• Remember when you first used a 14.4K modem? What about 56K? 
• Remember when you first heard the word “broadband”?
• Remember when you had a paper based course with the add-on of a CBT?

How many of you

• Remember when CBT (Computer Based Training) was all the rage?
• Remember when having a blended program meant having a paper based course and classroom ?
• Remember having your learners sit in a room to watch new training on a video tape or via a DVD?
• Remember providing trainees with a training manual which was massive in size?

Now ask yourself

• Do you remember when you first heard the term “e-learning”?
• Do you remember the first time you knew that learning could be “in the cloud” and not sitting on your servers?
• Do you remember when the “light” turned on and you thought to yourself, this is the future of learning?

 For the vast majority of folks who provide training/learning this “light” has yet to be turned on.

Blended Learning

We all the know the term, but do we know what constitutes blended learning?

Blended Learning is a combination of learning components. The only minimum requirement is two.

Combinations (just a few and by no means all)

• Classroom (ILT) & E-Learning (in some form)
• Classroom & Paper-Based (the most common method for a long, long, long time)
• Paper Based with a CBT and Classroom
• Classroom, Paper, CBT
• Classroom, Paper & E-Learning
• Video, Classroom, Paper
• Video, Classroom, Paper with a CBT (if you are lucky)
• Video, Classroom
• And so on…

When you think of blended learning, does ILT always appear as part of it?  If you answered yes, you are not alone. You are in the vast majority.

My question is why?

Why in 2012, does ILT still play a big role in learning?

ILT whether it is in the educational setting or corporate setting has existed for hundreds of years. In that time, what has changed?

People

• Still sit in chairs
• Still use some form of a writing device
• Still use some type of item to write on (the most common is paper)
• Still look to the front of the room – and see at least one person talking (the most common, mind you)
• Still raise their hand (and yes, I know many do not) to ask questions
• Still follow a process

What then has changed?  You can swipe out paper to a tablet or a computer, but the structure as a whole has stayed the same.

Hundreds of years of the same methodology.  The same old, very old methodology.

You can argue that it works, but if is so awesome, then why CBT or even video come into existence? 

My guess is that you were seeking ways to enhance your training? To offer new ways to create scenarios, real life simulations using various forms of technology.  You knew that ILT as a standalone wasn’t the only solution to educate or train.

Let me ask you a question

How many of you have pulled ILT completely out of your training or learning approach?

How many of you use various forms of media or emerging technology and e-learning to create your blended learning solution?

How many of you are willing to move forward, rather than stand pat or go backwards?

Moving Forward

I know you have heard me say it before: “e-learning is superior to classroom based learning”.  And I know, that despite all the data, all the research, all the information out there on the net, in the library even on various social media channels that show this to be true, many people are not swayed.

They stay in their bubble.  They believe that having new employees sit in a room and watch a training video is an effective way to learn.  They believe that “OJT (on the job training) is equally a great way to learn.

Allow me to crush that notion. 

Video

I’ve sat in plenty of these video training sessions, used often in new employee training or safety training and been bored to tears.

Typically when the door is shut and the person departs, you end up doing anything else, but watch the video (which is often beyond awful).

Then when the person returns they ask the new employee, “how was it”?  Response: Great.

Engagement factor: ZERO  Retention Factor: ZERO   Learning Factor: ZERO

OJT

The premise seems logical. You take your “A” employee in the department and assign the new employee (in that dept.) to follow that person and see what they do, and blah blah.

You assume that the “A” talent will show the newbie how do it the right way, and best of all answer any questions the newbie might have or inquire about.

What you tend to forget is:

• “A” employee has their own job to do and if they are on some type of deadlines, the newbie just sits by them or somewhere in their cube and does nothing
• “A” employee may not answer the questions newbie presents correctly
• “A” employee may be having a horrible day, is mad at the boss or whatever – what do you think your newbie gets to hear?  Trust me, it is not positive vibes coming from your all-star talent
• OJT is not very effective in short term, let alone long term learning

Engagement Factor:  Average – if it means that the person walking around with your new employee is talking to them about job related items, and how do to them and not talking about everything under the sun

Retention Factor: ZERO – how can you retain all this info in a few days?

Oh, wait, I remember. You stick them in a classroom

Why keep ILT at all?

Let me be the first one to tell you that I too was stuck in a rut. I used blended learning with the following combination

• E-Learning (with its various genres)
• ILT (on-site and at our company)
• Paper based
• DVD – including online video
• MP3

I followed that approach for several years.  At some point, I ditched the ILT at went straight to the net, but added a few emerging technology capabilities. 

I did it, because I realized that ILT just wasn’t effective. Oh, it worked, but to enable true adaptive learning (IMO, the holy grail of learning), e-learning was the route to go.

I still stand by that believe (and yes, I know you are thinking “duh!”).

However, what I continue to notice is that others all over the world are changing their beliefs.

They are realizing that people who learn online are not wasting time online.

By the Numbers – Educational Side

Three pieces of data grabbed by attention this past week.

Granted they came from the educational side of the house, but when you think about ILT at the business level, where do you think it came from?

Exactly, Education.

• A study conducted by Ithhake S+R found that online students take in information faster than those who attend only classroom based learning
• As a result of their e-learning solution, one public school in Michigan reported that failure rates have dropped by 33 percent

If the educational sector has realized that e-learning is the route to go, and that data shows it effectively works better than ILT, why is the corporate mindset still stuck only on ILT or the ILT as primary, with e-learning secondary?

Emerging Technology and E-Learning

If you still need to hang-on to ILT, make it a minor part of your learning/training initiatives rather than equal or primary.  Paper can be effective as a quick reference guide, rather than a huge document that serves no purpose.

Why not offer:

• Augmented Reality, E-Learning (various forms including mobile)
• AR, Kinect (already starting to appear in educational environments) and e-learning
• MP4, video streaming, e-learning
• Some combination of the above
• Future technologies (not yet defined), E-learning (various forms) and AR or Kinect

Basically pull ILT out of equation (Uh – I’m also talking to HR folks who provide training) and see what transpires.

What will transpire

Remember my engagement and retention levels above?

With effective online learning and various emerging technologies you will achieve

Very High Factors in

• Comprehension
• Retention
• Engagement
• Synthesis

Bottom Line

For hundreds of years, classroom learning (in some form of a class) was the best way to learn.

Hundreds of years.

Yet in less than 19 years since Jones International was launched (1st online university, 1993), e-learning is showing real positive results.

Better results in the educational setting than classroom alone.

Better results in the business setting than classroom alone.

Earlier in the post, I wondered how long will it take for the ILT masses to turn on the e-learning light and start extinguishing the ILT flame?

My forecast?

8 years.

E-Learning 24/7

Eye of the Tiger

What’s the best way to add components to your product?

In the past it was build it yourself (pricey) or find open source and customize it (could be pricey, but cheaper then complete build).

Now the route of “partners” is the way to go. The partner approach works this way: vendor A integrates Vendor B’s solution into their product. Some times, it is nothing more than a link – hidden from the end user – the screen shows a popup or goes to the “page” but in reality the end user is now in the other vendor’s solution. Then they can bounce back.

Vendor B can still sell their product as a stand alone or however this wish to do it and can still sell it/integrate or use an interface into additional vendor’s solutions.

While this has always been the case with web conferencing solutions going back for more than a decade with LMSs, etc., I’m seeing a nice increase with authoring tool vendors and even learning management systems incorporating via interface/integration or the “hidden link angle” other products.

One of the best known is eLearning Brothers. One of eLearning Brothers’ products is showing up in other rapid content authoring tools.  The product are an extensive set of stock photos with real human being images and not the cheesy clip art, one often sees in such tools.

Other vendors are exploring the addition of avatars that can communicate with one another.  I know of a few LMS vendors who are adding tools coming from a variety of non-LMS vendors, via partnerships.

I’m not talking about Skype here, but real e-learning tools and solutions going into your favorite LMS, TM system and yep, even authoring tool products.

Forecast: Continued Growth.  Why wait until everyone is moving ahead and then realize you could have had a V-8 or one of these tools in your product?

The Walls Came Down

Instructor led training whether it happens in your training room or in the classroom, still remains strong. But, guess what? Even the strongest proponents of ILT are realizing the inevitable, that e-learning is not only here to stay but is growing stronger.

As a result, ILT vendors are embracing e-learning through a variety of ways. Most notably the ability to create a PowerPoint online. I know what you are thinking – “Craig, this has always been going on”. Yes and no.  For some people WBT is merely sticking a PPT online converting it to Flash and whalla – a new course.

