e e learning

driving real value in b2b customer education

20 04 2008

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and talking about business-to-business (b2b) customer education recently. My comments here are particularly focused on software/webware, but the principles are just as relevant to other tech sectors as well as service-based industries and equipment suppliers.

i find a johari-square analysis to be particularly helpful to understanding where real value in generated via customer education. in this post i will focus my comments on the training component of the customer education ecosystem.

along the horizontal axis is a continuum of the level of knowledge a customer has about an application – from basic/introductory usage to a full understanding of all features of the application.

along the vertical axis is the nature of the application to the organization’s particular practices – from generic, non-specific usage to very company specific usage.

The lower left quadrant then represents basic usage being applied in very generic, non-differentiated fashion. This might include data entry, simple reports, basic search functionality, etc.

the upper left quadrant represents the efficient transfer of current company knowledge and practice into the application. Examples would include self-help resources, document repositories, FAQ’s, etc.

the lowr right quadrant represents the application of new processes which are enabled by the advanced functionality of the application and/or templates and add-ons which expand the applications capabilities.

the upper right quadrant represents innovation and creation of new business capabilities and insights which are very specific to the success of the particular customer’s organization’s needs and goals.

The yellow arrow represents what can be considered the desired customer learning path. The goal is to get the customer to use the application in a way that drives the success of their business. Unfortunately, in the past, training has had limited means to deliver the necessary learning experiences to the customer. Instructor-led training in a brick and mortar setting with ink on paper content is very expensive. By the time the learning needed to get the customer through the lower left quadrant was successfully completed, the training group had run through its budget. the most innovating training groups might have been able to sneak in a bit of the upper left or lower right content, but that was limited.

the emergence of elearning tools and techniques along with systems that enable an organization-wide customer education ecosystem has created new opportunities to spread training resources further along the customer education learning path. online tutorials, document repositories, online forums, wikis, instant messaging, and web conferences can be deployed at a fraction of the cost of ILT and ink-on-paper content. This leaves face-to-face contacts available to help customize and innovate new solutions to particular customer needs. Strategic deployment of resources across the customer education ecosystem can drive value in the customer’s organizations.

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Categories : strategic learning, web 2.0 and other technology

customer education ecosystem

19 04 2008

the trend over the past four or five years has been for the training profession to refer to itself as the learning profession. While I agree in many ways with this trend (see training vs. learning), i do believe that sometimes we get a bit too myopic in your view of the work of workplace learning. As i argued in my post on Learning Circuits Blog, We’re #3, we’re #3!, training is often not the most effective learning function in an organization. This is particularly true in the realm of customer education.

There are a number of functional groups in every organization that are involved in customer education. to keep things somewhat simple, I identify six groups in the customer education ecosystem – product development, marketing, sales, account management, training, and customer support. ideally each of these groups has direct contact with an organization’s customers. They each learn something from the customer and they each – for better or for worse – provide the customer with new information.

group	from customer	to customer
development	desired functionality	insight into future products
marketing	market intelligence, level of interest in product, qualified leads	information about product
sales	criteria for purchase, pain points, purchase agreement	solutions for pain points, new product information
account management	additional needs, deeper business operations, integration demands	additional services, add on products, templates, best practices
training	needs caused by learning gaps, usage expectations	basic "how-to" use, insights into best use, certification
customer support	what’s not working, potential enhancements, desired new products	error correction, basic "how-to" use, integration help

a great deal of effort has been made in most organizations to gather up the information gathered from customers. in best case situations it’s aggregated and funneled back to product development. few organizations have had success at aligning the information presented to the customer by the various groups. even fewer have an understanding that linking this content drives customer education around the use of the organization’s product in the customer’s particular business.

the relay method

Traditionally, an effort is made to hand-off product information from group to group as if there were a relay race involved. if the handoff goes well, some information about the product and/or the customer is passed along to the next group. usually with a spin on the information by the group passing it on.

often, the "hand-off is missed." leaving the receiving group scrambling to get the information they need. they may go back up the chain to a previous group who invariably get annoyed because they thought they were done with this particular product or customer. or they go back to the customer who gets annoyed and wonders if there is anyone with any intelligence working for the company.

even when all of the hand-offs are performed well, the result can often be like the children’s game telephone. with each successive group putting their own spin on the information based upon their interaction with customers disconnects start showing up by the dozen. "i can’t tell you why they built the product that way." "you know, that doesn’t make sense." "let me teach you a work around that. it’s a bit of a pain, but it will work." "no, this class doesn’t cover what the sales rep told you." etc. etc.

