Many industries have Continuing and Professional Development  or CPD requirements.  Those in finance, accounting, legal all have mandatory training requirements that demand anywhere from 20-40 hours annually to be completed.  These CPD requirements are in addition to many product or specific product programs that many firms offer. A quick Google search for ‘CPD requirements’ provides almost 7 million results.  CPD’s are serious business, yet many firms struggle with coordinating and delivering these programs to their staff.  The standard litney of reasons for why this is difficult is common to many.  Things like, Time away from the office Travel time to an event Sometimes the cost of airfare and hotel accommodations contribute to the costs Relevance of the training to the participant. To me, there is a solution out there waiting to be discovered.  Something that is easy to participate in, easy to access, manageable from a time perspective and yet fully reportable and accountable for firms, regulatory bodies and associations. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at his LinkedIn Page: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson   Related Posts:Rackspace Solves its Recruitment ProblemsDisruption to the Continuing and Professional Development…The Death of eLearningTwo Sigma ProblemTop 5 Sales Commandments

Things are changing… faster than ever before. Markets are moving and the need for training is ever present for firms wanting to survive. The disruption that is ‘already here’ is changing everything we know and do. The question everyone has is… what are we going to do knowing that this disruption has occurred. In the past, training required that you book flights, transportation, hotels, take care of meals and entertainment… all to get people together for training.  We have for decades thought the best method for training was flying hundreds of people from all points, to a central place for training.  The costs have always been HUGE. Airfare Hotels Car/Transportation Travel Fees Accommodations Then ADDING the cost of the venue AND the training. At CapitalWave, we propose a new business model for training.  This model is based on the new learning model of a MOOC. While you don’t need to know what a mooc is, what you do need to know is that this pedagogy is: Flexible, Scalable, Distributive, Reliable and Accountable. Our delivery is a ‘virtual classroom’ … a place where participants work together on virtual teams and projects. Creating inter-active conversations. Inclusion of Simulation-based-learning. Having Just-in-time learning and Hot Topics. We are proposing a method of online training that allows for everyone, both now and for the next two years, to experience the same training program.  An Online Video Training that has a Reliable Delivery Framework with Sequenced Learning Objectives the has Engaging delivery and simulations, this is Highly visual, which Creates and in-person experience, that Rewards participation, which Eliminates the irrelevant, Creates seamless transitions. Our solution for training is to NOT abandon the ILT model, nor is it to replace it with a pasts standard-learning-model.  We are offering the best of both, an in-person experience for training that includes high quality lectures, availability of downloadable material, and the often lost value is networking … ‘virtual team building and discussions’ that engage, motivate and amplify learning opportunities. The delivery framework is a dynamic pedagogy that is ‘competency based learning’ that is available across geographic boundaries. What we are proposing is to ignite a training model that embodies ‘Training Tomorrows Workplace & Workforce’.  Take this as our announcement of an online CPD training resource for industries and company’s.  We are calling this:  CPDex. CPDex will be the online framework which will allow people to Explore, Excite and Experience this new educational environment.It is our intent to launch the CPDex on June 1st, 2013.  Come back to learn more. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:Barriers to ongoing Continuing and Professional DevelopmentThe Death of eLearningCorporate Training Choices ExplainedTwo Sigma ProblemRackspace Solves its Recruitment Problems

From Wikipedia:  Bloom’s 2 sigma problem refers to an educational phenomenon observed by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and initially reported in 1984 in the journal "Educational Researcher". Bloom found that the average student tutored one-to-one using mastery learning techniques performed two standard deviations better than students who learn via conventional instructional methods[1]—that is, "the average tutored student was above 98% of the students in the control class".[2] Additionally, the variation of the students’ achievement changed: "about 90% of the tutored students … attained the level of summative achievement reached by only the highest 20%" of the control class.[3] Bloom’s graduate students J. Anania and A. J. Burke conducted studies of this effect at different grade levels and in different schools, observing students with "great differences in cognitive achievement, attitudes, and academic self-concept" What makes this problem so valuable and interesting to me is that Bloom sought to find a method of learning that  elevated the learning of students equal to the one-on-one tutoring that achieves the 2 sigma performance.  Bloom correctly concluded that this method of tutoring was "too costly for most societies to bear on a large scale".  To him and his associates, Bloom believed that the solution for teh problem was not in changing the instructor, or even the course material, rather it was in the engagement of the student with the concepts in an organic manner that allowed for them to test their knowledge mastery while learning.  These conceptional engagement methods were out-side of the then (and even current) pedagogues of many learning institutions.  Rather than have the students just learn facts about their topics, Bloom recommended both Mastery Learning (testing, case-studies, and outside reading) with the elements of social engagement (forums, study-groups and simulations) to achieve this level of learning mastery. Institutions (corporate and academic) that wish to energize and amplify the learning of their staff and students should seek deliveries that weave the lectures, mastery learning concepts with the social engagement that fuels the results.  Leading to higher satisfaction of staff and students. Related Posts:Gamification in Relation to User EngagementWhat Determines Value in Training?Developing Skills through GamificationUniversity Trading Challenge December 9, 2011Developing a Structured Learning Path