For others including myself, this is not WBT.

Thus the ILT vendors are saying to themselves, we are still committed to instructor led training, but we will dip our toes into the water, enabling people to upload a PPT or something similar and train people online through a web conferencing device.

They are starting to refer to them as virtual classrooms, picking up a term that already is in place.

I recall talking to one vendor who described the above to me and called it a virtual classroom, or as she excitedly said, “a webinar”.  I looked at her thinking, “am I on candid camera”?

Yet, for the ILT folks, it is not candid camera, it is integrating a tool that has been around for more than 13 years and doing it in such a way, that is seems novel.

Of course, it should be noted that for one vendor before you could offer your “webinar” to others at your company, you had to attend their face to face training, then get certified (on their product) before you could jump into the online space.

Hey, at least they are trying.

Forecast: Very slow.  Too many vendors are in the ILT space to just toss it aside and embrace e-learning. I surmise you will continue to see bits and pieces there, but it is like those folks who believe we did not walk on the moon. Despite all the evidence, all the data and all the research, they refuse to believe. It still occurs in the ILT marketplace (regarding WBT).

Once in a Lifetime

I believe a new sub-genre of e-learning is upon us. Take

• Video
• Content mgt system – More of a repository
• Deep tagging
• Publishing
• Recording via a mobile device or a cam or a digital camera
• Add keywords, transcripts
• Bookmarking
• Ability to enter a keyword on the video goes right to it each and every time
• Add editing features, enhancements
• Some analytics

What do you have? Video management systems.

In some ways it can be swung as a corporate learning YouTube with a touch of Premiere, a dash of video capturing, a couple of sprinkles of analytics, and a drop of publishing.

It can be a standalone or be placed into another solution.

Two systems are already in the space – somewhat similar, yet in many ways different.

• Momindum
• Panopto 

I believe this new sub-genre will grow, much like the social learning platforms of the past few years. The difference though, is that VMSs have a lot more potential and power than the social learning platforms (standalone) because the technology that is taking place in the space, especially with more people going the HD route and higher bandwidth speeds for at home and at the workplace.

What is really cool is that you do not need to be a tech expert, nor an instructional designer or an aficionado of video.  That’s what is going to be its real power.

Forecast: Slow for 2012 growth. Increase in 2013, of these types of capabilities on other platforms and tools – whether it is via an interface/integration or a piece of this and that.

The VMS offers lots of potential, but it will the masses jump on board? I believe it is possible, but as with anything else, ease of use, features and simplicity (yet robust) are the keys.

JukeBox Hero

You don’t need to be a jukebox hero to sign up for the new E-Learning 24/7 monthly newsletter.

Every month via your e-mail box you will receive the latest trends, insight, and my new products to check out. These products will hit across all genres of e-learning. You may never have heard of them, but now you will.

Then every other month, you will see who’s hot and who’s not in the following spaces:

• Content Authoring Tools
• LMS
• Social and Mobile Learning Platforms
• Mobile Apps – from various e-learning vendors who have apps for end users
• Other e-learning solutions

I guarantee this won’t be your same ol same monthly newsletter. The EL247 provides capabilities specifically for mobile devices and folks on the go.

To receive the brand new E-Learning Insight every month subscribe.

Bottom Line

For some people, they want us (e-learning proponents) to jump into a fast car and keep on driving out of the learning scene.

Others fear that there will be red skies tonight because online learning is continuing to advance in many ways never seen on the web stage.

What will come next?

Destination unknown.

E-Learning 24/7

However with hope comes disappointment, and that disappointment appeared numerous times.

There were vendors that had nice LMSs and cool features. There were some very slick products.

Yet, overall the show was lame.

It just wasn’t me thinking this, I heard it from attendees and even other vendors who were trolling the floor.

Time to hit the floor

The Show Angle

In the past this show has been heavily geared to instructor led training in the corporate space. E-Learning has been minimal. However, this clearly had changed in 2012.

I would estimate that there was a 60-40 split, still instructor led driven, but even a significant number of the ILT vendors were offering subsets or capabilities to turn their ILT into online via webinars or online courses.

Trends on the Expo Floor

Very Cool

• Mobile Learning
• ILT heading into the online path in one way or another
• LMS vendors who had a significant number of leads – amazing when you consider the show typically brings quite a large contingency of ILT folks
• Lots of giveaways for iPads, Kindle Fire – etc. Downside: Many required you to be present at the time of the giveaway
• Some angle to game based learning – either an app or actual product
• Many salespeople who were polite, asked questions without being intrusive or hard pitched, listened and genuinely seemed to care – KUDOS

Yeah it works, but you can do better

• Social Learning
• Demos – 50% of the time, but 50% of the time – vendor sends you to their web site – specifically you can visit us at blah blah

The downside to the latter is how many people after the end of the day, many of whom attended the seminar sessions, remembered the url of your web site? If you think they used the ASTD app and wrote down some notes, I think you would be surprised.

I would love to see a survey from ASTD sent one week after the show to attendees asking them what vendors they visited online with specific requirements that they did so, without visiting the ASTD app, ASTD online site showing the exhibitors and their web sites and the heavy book.

• Giving out books to attendees after they listened to the the vendors’ sales pitch. The problem with that angle – no mention of the vendor, thus its poor marketing. I got a book and can’t recall the vendor who gave it to me. Great idea, major backfire.
• Marketing materials that showed screens of the product, had the vendor’s url, a contact section – whom to contact, etc. – This is very good – so why did I have it in this area? Because there were plenty of vendors who had marketing materials but it was all text, and contained no info on whom to contact.

I heard from a couple of vendors who told me that they were fixing the materials and it would be better next show. The funny thing about that pitch – I heard it at the previous show from the same vendors.

This show draws huge and if you can’t spend one week updating your marketing materials – you have bigger problems then you think. Here is a hint

• If you are a LMS vendor and they are looking at you – they have some inkling on e-learning and a LMS – so why do you have some lame pitch about what is a LMS, what is e-learning, etc.
• Marketing drives business especially in this space – its about buzz and excitement not about you writing War and Peace

Yuck!

• No materials – really?
• Many vendors focused more on the person’s badge than on the person themselves inquiring about stuff – I heard this from numerous attendees
• Huge booths, lots of salespeople and they are not on the sides – i.e. front, left, right, back – rather they are congregating next to one another, even though people are walking around
• Small booths – lots of salespeople – more then needed – it actually hurts you – because it intimidates people
• Eating their lunch at their booth – the number one thing you should never do
• Salespeople who were indifferent – I saw this a lot – you could clearly see on their faces they were bored and did not want to be there
• Salespeople who had their backs turned away from the expo attendees walking around

What you should never do

• Pearson not letting people know about their open source LMS that is in the works – you had to specifically ask them. I get it that you are focused on sales, but how about letting people know about the other – especially since you are marketing it on the web
• Blackboard Learn for Sales – Let’s talk about these guys in particular

Blackboard Learn for Sales – a wonderful (j/k) experience (not really)

This is a new feature set in the Blackboard Learn for Corporations which is tied into the Salesforce.com system. Makes sense, and it will be effective.

What stunned me was their booth and in particular the salesperson I talked to and the system i.e. what the product looked like.

You can’t make this stuff up

• The salesperson told me they have been in the commercial space for years – Yeah, I know that – but when you think Blackboard you think education
• The course they show you uses educational terms, not corporate terms – which is funny since the product i.e. integration with Salesforce.com is purely corporate

Education you say?

The salesperson showed me the course example which contained on the left side of the screen – the table of contents – very common with WBT and really a requirement for end users.

But with this course example terminology included

• Course Syllabus
• Course Units i.e. Unit 1 and its title, unit 2 and so on

As a former college faculty member and high school teacher, these are terms used in education – not in the corporate side of the plate.

When I stated as such to the salesperson he told me the course was created by (I can’t recall whom) and this is what they are using. On a side note, the right side was pure text. Snoozeville.

When I asked the salesperson to show me the administration side, he seemed surprised. I repeated it again, saying I wanted to see the admin side, which a tab stating as such was clearly visible on the screen.

His reply – “it’s customizable”. Great, but that is not what I am asking nor seeking. Requested it again to the salesperson.

His retort – “It’s not active”. Which means that you could not see it, because it was turned off. Well done (not really).

