In a previous post I had discussed how changing technology might call for a change in approach to make implementing and managing change in an LMS more effective and fruitful. ‘Stakeholder engagement’ is a term commonly thrown around in the communications and project management worlds. One that, although there are many popular ‘buzz-words’, should not be overlooked. People are the core of everything and without the people’s buy in, support, and effort, any initiative will ultimately fall short.

Customer Complaints, how to avoid the traps makes for an interesting read; especially so because it looks at the LMS sales process purely from a customer’s perspective. The issues highlighted are quite pertinent and yes, I think, there is a high probability that an organization looking for an LMS (new or changing) would have encountered one or more of these traps. Some may actually have fallen into these traps unknowingly.

After the recent recognition of Upside Learning as one of the top 20 Learning portal companies in the world by trainingindustry.com, Sébastien FRAYSSE of lms-selection.com interviewed us and put it up here on his blog with the title LMS Vendor interview: Upside Learning.

In his post Sébastien highlights what is part of our core philosophy – innovation – “Upside Learning is a very innovative vendor”.

About almost an entire year ago (just  five days short to be precise) I put up a post on Learning Management: What does a Training Company need an LMS for?.  A year on and I was trying to review if things have changed significantly in for what a training company (or even an SMB) would need from an LMS in today’s scenario.

The good news first: the market is upbeat about LMS technology; in the recent past I have seen an increasing number of enquiries on LMS – which is good.

The ‘not so bad’ news, something which made me think a little – in many RFPs I still find eLearning is a very small part of the requirements. In fact a couple of RFPs from very large organizations were similar in defining what they need from an LMS. I noticed that more than half of the requirements catered to managing classroom training. There was a low-key section on eLearning mentioning SCORM compliance in the RFP and that was about it!

The LMS has been a hot discussion topic for some time now. There have been posts discussing its survival and a few posts before that discussing its future – Jane Hart posted what is the future of the lms reviewing useful of LMS, followed up by a similar post by Harold Jarche suggesting LMS is no longer the centre of the universe. Clark Quinn brought in a little balance by highlighting what the LMS could be used for and to what extent in his post – a case for the LMS.

I wanted to do a quick SWOT analysis of the LMS to get some understanding on the LMS scenario today.

Here is a very quick SWOT analysis of the LMS:

During the time I posted my last post – The LMS – Will it survive? and continuing after that, there have been some interesting discussions around LMS by Clark Quinn, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Dave Wilkins and others debating the need of an LMS, raising questions from why we need it, whether we need it, how it should be viewed, will it survive, etc. You can read some interesting posts around these questions here – LMS is no longer the center of the universe, What is the future of the LMS?, When to LMS, A case for the LMS?, Why bash the LMS?, A Defense of the LMS (and a case for the future of Social Learning).

It seemed the LMS was under fire recently from many corners and questions were being raised about its very future – Jane Hart recently posted what is the future of the lms reviewing the useful of an LMS, followed up by a similar post by Harold Jarche suggesting the LMS is no longer the centre of the universe.

Clark Quinn brought in a little balance by highlighting what the LMS could be used for and to what extent in his post – a case for the LMS.

The LMS market is heating up by the day for past many months now and it looks like it is going, more or less, as predicted by Bersin & Associates about 6 months back – The LMS market: hotter than ever. I have seen a significant increase in attention towards LMS both in terms of technology and also in terms of the end value being delivered by it to an organization, its end users (learners, instructors, and administrators). To keep up with the happenings, trends, innovations, and other information on LMS and to ensure our teams at Upside involved in core LMS development, client implementations, client support and Innovation team are in tune with the industry we follow a host of blogs that focus specifically on LMS, learning technology, and related topics.