In my last post, we looked at the average cost of learning management systems in 2009. This pricing data is based on the 92 commercial systems included in our online LMS KnowledgeBase 2009: In-Depth Profiles of 90+ Learning Management Systems, with Custom Comparison Across 200+ Features.

It’s wrong to assume that the average pricing listed in my last post is representative of what most LMS vendors charge. LMS pricing is all over the map. For larger implementations, the range between a very low-cost solution and an expensive one can be nearly $15 million.

The charts below provide price range information for the 92 systems covered in our research.

Locally installed, behind-the-firewall, 1-year license:

Locally installed, behind-the-firewall, 3-year cumulative license:

Hosted (SaaS), 1-year license:

Hosted, 3-year cumulative license:

And lastly, here’s additional average pricing information. The two tables below include average pricing for one- and three-year implementations as well as the cost per user per year.

Average pricing, locally installed, behind-the-firewall:

Average pricing, hosted (SaaS) by vendor or vendor partner:

Note: Three-year pricing includes license, maintenance fees, and hosting fees for all three years – including the pricing from year 1 (cumulative).

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We’ll be releasing the 2009 edition of our annual Low-Cost Learning Management Systems report in a couple of weeks. I’m working in the LMS KnowledgeBase today to identify the systems that will be included in this research.

Requirements to be featured in this report are as follows:

1. The vendor must have submitted three-year, cumulative pricing for four sizes of implementations:

• Small (500 registered users)
• Medium (10,000 registered users)
• Large (25,000 registered users)
• Very large (100,000 registered users)

Pricing submitted could be for either hosted (Saas) implementations, installed implementations, or both.

2. The pricing must fall below average in all four implementations sizes. Being lower priced for only some implementations does not qualify a system to be included in this research.

Based on the 92 systems we cover, here’s the average pricing for learning management systems this year:

HOSTED (Saas) IMPLEMENTATIONS:

• 500 users: $68,977
• 10,000 users: $314,444
• 25,000 users: $568,201
• 100,000 users: $1,288,054

INSTALLED IMPLEMENTATIONS:

• 500 users: $48,231
• 10,000 users: $260,569
• 25,000 users: $486,076
• 100,000 users: $1,204,942

Out of 92 systems featured in our research, 34 qualify to be included in the 2009 edition of the Low-Cost Learning Management Systems report.

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Some people believe the world is changing so quickly that what is being taught in schools will be obsolete by the time the student enters the workforce. Some skills, however,  are fundamental and will always be required regardless of technological and industry changes. This is the first in a series of posts about the critical skills people need to succeed at work today and in the future.

In my first year in graduate school, a class in which I was enrolled required that we write and submit an essay each week. Whereas some of my fellow students hated that the class mark would be based exclusively on essays—some students preferred exams, class presentations, paper maché volcanoes, whatever—I was happy with this format. Writing came easily to me.

I submitted my first essay in the second class. In the third class, I received my corrected assignment. The professor had marked the essay a “C” and had added a small note: “You have serious problems with your writing. Please see me after class.” I was shocked and angry. I had written dozens of essays during my undergraduate years and had never received a negative comment about my writing. I went to see the professor, a man I had already classified mentally to be a total jerk.

The professor provided the following feedback:

• Rather than writing to communicate clearly, I was writing to sound smart.
• Sentences needed to be reread to understand their meaning, which made reading my work tedious.
• The content was poorly organized.

If there was any comfort in this meeting, it was that the professor mentioned I wasn’t the only student in his seminar with poor writing. Schadenfreude dulled the pain.

At the start of the next class, the professor announced that he would be marking the weekly essays as follows:

• Fifty percent would be awarded for the content
• Fifty percent would be awarded for the quality of the writing

And so began, in my sixth year of university, after two years of junior college, four years of high school, and seven years of elementary school, my education in the craft of writing. Each week, I’d receive my corrected essay. Annotations in red containing comments such as “What is the meaning of the word  ”it” in this sentence?” and “Run on sentence!” were everywhere.

Week by week, my writing improved, as did my opinion of this professor. He shed his label of being a total jerk, cruised through being seen as a compulsive nitpicker, was  transformed from being an obsessive traditionalist, and was on his way to being a professor with the potential to provide significant educational value. Now, more than 20 years later, I view this professor as the most important teacher I have ever had.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Michael Ondaatje. I’ll occasionally read an article in the New Yorker or other magazine that humbles me, writing that is so elegant and well-crafted that it’s a five-star meal in words. When I read something this well written, I realize learning to write well is a lifelong endeavor.

