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Now Available: Infrastructure as Code: Managing Hybrid, Multi-cloud Infrastructure at Scale

Research Fellow Tom Petrocelli recently recorded an on-demand BrightTALK webinar on Infrastructure as Code (IaC): a key trend for any company seeking to manage infrastructure at scale.

Petrocelli has previously covered this topic in additional research including

This webinar is a short introduction designed for IT professionals who are exploring Infrastructure as Code especially focusing on SysOps, managers (from mid-level to C-Suite), and system architects. As modern IT systems become more diverse and complex, managing them, especially at scale can become very difficult. Infrastructure as Code presents a new way of thinking about infrastructure management that alleviates many of these challenges.

This webinar discusses:

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AMALGAM INSIGHTS ISSUES “VENDOR SMARTLIST” OF SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS THAT HELP BUILD BETTER LEADERSHIP BRAINS

BOSTON, September 11, 2018 — A new report from industry analyst firm Amalgam Insights cites nine leaders in software solutions designed to effectively train the hard skills, people skills, and situational awareness of leadership.

The Vendor SmartList™, authored by Amalgam Insights Research Fellow Todd Maddox, Ph.D., takes on added significance given the increasing number of news reports about inappropriate conduct by corporate leaders or the lack of trained behavioral skills among a company’s employees.
“Companies must continuously educate their workers, top to bottom, about the ‘what,’ ‘how,’ and ‘feel’ of effective leadership by leveraging brain science to ensure that their behavior doesn’t land them in trouble,” Maddox says. “The companies in our report have succeeded in mapping these systems to the leadership processes needed in today’s business environment.”

Maddox lists nine companies as leaders, with comments about each company’s strength:
• CrossKnowledge: “Path to Performance uses digital solutions that can combine with facilitator training and a dedicated dashboard to provide effective leadership training paths.”
• Development Dimensions International: “DDI uses a broad range of online and offline solutions, tools for practice and simulation, and ‘what if’ scenarios to train leadership skills that meet tomorrow’s business challenges.”
• Fuse Universal: “(Its) use of science and analytics help clients build content that reflects their company DNA, vision and brand.”
• Grovo: “Its use of microlearning content and training programs that power modern learning and improve business outcomes.”
• Learning Technologies Group: “Its broad portfolio of providers, combined with its emphasis on rich scenario-based training and the importance of business outcomes.”
• Rehearsal: “The use of video role-play training that helps leaders improve their people skills through practice, coaching and collaboration.”
• Skillsoft: “Its combination of content and delivery tools that effectively train hard skills, people skills and situational awareness in leadership.”
• TalentQuest: “The use of personality and behavioral science to empower leaders to better manage, coach and develop their people.”
• Valamis: “Its use of technology and data science to build a system for each client that delivers learning aligned with the client’s business goals.”

Maddox cautions, however, that companies deploying any of the systems listed above, or others, must be prepared to do so on an ongoing basis. “One-off training does not work,” he notes.

The report is available for download at https://amalgaminsights.com/product/vendor-smartlist-2018s-best-leadership-training.

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Webinar On Demand: Optimizing Leadership Training and Development by Leveraging Learning Science

On September 6, 2018, Amalgam Insights Learning Scientist Research Fellow, Todd Maddox, Ph.D. presented a webinar focused on “The What, How, and Feel of Leadership Brain Training”.

By attending this talk, you can bring back to your organization a better understanding of how psychology and brain science can be leveraged to provide a roadmap for successfully training leaders and managers at all levels. In this era of digital transformation, where organizations rely increasingly on cross-functional and deeply collaborative teams, leadership is becoming more distributed and employees are taking on leadership roles much earlier in their careers.

Combine this with some of the recent corporate crises (#metoo, unconscious bias, discrimination) and effective leadership training becomes even more important. The overriding aim of this talk is to examine leadership training and development from a learning science perspective—the marriage of psychology and brain science—and to identify procedures that optimize leadership training.

To watch this webinar, view below on the embedded viewer or click through to watch “The What, How, and Feel of Leadership Brain Training”

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Amalgam Insights Releases List of 2018’s Best Enablement Solution Vendors for “Building Better Sales Brains”

Optimized sales training requires three critical aspects; combining effective sales enablement, people skills, and situational awareness

July 31, 2018 08:30 ET | Source: Amalgam Insights

BOSTON, July 31, 2018 — It turns out that the traits common to the best salespeople aren’t necessarily innate; research indicates they can be scientifically coached to be top producers. A new report, issued today from Amalgam Insights, evaluates the technology vendors who are leading the industry in optimizing this kind of training.

