“…champions are the ones ‘who bring forward the local initiatives and keep things moving’, and as various studies indicate champions play a crucial role in implementation: (Schon (1963: 84), ‘the new idea either finds a champion or dies’.”

Learning & development resources are often limited, both in terms of numbers and budget, so it makes sense to use the most powerful tool (your employees) as learning champions when rolling out new learning programmes and initiatives.

Learning Champions are individuals that make up a network of ‘influencers’ and early adopters within an organisation. They are passionate enough about their subject to engage external, as well as internal, stakeholders.

Finding the right champions to spread your message is key and so recruitment and selection is all important. New recruits can be found amongst:
• Senior employees
• Learning & development team members
• Employees engaged in supporting learning
• Volunteers (i.e. advocates who are recruited internally)
• External supporters or agencies

It’s a win-win situation that benefits the individual as well as their organisation. These benefits could include gaining a recognised qualification; developing new skills; meeting new people; improving career prospects and becoming a recognised ‘voice’ on learning. The major advantage of a champions’ network is that they can all learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Engage for success

In order to engage your team of champions you need to provide training and support. For example, creating an online community and/or toolkit tailored to the needs of existing and potential champions can be extremely useful – both as a central resource and as a networking tool.

Firstly, organise a meeting to bring all your champions together and explain the issues that you want the network to address. Pack this first session with team-building games to bond the group – you can give them some quick wins through developing skills they can use day-to-day, (e.g. brainstorming techniques). Encourage their opinions, get your new team to identify potential obstacles and then ask them to devise solutions to these issues. Ideally, they’ll gradually talk themselves into taking responsibility for implementing the actions they’ve outlined. Brainstorm all the ideas they’ve come up with until you have a plan that holds water; then arrange for the team to present this strategy to senior management. The more they give of themselves, the more committed they’ll become. Soon you’ll have a solid network permeating your organisation.

As a guide, this is a 4-step approach to setting up a Champions Network:

Step 1. Get Buy-in: don’t be afraid to give it a go
Step 2. Recruit: seek out your champions
Step 3. Engage: educate your champions
Step 4. Sustain: give it time…for the network to grow

…Can you afford not to engage learning champions – whether for spreading good practice or developing innovative resources and practices that support new approaches to learning?

The advent of ‘Rapid’ tools and methodologies has called in to question the traditional model of e-learning content production, but this event goes further in examining the case for a root and branch re-examination of how e-learning content developers work with their clients in producing bespoke (or custom) online learning – with a specific focus on process innovation, featuring presentations from Pauline Reeb E-learning Manager of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and Tara Scanlan Learning & Development Project Manager from Ashurst.

Venue for the event will be the Wren Room in Royal Institute of British Architect’s (RIBA) stylish Portland Road Headquarters. Take-up for the event has been enthusiastic with over 50 learning and development professionals from the public and private sector.

Andrea Miles, Managing Director of Edvantage Group, UK said: ‘The interest in this event has been huge, so it’s clearly touched a nerve. I talk to so many clients who have frustrations with the standard production process for e-learning, but feel that Rapid isn’t the whole answer – certainly not for hi-end e-learning, which they still need to do.’

Please note that this event is aimed at practitioners in Learning & Development departments. The majority of delegate places were booked up straight away through early announcements to Edvantage Group, UK’s (formally Futuremedia Learning’s) own learning community; however a limited number of delegate places are still available.
Email Lucy Perry at lucy.perry@edvantagegroup.com to apply for registration at the event.

Event details
New Models for E-Learning Content, Friday 10 October 2008
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), London W1B 1AD
Free coffee-time briefing, 10am – 12 noon
Details and registration can be found at www.futuremedia.co.uk/learning.

About Edvantage Group
Edvantage group is a Managed Learning Service company providing a single-source for corporate e-learning solutions. The company combines industry expertise, learning systems and software, content and customised services to help clients develop employee skills and improve performance. Edvantage group serves local, multinational and global organisations from offices throughout the Nordic countries, Benelux and the UK. For more information, please visit www.edvantagegroup.com.

