The need for bespoke content is at the top of the list for most existing e-learning users, however, many struggle to get the right balance between speed and quality in development. Perceived wisdom may lead one to believe that there is an “either/or” choice between in house and outsourced solutions; not being ones to accept perceived wisdom blindly, Cortexa offer a range of development services. This varies from providing help and guidance in the development of in house “rapidly authored” content, to simpler outsourced programmes, through to more measured high impact bespoke content with a high level of interaction and complexity. The diagram below gives a visual representation of how we work. 

 

 

 

Bespoke Content Development Cost

It is difficult to give an accurate figure for the cost of developing bespoke online learning since at the outset there are so many variables. If the quality and content of subject matter is consistent then the table below can be used as a “rule of thumb” calculator. The two main variables will be the degree of freedom afforded to the student and the complexity of the learning content.

The degree of freedom boils down to how much the student is allowed and/or encouraged to go outside the module framework to explore and learn for themselves. With high degrees of freedom the module structure (or spine) is used more as a guide for learning and a vehicle for testing and accreditation. Many corporate learning systems, especially where compliance is a key issue, have a high need to control and track the student’s progress through a particular piece of learning and as such the Module needs to include all the relevant information for the student to achieve a pass.  Once an initial hour of learning has been developed economies of scale and familiarity with the project process will reduce the unit development cost.

 

How will your sales channel perform next year? It is clear that we all face some tough challenges and decisions over the coming year. With consumers and business becoming more cautious we all need to work that much hard to convince those we are doing business with to invest and succeed. Giving your sales channel the confidence to see through the short-term difficulties ahead of them and stay focused on the longer term opportunity beyond is going to require some innovative thinking if you are to outsmart your competitors.  In short, we all need to be giving our sales partners the right support to ensure they deliver the results we need them to.  That’s where a good online solution can come in. The right approach can help you obtain the highest results possible from your sales channel by helping you develop your channel sales people into the best brand advocates and trusted customer advisors on the market. Taking your brand values and proposition online will help you extend the reach of your organisation deep into your channel network and develop the skills they need to protect your brand and deliver dramatic, rapid results: 

1. Expert product and service knowledge; in tougher time buyers are likely to question your knowledge and compare products in more detail before making a purchase. Make sure your sales teams are equipped to sell on value not price.  
2. Confident objection handling; help your channel beat the competition and understand the key USP’s of your product range.  
3. Clear compliance management; make sure your partners know how to stay the right side of the line by supporting their understanding of compliance knowledge.  
4. Sell the range; help them understand your whole range and incentivise them to learn about expanding your portfolio and the after sale opportunity.  

So how will an online solution help you? 

• Extend your reach; use networked learning to train the right messages to all your channel partners giving you more time to focus on competitors.    
• Maximise your resources; spend your time with the key partners where you need to stimulate growth secure in the knowledge that your online solution is delivering all your key messages across your network 24/7.   
• Measurability; understand clearly how much your channel understands your products and solutions and determine where best to provide support and encouragement.   
• Recall; people remember less than 5% of what you tell them. A good online solution gives you the ability to provide recall and answers to your channel at the click of a mouse at any time.  

Working with a good online partner can give you the tools you need to secure high margin performance from your channel in a tough economic climate and gives your channel the confidence and support it needs.

I was with a customer recently (I'm going to call her Wendy) and she was expressing some concern over the quality of locally developed "rapid content". Wendy's concerns were two-fold - first it wasn't all that rapid (especially after the first flush of the launch, additional content was taking longer and longer to get out there), but more importantly she felt that there were elements missing from the material they had developed. At first glance the content looked good, but as we explored her content together we began to realise that it was all pretty one-dimensional and relied heavily on point and click screens. This led on to a wider discussion about content structure and the need for instructional designers to understand a reasonable amount about Learning Styles.

Over the years much work has been done on Learning Styles and I have been a follower of David Kolb's excellent work on the topic (see an excellent Article on Kolb's Learning Styles here) and I have used Peter Honey and Alan Mumford's development of his work frequently in the classroom. (For those of you looking for a deeper understanding look no further than Karl Jung, and the modern interpretation/application of his theories in the form of Myers Briggs (MBTI). I've also used MBTI extensively and am happy to talk about its influence on our learning design, too - let me know if you want to hear more). 

