Freestyle Dispenser

An interesting example is Coke’s new Freestyle drink dispenser. Capable of dispensing over 100 varieties of drinks, the new dispersers are rolling out this summer in select states. Aside from the sheer amount of choice to consumer has, the interesting element for me is the tremendous amount of data that Coke gets in the bargain. Using RFID technology, information on volume and type of purchases is sent to Coke for analysis.

An InformationWeek article provides more detail on Coke’s strategy:

Test marketing via Freestyle will be a lot cheaper than the model Coke’s been using: bottling and bringing to market new products that sometimes don’t gain traction and get canceled after a year or two. “This is a huge jump from our current fountain dispensers,” says Christopher Dennis, Coke’s IT director of e-business transformation. “It’s like going from the dial phone to the BlackBerry.”

And this summary of hoped-for benefits of Freestyle:

• RFID-tagged flavor cartridges let Coke track inventory and distribute beverage formulas over a wireless network
• Data on drinks served is uploaded daily to Coke’s headquarters
• Consumption data helps Coke and fast-food outlets decide what to serve and promote, and when and where to launch new products

• Operational data identifies dispensers with problems

Clearly the potential payoff for Coke and its vendors and customers is great. This leap forward in business intelligence could have great implications for performance technology. Stay tuned.

• Content is accessible by everyone on an unprecedented scale
• Everyone can publish content
• It has become typical for online content to be updated frequently
• A major challenge for users is processing the vast amount of content and assessing its validity

These trends hold true generally, but are particularly apparent in workplace learning. As we move from a curriculum driven training model to a knowledge on demand model, we put more responsibility on learners to get what they need. No longer can they safely rely on a “training program” to tell them what they must know.

So how can learning professionals bridge the gap? One way is by helping users organize and navigate through the maze of technology and available content available to them in the workplace. Communities of practice have long been a way for users with common goals and needs to share and support each other. Advances in technology only intensity both the need and the benefit that can be derived from these communities.

Like a garden, however, these communities will not tend themselves. They need a gardener. As Jay Cross suggests in his column in the June 2009 issue of CLO magazine, the term steward is quite appropriate. Cross in turn cites this term from the forthcoming book Digital Habitats, Stewarding Technology for Communities by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White, and John Smith. As Cross says: “Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs.”

Who would do well in such a role? Well, in the context of learning and performance, clearly alearning professional (e.g., trainer or instructional designer) well versed in technology and the content domain is a logical choice. Again quoting Cross: “They understand how adults learn and how to transform information into learning. It’s important for corporations to benefit from their learning people, not give them pink slips.”

In the face of changing approaches to improving performance, providing our training professionals with new opportunities to contribute is good news indeed.

I am doing pre-work for a workshop about understanding and improving the way we do business. As part of that pre-work, I have been viewing a number of presentations on YouTube dealing with various aspects of business: Operations, Supply Chain, Quality Assurance, etc. Many of these presentations are a far cry from the home grown production quality one often sees. Want to watch Michael E. Porter discuss the five competitive forces that shape strategy? Need a quick refresher on SWOT Analysis? These and other gems are there on YouTube, waiting to be mined. The only thing missing is a structured approach to accessing them. That is where we come in.

In their article, The Real Reasons We Don’t Evaluate, Jack and Patti Phillips suggest that indeed we ought to evaluate training ROI, but often don’t for a number of reasons. In particular, they suggest that we often don’t evaluate because we are afraid of the results we might get, that we are waiting for direction to evaluate from senior management, or that sufficient investment simply is not made in the evaluation process.

Deanna Hartley, in her article CBA or ROI? That is the Question, offers additional insight into the distinction between CBA and ROI analysis. She suggests what may be a middle ground on the question of analysis; agreeing with business partners up front on what metrics will be used and on the level of evaluation that will take place. Above all Hartley suggests not trying to put too fine a point on the evaluation results. She says, “The ideal solution would be to conduct three estimates: an aggressive one, a conservative one and the learning professional’s best guess.”

So what are we to make of this whole ROI/CBA business? In my view, the most important factor that determines the value of training is alignment with business objectives. If the training function works in partnership with senior management to understand and hopefully even help shape business objectives, then training solutions implemented to achieve those objectives will generally provide a higher ROI—no analysis needed. With clear business objectives in view, solid front-end analysis will help ensure a good result.

