Rapid E-Learning
By Joe Gustafson

This contributed piece is of special interest given our own steady realization that e-learning is becoming an informal and diffuse set of processes in additional to a standard portfolio of online classes. --Editor

A new paradigm in e-learning is shaping the way that companies are approaching the problem of informing and educating their employees, channel partners, customers and prospects. E-learning has helped companies increase the reach of training at a reduced cost, enabling learners to participate in training at a more convenient location and time, and to receive training in a format that is highly effective for knowledge retention. What's not to love?

The problem is, traditional eLearning has not been scalable enough to be able to address the needs of businesses to deliver rapidly-changing information such as the latest product knowledge, competitive intelligence, corporate initiatives, and many other types of information that help companies act and react quickly, help their salespeople on their very next call, or help customers benefit from best practices.

Until recent years, developing and delivering eLearning courses was something that required advanced skill sets and, turnaround time of weeks and months to build. To deliver e-learning via traditional methods of development still involves the help of digital media experts, graphic designers, and instructional designers; and significant time spent chasing down the subject matter experts within an organization in order to transform the knowledge in the expert's head into an e-learning course.

Today, more and more companies are embracing the concept of Rapid E-Learning, a new approach to e-learning that involves reduced development time, and places new capabilities to build and deliver content into the hands of those that hold the knowledge within your company -- the subject matter experts themselves. Today, new technologies make it possible for those without specialized media skills to use existing business materials -- such as presentations, documents, and a web browser -- to create and deliver online courses very quickly; and to easily track course completion and learner progress. As a result, companies can enjoy the engaging delivery and extensive reach of e-learning while accelerating information and education -- opening up the possibilities for the types of information that can be delivered. Companies are able to deliver the types of education and information that they simply could not have previously addressed in a timely manner, or that they may have tried to deliver in other less-effectiveways such as using documents or text published on a web page.

Rapid E-Learning is catching on not only with training organizations who are looking towards this approach to address the increased demand for time-critical learning; but by line-of-business groups who are driving the demand in the first place -- the product managers, heads of sales, and marketing teams that have a continuous need to get information and time-critical messages to their audiences in an effective format. Their objective is to keep sales and channel reps better informed, stay top-of-mind with customers and channels by providing frequent, valuable education; and to quickly align organizations around important initiatives.

Certain types of business information and education are particularly compelling for this method of learning delivery. These include:

Time-Critical Information -- When a company launches a new product and needs to train their sales force on how to sell it, the volume of information that needs to be delivered is enormous and may include which buyers to target, how to position the product, how its priced, how to successfully demonstrate the offering or differentiate among competitors. And again, just prior to launch, the volume of information about the new offering will most likely change weekly prior to the actual launch date, and continue to change for some time thereafter. The faster companies can communicate this information to their sales force in small segments so that reps can absorb and process it, the faster they can hit the ground running and significantly ramp revenues prior to launch.

Communicating with Audiences Outside the Organization - When it comes to external audiences such as customers and partners, it can often be difficult to try and get in front of every individual in the organization that you need to reach at a time that is convenient for them. Rapid E-Learning allows these outside audiences to hear directly from your experts more frequently and allows your targets to know more about your organization in ways not previously possible. When your channel partners hear directly from product experts, clients hear directly from key executives, your audiences establish a familiarity with your organization, the feeling that they know your company and the people that run it. By making it convenient for them to hear a valuable message directly from your experts at a time that fits into their schedule, you can capture mindshare and strengthen relationships.

Conveying Informal Knowledge - Or the type of knowledge that educates sales reps on respond to a recent competitive threat, how to address the intricacies of their selling process, how to communicate a company's position on the latest "hot button" issues, or tips for how to address customers that have very specific needs. This type of knowledge can make every employee an expert at his or her job, make every one of your channel partners an expert on your product and make your salespeople more effective on their next call. Salespeople can close deals faster, your channels can sell your product more effectively, and your customers can derive greater value from their relationship with your organization.

Large and small companies alike can benefit greatly from a Rapid E-Learning approach to training and communicating. Large companies face the challenge of reaching a global employee base, multi-level distribution channels, and thousands of customers; while smaller companies have the challenge of maximizing resources to appear bigger than they are. But no matter what size organization, can your subject matter experts afford to drop everything to deliver training on one topic repeatedly until ALL the people that need to hear it have been reached? In each of these situations, Rapid E-Learning becomes the solution of choice when effective education to those who need it in a timely manner.

Joe Gustafson is CEO of Brainshark.

Reprinted from Line56 The E-Business Executive Daily newsletter