About the only thing the customer is learning is how to work the call center automated phone tree and what they want to ask your competitors when the decide to drop your product.

circle the wagons

to alleviate the problems created by the relay method of communications, organizations have taken to a "circle the wagons" approach in which email inboxes overflow as everyone is expected to keep everyone else "in the loop" by sharing anything and
everything they know. each group is then responsible for understanding the whole picture by piecing together all those emails and the accompanying attachments. the cob web of information is overwhelming and everyone defaults back to the same solution as used when the relay method failed. No one really knows what the customer is being told by the other groups and the customer again goes wanting.

customer education ecosystem

with the onset of web 2.0 technologies, it’s not only possible to get everyone in the organization not only singing from the same page, but it’s a reality that you can get everyone writing the same page. whether using a wiki to gather information from across
the organization and then collaboratively mold it into a unified message leveraging content and information for multiple purposes, or a customer relationship management system to track every contact with a customer regardless of what functional group, and/or a document management system to handle version control and create a unified look and feel, technology now enables everyone to have product, customer and market information on-demand.

This enables a consistent message that can be crafted to move the customer along a learning curve from initial contact, through basic usage, to power usage. once a customer is fully aware of the workings of a product and/or services available to them, they can then begin to drive real value for their organization with your products/services.

Tags: customer education, product development, marketing, sales, account management, training, customer support, customer education ecosystem

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Categories : strategic learning

if a blog falls on the web, but no one hears it…..

17 04 2008

my little hiatus from blogging over the past six months provided me with a number of interesting issues to contemplate, but the one that caught me most off guard was this question:

do readers really care if i post or not?

why would i ask this question? a quick look at some of my blog statistics for eelearning will clue you in. Here’s a chart of the activity on eelearning here on wordpress. I my last post before my sabbatical was the middle of September. But readership of eelearning continued to grow through November. hmmmm. Makes you begin to wonder.

Add to this that my stats counter on my typepad account is still counting away and has shown steady readership there, even though I haven’t posted a new post on that verson of eelearning in almost a year now!

What I take from all of this feedback is two fold. One, many blog readers aren’t obsessed with what is being written every day. Blogs for many web users are resource sites and it doesn’t really matter whether the content they are seeking and finding was published yesterday or last year. Two, moving a blog and getting your readers to change their blogrolls and bookmarks is a very difficult task as well. if you obsessed about reader statistics, then make sure you have a comprehensive plan to migrate your readership before you move.

Tags: reader statistics, blogrolls, blogs, bookmarks

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Categories : random thoughts

work at learning/learning at work blog carnival

17 04 2008

in march, dave ferguson started a new blog carnival centered around topics in workplace learning. blog carnivals are “events” in which bloggers contribute posts on a given subject which are listed on a host blog. The host blog usually rotates from one blog to another on a regular basis.

Check out the first work at learning/learning at work blog carnival event on dave’s blog.

Manish Mohan has taken on the task of hosting the next event on his blog Life, The Universe, and Everything about eLearning and Content Development. Manish is particularly looking for contributions from learning and development professionals who are working from outside North America. He asks that you provide a permalink for your post and a short intro, but he doesn’t give clear direction on where to send it. I received his call for contributions through facebook so you can try there. You can also find him on LinkedIn and of course through his blog.

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Categories : the flattening world, web 2.0 and other technology

what you’ve been reading

16 04 2008

another interesting bit of data is a listing of the most popular posts on eelearning since i moved over to wordpress. i’m pleased to see that my posts regarding exemplars in elearning are numbers 1 and 2. What astounds me is that in 4th is my my post on learning theory resources, my very first post to eelearning. in 5th is my 3rd post which was links to evaluation resources.

