3 barriers to developing online training
OK so you have decided to develop some online training. Or more likely, your boss has decided for you and he needs it by the end of the week also…
How to get started?
Well you have three main problems to overcome. (And also remember that people have what marketers call “consumer level expectations” and free services like facebook and twitter constantly raise the bar…)
Firstly, subject matter knowledge
What do you know about the subject?
If you work in pig farming - what do you know well enough that you can confidently put in front of people wanting to learn? Have you any experience of teaching or training?
Or, more importantly, what do you know and in what format is it in?
Even if you have the Phd thesis from the worlds leading expert in pig farming, if it is on 3000 sheets of paper - it is no use because the second barrier will affect you which is
Development time
Assuming you have enough subject matter, it will take time to spell check it, grammar check it (British or American English) and edit it for screen use. If you move from one software to another - each will use it’s own spell checking engine and of course - you know what happens when computers talk to each other - they sometimes forget things.. Which can lead to untold problems.
If you want to add games and other interaction - no one wants a game that doesn’t work, so they will all need testing too.
(Just don’t be too angry when you spot a typo right after the final publish).
Software Mastery
Some of the software you will need us expensive (maybe even very expensive) and/or has a steep learning curve to use it. Yes there is free software out there but it produces output that looks like it was produced on free software. Of course, you get someone else to produce the material but the risks are high - you risk letting them lose on your server or walking away with the source files.
Why not buy ready made online training - straight from the experts?
This post brought to you by the Sharp End Training affiliate team. - Get more details Filed under Online Training | Comment (0)How to start a forum
How to start a forum
How to start a forum is a question that not many website owners will ask themselves. That’s because - they use or participate in a successful forum and think “I will do that” so they do.
Unfortunately, that’s where the hard work tends to start.
How to start a forum is never asked because no ever uses a forum that isn’t busy. I will repeat that just so that you get the message. No one uses a forum that isn’t busy…
Why? Because using an empty forum is like starting a conversation in an empty room - You are worried that people will see you and hear you and so you keep quiet so as not to disturb the peace.
Assuming you do decide that the world can’t live without your forum - How do you start? Well, first thing is - make sure you don’t lose any users you do get so make them feel welcome.
Offer “Admin/Moderator” status to people you like the look of. (Just enter their email address into google to see where they have been online before). People will often be an admin and work for you for free - just for the kudos of saying they are a moderator.
Make sure you clean spam off regularly. You need to be on this 24/7 (and that’s another reason to get good moderators). Spammers use bots that hunt down the manufacturers code in forum scripts and can automatically register and post spam. (And some of it can be pretty offensive - so you need to get rid of them and ban them). Look for IP addresses and emails to ban on forum webmaster websites and upload via csv.
Consider paid postings - you can pay people - usually via a webservice to post to your forum. This usually works out at so much per post. Have a conversation with yourself. You may find that to get the spiders visiting and to move the discussion along, sign up for multiple accounts. Be careful though - modern browsers are very good at remembering passwords - so don’t lock yourself out. Keep a note of your user names and passwords.
Don’t try to copy your favourite forum. They probably have lots of sub categories and sub boards. If you do this - new users are likely to not know which one to post on - so they won’t bother.. Start with a small number of boards and try to get the community going in each one.
Don’t believe the “gurus” - You can’t expect to send the link to your twitter followers and see them come flooding to your site. It is hard painstaking work starting a forum.
So you need to monetise it quickly - Get signed up for trainingresellers.co.uk and get some banners and graphics for your site.
This post brought to you by the Sharp End Training affiliate team. - Get more details Filed under Online Training | Comment (0)The online training puzzle
Online training is well and truly with us. The old term elearning seems like it belongs in another age. Everything is e now. From buying (and even printing) travel and entertainment tickets to sharing photos and keeping in touch with friends. Children as you as 4 or 5 can easily use the web.
The benefits of training online are immense. Travel time is virtually eliminated, the end user can choose when to study and do so when it suits them - not some trainer from out of town.
Despite all these benefits the training and learning community has been relatively slow to catch on and the cost of software required. The sheer complexity of converting conventional “chalk and talk” training material for online delivery is daunting. For the novice or technophobe, the chances of doing this are nil.The software can be ery expensive and have a steep learning curve. Too much for someone to take on as well as doing their day job at the same time.
Bearing in mind that staff and customers are now completely used to using professionally designed sites like amazon and ebay, they have high expectation. They will work out how to fiddle the answer and how to take short cuts. This is not what a manager wants.
So how to solve?
Most training companies who have a website are missing out on the online training explosion. Most have had a “brochure site” designed by a web designer and don’t realise they could be making more money. Register as a training affiliate and sell online training as easy as putting a banner on a site. When the customer clicks, and then buys, the sender is rewarded with a sale. Get paid for doing nothing. Someone else will handle customer support - so you can’t lose.
Training companies - just surf over to www.trainingresellers.co.uk and sign up. You can instantly promote online training courses with over 40 professionally designed banners to chose from.
This post brought to you by the Sharp End Training affiliate team. - Get more details Filed under Online Training | Comment (0)Marketing your business on facebook
Marketing your business on facebook is a brand new course with features actually on screen video tutorials on how to set up and market your business on facebook.
Some sample banners are below and you can click each one to open it in a new window- sign up to resell it here