Contact:
Edvantage Group UK
Lucy Perry
+44 (0) 1273 829 700

Futuremedia Learning is joining the Edvantage Group. Edvantage is one of the largest e-learning companies in Europe, and also one of the fastest growing. As far as our clients are concerned, we might look a little different – new name, new corporate colour (out go the pink dots, in comes the orange) - but they’ll still get the same team, the same quality of learning and the same great level of service. In addition they’ll have access to more resources in the UK and Europe and a wider range of options to offer them as their use of e-learning evolves. You can read the official announcement here.

I know some cynical old lags in the Brighton e-learning community might say we ran up this news story just to distract attention from our fairly lamentable performance in the Great E-learning Rounders Tournament recently (see photos here) – but we think it’s a fairly significant development, not only for us, but for e-learning in the UK and in the rest of Europe.

Watch this space!

George O’Leary CEO of Futuremedia PLC stated, “The time is now for globalization of the e-learning industry. Partners covering the UK, Europe and North America will have the best opportunities for growth in this world economy.” He went on to say, “Edvantage has a proven track record of product innovation and financial performance. We are excited about taking an ownership in this established and expanding company. This is a perfect fit for both companies and it best positions Futuremedia Learning in the marketplace going forward. It will allow for both companies to expand the services and products they can offer to potential clients and partners and therefore significantly increase their coverage in the UK.”

As for the Button Group (Futuremedia’s core business subsidiary), we look forward to focusing 100% of our efforts on executing our business plan. In fact, the acquisition of the FM Learning division by Edvantage Group will make the strategic objectives outlined for the Button Group all the more attainable. During the second quarter, look for us to re-brand the company with a new name that signifies a total break from the past and a focus on the business opportunities for the future.”

“I am excited about bringing together the two companies,” says Thomas Berglund, CEO of Edvantage group. “Futuremedia Learning is known for their skill and expertise, particularly in the area of developing e-learning programs customized to specific learning needs. Combined with the skills of Edvantage group’s existing team and our range of products and services, we will have more resources and a stronger presence to serve UK customers and international organizations.”

Andrea Miles, Managing Director, Futuremedia Learning has been named Managing Director, Edvantage group UK. “Futuremedia Learning and Edvantage group share a common passion, culture and focus on delivering high value e-learning solutions. We complement each other very well and joining the two companies will benefit everyone involved,” concludes Miles.

Investors are invited to visit the Futuremedia IR Hub at http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia where they can post questions and receive answers or review questions and answers already posted by other investors. Alternatively, investors are able to e-mail all questions and correspondence to FMDAY@agoracom.com where they can also request to be added to the investor e-mail list to receive all future press releases and updates in real time.

About Edvantage Group
Edvantage group, with offices in Oslo, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm is a solution partner for large organisations, supporting them with a broad set of services to help e-learning become a success within their organisation. Edvantage group, a one-stop shop for e-learning content, delivers a guaranteed service level through their patented Learning Gateway. The group also helps customers set up virtual communities related to existing development programs, changing executive development from event-based training to a richer form of continuous development. For more information, visit www.edvantagegroup.com

About Futuremedia
Futuremedia plc is a global media company providing exhibition and event services to public and private sector organizations. The Button Group has been providing design, exhibition and event services in Cannes, France and elsewhere around the world for more than 30 years. It maintains offices in Cannes, France, London, and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.futuremedia.co.uk.

CONTACT: AGORACOM Investor Relations
FMDAY@agoracom.com
http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia

Even the most ardent exponents of Rapid E-learning say that it only works in certain circumstances. Well I’ve been thinking a lot recently about exactly what those circumstances are, and it seems to me that there are four basic sets of circumstances in which it can successfully be used:

1. Where the preliminary design work has already been done. To produce learning in a rapid development tool, the content must already have been structured, with all the relevant learning points covered. This means that the high-level design stage/treatment/content definition phase which usually precedes the script phase already needs to have been completed. Typically this phase might include learning needs analysis, and a consultation period where Subject Matter Expert materials are gathered, language and style agreed and a learning treatment applied. It helps the look of the budget, of course, if all this is done by the client!

