vision
the fundamentals of learning: in a knowledge economy, more effective learning strategies mean more growth and more success.
most large companies, corporations and enterprises are currently engaged in blended-learning research, development and delivery. some have extremely developed models, as some are continuing academics while trying on proofs of concept to find the best fit. regardless, you would be hard pressed to find an organization from apple to xerox who is yet to realize the benefits of blended and e/digital learning technologies.
elearning or digital learning simply refers to learning delivery and learning management through new technologies and media geared towards simplifying, automating and enhancing models of training, and communications.
looking back to january 2003, the international data corporation (idc) predicted that web-based training (wbt) in the u.s. would total $18 billion in 2005, up from $4.2 billion in 2001. emarketer's elearning report (july 2003) predicted that the u.s. corporate elearning market would quadruple over the next five years to reach over $16 billion by 2005/2006.
more recently, according to a report by ambient insight, called “the worldwide market for self-paced elearning products and services: 2010-2015 forecast and analysis,” the worldwide market for self-paced elearning products and services reached $32.1 billion in 2010. the five-year compound annual growth rate (cagr) is 9.2% and revenues will grow to $49.9 billion by 2015...
what may be most relevant in the above account is that the significant growth in the elearning industry this decade is correlated to an increase in elearning product and solutions demand, which in turn point to the fact that more and more organizations are investing more heavily in new intellectual capital development and management technologies - because it works.
a well thought-out elearning environment:
• flexible
• blended
• entertaining and enjoyable
• highly interactive learning content
• cost-effective
• tool-sets are constantly evolving and refining
• monitored and reportable
• promotes investigation and collaboration
• promotes a culture of learning
• promotes positive competitiveness
• helps promote self-reliance and a habit of life-long learning
• usually results in customized training experiences for each learner
• often delivers curriculum and learning paths
• often includes community and collaboration tools
• often allows learning systems integration with hrms/hris
• may leverage virtual classroom technologies
• encourages learning-hones for push and pull models of learning consumption
• helps assess your return on learning (rol)
• gamified
• integrated with social media (social learning)
• incentivized (learning is tied to performance reviews, bonuses and career advancement)
• includes thoughtful change-management accompanyments
• leverges micro-learning benefits
general mounting business challenges with which elearning can assist:
• improving time-to-market
• centralizing training
• merger/acquisition analysis and integration
• widely distributed employee base
• constant regulatory compliance training
• locating inefficiencies in the organization
• communicating ever-evolving corporate identities to employees
• more aggressive executive training initiatives
• encouraging employee productivity
• quicker and more systematic sales and customer service training
• high turn-over
• equipment scarcity
dangers of the big-bang theory
what's sensible is to approach things incrementally, and put things through on a business case, and piece by piece. there's no way we could say today what the (place your company's name here) is going to look like in three years time. -brian sutton, director of information management at nhsu
how many times have i seen a company spend years and throw millions at a full elearning extended-suite, through endless pre-sales and sales engagements, vendor business analysis cycles, poc, its implementation, and so on, only to realize that the tool does not meet needs after several months, or that the tool and/or vendor cannot live up to promises and expectations?
shifting organizational needs, refocusing business goals, growing learning practices, new leadership, concurrent usability breakdowns, technology and systems integration challenges, lack of user buy-in… all potential reasons for initiative outdating/technology dissatisfaction.
all beware the big-bang approach
big-picture long-term thinking is essential, but hoping that something titanic we create today will exist in applied perfection for many years to come may be a big mistake. incremental, phased approaches may not only be the safest bet, but may also allow you to discover new, as well as release retired needs along the way. this approach may also allow you and your organization to create a truly unique, stable and time-tested proven learning environment.
in building your organization's learning environment, you may choose to think of it as building the foundation for the next generation who will benefit exponentially from your patience and thoughtfulness.
rome wasn’t built in a lengthy vendor sales cycle
a well developed learning culture, with a strong foundation on academics and sensible organizational goals will pave the way for the appropriate selection and usage of tools over a short period of time. many companies play the game the other way around, after a minimum 8 month vendor sales cycle, hoping that the most functional applications will then in turn bring on the learning culture, academics, clear goals and so on.
what they may not realize is that they may soon be too bogged down with trouble-shooting, post-implementation support, admin and student training, documenting and analysis of future versions, wish-lists and other paper-based processes, to actually go back and develop a firm foundation.
phased-approaches may also be easier on internal user acceptance trends as well as change-management phases.
e/digital learning due-diligence should not be based on the typical functionalities game. an infinitely paged rfi/rfp does not guarantee a successful implementation or successful usability. in fact, perhaps the focus on functions and matching current business processes to the user work-flow of a web-app and other off-the-shelf criteria, may be the most dangerous way to kick off a vital initiative that should be far more flexible, unique, long-term, big-picture and user-focused. on top of that, the former method is a surefire way to perpetually jade your internal elearning team.
when choosing to buy, electing your vendors primarily based on a check-list approach may be far more inferior than finding a vendor who is more interested in your long-term vision and would rather opt to work with you in a partnership approach over a couple years, helping you build a bang-on solution, rather than a big-bang solution - selling you their apps today promising the world to close the deal.
if you are finding yourself in the genesis of your own corporate learning big-bang, or simply require fresh-eyes to improve or establish your learning strategy and technolgies, mindhouse can help.
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