Focus Magazine - Summer 2014 - (Page 26)

FEATURESTORY Are We Living in a Post-LMS World? I By Michelle Nolin, CPLP Sales trainers must meet the learner where they live. I realize what I am about to write might not make me the most popular girl on the biopharma/medical device sales training block, but I think we may indeed be living in a post-LMS world. Learning management systems have been in place now for many years, and this article is not about the Top 10 LMS solutions in 2014 or statistics about usage. Generally speaking, most companies have an LMS, and many companies find themselves with more than one LMS, as systems have been added to other systems for various specific purposes over the years, or inherited along with the acquisition and merger of multiple companies into one. I won't soon forget the answer to a standard question asked at a project kick-off: Question: "Which LMS do you currently use?" Answer: "We have 14. I'll get you the list." The time and financial investment to purchase, validate, implement, and integrate an LMS into the IT infrastructure of a company is no small undertaking. Nor is replacing one, or even upgrading the features. As trainers we are often painted into an instructional corner by what the LMS can, and cannot, do. And, thankfully, enterprise LMSs are able to do more than ever before to organize, deploy, document, track and measure training. Let's set aside the "document" part, for just a moment. We aren't going to suddenly find ourselves in a less regulated industry, with 26 fewer compliance obligations. There will always be a place for validated, behind-the-firewall, enterprise systems that track compliance training required by regulators. That's a given. And to be fair, LMSs are indeed evolving, offering cloud-based systems, supporting HTML5, and moving beyond SCORM technology standards with the Experience API, among other significant accomplishments. Mobile in Mind Let's put the IT and compliance aspects of this discussion in a parking lot for just a moment, and examine this purely from an instructional design point-of-view. What is the best way to deliver performance-driving training and just-in-time support tools to the highly mobile biopharma/ medical device sales representative? mLearning. To truly drive performance and sales force effectiveness, sales trainers must meet the learner where they live-on their tablet and their smartphone. While mLearning is hardly new, how we think about the "m" has changed. Sitting in a ballroom chair at the eLearning Guild's mLearnCon last year in Silicon Valley it was as if a lightning bolt struck when I heard someone say, "mobile is not the device, it's the learner." I had literally two weeks earlier facilitated an LTEN (SPBT) session on mLearning and knowledge retention and failed to articulate that very precise, and very accurate, observation. Epic fail. FOCUS | SUMMER 2014 | www.L-TEN.org http://www.L-TEN.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Focus Magazine - Summer 2014

Focus Magazine
From the President: Clarity, Community & Career
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Guest Editor: Your Network and the Connection Ecomony
Front of the Room: Getting Your Head Right
Neuroscience: Neuroliteracy
Introducing LTEN: The Life Sciences Trainers & Educators Network
Communities of Practice: Learning in Action
Are We Living in a Post-LMS World?
Member Solutions: Measuring the Impact of Training
Selling as a Team Sport
From the Training Room to the Board Room
The Science of Changing Sales Behavior
Personalized Medicine: The Coming Revolution
Virtual How: Trends in Selling Models
Member News
Ad Index
Focus Contacts
5 Questions with Nigel Brooksby

Focus Magazine - Summer 2014