If in fact we determine to go into ROI analysis mode, then I think we need to focus at the macro level, at least at first, to determine whether we are getting the returns we seek. As for the metrics we use, I think a study of Gilbert can be of great value here as they can be useful inputs to the financial models used in business.

Finally, those of us in the business of performance improvement can benefit from going back to school to learn something about how business executives think about business. Perhaps then we can successfully integrate our training metrics with business metrics to truly determine training’s value to the business.

I think we sometimes overestimate our own importance and forget how relatively small a company’s investment is in training its employees. As Carliner points out, an ASTD study shows that organization spend between 1 and 3 percent of payroll expenses on training. He goes on to say:

In contrast, organization spend as much as 20 percent of expenses on marketing. If an organization needs to cut expenses, cutting out all training would have less impact than cutting marketing by 10 percent.

Because of the important, but relatively small impact on the organization’s resources, spending additional resources analyzing the impact training, particularly at the course level, simply isn’t high on executives’ to-do lists. Carliner points out that senior managers rely much more on word of mouth to form their perceptions about how training is working than on ROI analytics or even course evaluations.

Carliner suggests that perhaps we ought to take this information to heart and stop spending precious resources on analyzing ROI. Instead, he says, we should consider focusing more on managing perception of the training effort. I agree, and think one way to do this is to focus on designing and developing training that actually relates to business needs and is well designed. This of course, involves knowing being close your core business by being close to those who are shaping. This too, can help favorably shape the perception of your training function.

You can read Carliner’s article here.

From the standpoint of collaboration, a primary interest of mine, Wave has obliterated the old models for collaborative software. Within the Wave platform, workgroups will be able to share and edit messages, documents, pictures, video, and any other file within a single user interface. A particular collaborative stream is saved as a wave (you can have as many waves as you want) and can be thought of as a workflow. Users can appear at various points in the wave timeline as appropriate and come up to speed on work to date by using a playback features to view the history of the workflow.

From a performance support standpoint, I was especially intrigued the the example shown of a Wave applet that allows users to play chess. In the demo a well known chess game was played. The instructive point here is that the replay function would allow other users to review the game and contemplate the strategy involved in each move. Imagine the possibility that screencasts and other types of user knowledge could offer as a performance support tool when embedded in a system like Wave.

As with any breakthrough invention, new ways of thinking and working will evolve that have not yet even been thought of. When Wave becomes available later this year, I look forward to seeing how the collaborative possibilities play out.

For instance, I wanted to know something about the F# Minor scale in music, so I entered f# minor in the search box. What I got for my effort was this. Additional suggestions for search are offered and can be pasted into the search box to lead you in new directions.

In another instance, I wanted to know the current sunset time in San Diego, so I entered San Diego sunset. WA inferred that I was interested in today’s sunset and offered me that information. As it also knows my current geographic location (Moscow ID) by my IP address, it also offered me the sunset information for Moscow, as well as the differences in length of day for the two locations.

So what does this all mean for human performance? Clearly, we have the beginnings of a robust information retrieval and knowledge management tool that can goes way beyond the typical search engine. WA is still in its infancy and is limited in some areas, but the promise of a new paradigm for gaining knowledge and supporting performance is exciting.

The site offers a short video tour, I highly recommend a look to get an idea of how WA works. If you like it, you can also download a widget for typing your search right from the desktop.

As group collaboration evolves, Yammer and similar applications offer one more interesting piece of the puzzle that is effective collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Unlike instant messaging, a key benefit to workgroups of a microblogging service like Twitter is that each member of the group can monitor the stream of conversation without feeling compelled to respond to every post. Sometimes just being aware of the flow of conversation can be a great benefit. When the group is not in the same office—a common situation these days—Twitter adds a sense of presence and cohesion among group members. From a manager’s perspective, the number and nature of tweets can provide insight into each member’s personality, work habits, and capabilities.

Setting up a Twitter group  is easily accomplished simply by setting up a Twitter account specifically for the group and setting the privacy options to restrict access to only the members of the group. The details of how to use Twitter for workgroups is handled nicely by Joel Comm in his book Twitter Power.

There are three points of application that I found compelling because I think they have not been a typical use of portfolios. The first is to help set standards for professional development in the learning organization. The second is as an aid to assessment, both personal and through peer review. The third is as part of a knowledge management system to the benefit of others on the team.

You can read more of Willams’ article here.