As a base for understanding I find Honey and Mumford's learning styles questionnaire great fun and a great source for discussion in groups. How, then do we apply this in e-learning design and how does it add value?. We can start by addressing a simple learning model. On a day to day, even minute by minute basis we go through a learning cycle, whether you are refining a major product laucnh or adjusting your seating position at your desk we follow a simple cycle (see Learning Cycle below). Our preferred learning style then indicates where we might prefer to spend our time. If you, for example have a preference for "reflecting" then you might  - if undirected or unaware - spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about an issue at the cost of action. The positive side to this is that when working in our preferred style we tend to be more effective. Let's have a quick look at the Honey and Mumford model, they have identified four principal learning styles: Activist, Reflector, Theorist and Pragmatist each of which have strengths and preferences - the challenge for the instructional designer is to design content that can at some stage in a programme cater for all styles.

Activists: our activist friends like to be challenged and to a certain extent being "dropped in the deep end", they also like to stuff that's new to them and very much here and now. They will enjoy challenge based e-learning (i.e. business simulations and problem solving type activities) and will as likely as not avoid formal tutorials. 

Reflectors like to have the chance to ponder and to stand back from activities to listen and/or observe. They are likely to follow up on learning and follow their own lines of research, to engage our reflectors we try to keep the learning environment safe and non-threatening, and to give learners pointers as top where their own discovery based learning might start. 

Theorists need to see that what is being offered is part of a system or model that has intellectual veracity, they are also likely to explore associations and relationships between ideas and situations. They follow logic well, and like to store information and 'models' for future use. With theorists we can offer downloads and additional learning pieces that contain more theory- especially theories that are backed up by a renowned source. 

Finally pragmatists  like a practical link between what is being taught and how it will be applied on the job. They like to see content and exercises that contain familiar language and topics, so they can get stuck in and don’t need to 'contextualise' their learning. With pragmatists we like to use real life examples and if possible integrate input from credible role models from within the organisation.  Given the diverse nature of these learning styles it's hardly surprising then that Wendy has experienced some disappointment in the quality of her team's output. We can't expect to keep all our learners engaged all of the time, but if content is developed to favour one particular learning style it is destined to feel a little flat with others irrespective of the quality of the graphics. For us, then it is essential that our Instructional Designers have a good understanding of learning styles so we can try and add value to our subject matter experts' input, either through face to face discussions or collaboratively online. Who said teamwork is dead? 

I would be interested to hear your views, especially on the subject of "home authored content". 

As people get used to learning online they begin to realise that online learning is more than just modules and modules are more than automated PowerPoints. Whilst historically our customers have stuck to the security of converting their familiar classroom based training into an online format more and more we are now completing projects that can really exploit the power of e-learning. This means getting away from “one hour chunks” and screen after screen of detailed information. Online learning really comes alive when the student can take control of both the pace and the direction of their learning. Bespoke learning design allows us to blend structured learning with what we call “Learning Bytes” (small 5 to 10 minute pieces) so the learner creates their own route through the learning. This approach has come out of observations of how people use the internet especially search engines such as Google. If the Learning Environment can be used as a base from which learning is launched rather than just as a tracking tool for management then we can really get into the domain of learning as opposed to module completion. An American consultant by the name of Clark Quinn uses the term “Performance Eco-System” (see Clark Quinn) and whilst I struggle with the title I am totally in tune with what he is saying, see what you think. The ability of users to customise their own learning experience is central to the growth of learning in the months and years to come.

Whenever I hear someone say “Oh yes, e-learning we used to do that...” my stomach turns and my dismay meter goes off the scale! How is it that people can write off a whole new way of learning without really understanding how it works and the benefits it can bring?

That said, the world of learning is changing and the corporate learning zone has to change with it. Organisations are becoming more dispersed; people are being encouraged to work from home or from outlying offices, both to reduce the organisational carbon footprint and to lower costs.

As a Baby Boomer ⁽¹⁾ I have seen a series of technological changes in the workplace over the past forty years, the telephone, the telex, the dry photocopier, the mobile phone, email, the internet and so on. Almost without exception they progress through a cycle of suspicion, limited use, wide use, wide abuse, condemnation and finally obsolescence. eMail is a good, current illustration of an innovation in the “wide abuse” phase – a good technology that is abused because better technologies are not yet in the “Value Driven” part of the cycle.

Figure 1. The Technology Life Cycle 

Consider the number of one line and two line emails that you receive, or indeed the number of emails where you are copied for information only! And that’s just legitimate email, don’t get me on to the subject of Spam!

The current generation have been brought up with Instant Messaging, indeed some generation Y’ers ⁽²⁾ even prefer messaging (text or IM) to a “real conversation”! Many times an instant message is better than either a phone call or an email (especially when communication is asynchronous) but how many corporate firewalls will permit instant messaging? I still encounter organisations that ban internet access to staff on the basis that it will reduce productivity as staff idly surf the net!