WHY WRITING WELL MATTERS

I think of this professor every time I read something poorly written. Sadly, that’s often. The quality of much of what I read in business and in the learning profession could be improved. So, my vote for the number one, most important skill required to succeed in the workplace is the ability to write well. Here’s why:

• You may be great at your job, but, if you don’t write well, the poor writing will eclipse the perception of the great work you do.
• Key decision makers are too busy to reread material to attempt to decipher the meaning.
• Poorly written communication will be ignored.
• A well-crafted piece will catch the eye of a superior, who is likely to interpret your excellent writing skills as a sign of your leadership potential.

POSTSCRIPT

The professor in this post is William Caplin, the James McGill Professor of Music Theory at McGill University. Professor Caplin, I’m ashamed that decades have gone by and I’ve never expressed my gratitude. Please accept my sincere thanks for your time and dedication. (And, if you choose to correct this post, please be easy on me.)

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Leadership development continues to be a top priority in many organizations. Looking ahead at a possible shortage of workers when (or if ever) the Baby Boomers retire, organizations see a potential leadership gap.

Developing leaders seems clear cut—until you dig into the nebulous world of defining leadership. In a leadership development initiative, what exactly are you trying to do?

• Create good managers?
• Develop strategic skills?
• Develop mental toughness?
• Help individuals become more analytical?
• Help individuals become better public speakers?
• Provide individuals with information on the inner workings of the organization?

Ronald A. Heifetz, author of Leadership Without Easy Answers, examines four theories of leadership:

1. The trait theory of leadership

If you think great leaders are smart, calm, decisive, strong, great orators, etc., then you subscribe to the trait theory of leadership. The problem with this theory is that it’s very easy to find examples of successful leaders who lack just about any leadership trait you might identify. As Mr. Heifetz states, “empirical studies [in the 1950s] had begun to show that no single constellation of traits was associated with leadership.”

2. The situational theory of leadership

Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush’s approval rating skyrocketed from about 50 percent to almost 90 percent. In one historic, terrible day, he was transformed, in the eyes of his fellow Americans, into a strong and decisive leader. At the end of his second term, his approval rating had fallen to about 27 percent.

President Bush’s status as a leader was situational, depending on the events of that fateful day in September of 2001. At the helm when the attacks took place, he was transformed into a strong leader.

3. The contingency theory of leadership

Contingency theory states that different situations need different types of leadership. What may work in one situation may not work elsewhere. Jack Welch may have been a great leader at GE, but would he have had the same success at Google? No idea, but it would likely have made great reality TV.

4. The transactional theory of leadership

The transactional theory of leadership departs from the other models in focusing not exclusively on individual leaders but, rather, on the relationship between leaders and followers. Leaders gain the respect of followers through reciprocity. In the 1950s in my own province of Quebec, Premier Maurice Duplessis mastered the transactional approach to leadership by buying refrigerators for residents in certain political ridings in exchange for votes.

These four theories of leadership can provide insight into our evaluation of leaders. Do we believe a leader is effective because he or she is compassionate (trait theory)? Or is it because he or she has inherited the throne (situational theory)? Or is it because the leader is such a perfect fit for our organizational culture (contingency theory)? Or is it because the leader treated us all to a beer at the corner pub after work (transactional theory)?

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I’ve been thinking and reading about leadership these last few months. As a timely coincidence, a friend this week suggested I read “Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box” by The Arbinger Institute.

Here’s a quick summary:

The premise of this book is that we often exist in a state of self-deception where we over inflate our own virtues and diminish the virtues of others. In this state—described in this book as being “in the box”—we view ourselves as superior, better leaders, better workers, better spouses, better friends, etc.

When in the box, we’re prone to blaming others and fail to see how we sabotage relationships and workplace results to justify our own need to feel superior. Also, while in this self-deceived state, we often don’t see people as people. Instead, we use mental shortcuts to categorize them. At work, we may think of co-workers as lazy, selfish, lacking business sense, unmotivated, disengaged, etc. Conversely, we view ourselves as hardworking, dedicated, productive, smart, fair, etc. If only this company had more people like me, we think, we’d be in great shape.

This book suggests that we enter this state of self-deception at work by failing to honor a commitment to achieving results. We unconsciously sabotage results to support our inflated view of ourselves. To get out of the box requires a selflessness and a focus on honoring the needs of others.

