2008 Award Winners

Beers+Cutler: (www.beersandcutler.com) - A well-designed college internship onboarding program - a combination of on-the-job training, research, shadowing, e-learning and classroom instruction - greatly improved the intern experience, led to better hiring decisions and generated revenues.

Boeing (www.boeing.com) - In order to meet requirements from its U.S. military customers, the company implemented a very successful learning program to become a leader in the rigorous Systems Engineering approach to development, manufacturing, and customer service.

CA (www.ca.com) - The company launched a continuous learning program for sales managers featuring on-the-job coaching practice and an online coaching support community, reducing turnover and increasing sales volume and employee satisfaction.

Textron (www.textron.com) - In conjunction with Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business Executive Education, the company implemented a development program for manufacturing leaders to teach all disciplines of integrated supply chain, which has reduced inventory costs and increased quality.

Freeman (www.freemanco.com) - The company's small, centralized learning organization uses a holistic, team-based approach to people management in which training and HR are integrated, maintaining a customer-driven, strategic focus on effective management of the entire employment life cycle.

Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) - Sun's learning services organization is managed as a successful profit center - maximized by offshoring, outsourcing, implementing technology and centralization - serving employees, customers, partners and the community all under one organization.

Telstra (www.telstra.com) - Australia's leading telecommunications and information services company, in partnership with Accenture, has established a learning program to support its strategic imperative to develop a next-generation engineering, technical and operations workforce.

Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) - Sun prepares its senior and executive leaders through skills assessment, coaching, training, and a sophisticated custom-designed simulation.

Textron (www.textron.com) - Participants nominated for Textron's Growth Leadership Program, developed with Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business Executive Education, apply core marketing processes, tools, and principles to the entire product lifecycle using a real Textron business challenge.

U.S. Air Force (www.airforce.com) - This leadership development initiative, developed in conjunction with Vangent, Inc., targets 42,000 officers and is based on a list of well-defined competencies and the levels of proficiency required at every rank.

KPMG LLP (www.us.kpmg.com) - The firm's performance measurement group has implemented an enterprise-scale measurement technology infrastructure and sophisticated analytics methodologies, generating clear increases in productivity, efficiency, and time to competence.

Luxottica Retail (www.luxotticaretail.com) - As part of an enterprise-wide talent management strategy, the company has launched a new LMS and talent management suite, developed governance boards, established learning priorities, created new talent management processes, and eliminated ah-hoc systems.

Vestas (www.vestas.com) - To improve onboarding, this Denmark-based pioneer in the wind power industry has launched a global e-learning initiative for new employee induction which features an online environment with virtual colleagues.

Booz Allen Hamilton (www.boozallen.com) - The firm's HR Technology Portal combines all talent-related functions into a single portal so employees know where to go when they need to do anything related to their employment and career.

Cisco (www.cisco.com) - The company's QuickStart e-learning program quickly prepares the sales force for strategic product launches by consolidating new product and technology information into small chunks for self-paced, easy access at the time of need.

Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) - The company's Sun Learning eXchange is a YouTube-like collaborative multimedia portal where sales employees can post, view, rate, tag, share, or download content to computers or wireless iPod devices, allowing them to get information and seek guidance from peers quickly and easily.

Allen Communication Learning Services (www.allencomm.com) - The Allen Learning Portal is a fully functional, on-demand, portal-type LMS solution targeted at the corporate market, with a unique pricing model - a fixed price no matter how many learners use the system.

Brainshark (www.brainshark.com) - The Brainshark Content Network is a YouTube-like open market for e-learning and other content, where users can search and purchase instructional content and then easily integrate into their own LMS.

InnerWorkings (www.innerworkings.com) - InnerWorkings offers software organizations a way to hone and validate .NET developer skills through a structured learning and testing environment, with a library of learning challenges for employees and skills tests for candidates.

Kognito Interactive (www.kognito.com) - The Investigator is a web-based, interactive learning simulation that teaches human resource managers how to effectively and legally investigate complaints of workplace misconduct including sexual harassment, retaliation, and unethical behavior.

Mzinga (www.mzinga.com) - The Social Learning Suite combines LMS and performance management with social media and networking technologies, collaborative authoring, and virtual classroom capabilities within a single SaaS platform.

NIIT (www.niit.com) - For its customer, electronics giant Philips, NIIT developed a learning administration solution which includes a global LMS coupled with 24x7 customer support services for employees in more than 80 countries.

PDI Ninth House (www.pdininthhouse.com) - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Interactive EditionT is an innovative personal and professional development solution from PDI Ninth House and FranklinCovey, building on the traditional 7 Habits classroom-based training with new, e-learning capabilities.

Richardson (www.richardson.com) - Richardson QuickSkills, a package of web-based courses designed to help sales professionals build stronger relationships, exceed sales objectives, and close more business, features a unique wizard-style interface for customizing content to reflect a company's specific challenges and sales opportunities.

Saba (www.saba.com) - The Saba Knowledge Center is a portal extension to Saba's enterprise LMS, adding search engine functionality so that learners can find informal and formal learning activities, experts, and communities of practice.

Suddenly Smart (www.suddenlysmart.com) - The company's SmartBuilder v3 is a Flash-based web e-learning development platform with an intuitive, drag-and-drop authoring environment that enables users to quickly lay out content, incorporate rich media, establish robust interactivity and customize content from templates.