Non-employee or extended enterprise learners take training because they want to and see value.  Employee learners take learning because they are compelled. The difference mandates a different or enhanced skill set of corporate experience, capabilities and functionality for the extended enterprise LMS. I sold high-end, extended enterprise LMS solutions for 13 years.  I’ve seen and had to respond to virtually every conceivable type and combination of extended enterprise requirements.   The mix of mandatory requirements varied greatly by client, industry, audience and business goal.   Sometimes I had the right mix in my proverbial bag and many times I did not.  Either way, you learn the requirement. A key to my success was the ability to ferret out the unsaid requirements (landmines) by conducting good discovery and exploring deeply in a whole range potential functionality. I wanted to know as soon as possible if I had a perfect fit or not.  I didn’t want to be surprised six or nine months down the road and find out all my work was in vain.  If a perfect it, an A++ effort was required from the entire company to try and win.  If not, the parachute was required before burning valuable resources and time [...] The post Top 11 "Buckets of Functionality" for an Extended Enterprise LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

I get this question a lot as someone devoted to extended enterprise learning technology.  Organizations invest a lot of money and time in a learning management system for their employees.  Wanting to leverage and extend this technology for more audiences seems natural and the question is asked.  The best answer is "it depends."   Here are some key items to consider: Functional and Technical Requirements I’ve covered in other posts how the functional and technical requirements are different for internal employee vs. external users. You can read more about the differences in learners here and the Top 11 buckets of extended enterprise functionality here. The important point here is that you can’t take it for granted that your internal LMS provider has the functionality you need or the experience.  You need to verify.  That all starts with a needs analysis and business case development.  You have to document your usage scenarios, required functionality and preferred business licensing models and then compare vendors apples to apples. At Talented Learning we focus on providing the information and education to help you define those requirements and create a usable comparison of cost and solutions proposals.  A good place to start is our LMS Vendor Reviews where we document [...] The post Can I Use My Employee LMS as My Extended Enterprise LMS? appeared first on Talented Learning.

SilkRoad is an end-to-end talent management provider consisting of recruiting, on-boarding, performance, LMS and portal products.  As I went through the process of reviewing all the publicly available information about SilkRoad, I initially wrote them off as a pure talent management provider with an employee only LMS. I finally found the extended enterprise information under the topic " E-Commerce LMS" and discovered they have some decent external user capability including audience management, organizational (tokens) and individual ecommerce and certification management.  I found zero case studies and only one webinar from 2011 on extended enterprise learning, so I don’t believe this part of the solution is a core organizational focus. My assessment-if you have SilkRoad GreenLight as your internal LMS already, you should explore taking advantage of them for external projects.   If you have a pure extended enterprise project, I’d look for specialists.  Here are the vitals: LMS Name:  SilkRoad GreenLight LMS Website: Silkroad.com Contact Information: http://www.silkroad.com/Company/Contact_Us.html Extended Enterprise Organizational Focus:  Minor Extended Enterprise Ready:  Yes Types of Extended Enterprise Expertise Supported: Channel, Affiliates, Vendors Customer, Client Differentiation Integrated talent suite Easy, painless implementation Lowering compliance risk Licensing and Certification: During the webinar I watched (Leverage Your LMS to Train Your Extended Enterprise Webinar), their [...] The post LMS Reviews: SilkRoad GreenLight LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

I’m going to help you avoid the #1 stupid decision when buying a LMS or learning management system. I probably won’t make any new friends on the vendor side but you should listen to me because I sold and led sales teams selling over one hundred high-end LMS solutions generating over $50,000,000 in revenue.  I’ve seen every trick that vendors use to conceal holes and inadequacies in their LMS products or capabilities.  I’ve seen customers make absolutely horrible vendor selections for almost every conceivable reason but usually it’s from being unprepared and uninformed.  Here is the #1 stupid decision -Skipping the RFP when buying a LMS. When Buying a LMS, Thou Shall Not Skip the RFP! Vendors know.  They know well.   If a vendor can get in early, educate you, get you to skip the RFP then they get to shape the solution, cover their own holes and set the pricing negotiation.  Knowing the consequences of choosing a wrong solution, I was always baffled when I was doing my initial discovery with prospective clients and they told me they were not going to RFP.  The reasons were usually about fast tracking the project, being experienced in LMS or our organization [...] The post The #1 Stupid Decision When Buying a LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

Blatant Media Corporation started making the Absorb LMS in 2003 and now has 500 global clients.  Absorb is a modern, sleek and powerful tool.  It is geared towards smaller organizations from hundreds to tens of thousands of users.  The ease of use and great user interface are major reasons why Absorb is often selected regardless of industry. Absorb is definitely extended enterprise ready and has many features to support external audiences.  The interface can be skinned and globalized very neatly with clients’ colors, logos, fonts, language and dynamic group functionality.  The Absorb LMS manages online learning, informal and instructor-led content, social learning, mobile learning, gamification, global deployments, ecommerce and more. "Smart department" and "stackable filter" functionality allows you to create dynamic user groups based on any user criteria stored in the LMS including over 30 open fields in the user profile.  It tracks education units and has significant e-commerce capability.  Approximately 50% of Absorb’s customers have extended enterprise deployments. Absorb allows customers to start with monthly or annual contracts making it very easy and economical to get going.   Later this year, Absorb is going to release their brand new administrator interface.  Considering how powerful their admin features are now, and how usable the end-user interface, [...] The post LMS Reviews: Absorb LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