How gamification has had an effect on the training industry While there are a number of skeptics out there of training through gamification and simulation; gamified simulations have become an extremely popular and very effective training medium. Some in the simulation market may take offense to a simulation mistakenly called a ‘game’. While a simulation does have game-like aspects it is purely used as a teaching method. Are they real enough? They are so real it hurts. Will one take it serious enough? This is where the term ‘serious games’ come into play. Gamified simulations are even being incorporated into traditional military training war games. By nature, we have the desire to be entertained. The experience-based learning that games provide enables the ability to change behavior by being immersed within the game design and provide a motivation for learning through such motivation. By generating a method for measurable feedback, the trainee as well as the organization benefit. Game-style engagement can bring a high level of engagement and make learning/training actually fun to do. When a simulation is based around an inspiring story it makes it satisfying to play. Gaming interfaces will continue to make inroads in both corporate and educational training fronts within the next decade. "It is in our human nature to interact and be entertained with playful applications, particularly when there are engaging design elements employed." -Gamification in 2012 Report, M2 Research It’s more than just flight simulators being used for training nowadays’, training ranges in everything from the financial industry to popular consumer applications. Perhaps one of the more famous games/simulations that most have heard of (if not played) is that of the United States military’s "America’s Army" video-game recruiting tool. America’s Army presents real-world-like challenges to the player; yet brings an element of seriousness and real-world applicability. It is a great recruitment strategy in a cost-effective format that captures its target audience and leads to more recruits signing up for duty; that may not have otherwise. According to the 2012 Pew Internet Research Report: (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Future-of-Gamification/Overview.aspx?view=all) "While some people dismiss gamification as a fad, neuroscientists are discovering more and more about the ways in which humans react to such interactive design elements. They say such elements can cause feel-good chemical reactions, alter human responses to stimuli—increasing reaction times, for instance—and in certain situations can improve learning, participation, and motivation." Gamification, games based on scenarios and problem solving, aka "Serious games" make for a great approach to presenting training and education in any easily digestible format for the user. So many of us lead digital lives and have become accustomed to being ‘plugged-in’ all of the time whether that be by a wireless internet connection and iPad or through a Smartphone. That by playing through simulations it’s just second nature and an extremely compelling way to present material that may otherwise be bland and boring. We tend to look for instant gratification in our work; by providing user feedback (through a point system, etc.) the simulation medium provides for direct response. Gaming technologies are making training and education far more effective than traditional methods and gamification has many applications within the training arena. Let’s address those skeptics that believe games are not for learning. Said skeptics believe that no good can come from playing a game, and dismiss the technology all together. Little do they know that by using gamification and simulation approaches in the training and educational markets we are making the learning/training process more anticipated and less feared.  Gaming functionality allows for people to understand more complex topics quicker and with more nuances involved.  We are able to present problem-solving strategies and a challenge that meets the skill level of any and all players. Video from this site: http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/gamification/ Gartner, Research Vice President Brian Burke discusses the trend of gamification and how it’s being utilized in the enterprise. video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player Since the gamification industry and term launched back in 2010, many companies (over 350 to be exact) have launched major gamification based projects. Ford, eBay, NBC, and Walgreens are just a few on the list. With any new concept and technology, there are always skeptics. Those that have heard failure stories, but for the most part a failed gamification project is only a result of the program not being the right design for the company and its users. Early adopter organizations are claiming success, sighting better user engagement and higher retention of material presented; than that of traditional training methods. "For many companies, gamified training has lowered costs and raised engagement by over 50 percent." -Gigaom (http://gigaom.com/2013/01/27/beyond-the-hype-5-ways-that-big-companies-are-using-gamification/) The applications of simulation and gamification are endless. They range from military to corporate training programs, first responders and even K-12 educational programs. Although there are still challenges to be worked through, we are hearing of new gamification projects being announced daily and we will continue to see more successful applications across the enterprise, in training and beyond. Gamification and simulation are powering a revolution; one in which can transform the way we do business, and transform our everyday lives. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:Gamification and the Hype CycleGamification in Relation to User EngagementDeveloping Skills through GamificationTraining and Education for Millennials through GamificationSimulations in Online Learning

