Mike O'Brien

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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.
Are you an author?
Author Updates
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Blog postSix steps to integrate surveys into learning experiences and achieve better insights than assessments.1 week ago Read more
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Blog postBusiness leaders, employees, organizations, and brands have become more vocal and supportive in responses to social issues that affect their employees, customers, markets, and society. A critical next step is transitioning these social moments into organizational memory and learning within the workplace.3 months ago Read more
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Blog postLearning and development in behavioral economics can inform, improve, or alter judgment and decision-making when faced with choices or uncertainty.4 months ago Read more
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Blog postNetflix grows and onboards new fans of Formula 1, particularly in the United States, not by the spectacle of performance sport racing and results, but through storytelling.4 months ago Read more
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Blog postWhat if we developed performance and development goals using story formats?4 months ago Read more
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Blog postThe best translation process offers a mixture of technology-assisted and human translation. Leveraging what digital strategies provide to streamline the translation process enables human editors to localize the experience.5 months ago Read more
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Blog postLearning story plots go beyond entertaining — they endeavor to teach.5 months ago Read more
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Blog postDiversifying story plots allow for more diversity in learning experiences.5 months ago Read more
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Blog postArtificial Intelligence A.I. may be better termed as assisting intelligence, as a recent experimental AI showed producing a finished version of Beethoven’s 10th Symphony from mere notes as a starting point.
5 months ago Read more -
Blog postPeter Jackson's epic remake of 'Get Back,' available on Disney+ streaming, is instantly engrossing as one of the most realistic views of the creative process recorded. The documentary bears witness to the Beatles developing and recording tracks for the 'Get Back' Album.5 months ago Read more
Titles By Mike O'Brien
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.
Why this playbook?
SmarterMedium works with customers and partners, pushing the development of innovative learning experiences to find new ways to engage employees. Our collaborations and discoveries using the Gomo Learning Authoring tools have spawned novel ideas and new ways of working with customers. What we have learned along the way powers the approach, lessons, and expertise within this playbook.
Who is the 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 new learning approaches, supported by step-by-step content, features, and functionality.
New masterclass Content for 2020:
Inclusive Learning
Continuous Scroll Content
Post Course Surveys
Crafting Learning Stories
Create an Always-on Learning Experience
In addition, we’ve expanded our coverage of learning to include a new section on translation and localization of learning experiences.
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.
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.