It’s all about “mobile”

It is about time! I was very excited to see the number of vendors who showed off mobile capabilities with tablets and even smartphones. The bottom line – they were finally realizing that mobile learning was the place to go. Many vendors stated as such to me. SWEET!

I was surprised at the number of vendors who had no idea on what is Tin Can. I was equally surprised that a couple of vendors did not see the value in online/offline synch nor were aware that end users wanted this feature.

Many of the mobile learning features, had apps, but when you clicked the app – you could see that it was taking you to the system or site on the mobile web browser. IMO, this is not mobile learning.

Yes, you can access your courses, but why use the app, when I can go directly to my browser

Best Product I saw

This one, has real potential and honestly it contained a wow factor, especially since it was a game for learning.

The company: GameLearn

Features

• Looks like a game that people would want to play – i.e. cool graphics, interactive, engaging, fun
• The game I saw was for time management and personal productivity
• I would play this at home – too many game based learning solutions look like freeware or the old Atari games from the 80s
• Works with mobile devices

Two Negatives (I wish there wasn’t)

• Its all in Flash. Thus in order for it to work on the iPad series or iOS mobile devices you need to have the SkyFire app or something similar which can run flash on your device
• They give you the app for free – it comes with the game. While that is a positive, I wonder how many people wouldn’t understand how to use it – since it is a mobile browser. Thus you do not use Safari.
• Cost – for some people it won’t be an issue, for others it could be a big issue, depending on your budget.

The cost is $325 per license, but a minimum of 25 licenses. I surmise that when you get into the high number of licenses they give you a discount. Thus if you purchased 25, the cost would be $8,125.

Final Word

I saw a couple of prototypes with mobile that looked extremely cool and would be wins for the vendors.

Bottom Line

As with any trade show expo, you will have the good, bad and downright ugly when it comes to products, the show itself, vendors and such.

Overall, I believe this show was a winner for vendors, because the lead gen for the majority of them was very high compared to other trade shows.

Additionally, there seemed to be an extremely high interest in e-learning, which is awesome.

ILT folks are getting it – albeit there are still enough people who refuse to jump into the e-learning waters.

They see ILT as the only way. They ignore the data and research which shows e-learning is better for learners and students.

It has another name though

The Emperor wears no clothes.

E-Learning 24/7

Well, at least if you want to sell your system.

Listening

We do this every day. We talk to people – friends, colleagues, the person at the store, etc., and listen. But are we really listening? How often have you listened to someone, but are thinking of other things?

How often are you not really “listening”?

In sales it is a requirement.

In the LMS world, many salespeople fail this basic requirement. They are so focused on selling the product, or following some type of simple script, that they are not listening to the potential new client. They aren’t hearing what you are saying or asking.

Sales person: “What are you looking for in a system?”

Customer: We are seeking a system that offers curriculum paths, ability to group learners to take x course or courses, e-mail notification, blah blah

What sales person should follow up with: “Thank you. Are you also seeking blah blah blah (assuming the customer didn’t mention it)?”

What the sales person often does. Okay. We offer that. (Then they go to the next question)

Look back at this example. First thing that should come out of your mouth is “thank you”. Not “okay” or whatever you use as verbiage.

Okay is something that happens when you are not listening. It happens when your boss or colleague says something and you retort, “okay”. It’s when your significant other says something and you are indifferent or in ignore mode. It should never happen in sales.

The goal is to build a relationship with the customer. You want to them to trust you.

Point 2 on Listening

Listen to their concerns. Listen to their issues (if they used a system in the pass). Listen to their knowledge or expertise (it’s easy to pick up). Guide them. Engage them. Simple right?

Yet, even when I was a Training Director, I can’t tell you the number of times, the salespeople ignored these staples. I would always tell them up front before jumping into what I was seeking, my knowledge of e-learning and systems, so we could move past that.

Guess what most salespeople would do? Not listen and just go about their usual spiel, talking as though I was a complete moron. Even if the person doesn’t know anything about e-learning and specifically a LMS, it does not mean they are not intelligent people. It doesn’t give you the right to treat them as though they have the education level of an 10th grader.

Not listening is the most common faux pas I see with salespeople. If you were on the other side, how would you feel? Exactly.

Cutting off and Ignoring the Customer’s Questions

This happens frequently. What are the key factors?

• You’re not listening
• You’re focusing so much on the system and its features that you are ignoring the customer
• You are on time constraints and thus are in speed mode

It is one of my pet peeves. Who in the heck likes to be cut off while inquiring? Worse than that, who likes to be ignored when asking questions?

I’ll tell you – NOBODY.

However with LMS pitches it occurs so often, that the customer gets frustrated and you – the salesperson thinks you are on a roll.

Do you want the customer do trust you? Do you want them to see value and benefit in your product? Do you want them to want more? Of course you do. Want the easiest way to say goodbye to any of those listed above? Ignore and cut off questions.

Let me Tell you about us

You have contacted the vendor to inquire about their system. You have setup an hour demo, blocking off your schedule to see the demo.

What you get at the beginning, is the “let me tell you about us”.

The problem with this approach.

• The consumer most likely has checked out your web site OR
• Talked to colleagues OR
• Read about, learned about your solution OR
• Asked questions or inquires on LinkedIn OR
• Has done some basic research

Very few people nowadays have no idea on who you are and what you are all about. One of the most common things they do, is visit your web site.

If you have created the right way to have a web site, about us should be included, along with some of your clients.

Sure, you can do a quick run of who you are, and some of your clients in an initial discussion, but do not spend more than 5 minutes on this. If the customer asks you some questions about you, clients, etc., then yes answer them.

Remember they are calling because they are interested in learning more about your product. Never forget that.

They are not there to have an in-depth conversation about you (I hear this often. “I’ve been in the industry for 10 years, blah blah”) My response within my brain privately – who cares.

Know Your Customer

Virtually everyone asks the customer to tell them about themselves – i.e. the customer.

What industry, what are you seeking, etc. It’s important to do this in selling a LMS. It also eliminates people who are not in your vertical, size of company (which does occur with some LMS companies) or do not have the features, that your system provides.

When you hear this, you should:

• Mention clients that are similar to them – i.e. vertical, size of company, industry etc.

There is nothing worse than not mentioning clients that are not in my direct space. You want to have an edge over your competitor? Let me know that you have similar clients (if you do).

Now some vendors like to mention the big names, after all, it will impress some people. I mean people would be intrigued if one of your clients is WidgetWorld.

That perks up my ears. However, you should then follow up with some clients that are like me (the customer).

People like people that are similar, which by the way is a propaganda technique (Just like you and me) often used in advertising.

Customer Insight

When you find out about your customer and they are interested in setting up a demo, make sure you do the following

• What features would you like to see in the demo? (Many people will state what they want to specifically see. And yes, some people will say everything)
• Spend at least 30 minutes learning more about your customer, via their web site.

I can’t tell you the number of times, the vendor had no idea of my company (i.e. when I was a training director). What made it even worse, was when I inquired via their web site or via e-mail. Spend the time! It shows you care.

It’s demo time

This can be the killer for many people who show systems. You are either prepared or your not. If you’re not, you will go down in flames.

Things to do:

• Your demo site should be awesome
  

Many vendors show a vanilla site and say “you can skin it with your colors or add a logo”. The problem when people are hearing that their brain is looking at a simple vanilla site and does not correlate the two.

• If your can’t spend the time on your demo site or you only have limits on what you can do – go to the customer’s web site, match their colors to your demo and add their logo

This should be the minimum. Some vendors go this route – I like that. My preference though is to wow me. Vanilla doesn’t wow me, it bores me.

• Make sure what you are showing me works

In training when we use computers/laptops to train employees, we always make sure the laptop is working, the software is working, the browser, speed and of course the projector.

So, why does this fail so often when people show a demo of their product?

Take the time to make sure everything is working before you show your demo. Nothing worse than saying, “oh, this should be working”. It tells me, a)you didn’t look ahead of time, b)maybe this is a common occurrence with your product – so why buy it?

• Schedule the appropriate amount of time with the customer

This means, that when you talk to the customer prior to the demo, you ask them if they have 90 minutes available.

You say that it may not last that long, but you want to make sure you answer all their questions and show them all the features they are interested in seeing.

Even if you state 60 minutes or they say, “no, I can only schedule 60 minutes”, make sure your game plan is in place – to answer all their questions and show them the features they want to see or whatever.

