Trainers Talk Tech

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, with whom ASTD and I have an ongoing copublishing relationship and who recently helped ASTD develop the digital version of the Handbook, will be publishing all of the chapters of the ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals as stand-alone digital whitepapers as part of a series they’re calling Fast Fundamentals. I'm Chapter 23: Authoring Techniques and Rapid eLearning!

The Fast Fundamentals series will have a dedicated page on the Berrett-Koehler web site, the centerpiece of which will be a unique search engine that will allow readers to find a digital whitepaper on a specific workplace challenge. This page is currently in beta-testing - take a few minutes to try it out!

After you click on the link and the home page opens, choose a Topic from the menu. A list of Challenges will pop up. Click on a Challenge, and a Solution—a list of whitepapers—will appear. Click on one of whitepaper options, and the first page of the whitepaper is revealed with an option to purchase the content. To try out this unique whitepaper concept click here !

Berrett-Koehler will be adding explanatory text and the ability to search by author name and by title of the whitepaper soon. The scheduled launch date for this service is February 19th.

The Fast Fundamentals whitepapers will sell for $3.95 to $9.95 depending on length, but for the first week—from February 19th to February 27th—Berrett-Koehler will be selling them all for the special introductory price of $.99 each. The book is huge - it retails $139.00 and has 49 chapters... but look - if you want to buy the entire book via this introductory price it could save you some serious money. The book has less than 50 chapters...that means for this 99 cent special, you can get the whole shebang for less than $50.

If you want to save some trees, this could be a great opportunity to pick up the whole book at a substantial discount. Here is the link again.