Todd Maddox, the most-cited researcher in corporate learning and Learning Science Research Fellow at Amalgam Insights, authored this report. This research uniquely identifies learning science approaches of optimizing sales training, which Maddox says requires a combination of effective sales enablement, people skills, and situational awareness.

The companies recognized in this research are (in alphabetical order): Allego, Brainshark, CrossKnowledge, Gameffective, Highspot, JOYai, Lessonly, Mindtickle, Qstream, myTrailhead, Seismic, and Showpad.

“Companies are continually looking for a competitive edge; leveraging technology to develop a top-tier sales force is a key area for improvement,” Maddox says. “If you want sales enablement and training tools that are highly effective, they must be grounded in learning science – the marriage of psychology and brain science. Many sales teams and sales-focused vendors have access to these tools. What is needed is an effective way to leverage these tools to maximum advantage,” he added.

Maddox’s report notes that successful companies work to map sales processes to three distinct learning systems in the brain:

  • The cognitive skills learning system is about knowing facts (the “what”) and is directly linked to sales enablement;
  • The behavioral skills learning system is about behavior (the “how”) and is directly linked to people skills training; and
  • The emotional learning system, which is about “reading” people and situations (the “feel”) and is directly linked to situational awareness.

“When these three traits are combined, salespeople become far more effective in understanding both the tangible and intangible needs of their customers and can craft and deliver solutions that continually produce solid results for their companies,” Maddox said.

Maddox’s report, “2018’s Best Sales Enablement Solutions for Building Better Sales Brains,” is available for Sales VPs, Directors, and Managers at www.amalgaminsights.com.

About Amalgam Insights:
Amalgam Insights (www.amalgaminsights.com) is a consulting and strategy firm focused on the transformative value of Technology Consumption Management. AI believes that all businesses must fundamentally reimagine their approach to data, design, cognitive augmentation, pricing, and technology usage to remain competitive. AI provides marketing and strategic support to enterprises, vendors, and institutional investors for conducting due diligence in Technology Consumption Management.

For more information:
Hyoun Park
Amalgam Insights
hyoun@amalgaminsights.com
415.754.9686

Steve Friedberg
MMI Communications
steve@mmicomm.com
484.550.2900

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The Adoption Gap in Learning and Development: Brandon Hall Hosts A Podcast with Amalgam Insights’ Todd Maddox

On Thursday July 19, 2018, Brandon Hall Group released a podcast discussion between Amalgam Insights’ Learning Scientist and Research Fellow, Todd Maddox, Ph.D. and Brandon Hall’s COO, Rachel Cooke. The podcast focused on the “adoption gap” in Learning & Development that results when users are presented with a large number of tools and technologies, but little if any guidance on what tool to use when.

Todd and Rachel discuss the importance of leveraging learning science—the marriage of psychology and brain science—to provide best practices for mapping tools onto learning problems in the most effective manner. Todd and Rachel discuss the challenges faced in optimally training hard and people (aka soft) skills.

A replay of the podcast is available for all interested parties at the following link.

If you would be interested in retaining Todd Maddox, the most-cited researcher in corporate learning, for a podcast, webinar, speaking engagement, or workshop, please contact us at sales@amalgaminsights.com

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“Walking a Mile in My Shoes” With Skillsoft’s Leadership Development Program: A Market Milestone

In a recently published Market Milestone, Todd Maddox, Ph.D., Learning Scientist and Research Fellow for Amalgam Insights, evaluated Skillsoft’s Leadership Development Program (SLDP) from a learning science perspective. This involves evaluating the content, and the learning design and delivery. Amalgam’s overall evaluation is that SLDP content is highly effective. The content is engaging and well-constructed with a nice mix of high-level commentary from subject matter experts, dramatic and pragmatic storytelling from a consistent cast of characters faced with real-world problems, and a mentor to guide the leader-in-training through the process. Each course is approximately one hour in length and is comprised of short 5 – 10 minute video segments built with single concept micro-learning in mind.

From a learning design and delivery standpoint, the offering is also highly effective. Brief, targeted, 5 to 10 minute content is well-suited to the working memory and attentional resources available to the learner. Each course begins with a brief reflective question that primes the cognitive system in preparation for the subsequent learning and activates existing knowledge, thus providing a rich context for learning. The Program is grounded in a storytelling, scenario-based training approach with a common set of characters and a “mentor” who guides the training. This effectively recruits the cognitive skills learning system in the brain while simultaneously activating emotion and motivation centers in the brain. This draws the learner into the situation and they begin to see themselves as part of the story. This “walk a mile in my shoes” experience increases information retention and primes the learner for experiential behavior change.