When you are training someone or presenting online or face to face and you have only 60 minutes, the standard rule:

• No more than 2-3 minutes for an introduction
• 10 minutes at the end for questions (many people will ask if the audience/person can hold off asking questions until the end)

What do you end up with? 47 minutes. What it the average attention span of folks – according to research? 50 minutes.

What do I often see with many LMS vendors?

• Speeding through the features, as though it is a race
• Showing only some features – even though I may ask to see all
• Ignoring the administration side
• Focusing on what they believe you want to see

One of the most awful experiences, I ever had occurred last week with one vendor.

The person scheduled a 30 minute demo, which seemed odd to me.

In this demo, the person cut me off, ignored me, but worse of all showed me only some features and not even the ones I specifically inquired about. At the end of this poor demo, the person told me that they (sales staff) typically does a demo as a teaser to entice the customer to learn more.

Are you kidding me? Teasers are great for newscasts – “coming up how wild turkeys are eating humans”, movies and Super Bowl commercials.

For selling a LMS, they are horrible. I just spent 30 minutes of my time, seeing this. Why would I want to see more? You just wasted 30 minutes of my life, I will never get back.

Arguing with the Customer

Should never happen. Here is a hint – the person on the other end of the call or web demo could become a customer. You don’t personally have to agree with what they are saying – but keep it to yourself. Arguing turns off people. You want to argue? Go argue with the TV.

Leads
= please note there is one profane word in the clip

This IMO is so common in the industry it is disgusting.

• Potential customer contacts the vendor and wants to know more – LEAD
• Potential customer contacts vendor, via vendor’s web site “Email us to learn more” – LEAD
• Potential customer at trade show, tells vendor rep, “I’m very interested or extremely interested in your product. Please contact me” – LEAD

Reality

Trade shows for vendors are typically not selling blockbusters. Yeah, you get a lot of people who will allow you to swipe their card – mainly for a chance to win a giveaway or grab a freebie. Vendors know this.

Why do they attend? To be seen and people remember them.

Sure you can get some awesome legitimate leads, which can turn into sales, but many vendors get what I call “tire kickers”.

Some trade shows are losers in my book. Always know the audience attending – does it target your product? Who cares if the show has high traffic, if they are not in your audience, how is that going to help you, sell your product?

E-Mail Us

If you are going to post this on your web site, make sure an inside salesperson is going to read it and respond – immediately or worse case during business day within 24 hours.

Just two weeks ago, I inquired via the “Email us” angle with 10 LMS vendors. How many responded? Three.

One “Email Us” didn’t even work. A few listed the infamous “comments” section and then when they contacted you, it was clear they never read it.

A couple of months ago, I did the same thing with another consumer client I had. 15 vendors contacted. Six responded.

If a consumer calls you, they are slightly interested. Perhaps even more so. This is a LEAD. Act on it.

Should Never Do

• Talk in Jargon – too many salespeople use IT terms. The problem is that the person on the other end, has no idea on what you are talking about and often will not say anything because they do not want to look as though they have no idea on what you are talking about.
• Hard sell – it works in a lot of industries. It does not work in the LMS nor e-learning industry
• Not know your product – This happens a lot and it just baffles me
• Not know the e-learning industry – spend a hour minimum surfing the net to learn it
• Mislead- I know it might come as a shocker – but I hear this a lot , especially when people ask questions that you do not know the answer to. If you do not, then say “Good question. I do not know the answer to that, but let me find out and I will get back to you as soon as possible” then go find out. One vendor told me they were number one in customer satisfaction. Really, according to who? You?

Bottom Line

The LMS industry is very strong. It is not going away. Regardless of your LMS you can achieve success. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

One vendor told me they were happy with only 40 clients. Don’t you want more? If you don’t then why are you still in business?

It’s one thing to be new and building your base of clients and moving forward. It’s another thing to have been in the industry for several years and be happy with only having 40 clients.

If you are not adding clients, then ditch the hubris and honestly look at your product. Equally of importance look at your sales team.

As Alec Baldwin says in Glengarry Glen Ross

“First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Do you know what you get for second prize? I set of steak knives. Third prize? Your Fired!”

E-Learning 24/7

That is why there is an uptick in the number of commercial systems available in the education sector.

With that comes trends.

Available at your local college and school – NOT!

Trend 1

Mobile Learning

This is one of the most shocking trends in the space – the significant lack of mobile learning in these systems. What makes this so bizarre is the extensive amount of data, that clearly shows students of all ages are using mobile devices.

• Access to smartphones has more than tripled among high school students since 2006, according to a survey report from Project Tomorrow®  350,000 U.S. K-12 students
• 50% of all college students are using mobile devices to access on a daily basis the Internet (Educause)
• In the first week of the semester, the number of students using mobile devices like tablets instead of computers to access the Internet, went from 22% to 71% between 2010 and 2011 (ITS)

So why the delay in using mobile learning, especially with tablets in education focused LMSs?

An even more disturbing trend is the lack of SMS (text messaging) in education systems, even though numerous reports have found that students of all ages are using text messaging more than e-mail. 

The irony of course, is that systems are heavily focused on e-mail notifications and built-in email systems for students.

Trend 2

File Repositories

There is often a level of confusion when it comes to file repositories.

A file repository in the LMS world is the ability for end users/administrators to places files into a library or folder if you will whereas students can access, view and download the files (documents, video/audio etc.).

For many education systems this is becoming the norm rather than the rarity. 

I am seeing an increase in the ability to send these files to fellow students (virtually non-existent in corporate systems) and the ability to track in the back end – how many times the file has been viewed and downloaded.

I am projecting the analytical part to significantly increase and to expand the capability to use solutions such as online storage (which a few vendors are offering) and product like Dropbox and CalenGoo.

Why?  Because students are already using such products in their daily lives.

Trend 3

Social Learning

Continuance of lack of new capabilities with social learning.   For the life of me, I can’t figure out why systems on this side of the space are sticking with the same garbage as the corporate side.

That said, this has become the norm in these systems.

What are they using?

• Ancient features such as discussion boards/text chat/forums – I offered these babies back in 1995 on my web site. Time to move on!
• Facebook like page with profiles — snooze-ville
• Built-in text chat – awesome – okay not really

At a minimal why not offer solutions similar to Instagram or Pinterest?

Trend 4

Integrated e-mail

A huge number of vendors are offering this feature in their system. We are not talking about e-mail notifications here, nor being able to send an e-mail to one person and e-mails to a group of folks, we are talking about actual e-mail messaging going from teachers to students.

Trend 5

Parent Portal

Clearly this exists in the K-12 sector. Some systems offer parents the ability to see their students homework – including what needs to be accomplished, communicate with teachers and even chat with other parents.

Staying with the portal angle, many systems offer them for teachers. On the teacher side, they can communicate with fellow teachers around the world, often within their own subject.

Kudos.

Trend 6

Mentoring

What really disturbs me is the general lack of this feature set on the corporate side. It should be mandatory, but on the education side it is growing exponentially.

Everything from teachers/professors offering something similar to answering students questions via a Social Q/A angle to having students mentor other students (a peer to peer approach).

Another feature that is seeing growth is the use of Skype – built into these systems, which data has found is popular with teachers because it enables their students to communicate with fellow students around the world.

More trends than you can shake a ruler at

• Ability to integrate with a SIS (student information system) or SMS (student management system)
• Google apps – free for education – as long as you follow their specific guidelines
• Exam management – no big surprise here

Something strange is going on here

There are two trends in the space that is quite surprising, because in the brick and mortar setting is just doesn’t exist.

E-Commerce

Another uptick with systems offering e-commerce including built-in shopping carts, ability to accept credit cards/Paypal, discounts/promo codes and various types of currencies.

All at no cost.

This trend is being seen at the higher education/academia level and it makes sense, especially when you are able to purchase courses – i.e. online courses.

What is really cool is that it is going beyond the college to student angle – to the B2C or B2B – in this case the university/college selling courses to anyone (not necessarily enrolled) and companies. 

At the brick and mortar level, many colleges offered the opportunity to partner up with a company, so that their employees could take a variety of courses, so it is a natural fit on the online side.

Talent Management

In just the past few months, I am seeing education systems offering something similar to talent management features. One system actually is an education talent management system.

I get it from a market standpoint – revenue wise, but I don’t get it as a whole.

As a former educator at both the high school and college level, the succession planning, 360 feedback and alike really never existed.

Oh sure, you would have a colleague come in and observe your class – i.e. teaching – and rate it for our yearly review, but who in the heck is offering leadership development at the high school level for teachers (unless you are enrolled at a university and are working on an educational administration degree).

