Deborah A. Schreiber – författare

Winner of the University Continuing Education Association's CharlesA. Wedemeyer Award, which recognizes highly meritorious book-lengthpublications that advance research in independent study anddistance education. "This manual is the one we have been waiting for! It takes dead aimat all the important issues facing distance learning providers andhits the bull's eye on every one of them. It is down to earth, realworld, and up to date. Its examples and insights for practitionershelp create the sense of urgency and excitement all of us indistance learning feel today."--Michael P. Lambert, executivedirector, Distance Education and Training Council Today's advances in communications technology have created excitingnew possibilities for training professionals. But not alltechnologies are created equal. Distance Training examines thesenew tools to show how compressed video, satellite broadcasting, theInternet, and other innovations can each be used to their bestadvantage. In-depth case studies of sixteen progressiveorganizations--NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, and Unisys among them--providereal-world models readers can use to design learning programs thattranscend the traditional boundaries of time and space by turningthe home, office, and meeting room into immediate, effectivelearning environments.

The case studies in this Volume 2 book support the premise that organizational policies are what ensure institutionalization and sustainability of futures thinking in corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions. Futures thinking here reflects a systems approach utilized by organizational leaders to observe and interpret signals of change or disruption, identify trigger points of impact, employ foresight methodologies to build scenarios of the future and plan action, and then ultimately translate/actualize the most viable scenarios into successful business outcomes. What is new in the field of futures thinking today is not the general source of change (i.e., technology, globalization, and workforce well-being), but the tumultuous level of disruption occurring due to three phenomena—explosive use of social media, shift in great wealth, and government instability.Scholars and practitioners alike will find the case studies in this book provide nuanced insights into such disruptions, as well as discussion of best practices to ensure successful business solutions.

The case studies in this Volume 2 book support the premise that organizational policies are what ensure institutionalization and sustainability of futures thinking in corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions. Futures thinking here reflects a systems approach utilized by organizational leaders to observe and interpret signals of change or disruption, identify trigger points of impact, employ foresight methodologies to build scenarios of the future and plan action, and then ultimately translate/actualize the most viable scenarios into successful business outcomes. What is new in the field of futures thinking today is not the general source of change (i.e., technology, globalization, and workforce well-being), but the tumultuous level of disruption occurring due to three phenomena—explosive use of social media, shift in great wealth, and government instability.Scholars and practitioners alike will find the case studies in this book provide nuanced insights into such disruptions, as well as discussion of best practices to ensure successful business solutions.

This book proposes that organizational policies are what ensure the institutionalization and sustainability of futures thinking in organizations. It presents several case studies from corporations and other institutions that describe effective use of foresight methods and internal policies to respond to rapid change. The case studies address changing trends in technology, globalization and/or workforce diversity, and the impact on the economic and political well-being of the organization. The editors also develop an organizational capability maturity model for futures thinking as well as providing questions for discussion that promote critical review of each case chapter. This book will inform scholars and organizational leaders how best to utilize foresight methodologies and organizational policies to sustain successful management strategies within futures thinking organizations.Chapter 9 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.