Gloria Gery
Books, Awards, Articles, and Presentations
Books
Electronic Performance Support Systems (1991)
This book compares and contrasts traditional employee training and performance development with computer-mediated performance support. It offers design tips, justification descriptions and detailed case studies from companies such as American Express, Amdahl, Weyerhauser and Intel. Useful to managers, software developers, trainers, documentation specialist.Making CBT Happen (1987)
This early working on gaining sponsorship for Computer Based Training still sells 14 years later. It is a classic which defines the necessary and sufficient conditions for obtaining sponsorship, fielding a team, estimating development, selecting development environments, and managing resistance. The technology and design chapters are, of course, dated. But there is much here to focus on from a managerial and advocate perspective.
Awards
2000 ASTD Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance
According to this award description: "Gloria Gery is leading the learning technology revolution and transforming training and learning along the way. Her goal is to make workers as productive as possible in the shortest time. Her passion is to put individuals in full charge of their own learning and performance. And she calls for the over throw of traditional training and learning methods."HRD Hall of Fame - 1998
The Hall of Fame awards were established in 1985 by Training Magazine and Lakewood Conferences. Some of the other member of the Hall of Fame include Donald Kirkpatrick, Joe Harless and Thomas Gilbert.
Articles by Gloria
New Developing a knowledge-aware service and support portal is a team effort
destinationCRM.com, Gloria Gery: Too many organizations spend lots of time and money developing knowledge and support resources without getting the business and performance outcomes they need. There’s no mystery as to why: it results at least in part from the way organizations historically have approached knowledge organization and delivery. Support tools typically are developed by functional groups that operate in organizational silos--documentation, training, business management, information systems or support services and help desks. While each of the resulting knowledge resources may be well structured, none alone is sufficient to allow the company to realize the bottom-line value of knowledge synergies. That’s because each tool has a different goal and is designed, independent of any larger considerations, to achieve it. (2001-07-29)Attributes and Behaviors of Performance-Centered Systems
A Comparison of Large Scale Systems and Consumer Software Development
This is an Adobe Acrobat file containing an article that appeared in the Performance Improvement Quarterly Vol. 8, No. 1 1995 special edition on Electronic Performance Support Systems
This comparison chart "..is designed to make these two differing sets of assumptions explicit so they can be compared and contrasted as part of the specification development process. The drivers for consumer software need to be adopted by large scale systems developers to improve the quality and power of software developed for organizational use."Attributes and Behavior of Performance Centered Systems Chart
This chart summarizes the characteristics of performance centered systems and provides descriptive criteria against which to either specify or evaluate requirements. The attributes themselves are listed in the first column. The 1, 3 and 5 point scale indicates the degree to which these attributes are required or implemented. Level 1 indicates a low level of implementation or representation of the attribute; Level 3 an intermediate degree; and Level 5 a high level of implementation.Why Don't We Weigh Them?
This article, by Gloria Gery contains a list of employee performance measurements that can be used to assess the usefulness of various types of performance support interventions, including electronic performance support systems (EPSS).Granting Three Wishes through Performance-Centered Design
There are some very specific things that must be incorporated into software to generate immediate performance by all. It's critical to be able to describe and demonstrate these attributes and behaviors in order to build the requirements into functional specifications and to provide explicit models for design.Review of Amazon.com
A series of screen shots and comments about the performance support features in Amazon.com.
Articles About and Conversations With Gloria
Six for the Century
Inside Technology Training: Every century has its visionaries. So does every profession. They are the ones who scan the horizon and discover those rare ideas that will change the way we live and work. They're also bold enough to challenge the status quo or float an idea that flows against the mainstream. The online learning industry has its share of these far-sighted individuals. In our tribute to the new millennium, Inside Technology Training asked six of them to look into the future and visualize how the training and learning field will change as we move forward.The janitor stole my job
US News: Pioneered in the early 1990s by Gloria Gery, an educational-software guru based in Tolland, Mass., EPSS programs are distinguished by their ability both to automate many job-related mental skills and to provide instant instructions to help users make whatever human judgments are still necessary.Summary of Gloria's Software Developement Conference Keynote Address
Gloria Gery, delivering the first keynote at the Software Development East 2000 conference, urged developers to "look at and not trivialize the human requirements" for system usability. Performance-centered systems, she suggested, would allow users to be productive from the first day on the job, and would allow even unskilled or unintuitive users to be as productive as experts. "The objective is to skew the performance curve," she said. "We cannot assume understanding of the system."THINK PERFORMANCE, A Conversation With Gloria Gery
Do you think an electronic performance-support system is just a job aid with a God complex? Think again, says "technochange" guru , Gloria Gery. Electronic performance support is not about then application of technologies it’s about an attitude.Performance Support in Internet Time
Gary Dickelman, PCD-Innovations: The transcript of a roundtable discussion featuring Gloria Gery, Stan Malcolm, Janet Cichelli, Hal Christensen, Barry Raybould, and Marc Rosenberg. The discussions topics included: learning vs. performance support, knowledge management, performance support models, the role of the internet in performance support, enterprise application integration, and intrinsic performance support. (2000-03-26)HR and IT in Wedded Bliss
