Tom Kelly hit a few notes I could harmonize with in his article for T&D’s September issue, “Hitting the Suite Spot: How Learning Leaders & Executives Can Speak the Same Language.”

Not only did he get me thinking about how we need to communicate to the two bosses about results (see previous posts), but this quote of his from a 2007 Forrester Research report got me thinking along different lines:

“[I]nformal learning continues to gain ground in the corporate training environment…. But there’s a disconnect: most organizations still spend the majority of their training dollars on formal learning even though most employees now learn primarily through informal activities.”

Cost of Formal Training

Associations are living the same disconnection: investing thousands of dollars — millions, for large associations — on one-time events that will reach a relatively small percentage of members. Think about it: if you spend $300,000 on your annual conference, and 700 people attend, you’ve just provided a one-time event that cost almost $430 per attendee.

If you keep in mind that the cost of an event isn’t just the dollars spent, but the time spent as well, then you can begin to see how much your formal training is actually costing.

Let’s also say that your annual conference requires one full-time meeting planner, and the part-time assistance of another three staff members. Let’s say the full-time meeting planner costs the association $50,000/year in salary and benefits, and the combined hours of other staff members (hourly rate x number of hours they spend preparing for and attending the conference) is another $50,000.

The real cost of your conference is now $400,000 and the cost per attendee is over $570.

Cost of Informal Training

Now let’s say you implement some ways your members can connect informally, over distance, using Web-enabled tools. You provide blogs, wikis, forums, and discussion groups, all using free Web applications.

You allocate one staff member to monitoring and guiding these informal, online activities. Maybe sometimes the blogs generate continued conversations about a topic from a live event, for example.

Now let’s say you hire that person full-time and their total cost (salary and benefits) is $50,000/year.

Let’s say these informal activities reach 1000 of your members.

Do you see where I’m going?

So here’s the real question:

If you can justify $500,000 to benefit a small percentage of your members, why can’t you justify a smaller investment to benefit a larger number of members?

Or “Why Providing Education and Training Is Good for Your Members.”

Okay, we all know that, or we wouldn’t be in the field of education. But we’re also surrounded by those who keep demanding that we show some results for all the money we spend on our educational events — face-to-face and online.

For more than ten years, Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer have been studying the relationship between corporate training investments and their profitability. They’ve concluded — time and again — that companies providing training and PD to employees are consistently more profitable, even allowing for the wild market swings we’ve recently seen.

What does this matter to you and to your non-profit organization?

Too often we think of our association members as “members” rather than as professionals taking what they gain from our programs back to their medical practices, educational institutions, business offices, or other places of employment. They contribute there, which further contributes to the bottom line of their company or institution.

Here’s the challenge:

• Mine your registration and completion data (for all programs) to find the members (or institutions, if you’re a trade association) that have participated most frequently in your educational programs.
• Ask those individuals or institutions for data related to their profitability for a specified period. Have they consistently performed in the top 10% of their market segment? 20%? (Your measurement standard might differ, depending on the field.)
• Look for a correlation. If  data from Bassi and McMurrer holds, you should be able to see a positive relationship between the amount of professional development and the level of profit realized.  

Now you have data that can come in handy in at least a couple of ways:

• Shows your board of directors the effect your educational programs are having in your members’ businesses, institutions, etc.
• Demonstrates to your members the value they’re getting from the educational programs you’re offering.
• Provides your members with data they can take back to their superiors that helps make the case that the investment in your association and its education programs is worthwhile.

Sure, correlations are just that, and there can be many reasons for profitability. There are likely many organizations spending little on professional development but raking in the dough and at high profit margins.

But when someone just wants to see numbers, and when you can make a strong case for their validity, you’d be remiss not to at least take a whack at it.

Interested in reading more? Here’s the article summary, from Workforce:
http://www.workforce.com/section/11/feature/26/60/15/266018.html

It’s simple, really: what if the information you’re getting isn’t reliable?

Don’t we teach others this very thing about accessing information, gaining knowledge, from the Internet? That you have to be careful about the source, that you need to be able to evaluate the validity of what you’ve found out there in cyberspace?

What will we do to be sure our collaborative learning spaces aren’t populated by those who think they know more than they do?

I don’t know who Richard Whatley, is but he said it well: ”He who is not aware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge. “

And herein we have an example of the very issue: if I don’t know who Richard Whatley is, should I risk sharing the quote? Am I — ignorantly — passing on something that’s of no value or maybe even harmful?

