A Creative Learning Solution for Multi-generational Geoscience Audiences

TerraSpark Geosciences® is not the iconic name a Chief Learning Officer or training industry professional might recognize. But the company’s new, in-house developed, blended learning solutions are as unique in the Exploration and Production (E&P) Industry as its breakthrough software for seismic interpretation. Seismic data is critical to energy companies seeking oil and gas reserves many miles underground, a daunting task involving terabytes of field data and months of data processing. It can be compared in many ways to CAT-Scan data used in medical applications, only applied to the planet’s subsurface. The Boulder Colorado based company flagship product Insight Earth^® enables geoscientists to rapidly interpret 3D seismic surveys and accurately identify, model and illuminate the most productive energy reserves.

Insight Earth addresses the most human-intensive and tedious aspects of 3D seismic interpretation. It is a step change in the productivity and accuracy that can be achieved by interpreters at a time when industry demand is increasing, and the supply of experienced and skilled interpretation professionals is low.
A recent survey by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) indicates that the majority of geologists / geoscientists are within 5 - 15 years of retirement. Recently, the E&P industry has doubled-down recruiting efforts for young, “millennial” geoscientists. Accordingly, the challenge for instructional designers is to creatively find a way to design a learning solution that recognizes and embraces the diverse experience levels and learning preferences of this multi-generational audience.

Denny Schall, Director of Training at TerraSpark Geosciences, notes that for the company’s newest breakthrough product, the Shale Resource Play Toolkit, the training group would develop its own breakthrough learning solution. It would develop relevant and engaging solutions for its bi-generational user audience that would compel a time-challenged seismic interpreter to aspire to learn the new software application.

Denny stated that as part of the analysis phase of the instructional design process, user personas were developed to help understand and define the audience’s role, needs, existing knowledge, skills and learning preferences.

A persona is a tool used by instructional designers as part of audience analysis to describe users' goals, skills, abilities, technical experience and context. Personas are detailed descriptions of archetypical users constructed out of well-understood, highly specific patterns of data about real people. They put a face on the user - a memorable, engaging, and actionable image that conveys information to instructional designers about each typical user type in ways that other artifacts cannot.

Based on numerous audience interviews and surveys, TerraSpark decided to define two distinct personas based on the vastly different experience levels and learning preferences exhibited by the multi-generational learners in this role. TerraSpark’s instructional design team named the persona archetypes “Steven” and “Steve”:

"Steven” is a 20+ year Senior Seismic Interpreter whose experience with training is in a traditional classroom with an industry expert, interpreter/instructor. Also, Steven needs to be convinced that the effort to learn new software is worth the time away from his core responsibilities.

“Steve”, with 4 years as a Seismic Interpreter, prefers to learn by searching for the topics he needs, when he needs them. Classroom time is more about building his network with other interpreters and should be as short as possible. Steve wants a learning environment where it is easy and fun for students to learn from each other.

The results of the audience analysis phase set the stage for a creative blended learning solution designed to motivate a time-challenged seismic interpreter to learn a new software application by reducing time away from the worksite; embracing each individual’s learning preference through multi-modality delivery; highly interactive eLearning including – videos, software simulation, quizzing and gaming; post-class support that includes links to TerraSpark experts, global network of Insight Earth users and classroom video library.
 
The solution includes an interpreter learning path that begins by delivering introductory content in a unique, highly interactive, eLearning format. Course content includes ten short topical modules, three to five minutes in length, with three methods to accomplish each learning objective:
 
Demo It – The student views a short, narrated video presentation demonstrating how to achieve the learning objective.

Try It – The student is challenged to complete an assignment while in a simulated software session. Students can explore on their own while hints are provided as they progress through the learning objectives.

After a Demo It or Try It session, the student takes a short interactive quiz. Students who pass the quiz go directly to the next module. If they fail, they are directed to Demo It or Try It again.

 Test – Students can choose this option to test outside of the training curriculum. If they pass, they go directly to the next module. Students, who fail, are directed to Demo It or Try It.

The final module includes an optional game.  Game participants are challenged with advanced assignments providing a mix of task and situation analysis designed to challenge the student to demonstrate their newly acquired skills and knowledge. In addition to bragging rights, students with high game scores are recommended to advance to the next course in the learning path. Students with low game scores are encouraged to review course modules.

