Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2011 - (Page 7)

AT THE EDITOR’S DESK | KIM PERETTI IF LEARNERS DON’T FIND WHAT THEY NEED, THEY MAY JUST TURN AROUND THE LEARNING GPS T he convergence of technology and learning over the last few years has created a great opportunity for learning providers to make training and education easier and more available. However, it’s also created confusion, frustration and disengagement for our learners. While we’ve leveraged technology tools to support what and how we deliver learning, there is still the ongoing issue of too much in too many places. Think about it. There is information and knowledge everywhere our constituents go, some pertinent and some not. How do we help these learners wade through it all and get what they need to meet their specific situation/need/role/profile? Federated searches like Google, Wikis, blogs and communities of practices make it easy … sometimes. Those approaches to finding meaningful content reminds me of a recent driving experience, when I was trying to find a certain street location (Willow Court) not far from where I live. Off I went with it programmed in my GPS, only to find that the GPS was sending me to Willow Avenue. Around and around I went searching for the right address, playing with the GPS, asking strangers I came upon for directions. It took quite a while to find the street I was looking for and by the end of it all, I was frustrated to the point of almost giving up. Similarly, a learner may not hit exactly the right learning destination the first time, when it really counts. They may end up “driving” around needlessly for much longer than needed; asking all kinds of questions and looking down too many wrong-way streets. And if learners don’t find what they need, they may just turn around and bail on the entire learning trip; leaving a question of confidence in using the same system again to assist them. As learning leaders, one aspect of our job is to create an effective and meaningful “learning GPS,” one that takes into account a number of variables about the learner, their requirements and the rationale surrounding their needs. And once we have that, we can create a meaningful set of recommended, pertinent, easy-to-access learning opportunities that gets the learner to the right content quickly. We have cracked that nut in the consumer world, so why can’t we do this in training? Imagine, a learner who logs into her/his learning portal and is presented with an experience similar to This Issue’s Guest Editor Kim Peretti is head of global education services at QlikTech Inc. With the support of a closely aligned cross-functional business team, Kim and the education services team provide training to more than 20,000+ customers and partners worldwide. Kim joined QlikTech in early 2011. Prior to QlikTech, Kim spent the last 15 years managing, and leading education organizations in the high-tech sector with such companies as Symantec and PeopleSoft. Email Kim. Know someone who’d make an outstanding guest editor? Interested in becoming one yourself? Contact us at editor@trainingindustry.com. iTunes or Amazon. This means welcoming the learner by name, providing a history of things he or she has done and recommending things that may be of further interest or importance based on past learning behavior, business demographics including their job title, responsibilities, selected areas of interest and departmental or corporate objectives. Ideally, when searching, the system returns learning opportunities specific to the learner’s role, experiences and behavior, as well as traditional search criteria such as key words and phrases. This type of approach, while not new or revolutionary in many industries is not yet fully realized in the training world. Implementing this type of approach isn’t easy or a one-time event: It will require our systems and processes to be tweaked so we provide training in a new more dynamic, meaningful way. Understanding the best practices and approaches that our marketing and advertisement brethren use is a great place to start the process. They have a lot of this solved. We would be wise to take a page from them and take a serious look at moving toward this approach. Our ability to make an impact on our businesses in fast, efficient ways is a critical success factor to all of us in the training space. Moving this way is a game changer and another step toward displaying the true value training provides to the business. 7 Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2011 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2011

Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2011
From Where I Sit: Back to the Basics
Table of Contents
Ad Index
The Learning GPS
Work that Stretches: The Best Teacher
The Promise and Peril of Social Enterprise
Technical Training: How is it Different?
Companies Press 'Play' on Training Games
Redefining the 'e' in e-Learning
Essential Components for Effectively Training a Global Workforce
Five m-Learning Considerations for Your Talent Management Strategy
Instructional Design: Learning Meets Technology
Improving Training: Thinking Like a Game Developer
Casebook: Pfizer: Moving Product Sales Training Online
Why is Mobile Learning Not More Popular?
Tweet Suite
Company News
Closing Arguments: The Three T's

Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2011