As I said in my last post, it would seem to show, at least among my readership, that people are at least as much interested in content as they are currency. It also suggests to me that perhaps i should update those posts – because I have added to my personal list of learning theory resources and evaluation resources. Most can be found in my delicious account. But some are trapped in my browsers bookmark lists.

post name	views
what is a "good example"	565
exemplary elearning solutions	483
buggy whip makers	245
learning theory resource links	241
evaluation resource links	123
where i’d work	122
Top Ten learning tools	116
are motivation and drive innate or learned?	112
there they go with the powerpoint thing, again!	102
as if i needed proof	96

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Categories : eelearning

i must have needed it

15 04 2008

how do you explain an impromptu seven month hiatus from blogging activity? the best one i’ve come up with so far is the line my mother always used when i slept in late or caught an unplanned nap in the afternoon. “well you must have needed it.”

it’s as good an explanation as i can come up with.

After four years of blogging on eelearning, three years managing learning circuits blog, a job search that was not working (it seems be going much better today), personal finances that reflected the lack of success in the job search, and a handful of other personal matters resulted in me coming down with a case of “blogging burn-out.” stressing out to post “something” just because the clock passed midnight once again became less and less fun and more and more onerous.

I even contemplated shutting eelearning down. then i considered a facelift. i even had a new name (eeVolution) and new masthead. then i realized i didn’t need to create more work for myself. i needed to pare down the work i had on my plate to projects which i can focus my limited time. i decided to resign from the online community leader role for LCB, stop trying to participate in every known online community (LinkedIn is now the only one I try to visit every day, Facebook still gets some time), pull the plug on my consultancy business, redouble my full-time job search efforts, and regenerate eelearning while putting eelearning wiki and my obsession with Web 2.0 tools in suspended animation for the time being.

it seems to be working. life is a bit more manageable. my six month hiatus has led to me rethink what I want to publish here, review what I’ve done over the past four years, and reflect on why i blog. i’ll provide these insights over the next several weeks.

i guess Mom’s right. i must have needed this seven month nap. i know i feel renewed about writing eelearning. i hope it will show through in what you read!

Tags: blogging, social networking, eelearning, learning circuits blog, facebook, time management, priorities

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Categories : random thoughts

where i’d work

14 09 2007

this month’s big question on learning circuits blog is a topic close to home for me. Tony Karrer’s question is simple, Where to work? since i’ve been involved in a somewhat prolonged job search having decided that the consulting schtick isn’t quite right for me – at least for now – i’ve spent alot of time thinking about what the ideal, and not so ideal, workplace for me might be like.

let me preface all of this with the statement that i can only speak for me and my preferences. to think that there is any “correct” answer to this question would be foolish.

the key is to look carefully and honestly at what motivates you and what you find fulfilling and then being honest in both your evaluation of potential employers and in the fit between the environment and your needs. failure to be diligent in this analysis or compromising on your principles to “just get a job” will only lead to stress, frustration and, eventually, leaving that job. i’ll be honest, i’ve made the mistake of overlooking glaring misfits between my motivators and a company i’ve gone to work for. it wasn’t enjoyable and the money, while objectively good, wasn’t worth the pain. i’ve also had the great fortune of having jobs match my personal style and motivation. in these jobs I excelled, worked hard, and learned about myself both professionally and personally. So what’s important to me?

challenging scope of work – i ideally want a role which will stretch my skill set. i love to problem solve more than i like to implement the same solution for the 250th time.

expectation and ability to learn – related to the scope, i want to be in a position in which I’ll be expected and have the opportunity to learn. learn about business, learn about leadership, learn about new markets, learn about new technologies and business processes. and, well, duh! i am a learning professional!

opportunity to lead – i don’t necessarily need to have a large staff of direct reports, but having the opportunity to lead projects, drive change, and create new opportunities for the organization to excel are things i enjoy and desire.

