Trainer’s Notebook

I met Tiffany Austin at the American Society for Training & Development Puget Sound chapter professional networking meeting in October. She’d just gone to work for Amazon.com’s Web Services division in training. We’ve been exchanging phone messages sporadically since. Yesterday I spent most of an hour talking with her about her adventures doing a month-long webconferencing pilot implementation. She’s in the part of the company that licenses their analytics and site management software, so there are some great potential uses in showing their products to potential users, etc.
There are a lot of companies trying to become a lasting presence in this category: Webex, GoToMeeting, Microsoft LiveMeeting, etc.
A friend of mine had a pretty unsatisfying experience trying to get Microsoft LiveMeeting to run for him, and to do remote training, so I was fascinated with Tiffany’s experience with another vendor. From the sound if it she’d had an equally frustrating experience.
Comparing notes, here’s what’s evident for a new user:
1) Know what features you really need to have from the product. Will you want to show a PowerPoint presentation? Will you want to use VOIP or run the audio through a separate voice conferencing link? Will you want to record the conference for people to view later? Will you want to edit it for that use? Will you want to take control of a computer at a remote site, for purposes of doing a demonstration or de-bugging a process? These are just some of the possible questions.
2) Out of ten people trying to link-in, how many will actually get connected? How much do these link-in attendees need to do in advance? If they’re having a difficult time getting connected to your 9 a.m. conference, who helps them get linked?
3) Is the vendor’s basic product sufficient for your needs or do you need to purchase an advanced/upgraded version?
4) What training support does the vendor offer? Does this match the learning styles and needs of your conferees? How much learning time does it take to become a conferee? A presenter?
5) What technical support does the vendor offer? Do they respond to e-mails? Do they offer any phone sales support to answer questions?
6) Do the sales representatives really know the product, beyond being able to do a basic demo of it?
Here’s my narrated Livemeeting demo for your perusal.
We ended the conversation with a little “What If” blue sky dream: that one day soon we’d stage a FACE-OFF of 5 vendors in this area, where they’d all list their features, and demonstrate how an average user can easily get them to work. Hmm…

Selling training is similar in many regards to selling any other professional service. If I’m a massage therapist talking with a prospective client I’ll probably ask where it hurts.

One of the unending jobs (Pain Points) in the datasphere is managing the information. In blended learning (multiple forms of delivery, possibly including live delivery, online content, learner interaction or even learning group activities, testing, etc., etc.) the job of managing the information falls to a suite of software applications. These may be called learning management systems or content management systems. An example of a learning management system is Moodle. An example of a content management system is the Microsoft Content Management Server. Knowing the players in the LearningSphere is useful in selling training solutions. If you’re a content expert you may need a translator who speaks the language.

Example: Microsoft ’s product, Content Management Server, describes its benefits simply. The year 2002 attached to the product tells me they may not take the category very seriously. Perhaps they think that other MS services do the rest.

Here’s a site that allows you to test-drive a bunch of open-source CMS applications.

A lot of wonderful options to consider. Do you want multiple authors to work on the content? Who gives legal approvals on content? Is there a build-out/refresh plan the authors need to see to do their work? Do you want to make chat and posting available to the learners?

Imagine a corporate learning site with 10 broad areas of education going on, courses scheduled out months in advance and the site tracking participation and test results, and offering records and reports going back several years. Each of the 10 areas has 10 courses, with one instructor and 20 students – that’s 2000 students. Each with a login. Each course might have from 50 meg. to 1 gig of storage for files, downloads, especially for flash or streaming video.

This is what SumTotal is selling. MediaPro sell a custom content solution, perhaps helping you choose a CMS, or going with the one you’ve chosen?