2 to global deal making. He identified the four elements of culture as Behavior, Attitudes, Norms and Values. Salacuse also identifies ten ways that culture affects deal making, and provides data on how different cultures value each of these factors.

He brings up an interesting point in this part of the book – cultures may be different, but professions often carry their own set of values which are similar among workers from different cultures around the world. The military, for instance, appreciates risk taking and does not make decisions by consensus. This military ‘culture’ is the same, whether the soldiers are American or Japanese.

Building on this knowledge, leaders can provide additional opportunities for international teams to form relationships and improve mutual understanding by creating occasions for members of the same profession, like engineers, to work together, share expertise and interact with one another.

I would recommend this book for anyone involved in professional or personal interactions with a member of a different culture. Understanding the framework of how culture operates in personal and professional life has given me the tools to more easily identify and compensate for my own cultural beliefs.

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about my experience with the eCornell Project Leadership classes, please email me at lisson@gmail.com