2. Where the learning objectives are simple. Of course, the burden of all this preliminary work is less taxing if the cognitive task we are taking on is a simple one. To be honest, quite a bit of the work we do in e-learning is hardly learning at all, but ‘comms’. Where all we need to produce as an end result are knowledge and comprehension, the instructional designer frankly does not have to work that hard. As the instructional objectives become more complex, however, the complexity – and also the cost – of development begins to rise. Where to knowledge and comprehension we also have to add evaluation and synthesis, inevitably the time and expertise required start mounting. Often this is where Rapid E-learning throws in the towel and starts looking around for a tag partner…

3. Where e-learning is part of a blended solution. If you can get your face-to-face trainers to do the evaluation and synthesis bit (the more complex tasks, cognitively speaking) then Rapid e-learning can be left to handle the simple stuff as part of a blended solution.

4. Where the need to get content out within a matter of days and deploying alternative solutions externally is too onerous. In the case of product updates within fast-moving retail markets, for instance - where you need to confirm features and benefits and release content to support model changes - Rapid has a clear application. However, increasingly there alternative ways of doing this: through Futuremedia Learning’s new widget based learning solution, for instance.

…All of which leads me to think that there is a nettle not being grasped here. And confirms my suspicion that there is too much focus on the production ‘back end’ in the debate over Rapid currently, and almost none on the design process. Meanwhile, is there any application of ‘Lean’ principles to the front end of the process – the design part - going on?

Well actually there is. Learning consultant Patrick Dunn has been doing quite a bit. We’ve been working with him to develop a new wireframe prototyping methodology… But that’s about as much as I can say without our marketing people jumping on my head. You’ll have to attend our October event to hear the full story!

However it isn’t a tender for a new corporate learning programme they will be contesting, but a rounders match. Close business competitors during the week, the four companies, Futuremedia Learning, Kineo, Brightwave and Capita Learning & Development, will be putting their differences aside in aid of raising funds for Chestnut Tree House, a children’s hospice in Sussex, as part of Children’s Hospice Week which runs from the 21 - 28 September, 2008.

The fundraising event, suggested by Andrea Miles, Managing Director of Futuremedia Learning, will run from 12.30pm – 5pm on Sunday September 21st at Hove Park, Hove, with the first game starting at 1.00pm.

Andrea commented, ‘E-learning is a very competitive industry, and many of the companies we compete against are based in Brighton - but actually we all know each other and we get on really well away from the cut and thrust of business. I thought this was a great opportunity to do something fun together in a good cause. I was incredibly impressed when I saw the work Chestnut Tree House is doing with children. As a mother of three, I know the thought of one of your kids getting seriously ill is every parent’s nightmare, but it’s really reassuring to know that if something does happen, there are places like Chestnut Tree there to help.’

About Futuremedia
Award-winning Futuremedia Learning is the partner of choice for creating and delivering exceptional learning and communication experiences. We specialise in the design, development and implementation of e-learning and blended learning programmes and have been producing learning solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of our clients for over 25 years.

About Brightwave
Brightwave is a specialist in integrating communications, learning and performance in the workplace. All our projects leverage technology to deliver efficient and effective training and ongoing support. Whether your needs are induction, compliance/regulatory, IT systems, management/sales skills or product/process knowledge, Brightwave has the skills and experience to help you. We work with a broad range of clients from a wide variety of industries. Our clients include BT, Bupa, Cable&Wireless, IKEA, T-Mobile, AIB, Swiss Re, The Royal Bank of Scotland, British Red Cross, First Choice and Sky, as well as public sector organisations such as the Healthcare Commission, City of Edinburgh Council, and West Sussex County Council.

About Kineo
Kineo is a leading rapid e-learning and consultancy company.
We bring fresh thinking to e-learning, because we believe it can be done faster, better and more effectively. We’ve partnered with Google, BP, Cable&Wireless, VirginMedia, HSBC, Reuters and M&S to take a fresh approach to e-learning. We build long term relationships by earning our clients’ trust. We do this through our consistently high standards of service, our professional conduct, responsiveness and our complete commitment. With collective experience on over 300 e-learning solutions, we’ve got the most talented design and development team in the business. We have innovated to develop a rapid e-learning approach that enables us to deliver business benefits faster and more cost-effectively for our clients, whether short rapid e-learning projects or a large custom e-learning project. We’re passionate about sharing our new ideas for e-learning. Our website features over 100 articles, 25 reports and white papers which are available free to visitors.

