By Rick Beaudry, CEO, MindMuze

With a keen focus on fueling new growth opportunities associated with the economic recovery, SMBs are making significant investments in training their customers and their employees.  For the SMB, it is critical that the education solutions are tailored to their budget and resource challenges.

SMB’s typically look for an edge.  Flexibility and innovation drive their growth.   SMB leaders see the potential for learning management software to be applied not only to meet traditional new-hire regulations but to address the customer education problem as well.   In fact, the inclusion of an innovative education platform for their products and services drives a competitive advantage, not only among other SMB’s, but over their larger enterprise competitors.  

According to Forrester Research, 40% of SMBs are either planning to implement learning management software in a year or indicate an interest in doing so.  The research also indicates that collaboration and content management lead their investments.  Also, 44% of SMBs will expand or initially invest in collaboration software this year, and 40% will do so in content management software, continuing the trend from last year.

We are seeing tremendous growth in the adoption of innovative education solutions by SMBs throughout the world.   They can now harness the power of SAAS (Software as a Service) and on-demand global labour in order to offer education to their employees and customers that is equal to that of their large enterprise brethren.    

People, process and technology are all essential in the delivery of small and medium-size businesses.  They are now investing in their own learning assets as never before. Now, armed with products and services that will enable them to compete with larger enterprise, SMBs are able to extend valuable education to their employees, and to their customers.

The lines separating large enterprises from small and mid-sized businesses are becoming blurred.  A new generation of tech-savvy business owners are making SMBs look a lot more like their larger enterprise counterparts - on a smaller scale, of course.

MindMuze Innovations - Learning Solutions For Small and Mid-Sized Businesses.

MindMuze has packaged learning management and elearning development into a cost effective, easily maintainable solution set that includes “renting” learning management services at a fraction of the cost of implementing an LMS to manage the delivery of elearning assets and learning tracking.    In addition, MindMuze has combined the power of SHIFT (www.shiftelearning.com), an award-winning collaborative elearning authoring tool, with instant access to a global pool of elearning project resources to ensure the rapid, cost effective development of elearning assets for the SMB - 100% custom learning portals for your employees and customers, along with 100% custom interactive online learning modules.

MindMuze partners with the small, or often non-existent, internal HR training department to offer solutions typically only available to larger enterprise customers.  

Contact us at info@mindmuze.com to find out how small and mid-sized businesses are utilizing the people, process and the technology to make delivering innovative eLearning solutions to your customers and your employees a cost-effective reality.

To finish up our discussion on implementing online learning into your training and development mix we are going to end things off with content. I have yet to come across an organization that solely using eLearning for all training and education needs. At this point it is important to do an analysis of which content needs to now be transformed to online learning as opposed to the traditional in class and documented training. Some material is better suited for in class where as other content is better absorbed via eLearning.

To recap, the first step is to find an LMS/LCMS provider. Your options range from purchasing one to outsourcing. Next it’s time to start identifying your development/instructional design strategy – will this be done in house or outsourced? And finally as we close off this topic a strong environmental analysis will identify what subject matter should be delivered via eLearning or other methods.

Last week I began a discussion on how to ramp up an organization planning to implement eLearning into their corporate education function, starting with the learning management system. For this post let’s explore instructional design. The question here is should it be done in house or contracted out? Let’s explore the benefits and implications of both options.

Often times a corporate instructional designer is also the SME. These two are somewhat independent of one another. Contracting out your instructional design requirements provides clarity and accountability. However, having IDs on staff can prove beneficial as they are aware of corporate norms and understand the project nuances. Another factor to consider is how much eLearning is developed within a given year as this will impact your decision.

Thoughts?

To elaborate on my post last week in regards to some L&D issues I wanted to further discuss what I dubbed as “the learner analysis”. Since my experience in the world of corporate education I have come to learn the various learning strategies. How does one decide whether instructor led training is the right form of content delivery versus on line learning or a blended approach? Simply, it is vital to understand your audience before deciding how to educate them, something a customer touched on briefly.

A new and hot topic currently is the generational divide in the workplace. Methods have been introduced to manage the working relationships among each generation. From this, it is clear to see that each generation has their own preference to learning and training. The Gen Y’s expectation of on demand information acquisition would suggest that online learning would be effective.

Some smaller organizations or departments within large organizations tend to have their own generational groupings. This would be an important consideration for the training professionals to consider when forming their learning strategy. This is only one consideration, but understanding your learner prior to a gap analysis could prove extremely beneficial. Understanding the form of delivery can help shape the content that needs to be delivered.

Do you agree – audience first information gaps second?

Note: this post originally appeared on the site of our sister company B Wyze.

There seems to be a trend of late in the learning and training community towards trying to say less but make it more impactful to the learner.  The use of Learning Nuggets is not overly new, but I have yet to see a really effective implementation that is sustainable and meaningful.  How can we create a culture of learning that doesn’t require huge investments in time and effort?  Learning Nuggets, if done well, can achieve this goal.

I’ve been in the corporate learning industries for more than 20 years. Never have I seen a more opportune time to use technology and innovation drive learning that generates immediate R.O.I.

It’s not difficult. Identify the what knowledge or skills are missing in your client base that drive the bulk of your pain  by answering this question: If our clients only knew xxx our we could do yyy.

Focus on keeping the learning short and direct to the point.

1.       Take advantage of rapid development tools to create the learning in a format acceptable to your organization.

For example, in every meeting I’ve been to recently our clients end up asking for a demonstration of our SHIFT learning development tool. It creates eLearning quickly and affordably that can be maintained and updated as needed. The outputs can be simple stand alone HTML courses or full SCORM compliant courses compatible with a corporate Learning Management System.

