Great Web Site Design Showing True
Commitment to Talent

How many companies parrot the words, "People are our most important asset." Yet, on their company web site -- the most important real estate they have -- they dedicate a whopping seven letters to this committment with a small link titled "Careers."

Well I was blown out of my chair when I visited the web site of Five Star Development, an e-learning company in Pittsburgh, PA. A fun, visually engaging home page that was still fast-loading and easy to navigate. You'll see when you visit their site that they've come up with a very creative way to attract job-seekers -- and it's designed right into the fabric of the page, rather than being relegated to a small corner link.

More comments on the Death of E-Learning

In the last issue I gave my thoughts on the current industry malaise and Jay Cross's suggestion that e-learning is dead. Saba's Grant Ricketts offered this thought provoking response (bolded emphasis is mine):

Back in January 2000, Elliott asked during one of our early e-Learning CONSORTIUM meetings whether the word "e-learning" would stick. My response was clear, "It shouldn't, because it's about a lot more than online learning." However, with several IPOs lined up for the first half of the year (Skillsoft, Eloquent, DigitalThink, Saba, eventually Docent, etc.) my fear was that the term would stick because it would become part of Wall Street's nomenclature.

So, it's really Wall Street's fault. Being ambulance chasers at heart, they chased what they thought was hot (and it was, and will be still) but it was only part of a larger picture -- a series of brush fires on the outskirts of the wilderness. But, it's the large wilderness of human capital based enterprise performance and results that will be even more significant.

Kevin, you're dead on about Performance. It's really the other half of this picture. There will be a lot of convergence in this space as there was in the overall learning space. And KM can really be thought of as an extension of content and content management in many ways. It's part of a larger, but related workflow. So, this area will converge as well. One is about the right information to the right learner (e.g., "corporate warrior") at the right time, and the other is about organization, alignment and scale. Both these issues ARE things that keep CEOs awake at night. Problem today is that they don't really have a system, strategy, or people process fully in place to do it. But, that's what is coming in the next couple of waves. Hence, my optimism.

Join Me and Discuss Learning Analytics - TUESDAY

Saving travel and admin costs are so "last-year" in proving the value of e-Learning. You need to gain credibility from a strategic standpoint and show learning as a business productivity tool. I'll be doing a webcast with Docent's Jon Ciampi on this topic. Free to all.

Date: April 22, 2003
Time: 9 AM PDT / 12 noon EDT / 5 PM GMT
Click here to register

Working with AICC/SCORM Content - THURSDAY

Saba has just launched a new webcast seminar series called Inside Content, which offers guidelines and best practices for content interoperability.

I'll be discussing my experience developing AICC and SCORM solutions for the pharmaceutical industry in this upcoming event. Will you join me?

Title: Learning Content Solutions for the Life Sciences Industry
Date: April 24, 2003
Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 6 PM GMT
Click here to register

Here's to living and learning,
-- Kevin

Kevin Kruse is the e-learning columnist for CLO, Chief Learning Officer magazine, author of Technology-based Training (Jossey-Bass), and Principal with Kenexa. He can be reached at kkruse@e-learningguru.com.
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