End of summary.

From a leadership development perspective, this book suggests we need to create selfless leaders who are focused on results and supporting the needs of co-workers. Individuals with big egos, often the type of people who are selected for leadership roles, may sabotage results to support their inflated views of themselves.

Postscript: The Steve Jobs Conundrum

There comes a point in every book I’m reading about leadership where I think “but what about Steve Jobs?” Wired magazine wrote an expose about how Steve Jobs can be, at times, the boss from hell. He’s been known to make Apple employees cry. (I commented on this in a past post.) And yet, as supreme leader of Apple, Steve Jobs’ value to the company is estimated to be in the billions of dollars. If Mr. Jobs were to leave the company, you can expect the share price of Apple to plummet. When people discuss Steve Jobs, no one questions his leadership.

I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Jobs. Many successful leaders have this same leadership style. But, in “Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box,” this top-down leadership through threats and coercion approach is used as an example of leadership in the box. Once the company tyrant sees the light and gets out of the box, his or her leadership style becomes gentle and supportive. The leader becomes an enabler to the success of others.

Studying leadership is often like eating soup with a fork. You get some good bits, but most dribbles through in the form of exceptions to all the rules.

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A recent dinner party I attended included three individuals who have given a lot of thought to the topic of war:

• Phil is a retired entrepreneur who’s currently doing extensive research on his grandfather, who served with the Canadian Forces in Belgium in World War One.
• Leigh teaches a course on the ethics of war at a local college.
• Derrick, Leigh’s husband, joined the Canadian Forces at the age of 40 because, as he says, he “needed a career.” Just last summer, Derrick returned from serving in Afghanistan.

Phil’s research project is fascinating. Using the letters written by his grandfather, Ross Campbell Playfair, to his wife, Mary (née Ferris) Playfair, as a starting point, Phil is piecing together his grandfather’s experiences overseas. Phil is documenting and sharing his research, titled the Ross Playfair Letters Project, on the Web.

At one point in the evening, Phil mentioned that his grandfather asked to be transferred from a comfortable—and safe—desk job, to the front lines. He asked Derrick—who himself chose a longer tour of duty in Afghanistan in a relatively safe role over a shorter tour of duty at the front lines—why a soldier would make such a choice.

Derrick mentioned three reasons:

1. Honor and duty: A soldier may support the military cause or may wish to play a more active role in helping his or her colleagues at the front lines.
2. Boredom: We think of war as Hollywood portrays it, all bombs and flying debris. War, however, often comprises weeks of boredom interspersed with minutes of terror. Boredom is likely reduced at the front lines.
3. Training: A desire to put the skills obtained through training to use.

We rarely give thought to the fact that a significant number of people undergo workplace training programs to develop skills they may never use. Military personnel fall into this category. So do disaster response teams. Doctors need to be prepared to treat people with diseases or injuries they’ve never before encountered.

Providing training in these areas presents interesting challenges. The person must be completely prepared for events that may never occur. In most cases, the individual hopes to never need to use his or her skills. (No pilot hopes to one day attempt a potentially disastrous emergency landing.) In others situations, such as the one described by Derrick, and perhaps experienced by Ross Campbell Playfair, the desire to use their newly acquired skills could be strong enough to risk their lives.

Photo credit: Vintage portrait: great-grandfather in WWI military uniform http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeparking/

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Photo by Chris Suderman

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending my colleague Janet Clarey’s Webinar on Multi-Generational Learning in the Workplace. To illustrate the educational experiences of a person born on the cusp of the Generation X and Baby Boomer generations, Janet asked me to say a few words during her presentation about my formal education. Reflecting back on my grade school years, I realized that my time at school differed significantly from the education currently provided to my 10- and 15-year-old daughters.

Classrooms in the 1960s and 70s had desks lined up in rows facing the teacher and the blackboard. Group projects were practically non-existent. One of the only times you collaborated on a project might be to perform a dissection in biology class. (Clearly, the high cost of dead preserved frogs was the main impetus to having students team up in biology. Had dead frogs been cheaper, we would have performed our biology experiments as we did all of our other school work: alone.)

