Inspired by a recent post by Anand (who btw has just turned
to become an independent Learning Consultant, give him a
shout out in
case you are looking for someone) where he categorizes variety of stakeholders
who want to get on the LMS bandwagon as
Yell, Yum and Yes.
In my view there are three kinds a CLOs implementing or
having implemented a Learning Management System (LMS). They are the Learning
CLO, Management CLO and the Systems CLO.
The Learning CLOs
are all about learning and not so much about training. In fact they might not
even care about LMS or other systems as long as learning is taking place. They
look for social features in the LMS, they look for extending the LMS beyond managing
and measuring training days. They also might have a hard time explaining to the
CEO how they are measuring all the learning taking place in the organization.
The Management CLOs
are all about trying to be in control of learning and training in the
organization. They want roles competencies with defined learning plans for each
individual. All training must be ‘approved’ and costs down to the last penny/cent/paisa
must be booked to the right department.
Finally the Systems
CLOs want to track everything, right from the training request to smiley
sheets. They want everything automated, they want alerts for training launches,
approvals, reminders, etc. They want reports that are automated and LMS with linkages
with other enterprise systems.
No points for guessing which CLO might be the best. You need
a good blend of all, Learning, Management and Systems.
A lot has been written about how social media is impacting
brands. Eventually that would mean that what gets written on social media
should start to impact the company’s financial performance. However I wonder if
there is a critical size that once companies achieve, they will have less to
worry about social media? For these brands, social media, or rather bad
publicity in social media is perhaps overrated. Now it doesn’t mean that they should
stop ignoring what’s written but it is unlikely to impact them significantly.
I came across these tweets by Vir Sanhvi. Now
Vir Sanhvi
is a renowned journalist, writer and reviewer. He has
771K followers on
Twitter. So he tweeting bad about a large telecom brand should mean something. Quite
a few people joined him in lambasting the brand.
So what impact will Vir’s tweets and other related tweets
really have on this brand’s performance? In my view, absolutely none!!!
Not just this, there have been numerous other brands that
have been bashed in the social media. They call these
social media disasters. And don’t forget the recent
Flipkart 1 Billion Day disaster. However, it doesn’t look like these disasters
had any significant impact on the companies’ performance.
I think social media is a great vehicle to get a brand
started. It’s great for a new and small enterprises. I feel social media can make
a brand, not necessarily break one, at least not a really big brand.
I think at the end of the day, we all know that everyone has
a bad day. Shit happens, as they say. Social media has just become an avenue
for us to bitch about something or the other, and perhaps it is overrated in its
power to alter businesses. The brands should focus on their products/services.
The social media will take care of itself.
