eLearning is a beast unto itself.

First, it’s a broad subject.  Arguably, the “e” should be removed.  Learning is learning, and trainers have long been hip to thinking about how to adapt learning to various media for optimum impact.

Second, did I mention it’s a broad subject?  For instance, I focus exclusively on synchronous communication skills (adapted into a remote audio/visual environment), but “elearning” covers writing, instructional design, presentation and facilitation and collaboration skills, testing/surveying/statistics, understanding of intergenerational learning styles, group learning dynamics, systems thinking, and on and on.  In other words, it’s hard to be broadly expert.

In light of this, I found my recent conversation with Jennifer De Vries, President and Chief Solutions Architect at BlueStreak Learning a refreshing chat.  As an ex-analyst-turned-hands-on-strategist, Jennifer clearly gets the big picture and what it takes to get things done with her small-but-highly-qualified team.

A few things of note:

Custom course development
Jennifer mentioned that a good chunk of her business come from custom course development.  Given a huge need in the market, this isn’t surprising.  From what I see, many (if not most) organizational learning programs underutilize their resources and opportunities.  Outside pairs of eyes and hands can be pure gold.

Outsourcing
It might be a bad word to a lot of people, but not to me (it was my life from Envoy Global to Microsoft to Corvent).  In my own market studies, organizations outsource because they 1) don’t have the expertise internally or 2) do have the expertise, but need additional expert assistance.  Or both.  BlueStreak can develop, implement, and manage the planning, programs, and assessment on behalf of clients.  (Note:  1080 Group does NOT deliver outsourced services – we’re in the ‘teach a person to fish’ business – and it’s part of why we share resources such as BlueStreak Learning with you.)

Web/audio conferencing
While not their mainstay, BlueStreak offers a solid web/audio conferencing service that completes their ability to provide a complete synchronous/asynchronous  solution to their clients.  This is important – no communication strategy should be all of one or the other.

A large number of organizations simply do not have the time to scope, design, and implement projects as important as supporting the knowledge and skills of their teams.  This often isn’t a literacy issue, very often it’s an allocation-of-scarce-resources issue, and it’s laudable to know and stay focused on your core competencies, which is why an organization like BlueStreak Learning might just be one you need to add to your investigation list.