Social eLearning Software Blog

As leaders within the Medical Education field, each institution has an obligation to provide a framework and roadmap for the department heads to assure students, residents, fellows, faculty and patients of the level of excellence and quality improvements monitored by accrediting bodies (like ACGME).  The ability to plan, evaluate and track the positive outcomes across the variety of constituencies throughout the accreditation review cycles can be a monumental task and the implications of poor results have a long-lasting impact on departments and the school as a whole.

Few medical schools today have an end-to-end visibility to facilitate achieving the various components required by the accrediting body and review committees to proactively manage the program standards and results set these review committees.   Under the leadership of medical school deans, the institutional components are typically well defined and understood.  However, the common program requirement commitments are completely reliant on the level of resources available within a department and the department heads have limited tools available to actively manage this on-going basis.

In addition to the sheer compliance aspects of the accreditation program, the need to facilitate the experiential and didactic requirements for a new generation of physicians, residents, fellows and faculty without being cited continues to become a greater concern.    Medical schools simply need a web-based solution that can accommodate the accreditation requirements, access to clinical lectures, on-line content, peer-to-peer and peer-to-faculty collaboration and communities of practice to share information across its members in a secure, private environment.

A free webinar will be co-hosted by Dr. Peter J. Smith, MD, MA, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics - University of Chicago.   As a fellowship director for Development and Behavioral Pediatrics Section, Dr. Smith has leveraged our TOPYX solution to address many of the issues identified above.  The webinar is entitled:

"Is Your Accreditation at Risk? Find out from Dr. Peter Smith." on Wednesday, 3/10 at 12 PM EST: Click here to register

Please enjoy our upcoming sessions and we look forward to your participation.   In the interim, please feel free to get more information and take a tour of TOPYX.  Also, you can contact us directly at information@interactyx.com with any questions or to discuss your situation in greater detail.

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Business Development
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Do you want to increase employee and company capability while also being strategically positioned for future success?

The three MUST DO's for 2010 include:

1.       Developing leaders as teachers,

2.       Driving company profitability through learning excellence; and

3.       Evolving from "training- provider" to "learning enabler".

On Thursday, February 18th at 11 am - 12 pm EST, the Corporate University Exchange is hosting a webinar entitled "3 Things You MUST Master in 2010" (Here is the guest registration link - http://corpu.com/events/learning-leader-top-3-priorities-for-2010/join-as-guest/). The esteemed panel will be presenting their research and strategic frameworks for these three topics.

I look forward to their presentation, however, the third MUST DO can easily be addressed by forward thinking Chief Learning Officers and Leadership Development professionals today in order to Evolve from "Training Provider" to "Learning Enabler". While many organizations utilize their monolithic learning management infrastructure and dabbled in social networking tools to enable conversations, these efforts will not enable your organization to learn from your leaders or improve profitability through learning excellence. It is truly time for a solution that spurs Leadership Development that can engage all employees (local and remote), provide relevant context to solving business problems, and build a sense of community excellence.

For Leadership Development professionals, please join for me for a discussion on this important topic entitled "Can Collaboration Enhance Leadership Development?" on Wednesday, 2/10 at 1 PM EST as we focus on solving this MUST DO in 2010. 

Can Collaboration Enhance Leadership Development?
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010
1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

The highly dispersed nature of any company's sales organization is a fact of life for every business. Whether you sell direct, via manufacturer's reps, wholesalers, distributors or retail, the ability to engage these channels is the second leading issue facing business executives today (see table below). Sales leadership in many corporations are hiding behind the economic doldrums excuse (with some legitimacy), but "best-in-class" Sales Executives are delivering results in spite of these realities.

Traditional sales training and knowledge distribution processes through your channels are relics of the past. Stick with them and your company will become a dinosaur - extinct. Ladies and gentlemen, it is 2009 and time to leverage the tools available to engage your sales channels. Your Marketing and Human Resource brethren are leveraging Web 2.0 tools to extend your brand and upgrade the talent pools across your organization. It is time for Sales to harness these tools to deliver success via focused collaboration and knowledge sharing among your distributed sales network.

