Understanding and success (for the persistent) are the yield of failure. Don’t believe me? Watch as a child learns to walk or ride a bike. Each misstep, each time they topple over, is another opportunity to figure out the wrong and right way of doing it. The sum of these experiences is success.

Learning how to deploy and maintain a software platform or application is no different. The basics are critical but understanding the how and why is what separates adequate administrators from rock-star administrators, who are cool under fire.

The fundamental difference between the two groups is, the rock-stars treat failure as an opportunity to learn. Each failure builds support for techniques that work and understanding around techniques that don’t. To no surprise, this makes them more knowledgeable about the systems they administer and ultimately more valuable to the organizations to which they belong.

Not all environments are forgiving enough to promote, allow or even believe in the art of failing. Likewise, if it’s unacceptable to fail in real life for the sake of learning where is failing ok? It’s ok in the classroom.

Technical courses have become the perfect sandbox environment for administrators to hone their skills. Tools made popular by VMware allow instructional designers to build courses and take snapshots of the classroom environment at various stages of the course. Snapshots enable students to attempt multiple fixes to a problem to ascertain which one works best, or if they know better than the instructor. If they completely break the environment or realize a proposed fix simply won’t work, they can open a snapshot from earlier part in the course. The benefit to the student is the ability to fail safely from multiple perspectives, multiple times without the pressure of a customer watching, a supervisor critiquing or missing a SLA.

• What
• Who
• Why
• How

What:

This is the initial step in the process where the product or skill the audience needs to know is defined. Think of this as the central theme from which all else emanates. Definition of the central theme prior to commissioning development is key to building a focused and high impact training. Not doing so wastes the resources of both your development team and the target audience, not to mention damaging your professional credibility regarding your ability to conceptualize and execute on strategic initiatives.

Be sure to define your central theme with this in mind; only 25% of what you’re teaching on the first pass will be retained. The remaining 75% is retained via post activity supportive materials and activities. In short, your activity must be focused to be high impact.

Who:

Having clearly defined and articulated the learning activity’s focal point, it’s time to identity ‘who’ the target audience is. Doing so requires that you gather as much information about this group as possible, such as:

• Direct job responsibilities
• How they are compensated
• Are they disparate
• Where do they typically gather information
• What are the expectations of their managing group

The more you know about your target audience the more focused and contextual your training can be. Context yields relevance, which in turn creates ‘stickiness’. Remarkable content, be it courseware or reference documentation is what you should always strive for. Never fall into the practice of saying: “It’s just a reference manual” or “It’s only this or that”. Always think about how the consumption of the material can be made easier and how usage metrics can be extracted from them.

Why:

’Why’ speaks to justification. It’s imperative you be able to neatly articulate the benefits the audience will garner once they’ve consumed the training. Equally important is a clear message for your boss as to why and how resources will be consumed to develop this learning activity.

Tackling the audience justification first, a good place to obtain data points is in the ‘What’ section you walked through earlier. Using a new product roll out as an example, here is a sample list of proficiencies that clearly communicate what the audience will be able to articulate upon consuming the course:

• Business challenges addressed
• Market dynamics
  • Size
  • Competition
  • Trends
• Opportunity assessment
  • Good vs. Poor
• How the product works
• Up-sell opportunities
• Value to the channel

The second part of the ‘Why’ section is justifying the development time and the associated spend to your boss. Illustrate how training is aligned with delivering on his job responsibilities, how it will positively affect the audience’s job responsibilities and ultimately how it corresponds with revenue generation activities.

How:

The ‘How’ is the final step. To be effective it is tightly aligned with the ‘Who’ and ‘What’ stages. This is where the, “rubber meets the road”. The ‘Who’ stage culminated in the audience definition. This identification is instrumental in determining which tools are most useful for communicating with them. For instance, if the audience is geographically dispersed, creating face-to-face training content will miss the mark almost entirely. An audience of this type would be best served with virtual training and self-paced learning opportunities.

Possessing a deep understanding of the subject matter pays dividends when creating training accordingly. Multi-faceted complex topics are best illuminated using videos and diagrams. Effective training is partly about showmanship. Don’t force the audience to adopt and learn new technologies in order to consume your training. Doing so is similar to forcing them to learn Mandarin prior listening to or viewing your ‘awesome’ podcast.

Understandably, showcasing years in service is a means of communicating subject matter expertise. Imparting this knowledge is easier said than done. At a baseline, context rules the roost. Context is what drives a visitor’s search for expertise. In short, someone needs to know how to perform a task and you have an opportunity to teach. Teach them successfully and you now have a customer.

Moynihan Lumber, they (almost) get it. Their, “How To” page, with a few topics and supportive instructions is a good start but;

• How does the audience know which content is helpful and which isn’t?
• How does ML know which content hits the mark?
• How does the customer know which content has been updated without going back to visit?

These shortfalls are easily solved with adding an RSS capability, content (star) ranking and a place for visitors to comment on each set of the instructions individually.