Tom Davenport, CIO Magazine: "Ah, here's the preacher: It's Gloria Gery, a pleasant-looking cleric with a strong following among the "integrated performance support" faithful. She's been giving sermons on the topic for more than a decade; the bible of the movement is her book Electronic Performance Support System. As explained to me by Phil Tierney, a Gery devotee at Intel who designs performance support systems at Intel Corp. and who also forswears the "T" word, the concept requires technology to support learning on the job at the time when the learner needs it. The learning should not remove the learner from the business transaction but should be integrated with it through the system interface. The knowledge presented to the learner must be appropriate to the task and the worker.When Doing Equals Learning
CIO Magazine: At their most ambitious, performance support systems seek to wipe out the distinction between learning and doing by embedding the user's work requirements into their underlying structure and design interface. "Training and documentation are compensatory for badly designed applications," declares Gloria Gery, the Tolland, Mass., software-design consultant credited with developing and naming EPSS. "If you design around the work process and embed knowledge into the application, far less training is necessary."The supply of workplace learning
ASTD 1998 Learning Technology Research Report: "Gloria Gery, a pioneer in conceptualizing electronic performance support methodologies and, more recently, learning objects, speaks of radical shifts needed in how trainers view their roles to accommodate the shift to knowledge conservation of the sort embodied by learning objects. She says, "Training professionals are creators of knowledge through their methods of knowledge acquisition and representation. To date, the use of the content has been through training courses. That must change."Electronic Performance Support Systems: "Show Me the Knowledge"
PriceWaterhouseCoopers: The EPSS idea originated in the early 1990s in corporate training departments, and was first detailed in Gloria Gery's book Electronic Performance Support Systems (1991). Initially designed to support workers in transaction processing roles, the first EPSSs were training mechanisms that showed users how to complete tasks. Since then, the concept has attracted broader interest because an EPSS can prove useful at all levels of an enterprise; its performance does not depend on the type of knowledge it holds.Electronic support cuts training time
Quality Magazine: Work is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic," said Gloria Gery, performance consultant at Gery Associates, Tolland, MA, who coined the term "electronic performance support" in her book Electronic Performance Support Systems (Gery Performance Press, Tolland, MA, 1991). "Organizations are also changing who does the work and requiring greater flexibility in work assignmentsThe Cutting Edge: Who Are Training's New Guard?
Wall Street Journal: "I started thinking in terms of built-in software support and attended a conference in 1991 where I heard Gloria Gery describe EPSS principles," says Elsbernd. "I immediately recognized the situation she was describing--that we weren't going to be able to continue building software applications separately from training."The Learning Revolution
Information Week: "When people interact with each other, they wind up with better comparisons and judgments," says Gloria Gery, an independent consultant in Tolland, Mass., and the author of an influential book on training systems. Collaborative learning technologies also present an opportunity to generate and capture new knowledge, rather than disseminate existing knowledge, Gery adds.The Roots of CBT
Cisco Systems Journal: "Gloria Gery, author of Making CBT Happen, traces the roots of computer-based training back to the mid-1970s, when most learning systems focused on IBM's mainstream environment. These interactive training systems (ITS) used simulation screens that basically replicated the operating systems."EPSS and Knowledge Management: Merging the Ground
William Lawton: Gloria Gery, an Instructional Designer, first coined the term electronic performance support system in 1989 when working on a strategy for delivering electronic training to AT&T. The concept grew out of a comparison that was made between conventional training and a new strategy that she was attempting to apply initially called knowledge support systems. The software she and her team supplied to AT&T could be accessed from any workstation and on demand it coached employees upon the process of constructing 'training tests,' complex material that the company had no time to teach via more traditional methods. At this early venture EPSS referred to any intersecting technology that offered 'just in time' learning tools to a person with a task or job to do.On the Trail of Knowledge
Knowledge Management Magazine: "It follows, then, that there are different kinds of knowledge. Explicit knowledge is relatively fixed, is stored in IT systems or documents and is accessible to those who have permission to see it. Tacit knowledge, which some KM experts regard as more valuable, is less structured and resides in people. It informs their behavior and work processes--and sometimes their motivation. To access it, you must go to them directly. "Tacit knowledge exists in the heads of people and may be explicit and conscious, or implicit and unconscious," says Gloria Gery, an independent consultant on training, performance support and knowledge management based in Tolland, Mass."Online Learning Industry Holds Physical Meeting
I: . "With the (online learning) tools available today, anyone can enter the industry," says Gery, founder of Gery Associates, an interactive learning consultancy in Tolland, Mass. She worries that a preoccupation with technology may allow content to fall by the wayside.La revolución de la educación a distancia
Interview in La Nacion (in Spanish), Buenos Aires leading newspaper
New Portals, Knowledge Management and Performance Support: Achieving Significant Outcomes
PowerPoint slides. 529KB (2001-08-19)New Pillars of an e-Learning and Performance Support Strategy
PowerPoint slides. 1,731 KB file. (2001-07-31)New Designing Performance Support: Representation and Integration
PowerPoint slides. 301 KB file. (2001-07-31)Keynote - 2000 OLL and Performance Support Conference
Performance Support: A Model for Tomorrow
PowerPoint slides from Gloria's keynote speech at the 2000 Online Learning and Performance Support conference in Denver.
A zip file containing the PowerPoint slides from Gloria's keynote presentation at the Training Directors' Forum 2000. (2000-07-05)Performance Support 99 Conference Keynote
A zip file containing the PowerPoint slides from Gloria Gery's keynote presentation at the Performance Support 99 Conference.Opening Presentation for the Online Learning & Performance Support conference
A zip file containing the PowerPoint slides form Gloria Gery's opening presentation for the Online Learning and Performance Support 99 conference.Performance Centered Design Workshop Slides
This 449KB Zip file containing the PowerPoint slides from Gloria Gery's PS1 Performance Centered Design Pre-Conference Workshop at the Performance Support 99 Conference in Los Angeles.Design Examples
This 4,849KB PowerPoint file contains screens shots of the performance support features and attributes of various software applications, including Quicken Quick Books and Turbo Tax.
Gloria Gery can be contacted at: ggery@attglobal.net