It's no secret that I'm on dialysis. Waiting for a new kidney, but just yesterday a situation came up that has driven me to do some research. I have also been a faculty member for the University of Phoenix and had my own training department for a small software firm. Where is this leading?
Well, it's leading to distance or online learning. My wife and I are working with an organization that provides home dialysis. They want to have a meeting (face-to-face) at their training facility and for us that's at least a two hour drive, one way. I suggested that they learn how to use the online resources to provide introductory or orientation training and even over the phone, you could see the blank stare on the face of the young man.
Product demonstrations, presentations as well as full fledged training can be accomplished online. There are applications that facilitate these types of delivery. Over the next couple of years, more and more people are going to have access to broad band internet access and being prepared to expand you ability has to start now.
Applications that provide the ability to address the customer directly are freely available. Just a few free ones are Yugma Skype Edition, Dimdim and Acrobat.com. While you can have multiple attendees on Yugma and Dimdim, you can only have three using Acrobat.com and sometimes all you need is a couple of people. Select the decision makers or end users that are important to your business. If you have your own web site and hosting service you can have your own branded application, Openmeetings, just have your web master install and activate it.
I am the web master for our local Habitat for Humanity and am planning on installing Openmeetings for us and start using it to train-the-trainers for our community outreach. There will be plenty of opportunity for it to pay for itself.
Hoping and helping your business grow,
Darrell
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