Written by Dick CarlsonI’m trying to give a certain international training organization hundreds of dollars for the privilege of attending their event — in the hope of learning something (maybe) and getting in front of potential clients (maybe). But they’ve created a wonderful new website just for me (maybe not) and it won’t let me log in.
So I clicked on the “live chat” button, and am talking with a very nice woman who’s name is probably not actually “Shannon”. I both love and hate these things, as they’re obviously at the bottom of the customer support food chain. But it’s usually easier than trying to get an actual human to answer via email. But this one has a twist — I can rate her skills in real time!
There’s a little tiny set of feedback links — a green “plus” and a red “minus”. I’m not sure if my repeated clicking on the minus button actually added up, or if it was like hitting the elevator button over and over again. Then again, it may just be a meaningless link to make me feel better.
Actually, I stopped when I realized that my feedback was about their whole system, not about Shannon. Now I feel guilty, assuming that there’s one more person out of a job in Bangalore. And it’s all my fault.
What would your learning efforts look like if this widget was at the top of every piece of content, and the results were sent — in real time — to a dashboard in the VP’s office? Or saved in a folder for your yearly review? Or pushed out to an LCD screen on the wall above your cubicle?
What other questions would you ask? Here are some of mine:
- Are you happy to be involved in this learning?
- Are you doing other work while learning?
- Will you use this in your job?
- Is this a stupid waste of time?
- Are you just clicking until it’s over?
- Would you rather be having a root canal?
- Does this fit your definition of “torture”?
- Would you do this to a terrorist?
- Does training matter to you, at all?
I dare you. Ask some of these questions — so much of our efforts to train (or encourage, or educate, or certify, or evaluate) fail because the audience just doesn’t value or understand why we’re being so mean to them.
If you get good answers to all of these, THEN we can talk about instructional theory and quality interactivity.
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