Traditional Sales Training

Top 2 Strategic Actions utilizing Web 2.0

(Aberdeen Research, August 2009) - 216 Respondents

The "best-in-class" Sales Executives are already engaging their channels and achieving results. Sales organizations using Employee Communities, Employee Forum/Wikis and internal Social Networking individually lag "best-in-class" organizations that provide integrated sets of these tools together. Engagement comparison to companies not using any of these tools is even more startling.

Impact on Engagement for Web 2.0 Tools

Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2009

Of the 73 "best-in-class" organizations, these companies demonstrated a 26% improvement in year over year engagement.

It is time for you and your sales channels to realize their potential. To learn more on how to engage your Sales channels, facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration via an innovative, affordable Web 2.0 solution, please contact bob.brogan@interactyx.com or visit www.interactyx.com.

Below is a terrific article from Elearning! Magazine for SMB and Franchise Owners who want to rapidly leapfrog their competitors via affordable SaaS Solutions. Take note as your organization can become a performance leader.

On-Demand Learning and Performance Solutions Can Improve Your Ability to Tackle Learning Challenges

Small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) are joining the e-learning and performance revolution in rapid succession.

The streamlined approach to e-learning offered by software-as-a-service (SaaS) models makes assessing, delivering and measuring training as common and critical to SMBs as they are to large enterprises. In fact, research by Bersin & Associates shows that approximately 20 percent of e-learning expenditures now come from companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and the percentage is growing.

E-learning capabilities have become necessary for SMBs to compete and grow in a global economy. It is a strategic necessity to address the challenges of training widely-dispersed employees, business partners and customers that are diverse in terms of the work they do, their IT experience, and their educational background.

Similar to their large corporate counterparts, many SMBs are now considering a multi-stage approach to e-learning, starting with their own employees, and then extending to customers and ultimately channel partners. In fact, SMBs may actually have a competitive advantage over larger organizations when starting or expanding an e-learning program because they often have little or no legacy e-learning technology when compared with large organizations. SMBs can essentially “leapfrog” directly to the forefront of the latest e-learning technology and use it to maximize performance and revenues.

Four Steps
1. Start with Compliance - Sixteen states have laws and regulations requiring or encouraging sexual harassment prevention training. For example, in California, employers with at least 50 employees must provide supervisors with two hours of interactive harassment-awareness training every two years. Many SMB organizations are also impacted by other regulation compliance such as HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley and OSHA. Each of these regulations has its own set of training requirements that SMBs are held to as much as large organizations. With requirements for logging and auditing compliance mounting, SMBs are consequently turning to e-learning to educate employees about legal requirements in the workplace.

SMBs with remote offices and global operations face extra challenges in delivering compliance training, tutorials and training courses to remote employees cost-effectively because of travel costs, long distances and a shortage of instructors. SMBs can implement focused, on-demand e-learning to develop critical compliance skills for workers engaged in businesses or operations across regions, national borders, cities or companies.

2. Align Goals to Improve Performance - SMBs seeking to unlock their company’s full potential ensure that all employees understand how each specific job/role contributes to achieving the company’s overall business goals. Success for the employee and the company can be driven by establishing a formal process for creating relevant goals for each employee, setting learning activities to support these goals, and monitoring/measuring performance against company objectives. Many SMBs are collecting positive results from this strategic approach to talent development and performance management, including:

>> Employees and managers achieve more through greater visibility into both individual and company-wide goals.
>> All employees have access to the strategic plan for the company’s success and understand how individual goals fit into the company’s business objectives.
>> Managers more easily stay in touch with employees’ progress during every phase of goal completion, and offer immediate reinforcement or coaching to keep performance and deadlines on track.

Getting started with performance management can be overwhelming to some SMBs — but it doesn’t have to be. Start with communicating and managing organizational core values to lay the groundwork for maximizing competencies and goals.

3. Build Customer Satisfaction - From an internal learning perspective, SMBs can lessen growing pains associated with improving and maintaining high service levels by using e-learning. Call centers, sales and service staff are crucial to maintaining customer relationships, so offering updated, consistent, on-demand training for employees in those areas can have a direct impact on profits.

