Curious about where associations are with elearning these days? Looking for a quick summary of the aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning book so you can decide how it can help your association or your client associations?

With many thanks to Jon Aleckson for bringing out the best of our conversation, I’m happy to provide this link to a podcast that covers these very topics and much more:

http://www.webcourseworks.com/blog/association-elearning-book-helpful-vendor-client-relationship

If you’re looking for ways to make sure your content and delivery modes are aligned, your membership is ready for elearning, the options you’re considering are affordable and do-able (does your staff have the skill sets?), and that you have all the information you need to make the best decisions for your association — this book will recover its cost many times over for you.

Just $25 for the download or  $35 (plus shipping) for the print version, you’ll have a manual that will take you step-by-step through each decision and action. If you follow the process outlined in the trail guide, you’ll have completed your elearning strategy, budget, and implementation plans by the time you reach the last page.

For a review, see a sumary of Bill Brandon’s review for the e-Learning Guild’s Learning Solutions e-Magazine.

Isn’t this the million-dollar question? No? A couple hundred thousand, maybe? (Okay.  Maybe the answer is only worth a few hundred dollars.)

Whatever the value, a variation of this question has generated a terrific discussion in the ASTD LinkedIn group. The original post from Donna Gilliland, President of MOSTraining, Inc. read:

“Online Live Training: what challenges do you face? Have you started delivering training live online training yet? If so, which of the following tools to you use?”

She listed:

• GoToWebinar
• WebEx
• Telspan
• Others? 

Then she asked, “What do you find to be your greatest challenge in training live online?”

Several people chimed in, all of whom seemed to be focused on two key areas:

• Presenters’ skills
• Tools/technology

What’s missing here?!?

CONTENT!!!

Yes, I’ll keep preaching this. Yes, my face is blue from repeating it over and over. And no, I’m not tired of repeating myself quite yet.

Why is content so important?

Because if your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how interesting, entertaining, adept, practiced, experienced or knowledgable your instructor/facilitator/trainer is, the online event will fail. Completely.

If your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how many polls, chat and breakout rooms you use, how pretty your slides are, or whether you use phone or VOIP, the online event will fail. Utterly.

So I’ll say it again: your content needs to be presented in a way that enables your learners to learn. Sounds obvious, but failing to do this is the primary reason most online events fail.

Webinars are a great example. They’re easy to conduct and attend, relatively inexpensive, and everyone seems to be offering them. Even when they should be doing something else (see When A Webinar Is a Bad Idea).

Only after you’re sure you have decided on the best delivery mode for the content you’re training should you be thinking about how you’ll handle the technical side of things, and choose the instructor.

Period. End of discussion.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some pink back into my face

When you’re considering venturing into elearning for the first time or expanding your offerings, you’re always looking at an investment. And as a responsible steward of your association’s budget, you want to make sure your investments are sound and your justifications for those expenditures are solid.

If they’re not, the board of directors will never approve them, right? And even if they did, you’d toss and turn at night, wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Two new resources are now available to help you!

Tagoras has just released a condensed version of its Association E-learning: State of the Sector report. In 61 pages you’ll get the key data from a survey of nearly 500 trade and professional associations about their e-learning activities. Available at just $99, this sort of research at this price is unheard of — and aLearning commends Tagoras for their willingness to make their study available at a more affordable cost without loss of value.

What does the report mean to you? Benchmarking. Examples. Contacts. Case studies.

More than that, you’ll discover what your options are. You probably have more elearning possibilities than you think. Options are everything. Examples and a proven track record to support them are priceless.

Follow this link to order your copy: http://www.tagoras.com/catalog/association-elearning-condensed/

And for guidance on what to do with those options — how to fit elearning effectively into a full education curriculum and create an elearning strategy, you of course need to get a copy of (warning: shameless plug ahead) aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning. At just $25 for a downloadable copy or $35 (plus shipping) for a printed version, you won’t find another resource as packed with examples and how-to information on this topic anywhere.

To learn more about the book or to order your copy of aLearning, just click the blue and orange “Buy Now – Lulu” button on the left.

Together the two resources will cost you less than $140 — a small price to pay when you’re considering spending thousands in software, hardware, consulting, and other services and products.

Go into the process of building your elearning program as informed as you can be. Build credibility for yourself and support for your initiative. Don’t wait.

… that would make a deadly Webinar: http://www.slideshare.net/RowanManahan/power-point-20th-anniversary-cinderella?src=embed

Okay, maybe it would be funny for the first few minutes…. but can you imagine sitting through an hour or so of this as a Webinar presentation?!?!?

Thankfully, as far as I know, that wasn’t the intent of this slideshow.

But keep it in mind when you’re creating the PowerPoints for your next Webinar. Or show it to your member volunteers if they’re the ones creating it.

Sometimes an example of what NOT to do is even more effective than a good example.

Larry Sloan’s post on Acronym, “Difficulties in Managing Web-based Seminars”  tackles the challenges of Webinars from a little different angle, but when it comes to this elearning modality, best practices are just that.

