We have had the pleasure of showing some of our clients Claro and getting their feedback on this unique authoring system. Claro is developed by dominKnow in Canada. You can check out the features of Claro here. Claro delivers an easy to learn collaborative authoring environment that permits the import of existing Powerpoint, template creation and mobile content development. Have a look at the pricing options here and sign up for a demo.
There is a great big spectrum of business innovation and too often the perception is that innovation only applies to things like iPhones and other great big disruptive products, tools, processes or marketing campaigns. Innovation also occurs in small and medium businesses when a person creates a new process for managing stock control or automates their payroll. Innovation happens on the desktop and small office as well as the global market place. If you are a business owner or manager are you aware of the innovation that is going on in your organisation? Do you know if you are supporting and sustaining innovation or stunting and destroying it? I was in a client meeting yesterday that was focused on rolling out a new performance management system. The meeting included a number of managers and administrative level persons. During the meeting there were no less than three suggestions that were raised by the administration team that were met with a negative reaction almost instantly. There may have been more but these three ideas stick out in my mind since they are ones that I have discussed with other clients as well. These ideas were ways to compound the benefits this business was going to realise yet the ‘no team’ opted for the negative option rather than listening further to gain a better understanding of what was being put forward. I wonder if the CEO would have supported the ideas or quashed them without a discussion. I wonder how many other great ideas are killed by colleagues and managers who opt for the easy option of ‘no’ as opposed to the more interesting and potentially risky option of ‘yes- lets have a look at this more closely.’ Innovation can hatch and thrive with ‘yes’ and gets buried further with ‘no.’ How many organisational cultures are riddled with people who prefer the easy option of ‘no’ and the maintenance of the status quo. If you look at your own behaviour honestly do you see a pattern of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reactions to the seeds of innovation in your business? Are you permitting a culture of ‘no’ without even being aware of it? All of us in business know that the speed of change is increasing and we can point to the acquisition of Instagram byFacebook this past week as an example of just how fast things are going. Instagram is a super young company that built a substantial user base (no profits) in an exceptionally short period of time (18 months) with an attractive, free and fun application for the iPhone, (and subsequently Android). This is a big example but it is happening at all levels in all markets at varying paces. To maintain competitive it is now imperative that we all rid ourselves of any sense that we know what the future looks like, shed our reliance on existing systems and processes and adopt a “I haven’t got a clue” perspective. If you really get this you will not only support the ideas of others , you will actively seek them. And once you are successfully creating this cultural environment of ideas and innovation you are on your way to becoming a ‘learning organisation’ and building greater resilience into your organisation. By building greater resilience you are creating readiness for what no person knows………the future. I guess all of our futures may begin with a “yes.”
The recent announcement by the Australian Government to assist employers to link with skilled workers in the United States is designed to help fill critical skills shortages in certain segments of the Australian economy. Licensed workers in the United States will be able to be granted immediate provisional licenses when they arrive in Australia. Members of the DOTS LMS client community are key players in the industries that are targeted to benefit from this scheme. The DOTS LMS can be utilised to help support this process for our client organisations in some very key ways. Firstly, it would be advantageous to engage with these workers prior to their arrival in Australia. This engagement could take the form of delivering company information and cultural insight to those planning to migrate. Companies may also choose to deliver some online induction modules as well as deliver some preference surveys and self assessments. All of these tools will help the person migrate assimilate more easily and engage more closely with the employer.
What is the most common issue with LMS implementations? I can only speak for my experience of over 90 client LMS installations. Every software implementation has its share of issues, it is par for the course. However there are a few key issues that tend to compromise a smooth implementation project and contribute to project creep and delayed project milestones.
The first is a lack of clear business requirements. I prefer the business requirements to be written as outcomes as opposed to a wish list of system functionality. The business requirements need to be aligned with the organisation’s strategy and cascaded down to the end user. This takes many different forms but the best results are achieved when the organisation creates the business requirements without influence or conformity to an LMS vendor’s features and functionality.
The second biggie is the a lack of adequate resource planning. There are some clients who want to go down the LMS implementation path on their own. That is fine until we realise that there is one ‘learning and development person’ assigned to the implementation. I need fresh air when I hear, “oh and by the way, our implementation project manager is new to our organisation and part of our graduate intake.” There is a need for adequate resourcing pre-implementation, during the project and of course during the life-cycle of the system.
The third danger is when two forces collide. The learning and development or human resources team collide with the information technology team. This is a good question, “did you guys cross check with IT about hosing the LMS internally or externally?” In some projects I have worked on, the L & D team have opted for a fully hosted LMS option to keep the IT team out of the decision process. In some cases the LMS has been installed on external servers and ready for roll-out before the IT is aware of anything. Not a good plan. I encourage my clients to include the IT team in the whole process. They are the best advocates when it comes time for the LMS roll-out.
Well those are the current top three. If you are experiencing any of these or have a premonition of any one or all situations arising in your project we are here to help.
We are doing some interesting work with some clients using DOTS LMS as a key plank in their social media strategies. The DOTS LMS offers a great deal of flexibility to integrate and support social media. There is some debate about access to social media platforms from within the LMS. In this scenario, users may access social media sites from the user home page or in DOTS there are a few other places we can add links to social media. For instance in the DOTS Content Creatorwe can add links within a course and this is very practical when you want to encourage sharing of the course experience and application of knowledge in the workplace. One platform that has some interesting application in this regard isYammer. Of course all of the more common platforms can be utilised as well including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google + etc. There is a critical first step and that is determining the purpose of your social media integration and what utility this will offer both the end users and management. I have seen some excellent examples of facilitators/trainers linking their social platform to courses in DOTS LMS. In DOTS you can send a learner out to the internet and bring them back to the LMS when they have viewed pages specified in the course. You can use the split screen tool in DOTS to provide instructions and/or questions/ideas you want learners to communicate on a social media platform. There is great deal of power usingDOTS LMS for external users as well. The DOTS website management module enables you to create external login pages, landing(squeeze pages), enrolments, surveys among others. You can create content in DOTS and use your social media to publish the links to drive traffic. Many of our clients do this using their blogs and you can also add access to sophisticated courseware and content via one of your social media platforms. The options for using DOTS LMS are large and varied given the tremendous scope of social media platforms available. If you would like to explore some of these options, pleasecontact me directly.