If you are an association, and you are not eclipsing your annual membership revenues with eLearning revenue — you’re missing the boat.  It is time to make association learning revenue your main revenue stream  - your peers are. It’s been a tough decade for associations and member based organizations but it’s time to invest.  With the economy tanking in 2001 and again in 2009, associations have to work harder than ever to attract new members and drive revenue.  Sure, most associations  are non-profit organizations, but that does not mean associations don’t want to make profits, only that they reinvest gains in providing more member value. At their core, associations provide networking, professional development, information, best practices, and research -all to support professionals in their particular field.  Every association provides their members some level of education.   The question becomes, how can associations provide more education to more people, charge for it, and expand into new areas.  The only answer — a Learning Management System loaded with your proprietary eLearning library. Progressive associations have adopted association learning management system technology and they have transformed the future of the association business model.  They have learned that investment allows them to exponentially grow [...] The post Top 5 Reasons to Invest in Association Learning Technology appeared first on Talented Learning.

BlueVolt has some nice amperage with extended enterprise LMS distribution.  They get it and effectively marry learning with marketing.  Manufacturers, distributors, associations and service companies use the BlueVolt Learning Management System to develop and deliver highly effective online training. BlueVolt is the first LMS I reviewed that is really staking out a specific space in the extended enterprise LMS market.  Love it. BlueVolt targets the manufacturing industry including the relevant member-based organizations and brings together manufacturing companies and their independent sales distribution channels.  Since the sales distribution channels are always non-captured or independent, the manufacturing companies are encouraged to put eLearning modules online about their unique products and how to sell them.  The result is a community of manufacturers, distributors and retailers all on the same system. Employees of the distribution channel could be from large box store retailers or local mom and pop electrical supply stores.  No distributor or employee of a distributor can have a masterful knowledge of every product from every manufacturer so with the BlueVolt LMS manufacturers race to obtain and expand mind share in the distribution channel and channel employees. All features are tailored towards these audiences and usages.  To that end, if you are [...] The post LMS Reviews: BlueVolt LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

The Accord LMS is a nice up and coming extended enterprise LMS solution.  I created an account in the demo site, attended their public webinar, scoured their website, YouTube channel, case studies and other social media sites to do this review.  I saw the core functionality that you want to see in an extended enterprise LMS.  This system is designed to support many different flavors of extended enterprise learning applications.  There is good documentation of features, easy access to demos, training videos and case studies to get a solid understanding of what the Accord LMS can do. The Accord LMS has strong gamification, social, mobile and eCommerce features needed in today’s extended enterprise learning efforts.  They have also built out their first handful of language localizations for North American and European deployments. From a demo standpoint on the public webinar, the solution architect first showed the core LMS, than brought in a senior executive (COO I think) to show the same LMS with gamification and social enabled.  It wasn’t an overly smooth transition, and in my experience, you only take this demo approach with newly integrated or almost released products.  I saw some social features in the demo site, but [...] The post LMS Reviews: Accord LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

The NetDimensions Talent Suite solution comes at it from a global perspective.  Headquartered in Hong Kong and traded on the London Stock Exchange, NetDimensions has clients and feet on the street all over the globe.  The LMS portion of their product is called NetDimensions Learning.  NetDimensions Learning is a LMS for organizations in high consequence industries with tough regulatory requirements such as energy, pharma, airlines, healthcare and government. NetDimensions  is in the group of long standing LMS companies that was not acquired by the large players.  Like most companies in that group, they don’t have the complete hire-to-fire Talent suite of products, but they have an extremely powerful learning and performance management system. Historically, NetDimensions had a tight focus on extended enterprise learning, but they currently downplay that in lieu of integrated talent management.  There is however, links on their main Solutions menu for extended enterprise and ecommerce leading to decent information. To support the extended enterprise, NetDimensions has global, mobile, enterprise reporting, ecommerce, domains, Software Developers Kit (SDK), and social collaboration functionality.  NetDimensions also has an internal group that provides portal development services to create super tailored front ends for the LMS.  The product is straightforward, easy-to-use, yet lacks some [...] The post LMS Reviews: NetDimensions Learning appeared first on Talented Learning.

Founded in 95 and headquartered in Ireland, WBT Systems is a leading provider of eLearning software.  WBT Systems targets the association market and extended enterprise in the commercial space. WBT’s flagship product is TopClass, a web-based Learning Management System that enables employees, members, partners or any learners globally to access training and events. It is amazing how much information is on the WBT Systems site.  It literally took all day to read and digest all their information, documentation, position papers, case studies, videos and more.  What I really like is the thought leadership on association learning.  They have written it out and there is no doubt that they are experts. The TopClass LMS is a powerful LMS yet lacks some of the newly available tools of gamification, advanced social, mobile apps and on-the-job training.  What they do have is top notch professional development, continuing education and comprehensive ecommerce capabilities.   Almost every association host conferences for their users and for many associations these events comprise the majority of their training.  WBT Systems has neatly integrated conference management in the LMS.  Administrators can manage conference, tracks, speakers, registration, payment, continuing education credits, instructors and feedback.  This was a feature set requested many times over the [...] The post LMS Reviews: WBT Systems TopClass LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.