When it comes to your career, professional development is an important part of feeling satisfied, rewarded and inspired by your work.

Employees who receive ongoing professional development report being happier at work than those who are not being sufficiently trained or challenged in their roles. In fact, over half of today’s workforce considers professional development to be a contributing factor in their job satisfaction, with 58% of Millennials expecting employers to provide them with relevant learning and development opportunities.

Making sure that you’re continuing to improve your skill set will show employers that you’re committed to both professional and personal growth, which is essential if you want to get ahead in your career. One of the best ways to ensure that you keep learning, developing and growing within your role and industry is to invest some time in professional development courses.

Online courses are one of the easiest and best ways to help you get from where you are right now to where you want to be in the future. There are eLearning courses covering a huge range of professional development topics, from role-specific skills like programming and graphic design, to interpersonal ‘soft’ skills such as improving your communication and dealing with change.

To help get you started, here’s 5 of the best online courses around for professional development.

One of the best professional development steps you can take to boost your career is learning how to properly set and achieve goals. Identifying goals, setting them, and making them stick is easier said than done. But this course can help you do just that.

As the course outline says, “being able to set a path and stick to it, having the perseverance to make it work, and then recognising when you have found success are all the things great leaders are made of.”

This course is about taking responsibility for managing your professional development to achieve your career objectives. At the end of this course, you’ll feel more confident in knowing how to create and achieve your own goals, while using strategies to overcome any obstacles. You’ll understand the importance of networking and career planning – things you may have overlooked or seen as unimportant in the past – to set yourself up for success.

With customer service being central to many job roles, not just the retail and hospitality industries, it's an important part of your professional development. Whether your customers are internal stakeholders or external clients, your attitude towards customer service is likely to have a big impact on the company or organisation you work for.

Improving your understanding of customer service will help you in identifying your customers' needs while building stronger connections and relationships with them. This course will give you the tools you need to understand your modern customer base and how their needs have changed over time. You’ll explore topics such as:

why employee satisfaction is key for customer satisfaction,

the link between decision making and emotions, and

After the course, you’ll be able to review your customer experience strategy and respond more confidently to your customers' needs.

As we said earlier, improving soft skills such as communication can be a great place to start if you want to stand out from the competition and climb the corporate ladder.

No matter what role you’re in, or industry you’re working in, being able to communicate with colleagues, stakeholders, clients and senior leaders is one of the most important skills you can have. And if you want to move into a management or team leader position, you’ll need to know how to communicate effectively with your team.

This online course will help you find the right methods and channels of communication, to help lead you to more engaged and productive working relationships. You’ll leave this course with plenty of tips and tricks to use, and a clearer understanding of the environment you're trying to create within your workplace. Improving your communication skills won’t just benefit your work life – you’re bound to see positive benefits in your personal life also.

Another customer-focused eLearning course, this is interesting material for anyone who is keen to learn more about customer experience and improve their levels of service.

In order to provide extraordinary customer service, you need to understand the journey of your customers. This course teaches you how to map out the customer journey, helping you to understand the critical points in their journey, and how you can make sure their experience at these points is a positive one. You’ll gain important insight into the customer experience, which you can use to improve your customer strategy.

Adding these kinds of skills to your professional development will show your commitment to your customer base and the reputation of your organisation – both very valuable and valued traits in any employee.

This online course is particularly good if you’re looking to increase your leadership skills, as it explores strategic direction and ‘big picture’ thinking.

Leaders not only set the direction of an organisation, but also the company culture. This course will help you build a more collaborative and focused work culture by developing strategies that encourage positivity in the workplace.

identify and drive your organisation’s mission, vision and values

establish your values and align them to the business

use mission, vision and values to support your team and culture

help team members understand how their role fits into the bigger picture.

Even if you’re not currently in a management role it’s worthwhile taking this course. It can help prepare you for a promotion or relief position, giving you a competitive edge over other candidates.

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It’s never too late to start, that’s what they always say.

Though most of the time these worn out old sayings tend to be best taken with a hefty handful of salt, in the case of learning a new skill, whether as a hobby, for success in your work, or even to improve the health of your brain, this one hits the nail on the head. Regardless of your age or standing at in your career, learning new skills are incredibly beneficial.

