Examining the companies that appeared on Fortune’s “50 Largest” list between 1955 and 1995, Christensen points out that 95% saw their growth rates stall to the level of general GNP or lower. Of these “stalled” companies, only 4 percent successfully rose to a level even one point higher than GNP subsequently.

It seems that companies become victims of their own success. Too often – almost inevitably – they reach a certain size beyond which they are unable to innovate and grow.

What does this have to do with learning? Everything.

Organizations that grow to a certain size often become hidebound – whether in the public or private sector. Employees’ work is corralled by the procedures and processes which middle management needs to function in large organizations. Employees are separated from the vision and strategy of the company, executives and senior managers from the daily reality of operations.

In these circumstances, traditional ‘push’ learning seldom keeps up with the pace of change faced in the modern world – meaning that training departments are often out-of-touch with the needs of learners. Worse, learning fails to play a vital role missing in most large, modern organizations: that of a conduit of information flow, keeping senior management and executives in touch with what is happening elsewhere.

The learning and development field has done itself no favors in the past by trying to make learning a transactional process driven by a centralized LMS. This is exactly what large organizations do not need. Instead, they need co-operative, organic learning, something that people throughout the organization contribute to – certainly, centrally-produced courses have a role, but so, too, do employee experiences, informal conversations and immediate customer feedback.

Learning can evolve from the centralized teaching of the past to a truly organic system of the future, and now at last the technology exists to support this. In the future learning can be part of the lifeblood of organizations that allows them to constantly be aware of their resources, processes and values in a changing world.

This new learning will be critical to a company’s ability to evolve and remain relevant.

Ara Ohanian
CEO, CERTPOINT Systems

Fans have long appealed for the use of technology in football to aid the referee’s decision making, and these appeals reached fever pitch in two matches in the World Cup. Fortunately, England’s 4-1 loss to Germany was probably not altered by the referee failing to see that Frank Lampard’s shot had crossed the line. Nor did the fact that officials missed numerous fouls in the Dutch-Spanish final affect the result.

If either match had ended differently, the calls for technology to be used in high-value games would have been even higher. The technology surely sells itself – already used in tennis and rugby, reliable technology support for referees’ decisions seems eminently sensible. Yet the governing body FIFA had refused to consider any form of aid for the referee before the World Cup, and adamantly stuck to this refusal immediately after them.

There was something to be said for FIFA’s traditional stance on technology: that the game should be no different at the highest levels to how it is played between any more lowly clubs, or even in the park on a Sunday morning. In reality, though, the ‘human element’ – as Sepp Blatter euphemistically calls referees’ mistakes – are too costly in a global game where huge sums ride on individual matches.

So we welcome last Wednesday’s announcement that FIFA will revisit the issue of goal-line technology in the Fall. This complete change in approach, it is predicted, will almost certainly lead to some form of technology in the sport.

Why the change of policy?

Partly the switch will be down to the clamor of the fans for justice to be done – for goals to be correctly awarded, and for fouls to be seen when they occur. However, these voices had been heard – and ignored – before. More powerful are the voices that will have been heard behind the scenes, those of sponsors, advertisers and others who rely on these fans enjoying the game. They will have argued that the risk of turning fans off the game is too great to bear. Ultimately, in the period between the Spain-Holland final and last Wednesday, money talked. FIFA heard the business argument for technology.

What is the lesson from all this?

It is this: passion and technology are not enough. For any change at work, and in particular for technology to be introduced, there must be a strong business case. For FIFA the reputational risk of failing to use technology when so many other sports already do had become too large. They had to act.

This lesson certainly applies to the world of learning. Too often we approach a business problem with a technical solution – describing in detail our elearning solution but not the issue at hand. That’s a little like telling Sepp Blatter that Hawk Eye could spot the ball crossing the line. He knows it would and it makes no difference to him. He needed to see the problem in his own terms: unhappy fans would mean lower ticket revenues and disgruntled sponsors. That’s a problem worth solving.

The key thing is to portray the benefits of change from a business point of view. What problem would elearning solve? How will it boost key performance indicators? What effect will faster speed to competence have? What edge will faster access to product knowledge have?

Nobody likes change – even an organization as large, rich and successful as FIFA. Yet it has committed itself to considering a major change in policy thanks to the pressing demands of the business.

Be clear about the business pain that your learning is addressing in the business and you’ll get your voice heard, too.

What is mLearning good for?  A recent IBM study published in Training and Development Magazine gives us a clue.  In 2009,  IBM conducted a study to examine how its employees used their smart phones for their jobs and for skills growth. What they were surprised to find out was that mobile users rejected “e-Learning” delivered via their mobile phones and instead used their devices for job related support and access to late breaking information.  As a result of the study, IBM shifted its focus for mobile learning from delivering formal learning modules to just-in-time performance support systems.

