A couple of good online learning systems
Mood:  bright
Topic: B2B


"My firm, Credit Suisse First Boston, estimates the postsecondary education sector to be approximately 9 percent of the total for-profit industry, or $9 billion. The postsecondary market will remain a very attractive sector for the foreseeable future, offering a 15 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years. Indeed, when compared to K?12 education and corporate training, I believe the higher education sector can take greatest advantage of the increased use of technology, especially the Internet, in delivering the educational product. Distance learning via the Internet will drive tremendous growth." ?Greg Cappelli
Senior Equity Analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston from the book, " TheWired Tower: Perspectives on the Impact of the Internet on Higher Education" By Matthew Serbin Pittinsky

Atomic Learning provides software training using a unique, just-in-time approach. Our library of thousands of short tutorials on dozens of applications are focused on answering the common questions teachers, students and anyone else may have when learning software. We like to call them "atoms of learning" and they are easy to access whenever and where ever you need them.

Atomic Learning is intended as support for schools and teachers. Their lessons cover a wide range of software, including Open Source (read: Linux). The short, modular format is energetic and easy to use. Because they cover an ever-expanding range of software, they are an invaluable resource for learning.
Unfortunately, the lessons are not interactive. They're done as Quicktime movies.

CustomGuide makes all our computer training courseware and eLearning available online for free evaluation — preview any title and compare it to the training materials you're using. We also post all of our prices online, so whether you're interested in purchasing a single book or a global eLearning account, you can expect straightforward and honest pricing.

CustomGuide produces the Personal Trainer book series as a complement to its eLearning system, complete with lesson files drawn from its online lessons. The lessons are interactive, short, and modular. Their presentation is professional and easy to use.

10 Damaging E-learning Myths
Make no mistake about it, the e-learning industry is going through troubled times. The current economic climate isn’t conducive to providing top quality e-learning and there are mixed opinions about the success of this type of training. We can argue about the causes of this phenomenon forever. However, this article presents 10 damaging myths that we feel are contributing to the problems facing our industry. These myths seem to be spreading at an infectious pace. This list isn’t intended as a criticism of any existing e-learning company – we have tremendous admiration for anyone who works in this difficult industry. Rather, this list gives us an opportunity to look again at the assumptions and beliefs that have come to define our dealings with customers.

Posted on: March 3,2003 | Read more...

Fortunately, these guys are in the UK. I'm in Australia. They have a lot of good ideas.

A couple of excerpts:
1. Volume = value
E-learning tends to be priced in terms of hours of learning content produced. Customers ask, "How much will it cost to produce a one hour e-learning programme?" Suppliers also talk in those terms: "we currently charge ?10,000 per hour of e-learning, with reductions for volume". Here lies the danger: value is becoming equated with volume of content rather than the degree to which a solution meets the training need. This is generally leading to conformity within the industry and a reduction in quality.

Currently, it would be difficult for a supplier to make the following argument:
"If we spend more time in the analysis and learning design of the project we can probably think of a way of meeting your training need in half an hour instead of an hour. However, because we need to spend budget on the extra thinking time, we still need to charge you for an hour. You still get a better solution though: your trainees will spend less time away from work and will probably get a more focused learning experience. You are paying for value or service, not volume."

We’re waiting for the day we can make that argument.

2. We are producing content
Many customers still approach suppliers with the question, "How much will it cost to turn this content into e-learning?" They think they are in the content delivery business instead of the 'improving user performance' business. The language that customers use also betrays this bias. They talk about ‘content producers’ and ‘scriptwriters’ rather than learning designers or instructional designers.

We wish clients would come to us and say, "How can we use e-learning to solve this performance issue?" This would set the focus firmly on people and performance rather than content. It doesn’t matter how much quality content I produce if it doesn’t lead to a change in learner knowledge, attitudes or behaviour.

What companies use Custom Training in Australia?
Mood:  bright
Topic: NEIS
Banking
Adelaide Bank
CBA
ING
Rabobank
RAMS
Resimac
Westpac

Finance
ASX
Challenger
Colonial First State
CSFB
GE Commercial
IPAC
MLC

Insurance
AIG
AMP
CGU
GIO
Lumley
Royal Sun Alliance

Accounting/ Law
Blake Dawson Waldren
CCH
Deloitte
Ernst & Young
Freehills
PWC
The College of Law


IT
AXE Group
Compaq
CSC
Decide Interactive
EDS
Getronics
Milestone Group
Peoplesoft
Praxa
Solutions from Silicon
Sun
Unisys