Next on the interpreter learning path is a one-day, hands-on, concepts class taught in a classroom/lab setting by TerraSpark’s most experienced seismic interpreters. The instructor can review student’s game scores to insure they are ready to fully participate with very little to no review of introductory content. An example shale play 3D seismic survey is used to demonstrate interpretation workflows and reinforce concepts during student labs.

An optional mentoring program concludes the interpreter learning path with TerraSpark’s expert interpreters mentoring customers on applying the concepts learned in class to their own seismic survey data on the job.

Students are provided post-class support that includes email support from their instructor, access to the eLearning materials including searchable classroom video library and are invited to join the Insight Earth Learning Network - a global community of geoscientists, geophysicists and geotechnicians using Insight Earth®.

Try a module here: http://terraspark.com/training/TS-100e/trial/

TerraSpark’s Shale Resource Play Toolkit training program is currently in beta testing and will be available as part of the release of Insight Earth 1.7 later this year.

Tech innovation delivers new job roles for IT professionals in 2012

While project managers and business analysts are predicted to be in-demand IT jobs this year, many companies may also be looking for cloud transformation officers and data scientists. Here are a few new job roles for IT professionals that are beginning to show demand.

Cloud Transformation Officer

As companies move from the client-server world to one where systems reside in the cloud, they're hiring professionals to oversee the entire strategy.

Whether the position's called director of cloud transformation, vice president of virtualization or cloud transformation officer, all of those titles are floating out there in the corporate world the job description remains roughly the same: Oversee all the moving parts required to make the move to the cloud.

Skills required

Companies are looking to hire people who can show that they've been able to plan, control and deliver complex, high-risk projects involving technology that's evolving even as the project is underway. They are looking for deep knowledge of the organization's applications and skills in negotiating with and managing vendors.

Once an organization successfully moves to the cloud, does the job go away? Given the complexity of the task, cloud transition managers can expect to stay busy for at least the next several years, before transitions are complete and the job morphs into one focused on maintenance.

Chief Social Media Strategist

Companies of every size and stripe are implementing ever more ambitious strategies involving social media, so it's only logical that they need technologists who can make the most of their investments.

Some of them are moving to hire people who understand both the marketing value of social media as well as its technical complexities, an acknowledgement that in most organizations social media has been under the purview of either ITor marketing. Now, some are putting a new crossbreed of talent into positions with titles like chief social media strategist, new media coordinator, and manager of social media.

The role isn't about sending out tweets and posting on Facebook all day, it's about leveraging technology to monitor online activity and interactions and to engage consumers.

Skills required

The ideal candidate is someone who has a strong background in business strategy and marketing with project management and business intelligence experience mixed in. Also, a technical background, with skills in HTML and Web development.

If that order weren't tall enough, companies also want candidates with proven experience. Strong candidates would have solid experience in marketing and could demonstrate the ROI of their past marketing projects,

Data scientist

Big data is on the agenda of nearly every future-looking business organization, for good reason. Organizations are drowning in the amount of data that comes in, but much of it is siloed - they have the information, but can't find it.

So enterprises need a new breed of worker who understands how to collect, interpret and analyze vast amounts of data in a way that's truly useful for making business decisions.

Skills required

Like many of the other hot jobs in IT, this specialty requires the right combination of business and technical skills. The ideal candidate needs to be familiar with analytics and marketing, as well as ultra-high-speed computing, data mining, statistics and artificial intelligence.

The ideal candidate is someone with an undergraduate degree in computer science and a master's in marketing with some operations management expertise.

Health Information Expert

As healthcare becomes an ever larger and ever more computerized industry, technologists are needed who can optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval and application of health-related data. Ideally, health informatics experts will understand not only IT but the unique needs of the clinical care community.

Skills required

Like many of the other hot jobs in IT, this specialty requires the right combination of business and technical skills within a health care practice.

Training for Multiple Generations

This is the first time in American history that we have five different generations working side-by-side in the workplace. Each generation has distinct attitudes, behaviors, expectations, habits, motivational buttons and learning styles.

