Which of these technology changes will impact training the most?

I think mobile applications are the game changer for training.
Let me explain why I think that way.

Why Mobile?

We now produce more information than ever, the shelf life of knowledge and skills is reducing, and the new generation workforce thinks about information storage and access very differently – after all they have had a whole decade of interaction with web  1.0 + 2.0. With the availability of just-in-time access to information through mobile computing devices (including tablets) the notion of knowledge (sometimes a.k.a. information) and its use gets separated. For me, it shifts the focus from ‘Training’ to ‘Performance Support’.

In my interactions with various business owners & training managers I’ve found a performance support initiative gets the management nod more easily as compared to a training initiative. Evidently, the management believes the advantage of a performance support initiative is immediate, and promises better ROI. This is where a strategy that includes mobile fits in very well. It’s a fantastic always carried on the person, and is now as powerful as a PC/Mac from just a couple of years ago. It can be adapted to become your performance support agent at work.

Why Apps?

Mobile apps are big business. It’s projected that apps will become a bigger market than CDs by 2012. It is only natural for it to exert an influence on the learning & training market as well. Mashable reports that 1 in 4 adults in US now use mobile apps. Today there are hundreds of apps for education available on the Apple Appstore – here’s a big list of iPhone apps for education.

Apps are a great medium for delivering quality learning content as they:

-  Provide a smooth consistent user experience
-  Load only data as compared to a web site or web app that loads UI too
-  Can reach targeted audience in a secure manner
-  Allow creation of a dedicated channel for access and retrieval (pull) of    information/knowledge just when needed
-  Allow networking, collaboration and user generated content easier by being available at the point of creative impulse (as Tomi Ahonen puts it)
-  Can store user specific information and act as a personal learning agent (at least to some extent)

Examples of Workplace Learning (Performance Support) Apps

Apps that help the workforce perform better or safer are already out in the market. Soon we will see more custom apps hitting the Appstore/Market. These would be tailored to suit a particular audience and will have particular objectives. Here are some examples available on the Appstore:

HVAC Toolkit Ultimate – load calculation, duct sizer, etc for onsite plumbers.

Foreman’s Mate – a utility for the workers in construction industry.

Electrician’s Helper takes the hassle out of looking us electrical codes and doing complex calculations for installations.

Earlier I had written about healthcare industry being at the forefront of the mobile learning innovation and that post contains with some good examples too.

Where will Apps Fit in Training?

I think apps will eventually create a unique position in the training methods of corporates. Given the unique advantages, they may soon become trusted assistants of every employee in the workplace. They will eventually replace a lot of varied tools, manuals, charts, technical support, calculators, and the like, perhaps making the mobile computing and communication device the only tool one needs.

When you have apps to support almost everything your workforce does, you need to take a serious relook at your whole training strategy.

I see a whole new world of training coming around with mobile apps as the agents of change.

Do you agree?

The event scheduled for Nov 20th in Mumbai will focus on how organizational learning can impact business. So what can you expect?

Excerpted from the CLO Summit brochure:

“A day filled with inspiring keynotes, a few crisp panel discussions, stimulating presentations.
And a few pleasant surprises.

In a fast changing economic environment with increasing competitive intensity, how can organizational learning become a source of competitive advantage and continuous change?

How can organizational learning, positively impact the business and proactively propel change in business strategy or ensure its effective implementation, instead of just reacting to it?

How can organizations use learning as a tool to innovate, differentiate themselves in order to attract and retain Talent, Customers and Investors?

The inaugural CLO summit shall endeavour to find answers to these questions and some of the key areas mentioned in the agenda through interaction and debate amongst some of the best minds in the field.”

We look forward to meeting some of you personally during the summit.

