Dr. Joe Thomas to speak at E-Learn Memphis, Wed. Oct. 17th, 4:30 PM

You are invited to the monthly meeting of E-Learn Memphis–a group of e-learning practitioners representing many businesses and organizations in the Memphis region.

• When: 4:30 P.M. to 6:00 P.M., Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 
• Where: University of Memphis, Ball Hall 320. Map: http://bit.ly/9xzqNU 
• Featured Speaker: Joe Thomas, Ph.D., CEO of WatchKnowLearn 
• Who is Invited: anyone interested in teaching and learning. 
• Parking: use the parking garage just north of Ball Hall 
• Food: we will have light refreshments. 
• About E-Learn Memphis: http://elearnmemphis.wordpress.com/

Session Description:

Come join us as a former COO of a for-profit eLearning firm (clients included FedEx, Hilton, State of Texas, Booz Allen Hamilton) leads a discussion about the skills and expertise required to: (1) be successfully hired directly out of a higher-ed program into an eLearning shop, and (2) the experience and skills required to remain competitive and advance at your place of employment (or search for other employment) in the eLearning profession. Our speaker Dr. Joe Thomas, currently CEO of WatchKnowLearn, an international educational website, will share his experience hiring and working with eLearning specialists during his six-year tenure as COO as he personally identified, hired, developed and, sadly, “right-sized.” aspiring instructional designers and eLearning aficionados for his nationally-known eLearning organization.

Speaker Biographical Sketch:

Dr. Joe Thomas is an innovator and entrepreneur. For more than 20 years, Joe has created and evaluated technology-based learning solutions for education and workplace training. Collaborating with professionals and experts across many different disciplines, he has developed industry-leading strategies for transferring learning and knowledge, and then assessing the impact of learning on the individual and the organization. Joe is a former member of senior management at NIKE, Inc. where he worked domestically and internationally (Japan, Korea, Belgium) to implement change management and training solutions for new distribution centers being built in Asia and Europe. He managed a multi-cultural team in the areas of organizational development, applications training, and executive leadership development.

After successfully developing and leading the delivery of complex training solutions across diverse national groups and languages, Joe was invited to return to the NIKE World Headquarters-based Promotional Distribution Center as the operations manager to turn around the ailing business. Prior to joining NIKE, Joe served as a senior industrial psychologist with Federal Express Corporation where he was responsible for measuring employee competencies for all customer service-based jobs. He also provided consultation to the Leadership Institute, The Quality Academy, the Ground Operations Division, the Customer Service Division and the International Customer Service Division in assessment methodologies, statistics and data analysis, training impact measurement, and program evaluation. Joe earned a B.A. and M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University Fullerton, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the Johns Hopkins University. Because of his passion for teaching, Joe has maintained a number of adjunct teaching positions during his professional career with institutions like the Johns Hopkins University (statistics, psychology), Cal State Fullerton (research and design), Towson State University (testing and measurement), and Christian Brothers University (industrial-organizational psychology).

Joe maintains membership in many professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Statistical Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education, to name a few. He has authored scores of technical papers and training manuals (in four languages), and is a highly-regarded presenter in the topics of innovative eLearning, assessment methodologies, and performance improvement.

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Please forward this notice to interested colleagues, or those you know involved in training and learning initiatives.

thanks,
Trey
—
Dr. Trey Martindale, Ed.D., Associate Professor
Instructional Design and Technology, University of Memphis http://idt.memphis.edu
Director, IDT Studio: http://idtstudio.org
(901) 870-6926 http://treymartindale.com