The process of learning new skills gives individuals brand new abilities that can be particularly useful for an employer, as well as new perspectives and insights into the role of skills in any given workplace position. Even new skills that you may not feel relevant to your work can still be used to express the variety of aptitudes you have.

Here’s a look at the process behind learning a new skill and a suggestion of key points that will help you reach your goal.

Pick a New Skill and Make Sure It’s Worthwhile

Like most things in life, making the decision and taking the first step on the road is the hardest part of the whole journey. But once this is achieved, every other stage along that journey diminishes in difficulty.

To get you started with learning a new skill, you’ll first have to pick one. With all the interesting, exciting topics out there this can be tricky. Try first to first focus on a few of your preferences, then you can narrow those choices down.

Learning new skills for work require two main questions. The first is to ask which aspects of your job you enjoy the most. The second is to ask whether what you like doing is valued by your employer.

Deciding on your favorite aspects of your workplace role and basing your new skill on that will make the process of learning easier. Rather than a chore, it’ll be a joy. So for example, if you like watching the way people tick, you could learn a new skill through taking an organizational behavior course. But if you’re a computer programmer, is that going to help your career? That’s why you need to know whether the new skill you want to learn is valued in your corporate environment.

Set a New Skills Target, and Stick to It!

Here’s a fact that won’t surprise anyone: If you don’t put the work in then you’ll never achieve your target. The strange thing is that while everyone is aware of the importance of setting targets and putting in the hours of practice, few people ever do.

Once you’ve picked the new skill target, you set off on your journey. Attend the classes, practice what you’re taught and do not stop trying to learn. The more you practice, the better you get. But make sure your goals are realistic.

If your aim is to be able to hold a conversation in Italian but rarely practice speaking then don’t be shocked when your target deadline passes and you can’t even talk about the weather.

Remember that practice makes perfect and that it’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of learning and they remind you that you’re not quite there yet. Use them as a means to go on.

The ability to make mistakes dovetails well into the next point in our new skill learning process, which is simply this:  Remember to use your new skill!

Crazy idea, right? But this needs to be repeated. What is the point of learning a new skill if you’re not going to use it? If in the workplace a manager requires some help with HR work and you happen to have recently finished that organizational behavior course put yourself forward. If you’ve successfully completed that Italian conversation class and the boss is having trouble communicating with a client in Rome offer your new skill and dive right in.

A Method to the Madness – Make New Skill Learning Easier

Remember that in the journey of acquiring a new skill there are some factors that will make success more of less likely. One that we’ve already mentioned are picking a skill that will be valuable and that you think you’ll enjoy earning. Another is setting realistic goals.  But one of the most important factors in learning a new skill is the method of learning.  Online courses are a fantastic way to assist learning.

Resources like online learning course, or eLearning, are really helpful for professionals of any age. They’re mobile for learning anywhere, and flexible to suit any lifestyle. Working full time is no problem for online courses because you can go at your own pace. If there are kids to look after, you can log on and study after they’ve gone to bed.

For the most flexible yet effective of learning methods, look no further than an online learning course.

Enrolling on a course that certifies your ability to work in a group or that you are able to motivate others may seem a little silly, but put your biases aside for a moment.

Soft skills – those personal attributes that allow individuals to work harmoniously with others – are very highly considered. In fact, those who do not exhibit social abilities are unlikely to be considered for leadership roles. Soft skills are vitally important at leadership level.

So learning new skills that positively reflect your social abilities is time well spent. Add strings to your bow by certifying your attributes. Soft skills are needed now more than ever.

Have you moved into a role which requires you to be an LMS administrator?

It’s important for organizations to have a dedicated person in charge of managing and monitoring their Learning Management System. Your LMS can be used to improve business operations, workplace processes and company culture – and as an LMS administrator, you hold the keys to the success of your LMS.

Here’s what you need to know about being an LMS administrator, to help you feel more comfortable and confident in your new role. For managers and leaders, this article will also highlight the skills you should look for in an LMS admin, and how their job duties can help improve your business.