CERTPOINT agrees with this direction.  To us, mLearning is about getting the answer wherever you are…it is about  bringing answers to “on-the-go” performers when they need it.  A solid mLearning strategy should assure that mLearning empowers on the go performers – especially those who are customer facing and are constantly faced with challenges and questions – to rapidly access “micro-bits” of relevant knowledge required to solve problems, sell more product and satisfy more customers.

We felt that the above message resonated well with many of the participants attending mLearnCon.  Other topics of interest to participants were around mLearning strategy, how to justify an mLearning initiative, future trends, and pitfalls of mLearning.  Conference attendees were a mix of corporate (65%), government (15%) and academia (20%) and ran the gamut from instruction designers to managers of Corporate Learning departments.

One of the Key Note speakers for the conference was foremost mobile expert – Tomi Ahonen (http://www.tomiahonen.com).  Tomi’s message was that mobile is a game changer.  It is the most adopted mass media technology in the world.  In fact, more people have a mobile subscription (4.6 billion) than have a  toothbrush (4.2 billion).  As a result, this is technology that needs to be embraced and leveraged. (See Tomi’s presentation here)

After having presented at and attended the mLearnCon, we are more convinced than ever that mobile technology will drastically change the way in which we work, learn, live and play (for some of these areas it already has) and are confident that our new mLearning  solutions will help our clients successfully enable this change.

Kenneth Fung
SVP, Global Strategic Initiatives
CERTPOINT Systems

Laura Overton of Towards Maturity thinks she may have the answer.

At a recent CERTPOINT Virtual User Forum, Laura outlined her top tips for increasing the effectiveness of elearning. Her crucial point: you need to get managers on board.

Why is management support so important? Simple. In Laura’s extensive research over several years and across hundreds of organizations, one statistic stands out: 55% of learners say their line manager’s opinion influences their take up of elearning.

In other words, if you don’t have the managers on board, no matter how good everything else is, your learning program is likely to fail.

So just how do you get managers’ attention?

Laura mentioned three key factors or ‘Impact Indicators’

1-      Efficiency

While efficiency isn’t everything, the fact is that elearning is a faster way of transferring information than traditional means. Cost savings average 11% and time savings 36%. But, cautions Laura, put this in terms that make sense to managers. Don’t lead with the efficiencies. Instead, ask this: what would they do with that 36% time saving?

2-      Business agility

According to Laura’s survey, 69% of 153 participants reported faster time to competency through using elearning, and 59% reported improvements in their ability to implement changes in products and processes. What does that mean for managers? More productive staff, faster – that’s a sure way of getting management attention!

3-      Management Perception

Unfortunately, though, it seems that many L&D professionals are more concerned with training outputs than with management engagement. 74% of those surveyed were unsure if line managers would agree that productivity had increased, while 50% were unsure whether line managers in their organizations believed new staff were up to speed faster. These numbers show the lack in communications into and out of the L&D department.

Laura has shown, using empirical research, that L&D professionals should capture and communicate their successes with their managers. Success measures are not necessarily about strict ROI measures, they can be about other achievements such as staff satisfaction, speed of procedure, productivity or customer satisfaction depending on the nature of each specific business.

CERTPOINT Systems thanks Laura Overton for this thought-provoking presentation.

To Download the presentation click here.

Times are hard – and that makes it a good time for L&D professionals to meet. They are under increasing pressure to do more with less. At times like these, contemplating our next step is often best done together.

As well as sharing their professional experience with each other, delegates will have the chance to listen to great names from the learning industry such as Jay Cross, Patrick Dunn, Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Laura Overton, Nigel Paine, Donald H Taylor, Julie Wedgwood, and many others.

Whatever delegates decide to do after the conference, workplace learning technology is going to be an essential part of it. Only by using technology can learners get the learning they need cost effectively – a crucial consideration right now. Spreading best practice in the use of learning technologies is essential, making conferences like this one vital.

CERTPOINT and others will continue to sponsor these events because we know how important they are for the future of workplace learning.

To experience the lighter – and tastier – side of learning, CERTPOINT Systems recently hosted “The CERTPOINT Cooking Experience” at the Epicurean School of Culinary Arts in Anaheim, CA. A range of CERTPOINT clients came along to hone their cooking skills.

It was all part of their personal development efforts, of course.

A professional chef guided participants through various Italian recipes, as they worked at nine different cooking stations creating everything from scratch. And I mean everything: Dough for the pizza, croutons for the Caesar salad, even the Vanilla Bean ice cream as a topping for the Chocolate soufflé. Kudos to the team that tenderized the chicken for the Chicken Piccata.

