As I’ve been working with several customers over the past couple of weeks, the question keeps coming up: what are some good ways to sustain the impact of training after the initial classroom sessions are done?

I did a little online research and talked with an eLearning expert, Patty Stillwell, who I’m working with on several training projects. Here are some great ways to use technology to keep the initial excitement of in-person training alive while sharing business wins:

1. Give business managers exercises and surveys that they can push to learners using a survey tool. Learners complete and submit the survey, and results are shared with managers. This is a great way to measure classroom retention, ongoing change and provide recognition to those learners who find great business applications.

2. Create a wiki or blog for learners to share thoughts, ideas, new ways to use the training, etc. Encourage learning leaders who have successfully applied the training concepts to initiate the “dialogue” and support participation by others.

3. Implement a private channel for downloadable video or audio of lectures, recorded conference calls, presentations, etc. Utilize format-neutral options that work with a wide range of devices.
Develop short podcasts to share scheduled information updates or high priority notices (trends, competition, etc.)

4. Use your website to offer new tools and training updates with downloadable documents
Conduct Webex meetings and online discussions to foster collaboration between groups that may not otherwise interact.

5. Use Second-Life environments to expand learners’ understanding of changes throughout the company, supply chain and customer base.

A great post the other day from Harold Jarche, in which he observes, “Learning Management Systems (LMS) are the ERPs of the education and training world.”

While some organizations strive to automate and structure the learning process, Jarche points out the ultimate futility of this endeavor since, he says, “Learning is not a business process.” Learning management systems:

… try to take into account all of the factors necessary to control the experience, whether it be the “right” content or the most “appropriate” evaluation. Automating teaching and learning in order to be like ERP’s is the holy grail in some edtech business circles.

The best LMS is the Web, because it allows any message to be received by anyone, without adding a pre-defined learning wrapper. In a world of ever expanding information and knowledge, the key to “managing” learning then, is helping individuals to develop their own message interpretation processes and skills.

As learning becomes less event-driven and more integrated with work, and even informal, it will be instructive to see how LMS systems evolve in the years ahead.