Learning management systems can be used successfully for a number of different reasons. They can be used to onboard new hires, enrol learners into eLearning courses, and monitor and track professional development. They can also be used as communication and collaboration platforms, to help improve organizational culture.

For your LMS to work well for your business, an LMS administrator must be able to take care of the everyday operations of the system, for administration, documentation, reporting, and creation of training programs. If you’re an LMS admin, you should also work to establish a positive working relationship between technical support and the program manager.

Kamy Anderson, expert in learning management system and eLearning authoring tools, divides the key responsibilities of an LMS admin into three categories:

Technical duties – defining user roles, creating learning courses, building custom certification, providing feedback for learners.

Collaboration duties – Participate in the process of information exchange, assist in the process of the review creation, consult with other teams to implement the best learning practices.

Staff training duties – create training courses on a regular basis, keep track of freshly uploaded relevant courses, spot and resolve issues in courses, help learners with any issues.

Let’s look closer at the technical duty of creating online learning courses, because it’s one of the most important duties of the LMS admin. Many administrators are given the task to create online courses either within the LMS or through an authoring tool that is then uploaded into the system.

If you’re new to creating eLearning courses this could appear as a pretty daunting challenge. But we’re here to help you out with that too. We recently published a handy eLearning course design checklist, to help you feel confident in designing online courses in the best way possible for your audience. This comprehensive design checklist will ensure you’re covering important aspects of eLearning design throughout the process – such as accessibility, navigation, graphics, multimedia and assessments.

You can also read our article on what makes a good online course design, in terms of the psychology behind the design process. This will give you a more in-depth discussion of online course design, helping you to connect more closely with your learners and their needs.

Taking the time to learn more about creating online courses will help you to provide your organization with user-friendly, successful, effective eLearning courses.

With so many duties and responsibilities, an LMS admin needs to have strong skills in a number of different areas.

First up, you obviously need to have the technical computer skills to manage the Learning Management System, and the ability to learn systems and processes quickly.

You’ll also need to be an effective communicator, with the interpersonal skills to talk to people from business units across the organization – face-to-face, in email and over the phone. Being organized, efficient and able to manage your own workload is essential for LMS admin. And having a strong eye for detail will be an advantage, to both minimize and recognize errors in the LMS.

Anderson adds to this list, believing that a good LMS administrator needs to have “a dedicated approach and perfect understanding of your organization’s policy and goals when it comes to learning” and be 100% “familiar with the compliance requirements in your business sphere.”

As you can see, the role of LMS administrator is very important for an organization's learning processes, and the professional development of its employees. With your role, you have the ability to make a very positive impact on company culture and the people who work within the organization. Good luck in your exciting new role!

What you need to know about being an LMS administrator

As a manager, you have a responsibility to the professional development of your staff, helping members of your team to continually develop and strengthen their knowledge and skills. To do this, it’s important to know how to choose the best learning environments for your team – so each employee has the opportunity to learn in the way that is best for them.

Everyone is different. And we all learn in different ways. Recognising your own learning style and the environment you work best in is a huge factor in your own professional development. In the same way, understanding which type of learning environment suits your employees best will allow you to work with them in the most effective way, while also making the most of your L&D resources.

If you’re in a management or leadership role, you’re in an exciting position to lead the way in improving professional development in your workplace. So why not take the time to gain a better understanding of learning environments, for the benefit of your team and organisation?

Thanks to technology, we’ve moved far beyond the dull days of workplace training. With new learning technologies, there are now plenty of exciting ways to help people learn, including eLearning, mobile, social and blended learning. And learning isn’t just confined to the training room.

There are many environments in which you can gain knowledge, which can be divided into four quadrants:

Effective learners learn in all four quadrants. So it’s wise to adapt to the future of learning and use this information to the advantage of your team.

HR managers, for example, are using a range of tech tools to improve the way they hire, onboard, train and manage employees. By investing in good learning technology, you’ll be far more likely to keep staff engaged, motivated and happy in their jobs – which is a win for both individual and organisation.

Keen to learn more about different learning environments for your staff?

The online course, How to Make the Best Learning Environment Choices, is a great place to start. Through this eLearning course, you’ll learn how to embrace learning environment diversity, which means offering development opportunities in a way that better meets the needs of the individual, not just the business.