Telecoms
British Telecom
Hong Kong Telecom
Hutchison Telecom
ITV World
Lucent
Objectif
Ozemail
Redfern Broadband
SingTel Optus
Teletech
Telstra
Vodafone

Industrial
Australand
Barloworld
Boral
Clorox
Halliburton
Hanimex
Honeywell
Meadow Lea
Shimadzu
Tyco
Unilever
Zip Heaters

Government
Attorney General NSW
Audit Office NSW
CCSU
Environment and Conservn
Family & Community Services
Fire Brigade
Parramatta Council
RTA
State & Regional Devt
State Revenue
Sustainable Natural Resources
Treasury NSW
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies
Aeronautical & Maritime Research Labs
Air Services Australia
Australian War Memorial
Bob McMullan MP
Civil Aviation Safety Authority Australia
Department of Defence (Australian Government)
Department of Premier and Cabinet (Victoria)
National Archives of Australia
Melbourne Museum
National Library of Australia
Pacific National (was FreightCorp)
Rail Corp (NSW)
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Botanic Gardens
ScreenSound Australia

Health
Baxter Healthcare
Breast Cancer Inst
Cochlear
Deaf Educn Network
Eli Lilly
Medical Applications
Merck Sharp Dohme
Pfizer
Poplars Private Hosp
Proteome

Utilities/ Transport
AGL
Country Energy
Energy Australia
Integral Energy
Nemmco
Qantas
Rail Infrastructure
State Transit
Transgrid
USC-MITS

Retail/ Distribution
David Jones
Jigsaw
John Fairfax
Liquorland
McDonalds
Metcash
NSW TAB
Pasta Pantry
Star City
Woolworths

Education
AGSEI
Catholic Schools
Macquarie University
NextEd
Rivkin Institute
University of Newcastle
University of Sydney
UNSW
Australian Guild of Music and Speech
Anutech Pty Ltd (ANU)
Australia New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
Department of Education (DET)
Monash International (Monash College)
Office Of Training And Tertiary Education (Victoria)
The Australian National University, Medical School
University of New England
University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)

Commercial
Amcor Fibre Packaging Australia
Australian Stock Exchange
Australian Services Roundtable
Australian Stock Exchange
Cochlear Ltd
Automotive Training Australia
Cochlear Ltd
Fuji Xerox Australia
Hewlett Packard Australia
Konica / Minolta
Mercedes-Benz Australia
Mac1 - Apple Centre Canberra City
Nestl? Australia
The Human Dimension
TV - Channel 9
Ventracor Ltd
LifeStyle Financial Services
IronBark Custom Homes
Perfect Weekend
Cathouse for hair and beauty
Childcare Training

About U -- Free Learning about Anything
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Brainstorming
From the page:

Welcome to About U., a collection of free online courses from About.com.
Each online course is sent to you via email on a daily or weekly basis and is designed to help you learn a specific skill or solve a particular problem. There are no grades or degrees, only a whole lot of free online learning.

-- This is a novel way to collect opt-in emails and market software. The tutorials are done professionally and are no waste of time for a novice. And once the mind is opened a little to the possibilities (read: wet the taste buds), the ads link to wider and more expensive possibilities.

Changing culture through blogging
Mood:  flirty
Topic: Corporate
(Comment: This is outright theft. Too bad, its too close to my own thinking to bother to change.)

The new mantra: lies are bad Robert Scoble's 21 things to remember when writing a corporate blog (the short version)

1. Tell the truth. If your competitor has a product that's better than yours, link to it. [People] will find it anyway.

2. Post fast on good news

and bad. Someone say something bad about your product? Link to it … and answer its claims as best you can. The trick to building trust is to show up!

3. Use a human voice. Don't get corporate PR professionals to cleanse your speech.

4. Make sure you support the latest software-web-human standards.

5. Have a thick skin. Even if you have Bill Gates's favorite product people will say bad things about it. That's part of the process.

6. Don't ignore slashdot [a non-corporate technology blog].

7. Talk to the grassroots first. People trust stories that have quotes from many sources. They don't trust press releases.

8. If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast. Give a plan for how you'll unscrew things. Then deliver on the promises.

9. Underpromise and overdeliver. If you're going to ship on March 1, say you won't ship until March 15. Folks will start to trust you if you behave this way.

10. If Doc Searls [US techno journalist and blogger] says it or writes it, believe it.

11. Know the information gatekeepers. If you can't call on those who know during a crisis, you shouldn't try to keep a corporate weblog.

12. Never change the URL of your weblog.

13. If your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy, don't write. When I was going through my divorce it affected my writing in subtle ways.

