Formal education had simple beginnings—chalk and a blackboard. Then came books, computers, e-learning and now, the Apple iPod. With the introduction of MP3 players, audio channels and learning so short and sweet it can solve your business problems in five minutes or less, one wonders, what’s next?
“People are looking to make knowledge a lot more transportable,” said Jon Peters, CEO, AthenaOnline. “They’re on the road a lot more now, using a lot of different digital devices, and we’ve also got to be concerned about individuals’ learning styles. How do people want to receive the information and when?”
AthenaOnline’s use of digital audio or MP3 files is an easily transportable way to deliver learning that runs on a number of different devices, including your computer, iPod or even cell phone—allowing learning to take place anywhere, at any time. “Nokia made an announcement that said 50 percent of their new phones are going to be MP3-compatible. That equates into two things. One is digital media files that people take with them. The other is ring tones, but I don’t anticipate they’re going to do that with our videos,” Peters said. “The issue is that there are about 400 operating systems for mobile devices. As we began to look at that, we said, ‘What’s the most common denominator? What’s one thing that everyone can get access to when they’re carrying a mobile device?’ That was MP3s. That’s what we decided to use going forward with this initially. The second phase of this, we’re going to be doing some podcasts, which will be streams that are sent out to folks through RSS feeds so that they can subscribe to channels and receive some of our MP3 files on a number of different areas, including Sarbanes-Oxley and creativity.”
Capital One is using the Apple iPod in a program to bring learning to its associates. Forty or so employees in the U.S. Card College New Hire Program were the first to receive iPods as a tool to enjoy learning via mobile audio. “We’ve worked with our business units to look at learning agendas and ensure that we find relevant ways to augment existing programs or create some new programs that can integrate the audio learning channel,” said Michael Walker, group manager of learning services administration, Capital One University and program manager for the company’s audio learning program. “In our new hire program, we were actually able to provide pre-work before they came to their program on an iPod. They’re required to read a book called ‘Nickel and Dimed,’ look at that and as part of their course really evaluate the customer experience and understand how customers come from different backgrounds and cultures.”
The goal, said Walker, is to use audio learning as a means to enhance the learning experience and ensure that the content is relevant to the business need. Results have been positive. “I met with some of those new hires, and one of them said, ‘I got the material. I would not have able to read this in the time frame that I got the material in, but I was able to listen to the book on my eight-hour car drive to Richmond.’ We wanted to do something innovative in our approach because we heard from our associates that it’s hard to get into a class, not from the fact that they’re always full, but because they don’t always have the time. We’re so busy and we’re moving at such a fast pace that two to three days out of the schedule just doesn’t seem right.”
Survey results from associates in the program say that the iPods are helping to multiply their time and enable them to learn in new ways “It’s exciting,” Walker said. “Recent surveys have shown that 79 percent of those that have participated to this point are able to apply the knowledge they’ve gained through that audio channel into their job. We’re also seeing about a third of those folks are reporting an increase in their productivity as a result of the channel.”
Capital One also included the leadership development program in its early-adopter audio-channel learning model. “For example, there’s a program called Difficult Conversations. We have a partnership with a supplier, and we’ve been able to provide the book to learners as well as six to seven post-work pieces that have been customized and recorded,” Walker said. “Once the course is over, you continue to use the iPod to learn by doing the post-work. We’re ensuring that once the associate gets this, it becomes their tool and their ticket to continue learning at Capital One. They can enroll in a different course that provides audio learning.”
So the future of learning might include the option to subscribe to a channel that has exactly the type of learning you want, or that your workforce needs, and it can come through their mobile devices via these MP3 files. The content or knowledge assets are short, compact and often time-sensitive bits of information, and they come via a knowledgeable network of university faculty and consulting firm personnel. “We have partnerships with faculty from around the world, though most of it is in the U.S. and Western Europe,” Peters said. “We work with faculty to break their knowledge down into short answers to business problems that people face every day. How do we get our organization to become an employer of choice? How can I be more creative? How do we get more ideas from people on the job? We cover topics ranging from team building to finance, coaching to branding. We have about a little over 1,000 knowledge assets in the system right now, and of that, 700 are videos. They run from three to five minutes long.”
Three to five minutes may not seem like much, but Peters said that’s what research indicated learners with short attention spans, very specific needs and not a lot of time want. “People don’t like to spend a lot of time on these types of things, quite frankly,” Peters said. “People go into systems with a specific problem in mind. They dig through courses, find the one little piece of that course that answered the question they had or the problem they were facing, and then they drop out. This new system is very question-and-answer-driven. That’s why we have our faculty focus on just one bit of information, the answer to a very specific problem that someone might be having. Get rid of most of the stories and really focus on the solution to the problem, give the steps they need in order to solve it and then let them get on their way. We do some things on the back end to tie it together by offering related knowledge so if somebody says ‘That’s not exactly what I’m looking for,’ they can hit a button and it will show them the related knowledge so they can navigate and find the other pieces.”
Books and classroom still have their place in the learning landscape despite these new innovations. The audio learning channel delivery option is just another way to support the learning culture at Capital One and allow associates to learn any time, anywhere, outside of the classroom. Not that there’s anything wrong with the classroom, said Walker. The old-school ways to learn still have their place. Peters seems to agree. “We’re not trying to knock courseware,” Peters said. “There is a place for courseware when people need to get from point A to point Z and need to have a full understanding. But a lot of times, people just want one particular piece of information and we’re trying to make that more accessible to them. It’s this idea of just-in-time delivery, but just-in-time isn’t always good enough. It also has to be where you want it, and that may be in a cab on the way to a meeting. That’s the idea behind the MP3. It allows people to take the knowledge with them rather than be tethered to a computer somewhere.”