Through videos, interviews and presentations from experts, you’ll learn what the future of workplace learning looks like, and discuss trends in leadership development and how workplace learning has changed.

You’ll work through the blended learning model, to understand the benefits of this practice for your employees. The course is specifically created for managers, so you’ll be given plenty of tips and tricks you can use back in the workplace to really understand and support your team.

While discovering how to identify your preferred learning style and environment, you’ll also be encouraged to experiment and try to expand your learning style, so that you can learn in other ways or environments. With the course running for approximately 30 to 45 minutes, you can cover all this in less than an hour!


How to choose the best learning environments for your team

Employees are typically given specific roles and responsibilities within a workplace. When something doesn’t fall within their wheelhouse, it gets shifted to someone else. Over time, the culture of sending something down the chain creates silos which harm productivity and keep knowledge segmented.

What causes these silos? Often, it’s a lack of proper communication and collaboration within the office. And it’s a highly prevalent issue.

In a survey of senior executives, only 25 percent of the participants said their workplace was effective at sharing knowledge across theoretical boundaries. Luckily, there are options for those interested in improving collaboration and focus in their teams. It requires fundamental changes to a company’s culture but, once these are in place, you’ll see productivity rise as workers are able to communicate more effectively, even between departments.

The How to Build Collaborative and Focused Teams course will help you bust through harmful silos to create a more supportive environment that encourages everyone to work as a unit. It provides methods for letting employees play to their strengths by creating thorough plans based on shared goals.

Here's a snapshot of everything covered in the course, so you know exactly what to expect as well as the benefits you’ll receive.

Welcome to the better way of doing business

The course begins with an introduction designed to help you see the various methods for building strong relationships with your team. You’ll learn about motivating your workers to be at their best and how to encourage trust among the group’s members.

This serves as a critical foundation, one upon which you’ll build a collaborative and focused team that can accomplish more in less time or by using fewer resources, all while working together seamlessly.

If you want to institute real change within your team, you’ll need to create a culture that fosters the new concepts of increased collaboration. In this module, key aspects of the “Circle of Safety,” an approach supported by Simon Sinek, will be covered.

The intention is to help you learn what it takes to build a workplace that functions on mutual trust and respect, ensuring all members of the team feel supported by each other and their manager. By establishing a “Circle of Safety” everyone has one another’s backs, keeping everyone protected and secure as they do their part.

Trust alone isn’t enough to get your team operating at their optimal level. The “Performance Planning” module teaches you how to motivate your employees properly and plan to ensure peak efficiency. You’ll be introduced to the cycle of driving team performance as well as techniques for bringing it into your workplace.

The purpose of this lesson is to understand what makes your team tick and how that information can help you motivate them to be at their best. Each person’s source of motivation may differ slightly, so knowing what they value is important to group success. This enables you to keep them moving forward even if times get challenging.

At their core, all performance plans are either reactive or proactive. The “Reactive and Proactive Performance Plans” module helps you learn to distinguish between the two paradigms, allowing you to make intelligent choices during the planning phases.

A collaborative workplace also means achievement is a group effort, even if the contributors are individuals. So, the successes and failures of the one are also the successes and failures of the team.

This section discusses the interconnectedness of performance. You’ll see how individuals, the team, and the organization all share responsibility in the performance arena, and how each piece affects the other within a business.

Many leaders wonder about the most efficient way to measure performance within the team. The “Measuring Performance” module helps answer that question.

You’ll learn about Key Results Areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how these can measure the success of team efforts. This section also explores lead and lag indicators in relation to KPIs, as well as how Professional Improvement Plans can impact the workplace culture in positive and negative ways.

The intention is to give you methods that can help you monitor performance while ensuring you have the tools necessary to make internal adjustments to create greater success.

The “What’s Your Game Plan?” section is an opportunity to explore what you’ve learned in the course and see how you can use the information to increase collaboration and focus within a team.

You’re provided a scenario featuring details about a team that has fallen off track. Then, using information from the entire How to Build Collaborative and Focused Teams course, you can put your skills to the test and select three areas of focus to help improve the team. This gives you a chance to explore your understanding of the lessons from a place of safety.