Contrast this to the modern K12 classroom. Desks in my youngest daughter’s classroom are arranged in groups of four, kitchen table style. Students work facing each other, not the teacher. Every day, students spend time on group projects. On the first day of each month, my daughter comes home from school and announces the members of her new group. If she’s lucky, she’ll have one of her best friends seated with her. If she’s unlucky, she’ll have the kid who likes to watch horror movies and provide detailed summaries.

Whereas students today spend their days working in groups, they don’t spend as much time after school with friends as my generation did. When my daughters’ school days end, they attend organized activities such as dance classes or figure skating practices, or they spend time relaxing at home. They might connect with friends after school through Facebook or text messaging, but, in my neighborhood, playing with friends after school is a rarity.

When I was their age, all time outside of school hours was spent outdoors with friends. If any of us were home after school, it was likely due to illness or, more likely, detention.

I’ve always assumed that most children today don’t roam free with their friends after school because of the influence of overprotective parents who have watched too many news reports of abductions. But, perhaps this isn’t the case. Maybe kids shun friends after school because they need downtime from an educational system based largely on group learning. Perhaps they’re just sick of people by the end of the day.

Alternately, kept separated in rows and working alone on our studies in the 1960s and 70s, perhaps my generation was hungry for human contact. The ringing of the end-of-day school bell at last signaled our freedom to satisfy social needs. Days filled with individual learning created nights playing kick-the-can and stargazing with friends.

The amount of group and individual learning we experienced may influence how we like to learn. Janet mentioned in her presentation that Anoush Margaryan, a lecturer at the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University in the UK (who was in attendance for yesterday’s Webinar), has found that students’ attitudes to learning appear to be influenced by the approach adopted by their lecturers.

Ms. Margaryan’s findings suggest that the next generation of workers may expect employee training to take place in groups. Individual learning may be seen as unusual and socially isolating. The use of learning technologies that enable connections with others may appear more natural to these workers than self-paced online courses they undertake alone.

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My colleague, Gary Woodill, has tagged me in a recent post, requesting that I provide you with seven things you don’t need to know about me.

1. I’m a figure skating dad.

My youngest daughter has been skating for, as she says, “more years than I’ve not been skating.” She’s 10 years old and began skating at the age of four. Two afternoons per week, we head to the rink. I sit in the stands watching her skate, and, like the ending Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch, I get choked up and my heart feels like it has grown “three sizes too big.” For the last six years, these afternoons have been high points of my life.

A few weeks ago, my daughter came in first in a skating competition. She had never before finished in the top three. She now has a gold medal on her bookcase. I sneak into her room when she’s at school to look at it.

2. I’m a cyclist.

I can think of few things I love more than to get onto a bike and ride country roads on a warm day. I believe bicycles are one of humanity’s greatest inventions. They are inexpensive, non-polluting, quiet, and contribute to health and fitness (as long as you don’t get crushed by a car.)

The biggest benefit for me, though, is that I always have more ideas and clearest thoughts while riding. I’m not sure if this is due to increased oxygen intake or entering a state of “flow.” Inevitably, the fastest route to my finding a solution to a problem is by riding for a couple of hours. Perhaps this is the type of thing John J. Ratey, M.D., is writing about in Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

I own two bicycles, a road bike made with a Russian-made magnesium frame that could ignite in a blinding explosion if it were to get too close to an open flame, and a single-speed, fixed-gear “winter bike.” (Yes, I ride in the winter, even with snow on the ground.)

3. I’m a musician.

I’ve been playing guitar since the age of 10. I stopped playing for quite a few years after graduating in music from McGill. I rediscovered my love for the guitar a couple of years ago. As luck would have it, my next door neighbor, Theresa, is a fabulous singer. She and I regularly get together to play a very eclectic repertoire that includes traditional Irish ballads, Leonard Cohen, Coldplay, et al. One day, we’ll let you hear us (maybe).

4. I’m considering a possible hobby building steel string acoustic guitars.

A spin off from #3. More research required.

5. I’m a (very) amateur photographer.

I have a point-and-shoot camera. I point it at things and shoot photos. No fancy gear (for now.)

5. I love to cook.

With the exception of one dish I made years ago featuring squid that could still be in the process of being chewed today had we not given up, I get no complaints from my family. By the way, speaking of food, I think Dave Ferguson’s description of salt cod as a “bit of misguided humor masquerading as food” is one of the funniest things I’ve read.