Isn’t this the danger of collaborative learning? That those who don’t know — who are in fact, in the space because they need to learn something — won’t recognize misinformation?

Haven’t we all seen it at some time or another on forums and in blogs: a great post with some good comments that add to the original thought, then someone’s additional comments that go way off somewhere, maybe including false or misleading information?

I do know who Hippocrates is, and he said: “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. “

But don’t we also say that the best blogs are the “opinion blogs”? Are we advancing ignorance by sharing our opinions? Do we risk misleading people by sharing more opinions than science or fact?

How do you propose we manage the collaborative learning environment to provide a place for opinion-sharing? To temper the loud but uninformed voices that could mislead or misinform?

Haven’t you been in one of those team projects where the weakest member pulled everyone down, risking the project? Or how about back in school — those group projects with your schoolmates where you were all going to get the same grade? They either left most of the work to you, or maybe you took it on because you were afraid for your grade?

Why are we so sure that others won’t have similar collaborative learning experiences — some good, some not so good?

What are we doing to ensure our collaborative learning spaces will be good ones?

You’re barely inside the South Dakota state line when you start to see them: Wall Drug signs. Many of them sport 5-cent coffee come-0ns. Great idea! Who doesn’t love a bargain? And there’s no other obligation. Drop your nickel in the slot, add sugar and/or powdered cream to your liking, and fill your cup.

We ran into 5-cent coffee at another restaurant and even asked what the catch was. No catch. We even got real cream at this place. We’d stopped in for lunch anyway, but somewhere in our heads was the notion that because we were saving a few bucks on the coffee, we could spend that in another way.

If you know anything about coffee in restaurants, you know that it’s — in a regular coffee season — a real money-maker. (If you doubt my word, calculate out how many cups you can brew from what you buy in the store, then charge yourself a two dollars a cup and see how much money you’d make on that bag or tin of grounds or beans).

So it’s an easy thing to do — 5-cents a cup — it goes along way to curry favor with the customers, and it really doesn’t cost the restaurant much money at all (assuming they can’t break even on the five-cents, what with the water, cream, sugar, washing, and serving that goes with it).

One of the campgrounds where we stayed advertised free horseback rides. I asked my husband if we stayed a week if that got us a free ride, or something like that. He smiled and said, “Get this. If we both pay for a horseback ride, we get a night’s stay free.”

On the surface, that sounds like a deal, right? But here’s how it would have worked in our case: $45 each = $90 for the rides. What were we paying for one night’s stay? About $15. Hmmmmm……

Moral of the story? If you’re going to provide an incentive, work out every angle. In the Web world, they call it a “use case scenario.” The designers imagine every possible user for the site, and work through ever possible thing they might want to do on the site, then design it to include those features.

What are the use case scenarios for your members? Will your incentives hold up to them? Will you have a five-cent cup of coffee, or a free horseback ride?

Though all has looked quiet on the surface, it’s been very, very busy behind the scenes at the aLearning Blog. Here’s what’s been going on: aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy.

Yes. A book. A book about three seemingly disparate things: Associations. Strategy. eLearning.

It’s the book I wish I’d had when our association headed into online learnig — and me, with experience developing elearning! So I can imagine how lost many association execs and learning professionals feel when they need to sort it all out.

No wonder so many associations lack a workable elearning strategy, as Jeff Cobb discovered in his newly-released report. His blog summarizes the issues very well. I agree with his advice:  ”…start viewing e-learning as s strategic part of your mission and your business and begin treating it like the substantial, long-term asset it could become.”

 aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy will be available in 3-4 weeks. From lingo you need to know, to deciding whether an LMS is necessary for you or not, to conducting needs assessments and scans, including deciding what you need to offer and the best modalities for each topic (yes, Learning 2.o is discussed), all the way through to estimating costs, issuing an RFP and selecting a vendor — this book includes activities, charts, examples, and a case study to help you work through each step in the process as you go.

You’ll end up with  more than a workable (and flexible) strategy — you’ll have covered some essential steps necessary for creating your business plan as well.

If you’d like more info on the book, please e-mail me directly. Watch for more here soon!

If you haven’t gotten yourself a copy of Jeff Cobb’s 2008 Association Sector E-Learning Survey Summary Report, GET IT and READ IT and HIGHLIGHT IT and LIVE IT.