The academic world is abuzz with the newest form of learning for students - the Massive Open Online Course or MOOC. In just over 1 year, it has become such a force that it already has large groups of supporters and detractors debating on its quality and effectiveness. MOOCs aim to work on an individual’s motivation to self-study and explore topics of her choice. While tremendous number of students and universities have benefitted by MOOCs, in order to understand the possibility and extent of a MOOC’s applications to the corporate world, we must understand its fundamental principles. Let’s dissect the term for a clearer view: Massive: This form of training is meant to be received by thousands of people. Course content, cultural sensitivities, geographical deviations to a subject and infrastructure to host the MOOC have to be evaluated accordingly. Open: MOOCs were originally designed to be free for all. However, hybrid models are now appearing with economically priced paid courses. All MOOCs are open to anybody who wishes to participate in the training. Online: In order to be massive, you have to go online. MOOCs are broadcasted online so that maximum amount of people can participate and benefit from the training. Course: These are trainings given by highly qualified trainers with a learning objective for all students. Most MOOCs provide completion certificates to those who pass all tests and quizzes. MOOCs have been growing in popularity because of its affiliation with "connectivism", where thousands of students can interact with each other to share notes and thoughts. This, along with the training content, increases their knowledge base and helps them build social networks around their areas of interest. Obviously, some of the above aspects of MOOCs do not go down too well with corporates. For one, most corporates would be uncomfortable hosting open, free for all courses. Where’s the business sense in that? It is this reason that is seeing low or no acceptance yet among companies. But here’s where a few tweaks to the original MOOC can make corporate training in your organization better, cheaper and more effective than the traditional methods being used today. Tweaking the MOOC for the corporate world Every company has its own culture that decides how much it wants to share. Companies may not want to host a training that is available to a massive group on people, but instead may only want to provide training to employees or a certain section of employees based on their role. When you are a geographically diverse company, whether within the country or globally, a corporate MOOC will still give you a larger audience to cater to in a shorter time span as compared to traditional instructor led courses. So relatively, this is still a massive training in your company’s context. Companies with more willingness to share may choose to keep non-confidential trainings open to a larger community or even the public at large. This can act as a brand builder, quite similar to your company’s thought leadership material or sponsored events. Based on the topic of training, its sensitivity or confidentiality, the requirement of the training material to those outside the company and the company’s keenness or averseness to experimenting with MOOCs, companies can decide whether they want to host their training content on the internet or on their intranet.   MOOCs in academia MOOCs in closed corporates MOOCs in open corporates What are we talking about? Currently available MOOCs, mainly focusing on academic learning MOOCs with suggested tweaks for corporates who would not like to share their content outside the company MOOCs with suggested tweaks for corporates who are open to sharing training content outside the company Is it massive? Yes. Enrolled student numbers can be as high as 150,000 Depends on the size of your company. The enrollments are restricted to the number of employees you have. Yes. You could potentially host trainings online for the whole world. Is it open? Yes. Open to all and free for all. In a way. It will only be open to everyone in your company, across all geographies. Yes. Your selected courses can be viewed by anyone. However, you may be choose to charge a nominal fee for outsiders to participate in your MOOC. Is it online? Yes. It will be available online, but on the intranet, not the internet. Yes, both.   Making business sense Saving money On an average, U.S. companies spent $706 for training every employee in 2012, according to The Corporate Learning Factbook® 2013. For organizations with more mature Learning & Development (L&D) functions, this number was even higher at $867 per employee. This does not include the monetary value of time that employees have to take off from work on specific days and at specific hours for the training. For client facing employees, this means they cannot meet with their clients during the training and must run their schedule around it. A MOOC will allow employees to fit the training into their schedule rather than the other way round, maintaining business as usual. This also means that companies will be able to uniformly deliver their training content to all employees, without spending money on travel, training centers, refreshments, etc. Plus, employees can view their training content multiple times, as and when they please. Increasing motivation The biggest motivation to individuals to complete a task is when they have chosen to do the task in the first place. Companies can use MOOCs to provide various non-mandatory or soft skill trainings that users can choose to take. This freedom of choice encourages people to learn and apply their learnings in the workplace. Encouraging creativity What makes this any different from an e-learning course, you ask? Let’s take you back to the theory of "connectivism". MOOCs marry the traditional classroom to the electronic network. Even though your employees are learning on their computer, they are connected to others who are also taking the same course. This allows them to interact and so many times this is how new ideas are generated that not only help the employees, but in many cases the organization as well. Another difference is that MOOCs contain rich content such as videos, infographics, quizzes, etc. This engages employees with content structure that is very similar to what they would find online had they been researching themselves. MOOCs, therefore, give employees that comfort zone that they’re looking for in a training that allows them to enjoy and learn creatively. MOOCs are here to stay and it is up to companies to make use of the advantages of this method of training while not applying the aspects that do not make business sense. Sooner or later, MOOCs will move from the academic space to the corporate space in a big way. Will you be prepared? Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:Should you use MOOCs over other forms of corporate…MOOCs: From the Classroom to the Conference RoomBeyond Cost-Savings: Advantages of MOOCs for Corporate…Placing MOOCs in the context of your organizationWhat Type of MOOC Is Right For You?