From an external training perspective, customers increasingly seek value-added services when choosing between competing providers and desire access to on-demand training resources. Enterprises can use e-learning with customers to support after-sales services to improve customer satisfaction and retention. For example, a small software company can make training available through an e-learning portal to it’s customers about how to use the specific product modules. In addition, many SMBs offer training for a fee to customers as an additional revenue stream.

4. Improve Channel Readiness - Delivering knowledge, information and training to an audience beyond employees is one of the fastest-growing segments of the learning industry, increasing at an annual pace better than 25 percent (Bersin & Associates). Similarly, competitive SMBs are looking outside of their own organizations for revenue opportunities and partnerships that can help expedite the distribution of their products and services. These outward-facing, revenue-building initiatives will require the delivery of training, certification programs and knowledge assets to an SMB organization’s extended enterprise of franchises/franchisees, partners, resellers, independent agents and distributor networks.

E-learning delivered online and on-demand can help organizations increase top-line revenue from more productive channels, enhance information sharing with external audiences, develop and rapidly deliver training, improve the quality and convenience of training to an external audience, and reach large audiences at a fixed cost.

Realizing the Benefits
Although SMBs are often structured and equipped differently than their larger competitors, their needs related to compliance, performance management and communicating with external learning audiences are just as significant. By properly approaching learning and performance management, SMBs can gain significant advantages against the competition.

Exploring the use of on-demand learning and performance solutions can dramatically improve an SMB’s ability to tackle learning and performance management challenges for internal and external audiences with greater efficiency and influence.

You are invited to learn more about available and affordable training tools to enhance your business at our free, live webinar.  Please register below:

Affordable, Effective Training for SMB's
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Below are excerpts from Luc K. Richard’s article “Top 5 Franchise Training Mistakes” published in Ezine Articles.   The particular issues can easily be overcome by providing an on-line, collaborative Franchise 2.0 university.   Successful franchise businesses avoid these issues by offering an eLearning and knowledge sharing platform.  By utilizing an affordable Software-as-a Service (SaaS) solution, the ability for franchisors and franchisees to “leapfrog” competitors and improve overall performance of the brand and most importantly in the eyes of their customers.

It is time for your system to adopt the Franchise 2.0 training model for your organization.  To learn more about Franchise 2.0, please feel free to contact bob.brogan@interactyx.com.

Here are the key components of the “Top 5 Franchise Training Mistakes” article:

Duplication and consistency are at the heart of successful franchise systems and retail chains. A brand is strongest when the customer has the same experience each time they visit one of your locations, no matter what time of day or which location. The only way that brand consistency can be accomplished is through training.

That being said, franchisers seem to be the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to training their franchisees. The following lists the 5 most common and critical mistakes franchisors make when it comes to training.

1. Training as a Reaction

Believe it or not, some franchisers have virtually no training program. Sure, their marketing brochure and Web site certainly mention their state of the art training program. And they'll drop by your location when you first open to help you out. But there's no systematic way to pro-actively show their franchisees how to successfully run a successful franchise.

If you're reading this article, chances are this problem doesn't apply to you. The mere fact that you're reading an article on training means you have a genuine interest in improving your training program, which means you probably already have some form of formal training. So let's skip to mistake #2.

2. Training Too Infrequently

The majority of franchisers have the exact same recipe when it comes to training. First, they'll invite you over to their headquarters for a period of 1 to 4 weeks to train you on their products, services and operational procedures. Then, they'll provide additional on site training when you first open your franchise. Sound familiar?

This program is excellent as far as initial training goes, but doesn't quite cut it in an industry where employee turnover rates are between 100% and 300%. Think about it. After the first year of operation, hardly anyone who took the initial training will still be working for the franchise, except perhaps the franchisee himself. Unless the owner of the franchise can single handedly run the business, which is rarely the case, you need to have frequent training sessions. I would recommend quarterly sessions for regular employees that have been there for a while and of course immediate sessions for new hires.