7. I believe we’re in a golden age of non-fiction books.

It seems as if, every week, a book is published that has the potential to change how you see the world. Could it get much better? Here are some of the best I’ve read in recent months:

The Brain that Changes Itself (Dr. Norman Doidge)

The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

Survival of the Sickest (Dr. Sharon Moalem)

Well there you are. Seven things about me (published quietly on a Saturday, possibly under the radar).

I now tag the following people to provide us with seven random things about themselves:

1. Joe

2. Josh Cowan

3. David Miller

4. Rhonda Rice

5. Tim Wang

6. Mark Dowds

7. Michele Martin

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I’ve just been named to the Advisory Board of the McGill University Centre for Continuing Education (CCE). For the next two years, I’ll be doing what I can to help grow the center.

I’m thrilled for a number of reasons.

First of all, I love McGill and am happy to be provided with a chance to give back to the university that gave me so much. I attended the University between 1983 and 1987. It’s at McGill that I did the following:

• I touched my first computer keyboard and typed my first line of code.

• I discovered the joys of singing in a choir and learning that a Bach Chorale can make anyone cry.

• I entered buildings and felt completely overwhelmed by the greatness of the people who had taught and studied there.  (I recall getting dizzy and having to sit down after reading a plaque recognizing that Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, was appointed as McGill’s chair of physics in 1898. While at McGill, he did the work that led to his 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.)

McGill is a fabulous university. It was rated 20th in the world in the 2008 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Prepare to hear me boast of this often.

I’m a big believer in lifelong learning. University continuing education departments play an important role in society by encouraging people to pursue an academic education in any stage of their lives.

I’ll get a glimpse into how the academic world has changed in the last 25 years:

• What learning technologies has the university embraced?
• What role is social media playing in academia?
• How do students view their education?

I’ll keep you posted on what I learn.

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Saturday mornings are highlights of my week. I stay in bed with a pot of tea, the newspaper, and my youngest daughter cuddled up next to me watching cartoons. (Gosh, I love this.) This past Saturday, I set aside the front and business sections of the paper because I’ve been making an attempt to lower my consumption of bad economic news. This news is demoralizing and anxiety-producing, and, with the exception of spending my money at the small local stores I like and want to have around in two years, there’s little I can do about the recession. (Yes, I can get bicycle tubes cheaper elsewhere, but I want my local bike shop to survive, so I pay the extra two bucks per tube there.)

So, tossing the front and business sections of the paper aside to be used to capture potato peelings for a dinner this week, I turned to the Life, Style, Travel, and Science and Technology sections for escape. Unfortunately, there are few places you can go to avoid economic news. Producers of news and commentary are framing almost all of their discussions of any topic around the economic downturn.

• The Globe and Mail’s wine columnist feels compelled to write that a certain Bordeaux is “a smart way to drink better, without drinking expensively, during the recession.”
• Style columnists speak of the return of thrift and second-hand clothing stores.
• Relationship columnists write about newly unemployed bankers discovering the joys of spending time with their families.
• Travel writers speak of inexpensive places to visit in the downturn or the joys of traveling virtually. No sun block required.
• Food writers are focusing on cheap meals made with Spam and other canned meats.

Newspapers aren’t the only ones to blame. Later Saturday morning, I listened to NPR’s “The Splendid Table,” which featured an interview with Jancis Robinson, a fabulous wine columnist. It took minutes before the host turned the discussion to “what wines should we drink during the recession?” Apparently, based on having come across the topics of wine and recessions twice in one day, it’s impossible to discuss wine without at least a passing mention to sub-prime mortgages and the global credit markets.

Is there anywhere a person can turn to avoid news of the economic downturn? I believe the incessant economic framing of discussions on any topic is making matters worse.

• It’s feeding a sense of panic.
• It’s hurting businesses by scaring people into not buying the items they may want and can afford.
• It’s making it impossible for people who have been hurt by the downturn, or who are worried about losing their jobs, to find any place to escape.

Let’s remember that the ratings of news sources such as CNN GO UP in bad times. They and others benefit by feeding us non-stop coverage of the recession.

The recession is being discussed in the learning community as well. Most are trying to assess whether the economic downturn hurts employee training, as companies cut training budgets, or whether the slowdown will drive greater adoption of cost-saving learning technologies. (Full disclosure:  I, too, have framed some recent blog posts on Workplace Learning Today around the economy.)

I’ve hit a saturation point on economic bad news. So here’s my pledge to you. I will not be framing my discussions of learning around the recession. Starting with my next post, I certify this blog to be 100 percent economic bad news free.

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