For more information, read the full Market Milestone on the Skillsoft website.

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Tom Petrocelli Advises: Adopt Chaos Engineering to Preserve System Resilience

Today in CMSWire, Amalgam Insights Research Fellow Tom Petrocelli advises the developer community to support chaos engineering on CMSWire.

As it becomes increasingly important for organizations reliable IT infrastructure, traditional resilience testing methods fall short in tech ecosystems where root-cause troubleshooting is increasingly difficult to manage, control, and fix. Rather than focusing purely on the lineage of tracing catastrophic issues, Petrocelli advises testing abrupt failures that mimic real-world issues.

To learn more about the approach of chaos engineering to managing scale-out, highly distributed, and varied infrastructure environments, read Tom’s full thoughts on CMSWire.

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Hyoun Park Interviewed on Onalytica

Today, Onalytica, a leader in influencer marketing, published an interview on Hyoun Park as a key influencer in the Business Intelligence and Analytics markets. In this interview, Hyoun provides guidance on:

  • How he became an expert in the Analytics and BI space based on over 20 years of experience
  • The 4 Key Tipping Points for BI that Hyoun is excited about
  • Hyoun’s favorite BI influencers, including Jen Underwood, Doug Henschen, John Myers, Claudia Imhoff, and Howard Dresner
  • And then the 4 trends that will drive the BI industry over the next 12 months.

To read the interview and see what inspires this influencer, read the interview on the Onalytica website.

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Amalgam Insights Debuts Business Value Analysis Reports, Taking Into Account Collaborative, Executive and Financial Value Of Enterprise Software Deployments

Report moves beyond traditional money-only ROI, includes analysis of improved departmental collaboration, executive benefits, work-life balance

BOSTON, April 03, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Amalgam Insights (www.amalgaminsights.com), a consulting and strategy firm focused on Technology Consumption Management, today announced the launch of its Business Value Analysis (BVA) reports.  The reports, the company said, deliver far greater usefulness than traditional reports from other analyst firms because of their enhanced focus on more than merely a simple financial return on investment (ROI).

Amalgam Insights’ BVA reports are designed to not only communicate the primary value of software to a firm, but also how it can positively affect the lives of its users, managers, even C-level officers throughout an organization.  A typical Amalgam Insights BVA report analyzes multiple factors that can contribute to the success of enterprise-based software in addition to financial ROI, such as:

  • Improved productivity and collaboration with other departments;
  • Achieving executive benefits that the C-Suite identifies as key differentiators; and
  • Work-life balance that improves morale, accelerates business outcomes, and leads to employee promotions.

“Close management software is an emerging category and as such, prospects typically have not set aside budget to purchase it,” said Wynn White, chief marketing officer at FloQast, a California-based financial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider. “Amalgam Insights’ BVA report has been key to helping us spotlight the cost of not taking action and the value lost due to inactivity—both monetarily and strategically. Packaged as a report, webinar and online calculator it is a turn-key campaign unto itself.”

In FloQast’s case, the Amalgam Insights BVA was able to not only quantify a first-year financial ROI of almost 650 percent to FloQast’s clients, but also found that companies using FloQast reported “enhanced teamwork and shared working environments by increasing transparency and flexibility.”  Because FloQast is a cloud-based solution, the BVA noted, “employees were able to verify, authorize, and update results regardless of physical location to enable greater work-life flexibility and balance.”

“More than ever, companies are seeking the kind of understanding that goes far beyond just the financial impact on their bottom lines,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and principal analyst at Amalgam Insights.  “Our Business Value Analysis reports deliver on that need, helping firms gain the greater knowledge, stretching beyond a pure ‘dollars-and-cents’ perspective, that enables them to operate more effectively and profitably to compete in today’s marketplace.”

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Market Milestone: Red Hat Acquires CoreOS Changing the Container Landscape

We have just published a new document from Tom Petrocelli analyzing Red Hat’s $250 million acquisition of CoreOS and why it matters for DevOps and Systems Architecture managers. This report is recommended for CIOs, System Architects, IT Managers, System Administrators, and Operations Managers who are evaluating CoreOS and Red Hat as container solutions to support…

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