What’s Your Max Learning Strategy?

I’m reading Chris Anderson’s latest book Free:  The Future of a Radical Price.

He talks about the what Google’s CEO Schmidt calls Google’s “max strategy.”

Take whatever it is you are doing and do it at the max in terms of distribution.  The other way of saying this is that since marginal cost of distribution is free, you might as well put things everywhere.

According to Anderson, Schmidt then jumps into a description of HBO’s launch of The Sopranos: 

• Create a great show
• Create a blog about the show
• Do some PR
• Make some ‘online buzz-generators’ like a Facebook page or viral video
• Send plot updates via text message and Twitter
• Web site tells even more about charcaters and show
• Post extra footage to YouTube
• Create a contest to drive even more attention

That’s the max strategy.  Maybe only the actual HBO deal generates any money, but all of the other contribute to its overall success.

So how can we translate that approach to learning and training?

(And remember, the goal of a max learning strategy isn’t simply about marketing the e-learning event.  That’s a marketing strategy.)

Think about a max learning strategy as a way to get your content out there in more ways than one.  It’s beyond a single learning event.   And it’s not just about formal solutions as tracked in the LMS.

It’s perhaps a bit of a scatter shot approach.  Providing more opportunities for learners to “accidentally” discover your content and get the information they need to do what they need to do.  It’s about combining formal learning events with social learning, informal learning, accidental learning, and whatever else it might take.

In Brent Schlenker’s recent webinar, he started exploring the  concept of a “learning campaign.”  (Brent acknowledges that this isn’t necessarily a ‘new’ idea).

In the comments on my post on Brent’s talk, Steve Flowers suggests how he has been doing this in his workplace.  He calls it a ‘layered strategy’.  He says,

We stopped thinking 'this product' and started thinking 'bigger'. We built in things like message posters, and constructed brief PSA's that echoed some well shaped messages that could be reused throughout the organization for consistency. This was a concerted effort to carry the message. It's a campaign.

Julie Dirksen also provided some great ideas on how to create a campaign, including before, during and after activities.

So is it a learning campaign or a max strategy?  Either way are you doing it at your organization?  How?

Photo credit:  Risk! by junkmonkey

Brent Schlenker: Marketers and Game Developers Know More About Learning Than We Do!

Live session with Brent Schlenker: Marketers and Game Developers Know More About Learning Than We Do! hosted by Training Magazine Network.

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Disclaimers: “I am not a marketer or a game developer.”  (Although he plays a LOT of games).

When he listens to game developers talk, feels like they’re in the learning prof.

Everything IS about learning. 

Brent’s background:

What I am:  15+ yr learning professional, lifelong learner, player, consumer.

• news – using media to tell stories.
• Masters degree in Instructional Systems Design Process
• 10 years at Intel working in tools.

How do we use new and emerging technologies in the learning space?

We don’t typically create the new tools in eLearning – that innovation is happening in other places – e.g., marketing.

What’s coming down the pike so we can prepare our learners for them?

Point of today’s conversation: talking training, design and development if a marketing person were doing it. Or a game developer.  What cool things are other areas doing that we can leverage to make us better designers and developers?

Comment (Julie S):  “My first boss said that training is very much selling.”

Marketers are REALLY good at understanding who their target audience is.

People, Context, Content

Corporate ISD:

• When working with a Subject Matter Expert (SME), they have a tendency to put everything into the training.
• In corp learning space, we have a tendency to give in to that.  We bow to the will of the SME…
• Little room for creativity

New technology gives us new tools. 

Marketing Depts:

• Marketing dept always has the money.  That’s where most creative talent in organizations go.  This is where business finds the value, which is why marketing is where the dollars go.
• They also get the resources to analyze the data.
• What are they doing that’s different?
• How do they measure success?  Are the expectations on marketing depts greater than on training? 
• Marketing brings in the money.
• A big part of marketing IS education --  what is the product? how does it add value?  why should you buy it?  This is the greatest connection between what we do…

Learners need to change behavior…which is what marketing does. 

Event-based learning vs. Learning Campaigns

Marketing talks about a CAMPAIGN. Learning talks about a curriculum.

A campaign is a series of events/operations/continuing storyline – not just a “set of courses”.

A campaign that’s a continuous storyline involving a set of adventures and characters (learners) to achieve a set goal…

Design and develop learning campaigns that involve storylines, adventure, social media, people – every campaign has a structure to it – there is a formal development/design process.  But there’s room to move. Different media involved in an ad campaign.  Let people engage with others in the learning process.

New tools make this easier to implement from cost perspective, but still a big time cost to developing/designing learning campaigns.

A learning campaign is different than a marketing campaign.  It’s not about t-shirts and email blasts – it’s about providing more ways for learners to engage with and access content.

World of Warcraft:  getting people into a shared space to figure out together how to get the boss (the bad guy).  Someone in comments wrote “sounds like a business strategy meeting!”

Get the Learner’s Attention

We use a lot of “fake” ways to get people’s attention…fun flash movie and then slide into the boring content…but I got their attention!  (Yes, we need to sustain that attention.)

Each person’s individual desire to learn something is what makes for engagement.  We’re not talking about “dressing up” content to fake that it’s engaging.

Book Recommendations:

Made to Stick (idea of attention – marketers do something shocking and unexpected, “unexpectedness”.)

A Theory of Fun (“games are puzzles to solve, just like everything else we encounter in life”)  The most serious issues we have to approach are puzzles.

Don’t just read learning design and pedagogy books.  Extend what you can do – think outside of your field.

Common Craft Videos

Great at explaining.  Now companies are coming to them to do marketing – to explain their products.

ShamWow

Why are these so memorable?  What can we learn from these infomericals?  What are they doing – how do they display information and what' they’re teaching us about their product?  Seems like an ID at work in there.

YouTube – videos – short hits to educate.  30-90 seconds.  A whole lot of info, but the right info when you need it.

Production costs have dropped – we can start adding a lot more media/engagement to our programs.

Quickly produce short tips.

Attention – ways marketers and game developers get our attention.  They do this well.

Analysis – really know their audience.

Objectives --

Measurement --

What you can do?

• Keep it quick
• Make it short
• Be really creative
• Make something that actually affects behavior (marketers want people to change their behavior – drink pepsi not coke, drink coke not pepsi)
• Make it truly memorable

Don’t just need IDs on your staff – get some creatives in there who look at things a bit differently.

Understand gaming theory and gaming design. 

Put the customer/consumer/learner first.  We say we do…but we don’t often do it.

The best stuff is not trickery – it’s an engaging game; it’s a great product or service.  That’s all.  (Jeopardy is really kind of lame…)