"OK. Stop it right there!" you say? "How can you possibly train every single employee on a quarterly basis and new hires on the spot? That type of training is the responsibility of the franchisee, not the franchiser!" Not according to mistake #3.

3. Leaving the Training to Your Franchisees

Most franchise owners I know work 60-80 hours a week. And trust me, that time isn't spent training their employees.

Managing the store's finances, putting out fires, dealing with angry people and difficult employees and interviewing new hires? Yes. Training those new hires or experienced employees? No. The irony is that much like you think training new employees is the franchise owner's job, the franchise owner thinks it's the Manager's job. And the Manager thinks it's the Assistant Manager's. And the Assistant Manager? Well, she just thinks the new hire can learn by simply observing her. So basically, your new hires get most of their training by observing someone who was, well, trained by observing someone else. No wonder the franchise industry faces a 300% employee turnover rate and people have come to refer to such jobs as "McJobs".

If you're not going to train the employees that work in your franchises, you can pretty much be guaranteed that no one will.

And if you think training every single individual that is part of your franchise system is impossible, it's probably because you're making mistake #4.

4. Relying Solely on Face-to-face Training

There's nothing wrong with the idea of training employees face to face. As a matter of fact, face to face training can be extremely effective. But realistically, it's impossible for a franchiser to train every single individual face to face, especially if you plan on training them on a regular (i.e. quarterly) basis.

With so many employees spread across so many locations, most franchisers find that training franchisees face to face become impossible after only 5-10 locations.

What's the option? An online Corporate University, a Web-based strategic tool designed to assist your company in achieving its goal of training your employees anytime, anywhere.

Meta-analysis studies have recently shown that online training is as effective as face to face training when done right. I can certainly attest to that. I've sat through enough classroom courses, seminars and other conventional training sessions to tell you that they're not all they're cut out to be. I can only imagine how effective they are when they're giving by a franchise owner working 80 hours a week.

To some of you, an online Corporate University might be a novel idea. Successful franchisors however have been training their franchisees and employees for years using the Internet. Subway, which was again voted the #1 franchise by Entrepreneur magazine, attributes much of its success to its University of Subway, an online Corporate University that allows them to train every single individual working in one of their 31,000+ restaurants in 90 countries.

5. Not Testing for Competence

Training without testing assumes two things. First, it takes for granted that your students are actually learning everything you are teaching them. Then it assumes that your training program is complete enough that anyone who follows it can learn everything they need to run a successful franchise.

Our high schools, colleges and universities don't hand out diplomas without testing their students. There is a good reason for that. Would you trust a surgeon to operate on you if he/she had done nothing more but read a few medical books or observe other surgeons? Of course not! So why would you trust someone with your brand and let him/her run your franchise without first testing their competencies?

Testing is another area where online Corporate Universities excel. Thanks to advancements in learning technologies, students can now be evaluated using a variety of online tools. Meanwhile, managers can track the student's performance and progress with the click of a button.

No franchiser in their right mind will argue that duplication and consistency are at the heart of successful franchise systems. The only way that brand consistency can be accomplished is through training. Take a look at your training program, make sure you don't fall victim to the 5 classic mistakes identified above, and if you haven't done so already, invest in an online Corporate University.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-5-Franchise-Training-Mistakes&id=2655192

You are invited to learn more about available and affordable training tools to enhance your franchise at our free, live webinar.  Please register below:

Franchise 2.0 – All Aboard, Your Training is Leaving the Station
Thursday, October 22, 2009
12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Below is a reprint of Jim Sullivan’s insightful article “Training 2.0: Turn Traditional Learning on its Head” from National Restaurant News issue dated August 3, 2009. At Interactyx, we have extended this type of learning to the entire franchising industry and have dubbed it Franchise 2.0. Is your organization ready to realize the benefits outlined in his piece?

By JIM SULLIVAN
Aug. 03, 2009

When I’m not writing a monthly column for readers of Nation’s Restaurant News and NRN.com, I have a day job designing leadership, sales-building and service-energizing training programs for managers and crew at foodservice and retail chains worldwide. Many companies and customers are curious how social-media sites will affect how foodservice training programs will be designed and delivered to Gen Next.