Far too much here to summarize, but a few things popped out that struck me as counterintuitive. Of course, I generally function in a counterintuitive way, so perhaps someone will let me know what I’m missing….

Under “Business Goals & Marketing,” Jeff notes that,

“A slim majority of respondents already using e-learning (50.2%) as well [as] respondents planning to use e-learning (52.5%) indicated that their offerings must [be] self-sustaining and profitable. An additional 33.7% of current users and 38.3% of planned users indicate that their offerings must be self-sustaining though not necessarily profitable.”

He goes on to report that,

“The vast majority of respondents currently using e-learning (86.0%) or planning to use e-learning (77.4%) charge or plan to charge for some or all of their offerings.”

So… most organizations need to offer financially sustainable, if not profitable, online learning. And most are planning to charge money for them.

Recently, a separate study indicated that the average price for a Webinar is $230. Remember, a Webinar is a one-time deal. (I’m making an assumption here — that if a recording is offered, there’s a pricetag on it.) Elearning, particularly asynchronous courses, are generally provided for a much longer period of time.

With me so far? Okay. Jeff’s report goes on to share what respondents had to say about what they charge or plan to charge for their e-learning:

“The average price per course hour for organizations currently offering e-learning is US $56.79. For organizations planning to offer e-leraning in the next 12 months, the average projected price per course hour is US $52.24.”

HUH???!??!?  Why would you charge less than average? Why would you LOWER that per hour course rate when people will need e-learning more than ever in the next year at least? Doesn’t it make more sense to charge what you must in order to at least meet your expenses?

What am I missing in this picture?

Because it seems to me if you keep aiming at your shoes, you’re bound to shoot yourself in the foot.

Jeff Cobb’s comment to my previous post raises a great issue: all the work we do as educators within the association world is undervalued. We educate more professionals than corporations and higher education, and — at best — our efforts are ignored.

All the work we do is taken for granted. Yes, it’s what we should be doing in our associations — often we’re fufilling our organization’s mission by providing professional development opportunities.

But it’s not always easy.

With a total of about 360,000 nonprofits across the country, our organizations serve millions of members: doctors and other medical professionals in thousands of specialty areas, lawyers, teachers, officials at all levels of government, and individuals serving in all segments of manufacturing, foodservice, and other professions and vertical markets.

And we do all that with little help: of associations with 3-5 full-time employees, only 13% have a fully-dedicated education specialist on staff; of the larger-staffed organizations, 36% report having a fully-dedicated education specialist.

ASAE notes that the small organizations report their data in proportionately smaller levels, reinforcing the fact that smaller associations have fewer internal resources to commit to ancillary or non-value-add tasks such as completing a survey. So the real numbers of smaller associations without an education specialist on staff are problably much higher than the data has reported.

The fact is that associations will staff finance, office management, membership/recruitment, and meeting planning positions (no, these are not to be confused with education professionals) before bringing aboard an education professional.

Which is all to say that we do a lot with few resources! And we do it so well that — like the elves who visited the shoemaker — our work seems magically done. With our effort so effectively behind the scenes, it’s easy to understand why we’re not recognized for all we do.

It’s time that changed.

Here’s an open call to ASAE and The Center to introduce a Best in Learning Award. Let’s recognize the hard work of our peers who do so much with so little to enhance the expertise of their members.

Recognition of excellence can also go a long way toward supporting our need to justify what we do and how we do it. It could help with funding-raising — grants, sponsorships, advertising — which is always a challenge.

What about it, ASAE?? Are you ready to step up and recognize what a key element of your membership accomplishes every day, day after day, with little support and more than their share of hurdles and challenges?

Okay, I just have to get this off my chest. It seems I’ve run aground a general undersatnding of what educational objectives should or shouldn’t do or be with a colleague. It wouldn’t be a big deal except we needed to come to a consensus about the objectives for a particular educational module.

Without clear educational objectives, learners won’t know what to expect and instructors, trainers, and facilitators won’t know what to do.

Right?

Well-written educational objectives should define the path that the instructors need to walk down in order for the learners to get what they need from the session, course, module, or curriculum. They should define what the learning outcomes should be.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.” (attributed to Yogi Berra)

Make sure everyone else knows where you’re going. Write objectives that clearly articulate what learners will know or be able to do when they complete the session. If you won’t be able to measure whether learning occurred, your objective isn’t clear enough.

Poorly written objectives are all over the place: “Learners will understand…. know….”