And bad practices can haunt you for a long, long time.

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.

We all know that the economic “decline” (in Michigan, it feels more like “disaster”) is affecting how we’re re-evaluating our learning offerings, shifting the focus from face-to-face to online delivery methods.

So it’s more important than ever that we:

• distinguish when a traditional course is appropriate (see In Defense of the Course) and necessary
• determine the type of instruction and learning that needs to occur (skills? information? concepts?)

Why? Because if we continue to load face-to-face events with passive learning experiences (aka Death by PowerPoint presentations), our members will opt out of attending, annihilate our registration and revenue goals, and  — in a worst case scenario — gut our educational programs. What a loss that would be to our associations and members!

Stop the craziness! Here’s the challenge: if you have information-focused programs, consider them for online delivery via Webinars (see When Webinars are a Bad Idea for ideas on making this decision). If you have content that is conducive to hands-on learning, a workshop environment, and physical engagement with the topic, load your face-to-face programs with it.

You need to give your members reasons why they should spend the additional money to attend an event in person — incurring precious transportation, lodging, and other costs. This isn’t to say that a compelling speaker won’t be enough, but if you choose to take that route, consider building into your program ways for attendees to personally meet that speaker, providing additional value over somethign that could have been recorded and streamed over the Web.

It’s all about time, expense, and value. Save them time, save them expense, and provide them with the best value. You owe them that.

Deciding whether your skills (and that of your staff) are fitted to conducting your own Webinars is one thing (see the previous entry on Weave Your Own Webinars)  but the time and financing of producing your own Webinars is another key factor.

As soon as we have a team of presenters on board, we can produce and offer a Webinar in as little as four weeks (less than that jeopardizes effective marketing). Preparing the panel (assuming they have not presented in a Webinar before) can take a little more time than preparing a panel for a live event, but not much. Overall, preparing a Webinar takes significantly less time than developing a longer live event, such as a two-day seminar or workshop.

And here’s the kicker: the potential payback (especially when you do not have a production company’s fee to cover) is often significantly higher than some live events. While we project a revenue balance in terms of “hundreds” for our shorter live events (obviously our national conference is another matter), we can project a revenue balance in the thousands for our Webinars.

Let’s think about that a second.

Should we devote our limited time and energy to the live events that result in marginal revenue returns, or should we spend that time and effort on the online events that generate higher revenues and have a longer shelf life when recorded and offered after the live event has closed?

So think hard about where you’re investing your energies and where you’re placing trust in third party vendors. Is your attention on the right things? Assuming you have content that’s best matched to the Webinar format (see “When a Webinar is a Bad Idea”) don’t overlook the opportunity you have to produce your own Webinars, keep more of the revenue, and learn a few more things about online learning in the process.

Do you produce your own Webinars, or hire a company to do them? Why did you make that choice?

You do realize you have this choice, right?

Most associations I know hire a company to produce their Webinars. Depending on the company and the arrangement, they might be responsible for any of these tasks:

• Rehearse the presenters
• Promote the Webinar
• Moderate the session
• Record the session
• Process registrations

Small-staff organizations say it’s worth it to hand over a bundle of cash to have someone else take care of these responsibilities while they focus on more important events.

That might be so. But make sure this is the case — don’t just assume it is.

When we first ventured into Webinars, I weighed an important choice. For the same cost, we could license a Web conferencing system for a year or pay a Webinar production company the same amount to develop and hold just one Webinar.

I decided to license the system for a year, and it was the best decision I could have made. Here’s why:

• I learned the ins and outs of using the Web conferencing system. This was a professional development opportunity for ME and I immersed myself in it (and still do).

• Our staff is learning the system as well so they will be able to set-up virtual meetings and moderate Webinars as well — a professional development opportunity for them as well.

• We have been able to use the system for committee Web meetings — instead of spending critical time making sure everyone has the same version of the document and is looking at the same page, we can share documents of all sorts, add our notes to them (or, via desktop share, make real-time edits in the actual document). One committee has eliminated an in-person meeting and cut the meeting time from 8 hours to 2.

• Because we conduct our own Webinars, we keep every dime we bring in. This means we have been able to earn back the license fee and generate a healthy revenue — all with one successful Webinar. Offering CDs of the recordings after the live event could generate even more non-dues revenue (we’re about to find out). 

Has it taken some time to learn the system? I actually learned enough to conduct our first Webinar within three weeks of having the system available. This included learning the system myself plus train the three presenters. The answer to this question clearly depends on the system you’ve selected.

How much use do we get with the system, outside of the Webinars? This also depends on the system and your agreement. We have unlimited use of five concurrent host “rooms” for up to 15 attendees. Because our Webinars attract more than 15, we pay a small fee for each.

How much flexibility do we have? Again, depends on the system. We have options for audio conferencing, audio with operator conferencing, and Voice Over IP (VOIP). We can include polls and video, and attendees can take and keep notes, interact via chat, and we can send out the presentation if desired from the live session.

How do you decide whether to produce your own or hire out the task?

That’s the subject of the next aLearning Blog entry… stay tuned!