About Capita Learning & Development
Capita Learning & Development is a leading workforce training and development organisation, offering a broad range of training courses in the UK. Capita Learning & Development provides training for around 40,000 individuals across four sites around the UK. A strategic partner to its clients, Capita Learning & Development offers any level of service from a single training course up to a complete outsourced training solution. As part of its services, the company offers tailored in-house training courses, external training programmes and an extensive programme of topical conferences and learning resources.

About Chestnut Tree House

Chestnut Tree House is the only children’s hospice in Sussex and cares for children and young adults from 0-19 years of age with progressive life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses from all over the county.

Completed in 2003, the hospice provides a ‘home from home’ environment with 10 children’s bedrooms plus 8 family rooms, a wet and dry play area, computer and music rooms, a multi sensory room and hydrotherapy pool. The house is set in beautiful gardens within an area of outstanding natural beauty.

There are potentially 400 families with life-limited children in Sussex. Chestnut Tree House offers support for the whole family including psychological support, care in bereavement therapy, end of life and respite care and sibling support.

The hospice costs approximately £2 million per year to run. Families are not charged for their care and the hospice receives no government funding at all, so it relies completely on the generosity, help and support of the people of Sussex.

Contact:

Futuremedia Learning
Lucy Perry
+44 (0) 1273 829 833

Chestnut Tree House
Janet Parsons
+44 (0) 1903 524 106

One relatively quick and cheap technique we’ve used successfully in the past, borrowed from the world of marketing, is postcode profiling. Numerous suppliers offer such a service, and some make it available online. Matching a file of your learners’ postcodes against Acorn data pulls up information submitted in lifestyle surveys. This can tell you, for instance, which papers they read, where they shop, which charities they support, which financial products they hold and how many children they have, building a complete and well-rounded picture of their tastes and aspirations.

According to a Daily Telegraph article printed earlier this year, Professor Roger Burrows said that he had tested the accuracy of postcode profiling and found it ‘frighteningly accurate’.

There are no data protection issues because all you need to pull from your employee database are the postcodes, and the information returned is not specific to any individual.

Armed with his knowledge you can build a profile of your learner that will help you design a learning programme that is bang on for that elusive quality ‘cultural fit’.

Produced on behalf of the Waste Facilities Audit Association (WFAA) the 40-minute learning programme is for companies of all sizes from SME’s to large global corporations. Subject matter expertise for the course was provided by URS, one of the world’s leading firms of environmental consultants. Other stakeholder companies involved in review stages of the course were GE, BP, Johnson & Johnson, Federal Mogul and Pfizer. The programme comes against a background of toughening regulation in this area with a number of new pieces of legislation impacting directly on the practice of waste management (for a summary of relevant legislation see: http://www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/legislation).

David Denley, Secretary, WFAA stated: “This is an excellent package that our members and others can benefit greatly from, and the customization service provided by Futuremedia Learning in tailoring it to the needs of particular organisations will extend its usefulness to a much wider audience. We have been impressed as always by the creativity and partnership approach taken by Futuremedia Learning in helping to address this vital challenge to industry’

Andrea Miles, Managing Director of Futuremedia Learning commented: ‘We’re delighted to be involved in furthering knowledge and good practice in this vital area. Corporate Social Responsibility is one of our core values as a company, and the environmental aspect of that is especially dear to our hearts: aside from its other benefits in providing better access to learning, e-learning is also a more energy-efficient way to deliver training, reducing everybody’s carbon footprint.’

Susan Wain, Associate Director at URS says: “With the increased focus on waste legislation in recent years, we are seeing a high level of demand for training in this area. This package is an excellent example of an interactive and accessible tool to help staff increase their awareness of the relevant issues.”

Investors are invited to visit the Futuremedia IR Hub at http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia where they can post questions and receive answers or review questions and answers already posted by other investors. Alternatively, investors are able to e-mail all questions and correspondence to FMDAY@agoracom.com where they can also request to be added to the investor e-mail list to receive all future press releases and updates in real time.

About Waste Facilities Audit Association (WFAA) (http://www.wfaa.org.uk)
The WFAA is a non-profit making unincorporated association of waste producing companies.
The aim of the WFAA is to assist members through:
• Obtaining authoritative information on UK & mainland Europe waste management facilities by commissioning independent audits.
• The provision of links to information on UK waste site permits from the Environment Agency.
• Sharing waste management best practice and ongoing dialogue with the waste industry key stakeholders.