2.       Launch the learning and get your internal network to drive people to it.

4.       Modify the training as needed.

Last, publish the results, it never hurts to toot your own horn and you deserve it!

During a conversation I had with an L&D Manager of a large high end retail company a few interesting points were raised. Allow me to take a look a some of those points … I’ll take them one by one.

Where should learning sit in an organization?

Learning should sit with Organizational Development. The most important reason being that the learning strategy of an organization absolutely must be aligned with the goals of the organization. Common sense? Wrong! This is often assumed but also where most problems arise. Ask yourself how many times you have worked in an organization where different departments act as competitors rather than colleagues. Is it possible a lack of alignment with corporate goals and learning goals could be causing this behaviour?

Ambiguity in the learning environment

The role of the learning professional is often faced with ambiguity and multiple changes on a daily basis. Does it help to have a PM frame of mind?  Being process-driven tends to build frustration when working with changing content and timelines.

Vendor relationship

As an L&D Manager you source and manage your vendors. They should be a network rather than simply an outside resource. Thus, it is important to maintain long lasting relationships that are built on trust and partnership. Transparency and openness (from both parties) is crucial.

Learner analysis

I have often heard learning professionals discuss the needs analysis of the training strategy, but rarely does one discuss a “learner analysis”. Who is your audience? How do they learn? What tools reach out to them best? With four generations in today’s workplace a thorough analysis of the learner is an absolute must.

Where do you stand on these topics? Leave a comment and let us know!

I had a very interesting conversation with the head of the accessibility initiatives of a municipality within the Halton region this week. Would it be better to amalgamate the training requirements of all five standards under the AODA or stick with the current approach which is to release each standard one by one with a few years in between?

Take for example the employment standard. When this is reviewed and finally released, all organizations will be required to train all their employees on diversity awareness. This topic lends itself well with the training requirements of the Customer Service Standard. The current approach is somewhat of a piecemeal training strategy. Perhaps it may be best to create a blended training plan incorporating all the standards.

As I mentioned in a previous post, municipalities are coming to the realization that some training must be done online. Given all the standards, several topics can be grouped together in one module. Also, with the amount of training that will be coming down the pipeline, one workshop or training session won’t be enough. There needs to be follow up or refreshers, if you will.

What are your thoughts? Would it benefit you organization if the standards were grouped together?

An increasing number of companies today find their HR or training departments having to do front line level 1 LMS support for their internal learning communities. A few questions come to mind:

• Are they prepared?
• Do they have the right resources?
• Do training coordinators have time to take password reset requests?
• Many of the large LMS offer expensive Level 1 call support, but when does it make sense to consider bringing in an outside company to help out?
• Most training groups will have a person available to answer questions, but this is not their specialty and they usually have other responsibilities.

In large organizations the IT department will often have to support users via the Help Desk.  But IT personnel don’t usually know about training so questions have to be escalated to the training department anyway.

So when does it make sense to outsource LMS support? We know that there are peaks and valleys for call volumes, so often full-time staffing is the wrong answer, since it results in either not enough staffers to handle peak call times or excess staffers during low-volume times.

Moving to an outsource model to support your LMS by support specialists who understand Learning Management Systems and user needs simply makes sense.

At MindMuze, more and more of our clients are moving to this model of support. It can be done based upon a per-call cost or a fixed monthly rate depending on call volumes. At the end of the day, if you want to concentrate on creating great learning without using up time and resources for supporting your LMS then outsourcing support may be something to consider.

Contact us to learn more or go to bvirtualinc.com

For most IT Managers, the thought of scheduling volumes of IT professionals into classroom ITIL courses is unthinkable and not practical. This feeling may be grounded in environmental concerns or travel logistics. It may be grounded in budget issues - at $1500 to $2000 per person, ouch. It may be grounded in time allocation concerns - 3 days out of the office, yikes.   Or, it may be grounded in results - do people really retain much after 3 days of boot camp style ITIL Foundation training?

More likely your concerns are grounded in most of the above.

To start, I would suggest that you need to get EVERYONE speaking the same language. From the front lines up to the Executive, a simple interactive ITIL awareness module, easily distributed (and tracked) across your entire IT organization. Keep it to 30 minutes or less, and it needs to be engaging, considering the nature of the topic. All too often online learning is not much more than a manual in electronic format. Search for the best!

From there, your education plan may target those that require a more in-depth understanding of the ITIL processes. Consider a blended approach. It may be viable for some learners to spend the 3 days in a classroom. However, for large IT enterprises with a high volume of learners needing to be ITIL Foundation certified, an interactive online program, easily distributed around the globe may be the order of the day. To add a live instructor component, this virtually-trained group may benefit from organized, live exam-prep sessions with a certified instructor. Again, this could all be done virtually, or schedule into a classroom.

Other supplemental resources could include global discussion forums bringing together learners who are simultaneously preparing for the exam. In addition, study notes exist to assist the learners.

And don’t forget about the tools. Your tool/systems training should be a blend of process and tool training. These are not mutually exclusive, yet most organizations train the tool outside of the processes (and visa versa). Integrate the learning strategy.

Avoid the “bums in seats” mentally that so often prevents sustainable, green and cost-effective learning. Implement a blended “virtual” model for education and you are on your way to strategy that aligns with today’s buzz: It’s Green. It Costs Less. It’s Less Time Intensive. It’s Sustainable (a Corporate Education must). And as more and more IT shops embrace the virtual employee, you will be ahead of the curve and ready.

Good luck!