14. If you don't have the answers, say so. But, get them and exceed expectations.

15. Never lie. You'll get caught and lose credibility that you'll never get back.

16. Never hide information.

17. If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before posting, but do it fast. Speed is key here. Your competitors will figure it out and outmanoeuvre you.

18. Link to your competitors and say nice things about them.

19. BOGU, or "Bend Over and Grease Up". I believe the term originated at Microsoft. It means that when a big fish comes over (such as IBM or Bill Gates) you do whatever you have to do to keep him happy.

20. Be the authority on your product-company.

21. Know who's talking about you.

Employees 38% more valuable
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: B2B
Here are some excerpts from the eLearning blogs:

Comment: This is another illustration of a cutting-edge company being a little too far ahead of the curve for most users. Not just in technology, but in practical pricing, 3D simulations of the work environment are going to be a part of workplace training soon, I don't doubt.
At this point, it reminds me of what Raquel Welch said when she auditioned as a model in LA: "They thought I was too much in every way!"

One company states that simulations can make employees 38% more valuable to their managers.
To an academic organization, the students will learn more and care more in less time.

But the biggest problem right now to pitching a broader simulation based curriculum is that there are not enough truly great business simulations out there, nor organizations that have a competency in rolling them out.

The other point that has to be compensated for is that simulations right now is a loaded word. Everybody thinks they know what a simulation is, and everybody's view is different.

• Tradition instructors think of simulations as a live, real time role-play.


• GenXers and GenYers think of simulations as entertaining computer games.


• IT and engineer types think of simulations as predictive models.


• Pilots and military people think of simulations as providing hands-on, highly transferable experience.


• E-learning people think of simulations mostly as branching stories, interactive spreadsheets, and reskinned games.


• Web designers think of simulations as virtual products.

A Emeritus simulates a person's actual work as an interactive tutorial.
A Emeritus assesses the employee by independent, internationally-recognized testing.
Without going into the expensive realm of 3D simulations, A Emeritus offers cutting edge technology that is already familiar to most trainees and companies.

We started making the stupidest mistake of all - to look for SME's through well-rated professors, great speakers, and successful authors. These were all masters of linear content, which is much more distracting than useful.

• My corporation/institution created/bought a lot of low-cost content.


• The end-learners were not impressed.


• Simulations are the hot new thing.


• How can we cheaply build a lot of simulations?

See that last question? I wish these guys would talk to me at AEmeritus!

Articles from eLearningpost
Mood:  vegas lucky
At the Gallup Organization, CEO Jim Clifton monitors flow by sending an email to more than 1,000 employees every single day, asking them to rank their positive energy level on a scale of one to five. "When someone hits a five, I assume they are in flow," Clifton says. He can sort the results geographically by office to catch patches of entropy quickly. (From: the Fast Company newsletter, Issue 97 | August 2005)

Csikszentmihalyi's research has shown that to achieve flow, you need consistent feedback. The best way to do that, simply put, is to care about your coworkers. The best way to measure flow, says Gallup's Clifton, is to ask employees if they have a manager who loves them.

Let's look at books also as technology. The advantages of books are mind-boggling. But the limitations of books have not fully been appreciated and compensated for, namely the amount of content that had to be ignored to make the medium work. There is the old quip that you can't learn how to ride a bicycle from a book. Lectures and movies have the same limitations. The alternative to books for learning used to be labs and apprenticeships, all very expensive and unscalable.

eLearning or eTraining?
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Presentation

"Creating experiences is a challenge for any industry. There was a time when market was governed by selling and buying of commodities interpreted as simple products or things to be used in a certain manner. Today, experience is the differentiator that drives the consumption of both products and services, irrespective of the segment of industry."

One of my pet peeves is the easily-acquired addiction to eLearning technology, and not a focus on the principles of learning. Many LMS systems imitate the classroom, not the workplace.
The tools of learning are not the latest-and-greatest software. The tools of learning are (in AEmeritus' terms) Engagement and Motivation, which lead to Achievement.

Even in electronic formats, trainers must create an experience as defined by L. Ravi Krishnan and Venkatesh Rajamanickam in their insightful blog.

A simple example is a plumber.
A plumber enters with his toolbox and looks over the problem.
He (or she) sees the steps required to fix it.
Laying out the tools for the first step, he (or she) begins.
First step finished, some tools are put away and others taken out.
When the job is done, the plumber puts the tools away and tests the results.

Another plumber might have a toolbox filled with shiny new tools.
The latest-and-greatest tools always look impressive.
He (or she) may not know how or if any of them work.
This plumber is going to look very slick though.
This plumber may not finish the job that day.
Why? He (or she) is too fascinated by the new tools.
The experience he (or she) has created has been for himself (or herself.)