The final section offers congratulations, as you now have the knowledge to help you build collaborative, performance focused teams in your own workplace. The skills are yours to use, so you can move forward confidently as you bring positive change into your organization.

How to build collaborative and focused teams

We live in a digital world and that fact encouraged many businesses to bring in an LMS to facilitate training and education within the organization. However, just bringing in a program isn’t enough to get your employees excited about logging in. There has to be more to it than just being present.

If the only time your workers log in to the LMS is to take required training, you aren’t getting the full value out of the program. While education in required areas is important and should be made a priority, this isn’t encouraging employees to dig deeper. In fact, it could leave them less enthusiastic about the system.

To get your users excited about your LMS, you need to entice them and clearly demonstrate the value beyond ensuring compliance with certain policies. So, how do you peak their interest? Here are some tips to get you started.

Understand the Importance of Professional Development

The first step to increasing the use of your LMS is to understand how important that system really is, and not just in the context of your company. We all know that skilled workers improve your bottom line, but providing opportunities to grow professionally helps your staff too, in more ways than one.

Yes, additional training can give them the tools to be more productive during work hours, but that isn’t the only benefit. In most cases, your best and brightest crave challenges and are looking for support as they reach for their goals. And failing to provide employee development opportunities leads to early exits from your company.

High achievers want to learn and grow, and an LMS can be an ideal vehicle. You just have to make sure it is accessible and offers courses that excite your employees. And that means looking past mandatory training into something more comprehensive.

Even if you have a plethora of courses, you aren’t getting the full value of you LMS if you limit who can take what.  Often, managers only open training to individuals working in a particular job category, figuring it’s wise to limit access based on theoretical relevance to their current duties.

However, by opening up the full catalog to the entire organization, you may see something surprising.

Interest in a course isn’t always cut along job titles. For example, an executive assistant may appreciate a greater understanding of technical or scientific aspects of the department, as they are often tasked with taking meeting notes, compiling reports, creating presentations, and other similar support work.

If they don’t understand the subject, their effectiveness is limited. And, when faced with an option to alleviate their confusion and improve their understanding of the nature of the business, many will take advantage of the opportunity.

Similarly, there may be employees throughout the company who would like the opportunity to move up the ranks or change departments to follow an interest. By giving them access to everything your LMS has to offer, you’re encouraging them to explore new areas of knowledge or careers. And that may be the ideal inspiration to help them move forward.

So, if a current IT employee is interested in project management, why not let them give a Project Management for Information Technology course a try? They’ll get to learn more about a subject of interest and your company benefits from having an enthusiastic employee with more knowledge.

Did you know that word-of-mouth marketing is considered one of the most effective approaches for connecting with customers? If so, did you realize you can use the same principles to increase interest in your LMS?

Once your LMS has the right offerings, finding a few cheerleaders to help spread the word can be an effective method to get people logging in. And, when you choose employees from all levels within your company to do the talking, you might reach the largest percentage of your workers.

In many cases, management informs employees about options like LMS, they don’t necessarily discuss it. However, an employee that is excited about online learning won’t just send out an email to their co-workers telling them to try it; they’ll TALK about it with them.

They’ll sell the benefits, explain the system, and encourage people to explore the courses themselves. From a marketing perspective, this is hard to beat. And it’s a technique you can use to bring people to the LMS.

Then, once other people start getting excited about the opportunities, they’ll talk about it too.

You can begin this process by looking for your current top users of the system or those who’ve expressed an interest in learning more about their positions or the organization. Make sure they get a chance to have a great experience and encourage them to spread the word once they’ve gotten their hands dirty a few times.

If your go-to move is an email that doesn’t say more than “here’s a link to the LMS” and provides login information, it shouldn’t be a surprise people aren’t flocking to the site. You need to sell the LMS as a great opportunity. And that isn’t necessarily hard to do.

Start by keeping emails concise, but use more personal language to connect with your employees. Let them know the system is “ready for you” and that it will “help you learn and grow as a professional.”

The word “you” is especially powerful here, as it lets them feel as though you are speaking directly to them.

