by Robin Lucas, Director of Project Management
Fredrickson Communications
Even in a world of wikis and blogs, most of the content that we write for a wide business audience requires some form of review. Stakeholders, partners, and associates usually want a say in what is published. So the question is: How do you manage your reviews effectively so that you have the quickest time to publication?
Imagine that you are publishing and deploying your new content tomorrow. Today, the Vice President of Marketing sends you a list of changes that you asked for over a week ago. Two hours later, you get an email from the Brand Manager, announcing changes to the way your company refers to the products described in your content. To complicate matters, you find several contradictions — not only between what the VP and the Brand Manager says, but also between this new feedback and the feedback you received from a previous review. The result is that, with only one day left on your schedule, content that you thought was approved needs to change, and you need to sort out and resolve some conflicting last-minute feedback.
I’ve been in these shoes before. Through experience, I’ve discovered how to avoid situations like this.
by J. Hruby, Director of Marketing
Fredrickson Communications
If your answer to this question is along the lines of “not very well” or “not as well as we’d like”, or even, “I don’t want to talk about it,” then read on.
I recently spoke to a prospective client who is the Chief Learning Officer of a large regional health care provider. This health care company owns several hospitals and has thousands of employees. He called us because he couldn’t stand the pain that their LMS was inflicting on his learning organization any more and he was wondering if anything could be done about it. Through our conversation the usual sad LMS story emerged.
Everything was fine for a while after implementation, but as the implementation team drifted away, their LMS problems started slowly but steadily piling up. Their LMS administrator who was part of the team during implementation left the organization. The new administrators found it difficult to integrate new courseware, users complained about how difficult it was to find and register for classes, learning administrators were having trouble setting up new classes, and so on.
Their response to all of these problems was unfortunately fairly typical as well: they retreated into a kind of LMS bunker by limiting their use of the system to just the few functions that they knew they could administer. Essentially, they had retreated so far into the LMS bunker that they now have two full-time administrators who manually key class attendance data into the system.
This wasn’t exactly what this CLO envisioned they’d be getting when they bought a top-tier LMS. His first question was, “Is it the LMS or is it us?”
I had to give it to him straight: It’s probably you. By that I mean that knowing what I know about their LMS, I’m sure it has all the technical capabilities they need and quite a few they don’t.
As I told him, the care and feeding of an LMS is a technical endeavor. While some basic administration tasks can be done by almost anyone, when the going gets tough you really need to turn to technical professionals. And once the LMS techies have things up and running, you need to implement sound LMS administration processes and procedures to keep them that way.
If you feel like you’re not getting enough out of your LMS, or if you feel like you’re trapped in the LMS bunker, get in touch. We can help with LMS consulting, courseware troubleshooting, LMS administration processes and procedures, usability testing, LMS portals, and a variety of other services. Your LMS should be working for you. If it’s not, give us a call.
by J. Hruby, Director of Marketing
Fredrickson Communications
September presents two terrific opportunities for learning and development professionals in the Twin Cities area.
Elliott Masie – Futurist and all-around learning guru Elliott Masie will be in town on September 25 as the featured speaker for ASTD Twin Cities Chapter’s monthly meeting. I have attended a Masie seminar in the past and he has a knowledgeable and entertaining style that makes this a “do-not-miss” event.
For more information and to sign up, see the ASTD-TCC’s website.Members of PACT can attend this session free of charge, so if you’ve been considering joining this excellent Twin Cities-based organization, now would be a great time to do so.
Bill George – Former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic Bill George has just released a new book called Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis. We believe that many of the members of our Fredrickson Roundtable for Learning Leaders, as well as others, will be interested in attending this free business event. It’s called Summit on Leading in a Crisis, and it will be held on September 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Ted Mann Theater at the University of Minnesota.
George will moderate a panel with CNN commentator David Gergen; Anne Mulcahy, chair and former CEO of Xerox Corporation; John Donahoe, president and CEO of eBay; and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chair and former CEO of Carlson Companies.
For more information, see the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.