Edge Interactive

What in the world is a wiki and what does it have to do with training?

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.

These changes in today’s business environment are forcing us to rethink how we maintain a skilled and knowledgeable workforce as well as how our workforce can help us develop and maintain competitive advantage.

Getting Online with Online Communities

You hear a lot of buzz these days regarding the popularity of social networking and online communities such as Facebook, Myspace, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Their acceptance and growing role with businesses and business professionals has been phenomenal. Today, there is much discussion of how these well known online communities may be the next big thing in business and take an increasingly significant role in workforce productivity, customer support, and marketing.
 
What you don’t hear much about is a category of industrial strength online community providers who have actually been improving workforce productivity, increasing customer satisfaction, and developing market share though the use of enterprise class online communities for years.

The Evolution of the LMS

The origins of the learning management system (LMS) are unclear. Some accounts portray the development of the first LMS as a tool needed to quantify and report learning in support of a Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award application. Another account involves a large government agency developing the first LMS to handle a large volume of learning development and delivery.

My guess is that many individuals and organizations have made significant contributions to early learning management technology. From these simple beginnings, the LMS has evolved into an enterprisewide presence that many consider essential to corporate success.

Is there more to Twitter than just Twitter?

A significant and ever present challenge for training professionals is keeping up with technology. New technologies for learning development, deployment, and management seem to be introduced daily. In addition, the demographics and preferences of the workforce are changing as is the expansion of what is and is not a suitable learning and performance platform.

One technology that receives a lot of attention as a potential learning and performance platform is social networking. Probably the best known social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. As potential learning tools, these websites provide an effective, convenient, and widely accepted vehicle to share information and collaborate. The wide acceptance of this technology has even spawned an industry that markets versions of this functionality to companies as well.

Database Driven Training

Business factors such as domestic regionalization and international operations require many companies to offer e-Learning based training that must vary in content to accommodate variations in business practices, processes, or language resulting from multiple types of business operations. One example of this is a large telecommunications company whose business practices were controlled by state regulations. These regulations were not consistent across all of their operating areas so certain training content had to be specific to the location of the learner. Another example might be the regionalization of products based on demographics or geography. A third example might be the need for multinational companies to provide training in difference languages.