The short answer is: a lot.

So let’s consider the possibilities by first looking at the past and then assessing a possible future in which trainees teach, trainers learn and continuous improvement is achieved during the course, not after it. Welcome to the Brave New Classroom.

Since the first days of Gutenberg’s press, information and media—books, training manuals, videos—have been exclusively linear and hierarchal. Content and instruction is transferred from creator, the author or teacher, to consumer, in this case the reader or student. The student may have had valuable experience or insight to add to the subject but limited or no options to actually contribute to or improve upon the original context for the next wave of learners. The first iteration of the Web, so-called “version 1.0” spanning 1995 to 2003, was also a one-way format; massive amounts of content were posted for anyone wishing to consume it, but feedback, discussion or collaboration with the creator or source material was nil. Today’s Internet, or Web 2.0, has reversed five centuries of information delivery.

The Web has become a conversation, where creators and consumers can easily interact, discuss, share and learn together in real time. Consider Wikipedia. The content of this online encyclopedia is routinely designed and refined by legions of contributors who are either experts in or students of the subject matter. This collaborative dialogue spurs both deeper insight and better content. Occasional errors are swiftly corrected by next-generation collaborators. I think that maybe that’s where foodservice training is headed: a place where all learning is collaborative; a place where communication a dialogue, not a monologue; a place where you learn what you need and simultaneously share what you know.

For my generation, training largely mirrored our experiences with school: We were expected to patiently consume it, not contribute to it. The content was asynchronous and chronological, designed by foodservice operators, not skilled instructors, and the foodservice trainer stuck to the script. We sucked it up and took it, first in school and then at work, despite the fact that on-the-job realities often exposed wholesale gaps or outright lies in the training. This caused us to belittle training—“those who know, do; those who don’t know, teach”—and see it as something to “get through” on your way to the real world. This methodically dull and deadly process of “Tell-Show-Do-Review” may have been tolerated by a previous generation, but it is woefully out-of-sync and dangerous for the Nintendo Generation employee.

Our young team members today have quite different expectations. They see no reason why they shouldn’t be both consumers and creators of their learning experience. The way they use the Web revolves mostly around content they and their friends create, and within Web frameworks that facilitate creativity and connection. They prolifically build profile pages, upload photos and videos, and effortlessly interact with each other and “content creators” through active commenting systems. In fact, 88 percent of young adults between 17 and 21 are “active” users of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. So if we truly want to engage and involve our Gen Nexters with our training, shouldn’t we consider adapting their social media behavior to the adult classroom instead of expecting them to adapt to our training style? Unlike Baby Boomers and Gen X, the iPod generation’s Internet experience is not separate from its work or social experience; it drives their entire worldview. Since their Internet is a conversation, maybe their learning experience should be, too. What’s next is now, but what’s past is present.

Fifteen years ago, pre-Internet as we know it, I accidentally learned that the best way to train servers was to have them train me. It was standard procedure then to require waitstaff at our restaurants to memorize steps of service and selling. Problem was, service wasn’t improving and sales weren’t increasing, but the lists got memorized. It was then I had the epiphany: Creating a “10 Steps of Service” list created an illusion of applied procedural uniformity to a process. But the truth is that service-giving and menu merchandising are complex experiential acts, not sequential ones. Getting customer interaction “right” requires experience, assessment, customization and, yes, collaboration.

So one fateful day we ditched our steps-of-service flip charts, exchanged “classroom-style” seating for round tables and divided the waitstaff into random groups of five. I told them our restaurants had two daily goals: Every guest leaves happy and every shift is profitable. Then I gave them a total of 11 minutes to identify all the ways we could please guests and either save money or make money each shift. They attacked the assignment with relish. The collaborative lists they created were more effective than our “steps,” and since valuable experience was exchanged at each table through discussion, it was highly prized insight.

I also learned that day that people never argue with their own data; our servers actually used what they taught each other. Service and sales markedly improved. I had taught them how to think, and they showed me what to do.