Whether you're dealing with old tools or shiny new ones, you finish the job first. The job is to teach, whether that means vocationally or academically.
The craftsman uses the tools; the tools don't use the craftsman.

How important can it be?
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Why?
How important can custom training be? -- Look for yourself.

Dozens of members of an elite team of federal airport screeners received as little as 15 minutes' training before starting to inspect baggage for bombs, a development critics call a threat to passenger safetyElite federal airport security team started work after 15 minutes' instruction" ..

Now that may sound a little self-serving, since I don't know that A Emeritus would have been hired from Australia to provide the 100 hours of training required. Then again, if the experts can put it on a computer screen, A Emeritus can deliver it in a number of media quickly.

Why?
Mood:  bright
Topic: Why?
I presented my project to the small business incubator group at Chisholm. Long before they had seen all the aspects of the program, one entrepreneur-minded young aussie asked over and over, "What's your distinction?" -- It was like dealing with a small child who kept asking, "Why?" every time an adult gave an answer.
Problem is, he was right. It's not easy to see the distinction between customized, targeted, goal-, or business-oriented training and any other sort of online, usually MSOffice or software, training if you haven't been in business for a while.

Question: Who would use your services?
Any size business or person who needed to be able to do a specific job.
Comment: Pretty weak answer; not clear; even a little grandiose, despite being short.

Question: Can you give me an example?
Your company hires a lot of skilled casuals. Despite their documented skillsets, they take weeks to train to do anything, even mundane jobs.
Permanent staff or supervisors have to constantly show them what to do. That takes time from their own jobs; and you still don't know that the casuals do the job right. So it has to be checked -- Taking more time from the permanent staff or supervisors.
The most common answer to this dilemma is to hire more or less permenent casuals.
In Australia, that becomes a legal tightrope. If you keep a casual employed for more than 3 months in the same job, they're considered an employee. Your company has to do withholding, pay WorkCover and Super. If you don't, your company can be sued by the casual or the government.

A better answer is to provide the casual with interactive training that shows them how to do certain jobs. They learn to do it right. -- The way you want it done. And they don't tie up supervisors' or permanent staff time.

Comment: Is this a good example? No, not by itself.

Response: That answer opens up all sorts of questions, and the best of them is:
Does anyone use customized training?

Yes. Name any of the largest companies in nearly any field you can think of. IBM has been doing 'customized' training for decades; they call it 'in-house' training.
IBM trains its employees to be specialists in its product lines. Their people walk into any situation confident and ready, not just to demonstrate the technical aspects of their products, but also knowing how to present those capabilities to the business.
Another example is McDonald's.
When someone goes to work at McDonald's, they are trained by CD or video tapes on what's expected of them as employees; how to work with the equipment; and how to deal with the customers.
The quality of the work and product is maintained across the world because of the way the employees are trained.

Question: But my company is small. I only have a couple of employees. Why do I need customized training?
Answer: You've got the same quality issues to manage as the largest companies and franchises around the world.
In fact, your issues are more personal and significant for your business. Your employees represent you personally in such a small company. How they act affects not only the reputation of the business, but your own reputation -- for better or worse.
If you don't set a standard for your business that's professional and efficient, who will?

The Biz Stone Theory of Limitations
Topic: Marketing

When Steven Spielberg was shooting Jaws, he didn't have a dream budget. Ideally, Steven would have liked to film an incredibly lifelike mechanical great white shark attacking and consuming weak humans en masse. The problem was that an incredibly lifelike mechanical great white shark was incredibly expensive.

So he had to think of something else. Something creative. Something cheap. He decided to shoot the unsuspecting swimmers from the shark's point of view (with scary music), and it resulted in a classic memorable sequence.

While we're talking about Spielberg…remember the scene when Indy is approached by a sword wielding ne'er-do-well in the first Indiana Jones movie? The one where the bad guy flourishes his sword with practiced skill? The original screenplay called for a duel, but Ford had a bad case of diarrhea that day, and he could work only for a few minutes at a time before he had to run (pun intended). Ford consulted briefly with Spielberg, and when it was time to shoot the long, arduous swordfight, he brandished a pistol and shot his opponent. Another classic scene.

So what do all these Spielberg movies have to do with blog design? What's the connection? How do they relate? Alright already, stop with the questions.

When your back is to the wall, you get creative. It's as simple as that. Some of the most ingenious solutions have come into existence under circumstances with limited resources at hand. That's why those scenes in Spielberg's films are so good.