What is education? It seems like a simple question, but over the past several months, it has become increasingly more difficult to answer. Is education the transfer of knowledge from expert to learner? Is it the development of competencies? Is it something that happens in a classroom, online, on the job, or just anywhere at all? How can we tell if education is working - do we give students a written test or a competency-based assessment, or do we have them create a digital artifact to share with others? How do we assign credit to these various activities - does credit even matter? These are just some of the questions that are being asked and their answers are challenging the traditional ways of thinking about education and learning. One of the major assumptions that has been challenged recently is the primacy of content in our educational systems. Content has traditionally been the difference between education at a community college and education at an elite university. At a community college, professors may select the textbooks, but at an elite university the professors are the ones who write the textbooks. The students at top universities get a better education because they learn directly from the people who are actively doing the research and advancing the field. The students at community colleges will always be a step behind, not least because of the time it takes to produce a textbook. In the current climate, when many fields are advancing so rapidly it’s hard to keep up, the access gap between students at elite universities and community colleges is widening. Or at least it was, until about a year ago. When massive open online courses (MOOCs) erupted onto the scene in 2012, higher education freaked out, literally. Debates erupted across the spectrum, with traditionalists in one corner, online educators in another corner; students in one corner, textbook publishers in another corner; state university systems in one corner, small liberal arts colleges in another corner; and, well, you get the idea. None of the debates have been conclusively resolved: some people are afraid of MOOCs, some see them as a panacea for higher education, and others don’t know what to think at all. Why have MOOCs caused so much fuss? MOOCs challenge one of the main tenants of education, that "content is king." When Harvard, Stanford, and MIT offer their courses online, for free, to anyone, content is overthrown. When courses are built using open educational resources (OER) rather than textbooks from major publishers, content is overthrown. Now, students at community colleges, or even just sitting in their own living rooms, have access to the same content as students at elite universities. So if content isn’t king, what is? The emerging model for education is school-as-a-service. As Jeff Jarvis writes in Business Insider, "Content is that which fills something. Service is that which accomplishes something." MOOCs and the vast availability of content are forcing educators to think about students differently - not as vessels that need to be filled, but as clients that need to reach certain outcomes. In this light, education and training are viewed not as products but as services, and MOOCs are leading the way by equalizing the content playing field. As MOOC pioneer Dave Cormier says in the video below, "A MOOC is a catalyst for knowledge." If we think about school-as-a-service, then the focus of education turns to outcomes: What exactly will students be able to do? For businesses, this question becomes "What do we need our employees to be able to do and what is the best way to train them to achieve those goals?" As Jeff Jarvis writes, "When we think of ourselves as services, then we strive not to own products but instead to add value to a process. When we provide service, we become more accountable for the outcomes our clients achieve." Like Internet-as-a-service and software-as-a-service, the school-as-a-service model is based on having a variety of options at our fingertips all of the time. In 2011 Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Open Education Solutions, envisioned school-as-a-service as an environment where you "open your browser and you have learning options, multiple providers, multiple devices, customized engaging learning anywhere anytime." Now in 2013, many of these elements are already available. MOOCs and OER provide many avenues for content, mobile learning technologies enable students to access their courses on multiple devices, adaptive learning technologies provide customized solutions for learners, and Web 2.0 and social media integration increase learners’ engagement. And of course, since the Internet is always on, this learning can take place anywhere anytime. The evolution of education from content to service is just beginning, but judging by how quickly the general educational landscape is changing, once it catches on the transformation will be fast and furious. Higher education is notorious for dragging its feet, so as with elearning and the adoption of other technology-enabled learning tools, it will be up to private organizations and corporate trainers to lead the way. Content is no longer king. The new game of thrones is being played among Outcomes, Competencies, Technology, Certification, Adaptive Learning, and likely several contenders that haven’t yet emerged. Undoubtedly, there will be countless alliances, conspiracies, and upsets, and we are all anxious to see who will get to ride the dragons. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:MOOCs: From the Classroom to the Conference RoomBeyond Cost-Savings: Advantages of MOOCs for Corporate…Using MOOCs in Corporate Training ProgramsWhat Type of MOOC Is Right For You?Adult Education vs. Corporate eLearning

A little over a year ago, very few people had heard of massive open online courses, aka MOOCs. The strange acronym was recognized only in select higher education circles, where the courses were either regarded with trepidation ("What will this do to our schools?") or with derision ("We have nothing to fear from these second-rate imposters!"). Then over a period of about six months, everything changed. Three major companies were launched, millions of people signed up for free online courses, and the New York Times declared 2012 "the year of the MOOC." There is no longer a question of whether or not MOOCs will disrupt higher education—they already have, and they are pounding on the doors of K-12 and continuing education and corporate training as well. So, what is a MOOC? How are MOOCs affecting traditional models of education? And what does this mean for the future of corporate training? A MOOC is a "massive open online course": massive because the scale of the course is limited only by the capabilities of the learning management system; open because it is free and available for anyone to take; online because an Internet connection is all that is required to participate; and course because it delivers a specific unit of educational or training content. There are different types of MOOCs, but they all rely on a variety of online resources. Content delivery is usually through videos and other online media, while assessment is either objective (quizzes, exams) or subjective (blog posts, digital artifact creation, peer-reviewed essays). The term itself was first used by Dave Cormier to describe a course offered in 2008 by education and technology gurus George Siemens and Stephen Downes. This first MOOC attracted more than 2000 people, a number that was astounding at the