Now back to Web 2.0. As of this writing, Facebook and Twitter are the current media darlings, and while these names may pass as the sites du jour—remember MySpace and Friendster?—the popularity of social media will not. How do we best adapt and integrate the customizable and collaborative nature of social media into our future training programs? Your team members aren’t waiting for you to decide. Witness all the work-specific Facebook pages out there by bartenders, cooks, servers and managers dedicated solely to promoting their work-life skills, playlists, blogs, friends and schedules. Their initiative promotes themselves and their companies and teaches both marketing and training departments a lesson in learning.

Imagine an online training program that is a daily process, not an event, one that is constantly updated in real time by the experience of both trainees and trainers, as well as executives, managers and franchisees. The program enables discussion on, interaction with and customization of the content à la social-media sites. It combines a funky crew version of the company website integrated with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It features graphic-driven info nuggets on company culture, service, selling and team that is easily accessed, personalized and updated via their cell phones or computers. The process features constant activity and requires regular real-time feedback and interaction with other learners via discussion boards or Twitter. The “teacher” is no longer the trainer; the process and students are.

It’s here now. Our company just launched a beta version of this course for Gen Y crew members at a large chain. Time will tell if we’re on the right track, but the initial results are most encouraging.

The notion of allowing the student to assume the burden of learning while contributing to, or possibly being critical of, your company’s training in real time may sound foreign or even threatening now. But I’m certain this is not something our industry will grow out of, but rather something it will grow into. And, yes, it may be “faddish,” and, yes, there are many reasons why it may not succeed. But I’m reminded of the words of Pappy Sullivan who said, “You gotta either lead, follow or get the hell out the way.” What’s next is now.
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You are invited to learn more about available and affordable training tools at our free, live webinar.  Please register below:

Franchise 2.0 – All Aboard, Your Training is Leaving the Station
Thursday, October 22, 2009
12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Traditional sales orientation for new and experienced representatives provide your revenue producers with periodic “core dumps” of key messaging, market positioning and updated best practices to effectively sell to customers. The time between these meetings is focused on managing the progression of tactical activities to attain revenue projections. The sales management processes center on the execution of potentially flawed, misaligned or sub-optimized activities that extend the time required to achieve sales targets.

Historically, the ability to share successful strategies and be nimble enough to adopt these new tactics typically filters down through formal sales management channels over a matter of months. The lack of real-time collaboration among your distributed salesforce has a negative impact on the company’s time to revenue. In today’s economic environment, these delays may be the difference between maintaining a consistent revenue base and financial viability.

Implement a Collaborative Sales University to provide a real-time knowledge hub to optimize success within your customer-facing representatives. By utilizing an affordable, Web 2.0 collaborative learning environment, your salespeople will no longer be subject to the trickle down delays in obtaining critical information that will ultimately benefit your customers and your bottomline. The Collaborative Sales University framework will satisfy the traditional sales training foundations required by your organization and allow your sales team to evolve in line with the speed of your customer’s business.

The total investment cost associated a complete, Collaborative Sales University solution is only USD$15,000 and can be implemented within an 8-week period so your company can begin realizing sales returns within the same quarter. Can your organization afford to stick with the status quo in supporting your sales efforts? The answer is obvious – NO.

For more information on the Collaborative Sales University, please feel free to contact me at bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at 708 572-4899.

Also, you are invited to attent our free, live webinar where we will be discussing collaborative Sales Universities in greater detail. Register for the webinar below:

Expedite Time to Revenue with Collaborative Sales University
Thursday, October 8, 2009
2:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Here is a quick story for you. A mid-market human resource executive schedules an agenda item for the next month’s senior management and board meeting. The proposal is to create a Corporate University to address meeting the company’s performance objectives. The initial reactions to this agenda item from the CEO, CFO and COO ranged from “are you nuts?”… “in today’s economic climate”…. ”expensive”….”limited appeal and utility”…. “no short-term benefits”….. to ”looks like it’s time to look for new HR leadership”.

