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Issue # 021603

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This issue of Competence News contains:

• News Item and Comment - Here come the 900 pound gorillas!
• Editorial - War with Iraq? It's the economy stupid!
• Continuing Series - What makes Learning Management systems attractive to management?
• Word Gems - Free Interactive "Knowledge Objects" on Business Finance, Investing and the basics of Computer Technology
• Contact Us

e-learn·ing n. Learning that is assisted by using computer and information technology as a tool to help transfer knowledge.

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• Understanding Computers — the basics of computer technology
• Financial Competence — the basics of business finance
• Investment Competence — the basics of investing

News Item - Here come the 900 pound guerillas!

ORLANDO, Fla., January 27, 2003 -- IBM today announced the availability of the IBM Lotus Learning Management System, a flexible, standards-based portfolio of e-learning components that can scale smoothly from departmental implementations to enterprise-wide applications. The Lotus Learning Management System is designed to connect learning to an organization's core technology such as portals, ERP*, HRIS*, CRM*, as well as other learning systems. With the new e-learning solution, IBM is responding to customer demand for a true enterprise-class learning management system that enables integration with existing infrastructure as well as other e-learning systems. Full Release

Comment

Oracle, Microsoft, Sun and other large players are all, to varying degrees, moving aggressively in to the learning management arena. PeopleSoft and other Human Resources Enterprise systems suppliers have announced similar initiatives. With the giants moving in, consolidation among the several successful pioneers like SABA, Click2Learn, Docent, Centra and dozens of later entries into learning management appears inevitable.

It seems like just the other day that some friends of ours started Pathware (it was actually 1993/94). Pathware was purchased by Marcomedia who then sold it to Lotus and this evolved into the core of IBM's "Mindspan" solution which has now become the IBM Lotus Learning Management System, referred to above.

How many readers remember a few short years ago when high tech "invaded" the training trade shows like ASTD and Learning 19XX. These shows were transformed practically over night to mini Comdex shows.

High tech does have a way of speeding up an industry evolution!

*ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning
*HRIS - Human Resource Information System
*CRM - Customer Relations Management

Editorial - War with Iraq? It's the economy stupid!

While this is a newsletter about the elearning revolution, we felt it would be irresponsible to withhold comment on the major issue of our day - particularly when we have some possible insight into what is causing this conflict. And, after all, rapid distribution of knowledge is what elearning is all about.

The looming war with Iraq is capturing all the headlines.

But what is really behind this latest international crisis? Many believe that oil and the control of oil is a major factor in this crisis. While the current conflict may be related to oil, this is not really about control of oil or dependency on oil. There is plenty of oil. Too much oil - if you ask the environmentalists.

We believe this is a battle for control of the macro-economic playing field. Oil transactions are currently traded in dollars. Leaders of the European Union including those who control Germany and France intend to make the Euro the basis for oil transactions. This obviously would effect confidence in the dollar. US dollars are held as the reserve currency of the world's wealthiest governments. A major switch to Euros as a reserve currency by world governments would precipitate an economic crisis in the U.S. and other areas dependent on the stability of the dollar as an international currency.

The purchasing power of the dollar would go down and the value of the Euro would go up. Those holding large amounts of Euros would benefit.

In late 2000, Saddam Hussein switched $10 billion in reserves from US Dollars to Euros. North Korea followed suit December 2002. Who is next? The governments of Germany and France have a vested interest in seeing other countries switch to Euros which may explain why they do not want the U.S. to determine the future of the government of Iraq.

But to fully understand the forces behind this conflict and every major modern conflict including the last two World Wars, one would have to study money and economics. You would have to look at who ends up controlling world currency and global wealth after a war.

Hint - it is not the average U.S. taxpayer nor the citizens of any country. At the end of WWII the US was the largest creditor nation in the world. Now we are the largest debtor nation. A substantial amount of that debt was incurred rebuilding Germany and France and protecting Europe from the threat of the Soviet Union. To whom do we owe the money?

The correct target is not Islam or Iraq - nor is it the people of France or Germany.

Who is using Saddam Hussein and some brainwashed terrorists to manipulate international finance and profit from major currency fluctuations? The conflict creators are never a generality - "them". Conflicts are always created by a relative few who benefit from the conflict. Identify the exact names of the "whos", reform these individuals and this latest threat to peace and freedom will evaporate.

The beneficiaries of this conflict will be those who are currently stockpiling Euros and selling Dollars. Once the dollar crashes they will reverse the process - buy up dollars cheaply with their higher valued Euros. This will be followed by some crisis that will cause the Euro to go down relative to the dollar. Then the entire cycle will be repeated again.

The US versus Iraq is a manufactured conflict and is simply the latest twist in the centuries old game of controlling wealth and using that control to oppress.

There are many alternatives to war and, hopefully, the President and his advisors will work out a solution to terrorism that does not include carpet bombing Iraq.

Eventually the solution will include broad financial literacy as a preventative to the destructive currency manipulation that depends on general public ignorance of money and economics for its power.

“Just In Time” learning

Part 3 – What makes Learning Management systems attractive to management?

You have just been given the CEO’s job at Mega Corporation. You find that the company is lagging the competition as the bad news. The good news is that one of your IT staff has this great idea for a new tool that enables anyone who is computer literate to make easy edits to a corporate intranet site without wiping out the site. The IT pro did this in self-defense. The last major site update that he/she made was barely uploaded when the VP Marketing called and said he wanted a graphic changed, the VP Sales wanted to change a sentence in the text, the Corporate Attorney called screaming that there were not enough whereases, notwithstandings and party-of-the-first-parts in the disclaimers he needed on the site.

You decide that this “site editing for the rest of us” tool would be a great product to add to your arsenal to sell externally, in addition to its obvious benefits for your own organization. You now need to rapidly educate marketing personnel, sales personnel, and support/service personnel on this new product idea and get it to market before the competition catches on. As you are a global corporation, there is no way you are going to bring everyone to Mega’s headquarters and crash train them in the product and how to sell it. Not only would the costs be astronomical and time off the job devastating but, with the federal government constantly warning that increased terrorism is imminent everywhere, who wants to travel?

This is where a learning management system comes in. You get your elearning staff to do up a short interactive course on the new product and how it will be marketed. You store it in the course data base of your learning content management system (at which point it becomes immediately available for training employees). You specify some rules that generate a list of employees that need to do the course. The system automatically sends an email notification to these selected employees that they need to do the course. The email gives them the web link where they can access the course, a user name and password. The next day you logon to the management interface and see who is on the course, how they are progressing and when they will be complete. As the employees complete the course, they are automatically sent a certificate of completion and given credit in their personnel files for doing so.

The result? Key employees all on the same page, successful product introduction, increased sales, reduced training costs, improved profits, employees happy and competition green with envy. And, of course, the IT pro should get a million dollar bonus for coming up with the idea and product. Why not?

Compare that to traditional new product training alternatives and you will see the value of a learning management system.

(Note: You may have noticed that the new product idea is actual and was introduced by Macromedia the week we wrote this article - November 11th 2002 and is called “Contribute.” Run - don’t walk - to get a try and buy copy.)

In the next article we will cover the course creation function of an LMS/LCMS.

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