time. After that, MOOCs laid low for a couple of years. There were some courses offered in an open online format, but education was too focused on the broader concept of online learning to worry about these courses, whose appeal seemed limited. Then, in the fall of 2011, Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun and Google research director Peter Norvig decided to offer their course "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" online and for free. More than 160,000 students signed up and over 23,000 graduated. As Thrun notes, "Peter and I taught more students AI, than all AI professors in the world combined." In February 2012 Thrun left Stanford to found Udacity, a private MOOC company. Two months later saw the launch of Coursera, the brainchild of Stanford professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. Today, Coursera offers hundreds of courses in several languages from more than 60 top universities around the world. The third major player is edX, a Harvard-MIT partnership that now includes 12 elite colleges and universities. While most of Udacity’s offerings are in math and computer science, Coursera and edX are experimenting with courses across the academic spectrum. As with any major innovation, both the hype and the criticism of MOOCs have been extreme. On the one hand, students are flocking to the courses and professors are lining up to teach them. A February 2013 survey, conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, found that of 103 professors who had taught a MOOC, a full 79% believed MOOCs were worth the hype. The professors reported that teaching a MOOC both increased their own standing in their field and improved the way they taught their traditional classes. On the other hand, there are many questions still outstanding regarding the true value of MOOCs, many of which revolve around assessment and what completing a MOOC may (or may not) allow a student do to in the future. There is also the question of credit. As of now, there is no formal credit system, but in February 2013 the American Council on Education recommended five MOOCs for credit and the California State Senate is currently considering a bill that would allow students to receive credit for taking MOOCs. MOOCs are also making inroads in bridging the workforce skills gap. Aided by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, edX has partnered with two Boston-area community colleges to better prepare students for jobs in the digital, knowledge-based economy. The next big area where MOOCs are poised to take off is corporate training. As Josh Bersin wrote in a November 2012 Forbes article, "At some point the enormous investment in the education industry [and MOOCs] will bleed over into the corporate market (where there is real money to be made)." In fact, corporate training is uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of MOOCs. As Chris Farrell wrote in Bloomberg Business Week, "The timing is auspicious. For one thing, companies have embraced online learning more than colleges and universities." More than 40% of corporate training is already done online, and many of the criticisms of MOOCs are less relevant in corporate than in educational scenarios. Some organizations are already using MOOCs for their training, like Canadian communications company TELUS. In February 2011, TELUS launched a six-week training program that used videos, webcasts, and various social media platforms to reach all 40,000 of its employees. Dan Pontefract, Head of Learning and Collaboration at TELUS, said "We’re not afraid of the MOOC; we’re demonstrating it has benefit inside the corporate ranks as it does in the academic ranks through ventures like Coursera, Udacity and edX." MOOCs are coming to corporate training. They are set to disrupt the old models and the disruption will be fast and furious. As we stand on this precipice, organizations and corporate trainers have a choice: they can sit in the back row and watch the show unfold, or they can embrace the new models and actively participate in determining the future of corporate training. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:MOOC: The King is Dead - Long Live the KingBeyond Cost-Savings: Advantages of MOOCs for Corporate…MOOCs in the corporate worldWhat Type of MOOC Is Right For You?Placing MOOCs in the context of your organization

Our workforce today is friendly to new technologies and new innovations. Gone are the days when introducing a new technology was always attempted to be shot down by employees, resulting in companies incurring high costs of change management. Younger employees today are excited to try something new and older ones have gotten used to the fast pace of change in technology in today’s times. Almost everybody uses the internet, social media and instant messaging. Connecting, sharing and collaborating have become the norm. MOOCs fit in perfectly in this environment, making it an extension of people’s natural method of researching and learning. MOOCs allow companies to provide uniform delivery of content to all its employees at distributed locations. This allows standardization of processes and competencies across all locations using fewer resources. Employees can learn at their own pace as long as they stick to course deadlines and pass course tests. Sharing your training content allows other professionals to learn from your subject matter experts and create a better talent pool for you to choose your next employee from. Using highly trained and experienced trainers and developing rich multimedia content for a MOOC not only engages your trainees, but becomes your intellectual property (IP) that lends to your brand strongly. How do you decide if a MOOC is the right method for you to conduct your training? There are a few considerations that you must evaluate in order to know if you will truly benefit by the advantages that MOOCs promise. Cutting across geographies Are you a company with hundreds or thousands of employees across the country or the world? How do you provide them training today? Is your training calendar chock-a-block with instructors flying across cities in order to train the same topic to multiple offices? When you have a large employee base, a MOOC allows you to impart training across all locations in a much shorter period of time. Strong training content Your course content has to be top-notch, taking into account geographical differences, various ethnic groups, legal and regulatory differences and market conditions. The instructor also has to be interesting to the trainee as, unlike a regular classroom, the trainee can easily get distracted while attending a MOOC. Additionally, you have to invest in developing videos and other interactive content for your audience. If you do not wish to generate all this content yourself, you could use content made available by other MOOCs for your employees. When MOOCs start gaining ground in the corporate sphere with a lot of content being generated, this could be a cost effective option for your company. Tighter training budget Because MOOCs are to be provided on the online platform, you do not spend the same kind of time or money in travel, training space, meals and refreshments, stationery and other sundry expenses. If you plan to host your own MOOCs, you’ll need to invest initially in the infrastructure and regularly on the training content. If not, you may use MOOCs created by another peer company or training organization. Whenever, wherever Your employees can attend a MOOC at their own