1. Client Demand: The provider’s clients have started demanding eLearning solutions (and training providers want to retain them). This is a pure survival and growth reason which I blogged about earlier. Undoubtedly, in the current economic situation there is a BIG push for training companies to move towards eLearning.
2. Cost of Training Delivery: To reduce cost of delivery for training companies and their clients. This is mentioned universally and has come into focus even more due to the recession where budgetary constraints (especially on travel) have impacted the off-take of classroom training in big way
3. Flexibility: Increase flexibility of access (anytime, anywhere). Most training companies mention it’s becoming difficult to pull employees out of their jobs for 2-5 day instructor-led sessions. With managers forced to do more with less people (several organizations have retrenched people) letting anyone off for even a day can become difficult.
4. Increase delivery options: Blended learning options to cater to the unique requirements of different clients. Some want more eLearning and some want less of it, others want mobile learning. This helps training providers reach client companies who otherwise had not been able to afford their classroom training – opening up a new stream of business. I’ve blogged before about why Blended Learning is the best option for training companies.
5. Improve efficiency: Improve efficiency & effectiveness of instructor led training with technology enabled components. Adding pre-workshop eLearning modules, post-workshop eLearning sessions (can be synchronous), mobile learning components for follow-ups that help increase retention. Using technology such as ARS (Audience Response Systems) in classrooms & providing collaborative environments can create learning opportunities for users. As training providers, they want to make their courses the ‘best in class’ using technology enabled learning affords them that opportunity.
6. Learning Management: Making management of reporting easier and be able to check off some important checkboxes (guess more relevant to compliance type training). As the paradigm shifts, Learning Management Systems will change and focus would be on truly managing learning and not just checkbox compliance.
7. It is better now: ELearning has improved since the time they last considered it. There is NO doubt about this; eLearning has come a long way. The addition of games, simulations, mobile based learning, social learning frameworks, collaborative tools and much more has come to instructional technology.  Rather than simple page-turners the industry is slowly turning to provide instructional experiences, both interactive and online.
8. Am I late: Don’t want to miss the boat. Well none of our prospects said this but it seems to be the overriding feeling amongst training providers. All of them realize that the days of classroom-training only are limited and they’d better start now.

Training companies are now adopting eLearning for survival & growth. Bersin & Associates in a report earlier this year said about 40% of training organizations have an LMS. For training companies considering offering eLearning solutions, Blended Learning is the best bet too – albeit for a slightly different reason.

We have had several meetings earlier this month with prospective customers (training companies) about how we could help them with their eLearning initiatives. Some of these training companies are very new to the world of eLearning. Their interest in eLearning is due to several reasons, of which the most common ones are how to reduce costs and reduce time away from job. Their clients have slashed travel budgets, while managers in client organizations are not willing to let their employees go for training – as they are already managing with less manpower. Such factors are pushing training companies to look for alternatives to long classroom training programs.

eLearning fits in very well here – to the extent the content and program objectives allow.
However, from the training companies’ perspective, there is this big decision to be made – How much to let go (to eLearning)?

Training Companies would ideally want to hang on to all of their classroom training as that’s their core competency – something they really excel in and have relied on to satisfy & retain clients for years. Balancing market demand and the desire to retain the core competence leads to ‘blended learning’ emerging as a natural choice. It gives them the flexibility to customize programs to suit their clients’ budgets and time availability. We believe by doing blended learning well (and sooner than their competitors) training companies can further their competitive advantage.

The common theme emerging from these meetings is that their clients have started asking for eLearning solutions or blended solutions. As an owner of a small training company said –“My clients could have stopped training last year and I could have been in big trouble” (his actual statement). Resonating but with a different tone some of bigger training companies mention –“We need to consider eLearning to maintain our leadership position and avoid losing clients. It helps make our offerings more competitive in the marketplace. It also helps us appear more progressive offering all possible options of training delivery.” (my interpretation of their statements)

That doesn’t surprise us at all. We’ve foreseen this kind of growth in demand for eLearning in the wake of recent widespread recession (which is not over yet!). Last quarter we saw growing indications of Training Companies Adopting eLearning and now we see that trend gaining momentum. We actually expect eLearning to grow well over the next couple of years and beyond.  We’re not suggesting face–to-face training is dead. It’s just that eLearning is growing and you need to sit up and take notice. We’d recommend Training Companies take a hard look at how the training market is re-shaping itself and how eLearning is beginning to take centre stage in the training portfolio of many organizations. It would be prudent to re-align your offering to suit your clients changing needs in order to retain your client-base.

If you’ve no experience with eLearning development yourself, you could align with an eLearning development vendor like us. Conduct some basic website review, sample reviews, reference checks, cost analysis, and even a small pilot. Even if your current clients are not demanding eLearning right now, it may make sense to develop eLearning options just to be ready. Of course, it makes sense to start small and gain some experience of how it works.

Needless to say we are happy to help if you have any questions or need assistance. Please feel free to write a comment here or email at info@upsidelearning.com.

In an even broader perspective, I think the workplace learning space is changing in a more fundamental way and this recession accelerating that change. Here’s a insight into what the industry sees as the ‘Future of Workplace Learning’ at the Learning Circuits blog.