Feel free to include employee testimonials, such as some created by your cheerleaders. This helps other workers see that people just like them value the LMS, and it will encourage them to take a look.

Using some of the tips above, you can dramatically increase the interest in your LMS, allowing both your company and your employees reap the benefits of these great offerings. So, take the time to talk it up right, gather your cheerleaders, and make sure every knows the sky’s the limit when it comes to training opportunities.

Looking to develop your UX skills and gain a better understanding of user experience?

If you’re a UX designer, you’ll know how important it is to keep your design skills up-to-date and relevant to the industry. One of the best ways to continually develop your knowledge and skills is through eLearning, with loads of great training courses for UX designers available online.

Whether you want to learn more about user profiling and personas, or explore the world of mobile app design, you’re sure to find an online course that fits your objective. To get you started, here’s our pick of the bunch – a selection of 5 of the best eLearning courses for UX designers.

Kicking off the list of online courses, UX Design for Web Developers is a good starting place for understanding the principles and best practices of user experience.

Presented through video, this is a course for web developers who are looking to develop a deeper understanding of user experience – including why we need UX and how UX came to be. You’ll learn more about tools and techniques you can use to create better user experiences and interactive web design.

As you explore UX methodologies, you’ll develop the fundamental skills for designing a mobile-friendly website and structuring a website content strategy. Learn how to:

Build a website structure, keeping in check user flows and sitemaps

Exploit wireframes and build a solid one for responsive web design

Get to grips with UX best practices and incorporate them in your web design

Learn how to build a clickable wireframe prototype to enhance responsiveness

Upon completion of the course, you’ll have a finished website plan, ready for user testing and feedback.

UX Design Techniques: Creating Scenarios and Storyboards

This one is probably best for people who are already working in a UX design role, and who already have a good understanding of user experience best practice.

The Creating Scenarios and Storyboards course offers an in-depth look at the importance of scenarios and storyboarding to UX design. Both of these elements are vital for web designers, as they allow the designer to see how things will play out in a real environment.

Through this eLearning course, you’ll learn how to write scenarios and create engaging visual storyboards. These skills will help you map out ideas about what users need to complete day-to-day tasks and workflow, making your website designs far more effective and user-friendly.

Mobile UX Design Process: Create a Successful App

Want to know how to create apps? This course will give you the mobile app design skills you need to succeed in the competitive world of UX.

With Mobile UX Design Process, you’ll be adding a highly valued skill to your CV, enabling you to prototype, generate and test apps directly on your phone. Throughout the course, you’ll gain an understanding of what makes a positive mobile experience for users.

You’ll create a native iOS App, starting from the ideation process, moving on to drawing ideas and wireframing a basic concept. You’ll explore adding new elements and complex interactions to reach the result and experience you’re looking for.

Another from the UX Design Techniques series, the Creating Personas course will show you how to create for the users you care about most. Personas are used in UX to help establish a picture of the exact customer you’re designing for. This way, your whole team will have the same person and goal in sight, as they develop the site, app or product.

This course challenges you to think about who you are developing for and exactly how they will use your design. You’ll be shown how to collate and interpret user data from site visits and interactions, to create effective personas.

By taking the time to learn how to work with personas, you’ll be able to improve your UX skills, and design in a way that’s far more coherent and focused.

Building and Maintaining Your UX Design Portfolio

Last, but not least – we’ll leave you with this cool course. Because while it’s obviously vital to keep developing your skills in UX design, it’s also important to know how to showcase these skills.

With the Building and Maintaining Your UX Design Portfolio course, you’ll learn how to make sure your portfolio stands out from the competition. You’ll be shown all the different elements that combine to make a strong UX portfolio and how to incorporate storytelling into your presentations.

Worried that you don’t even have a portfolio to begin with? Don’t worry, this course will help you get started on that, with tips for creating your first portfolio – even if you're new to a UX role and are just starting out in your career!

In recent weeks, we’ve seen various countries across the world affected by major cyber attacks involving ransomware. The ransomware, believed to be a malicious computer virus known as Petya, has wreaked havoc on more than 200,000 organizations in over 150 countries – including companies, universities, government agencies and hospitals across Britain, Spain, Portugal, Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure, called the series of attacks "the biggest ransomware outbreak in history."