time, without affecting their daily schedules or routine. This is especially useful for client-facing professionals who must adhere to their clients’ schedules for meetings and deliverables. Employees can even revisit a training if they wish to go through some concepts again for the sake of clarity. Continuing and Professional Development (CPD) Accounting, legal, insurance, medical, finance and other professionals require ongoing and continual attendance to relevant industry programs. Instead of organizations independently spending so many dollars on programs with similar content, a MOOC will allow several companies to leverage on training content developed by either an L&D organization or a consortium of companies. Standardization A MOOC is a wonderful way to bring in standardized processes across your company. Employees can not only learn one way of doing things, but offices with weaker process adherence can also learn from offices with stronger process adherence. Connectivism allows MOOCs to bring people together in a discussion that creates a sense of collaboration and healthy competition. Instructor-led trainings cannot create this atmosphere due to each location conducting its own separate trainings, as one large classroom training is not logistically viable for all your employees. E-learning courses, while imparting standardized trainings, do not allow any interaction between trainees at all and thus reduce the effectiveness that we see in MOOCs. Creativity Because of the collaboration and competition with such a ‘massive’ group of people, MOOCs allow people to bring up situations and challenges from their different workplaces. Together, training attendees attempt to develop creative solutions to issues, with a huge positive impact on employee morale and company efficiency. With instructor-led trainings and e-learning, such interactions are impossible and hardly ever do we see a training being a reason for creativity highs within the organization. User experience MOOCs with well thought of and well executed content pull the trainees’ attention into the subject matter, allowing for an enjoyable learning experience. This makes concepts clearer and drives the trainee to perform additional research and self-study on the subject. Traditional methods of corporate training are known to be drab and do not motivate many employees to study outside the classroom or the course material. Peer network A MOOC brings together the online classroom as a network of professionals with a common objective or interest. This not only initiates discussions that lead to creative problem solving, but also creates a peer network that continue to discuss and debate on related topics even after the training is over. Imagine a group of, say, Certified Public Accountants or Environmental Lawyers, who connect regularly to update themselves on real applications and real challenges of their industry, and together come up with out-of-the-box solutions that help them and, in the process, their companies. Brand and Intellectual Property (IP) A MOOC is nothing but an event that brings together people who have a common learning objective to acquire or improve certain skillsets. Like any other event, a MOOC is a brilliant platform to showcase your brand. A MOOC developed using your subject matter experts, containing examples of your company or simple promoted by your organization will give you visibility. You can even create an amazing library of training content that will add to your IP with far more value than traditional instructor-driven or even e-learning courses. Companies at both ends at the spectrum - those that create content as well as those that use others’ content - will benefit from MOOCs. Compared to other forms of corporate trainings, a MOOC is a revolutionary concept that will change the way we provide and receive training. In keeping with the times, MOOCs will especially appeal to the younger workforces who like to have control over their schedules and study patterns. Google’s Course Builder will push more and more institutes, and soon corporates, into the fray. Over a period of time, we may even see hybrid models of MOOCs and traditional training methods as this new concept reaches its plateau of productivity in the hype cycle. Start building your L&D strategy today! Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:MOOCs in the corporate worldMOOCs - Helping organizations learnShould your corporate training strategy move to the MOOC?Placing MOOCs in the context of your organizationBeyond Cost-Savings: Advantages of MOOCs for Corporate…

The extremely fast paced growth of Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOCs , means that many companies are now evaluating how they can benefit from this training methodology. In order to perform this evaluation correctly, one key question must be asked - do you view a MOOC as a product or a service? MOOC - product or service? Before digging deeper into this question, it is important to understand the difference between a product and a service. By standard definitions, a product is a tangible object manufactured, developed or assembled, while a service is an intangible benefit or value addition. However, in the world of MOOCs, this line is very blurred.  Do MOOCs provide content that is developed for the consumers, thus making it a product? Or does it provide a platform for content, thus making it a service? Both. MOOCs can be sliced into two distinct segments. The first segment comprises of: -          Creating course syllabus and structure; -          Developing content by using information collated from various sources such as books, the internet, professors and professionals; -          Transforming collated content into lectures as well as rich textual, audio and visual aids by a team of designers, videographers, editors, trainers and subject matter experts (SMEs). The output of this segment is the course material for the MOOC. This is nothing but a product that has now been created for consumption. The second segment comprises of: -          Creating a dynamic delivery platform to host the MOOCs for participants to join; -          Developing online forums on the delivery platform to enable "connectivism"; -          Creating non-synchronous access to course content, assessments and online forums; -          Providing trainer and administrative support during the ongoing MOOC period; -          Enabling deadline-based access to participants to complete courses within a time frame; -          Allowing social interactions to continue even after the MOOC delivery and assessments are complete. The output of this segment is a measured success of participants in terms of higher knowledge, increased skillsets, better process adherence or whatever outcome the MOOC had set out to achieve. Because this segment creates value for an organization and its employees, this is the service element of the MOOC. In the simplest terms, the MOOC’s two segments are creating content (the product) and enabling delivery (the service). Extracting maximum value from MOOCs Involvement Knowing now about the two segments of a MOOC, your organization must decide on what its core competencies are and the level of involvement it plans to have. Basically, you can decide if you want to outsource one or both segments - the content and the delivery - to an external agency. Unless you have a large IT infrastructure setup, it always makes sense to outsource most of the delivery segment of the MOOC to an external agency. At the most, you would want