Recently I came across this June 2009 dated survey analysis report from AchieveGlobal, called Learning in Difficult Times. As the name suggests, it tries to put a pulse to what’s happening in the corporate training and development domain. This survey was conducted in early 2009 and concludes – amongst other trends – that eLearning is on the rise. Here are my three key take-aways from this survey:

1.	Employee training and development is a long-term strategy The most compelling insight from the survey is that the notion of employee training and development being a long-term strategy and not a short-term fix is finally catching on. The report states: …51% of respondents report that their company’s level of investment and focus on employee learning and development has either increased or stayed the same in the face of current economic conditions. That despite 85% of those same respondents reporting that their organization has experienced a moderate to severe impact as a result of the recession. This is good news for learning professionals – training managers, HR heads, CLOs, training providers, eLearning vendors, etc. If this result is truly indicative of the real situation in most industries, training & development will soon get its rightful place in strategic decision forums (does that mean boardrooms?) across the corporate world.
2.	Leadership, Customer Service – getting most of the additional funds Leadership and Customer Service training are getting large amounts of additional funds. The graph below depicts the same.
3.	eLearning is on the rise In response to a question on the – predicted use of different training methods next year – external seminars seem to be losing out. That should be a cause of concern for Training Companies and Independent Trainers who provide external ILT training sessions. Classroom training (and by that I assume in-house training as opposed to external seminars) is finding favor as it would hopefully save some dollars on travel and other related expenses. Caution: This graph may not be the best representation of this information. It seems the positive axis should be “same or more use” even though the graph has it marked as “more use”. How did I conclude this? See this about classroom training from the report: It’s interesting to note that in contrast to the 39% reporting a decrease in classroom training, 61% of respondents report their use of this type of training will either increase (17%) or stay the same (44%). So it seems that the 61% includes responses given to both options “same use” and “more use”. Only 17% are saying it will increase. Further on Web-based learning the report says: Training delivery systems that are expected to experience a 50% or better increase in usage at our respondents’ companies in the coming year include Web-based e-learning, Web-based training such as LiveMeeting and Webex, conference calls and mentoring/coaching. …and… After weathering years of predictable hits and misses while working to establish Web-based learning as a viable training method, the scales are unquestionably tipping in favor of making this training delivery method a mainstay in progressive organizations nationwide. With 85% of our survey respondents anticipating that their company’s use of Web-based training will either stay the same or increase in the coming year and 87% predicting the same for Web-based e-learning, it’s safe to say that a trend is emerging.

So it is evident that for Web-based training, the graph should have read 85%/15% instead of 50%/50% that it shows currently.

Ok…so the conclusion that the graph is faulty is correct.
The key takeaway from the report however remains – eLearning seems set to grow next year.

Conclusion
These results reaffirm our confidence in eLearning as a business. I think the next 3-5 years would be a high-growth phase for eLearning industry. In my opinion, a large part of it would come from ‘traditional’ eLearning and not from the new age stuff that we keep reading about. This presents an opportunity for Training Companies to get online before the growth phase kicks-in. When the economy rebounds – some think it has already started taking a U-turn – training budgets would bounce back and eLearning would be in demand. You need to be ready.

In the past, many Training Companies have been reluctant to adopt eLearning as a medium for training delivery. They have viewed this as compromising on their core competency –human mediated training. Most training companies have been successful in selling their trainers’ expertise (and charisma) as a USP. While this has limited them from expanding, it has helped them hold on to their regular clientele and survive through earlier downturns. However, this recession is markedly different, no one can doubt it is more severe than any of the earlier ones. More importantly – this slump has occurred at a time when the very structure of training and learning is undergoing change. Corporates today are considering multiple technology-enabled-training options as part of their long term strategy. The lower costs of eLearning, the foreseeable ubiquity of mLearning, the promise of Social Learning, are all forcing a major reshuffle in focus (and budgets) in corporate training. Training Companies seem to be realizing that when we come out of this recession, human mediated training would not be in demand as much. They are now exploring options to keep running their business profitably by cutting the cost of training for their clients, while adapting to the changing nature of training and learning itself.

At Upside Learning, we are seeing great interest amongst training companies to put their training programs – in part or full – online, and to offer eLearning or blended learning solutions to reduce recurring costs. With seven new clients signing up for our flagship product UpsideLMS in the last 4 months, sales of the LMS – as proportion of our total sales – is up quite a bit. We anticipate this will grow further as more training companies consider blended learning options to deliver greater value to their clients and customers.

UpsideLMS: Read about Upside Learning’s solutions for training companies OR get in touch with us if you need more information or have questions.

What we are seeing is a trend based on our discussions with many Training Companies in the last six months. We’d like to hear from you if you are seeing the same or a different trend.