Consider these startling statistics from a survey done of 7700 university students in the US  (3)

• 97% own a computer
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use Instant Messaging.
• 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
• 34% use websites as their primary source of news
• 28% own a blog and 44% read blogs
• 49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 75% of students have a Facebook account ^[12]
• 60% own some type of expensive portable music and/or video device such as an iPod.

If this is the generation that we now need to attract and retain, then surely we are going to have to change the way we learn in the workplace, as communication, collaboration and referencing become integrated into the way we function.

I have worked in the Learning and Development arena for long enough now to know that when the commercial going gets tough L&D gets squeezed and however wrong that may feel, we have to learn to work with it. Over the past 8 years as the appetite for working online has grown many of our customers are beginning to get real benefits through focusing on the business issues, and I would venture to say, that important though it is, soft skills training is not going to give you a short term payback.

So how do we impact short term on the bottom line? Well we can consider three key areas:

· Sales specific Online Modules
· Learning Bytes
· Sales Project Wikis

I would differentiate these in that I would categorise online modules as complete learning modules with tracking, scoring, bookmarking etc. the sort of thing you may be used to seeing in conventional online systems. Learning Bytes would be more short term disposable learning pieces that take less than 10 minutes to complete, may or may not be trackable and would have a short “shelf life”. Finally Sales Project Wikis are wikis that can be used to build commitment to a campaign or specific initiative. By building commitment with the sales force this way there is a much higher likelihood of achieving sales success.

Sales Specific Online Modules

Online modules give you the chance to position a product or a product range and the easiest way to look at them is as replacing face-to-face training sessions. They may form part of a wider curriculum or stand alone, but either way they would be assigned to learners and tracked as part of the learner’s personal development plan. Taking the learner anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes to complete, the module may have pre and post assessment and will allow the learner to re-visit or browse the module as many times as he or she likes. A Nereus based academy will also allow you to track the training of stakeholders outside your own organisation such as re-sellers or distributors through a specific external facing part of your academy.

The module below is a good example of where one of our customers has chosen to focus on selling the product rather than the usual features and benefits overview, you may have to think a little laterally to match this with your own products, but the principles are the same.

Click on the image to see a demo

Learning Bytes

The second option we can look at are what we have come to call Learning Bytes. These are much smaller learning objects with a shorter shelf life and would typically take a learner less than 10 minutes to complete. They may relate to a specific promotion or a short campaign and could work either within the LMS or outside it. Either way Learning Bytes are tracked and understanding is checked through quiz questions. Learning Bytes are quick and easy to produce and can be refreshed on a regular basis as a campaign progresses.

Sales Project Wikis

Project Wikis are a relatively new innovation which leverage wiki technology to promote collaboration in sales approaches and planning. The example below is a pre-launch trial, but show how external sales teams can work jointly on initiatives and give feedback to a central project or campaign coordinator on how a specific initiative is going down. Wikis enable users to add to, edit or comment on the central document so experienced sales people can add their views on the relevance of proposed approaches, offers or incentives.

Sales Wiki  

Manage, map and publicise success against learning

Finally but not least in order to build confidence in future investment it’s important to track learning against sales performance and celebrate the successes. When we’re working with our customers we always emphasise the communication elements as much as the technical input, newsletters and other online news items all help to encourage usage. Websites aim for an attribute known as stickiness – and the same applies to a Learning Zone.

Like any new initiative the success of an online learning project is all about building momentum, and whilst the culture change required of an organisation to truly integrate learning is a marathon it is possible to score points on the interim sprints!

I often get asked how e-learning is changing within the Building Materials sector and where is it all heading. One thing is for sure is that the hunger for online information and education is growing, and as the hunger grows the need for more closely customised solutions increases. Understanding how the market works is a key part of how we are able to create those custom solutions, for example we are currently working on three separate projects all of which are aimed at raising the skill and knowledge level of the critical Branch Manager Group within our merchant customers.

Embedding a deep understanding of margin control and working capital is at the centre of two online programmes we are currently working on and the third project is centred on building a learning network to enable the knowledge and experience of the best practitioners to be shared by newer, less experienced individuals. Of the 100+ hours of industry learning we now deliver the quantity of commercial (as opposed to technical) content is up to around 20% and continuing to rise as our customers realise the value we can add in promoting new or value adding products; again this is a sign that the online environment is maturing.