About Mike O'Brien

Mike O'Brien started SmarterMedium in 2004 with the premise that the learning value could be continually enhanced by customizing solutions to the enterprise and innovating the delivery medium. Our initial focus was step-by-step guides as everyone was a digital novice. Hundreds of projects later, working with global customers, we have grown with customers developing learnings that seek to improve performance through story and engagement for all employees.

Today we work in the cloud, developing and delivering learning courses for organizations launching and deploying cloud systems, onboarding users, and employees, and seeking to better engage employees digitally through user adoption, learning, or digital transformation. Through our evolution, we have moved from step by step instruction to benefits and features, to story that engages, and now to inclusive content.

Working with organizations launching cloud technologies, we have seen the target audiences for training, learning, and development steadily progress from digital novice to native. While the complexity of any single technology is reducing, the sheer numbers of applications, devices, and digital workflows are increasingly complicating adoption for anyone trying to enter the digital economy from the outside. For these candidates to be successful, we have to mind the digital gap.

Most onboarding systems are oriented to automating and streamlining the interactions needed between the organization, HR, and the new hire. Our approach focuses on pre-boarding new hires and bridging knowledge gaps for a successful start in the organization. While pre-boarding cannot overcome all the skills required to create digital fluency in the typical four weeks between offer and the first day, our programs can:

1) Help new hires present themselves for first day/ first impression success.
2) Mirror what onboarding success looks like to the new hire.
3) Provide curated exposure to the culture and digital technologies from the organization's perspective and usage.
4) Provide relatable experiences to assist them with their start.

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Books By Mike O'Brien

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Four Weeks to Work Playbook: Pre-boarding Journey from Offer to First Day Jul 16, 2018

by Mike O'Brien , Loni Anzalone , Laura Bissell , Jacquelyn Twombly , Elke O'Brien

$14.95

Joining a team already in motion requires new employees to rapidly onboard in order to have any chance of success. The digital economy is speeding up transitions and transformations, with increasing pressure on performance, from day one. Four Weeks to Work is focused on improving the new-hire experience before the first day.

Four Weeks to Work is a pre-boarding program that is presented in 14 short, story vignettes that showcase both the new hires’ and the manager’s storyline side-by-side. This equips the new hire, and the team they are joining, with a shared experience and perspective.

Other Formats: Paperback

Four Weeks to Work Team Book: Preparing Your Team for Onboarding a New Hire Oct 5, 2018

by Mike O'Brien , Loni Anzalone , Elke O'Brien , Laura Bissell , Jacquelyn Twombly

$14.95

Prepare Teams for Pre-boarding Journey from offer to First Day.

Joining a team already in motion requires a new hire to rapidly onboard to have any chance at success. Four Weeks to Work Team Book is a pre-boarding program that helps prepare the hiring manager and team for the arrival of a new member. The Team Book leverages the typical pre-hire experience storyline to provide support and assistance to the new employee in a form with which they will readily identify and can better assist the employee with their first day and improve his/her performance start.

Four weeks is the typical time period between jobs or starting a new role. For the prospective employee, accepting an offer sets off a sequence of events that, over the next month, will shape and alter their routines and habits, their career, and even their identity. For the hiring manager, team, and organization, these four weeks are a wait time until your journey intersects with their work.

The Four Weeks to Work Team Book assists hiring manager and the team to create an engaging pre-hire experience that provides momentum for a successful performance start on day one.

Other Formats: Paperback

Gomo Learning Playbook: For Onboarding Content Creators 2019 Edition Apr 13, 2019

by Mike O'Brien , Loni Anzalone , Laura Bissell , Jacqueline Twombly , Elke O'Brien

$14.99

A practical guide and introduction to learning experience creation and blended learning with Gomo Learning Authoring. 2019 Edition

What is the Gomo Learning Playbook?
The Gomo Learning Playbook onboards new users to creating learning pathways using Gomo Learning Authoring.

What is Gomo Learning?
Gomo Learning is an online agile learning authoring system that offers a complete learning experience development platform. This agile approach to learning and training using Gomo Learning is shaped by interactions and collaboration with participants during the learning process. Developing new learning pathways, Gomo Learning tightens iterations between stakeholders and developers for faster development timelines and more fluid, dynamic results for learners and organizations.

Who is this Playbook for?
This playbook is geared to organizations moving and embracing technologies like Gomo Learning and transforming traditional learning processes to create new learning experiences. For any organization onboarding to Gomo Learning, this playbook presents the tools and practical how-tos to develop and author content, providing a walkthrough of the concepts and benefits of blended learning approaches, supported by step-by-step content, features, and functionality.

Who is SmarterMedium?
Using technology, immersive design, and story craft, SmarterMedium builds flexible and scalable learning experiences that engage employees, managers, and teams across the globe. Since 2004 SmarterMedium has collaborated with more than 400 companies to develop learning solutions to launch cloud programs, train new employees, develop the skills of their managers and leaders, and engage their employees at every level of their business.

Why this Playbook?
SmarterMedium has worked with customers and partners pushing the development of innovative experiences to find new ways to engage employees. Our collaborations and discoveries using the Gomo Learning authoring tools have spawned novel ideas and developed new ways of working with customers. What we have learned along the way powers the approach, lessons, and expertise within this playbook.

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