Independent learning is an excellent complement to other training approaches, allowing trainees to deepen their knowledge and to develop their autonomy. The following products can be accessed through laptop and smartphone-friendly eLearning systems:

Video series: A complete training course in thirty 12-minute sessions. This is the main resource used in Flash Training.
Audio series: Short reminder and exercise sessions, for use as a backup to classroom and video work, with all the flexibility of audio
ICON9 collateral: exercises, quick references, posters, icon9 website, etc. and the text book Client Encounters of the Technical Kind.
Online resources are described here.

Video series

The ICONDA eLearning Video library currently has 30 videos of about 12 minutes each, covering the whole of the ICON9 system, and more. The video below is a sample from close to the start of the Client Encounters Using ICON9 series.

We can supply these videos under license, for incorporation into your company eLearning system. In this case, they would be accompanied by other ICON9 eLearning collateral, such as scripts, slides copies and questions.

Alternatively, trainees can use the ICONDA eLearning infrastructure, which is based on Adapt software (the first release of this system is expected in Q4 2017 – please contact us if you could be interested in participating in the beta trial).

Either way, the video material is an excellent complement to Training Encounters, allowing trainees to ‘consume’ information at their own rate, and to go back to certain parts of the course as they need to.

Audio series

The principal underlying these audio, Learn As You Go sessions is that regular learning is effective learning. Hence, each session gives you a tiny, daily dose of ICON9 training, allowing you to not just understand it but also to integrate it into your work habits. And to do so without overloading your schedule.

Tracks are grouped into modules, where each module corresponds to one of the ICON9 tools. There are 4 to 6 audio tracks, plus a a motivational video, for each module.

The first release of Learn As You Go, scheduled for Q4 2017, will contain the modules MAP, PAGE, DISCOVER-Y and TMM. It will contain 24 tracks and about three hours of listening. Please contact us if you could be interested in participating in an earlier beta release.

ICON9 collateral

There are four types of ICON9 collateral, listed here with examples:

Documents to consult
- The book, Client Encounters of the Technical Kind; the PDF ICON9kit; the ICON9 online elements; course handbooks (copies of slides).
Stuff to keep to carry around
- Quick references guides; ICON9kit templates (Excel, PPT, OneNote)
Things to display
- We have some terrific posters!
Material for work and practice
- Multi-choice questions; template email guidelines (to customise); role plays and other exercises

Some of this collateral, such as the ICON9 kit, is available on request (see below), while other items are supplied in the context of a Learning and Development contract.

Training Experiences and Testimony

Many of our training experiences are captured in articles, together with testimony from our customers. Here is the latest post …

Helping Engineers Maximise the Positive Impact of their Expertise

It's well known that many professionals have difficulty communicating with people outside their speciality and it's not unusual for start-ups to be frustrated by an indifferent world – "why does nobody appreciate our great idea??"!

Ironically, this problem exists because we're intelligent. If we weren’t preoccupied by the complexity of our subject, then we'd get to the point more easily, our explanations would resonate with others and we'd grow in confidence and skill. As it is, we tie ourselves in knots, nobody understands, and we get nervous about repeating the experience.

The very abilities that constitute our added value inhibit the expression of that value.

10 years ago, I started carving out a niche to address this issue for engineers, particularly Applications Engineers and others involved in customer facing work. Trainings and workshops, events, a book, team leader coaching ... all aimed at making client encounters more enjoyable and productive for technical specialists.

Looking back on failures and successes (they happen in that order :-), it seems to me that:

And here are some other recent posts …

Helping Engineers Maximise the Positive Impact of their Expertise

It's well known that many professionals have difficulty communicating with people outside their speciality and it's not unusual for start-ups to be frustrated by an indifferent world – "why does nobody appreciate our great idea??"! Ironically, this problem exists because we're intelligent. If we weren’t preoccupied by the complexity of our subject, then we'd get to the point more easily, our explanations would resonate with others and we'd grow in confidence and skill. As it is, we tie...