to maintain your trainer support in-house so that your trainer is available for participants to answer their questions during the course period. Outsourcing both segments is useful for Continuing and Professional Development (CPD) trainings that are relevant to whole industries and can thus be completely taken care of by a training partner. For company-specific or complex trainings, you may wish to choose various levels of involvement in both segments. Here are a few illustrations: -          For an information security training for your organization, you may partner with an external corporate training agency who creates the full content based on their material, but takes inputs from your Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and L&D team. The same agency, or another, may host the MOOC for your employees across the globe. -          For a training on how to use your organization’s ERP system across all roles of employees who have access, your SMEs and the L&D function can together create the entire syllabus and structure along with much of the material for the course. This can then be taken to an external agency that can create videos and infographics to enrich the content further. Once the content is created, you may host your MOOC with the help of a delivery partner. There are so many combinations possible in each step within each segment of a MOOC. You must decide the level of involvement that is right for your company. Content You cannot treat a MOOC like any other training product that simply throws information at participants. The medium has changed from the training room to the computer network and so the form of the content has to change too. When the internet was new, newspapers jumping on the online bandwagon just copy-pasted their content that was used in print on to the webpage. It was an utter disaster. The product given to internet consumers was not as per their needs, not something they were looking for. Online consumers wanted shorter articles, something with a quick read, something the copy-pasted articles failed to do. Similarly, because your content will not be provided to your employees in a classroom setting, the content has to be rich and enticing. Something that will keep the employee hooked on to his computer without getting distracted. The key is to try and train the employees in a way that is similar to how they would have studied or researched the subject themselves. To extract maximum value from your content, identify your strengths in the subject. Are you a market leader in the topic you want to train your employees in? If yes, you should be developing this content yourself. If not, leave this job to the experts. E.g. MOOCs for soft skills are best created by companies for whom teaching soft skills is their bread and butter. However, if a subject like SOx readiness is your forte, pump in as many resources as you can in developing this content yourself. While you may still need assistance from external agencies for enriching the content, ensure that your SMEs are involved in the lectures, videos, written material and preparation of assessments. Evaluate if you can open the MOOC to the public at large. Use the MOOC as a platform to showcase your brand. Think of TED videos. Today, they have become a great way to build brand recognition by imparting knowledge and creating awareness. MOOCs can be used in a similar fashion to create brand awareness by larger, more detailed training programs. Repetition Every year, a company will have freshers or new recruits join them and every year, training sessions will have to be hosted. Freshers don’t have enough experience to function at their highest productivity potential. Often, on-site training is required, which has to be repeated every year. While this is just one example, there are several courses that companies undertake periodically. The frequency of these courses could range from annual to being run several times a year. Each time, your internal trainer must be made available or an instructor must be hired, a venue and a training room has to be organized, employees must take time out from their schedule, travel and hotel arrangements have to be made, refreshments have to be served, stationery and miscellaneous items have to be bought and so many more sundry costs have to be taken into account. By using the MOOC methodology for repeatable programs, you can lower the total cost of running the program across multiple years by 50-60%. This is because, not only do you enjoy savings during the first MOOC event due to reduction in overall costs, but every time you repeat the MOOC, the additional cost of running it is close to ZERO! Since your content and delivery systems are already in place, the only costs you bear every time you repeat are those related to program management and facilitatory engagement which sum up to almost nothing compared to what the traditional method would have cost you. Making money from MOOCs The hottest topic in the corporate world surrounding MOOCs is how to put a sustainable business model around it. Most popular startups around MOOCs today are funded by universities or venture capitalists and are still trying to figure the best way to rake in the moolah. E.g. Coursera now offers some courses that are free to participate in, but you need to pay if you want a certificate of completion of the course. You can’t make serious money out of MOOCs…yet. But it still makes sense to go ahead and incorporate MOOCs in your training methodology and here’s why - when the MOOC market matures, acceptable business models will emerge that will allow you to earn revenues from MOOCs. When that happens, you will only be able to leverage from it if you have been playing the game for a while. The consumer will spend dollars for your product and/ or service (depending on which segment you focused your involvement in) only if you show the experience and expertise. And this experience building has to start TODAY. Here are a few revenue models that could emerge in the coming years: Certificate courses Since this has already begun, this could continue to be one of the ways to generate revenues from course participants. In this method, the participant pays to receive a certificate of completion of the course. Current statistics show that only around 10% of all participants complete a MOOC, which means that if you are offering a MOOC to the public at large, your potential revenue generation consumers will be a subset of this 10% pool. CPD credits Many professionals require earning Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits every year to maintain their certifications and professional memberships to reputed institutions. Paid courses could be offered in order to earn CPD credits for such professionals. Advanced paid courses In this model, your organization could host basic as well as advanced levels of a certain subject. While the basic course can be free to all, anyone who wants to go more in detail into the subject would have to pay a course fee. Hybrid training models A hybrid training model involves a MOOC combined with classroom training and additional material such as course books, worksheets and offline assessments. A revenue model that could emerge may allow you to charge for the classroom sessions while keeping the MOOC free for all. Related Posts:MOOCs in the corporate worldShould you use MOOCs over other forms of corporate…MOOCs - Helping organizations learnShould your corporate training strategy move to the MOOC?What Type of MOOC Is Right For You?

