How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Intelligent Discovery Leads to Better Retention and Engagement

Curation Taps Into Your Homegrown Knowledge Base

Curation Makes the Best of a Short-Attention-Span World

The New L&D: Guiding More Than Creating

1

5

7

8

10

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 1

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so your busy team can find the information it needs when it needs it, every time.

But so far, discovery remains an afterthought in most companies. According to Bersin by Deloitte, only 8% of learning and development (L&D) departments’ time is spent on portfolio management and curation. Classic “bedrock” efforts of live delivery and facilitation, content design and development, and training operations still take up 41% of L&D staff time.

According to Bersin by Deloitte, only 8% of learning and development (L&D) departments’ time is spent on portfolio management and curation.

Let’s face it—there is no shortage of content for your learners. From the formal learning in your learning management systems, to the thousands of documents in your various intranets and document management systems, the knowledge in the heads of your subject-matter experts, the many courses you have bought from various third parties, and the untold number of great resources available on web. The amount of content is not the problem. Finding the right piece when it is needed is.

We need a guide to help us navigate all of our learning tools—a concierge, of sorts. And why not? If services like Spotify and Pandora can curate custom music playlists based on songs you’ve liked, and if Netflix can offer you a host of “Flawed British Detective Shows” once you’ve finished a season of Luther, learning and development (L&D) should be able to curate content

INTRODUCTION

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 2

That’s a faulty strategy that gobbles up too much time and resources without providing much benefit. Why? Because it ignores the evolution of L&D from content creator to content guide that today’s workforce really needs.

With an ingrained habit of Googling cloud-based content for bite-sized learning on a mobile device, today’s employee learns best not from conference room seminars but from bite-sized information—known as microlearning—that they can apply right away.

To provide this, you’ll need an organized database that anticipates your employees’ learning needs. You’ll need a personalized content curator for each of your employees.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

How do learning and development departments

spend their time?

41%

8%

Portfolio management and curation

Live delivery and facilitation,

content design and development, and training operations

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 3

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Personalized learning utilizes technology to allow educators in classrooms to teach to each student’s individual needs.

Your learning platform does the same thing, effortlessly crafting channels of content grouped by topic and then fusing in assigned content from internal subject matter experts with content drawn from internal and external sources, and all harnessed by the power of AI. The content is condensed into bite-sized pieces—at EdCast we call them SmartBites™—that are disseminated based on search results or a personalized feed that goes right to your employees’ mobile device. This creates a diverse and engaging stream of continuous learning throughout your organization.

A learning platform can curate your content automatically by combining custom algorithms with human expert review, similar to the process used by Netflix or Spotify. The curator uses data like previous content your learner has accessed, his or her job function and career goals, and content’s popularity with similar users to suggest learning resources through the user’s mobile device.

It’s a philosophy that is found in the personalized learning movement—one of the biggest trends in education right now that is being backed by the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

INTELLIGENT DISCOVERY LEADS TO BETTER RETENTION AND ENGAGEMENT

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 4

That’s important because engaging learners in the search for content, rather than sitting them in a room for a one-size-fits all seminar, makes solutions more meaningful and relevant to them. It also enhances retention significantly. According to the “forgetting curve” theory, 70% of a training is forgotten within 24 hours. But if users apply the information they learned immediately, that forgetting declines significantly.

The ability to have the right content at the right moment has a tremendous impact on business productivity. Take, for example, the sales rep who is sent an industry-shaking business article showing the latest trends in her vertical, which is combined with a streamed video from a SME in her company’s product team. She reads the article from her phone, listens to the video, then walks into a sales meeting and applies that up-to-the-minute knowledge to close the deal.

According to the “forgetting curve” theory, 70% of a training is forgotten within 24 hours.

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 5

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For this reason, L&D must move away from siloed, separate delivery strategies to a unified platform where all the information is easily findable. That platform should also include homegrown knowledge—lessons contributed by the team or in-house subject matter experts.

Including the user in the sourcing and creation of content not only mimics the world of internet authorities that millennials are used to, but it also diversifies your content, makes it more engaging, and increases buy-in. Your entire team can see your L&D platform as a valuable partner rather than an irrelevant or useless resource.

It’s smart to align your teaching style with your learners. More and more, millennials are dominating the workforce. How do they prefer to learn? On demand and collaboratively. They embrace social learning and flourish in learning contexts that are informal. They don’t want to feel talked to, but talked with.

CURATION TAPS INTO YOUR HOMEGROWN KNOWLEDGE BASE

L&D must move away from siloed, separate delivery strategies to a unified platform where all the information is easily findable.

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 6

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Your team needs access to useful content quickly and easily. Employees typically have only one percent of their workweek to focus on training and development. They’re just too distracted, overwhelmed, and scattered—literally—around town, state, and globe. About 30% of full-time employees do their work from somewhere other than the office, and about 20% of staff is currently made up of freelancers and temp workers.

It’s no longer realistic, or even particularly effective, to rely on trainings and in-person meetups for L&D.

CURATION MAKES THE BEST OF A SHORT- ATTENTION-SPAN WORLD

1%of a typical

workweek is all that employees have to focus on

development & training

People unlock their smartphones

9xevery hr

The % of time workers spend on things that

offer no personal satisfaction

41%Workers now get interrupted as frequently as every

5minutes

Most learners won’t watch videos longer than

4minutes

Data adapted from: https://mrmck.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/modernlearner.jpg

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 7

Of course, not all training can be done with microlearning. At EdCast, we’ve addressed this challenge by allowing you to sequence SmartBites content into a Learning Pathway that will walk your employee through lessons on-the-go. Have a new member on the sales team? They can review information about your new product in a Learning Pathway right before they head into a meeting with a potential client.

Adopting a new technology? Give your field service technicians access to the exact information they need right on their mobile device through your curated platform. And your existing LMS systems, which are essential for compliance reasons, can be woven into the fabric of this wider, holistic platform.

All of this content is filtered through intelligent algorithms, expert human review, and delivered in a single, focused feed directly into your employee’s phone, desktop or iPad. Not only that, your team can also choose to access the knowledge feed within their experience of Salesforce, Slack, Facebook For Work and more. We’re taking the learning to where people are working.

© EdCast, How to Solve the Content Discovery Problem in Corporate Learning, 2016 8

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Education has come a long way. Conference room training sessions, or even self-directed online workshops, are not the most effective strategies anymore. That’s because some 80% of workforce learning comes from peers, driven by a millennial culture that values collaborative learning. Companies like Google have taken advantage of this trend—55% of its training courses are delivered by one or more of 2,000 peers.

For L&D, this means being on the lookout for new voices and content, and curating it into a peer-based database that is personalized for the user, easily searchable, on-demand, and bite-sized. The good news is that an expert learning technology platform can help you do just that—quickly and with little fuss on your end. A content concierge, at your service.

THE NEW L&D: GUIDING MORE THAN CREATING

Need to solve your content discovery problems? EdCast can help! Contact us to get started.

EdCast is a fast growing social learning and knowledge networking solution that offers microlearning, live streaming video, curated expert content and other forms of formal and informal learning in an intuitive, private network for an organization. A key point that distinguishes EdCast as a leader in online learning is the ability to curate targeted content through user interaction and automatically with sophisticated machine learning functionality to deliver a unique, personalized learning

experience that connects with popular business applications.

Learn more.