Thinking strategically, a good conversation is one that maintains its momentum. Momentum is achieved and maintained through content which is relevant to tasks or situations that address the audience’s pains.

Currently lacking on ML’s, “How To” page is anything that talks to how to maintain a home during a recession. This is an exceptionally relevant topic that can produce fodder for weeks if not months.

Lastly, the current conversations and instructions are one-dimensional. The audience has to read. Sounds easy but most audiences rather watch and listen. If their needles have been moved then they’ll read and print. Making the consumption of content as easy as possible is as important as the content itself.

How does your product help me put butts in seats?

All future conversations emanate from this point. Your answer needs to be crystal clear as to how your product solves their business issues. Solving these issues might or might not include 3^rd party products and services but that’s immaterial. It’s immaterial because your customer doesn’t care. They care only about whether or not your product is the right fit and can you enable them.

Technical organizations are notorious for making the mistake of starting product education with a technical dissertation centering on architecture and installation caveats. To make an accurate assessment of where training should begin, use the questions below.

Why is the customer interested in this product?

What is he trying to accomplish by deploying this product?

Who is the decision maker for this purchase?

Incorporating the answers of these questions into training accomplishes a number of things. First, it tightens the scope of what the educational event will convey. Next, it proves to the prospect that the product operates as advertised in their environment. Third, it establishes you as a trusted advisor.

The net benefit of this approach is the creation of a welcoming environment for your sales team to walk into. The creation of this environment is a culmination of speaking the customer’s language and providing them with the know-how to intelligently evaluate the product. This culminates with presenting the sales channel with a relevant platform to address the customer from.

Don’t Skimp On Equipment:

This is not the time to be cheap. Frugal maybe, cheap definitely not. Seems like a no brainer however this happens all too often and the audience pays the price. In short, you might be the next Walt Whitman however if your machine doesn’t have the horsepower to compile your voice properly or your Internet connection is flaky you might as well be a mute.

Make sure to arm yourself with a higher quality microphone headset combination. Being that you’re going to have it strapped to your head for hours on end, make sure that it’s as comfortable as it is functional. I use the Logitech ClearChat Pro USB. Hindsight being 20/20 I should’ve purchased the wireless version for convenience sake but this one works just fine.

Location, Present in a Quiet One:

Find a location without background noise. It’s surprising what microphones will pick up. Echoing kills quality by making it hard for the audience to hear you. Add to that, a globally dispersed audience of non-native speakers and you’ve created a perfectly horrible learning environment. Improve sound quality by putting a pillow in front of you but behind your monitor to absorb sound. If you’re near a window, think about putting up a heavy blanket to absorb your voice from the inside and any street noise from the outside.

Be A Student:

Do this from two perspectives. Work in the environment as if you were taking a course. Pay attention to how the instructor shares applications, interacts with the class and moderates lab sessions. Also, see how he handles Q&A in both the chat window and live from the microphone. Second, take the opportunity to sit with the instructor who developed the course you’ll be teaching. Talk to him about his style of teaching and determine if there are any pitfalls you should avoid.

Have A Personality:

Be yourself. If you’re snarky by nature, use it in your instruction. You’re not a robot. Your one-liners and sidebars add color to the conversation, don’t be afraid to use them. The combination of building a compelling presentation, expertly manipulating the presentation application and keeping your vernacular conversational will keep the audience engaged.

Lastly, there’s no silver bullet or magic elixir that will ensure a successful teach. Rather, it’s a combination of doing a number of things right. There will be malfunctions and students will ask tough questions. Remember to stay calm, expect the unexpected and talk to them as if they were directly in-front of you.

Take for instance, Match.com. They’ve recently unveiled their Summer QuickSTART campaign. In their own words it’s designed to address, “Everything from writing your profile and using our search tools, to sending irresistible emails, and planning a great first date”.

How’s that for clarity of purpose? The audience knows immediately, the purpose of the activity and what they’ll walk away with. The four videos correspond with,

1. Writing your profile
2. Using their search tools
3. (How to) send irresistible emails
4. (How to) plan the first date

The videos are supported by a splash page that illuminates, in greater detail, the points covered by the actors. Purposefully, they are short and the language is kept lite. Succinctly, this is learning plain and simple.

As important as what it communicates is how it’s positioned. To consume this information the audience doesn’t need to be a member of Match. It’s free. Match doesn’t even ask for their information. Brilliant! Additionally, the content is presented in a relatively holistic fashion. The tips and tricks garnered from the videos can be as easily applied to the competition (eHarmony and Plenty of Fish) as they can to Match. This is a risk, but smaller than one might think, in that the videos position Match as the subject matter experts of Internet dating and they’re educating their potential audience for free. In short they’re executing trust-based marketing expertly with an undertone of learning.

What would happen if you aligned marketing and learning activities with the sales process?
Where does the marketing end and the learning activity begin?