An organization that intends to survive and thrive, must understand how to incorporate e-learning into its day to day business operation. On some level most organizations get it however that’s often where the conversation stops. ‘Getting it’, formulating an e-learning strategy (aka Strategizing) and ‘Executing it’ are distinct conversations that are predicated upon one another.

This conversation can be unwieldy at times and often spurs spirited conversation. That’s why this post will be broken into three sections. Think of these breaks as an intermission, where you can commentate and ask questions. Let’s begin!

Getting It ::

The e-learning conversation seldom starts with e-learning. It starts with, revenue is lower than expected. Contract renewals and or license purchases are below projections. Lead generation is not where it should be. The first sentence is the tip off; “….revenue is lower than expected”. This should be followed by two simple questions;

Why?
How do we fix this?

The ‘why’ requires investigation. It requires turning over rocks. The investigation must be led with the theme that, the current business strategy requires adjustment and getting back on track will require new tactics. In so much as these tactics can run the gamut of business process and strategy, we going to focus on the communication variable of the equation.

As a catchall all, to win, it’s essential that you’re able to successfully articulate,

Relevance in the market
How you and your product addresses a particular problem
What differentiates your product from the competition

It’s the responsibility of the marketing arm of your organization to answer these questions or at least to assemble the answers from the product group, customers and engineering folks respectively. These answers are then massaged into glossies (product pamphlets, white papers, and case studies) if we’re thinking about static communications. If we’re thinking dynamism, face to face marketing events should also be aligned in support of the conversations started by the aforementioned ‘glossies’.

It’s at the intersection of static communication vehicles and dynamic events that e-learning resides. The reasons why both communication avenues are essential are fairly clear, however let’s revisit them together. Face-to-face interactions are two-way. The audience is engaged and they have the opportunity to ask questions that are relevant to them. This adds context to the interaction that isn’t available via the written word. The written word is essential due to its scalability. Importantly, it allows the audience to invest into your rhetoric at their own speed and on their own terms.

It’s at this point, where the next post will begin. Specifically, how to add the elements of dynamism to traditionally static communications as well where to introduce the tenets of e-learning into the selling process.

Posted by Amin on 05.14.2009 at 5:41am   0 comments   Email this post