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Member Since 12/7/07 | Last Update 10/21/08

Marcia Conner

Managing Director
Ageless Learner
United States

Profile Tags

Educational History

  • Darden Graduate School of Business Administration (Batten Fellow).
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Earlham College.

Professional History:

  • Managing Director, Ageless Learner
  • Vice President, PeopleSoft
  • Director, Wave Technologies

Bio

I work at the intersection of social media and learning to increase organizational IQ. A former Fortune 500 learning VP and author of Creating a Learning Culture, I am managing director of Ageless Learner and write the Fast Company expert blog Learn At All Levels. I have a gift for assessing what people can do...

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Bio

I work at the intersection of social media and learning to increase organizational IQ. A former Fortune 500 learning VP and author of Creating a Learning Culture, I am managing director of Ageless Learner and write the Fast Company expert blog Learn At All Levels. I have a gift for assessing what people can do today and preparing them to do more tomorrow.

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As an advisor to corporations, I leverage my experience operating high-speed learning and leadership development organizations to consult with employers just starting up and multi-nationals entering the fast lane. Using social media, nimble enterprise tools and my own brand of learning assessments, I establish an organization-wide education engine to spur and support growth. I have served FedEx, the Gap, Verizon Wireless, American Express, The Home Depot, Mars, WD-40, CARE and other global employers.

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As a keynote speaker, I talk with groups throughout the United States and abroad on turning social media and learning into competitive advantage, catalyzing the new and open learning style, overcoming organizational learning disabilities, and aligning education with dynamic business goals. I have been a featured speaker for The Conference Board, Internet World, the Brookings Institution, the US Intelligence Community and ABC World News This Morning. Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4  

As a thought-leader, my columns reach millions of readers in print and online. In addition to Creating a Learning Culture: Strategy, Technology and Practice (Cambridge, 2004), I wrote Learn More Now: 10 Simple Steps to Learning Better, Smarter and Faster (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) and have written for many other publications including Leading Organizational Learning (Jossey-Bass/Leader to Leader Foundation, 2004) and wrote the forward to Engaging Learning: Designing E-Learning Simulation Games by Clark N. Quinn (Pfeiffer, 2005). 

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When PeopleSoft hired me to integrate technology and learning across the enterprise, I grew the Education function to become the fourth most profitable learning organization in the world. I built programs including PeopleSoft University to support 100% annual sales growth through client, business partners and employee training. These efforts increased revenues by $26 million and customer-sat ratings by 30%. I was also responsible for the design strategy, user experience and learnability for the PeopleSoft Business Network (PSBN) and PeopleSoft's R&D project code-name Disruptive.com, innovating next-generation enterprise software and online service business communities.

Learning in the New Economy magazine, which I co-founded and led as editor-in-chief, gained a loyal readership of 250,000 C-level business leaders. The magazine received acclaim from The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0 and Fortune for making learning a hot topic among executives.

At Microsoft, I developed the company's first new employee training program, accelerating employee readiness from 6-months to 6-weeks. My training organization delivered classes to thousands of employees each year.

I co-founder the Learnativity Alliance, develop leadership programs for women worldwide and am a fellow of the Batten Institute at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, focusing on learning culture. I volunteer my time to talk with teachers and parents about creative solutions for children who have learning disabilities.

I has lived and worked on three continents, and currently live on a 50-acre homestead in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley with my husband Karl and son Clarke.

Learn more at www.marciaconner.com.

Personal slogan or motto: 
Always learning, learning all ways.
Your areas of expertise: 
Expertise in learning strategy, social media, leadership development, succession planning, reaching young employees, online community, social networks, corporate universities, elearning, technical training, learnability, women as leaders, open source learning, for-profit education, organizational culture and learning styles.
Personal Website/Blog URL: 
http://www.marciaconner.com
Year of Birth: 
1966
Gender: 
Female
Country: 
United States
Postal Code: 
24401

Public Profile

http://www.fastcompany.com/user/marcia-conner

Professional History

Managing Director, Ageless Learner

Private, Education / Training industry

Vice President, PeopleSoft

Public, 5000+ employees, Technology / Computers industry

Director, Wave Technologies

Public, 101-500 employees, Education / Training industry

Sr. Manager, Worldwide Training, Microsoft

Public, 5000+ employees, Technology / Computers industry

Editor in Chief, Learning in the New Economy magazine

Private, 21-50 employees, Arts / Entertainment / Media industry

Educational History

Darden Graduate School of Business Administration (Batten Fellow), Virginia, United States

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, United States

Earlham College, Indiana, United States

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Marcia's Recent ContentRSS Feed

Blog Post Comment
Comment: 10 months later it seems this edutwittering focus has finally caught on. If you have room, consider tagging your tweets intended to be education, informative, or just plain learning-oriented #edu. It...
Member Blog | 2 recommendations | December 21, 2008 9:29 pm
When a dear friend sailed away from the town he'd called home for decades, he probably assumed his small cadre of Twitter followers was alerted to his ...
Member Blog | 3 recommendations | December 07, 2008 9:37 pm
Contrary to analysis showing learning to be one of the only truly competitive weapons organizations can control, training departments are rarely well funded. It's the nature of being viewed as...
Member Blog | 3 recommendations | November 30, 2008 8:38 pm
I've directed large education organizations with huge budgets and small departments without a dime. Training rooms I managed accounted for the largest portion of real estate on a spatial...

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Learn at All Levels

Marcia Conner works at the intersection of social media and learning. The author of Learn More Now and Creating a Learning Culture spent years inside fast companies reinventing corporate education and social systems that help people connect. She offers approaches for learning smarter and developing organizations which produce more energy than they consume.

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Zen Habits

Having Zen Habits is about achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits.

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Fast Company Expert Blogs

Blogs written by FC experts on a variety of subjects.

Marcia's Recommendations?

Blog Post  |  1 recommendation
Steve Trautman spends his time engaging people in knowledge transfer. We met over a decade ago, helping grow Microsoft from a small...
Blog Post  |  2 recommendations
Is charity social responsibility? After years helping businesses become more profitable, I've found myself waist deep in helping businesses get onboard the social responsibility...
Blog Post  |  2 recommendations
Did you know there are several Green web site hosting companies who use solar or wind power to generate all the power needed to host your web site or blog? We know that...