A company’s training strategy usually comprises of four aspects: Identifying measurable outcomes Evaluating costs against the value addition due to the outcomes Developing a training plan based on the above two Monitoring the effectiveness of the training plan. The first aspect above is agnostic to which training methodology you use. It is purely based on your business goals and comprises of targets such as increased productivity, reduced attrition, improved customer service, etc. However, all other aspects in your training strategy are closely linked with the Learning and Development (L&D) methodology that you will use to execute your strategy. It is advisable to monitor every aspect of your methodology so that when the time comes, the evaluation of whether to go the MOOC way or not will become simple for you. Costs and budgets The average organization in the U.S. spends approximately $800 per employee annually, but this varies based on the maturity of the organization’s L&D function. This number not only includes training, but also other talent initiatives such as maintaining the knowledge management systems and creating personal development plans. As an organization, you must clearly identify your budget for L&D. The money that you are expending on training within your organization has to be justified by the outcomes that you have identified. You must ask yourself if you are spending more money than the value you will be getting in return. Consistently monitoring your budgets versus actuals for your L&D function will help you evaluate the cost benefit that you get if you transition from your traditional training strategy to a MOOC based or hybrid one. Companies can expect to reduce their training costs by 25% when they move to a MOOC based training strategy. This is due to the usage of technology enabled learning that a MOOC delivers by being geographically independent, providing uniform lecture delivery, incorporating verifiable participation and enabling online assessment validation. A MOOC-style delivery also causes the elimination of other costs such as travel, accommodations and loss of client sales times. Training plan Transitioning from a traditional training program to a MOOC based approach causes a huge shift in how you plan and execute your trainings. For one, your training calendar is simplified because instead of securing specific dates and venues for trainings, you simply create deadlines for your MOOCs. This means that employees have to complete each course by a certain date, irrespective of where they are located. You also do not need to be bogged down by your trainers’ availability to travel as they are only needed while creating the training content, if at all. You also save yourself the hassle of spending time and money on travel for your trainers or even trainees, in some cases. This not only significantly reduces your costs, but also allows your corporate Travel Desk to devote more time in booking work related trips that will enable revenue growth. Similarly, Finance and Administration functions spend lesser time in managing training related activities which leads to an increased productivity in your organization’s support functions. Transitioning to the MOOC greatly reduces your organization’s learning footprint. A learning footprint can be defined as the ratio of your training staff to your learning employees. A higher learning footprint means higher costs and lack of uniformity in training delivery. The Corporate Learning Factbook® 2013 states that in 2007, just 11 percent of U.S. companies were using communities of practice in a training context. Today, the figure is nearly three times higher. Similarly, spending on social learning has grown substantially over the past few years. In 2012, U.S. companies spent $13,675, on average, on social learning tools and services, a 39% jump over 2011 levels. This means that companies are trying to combine traditional learning methods with social interactions in order to gain more benefits. However, this is coming at an additional cost to organizations. A MOOC allows organizations to enjoy the benefits of peer networking and social interactions with a far more cost effective execution. Monitoring effectiveness The outcomes identified at the beginning of the training year have to be achieved in order to have a successful training strategy. Apart from your pre-set goals, monitoring tangible and intangible value additions to your organization due to training will allow you to evaluate where your training plan needs improvement. Tangible value additions could include: -          Increased knowledge and skillsets: How many employees actually gained more information/ skillsets than they already had in the first place? -          Lowered attrition: Are lesser employees leaving due to better managers? -          Better customer service: Are your customers more satisfied? What types of complaints are reducing most? Which training could be responsible for that? -          Better adherence to processes: Is there better adherence and standardization of processes across offices? -          Higher productivity: Are your employees delivering more in lesser time? -          Team work: Are employees getting better 360 degree feedback from their seniors, peers and juniors?   Traditional monitoring methods only have one-direction employee assessments, which means that assessment of an employee’s performance after a training is performed by the trainer or a central assessor. However, MOOCs allow peer reviews by multiple participants of the MOOC who can also judge an individual’s contribution to the social interactions, which can be factored in the assessment. This is important because it fosters and encourages an environment of teamwork within the individual and the organization. Intangible value additions could include: -          Brand recognition: Are you leveraging your training content to give you more brand recognition? -          Alignment with the company’s vision: Are your employees able to connect with the company’s values? For the next few years to come, MOOCs will bring the "wow" factor to companies that start using this new methodology to train their employees. Employees today love to work for organizations that are innovative and this increases their motivation levels to be creative and productive. It also allows them to feel more united with their company’s values. Using your subject matter experts in MOOCs is also a good way to increase brand recognition. These benefits cannot always be achieved with traditional training mechanisms. Copyright 2013 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson     Related Posts:What Type of MOOC Is Right For You?Beyond Cost-Savings: Advantages of MOOCs for Corporate…Top 10 Training MetricsTop 10 Coaching CommandmentsMOOCs - Helping organizations learn