On the principal side, many systems fail to understand, is that often an assistant principal will leave the school to become a principal at another school – so the leadership development – often used to identify leaders within that institution doesn’t apply.

A few systems are offering the HRIS angle.

The majority of school districts, universities on the administration side – have zero idea on what a HRIS solution is, let alone the advancement of technology within their own schools.

I would rather see an on-going focus targeting the students, rather then this bizarre component.

Fun Facts

Comparison Time!

• Corporate side – still focusing on text dashboards, heck even the lack of dashboards
• Education side – dashboards with graphs, pie charts, etc.
• Corporate side – still awful navigation and UI – on both sides (front and back end)
• Education side – similar
• Corporate side – a lack of the “wow” factor on the front end
• Education side – similar
• Corporate side – ad-hoc  reports
• Education side – rare, not the norm – heavily focused on canned reports

Online Learning vs. ILT

Interesting data, showing why schools and universities are moving heavily into the online space.

• International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or iNACOL, estimates that more than 1.5 million K-12 students were engaged in some form of online or blended learning in the 2009-10 school year
• 48 of the 50 states including the District of Columbia offer some type of online learning
• A meta-analysis of thousands of studies conducted by the Department of Education (2009 and updated in 2010) concluded that students in online only instruction performed modestly better than their face to face counterparts

Bottom Line

Education as a whole is getting a bad rap and it shouldn’t at least when it comes to online learning.

The reason behind this is simple, educational learning management systems.

While these systems continue to offer a wonderful set of features, they still have a long way to go.

User interface should be a priority for all involved, especially with ease of use as the cornerstone.

Because when you focus on what is really important for the students, educators and even administrators on the back end, the rest will follow.

Which will change the way brick and mortar schools/universities educate.

For the better.

E-Learning 24/7

I think a lot of people in our space are like my Dad. Very smart people who are either new to the space, non or somewhat tech savvy, and find themselves hearing a lot of terminology, a lot of confusing marketing spin and get confused – at no fault of their own.

Wake Up!

The reality of e-learning is that ambiguity still plays a big role in the space. Interchangeable words, marketing spin that goes awry and yes, an entrenchment of terms that are passe, but still seem to hang on in hopes they will be saved for future use.

The challenges are two-fold

a. E-Learning is still growing and with that growth, comes people who are brand new into the space unfamiliar with the terms, the applications and thus are left to either surf to find out or rely on people who on occasion don’t know themselves, but just wing it.

b. New systems, terms and information

The end result?

The difficulty in explaining to others – either the person who needs to green light it, the end users – i.e. your learners, committees of people who come from different departments, salespeople who are unfamiliar with the space and thus tend to either wing it or are honest and just say, “I do not know.”

Hopefully, this will eliminate some of the confusion without sitting in a seminar listening to someone who loves jargon but forgets to explain it – in everyday terms (a huge peeve of mine).

The main term

One of the easiest ways to understand e-learning is to think of it as an umbrella term. It is the core term. The main man, as my Dad would say to me.

This term is often interchanged (without people necessarily knowing it) with online learning and virtual learning. They are one in the same.

If it was up to me, I would prefer to just say e-learning rather create mass confusion. Confusion benefits no one.

Under the Umbrella

So, we start off with e-learning, but what fits under that umbrella.

They are (in no particular order)

• Systems (LMS = sometimes people call it a portal), LCMS, CMS, Traning Mgt or Online Authoring, Platform) – Talent mgt systems are starting to enter as well
• Genres (Mobile learning, Social learning, Game based learning, Virtual Worlds)
• Content Authoring Tools (often referred to as “Rapid Content Authoring Tools (RCAT)
• Simulation tools (can be in a CAT or RCAT, but also can be a standalone)
• Web conferencing (some folks call them virtual classrooms – because in order to achieve the VC, you have to be online communicating with one another via text chat, VOIP with/without video) – another spin term is “web meeting”
• Assessment tools (Online proctoring can be placed into this category)

I’ve created a flowchart, for those who prefer a visual experience – E-Learning Flowchart

Breakout (and no, not that awful game from the 80′s)

Systems

A LMS is the cornerstone for anyone who jumps into e-learning and desires a place to house courses/content, files, curriculum paths, group learners to take x courses versus another, track among other things. Some LMSs have built in content authoring tools (RCATs), web conferencing, assessment/survey (actually most do), mobile learning, social learning, game based learning and a slew of other items. Yes, some also have talent management components such as succession planning, leadership development, 360 feedback and more.

So How do I explain it?

Think of a LMS as the infrastructure, such as a house.

A house with a rich set of amenities (think features!) at no additional charge.

You can get additional perks for your home (often at no charge) and choose the style you want (if you want more robust design – you pay for it).

A warranty (support/maintenance) comes with your house too (often for a fee, but sometimes free).

People will visit your home, stay awhile, hang out or leave quickly (think learners!).

You will remember how many times Sarah stopped by and brought over her awful lamb meatballs or Steve and his unremarkable chicken and eggs dinner. (think tracking!)

You may even analyze everything that goes on in this home. Are the televisions in the kitchen worth it? When do my neighbors most often appear? Why does Steve bother us at 8 p.m. every night? (Analytics!)

Other houses in the neighborhood

Personally, I think a LCMS (Learning Content Management System) is hanging by its toenails on a cliff. Many people believe that the “C” means a course authoring tool, but that is not the case.

To put it in its most basic wordage, its a giant file repository with multiple sub-folders that contain a variety of content (materials, docs, audio/video, whatever), where people can access it, view it, download it (depending on how it is built) and share it.

Yeah it does other things, but the huge component is listed above.

However you are seeing more and more LMSs offer the file repository with the ability to create sub-folders and do all those wonderful capabilities above or at least a component or two.

A CMS (Content Management System) can be of a value to some people, but again, at the end of the day it is a LMS.

Platforms, Portals – Often contain less features and are good for people who just minimal. Exception: Assessment platforms. These are standalone systems that offer the specific capability of “assessment”. They usually offer analytical data/tracking. A twist for an assessment platform (not all can do this, mind you) is the ability to integrate with your LMS.

You often see platforms under the following genres – i.e. a mobile learning platform, etc.

• Mobile Learning
• Social Learning
• Game Based Learning

Analytics, UI and features are the keys, IMO. On the mobile side – tablet capability is HUGE, especially with the iPad series.

Training Management Systems – can also be referred as an Online Authoring System (which honestly is exactly what they are)

They offer some very basic LMS functionality – typically some reports, analytics/tracking, e-mail notification, templates and a few other items.

Their core is the authoring tool, which is built around these whole system. Many of these systems do not offer the capability of you using a third party authoring tool – you have to use their tool only.

Note:

There are Online Authoring Systems that offer a nice robust set of features including output to HTML5 (sadly, the robust feature set exists with only a few vendors).

Pros and Cons

Systems in General

• As noted above, with the exclusion of say a mobile or social learning platforms – which are standalone systems, a LMS is the best way to go for housing e-learning content, analytical data/tracking, content and additional components that either come with it or are offered as an add-on for an additional cost
• A LMS can also contain mobile learning, social learning and game based learning sometimes in its most minimal form – incentive based

Can be a Con, but also a Pro

Seats

• By bundle – you pay for a package of seats – each seat is one user name/one password – so, maybe you start off with 500 seats, another new approach is paying only for active users, so if you purchase 500 seats, but only 200 people are taking at least one course in month “X”, then you pay only for those active users. Some vendors offer both options. I admit for an end user it can become confusing.
• Pay as you go – some use the above approach regarding active users, some charge by number of courses you can upload (IMO – the pay based on number of courses is a horrible idea)
• Unlimited – If there was one option people would really want in a system – this is it. Especially with a multi-tenet or where you are offering e-commerce either to B2B or B2C. Also applies to a company that has a lot of employees.

  I like unlimited, but I fully understand the seat packaging – it has always existed and for many people it is a nice route to go. Option for some people: going open source (which has pros, but honestly has a lot of cons)

• E-Commerce – very rarely used, but does exist in some systems. They follow the unlimited, but take a percentile of each sale of your courses/content/etc. If you have 10,000 users or more for example and you plan to sell a lot of content/courses, see if you can negotiate this type of offering to the vendor.

Caveat: some vendors have done this in the past, gotten burned and then said never again. Its a risky proposition for a vendor, so don’t be surprised to hear “no” – and I wouldn’t blame them.

