We’ve all been there — pan left, right, scroll down, left, zoom, right, down, too far, ugggh — reading a full size webpage on our phones is painful. If users are panning to use the LMS, you can guarantee they will only use it as a last resort.  For extended enterprise LMS initiatives where your users are mainly voluntary users, this is not an option. Over the last few months, Talented Learning has reviewed about 25 LMS solutions and we are tracking the mobile capabilities (and much more) of each solution.  If you have been shopping for a LMS lately,  you’ve noticed that every vendor says they are a mobile LMS and you can use on any device. While this may be technically true, if you dig deeper, you will frequently uncover these limitations: You can access the LMS from any device browser, you just have pan or have eagle eyesight to read anything Learners can access from a mobile device but not administrators You can launch mobile and manage mobile content, but the LMS interface is still the scrolling and panning version Tablets but not smartphones are supported and the tablet version is the same as the desktop Mobile users are detected and served up a limited [...] The post The Mobile LMS Race: Responsive Design vs. Apps appeared first on Talented Learning.

A few months ago, we noticed there was no central place on the internet where one could find unbiased information on extended enterprise learning technology.  Extended enterprise learning is defined as the learning efforts for your non-employees such as channel partners, customers, prospects, members, franchises, resellers and distributors -so we started Talented Learning to do just that. We began by reviewing LMS solutions and started compiling extended enterprise case studies from each vendor and categorizing them by industry.  As it turns out, the hi-tech industry is an early adopter of extended enterprise learning technology.  Why? Their products are constantly changing The have many non-employees who sell, implement and service the equipment Customers need to learn how to use the products Prospects need to be self educated There is really no other way to get the information out other than using learning, social and mobile technology.  What are the measurable benefits hi-tech organizations see from educating their extended enterprise of channel, customers and prospects? Educating prospects translates into new sales with less active sales effort Increase sales from existing customers Improve your brand loyalty Reduce customer support calls and increase customer satisfaction Expand into new global areas and markets easier Here are the top 10 [...] The post Top 10 Hi-Tech Extended Enterprise Case Studies appeared first on Talented Learning.

Here is a hypothetical scenario — your company just developed a new hi-tech diagnostic control for automobiles and put you in charge to find a way to certify 1347 global technicians working for 300 of your channel partners across North America.  You have an operations and not a training background and you think a LMS is a car.  Luckily you  have access to all the marketing and maintenance materials for the new product.  Oh, by the way, you’re given 30 days to find and launch a solution.  What do you do?  Go! Well, after reviewing Docebo, I would go and evaluate them. Docebo has built a pure cloud LMS that over 28,000 organizations have used globally since 2005.  (By the way, it’s pronounced "doe-chea-bo" and not "doe-see-bo" or "dos-a-bo" ) Back to our scenario…with Docebo you could: Go to their website and sign up for a free 14 day LMS trial with no credit card and no implementation fees Use their wizard to launch your LMS and brand it with your company logo, background and colors in 5 minutes Upload your Power Point presentations, PDFs, Video, Audio, Word, files and easily assemble into learning paths  — in French Canadian, English and Spanish or 30 other languages Create a test [...] The post LMS Reviews: Docebo LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

Hello? Hello?  Is anybody out there using Tin Can? I’ve been holding this rusty Tin Can for over a year and starting to feel a little silly that I might have been taken in by the hype.  In our Top 12 ASTD 2014 Take-A-Ways post last month,  we commented on how the Tin Can hype seemed to be waning in comparison to last year.  We wanted to dig further and find out "why" and also compile case study examples of how organizations were using Tin Can.  We were surprised at what we found.  Nothing. Is Your Tin Can Rusty? Tin Can or the Experience API is the new content/elearning standard touted as the successor to SCORM.  Tin Can simplifies the tracking and recording of any learning event - no matter how informal or non-traditional making it easier to use and less limiting than SCORM. Yeh!  That should be good for something!  Something really great that we can’t do already with our LMS! Hmmm….wait a minute, currently in LMS solutions, you can track the completion of just about any learning event from instructor led, virtual classroom, eLearning, Word, Power Point, videos, podcasts, documents, web pages, Sharepoint docs, wikis, blogs, external learning events, college classes, conferences and [...] The post Tin Can Update — Looking Rusty appeared first on Talented Learning.

One, if by land, and two, if by sea… World, get ready for the next British invasion- here comes Growth Engineering,  their Academy LMS and their plucky view of learning management.  This company is cool and they are at war with boring eLearning! Growth Engineering entered the learning management market differently than most LMSs and it shows in their solutions, product, services and marketing.  Eight years ago, instead of deciding to be a LMS, they decided to help organizations sell better. Salespeople are a diva lot.   They are busy, self-important, competitive and confident know-it-alls.  It’s hard to teach them anything. (I know, I was a LMS salesman for 13 years. ) Growth Engineering deduced that the only way to change the behavior of salespeople, was to make the salespeople want to consume the content and want to come back.  (Sound familiar?) They partnered with the U.K.’s top sales and marketing institutes and converted their proven ILT content into engaging, scenario-based, video-laden, gamified, social learning content.   With the online version, salespeople can earn certification and accreditation in approximately 50% of the time and a fraction of the cost making it feasible for Growth Engineering to take an end-to-end sales improvement solution to corporations on a large scale. Out of [...] The post LMS Reviews: Growth Engineering Academy LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

