Training 2.0

Hello everyone! I’m back! And I am ready to share my thoughts on the next generation of training!

As you may already know, I am currently a corporate trainer for a Fortune 100 company. One of my many responsibilities includes managing and delivering a new hire training course to new sales account managers that join the company. The goal of this new hire training, as is with any, is to prepare the employees to be successful in doing the job they were hired to do. Recently, we decided to completely revamp the training program. I just finished training the new curriculum last week, and while I was facilitating, a lightbulb went off! I’ll explain the lightbulb in a moment, but first let’s take a brief look at the typical new hire training curriculum…

I am sure if you are reading this you have either attended a new hire training session, or even facilitated one yourself. Ask yourself this question, did the training teach you how to do your job…successfully? Speaking from experience, being both a new hire several times, and a trainer training the class, I cannot honestly answer yes to this question…until now.

You see, traditionally this is always the end goal of any new hire training, but the content is not aligned with this goal! Think about it. If you are hired into a job that requires sales skills, product knowledge, and systems knowledge…that is exactly how the training curriculum is organized! We’ll teach you sales skills…then product…then systems. Yes, you are learning all the things you need to know…but does it make sense??? When you get out of training and ‘on the floor’ or ‘in the field’, do you know how to do your job? If it is sales, can you sell something…from prospect to order? If it is customer service, can you fully service your customers…from engagement to resolution? The answer is usually, “Well, I learn most of it once I am actually doing the job.” Yes, that is true, you will learn it again on the job, but what if you could learn it ALL in the classroom and then simply apply what you know on the job?

This is why I believe the heart of a new hire training curriculum must be the PROCESS. Take me from start to finish! What skills do I need at each stage in the process? What systems do I use, when, and how do I use them? In my opinion, the perfect training class allows the learner to PRACTICE what is being trained. Teach them the process, take them through the process, and let them follow the process themselves!

I call this process-centered training! Training…the way it should be! Luckily, my training organization is headed in the right direction!

What do you think???

As I was browsing through the top news headlines today, the title of one article JUMPED out at me. The news article was published by eSchool News and is titled, “Learning replaces teaching.”

As you all may know, as a corporate sales trainer in telecommunications, I am very involved with integrating the message of ‘Solution Selling’ into my various training courses. The message is simple, sell not with the product in mind, but rather with the customer in mind. What drives your customer’s business? What are your customer’s major business objectives now, and in the future? What critical issues could they experience that could potentially hinder their ability to meet these objectives? NOW, how can your product/solution HELP the customer solve these problems and in turn allow them to meet their business objectives? That’s it! That is basic solution selling. Learn about your customer inside and out, identify their needs, and THEN provide the solution.

So, as you can imagine, when I saw this headline, “Learning replaces teaching,” I was immediately drawn to it. This is solution selling in the world of education! Learn about your learners first, THEN teach to their need. Although this article discusses the topic as it relates to teaching in the public school system, this concept can easily apply to all types learning. In the world of Training 2.0, this paradigm shift should sit at the core of ALL training development and facilitation.

If we were to tie this concept into the most common instructional design process, A.D.D.I.E. (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation), it could easily apply to each of the five steps. We need to analyze the learning audience to identify their need. We need to design, develop, and implement according to that need. And finally we must evaluate to determine if the needs have been met. For example, maybe your analysis identifies the majority of the learning audience to be telecommuters. In this case you might identify a need for mobilized training, i.e. podcasts.

Solution selling in the world of education. This is the future!This is how training organizations of the future will succeed, or fail.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

I only felt it appropriate that I begin my blog with a discussion about one of the most recent movements in the field of higher education–the “podcasting movement.”

I read an article today that really got me thinking about podcasting, and how it is, and could be used in a learning environment. The article references the increased use of podcasting as a learning tool at the collegiate level with many of the universities today. Colleges are beginning to receive grants to test web 2.0 technologies in the classroom:

“The Ohio Learning Network provided the health and human services and education departments with a $5,000 grant to fund 14 professors to take part in a learning community study. The group chose to study the benefits of podcasting at a collegiate level.”

“Podcast[s] are becoming popular because students learn better when they receive something from [a] medium they like. Students can use iPods to listen to lectures while walking, talking or doing whatever…”

Talk about Training 2.0!!! This is it! This is the future! It’s not about replacing the current curriculum, it’s about providing yet one additional medium of communicating the same message. It’s about putting that message straight into the learner’s ear buds!

Now, doesn’t it only make sense to mirror what the colleges are doing in the business world??? As businesses focus more on mobility…as businesses focus more on expanding and growing globally…as businesses focus more on adapting to this new web 2.0 world…doesn’t it make TOTAL sense that podcasting would be a requirement for any business moving forward?!?

Think about it–success stories, interviews, lecture feeds, Q&A discussions with subject matter experts, reinforcement messages to keep new hire training moving… I could go ON and ON!

All I can say is if the colleges are doing it, every business should be at LEAST looking at how podcasting could work for them; especially the ones looking to find another way to competitively differentiate, AND have a HUGE impact on their learning audience.

I would love to hear what you think!

Who am I?

I am first, and foremost, a family man. My beautiful wife and my 5 year-old son are the center of my world. I love my family, and all I do is with their happiness in mind.

So what is it that I do? I am, at any given time, what I choose to be. I am an educator. I am a business man. I am a manager. I am a contributor. I am a consultant. I am a leader. I could keep going for hours. Professionally, and on paper, I work for a Fortune 100 telecommunications company, where I am considered a “Senior Consultant.” In laymen’s terms, I am a Corporate Trainer. I spend most of my time training corporate and global sales executives on telecommunications technology, product, and sales skills. But, again, this is only one of my MANY hats.

I am a technology geek. I love anything new–anything cutting-edge–anything that will make life easier and more exciting through the use of new technology.

Training 2.0 is a blog dedicated to my two passions: Training & Technology.

What does corporate training of the future look like? What does it look like in the new Web 2.0 world? What is working today? What is not working?

These are all questions I look to answer for you in this blog. I am here to learn, just as you are.

Welcome to Training 2.0!!!