There are quite a few other pros/cons of a LMS – but that will be a future post – but at the end of the day, if the UI rocks then the system will rock. If the UI stinks, the system well – you get the idea.

The UI is more important to me then the features, because if you looked across the board of LMSs, they contain 90% of the same features – the requirements needed in any system to be worth its weight.

Bottom Line

The cool thing about e-learning is its recognition that it is not a passing fad or just a solution for people who are cutting edge. In future posts, I will go into more detail on each genre including sub-genres with all the trimmings that are contained within them.

For now though, the devil is in the details.

Details I hope were explained in an easy to understand approach.

Something my Dad would be proud of.

E-Learning 24/7

Thankfully scenarios such as the end of the world, isn’t upon us. Dragons and knights aren’t heading down the e-learning path. Beowulf is not lurking behind the corner. Dracula isn’t hanging out at your favorite restaurant.

Or are they?

Utopia

Everyone loves my system. Our retention rates are 95%, heck even 100%.

As I have noted numerous times, if you listen to vendors, everyone loves their system, they have retention rates in the plus 90%, yet, somehow the number one thing they hear is that people are looking for a new system, they are unhappy with their current system.

Think about it.

If everyone is saying their retention rate is over 90%, with some companies telling me it is 100%, then how is it possible that a)no one is leaving their system, but b) people are leaving other systems.  If everyone is content with your system, and there are 450-500 vendors out there, then how is it, people are leaving?

To me its fuzzy math – and trust me, I’ve seen data from some vendors, that makes you wonder how in the heck are they claiming xyz, when the numbers show abc?

I have heard from folks, including customers of specific systems – that they dislike their system, but stay with them. Why?

Top Five Reasons

Fear Factor  – There are some vendors out there, they shall remain nameless, are still pushing the idea that if you move your data it will be lost. I have one word for that – “hogwash”.  It just isn’t true. Think about it, if you can download all your data as a file into your excel file, pdf or just alone as a file – then wouldn’t it make sense, that this same file can be moved into another system?

Time – You have just spent months to find the right system. Starting over is either a “pain” not worth having or you just don’t have the “time”.

So, you stay with your current system despite the fact – people hate it, your employees can’t figure it out, support stinks, etc.

They fully customized my system. I won’t have be able to replicate that. – Nonsense. Virtually any vendor will do heavy customization for you – but there are additional costs to it. Just as if you wanted your car to be metallic raspberry with an interior of green and these are not the free colors available, you have to pay extra for that. It can be done, but it’s not free.

The heavy customization was free. Nothing is ever free. The amount was very likely placed into their high setup fee (which for some vendors, covers the customization or moderate customization or even set project hours).

The amount can also be placed in other areas to offset. Example: you want a three year deal, the vendor tells you seven is better. Seven means seven years of constant revenue, which is better then just three.

Multiple years deal – beyond 3.  I can’t tell you the number of vendors who push five or seven years as the best way to go. It isn’t. The best way is three years (so past blog posts on why this is true).  For them, it is the best way to go – because as noted above – it is a guaranteed revenue stream.  You are locked in, safe and sound.

Robots Rule the World

We all know the story. People are disappearing and being replaced by other beings either robots or nasty space creatures. 

In the LMS world, you have nothing to fear or worry about when the LMS/TM system is acquired by someone else. The system will remain as is – we will never change.

I’m sure the fine folks at some of the recent acquisitions are telling their customers this right now. That the LMS they purchased six months or years ago, will remain the same (obviously updated though). Support/Service will not change. Everything is fine.

From my experience this is rarely 100% accurate, because everything changes, whether you want it or not.

This may not be a bad thing for some customers, but for others, it isn’t what they wanted.

 If I was one of these vendors, I would send out a lengthy statement about how the system will change, and the pluses of such a change.

Why wait to have a customer who is unhappy and then tells others – perhaps people in a group, about their unhappiness.  I would even offer a gift card or something.

When you think about it, what is the cost of losing a customer and bad PR? 

As Jeffrey Gitomer once said, “customer loyalty is everything”.

My dragon is not the same as your dragon

We are an industry of hype and one of these new hype statements are “unlimited courses”.

It may seem brand new, something super exciting that is exclusive to these vendors.

Alas, that is far from true.

Go back 13 years and you will see that nearly every vendor allowed unlimited courses into their systems. There was no set number of courses that were allowed – not  3rd party nor proprietary.  You could add as many as you wanted, without restrictions.

Fast forward to 2012.

Nearly 98% of the systems are still doing the same thing. They just don’t advertise it.

Storage Armageddon

Who is causing this angle to be pitched?  Vendors who fall under these two categories:

• Storage limits – most Lite systems
• Charge by how courses you upload and use

Prepare for the Knight Storage Assault

These vendors will tell you how many courses typically can be uploaded, how many audio/video files, etc.  Sure, the number they are presenting regarding courses is based on minimal interactions, since more robust takes more bandwidth, which in a nutshell is the key.

Bandwidth Zombies

Unless the bandwidth is eating your LMS brain, then the bandwidth angle is just hooey.

If the vendor has load balance (which anyone who has servers should), then the bandwidth claim just doesn’t fly – not even in a spaceship to Mars - unless you i.e. the customer is having internal issues with your network lines or your own servers.

On the e-learning side, vendors who do not have their own servers, will use server farms such as Rackspace. Rackspace is a server farm with load balance and thousands of customers and rarely has any lag issues.

Now, the only way your vendor could have bandwidth issues:

• They are not using a server farm
• They do not have servers with load balance
• They are having problems with their own servers
• Every customer is on one shared database on the vendor’s servers (i.e. not a server farm) PLUS:
• The vendor has a large number of clients AND
• They are all on one shared database, but are in silos. Oh, and if the vendors have multi-tenets, then the children are equally on the shared database in the silo shared by the parent.  AND/OR
• They are having issues with their own servers, but the one shared database, with lots of data and no load balance are signs for the apocalypse
• The vendor is doing maintenance or updates, and has not informed the client that this is happening – again, the vendor has their own servers and not outsourced to a third party online server farm

Bottom Line

The balderdash above is similar to what you have read, heard or seen about the 12-21-2012 (i.e the Mayan calendar).

If you talk to people of Mayan descent (which I have), the end of the calendar does not mean the end of the world. Rather it means a new beginning and nothing more. None of them see it as the destruction of planet, a new age of discovery or creatures from Orion’s Belt visiting us. (although that would be very cool!)

Ask specific questions, find out details and ask some more. More questions and due diligence are always better.

Unless Martians are about to land on this planet and take over the world.

E-Learning 24/7

Training

This one trend really is an irritation to me, because the term “training” is showing up rather than “learning”, which is the standard term as it relates to online learning (see it already?).

We call online learning, e-learning, not e-training, but some vendors will have you believe that “training” is the appropriate term, rather than learning.

It can be seen in systems that dub themselves “training management” systems, HCMs that state “training” as a component, authoring tools that describe their product geared towards “training lessons or courses”, etc.

I know this one word is creating a stir among the instructor led crew and some educators, but in education we use the term “learning”, not “training” when we are teaching students.

Custom Development and LMS vendors

Custom Course Shops

In the early 2000s, there were plenty of custom development shops and costs ranged from 1K to 100K and more, but the custom development shops were not as plentiful as today.

Reasons that the custom development market has exploded at a massive rate, just in the past year.

• Economy – with folks losing their jobs or unable to find work (due to layoffs, lack of hiring, among other things), more people are jumping into the instructional design, e-learning development and course creation. For the most part, it is one person, but I have seen groups of folks joining together to build content/courses
• Money – Depending on what you are offering, there are $$$ to be made. However, there is a flip side to this – with sites like freelancer.com, odesk and elance, there are swaths of people willing to create on the cheap, thus pricing to build great courses are dropping, and occasionally quality follows suit (not all the time, mind you)
• LMS vendors – read below

LMS vendors build in-house or outsource

Back in the early years you were more likely to see vendors build their own courses, with a nice size staff and someone who had an instructional design background leading the charge.

Then cost cutting appeared. When you think about it, why have people in-house to build your own courses, when you can outsource the course building to either an individual, boutique or larger size course development shop (that has the experience, etc. – since this is all they do).

Many vendors followed this approach, and the number of vendors who built in-house became a rarity (as a whole).

The Trend

LMS vendors are re-surfacing to offer in-house custom course development, as part of their offerings. While some never dropped to outsourcing, there is an increase in custom content/course development.