Circuit Archaeology with the Help of Amiq

What do you do when you have to perform risk analysis on a 20 year old circuit design and the information available consists of 30 vintage, undocumented VHDL files? (VHDL is a Hardware Description Language – an HDL).In my case, a quick email not only provided the solution, it also restored my faith in human nature and the power of generosity and trust in business.A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to visit Amiq’s offices in Bucarest to stage a communication methodology...

The Customer-Facing Few

Consider what it takes to build an aircraft carrier and put it out to sea. Tens of thousands of contractors crossing multiple disciplines, organisations, states and countries are involved. Another ten thousand or so do the actual construction. About five thousand sailors then sail it out of port. Finally, a handful of pilots take to the sky. And so the ultimate success of seventy to eighty thousand people depends on these few pilots – the only ones to actually make contact with the...

Team Building and Training as One Activity

Nowadays, classroom-based professional training is all about learning activities – labs, simulations, role plays, serious games, and so on. Over the past ten years, I would say, there has been a major shift away from subject matter lectures towards experimentation and coaching (the business of acquiring information and theory tends to be done online wherever possible). As well as a place for experimentation, classroom training also provides great opportunities for team building. Of...

Teledyne Dalsa Warding Off the Hurry Monster

The Hurry Monster (not to be confused with the Worry Monster – a cuddly toy – and the Panic Monster – a superb invention of Tim Urban’s) frightens us into rushing tasks that we would otherwise perform brilliantly. And he can have a disastrous effect on Customer Communication. He’s looming in the background of the above group photo, taken after a training on Excellence in Customer Communication at Teledyne Dalsa in Krailling, Germany, last month. Martin Grzymek’s, Teledyne Dalsa’s Director of...

Energy Control & Pre-Match Planning – the Axcelis example

Axcelis knows how to manage high energy with precision – its core business is the supply of ion implanters to the semiconductor industry. The company provides vital machines for the manufacturing process behind modern electronics. Axcelis certainly contributed to building the device with which you are reading these words! The training program that we’ve launched together aims to harness a different kind of energy – the human kind – and apply it with precision to the challenging task of...

Preparing for Customer Intimacy with Communication Training

KORTIQ knows that its Product Development Team – now busy creating advanced Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) solutions – is critical to winning customers and building long-term commercial relationships. It’s strong technical culture is an asset that it can be proud of and must exploit. Exposing this culture and the people who embody it is key to a business stratagem known as Customer Intimacy. To enable it, we launched a training program – Excellence in Customer Communication - at KORTIQ’s...

Metacommunication: the importance of talking about talking

Just as metadata means data about data, metacommunication is communication about communication[1]. When I complain about the media’s tendency to awfulize and terribilize, I am metacommunicating. Instead of explaining what I mean with long sentences and examples, I use a couple of simple, expressive words[2]. Metacommunication is important because communication is important. And just as you can’t get better at football if you don’t understand the abstract concepts of attack and defense, it’s...

Leadership and Resisting Other People’s Problems (3 of 3)

In a couple of recent posts, I suggested a magic spell to help you avoid taking on other people's problems: "And what would you like to have happen?". Assume that you've mastered this formula and have used it on a colleague who is now standing (spellbound) in front of you; how do you move them from their frozen state into one of action? In other words, now that they realise that you're not going to solve their problem for them, how do you help them decide what to do next? It's simple: you...

Leadership and Resisting Other People’s Problems II

As explained in a previous post, “And what would you like to have happen?” is a magic spell, taken from Clean Language and the Five-Minute Coach, that helps you inspire others to find their own solutions. When you cast the spell on someone, their desired outcome magically appears and they rush off to work out an action plan. Sometimes. Alas, as any Hogwarts student will tell you, magic spells only work if you know how to use them. When this particular one goes wrong, it’s a monkey that...

Video series

Audio series

ICON9 collateral

Training Experiences and Testimony

Helping Engineers Maximise the Positive Impact of their Expertise

And here are some other recent posts …

To contact us ...