a collaborative and innovative environment – i prefer to work with others drawing upon our varied backgrounds to create new solutions to both new and old challenges. team work, reflective practices, and an openness to ideas are all a part of such an environment.

inspired leaders – i want to work for leaders who know why they are coming to work every day. i have loved working for men and women who have a vision of how they are making the company and the world a better place through their work.

it’s a new world – the organization must be focused on today and the future. while past success is great, an organization that thinks yesterday’s solutions will solve today’s and tomorrow’s problems is not a place i want to spend 50-60 hours a weeks toiling away for. new relationships with their customers, new technologies, new organizational structures, and new products/services to meet today’s challenges are all signs i look for.

herzberg defined certain workplace factors as hygiene factors in employee motivation. these are factors must be present, otherwise the employees will lose motivation. but they do not provide positive motivation. my hygiene issues include:

salary – most employers have benchmarked open positions against industry standards. i expect that the jobs i’m applying for will be competitive in the salary they have budgeted, so salary is not a major issue for me.

benefits – basic health, disability, retirement savings are fundamental. vision and dental are great. anything else is gravy.

diversity – i value a diverse workplace that protects the rights of all of its employees. this should be standard these days.

work/life balance – i’m ready to put in the time i need to acheive the goals my role demands, but the organization has to understand that sometimes life happens in the hours between 9-5 on weekdays.

value learning – seems a no brainer, but this learning professional wants to work in an organization that believes that learning is fundamental to its success.

So there you have what i look for in a workplace environment. How do you value where you work or are looking to work?

Technorati Tags: job-search, work-life-balance, self-reflection, motivation

Related News:
Perks for productivity – Sydney Morning Herald
A Ybrant workforce – Express Computers
Understanding and Strengthening your own Emotional Intelligence Skills – Autochannel (press release)
Communication is really the key – Deccan Herald

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Categories : learning and motivation, the big question

against training

2 09 2007

Every once in a while I bump into an article or piece of research that I’ve read before, but have allowed to drift into the dark recesses of my long-term memory. fortunately, such an occasion is always an opportunity to revisit the ideas presented in the article – usually with a new mind set. today it happened with john taylor gatto’s against school – a powerful and damning condemnation of modern american schooling that was published in harper’s magazine in september 2003. if you haven’t ever read against school, click on the link above and do so.

in the article, gatto discusses the historical ties of modern education to the social control policies of the Prussian empire which desired to create a semi-illiterate, docile populous which would not question authority and would efficiently be swayed by governmentally driven propaganda. this dominant approach to education in germanic culture fit very snuggly with the emergence of Ford’s assembly line production model and corporate america’s need for workers who could function more as replaceable cogs in the machinery of the industrial revolution than independent thinkers who might not follow orders willingly.

his article and subsequently published book, The underground history of american education, were clearly focused on public education and have been key support for home schooling initiatives and school voucher programs. even supporters of public education are now using a similar argument that the system is totally wrong rather than broken. hillary clinton is making great use of mentioning that today’s classrooms are identical to the classrooms where she was schooled as a child.

but the new twist on gatto’s article for me is that, while not mentioned, it clearly has a similar call to alarm regarding workplace learning. apathy runs rampant. facilitators “just try to cover everything in the materials.” butts-in-seats is still a major metric out muscling actual learning or transfer of knowledge to the job. senior management views training as a “fix-it” for problems rather than a means to develop and educated and creative workforce. to paraphrase gatto, “clearly people learn what they need to know about doing their jobs. but knowledgeable is an entirely separate issue from ‘well trained.'”

his last statement could easily become a meme for supporters of informal learning and the free-range learner:

After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

gatto finishes his article by saying that children can still be educated to become knowledgeable, productive adults – but don’t count on schools to do it. is it too late to avoid the same being said of workplace learning?