To follow-up on that discussion, Tony organized a free webinar on the Future of Learning as a Business last week. The panelists included some well known personalities from the Learning industry like Josh Bersin, Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, Ray Jimenez, and David Wilkins amongst others. The webinar was meant to discuss how the future of learning as a business looks and what the training departments and training companies could do to ensure theirs. There was a special focus on ideas/solutions that could help Training Companies sell more.

I thank Tony for inviting Upside Learning to share/showcase what its Innovation and New Projects Team is focusing on these days. In that presentation I spoke about our focus on Simulations & Games, Mobile Learning, Integrated Accountability, and Social Learning. For those who missed or could not attend the conference – the recording is now available on Learn Trends.

I have pulled out my 10 min presentation and embedded below:

It was a great learning experience listening to the wonderful speakers that Tony invited. Some of the information I heard was new while a lot of it confirmed what we have been discussing internally – which is quite reassuring.

I do plan a follow-up post as I put together my thoughts from the conference.

Training companies now need to enable themselves with the tools and technologies needed to go online with their training material and find the right systems and backend partners to support them during and after this crucial exercise. An appropriate Learning Management System (LMS) is the key to the successful execution of this piece of strategy. Because having a good system means being able to keep customers happy and delighted and also because what most training companies need is a system that runs robustly and has excellent support.

At Upside Learning, we have over 50 training companies as customers and believe that we know a thing or two about what kind of LMS a Training Company needs. Of course, some companies may need a little more or a little less but what I am outlining below serves as the typical set of features and functionalities required. This set has been prepared not only from what we have offered to our customers so far but also includes intelligence from the market as a whole.

Who’s who in the LMS?
For the purpose of this post I am focusing on the premise that training companies will be using the LMS to host and deliver/sell their own training content online to their existing and new customers (or individual users).

They need a system that lets them have the freedom to set up customer accounts on the system easily and almost instantly with basic settings that can be configured through the interface itself. This means that the right system should have at least three distinct entities (or profiles) – LMS Administrator (Training Company); Client Administrator (Someone at customer’s end to manage their activities); Learner / User (Learner at customer’s end).

These three profiles ensure that both the training company and the customer can work on the system without much dependence on the LMS vendor or the training company for routine tasks like license management, course management, reporting, learner support for basic queries, eCommerce, etc.

Key point: The LMS system must support a multi-portal structure where the training company itself can create an account for a customer and the system automatically creates a portal for it.

Hosting and Support
Since the core business of a training company is offering training, what they need from the LMS vendor is a complete package on hosting and support. These two eventually form the backbone of the entire offering as the company needs to be absolutely certain about the reliability and availability of the system along with best-of-class support before they approach their customers. Eventually amongst customers, their reputation is at stake and being able to rely on the LMS vendor completely is a MUST. Most training companies seem to prefer the vendor host and support the LMS.

Talking about Support in particular we have seen that even though we have the capabilities to offer direct support to end users, a few training companies like to keep Level 1 support at their end and then utilize our support as second line. This is linked to the requirement on white-labeling (mentioned further in this post) where the company wants to go as a self-sustaining provider to its customers. However the LMS vendor needs to set up proper systems and training for the company to provide support.

Branding of the system
Most of our customers have wanted the system to be white-labeled (which means that the LMS carries no reference to the actual developer/vendor and is branded entirely as a system belonging to the company). Considering it involves cost some companies are good to go with a system which carries their main branding with a reference to the vendor. The flexibility to offer a white-labeled system, even at additional cost, is a big plus. This may become a key discussion point if the company has strong views on getting it white-labeled.

Standards Compliance
The LMS must support SCORM and AICC standards. If the LMS also supports upload and delivery of a proprietary format (HTML pages without any compliance) or videos which have not yet been packaged as SCORM / AICC courses it is a bonus for the company as it entails no additional cost to convert those to a standards-compliant courseware. However it still means certain integration costs and may also mean losing out on the inherent advantages of using standards.

Functionality Modules
In terms of the functionality modules, companies like to keep the entire system simple and easy to use and do not have a big list of functionalities required:

It’s not just requisite to have these features in the LMS but imperative that the LMS system does not offer other extra features which can become more of a distraction to both the training company and the end client. However it is very important that the LMS system does have scale-up capabilities to add on modules for many other activities as the business of training specially online training keeps evolving and training companies come back to ask for modules on virtual classroom, social media, collaboration tools, competency management, etc.

In a nutshell, what a training company needs today is a ready to go system without the frills and that concentrates on core training delivery activities. In the eyes of the training company and their customers, what they are eventually selling to their customers is not an LMS but more of a training solution (which is primarily their content) through an easy to use and robust platform which doesn’t need to have fancy features. For this reason, the LMS should remain the key technology enabler making it easier to remain focused on their core business.