If you are dealing with multiple generations in your workforce, what can you do to address these concerns? Different age groups espouse divergent values depending on what was happening in society when they grew up. For example:

• The Greatest Generation (those born before 1928) are credited with saving the free world by fighting and winning World War II.
• The Silent Generation or Traditionalists (adults born from 1928 – 1945; currently 66-86 years old) grew up during the Great Depression and World War II. The “silent” label refers to their conformist and civic instincts, which are an interesting contrast to the “noisy” ways of the Baby Boomers who followed them.
• The Baby Boomer label refers to the tremendous spike in births that began in 1946 (right after the end of World War II) and ended in 1964 (currently 47–65 years old), around the time the birth control pill went on the market.
• Generation X covers people born from 1965 through 1980 (currently 31-46 years old). This generation grew up during a time when the divorce rate doubled and many mothers left home to enter the workforce. Gen X’ers are often characterized as independent, pragmatic, and cynical; they tend to be mobile and highly educated.
• Generation Y or the Millennial Generation refers to those people born after 1980-the first generation to come of age in the New Millennium (currently 16-30 years old). According to a recent Pew Research Center Study (2010), members of this age group tend to be “confident, connected, and open to change”. Many of them pursued higher education when they were unable to secure jobs out of undergraduate school; therefore, they are considered the most highly educated generation we have seen thus far.
• Generation Z or the Digital Natives are children under 16 who have grown up with technology and will be entering the workforce in a few years.

How do employees in these different generations learn?

Communicate

Traditionalists and Baby Boomers generally prefer face-to-face interactions. Generation X’ers tend to use e-mail rather than telephone or in-person conversations. While many older employees tend to be threatened by social media (they may need coaching to help them realize its commercial benefits), Millennials trade lack of privacy for connectivity. They tend to have good relationships with their Baby Boomer parents and value communication; but it does not necessarily need to be face-to-face. They tend to prefer texting and may need to be taught e-mail protocol when they enter the workplace.

Manage/Receive Feedback

A recent study by Robert Half International and Yahoo! Hot Jobs indicates that Millennials would like to hear from their managers at least once a day. Business owners may need to coach Traditionalist, Baby Boomer, and Generation X managers to pay attention to this desire/expectation—instead of dismissing Generation Y employees as “too needy.” Millennials tend to perform best when they receive frequent feedback. Generally, they respond well to written self-assessments during performance review sessions.

Accomplish Goals/Objectives

All of us have heard complaints of the “poor work ethic” of the younger generations. This tends to cover Generation X and Generation Y. Traditionalists and Baby Boomers like to talk about working 80-hour weeks and often think X and Y employees should do the same to prove themselves. The difference is that younger age groups do not expect to be able to retire during their 60’s, so they are trying to balance their work and personal lives over the course of their careers. Many companies have found that offering flexible work schedules and increased vacation time are valuable incentives for these younger workers.

Get Ahead

Research (HR Magazine, May 2011) indicates that many Generation X employees feel squeezed by Baby Boomers and Millennials. With less Baby Boomers retiring early due to economic pressures, X’ers voice frustration with not being able to “move up the ladder.” Some businesses are responding by offering continuous career training and lateral transfers for this group. In addition, business owners can encourage managers to recognize Generation X employees for their unique perspectives and contributions (such as pragmatism and the entrepreneurial spirit) just as often as they praise Millennials for their technological savvy and openness to change.

In summary, it is better to address generational issues directly with your leadership team. Many companies are offering employee seminars as well to improve communication, productivity and profitability.

Announcing the 2012 Insight Earth Public Training Schedule.

The 2012 Insight Earth public training schedule is now available. Courses are offered monthly at TerraSpark Geosciences offices in Houston, Texas and Westminster (Boulder area), Colorado.

TerraSpark leverages its unique blend of upstream industry experience, geoscience expertise and computer science skills to design and deliver role based training programs for:

• Seismic Interpreters

• Velocity Modelers

• Geotechnicians (Data Loaders)

• Well Path Planners

Our classroom training options range from developing competence in using Insight Earth software to advanced, scenario-based training to build vital skills and improve decision-making processes.

Insight Earth courses are modular in design, targeted to audience roles and skills to minimize students time away from the worksite. Hands-on industry relevant exercises are designed to reinforce classroom lecture and represent 50% or more of classroom time. Courses include a  detailed course manual and access to the Insight Earth video library, a post-class resource that demonstrates each hands-on classroom exercise. Students are also entitled to 30 days email support from their instructor and are invited to join the Insight Earth Learning Network – a global community of practicing Geoscientist, Geophysicists and Geotechnitions using Insight Earth.

Instructor-led courses are also offered on-site at the customers facility and a train-the-trainer program is available. Contact training@terraspark.com for details.