Edge Interactive

The New Role of e-Learning?

Our business world is changing and the role of training is changing as well. We see employees, partners, and customers becoming increasing responsible for their own development and more comfortable with technology. The pace of business is increasing with less tolerance for wasted time or resources. New products and processes are being introduced faster than ever and the business world has become increasingly competitive with no room for mistakes or false starts.

Podcasts and On-line Training

Building "Just-in-time" and spontaneous training into your companies training portfolio is a key to success as part of today's advanced training strategies. Here is an example of an innovative implementation of this strategy.

Denver's Cable Center is offering a series of on-line courses to introduce people to the Cable Industry. Here is a sample of the newly introduced CableSTART
course. 
 
CableSTART is a fundamental course for those needing an understanding of the cable industry’s development, basic business models, products, and some of its key competitors. Ideal for those new to the industry and for those needing a refresher. This is a one time use for one PC for 30 days. More details...

Seven Best Practices CLOs Must Master

At a recent chapter meeting of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), I began a presentation by asking, “By a show of hands, who has heard of Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick?” Almost every hand in the room went up.

Next, I asked, “Who has seen Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick’s presentation on the Four Levels of Evaluation?” Almost all the hands in the room stayed up.

Finally, I asked, “Who has ever sung the Green Bay Packers’ fight song?” Almost every hand stayed up, as you would expect if you have ever seen a Kirkpatrick presentation.

The Benefits and Challenges of User Generated Learning Content Survey Results

In our July newsletter, we posted a survey on the use of user generated learning content company. We had 31 responses and here are the results.

See the results

Sun’s Collaborative Effort for Sales Training

Two significant and seemingly unrelated pieces of information crossed the desk of Sun Chief Learning Officer Karie Willyerd. First was a report summarizing the results of a skills analysis conducted for the sales force of a major business unit. The report found a significant number of skills gaps for this group that related directly to its performance. Second, a business-unit executive discovered there was no clear way for him to understand the competencies of his 1,000-person sales staff.

Willyerd immediately recognized these two situations as something that clearly needed to be addressed. In response, she gave Joe Campbell, director of sales and marketing training in Sun Learning Services, the mission to develop a sales training strategy that would align it more closely with core competencies the sales force needed to effectively achieve targeted sales objectives. In addition, a new learning management system was needed to support the delivery, access, management and reporting requirements of the new sales training curriculum.

How are you using e-Learning to leverage resources?

This question came up in one of the forums I belong to and I thought I would include it and my response.

“Has e-Learning has changed so much over the past decade, it can be difficult to keep up with what one is using for eLearning. I am trying to get a list of all the possible means/methods of eLearning. What do you think or the most widely used methods by individuals in companies?”

Here was my response.

CH2M HILL: Building High-Impact Learning Programs

Established in 1946, CH2M HILL is an employee-owned, $4.5 billion global company in the full-service engineering industry. Throughout its history, it has experienced significant sustained growth in both its revenue and workforce. Today, more than 19,000 employees work for the firm, with more than 240 offices around the world.

How does a company continue to grow so significantly and still have the skilled workforce necessary in the competitive, knowledge-based engineering services industry?