Now, this global ransomware attack has hit Australia, disrupting the operations of a number of Australian businesses – including the Cadbury chocolate factory in Hobart.

With companies worldwide scrambling to recover from corporate chaos, Australian business owners and leaders are no doubt worried about how ransomware could affect their own organisation. If you’re in this position, it’s important to understand how this form of cyber threat works and think about how you can protect your business, well before anything goes wrong.

Being prepared, and taking precautions against the risk of ransomware, will help you minimise the threat of cyber attacks on your company. Here’s what you need to know about ransomware, how it works, and steps you can take to protect your organisation.

Ransomware, such as the Petya virus, is a type of malicious software that has the ability to freeze or shut down computers – from an individual’s personal laptop computer, to the servers of a whole organisation.

You might be wondering how your computer can become infected with a virus like this? Well, to gain access to a company’s system, the malware virus needs to be downloaded onto a device within the network. To make this happen, the virus is generally hidden in an email, in the form of a link or attachment, that can be clicked on and opened by unknowing employees. When the link or attachment is accidentally opened, the virus is immediately downloaded to the system, freezing computers, taking out servers and locking up company files.

Once this has happened, hackers and cyber criminals have a way to extort money from companies or individuals. After gaining control of a system, they demand a ransom in return for decrypting the virus and unlocking computers. Pretty scary stuff, right?

The past month has shown us that it’s critical for business owners to pay serious attention to cyber security and the risk of ransomware attacks.

As the internet and the real world have become increasingly intertwined, our businesses and lives have become increasingly vulnerable to cyber criminals. Any company or organisation that depends on daily access to important data for business operations – and can’t afford to have those operations disrupted – should be worried about ransomware.

It's not only large multinational corporations, government agencies and big business that are at threat of cyber attacks. As individuals, we are also at risk of being targeted. So even if you’re not a business owner, or CEO, read on for some important tips for protecting yourself against ransomware.

How Can I Protect My Company Against Ransomware?

One of the best defenses against ransomware is to back up important data daily. This way, even if your company's computers and servers do get hacked and locked, you can't be forced to pay for access to important business data.

The director of the Australian Centre for Cyber Security at UNSW, Professor Jill Slay, recommends companies “update all Windows systems if not updated and make sure all critical files are backed up.”

"Just be really careful to back up, update Windows and applications, do not open unexpected attachments to emails – this is what we should be doing anyway – and install antivirus software if you do not have it already," Slay advises.

Jason Tanz, site director at Wired, agrees and recommends backing up your files remotely, or to the cloud.

“Make sure you're backing up your files every day, and that means on a hard drive that is not connected to the internet," Tanz says. Because ransomware is only an effective threat when there’s no other record of the files being held for ransom. As Tanz says, “if you have all your files backed up, it leaves those using ransomware against you without any power whatsoever."

Removing this power is an important step in reducing the threat of ransomware. As well as backing up data, help employees to be aware of the risks of opening suspicious emails, and clicking on links and attachments within emails. Be particularly wary of compressed or ZIP files, as these attachments are often used to hide malware viruses. And always install software updates as soon as they are available. Antivirus programs can also go a long way in stopping ransomware from being downloaded onto computers.

By taking these precautions, you can protect yourself and your business from malicious ransomware and the risk of cyber attack. Being prepared, and taking proactive steps for increased cyber security, really is your best line of defense.

How to protect your business against ransomware

If you work in eLearning, it’s likely you often deal with other employees who are subject matter experts. With their specialized and in-depth knowledge, these people can provide you with the information you need to create effective online courses for your learners.

In this way, subject matter experts, also known as simply SMEs, play a very important role in the eLearning development process. As well as sharing their advanced knowledge, SMEs can provide valuable insight and feedback on your course materials, helping to ensure the content is accurate and timely.

When communicating with subject matter experts, it’s important to foster a positive and productive working relationship, just as it is with any client or stakeholder. You want the subject matter experts in your organization to feel comfortable and committed to sharing their knowledge with you. How do you do this, in a way that ensures SMEs aren’t feeling continually pressured for their knowledge and time?

