As a kid, like many I surmise, purchased a magic kit tested it out, then forced, err suggested that family members attend to see the show.

At my home, my dad paid for him and the dog to attend. Front row seats. Mom was there too. I can’t recall if my siblings were forced, err highly recommended to attend, no matter.

I did one, and only one magic show. Think of it as an exclusive. As I recall I pulled off all the tricks, including the infamous milk disappearing trick with newspaper one.

Magic is something that has always fascinated me. A good magician, one that does things that you just can’t figure out, without all the glitter and garbage designs you see in a Vegas show, are the true experts.

It’s not about the money, nor the fame, rather it is about showing something that gets you thinking, and curious enough to retain and remember the illusion long after the show is over.

I’d like to think of e-learning in that way. If done correctly, and presented without a flair of showmanship, it will leave the reader or viewer with that knowledge that piques their interest, the curiosity if you will, and long after the read or view, remembers it.

In this edition of the Reader’s Q&A, I went about picking the ones that to me, offer a knowledge tidbit, that will peak the reader’s interest – and hopefully leave them with a sense of either valuable acquisition of insight or “wow, this is horrible, and why do they charge, $10 for a bag of nuts?”

Question #1

I often see lists or specific names of vendor(s) whom you recommend, but rarely a list of those whom you do not recommend. Are there any vendors I should be aware of in the not-recommended category?

Craig’s Response (hey, that’s me)

Whether a vendor falls into the “do not recommend” category isn’t something I take lightly.

When I look at a learning system, learning tech, or whatever in our e-learning world, I view it from various perspectives.

One perspective as an expert—someone who knows the industry, all types of systems from various angles, and so on—any analyst worth their weight should slide into this category. I mean, if they only know the most well-known ones, or say 50, yeah, you are not an analyst nor an expert.

Another perspective is as someone either in L&D or Training – the background per se.

The third perspective is someone who is either a first-timer and thus has zero knowledge about any type of learning systems or tech, for example, and has been tossed into the you have to buy this scene.

They are not necessarily on the L&D or Training side, which, for good or bad, oversees the system.

If we look solely at it from a system standpoint – whereas the three perspectives hit (overall), what I am identifying or exploring is different from what you may be assessed as relevant or not.

Are there systems, that I wouldn’t recommend based on various takeaways? Sure.

I’m not a believer in the need for anyone to purchase a learning system from an ERP. I see absolutely no benefit, nor is it the best approach that they spin—and yes, it is total spin.

I’m not a fan of LinkedIn Learning. I see absolutely zero benefit to buying or using it.

I can quickly ascertain the whole “LinkedIn content” piece as the core, but even their content is highly overrated.

Nevertheless, it does financially well, has high usage, and has a huge fan base. So do eBooks, for that matter.

One area that I can’t publish—okay, two areas—that I do look at is the company’s culture and the support the vendor provides.

The culture is really relevant to me because all you need to know about the vendors themselves and their perspective is how the company acts behind the scenes with its people, sales approach, and customers (excluding how it presents itself externally), and what you see is either an illusion of what is real or not.

What a prospect or current customer sees is only the best behavior of the vendor.

Once in a while, I hear folks leave a vendor’s system mentioning items such as feeling the vendor had hubris, and they wanted no part of it.

That, though, is the rare part. The lack of support is far more common, which leads me to my second area.

Support.

There are vendors out there today who know internally that their support is awful. Do they say that publicly? Nope.

But it is troubling when a vendor knows and does nothing about it.

Question #2

The post you wrote on scenario-based learning got us thinking.

We started implementing it and are seeing an improvement in the usage of our courses. This got me wondering whether or not you use scenario-based when you are looking at a system.

Craig’s Retort

It’s a challenge to use it nowadays but I still use bits of it when I am testing a vendor on a series of inquiries.

What I will be doing for the upcoming rankings is creating a scenario-based use case.

The use case will contain all the variables they need, and the use case itself must be tied to the demo.

BTW, you can do this yourself, and I highly recommend it.

For me, upon viewing the demo, I will be looking at a few items, including these two.