How can you measure what they will understand or know? Well, you ask them to identify or describe or explain something, right?

So that should be your objective: “Learners will be able to explain… identify… describe… distinguish…”

Here’s the best bit of instruction I ever got about effective objectives: write the test, then write the objectives. Even if you won’t have a test, pretend you will, and figure out what you would ask, or what you would have the learner do to demonstrate what they have learned.

Those are your objectives.

Could you have a lot of objectives for a session? Absolutely. Particularly if you’re covering a lot of material. Is that a bad thing? Maybe. But you won’t know until you define all of the objectives, design the session, offer it, and then test the learners to find out.

What happens if you don’t? If you’re always going to be the one in front of the room, you can make sure you cover everything. If you’re designing a course for someone else to teach, or for online delivery (especially for asynchronous delivery), you must have well-written objectives, or you risk instruction that loosly interprets the learning points, misses them entirely, or substitutes content along the critical path.

To have value, your educational offerings must provide a level of quality and relevance not offered anywhere else. Your educational objectives are the spine of each of your programs. Treat them with care, or suffer the aches and pains you’ll suffer as a result.

You’ve seen the argument all over the place — including here — that online learning is “green.” Now you can calculate just how much CO2 your classroom training generates and — even better — how much you’d save by taking your classroom training online.

Check it out at http://learningfootprint.com

More? Okay.

• MIT’s Building Technology Program has an online simulator for determining your classroom footprint here: http://designadvisor.mit.edu/design/
• The Environmental Defense Fund offers a way to calculate the impact of your paper choices (for all those binders!) here: http://www.edf.org/papercalculator
• And to figure out how much CO2 is generated via travel, check out the emissions calculator on this site: http://www.atmosfair.com

In the article “Going Green: Are You Ready?” in the September/October 2008 issue of Elearning! Silke Fleischer offers these links and a table showing one example of the cost classroom learning can exact on the environment. If the course were online, Fleischer writes, “it not only saves about 1200 tons of CO2, but also more than $1 million in travel cost alone.”

Who could argue with that?!?

How many of your association members travel to learning events each year? Nationally? Regionally? Locally? What if you moved JUST ONE of those programs online? What savings would you — and your members — experience as a result?

More than that, what would you be giving back to the environment?!?!?

I don’t know about you, but for all the frustration budgeting brings, I’m still glad I’m faced with the struggle. Yes, you heard me correctly. Call me a silver-lining miner, but there’s something good in everything, including budgeting.

We all know how brutal the budgeting process can be. We head in with great ideas for improvements and new programs, only to have the financial guts ripped out of them. Or we survive but the essential marketing or membership support we need for success is stolen out of those budgets.

So what’s to celebrate? The budget process requires two things from me that I leave on one of the many backburners of my office stove: careful data analysis, and a chance to revisit the Triple Constraint.

I’ve addressed data analysis in other entries — the importance of tracking your registration income against expenses, of calculating the total cost of ownership to demonstrate the value of initial investment, among other things. But I was recently reminded of the Triple Constraint and saw it adapted to learning.

The concept of the Triple Constraint was first introduced to me in my last job in elearning at a Web company. It’s a project management term that refers to how if you change the Cost, the Time allowed for a project, or the level of Quality, then at least one of the other two is affected. For example, if we “gold-plated” a project for a client – added more online job aids or increased the number of on-screen interactions just because we knew it would make for a better course, we were increasing the Quality of the project. But we were also adding to the cost and probably the length of Time we needed to complete the project as well.

Adam Nelson, Chief Learning Architect at Ninth House, asserts that the learning equivalent of the Triple Constraint is Scale, Effectiveness, and Cost. If you change the Scale of what you’re offering – including longer sessions or accepting more attendees – then you are probably influencing the Cost of the event and perhaps even its effectiveness. Seek to increase the Effectiveness, and you’re likely to increase the Cost and reduce the Scale.

During this budget season, the Triple Constraint drives my budgeting decisions: if I increase the registration fee here, which side or sides of the triangle get pushed out of proportion? How do I balance all three?

In our association, Quality is king. We take pride in offering the best quality we can for the cost. This gives me a rationale for the decisions I make during the budgeting process.

And we all know that rationale helps when justifying expenditure requests, registration fee increases, or other necessary changes. We might not get our way, even with a solid argument, but at least we can anticipate the challenges that lie in wait, and sidestep them as best we can.