• There were/are vendors who entered the LMS market – this is to say, they first were a custom course development shop (primary product)
• As noted as “are”, some vendors still have a large client base, which is great, but will spin their marketing that these people are clients, without specifying of what -potential customers of their LMS, have no idea. Thus they give the illusion that all these clients are LMS clients, when the larger numbers tend to be as a result of custom content development – even still today
• There were/are vendors who first and foremost have the LMS (primary), prior to adding a custom course development line – which is the trend we are talking about

What do you mean?

• To generate additional revenue, LMS vendors are adding custom course development (equally pitched as content development) as another offering
• This new pipeline enables customers/clients of the vendors to have their LMS vendor as a one-stop shop, rather than going elsewhere or having themselves build the courses

Talent Management

Still a huge trend, and as previously noted in other posts, smaller size vendors are jumping into the arena.

With any trend, an upswing leads to newer approaches since competition always exists.

Latest to Appear

• Again, as previously listed, many large size vendors are turning into more a Human Capital Management system then a solo TM, heck even a LMS
• PeopleMatter – a talent management vendor focused only on the service industry, offers a streamlined and unremarkable LMS, is within the “Learn” component of their TM platform. PeopleMatter equally provides a mobile platform for their TM system
• Saba People Cloud – a social enterprise platform. It includes PQ – People Quotient, where end users can rank themselves, among other things. PQ is not something new in the space, and has camps who like it and dislike it.
• Talent management systems are appearing in education (K-12) – I expect this to see an upswing as well – as a separate sub-genre in the education marketplace, including academia

Quick hits, you can read about them in my E-Learning 24/7 Linkedin Group

• Game Based Learning – templates, mini games, etc. – you can read more on it in my Linkedin Group
• Image Libraries – not just the eLearning Brothers catalogs, but vendors offering their own images, graphics, etc.
• E-Signatures – electronic signatures

A couple more

• Online education (K-12) – One report states that as of March, total revenue is 1.5B to 2B USD. Are lovers of ILT paying attention yet? I just saw an article today, that basically says online education isn’t that great. I’ve seen similar regarding virtual schools (which is the same thing as online education). Its total hogwash, IMO.
• Mobile Learning with LMS vendors – slow adoption rates. Nearly non-existent with native apps, self-contained with online/offline synch.

Bottom Line

These are just some of the trends in the marketplace.

Are there more? You bet.

The market continues to evolve, with advancements and enhancements abound. Some trends are appearing in emerging markets, some are emerging markets and some are components and feature sets, not listed above.

I always say, you can swim or drown, especially in the highly competitive e-learning market.

It’s time for many vendors to take it to heart.

E-Learning 24/7

Shocking news! SumTotal is calling their product a Human Capital Management system. Sure, they offer a separate LMS called SumTotal Maestro, but their TM has surprisingly (not really) been morphed into a HCM, will others follow? Oh wait, others were starting the trend. Never mind, now back to our regular scheduled blog.

The Taleo Spin

If you visit the Taleo home page, you will learn the following two items

And even better (now remember, the above tag line)

I must have been sleeping, but when did “learning” slide under Talent Management? When did “learning, which is training” become a defacto component of Talent Management?

Better yet, when did “learning/training” become a component of Human Capital Management? Because, Taleo’s system is a Human Capital Management System, when you purchase all the components (excluding learning, unless it is construed that way by Taleo).

Taleo can spin it any way, they want – after all it is their company, but to state that “learning and thus training” is a component of Talent Management is just ludricious.

Right now, there are training executives across the world screaming at such a statement. No offense to my colleagues who are OD (organizational development) folks, but the thought of having training under OD is nothing short of armageddon by training standards. The same applies when training falls under Human Resources.

True, HR at some companies provide “training”, but I have found it is always better to have the two entities as separate departments.

In my experience and I’ve heard it from other training execs as well, it just never works out well, especially when “training” is explicitly for the B2C and B2B space.

A Call to Arms

Taleo, which as many of you know, was purchased by Oracle. SAP acquired SuccessFactors who had acquired Plateau in the past.

Oracle in short fashion soon made an announcement that employee recruitment, training and management tools would merge with Fusion, which is a Human Capital management software.

Are we seeing a trend here? “Training” sliding under HCM? If you believe for one moment, that “training or as known in the e-learning community: “learning” is not going to continue to fall under HCM systems for vendors who have talent management systems that offer “compensation, benefits, recruiting” and alike, you may be interested in some swamp land in Florida.

SumTotal’s announcement does not include learning as part of their HCM, which for now is great news – but at some point will that change?

Thankfully ST Maestro is a separate business line, and it would be ideal to keep it that way, but to better compete in the market, especially when your competitors are already incorporating “training/learning” into their HCMs, wouldn’t it be a logical next step?

What about Kenexa? They are a HCM. They purchased Outstart, a LMS.

Right now, they are separate LOBs (lines of business) but will they eventually fall under the spell of integrating the two? I’m not sure, but if you look at some of their competitors, it would make strong business sense.

I’m not saying that Kenexa will ever follow their competitors in this fashion, but deep down it makes me wonder.

What about other companies out there in the HCM space, will they be seeking to acquire LMS vendors with such a goal in mind? If I was them, I know I would.

But, what is of greater concern to me right now are the number of talent management systems in the market, who include “performance”, “compensation”, “recruiting” and other components that easily could flip into a HCM at a latter point.

It can easily change the world of e-learning upside down. More so, it begs the question, “Will HCMs become a sub genere of e-learning?”.

In my mind, the eventual answer will be “yes”, just as talent management systems have become a sub-genre of e-learning.

Right now we are standing at the precipice and we have the ability to take a stand.

My thoughts, “You’ve got another thing coming”.

Talent Management and Learning Management

In just the past year, more smaller and mid size LMS vendors are jumping into the talent management space, by offering various components. These components typically include “performance reviews”, “succession planning”, “360 feedback” and “leadership and development”. Some offer just one component, others offer all.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing? For me, it makes strong business sense, but equally it makes poor business sense.

Despite what you may have read or heard, there are thousands of companies worldwide who do not want any talent management components in their systems. True, they are not visible, unless you purchase them (they are turned off in your system), but just the thought makes these companies cringe.

And, I’m not talking about SMBs, I’m also talking about large and extra large – i.e. 100,000 or more end users.

I recall one sales manager at one of the Big Dogs telling me that people no longer want a learning system, they want that additional channel – i.e. talent management functions. I’m calling them out with one simple word – BOGUS.

It is just another pitch to drive customers using a fear factor, that frankly is getting tiresome.

Fear factors have always been part of learning management space. Fear that if you switch to another system, you will lose all your data – not true.

Fear that if we get purchased by another company, you don’t have to worry – at least one customer of that switch to Taleo, thinks differently.

Fear that having an opt out clause is not necessary – not true. After all, did they notify you before consolidating or getting acquired?

I highly doubt it.

Hocus Pocus

What I constantly see in the industry is the pitch on one hand of a committment to a learning management system, and yet internally the vendor sees their system as a talent management system.

Two examples:

• In 2010, a person at Saba was talking about their system to me. As he was discussing it, I said to him, it seems that you guys really see the system as a talent management system. He said, you are right. In fact, 63% of their clients were using the system as a talent management system, yet on their web site, they were pushing it as a LMS.
• SuccessFactors is now trying to push more into the small business space with their learning management system. Kudos to them. But what is SF known for? Talent management.

To me, this is how vendors skirt the issue.

If you doubt it, use the “wayback machine” on the net and go back to the past year and view some of these web sites. See what their messaging was compared to what it is now. See the changes and ask yourself one question: “Can they be believed?”.

It’s just hocus pocus.

Bottom Line

Learning management systems are not dying. They will never die – so do not hit the panic button.

Talent management components are here to stay, good, bad or indifferent. Many systems will not go that route – whether it is adding one component here or offering various for an additional cost (and again, they are typically in your system, just turned off).

Human Capital management systems have always existed, but they are becoming a sub-genre, the moment “learning” is part of the package.

It is a whole new world for the e-learning space.

A mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Please note: I personally find great benefit in HCMs and the capabilities they provide. This post is how “learning”, which is term I use in e-learning, but in essence is training, is slowly finding its way into HCMs.

Just as ERPs have a place in today’s business world, so does HCMs and TMs. It’s the learning i.e. LMS, that is of a greater concern to me.

E-Learning 24/7

Standalone Quiz/Assessment Tools

I’ve really been watching this space for the past two years, and while there continues to be enough products that fit within this category, I’m on the belief that this space is on the downside.