Here’s our advice for the best way to communicate with subject matter experts on eLearning projects.

So who are the subject matter experts in your organization?

Generally, SMEs are employees who have been in their roles for a long time, and are known for their advanced knowledge and expertise in a specific subject, business area, or technical area. Think of them as the “go to” person within a department or company, that other staff approach for information, input, advice and solutions.

With their high-level perspective of the subject, you can expect SMEs to not only answer how things are done, but why. You should be able to rely on these experts to have the requisite knowledge that underlies effective decision-making, and to provide solid recommendations for things like company policies and procedures.

A subject matter expect will also understand all the specific terms and jargon in their area of expertise and can explain that area clearly to others. They should know their subject matter well enough that they rarely have to look up information – and if they do have to, they’ll know exactly where or who to turn to in order to find that information.

Value SMEs Time and Communication Preferences

Like all projects, your eLearning project will flow far more easily when everyone involved knows what’s expected of them and works together as a team.

One of the most important aspects of successful teamwork is recognizing and respecting each other’s time and communication style. The fact is, while your online course might be your own project ‘baby’ and something that you’re very passionate about, a subject matter expert might not feel the same way about it. For them, the time and effort required for collaborating on eLearning course materials could be considered as additional work and just another thing they need to tick off their to-do list.

As Karla Gutierrez, Inbound Marketer at Aura Interactiva, says “SMEs have high-priority, full-time jobs — and not much time to spare.”

So be flexible in your dealings with SMEs, just as you would with any client or stakeholder. After all, you are the one requesting information and help from them, so be prepared to do this in a way that’s easiest for them.

For example, if it’s clear that someone prefers to communicate verbally, and is having trouble getting back to you by email, offer to give them a quick phone call at a time convenient to them – rather than continuing to send them endless emails that will just leave them frustrated. This way, they can simply brief you over the phone and you can take dot points for the content you need.

By making simple changes like this, subject matter experts will appreciate your willingness to work with them in their preferred communication style, saving them time and stress.

It’s also important to look at the language you’re using when communicating with subject matter experts.

Shauna Vaughan, Lead Instructional Designer and Project Manager at , believes there are three words that should be avoided when it comes to subject matter experts – you, no, and problem or issue.

Choosing other words to use in place of those three words will help keep dialogue and working relationships with SMEs more positive and productive. You’ll also be creating an environment where all individuals feel included and valued for their knowledge and input.

“By using inclusive, positive language, we can build consensus and create an atmosphere of collaboration,” Vaughan says.

She suggests using we instead of you as often as you can. This implies a partnership between the two of you, where you are both working towards the same goal, as part of the same team.

When it comes to the word no, it’s best to rephrase your words to sound less negative and problematic. Instead of saying, “No, we can’t do that, it’s out of scope” try “Yes, absolutely, we can do that. Let’s take a look at our current scope and see what adjustments we would need to make to make that happen.”

Similarly, words like problem and issue carry a negative connotation. Some people can get frustrated and annoyed if they think you are always coming to them with problems to solve. Talk about finding solutions together, rather than launching straight into the issue at hand or dumping the problem on them.

Try these tips for yourself when you’re consulting with subject matter experts for your next project.

And don’t forget – once you’ve launched your online course, make sure you take the time to thank your subject matter experts for their valuable contributions! By writing an email or handwritten note, or finding a way to publically recognize or credit these experts for their contributions, you’ll be helping to build a better culture of collaboration within your organization.

The best way to communicate with subject matter experts

The days of chalk and board are well gone. Technology has offered a new and brilliant future for learning, one where students can be tracked with ease and progress clearly mapped. Rather than learning by rote in a “one size fits all” approach, personalization grants the possibility to change our approach to learning that considers a person’s background, expertise, interests, and position. And corporations are looking to make the most of it.

Personalization is simply the name that’s been given to the increased focus of education for each individual employee. It’s not rocket science to see that ensuring individuals have their needs addressed is a more positive approach. Through online courses and eLearning programs, organizations can tailor learning to each individual within their company to enjoy some massive benefits.