Technorati tags:
public-education, apathy, school-administration, learning-theory, informal-learning

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Categories : informal learning, strategic learning

finally facing facebook

28 08 2007

i have to admit that i’ve put off checking facebook. the idea of joining yet one more social networking service was too much to bare. but recent comments by a number of learning professionals piqued my interested to the point that i had to check it out.

i have to report that after a week or so of getting to know facebook, it seems like a great service. i can identify a few macro features that i can point to as huge benefits over most other networking tools.

first is what i’ll call a low threshold to entry. it’s incredibly easy to get your profile up and running. unlike most tools i’ve used, you don’t have to have a “complete” profile before you can enter the community. in fact, every piece of your profile that you complete seems to trigger one community benefit or another. so there’s great motivation to keep going back to add a few more things when i can.

second is the intuitive interface is clean and the user can redesign it easily. so many of the other tools are cluttered and determine what you will see on each screen. what if i don’t have a blog on the network? why do i have to see that blank box reminding me that i’m not a true community participant because i haven’t started a new blog on the community site? (see my comments on blogging below for more.) the interface makes is incredibly easy to understand how i can add new features/applications to my facebook and control what will happen when i do. so i want to use the “my questions” application. i can decide whether my questions and/or answers are displayed on my homepage. what about my friends’ questions and/or answers? They can be added to my homepage as well.

a third feature that i absolutely love is that i don’t have to write a new blog in facebook nor do i have to replicate and republish my posts to eelearning to have them appear in facebook. i can simply link to eelearning from facebook and i can list eelearning’s posts on my home page. my friends can link to eelearning as well just as i can link to their blogs! finally! this has been one of the most annoying things about social networking tools to date. everyone expects you to create a new blog for their community! this has been annoying because the technology has been available to do exactly what facebook does. but nobody has done it until now. this alone will keep me coming back to facebook.

my initial impression is that the possibilities for networking with facebook are very extensive and powerful. am i just in a honeymoon period? what’s your experience?

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Technorati Tags
social-networking, facebook, blogging

Some of my recent related posts
Top Ten learning tools
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what is a “good example”

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Categories : web 2.0 and other technology

missing the transfer

25 08 2007

i had the opportunity to meet cal wick, ceo of fort hill company, when he called on gap inc. to pitch his company’s products. cal is one of those inspiring ceo’s who run a company because he has an idea that he thinks will make the world a better place.

in a recent email newsletter, cal blasts current instructional design models for not delivering where it really matters – transfer to the learner’s work.

So I reviewed various instructional design models including ADDIE, Dick and Carey, Kemp, ARCS, Gagne’s 9 Events, Kolb’s Learning Styles, Rapid Design, and others. I was struck that while each provides powerful insights into the learner, the learning situation, and the measurement of learning, none explicitly takes up the challenge of how to get people and institutions to apply what is being taught.

figure out what we need to teach them, build the learning event(s) and activities that will present it most effectively, conduct the activities with the learners, check that they were paying attention and can satisfactorily feed back the target content/skills and we’re satisfied. nice, neat, complete, and generally ineffective. cal says he spoke to a number of students and graduates of top line graduate education programs about how much of what they had been taught dealt with transfer of knowledge/skills to the job. he found that the answers ranged from “nothing” to “not much.”

cal suggests that current instructional models can be extended in three ways to insure this vital transfer of knowledge. First, he suggests that we need to extend our instructional models to cover the transfer period.
The processes, principles and tools we use are good, but we don’t extend them far enough. Second, provide a roadmap. instruct them on how to apply their new knowledge. Third, make sure that the learners have support for their efforts to apply the new knowledge.

these aren’t groundbreaking ideas. when I met with cal three years ago, this was his message then. and they were part of what i was advocating in my post addie? isd? hpt? adapt or die! but it still seems to be a chronic problem for learning programs.

the other day, while I had the television on for distraction while I was trying to rid my laptop of a virus, i overheard a national football league head coach answer a reporter’s question of why he constantly repeats his message to his players. he said, “a lot of times they need to hear it again to get it. but sometimes i need to hear it again.”

technorati Tags:
instructional-design, knowledge-transfer, learning, practice

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Some of my recent related posts
what is a “good example”
learning is risky business
presenting about blogs