Well, if anyone wonders, that's how I decided to market my services using blogs instead of more conventional avenues.

Oh, and the quote is from Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content
By Biz Stone

No project too small
Topic: Primary School
Someone's bound to ask: How did you get interested in this stuff?

My partner at the time worked for a medium-sized primary school in Australia. Once a month, she would come home frustrated and annoyed because of the school newsletter.

The school did their newsletter on MSWord. One person in the office staff was in charge of it. It was an integral and expected part of the school functions. Parents, students, teachers, school board members, and the community read it.
The newsletter had to have a professional appearance.
To save some money on postage, the Principal wanted the newsletter to go out as email whenever possible. However, because the school logo and other images were scanned, the resulting Word file was consistently too large (often over 3Mbytes!) for the education department email system.

I tried a couple of times to explain how to solve the problem, but at those times my ex was hardly interested in listening. She just wanted to vent. -- The whole thing struck me as funny, month after month.
Then the government got involved.

Victorian State Premier Steve Bracks kept a campaign promise to maintain the technology levels available to public schools. Every 3 years or so, every school got brand new computers, laptops, and upgraded MSOffice software.
Impressive.
The hardware and software soon outdistanced the teachers and administration staff who were supposed to use it.
So...

The Bracks government contracted for tens of millions of dollars to take blended software training to the schools. Since it cost the schools nothing, many schools signed on. -- On the face of it, a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, the school staff struggled to be free for an hour once a fortnight to spend with the trainer. The three hours practice a week on school time was impossible!
Result: The whole office staff, including casuals and some volunteers, came away dazed and wondering at their new Cert III in MSOffice -- and the school newsletter still couldn't go out by email!!

I used to tell the story to friends as a joke.

Using my online Cert IV in Training and Assessment as an excuse, I prepared for my final project a training website to show the school how to produce the newsletter in MSWord and send it out via email.

About the time I finished the course, the school hierarchy had an epiphany: We'll do it in MSPublisher!
As far as I know, it still doesn't go out via email though...
And that is how I became interested in vocational elearning.

Mobile marketing response rates up to 49%
Topic: Mobile Marketing
According to a new study by Spanish mobile marketing company i-Touch Movilisto, mobile marketing campaigns receive an average direct response rate between 5 and 20 percent. When we talk about direct response, we refer to an active behavior where the user replies to a promotional message, usually via SMS, in order to enter a competition, to get a discount or to receive information.

Mobile marketing is most of the times used in multi-channel campaigns (65 percent), in which users can reply to the promotional message also online or via snail mail. Usually campaigns which give away sure prizes receive the best response rates (up to 49 percent), while the promotions that allow users to enter draws for prizes get a 25 percent response.

What can you do?
Topic: Value
Business
Create, manage and deliver online training to your employees, partners, resellers and others.

Adult Learning
Create and offer self-directed courses for online adult learners.

Consultants
Build and manage content. Train your clients and track the results using custom reporting.

• Train company employees.


• Put documents and information online or on a reproducable CD for easy access by your clients or employees.


• Put HR Manuals online, so all employees can access them easily.


• Host quizzes.


• Provide comprehensive tests and analyze results.


• Always avaiable, stimulating employee training.


• Communicate information of all kinds in an efficient manner.


• Deliver content in any portable format.


• Track activities.

Imagine being able to train from a webpage or CD, while following a manual in one or more of these popular formats:

Your client or employee can take the documents with them.

What's the Value Proposition?
Topic: Value
Most training is done based on the classroom model: students learn topic after topic until a planned curriculum is completed. The students take this knowledge and, hopefully, apply it to the real world.

The students are assessed according to how well they absorbed the curriculum.

A Emeritus turns the process on its head.

Start with the work you need your people to do for your business.
Set up training to allow them to do that work.
Provide wider training sources online where they can expand or build their knowledge -- or to reinforce their skills while working.

Provide levels of internationally recognized assessment for your employees to confirm their skills.

In other words, first make your people productive.

Second, A Emeritus provides quick-turnaround Sales Support.
One of your people has come up with a new product that you recognize will be profitable -- If you can get it out to your sales force quickly.
A Emeritus sets up a presentation online where all of your salespeople can reach it easily; or on a downloadable CD.
Within days, your whole sales and production staff are aware of the product, its market, and how to present it. The time is not spent bringing in groups for training, and keeping them from their primary jobs.
Any product you can put on a computer screen can be converted into a training or presentation.

Whether your company is large or small, the ROI is easy to calculate.
And if you have a problem calculating it, we'll do it. If it's not profitable, we want to know, too.