I love Questionmark, its a wonderful product and it can use a “connector” to integrate into your learning platform or system. Yes, it has a mobile component too. However, times are continuing to change in regards to the overall standalone quiz/assessment tools market.

• Increase in the number of rapid course authoring tools that offer assessment tool capabilities including randomization, quiz banks, numerous question options and can be part of the course to be uploaded as a SCORM package
• Greater increase in the number of learning management systems offering quiz/assessment tools. While this has been happening for quite a few years now, my “greater increase” comes in terms of the analytical data that can be extracted from assessment results. The days of limited output are slowly being phased out. This is not to say that every LMS can do this, nor does it say that what the end user sees is uber-robust, but on the back end the analytical data for many systems can be significant.
• When you toss in ad-hoc reporting and filters for assessment data, it adds another push
• PLUS if you have APIs that offer additional assessment or data functionality and it can be integrated into your system – all the better

The quiz/assessment market is similar to the LMS space in terms of its slowness moving into mobile specifically for tablets. There are tools that have achieved mobile, but the majority are smartphones and one I recall is specifically for the Blackberry.

End Game

Considering the growth of authoring tools, learning platforms, even mobile platforms jumping into the assessment tool space with equal performance, it just seems to be moving down the opposite side of the bell curve.

The same can be said for survey tools. The standalone market for these seems to no longer make sense. Again, you can find them in most learning systems and even some authoring tools. They equally match the survey tools, and for some systems their survey tool is better.

The only real gain for survey tools – specifically polling – is the mobile real time polling option, but even then, it is starting to slide into some learning platforms.

Bottom Line

I do not expect to see the end of days with the standalone assessment market anytime soon. That said, if I was looking to enter the e-learning space, I wouldn’t choose the standalone survey, assessment or combination of the two market.

Online Proctoring – which I differentiate from a standalone typical assessment tool

While it is true that there are vendors who are pure online proctoring solutions, it would seem to me, that having it as part of a learning management or platform is a better route then just a self-contained OP solution.

The keys to success with online proctoring include

• Web cam – ideally one that has an extensive viewing side by side angle
• Security features – a must –
• Electronic signature – for validation purposes
• Enter in their Social Security number and other data for verification – some people are quite leery about entering in their SS# online and it is quite understandable. Even a DL# can be worrisome. Perhaps a few questions asked when they register for the courses. Then at a later point you ask them and they need to respond before taking the test. This might eliminate the “friend” takes the test, since it is unlikely the “friend” would know the answers, especially if there is a waiting period before a test is administered.
• Records IP address – verification purposes
• Viewing on the other side by an employee or proctor from the company (i.e. someone is watching)
• Robust data analytics – which is ideal

If I was a school or college who offers courses online and has their students take tests as part of their courses, an online proctoring system makes sense rather then having the student or employee physically drive somewhere to take the test. I know of people who have had to do this and when they arrive, they sit down to take the test on a computer, with a proctor standing behind them.

I don’t know about you, but why not just have them do it at their place of residence? I mean isn’t one of the benefits of online learning is that you do not have to physically go to the location to take your courses?

On the business side including associations where certification is a requirement, the online proctoring system again offers real value.

What about cheating?

This is the one downside to taking exams online, even if you have a time limit. You never really know who is taking the exam, test or assessment. Equally, you should assume that the student has their notes and book open for the test.

I know of educators who have said that because it is timed, there is no way someone could view their notes, etc. and still complete the test.

I disagree. It is easy to do and if you have enough time to prep, and a big enough table or layout where you are taking your test, very doable.

In the end, no matter what type of security you setup, if someone really wants to cheat even with a 360 web cam that the vendor provides, it can be done. Anyone who says their product is 100% foolproof and can never be hacked is misleading you. Anything can be hacked – just ask the DOD.

Bottom Line

I believe that unlike the standalone true assessment/quiz tools, online proctoring systems will continue to grow, especially with more and more colleges and schools offering 100% of courses and even some degrees online.

Collaborative Learning Systems

As discused in my Linkedin group, over the past several months there has been a huge upswing on the online authoring system market. The challenge though comes in terms of what should they be called. Names such as training management system and elearning collaboration are out there.

Some systems call themselves a learning management system, but what they offer is clearly an online authoring system.

The problem lies that having something called “authoring system” can easily be assigned to the SaaS authoring tools that are continuing to grow in the space. Especially since they are continuing to add features that are not typical in the old days of authoring solutions.

However, one thing is certain, they do not offer the specific set of features that you find in a pure online authoring system.

Thus, to eliminate confusion with this or that term, I analyzed what would be name that can be assigned to these new breed of systems – i.e. online authoring systems. The term that seemed to make the most sense is “Collaborative Learning Systems”.

In order for a CLS to exist the following has to exist within the product

• Primary feature is the built in rapid course authoring tool
• Peer review or collaboration review (more in a sec on my definition on that)
• Cannot upload third party content into the CLS – this removes the LMS angle
• Cannot upload courses/content created by another content authoring tool
• E-mail notification – becoming very common
• Most tend to be proprietary, but I have seen a few that are SCORM/AICC and yes even PENS
• Includes a few reports – and I mean a few – nothing robust here
• Include some very basic analytical data
• After creating the courses they stay within the system, they cannot be outputted into a learning platform or system (standard, but guess what? One system offers the ability to do so – but prefers that people use just their product rather then pushing it via PENS to a LMS or downloading the course in a SCORM wrapper, then uploading it into a SCORM LMS)

These are the standard set of features for an online authoring system. However, just as anything that occurs in the e-learning space, new features are beginning to appear.

They include:

• Offers a note section – i.e. the person creating the courses or SMEs or reviewers can leave notes, comments, recommend changes, often time stamped, date stamped
• Some CLSs have version stamps, i.e. ver. 1, then ver 2 – which can be archived with the notes being retained
• Ability for two authors or more to work on the course simultaneously. How? As long as the folks are not in the same section of the course it can be achieved
• Templates
• Can use PowerPoint

Defining Collaboration

As noted in previous posts, what one person defines as collaboration is not necessarily what someone else defines as it. For online authoring systems, collaboration means two or more people either

• Working on the course – one is online then goes offline and the other author goes online. and so on..again, CLSs are now starting to offer the multiple authors online at the same time, just not in the same section
• Peer Review – multiple SMEs or whomever reviewing the course and leaving notes or comments

It should be noted that for many rapid content authoring tools that are SaaS, collaboration is in fact very similar if not the exact duplicate of CLSs.

A Collaborative Learning System is different then a SaaS rapid course authoring tool

Key differences:

• CLSs have reports and provide some analytical data – RCATs do not
• With 99% of CLSs you can not output your course into any LMS or learning platform, RCATs you can – unless the RCAT is proprietary. As aforementioned one CLS vendor says you can push your course into a LMS, but they recommend/prefer that you use their system, rather than the LMS

Podcast Mania

As many of you may be aware, E-Learning 1 on 1 is a new podcast series from E-Learning 24/7. Each week, I interview a senior executive or CEO from various e-learning companies around the world. The interview is uneditied and the executives are not provided the questions ahead of time.

The podcast is available for download via iTunes, but you can also visit the podcast site directly and either listen on the site or download the mp3 for listening for wherever, including on your mp3 player or tablet.

Past Shows

• 2/24/12 – Tim Martin, foremost expert on SCORM, Partner of Rustici Software
• 2/16/12 – Chris Wingerden, VP of Learning Solutions, dominKnow
• 2/9/12 – Mike Eggermont, Partner of Blatant Media, Absorb and Absorb SmartLab LMS
• 2/1/12- Ara Ohanian, CEO, President and Chief Happiness Officer, CertPoint
• 1/23/12 – Jack McGrath, President of Digitec Interactive, Knowledge Direct
• 1/18/12 – Volkner Zimmerman, Executive Board Member, IMC-AG
• 1/10/12 – Robert Gadd, President and Chief Mobile Officer, OnPoint Digital

The week of March 5th, there will not be a new blog posting. I am relocating to San Francisco, where E-Learning 24/7 will now have its corporate headquarters.

The next blog post will be March 14th.

Finally

There were a lot of inquiries regarding advanced analytics for administrators in a LMS. As a result, it made sense to create one more survey, with one question. The question is about advanced analytics for administrators. The results will be published on this blog at the end of March.

Please take a brief moment and complete the one question advanced analytics survey.

E-Learning 24/7

;

;

;