A few years ago the acquisition frenzy hit and transformed the learning management industry into the talent management industry or so we thought… In case you had a life and were not paying attention, here was the blow-by-blow action as I remember it — SuccessFactors, with the opening volley bought Plateau then was acquired by SAP.  Oracle, in response, purchased Taleo who just acquired Learn.com.  Vista says "I’m in" and bought  SumTotal who had recently acquired GeoLearning.  Certpoint was snatched up by Infor.   Saba and Cornerstone decided to build all the talent suite functionality themselves. Workday built partnerships with all the LMS providers.    The unaquired, standalone LMS providers feasted on the market carnage as the NextGen LMS solutions were being born.  Those were the days.   The Writing on the Talent Suite LMS Wall The writing was on the wall though: The top LMS products are now part of talent and HR suites LMS products must be integrated into talent or HR suites to survive Standalone LMS products were a thing of the past A funny thing happened though that reaffirmed my belief in the cyclical nature of history.  It was the same thing that happened 10+ years ago when the big HR providers tried to build (vs. buy) their own [...] The post 10 Reasons Not to Buy a Talent Suite LMS appeared first on Talented Learning.

Last week, I relearned the same lesson I’ve learned many times before.  Instead of calling a plumber when detecting the leak, I changed into my DIY hero suit, strapped on my tool belt and magically transformed a 30 minute professional fix into an all day, three trip to the hardware store mess.  My theory at the beginning of the day was to quickly save the $150 plumber bill, but I cost myself so much more in lost time, materials and productivity (and the skin on my knuckles) that I wish I would have made the call. The same thing happens every day with qualifying LMS vendors .  Buyers worldwide strap on their "qualifying" tool belts to try to determine which of the 500+ LMSs they should include in their proposal or RFP process.  Do you know what it costs to qualify a LMS vendor?  Let’s find out. The Often Repeated Scenario Is this you?  You work for an organization that creates and sells continuing education training for financial and insurance professionals.  You are looking to replace your LMS to manage your growing global training business, content and audiences.  You have been running a homegrown Moodle LMS system for years but have outgrown it on a multitude [...] The post The Hidden Cost of Qualifying LMS Vendors appeared first on Talented Learning.

Associations, trade organizations, unions, non-profit groups and other member organizations have been adopting learning technology at an accelerated pace over the last few years.  Foundation to their mission, these organizations provide social collaboration, professional development, information, best practices and research to support their members and potential members.  To some degree, every member based organization provides opportunities for their members to learn and grow. Historically, these learning opportunities were delivered in person at annual tradeshows or regional workshops.  With the evolution of eLearning, virtual classrooms, social learning, and mobile learning, it is now possible to extend the learning opportunities globally.  To manage it all, member-based organizations need a Learning Management System that is integrated into their association management system to keep track of all the learners, content, registration, purchase, completion, certifications, continuing education credits, accreditation and more. Five years ago, only large, national or global associations could afford the substantial investment of purchasing and deploying a LMS.  With the advent of the Cloud LMS providers, LMS solutions for member-based organizations are no longer cost prohibitive and are available to associations of all sizes and budgets.  Many solutions start at a nominal rate and implement in days or weeks allowing your non-profit organization [...] The post Top 10 Association LMS Case Studies appeared first on Talented Learning.

Unfortunate training and development professionals worldwide toil endlessly creating and providing non-measurable training for their employees.  They justify their corporate cost by avoiding compliance risk.  They are not invited to sit at the executive table.  They are the first to lose their job in a tight economy.   They are the butt of the "people that can do and people that can’t train" joke.  They are the owners of an ever shrinking budget and are asked to do more with less. They can’t spend what they need to make great, engaging, gamified eLearning content.  Instead, they are using Articulate Presenter to convent existing Power Point presentations to compliance eLearning that their employees hate, deployed via an LMS they both hate.   Blehh.  Existence as a cost center is such a drag. Is this you?  I hope not, but if so, I have a solution to turn your professional life around.   Take a Walk on the Wild Side of  Measurable Training On the measurable side of training it’s all milk, honey, fun and games.  We provide the best, most engaging, eLearning content and learning environments in the world.  Our budgets are ample and our content is so good, we can sell it and people want to buy it!  Our users [...] The post Take a Walk on the Wild Side of Measurable Training appeared first on Talented Learning.

"It is nor Social , nor Mobile  Nor NextGen, nor Gamified, Nor any other LMS Belonging to the Cloud. O, be some other name! What’s in a name?   That which we call a Cloud LMS  By any other name would be so sweet? " That’s some good poetry.  I’ve always been amazed that Shakespeare blogged about LMSs way back when.  He’s the reason I got in the LMS blogging business.  If he were around today, I’d imagine he’d be blogging about how ridiculous it  is to have 5 names and endless awards for the same thing — a Cloud LMS.  It’s really difficult to keep it all straight but let me show you this math equation I’ve been working on: Cloud LMS = Mobile LMS = NextGen LMS = Gamified LMS = Social LMS That should simplify things for you as you research options for your next LMS.  I think Shakespeare would be proud though mystified by my succinctness.   What is a Cloud LMS? There is no formal definition, so here is mine.  Cloud, NextGen, Social, Mobile and Gamified LMSs are LMSs born in the last five years.    They are the modern LMSs built using all the modern tools and techniques.  The solutions are available in the cloud for [...] The post A Cloud LMS By Any Other Name appeared first on Talented Learning.