About URS (www.urscorp.eu)
URS Corporation Ltd (URS (NYSE: URS) supplies multidisciplinary environmental and engineering services that improve both the built and natural environment. URS operates globally across all sectors, both public and private. Our client groups include: multinationals; major corporates; government bodies; financial institutions; major developers; manufacturers; constructors; and other associated professionals.

About Futuremedia
Futuremedia plc (OTCBB: FMDAY) is a global media company providing online learning, design, exhibition and event services to public and private sector organizations. Established in 1982, Futuremedia helps its clients to communicate their values, product and brand information to employees, customers and industry, and believes that learning is a key component in the communication mix. Futuremedia divisions are Futuremedia Learning and Button Group. Button has been providing design, exhibition and event services around the world for more than 30 years.

CONTACT:
AGORACOM Investor Relations
FMDAY@agoracom.com
http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia

Futuremedia Learning
Lucy Perry
+44 (0)1273 829 700

The categories for which it has been successfully selected are:

• Most Innovative Application of Learning Technology – a joint submission with long-standing client Bupa for the innovative Performance Zone widget-based learning portal.

• E-learning Development Company of the Year – a new award introduced for the first time this year

Andrea Miles, Managing Director of Futuremedia Learning, commented, ‘I am absolutely delighted that our hard work with clients in the last year has been recognised by the E-learning Awards. Our Most Innovative Application of Learning Technology shortlisting for Performance Zone shows that we with continue to live up to our name by bringing the best of new web technologies to clients in helping develop their people. It is also hugely gratifying to be nominated as E-learning Development Company of the Year, and I would like to thank all of my team, as well as our fabulous clients for the efforts and teamwork which have led to this endorsement by the industry of our continuing success.’

Investors are invited to visit the Futuremedia IR Hub at http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia where they can post questions and receive answers or review questions and answers already posted by other investors. Alternatively, investors are able to e-mail all questions and correspondence to FMDAY@agoracom.com where they can also request to be added to the investor e-mail list to receive all future press releases and updates in real time.

About Futuremedia
Futuremedia plc (OTCBB: FMDAY) is a global media company providing online learning, design, exhibition and event services to public and private sector organizations. Established in 1982, Futuremedia helps its clients to communicate their values, product and brand information to employees, customers and industry, and believes that learning is a key component in the communication mix. Futuremedia divisions are Futuremedia Learning and Button Group. Button has been providing design, exhibition and event services around the world for more than 30 years. For more information, visit www.futuremedia.co.uk.

CONTACT:
AGORACOM Investor Relations
FMDAY@agoracom.com
http://www.agoracom.com/IR/Futuremedia
Futuremedia Learning
Lucy Perry
+44 (0) 1273 829 700

I’m talking about the way custom (or bespoke) e-learning content gets designed and made: the production process… Oh dear, I used the ‘P’ word – but before you snooze off entirely, just give me a minute or two of your attention, because I feel strongly that process is one of the most critical issues currently facing our industry.

Fundamentally, content developers are still locked into a software production model which it got ‘off the shelf’, which was never designed with learning in mind, and which, like many things you buy off the shelf, has failed to meet changing needs.

The debate around Rapid has addressed one of the major problems clients have with this document-heavy, paint-by-numbers process – that it is unwieldy and slow. But that isn’t the whole story. Another common complaint is that the process becomes too much of a black box.

In essence, the supplier takes the brief and goes away, coming back months later with an almost finished product for the client to sign off – at which point the client has very little scope for making changes without incurring high costs for rework that inevitably put the budget (not to mention the client/supplier relationship) under threat.

We have to face the fact that e-learning design is a collaborative effort, and start redrawing our processes around making that creative partnership work. We have to put the client back on the critical path.

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been working hard on this problem with my colleagues at Futuremedia Learning and introducing the innovations with clients – who have been highly appreciative. We’ve been busy re-engineering not only the production process but our entire company around customer touch-points. We call the new approach TOUCH, and we think it’s the future. I’ll be talking some more about TOUCH in the months to come.