The culmination: Eating it all as we sat listening to “L’italiano “ by Toto Cutugno, and being pleasantly surprised that everything tasted so good. We complimented the chef instructor on her ability to guide the team through this complex process. She smiled, and graciously revealed that the secret to a good meal was “top quality ingredients”.

For some participants the cooking event was a giant leap forward, for others less so. Whatever the case, it was a great bonding experience for all participants and many thought that this would be a good team building concept to incorporate into their own organizations.

And, naturally, it also reminded us how we can all develop our skills.

Thanks to everyone all who participated!

Kenneth Fung,
SVP, Global Strategic Initiatives, CERTPOINT Systems

This trip was different. It was to be a short business trip – a few days of meeting clients before heading back to CERTPOINT’s New York headquarters. For the first time, I left my laptop at home. Instead, I decided to give my brand new iPad a road test.

And as my only device for running a global firm on, that iPad has had plenty of testing over the past few days.

The verdict?

The iPad passed with flying colors.  Although I wish it had this feature and that feature, the bottom line is this: the iPad is a game changer. I believe it will change the concept of personal computing for ever – making the standard laptop a dinosaur.

For the past six days I have been running our global firm right from my iPad. I can access remote files, surf the Internet, author stunning presentations, email, work on spreadsheets and when in need of a break watch a movie.

And most fun of all, since it is not yet available in Europe, I feel like a rock star in the Parisian cafes which I have turned into my office since Wednesday. Trendy young men and women constantly stop and ask me to take a peek at it. I feel great!

Ara Ohanian
CEO, CERTPOINT Systems

To take some of the load off for you, at CERTPOINT Systems we’ve identified what we think are the three key learning technologies issues that should be on your radar, three areas where L&D must prove itself over the next 12-18 months:

• Social learning
• Mobile technology
• Budgets, value and alignment

Are these threats or potential opportunities for L&D? Our free white paper suggests practical ways to make the most of these trends within your organisation. In fact, at a time when L&D is under more pressure than ever before, the potential offered by exploiting these trends is huge.

This is a white paper for those who understand that web 2.0 tools offer great learning potential when used well, and who know that executives demanding more skills are unlikely to be opening their wallets for more training resources any time soon.

Click to download the white paper.

If your LMS is just a vehicle for delivering e-learning courses, you may be missing a trick. That was Catherine Farrar’s message on yesterday’s CERTPOINT User Forum.

Catherine is Black & Decker’s National Learning Technologies Manager, and over a one-hour online session, she explained how the power tools manufacturer gets the most from its Learning Management System. It has been using the same LMS – CERTPOINTVLS – for 10 years, to deliver true blended learning.

How does their model work?

The model supports ongoing professional learning and development for employees and by integrating a suite of delivery mechanisms:

• live hands-on power tool training at Black & Decker’s dedicated facility
• structured e-learning
• on-the-job reinforcement (‘push’ content)
• self-study content (‘pull’ content)

Black & Decker uses its Learning Management System as the delivery mechanism for all but the hands-on training. This doesn’t mean, though, that the company’s learning is centrally-driven. It now operates in what Catherine calls a far more ‘fluid’ learning state, with users generating their own content (including video), and the L&D department producing mini-courses of only a few minutes length distributed over smart mobile phones from the LMS.

The buzz on the virtual forum was amazing. Catherine spoke for some 30 minutes, and the rest of the time was taken up with questions from attendees spread across 12 time zones. The dialog showed that there’s a real taste for being adventurous in workplace learning. Participants were keen to stimulate user-generated content, to add mobile to their delivery choices and to understand the detail of moving to that ‘fluid’ learning state, using both push and pull for the delivery of content, and the interchange of ideas and materials between learners and the L&D Department.

Many thanks to Catherine for doing such a great job. We look forward to the next User Forum!

If you would like to be informed of the next CERTPOINT Systems User Forum, mail us

It’s a question on the minds of many Learning and Development professionals right now, as tough economic conditions are focusing minds on results.VQT3VRG9UCTZ

There are no easy answers, but one approach is definitely to make the most of what you already have. That’s what Black & Decker is doing. The power tools manufacturer is still finding new ways to deliver value from its Learning Management System (LMS) after 10 years.

We’ll be hosting Black & Decker’s National Learning Technologies Manager Catherine Farrar at our next webinar on March 11^th, as she discusses how Black & Decker’s L&D team are expanding their range of activities even in these tough times.

Catherine will explore how Black & Decker uses the CERTPOINTVLS LMS to :

• Help users create their own high-impact training content, including video
• Make blogs, wikis and other social media professional
• Speed delivery and tracking through a fully integrated system
• Create effective content fast
• Go mobile (yes, you really can train via a smart phone!)

The webinar runs on March 11^th from 12:00-12:45 EST. “To attend this free webinar, click here“