• How well they follow the use case – They always ask or should ask what you want to see. Which is a plus, but if you provide them a use case, then clearly there are items on there, of interest – since you gave them the use case.
• Reach and Follow-up – The latter is really bad in our industry. This means after the demo is provided, the salesperson follows-up with a thank you. Not a pitch, not a standard email template that anyone can figure it out they did – like a mail merge – hint, it is so obvious, just stop doing it. There is a right way to do a thank you, and a wrong way.
• The worst way is not following up. The reach? An initial e-mail to you, after they have read and digested the use case, they may ask if there is anything else you want to see – as in what is really essential – without them saying that word – there are other words they can use. Zero in and pinpoint are very relevant. I’m tired of the “you can stop me at any time to ask questions garbage,” because at least 50% of the time, they ignore you and keep on rumbling. Oh, and if you have to start increasing your voice to get them to stop or respond – you should recognize this isn’t a fit – by telling them your dog just ate your shoe and is vomiting everywhere and you have to go. Trust me, it works.

In my scenario use case, it aligns to the vendor’s target audience.

Thus, if they are heavy on the customer training side/association, then the use case goes there; if they are heavy on employees, it goes there; and if they are a combo system, with at least 30% of their audience on either employees or customers, there is one there.

Combos are the most common systems these days, even though the money, as they say, is in the customer training segment and, if you know what you are doing – the association space.

One thing you could do with SBL with the demo and your use case is the following:

a. Present your detailed use case – details are crucial.
b. If you have a system or other systems you want tied to the system, tell the vendor what they are and what you need or want to do.
c. Then, put together a small scenario incorporating some of those items, including crucial and not-so-crucial ones, and tell them you want them to provide you with the demo based on that scenario.

Privately, you put together a score sheet and see how they do.

The non-crucial is to keep them on their toes—if you only put critical, then, well, the vendor figures it out.

I consider critical as this – it’s a deal breaker. Never compromise – because compromise means you will regret it.

How often does someone say, “Let’s try that new blah blah restaurant,” and you think, ” No, I do not eat that cuisine,” or the YELP reviews say that the place has a D in health ratings, only to compromise and go?

I mean, have you ever seen a shopkeeper pushing out a dead rat before they opened their restaurant?

I saw it, and yeah, never compromise.

Question #3

What is more critical when buying courses – the design or the price?

Craig’s Retort

Well, if you can’t afford it, then yeah, it is the price.

The way to look at price is to recognize that it is based on the number of users—active, as they say—who will use the content, in theory at least.

The bundled approach exists here. If you have 1,000 people using the learning system but plan to roll out the content to only 500 people, then you purchase 500 seats.

In other words, you do not have to buy for 1,000 people if you aren’t planning on rolling it out to 1,000.

However, if a vendor says, “Hey, if you cut down your user base to X, then we can fit you into your budget.” Yeah, pass.

Content is by far the most important and expensive asset —I am referring to third-party publishers.

There are exceptions, mind you, but overall, the market has gone bonkers on pricing, ignoring the current global economic issues – inflation, BTW – is global, not just in your own country – and it has nothing to do with who is head of state in your country.

Assuming it fits within your budget (never tell the vendor your budget), the next is quality and updating.

Design is very important. If it is someone just talking to you behind a green screen, that is boring. If it is a video with a voice-over and lots of text, skip it.

I know you might be thinking nobody does that, but uh, yeah, a lot of publishers do – and people still buy it.

I’ve seen the V/O with text and an occasional video clip within the text, which you click and listen to. The publisher calls that interactive.

I wasn’t aware that clicking a video clip was interactive. YouTube should be pitching this right away.

The third piece is how often they update the course and content and add new content and courses to your specific subjects/categories of interest.

Never assume that every third-party publisher offers high-quality content/courses, updates on your subject topics, adds new ones, or culls (removes) others.

It just doesn’t happen across the board.

I’ve had vendors tell me they cull their catalog, removing outdated or poor-designed courses, etc., and then I randomly go in and pick a few courses and see the opposite of what they are telling me.

Aggregators, overall, could do a better job of this.

This is especially odd because they have the data which identifies the date of published, usage, and so forth.

They often respond that updating it is up to the publisher within the aggregator.

I call it passing the buck.

Can you imagine running a division, department, or company and someone saying, ” Oh, it is not my responsibility; it’s Aleen’s problem.”

I can imagine that because I have worked with some of those folks.

I bet you have too.

Oh, Who Moved My Cheese is the worst book ever. How come the people who push you to read it never seem to follow what is preached in it?

Talk about passing the buck.

Bottom Line

I get a lot of questions and would love to respond in a post to every one of them, but there is only so much time and folks paying attention to what I write.

On the plus side,

Have you seen where I pour water into a newspaper and make the water disappear?

It’s called

Magic.

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