Despite their skepticism, the diligent HR executive went to work on detailing the value of the Corporate University proposal to the organization. The HR executive was secure in the knowledge that the company could overcome the traditional objections from senior management by:

1. Utilizing new, affordable Web 2.0 collaborative learning environment
2. Augmenting existing content via a diverse content delivery types and 3rd party providers
3. Leveraging a flexible university framework that could grow over time

The next order of business was to prioritize the solution framework to address a number of the company’s strategic and tactical objectives.

Upon completion of this effort, the HR executive presented the recommendation to implement a Collaborative Corporate University solution for the organization with existing content and third-party content to achieve the organization’s objectives. The total costs associated with this solution are a $15,000 investment that can be implemented within an 8-week period.

The company began realizing returns within the same quarter. The CEO, CFO and COO recognized the contributions of the HR executive and now this leader has a permanent seat at all senior management and board level decisions.

For more details, please feel free to contact me at bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at 708 572-4899. Also, you are invited to attent our free, live webinar where we will be discussing collaborative corporate universities in greater detail. Register for the webinar below:

Enable Knowledge Transfer with Collaborative Corporate University
Thursday, October 1, 2009
2:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

With my nearly 20 years of professional experience within the franchising business arena, it is safe to say that the traditional and existing franchisor training has failed its two most important constituents:  1) Customers and 2) Franchisees.  The central tenet for franchisors to provide immersive training around key events is flawed and the manual-based operations courses are outdated methods to deliver daily success.

The inability to provide a consistent customer experience, deliver on the brand promise across locations, get new unit managers trained and productive(as quickly as possible), and provide access to continuous knowledge sharing environment have an immediate impact on customer perception and wallet-share.

The damage to the brand, the financial implications to the franchisee, the diminished franchisor’s stature, and ability to concentrate on growth are difficult to repair.  The potential death spiral can bring down the entire system, if left unaddressed.

Lessons from Traditional Event-Focused Franchise Training

The immersive training techniques associated with new franchisee training, new location openings or the most common – unit management turnover - offer opportunities for franchisors to reinforce “delivering the brand”.   However, these “drink from the fire hose” course curriculum do not offer timely post-training reinforcement of key course objectives nor on-going access to resources / experts.  The learning is not sustainable for attendees or relevant for non-attending franchisee employees critical in execution.   Moreover, the courses are usually boring, not engaging and seldom interactive.

For ongoing operational training and new product introduction activities, the ever-present debate of franchisor / franchisee cost absorption relating to travel expenses and time away from their location to go to regional or national training rarely gets addressed.  The result is those who need the training the most are the franchisees that can least afford to take the training.  The responsibility then falls to Regional / District Managers or operational “SWAT” teams, to spend inordinate amounts of time attempting to coach and mentor non-attendees without adequate tools to assist their efforts while at the same time the customer suffers.  The franchisor field personnel spend valuable cycles on supplementing training rather than orchestrating the revenue enhancing efforts in their geographies. The chasm between high performing and lower performing franchisees grows wider, reducing brand equity due to inconsistencies in customer experience.

It is time to fix the training failures of the past and provide the franchisees with cost effective and eases to implement tools to provide a continuous learning and knowledge sharing environment that facilitates the “real-time” needs of franchise employees to delight customers.

With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, the ability to deliver collaborative knowledge management and training environment to increase franchise employee proficiency to business performance objectives are a relatively new phenomenon.   By leveraging a variety of media to provide video snippets, simulations, core on-line course curriculum, franchisors can now affordably augment event learning with a continuous learning environment for all franchisees and employees.  The addition of collaborative tools that allow for the enablement of effective knowledge capture, storage in a readily accessible location, and facilitating knowledge transfer to new learner communities of interest and on-going communities of practice are critical components in solving the franchisor / franchisee training conundrum.

While there are a number of solutions on the market today that address pieces of the continuous learning needs of the franchise community, only TOPYX on that addresses all of them.  To learn more about how enable franchisees, please visit us at http://www.interactyx.com/eLearning-topyx-trainer or email me at bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at +1-708 572-4899.

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com