First, read this article on the booming growth in the product-customization business.

Now consider how we in the learning-and-performance field might use the essential ideas of the product-customization business in our work.

The Tutoring Model

As learning professionals we know that one-on-one tutoring/coaching can provide superior benefits. Can we provide customized coaching?

Maybe social-media covers this a bit, but having a one-to-many relationship is NOT the same.

The Pretest Model

Pretesting and diagnostics that suggest learning content  might create benefits. Instead of offering training courses in a big LM-meSsy list, why not try to offer training diagnostics in a big list, and let our employees select their own training.

The Prequestion Model

Utilizing prequestions within learning content is a way to do mini-customizations within our current e-learning delivery paradigms. Prequestions tell learners whether to pay attention, and tell them which info to pay attention (and which to skim).

The Customized Job Aid Model

Job aids can work brilliantly to prompt learner/employee behavior, but they typically suffer from three problems. First, they have a maturation problem. As people do a task over time, they need less and less prompting. So, we might offer people a maturing job-aid that changes as their prompting needs change. Second, generic job aids don't energize like customized or grass-roots job aids do. Customized job aids might provide more engagement and they might also help with the first issue too–they might people create the job aid they need. Third, job aids tend to be developed by high-level experts without a full understanding of the on-the-ground realities that real employees/people face. For this reason, a job aid's "final version" may not actually be optimally effective. Enabling customized job aids might be just the thing to allow people to fine-tune job aids to make them more effective.

Job aids actually suffer from a fourth problem as well. They can be ignored and they can be habituated so that they no longer are processed deeply when people encounter them. Why not use the product-customization meme more literally by creating job aids embedded on the side of coffee mugs, on knick-knacks, on pens, etc.

Karma

Now that I've given you training entrepreneurs millions of dollars worth of ideas above, why not engage me to consult, to brainstorm more ideas, to ensure that your innovations are really learning-worthy, or just to meet the kind of guy who wouldn't blanch to make a direct appeal. SMILE.

Authenticity is not customizable…

I've got a file in my email from Indian e-learning companies who have contacted me because I am an important decision maker at Work-Learning Research, Inc. (my research and consulting practice). I must have gotten emails from over 50 Indian e-Learning companies. Almost enough so that I have begun to feel a deep personal relationship.

Perhaps this is why I read this article in the New York Times with such interest. It says that Indian companies are afraid they will remain the low-cost provider and they will fail to innovate.

Well, I wonder if this is true in the learning-and-performance field. I'm not an industry analyst so I'm sure I don't see the big picture here, but the following data points come to mind:

1. Almost all of my emails from Indian e-learning companies highlight their cost advantage.
2. My efforts over the years to get consulting or workshop business with Indian e-learning companies has been fruitless. If they wanted to differentiate their work by investing in research-based insights, you'd think at least one Indian e-learning firm would have attempted to warm themselves in the glow of my wisdom. WINK. WINK. Maybe my marketing might is poorly directed.
3. I have heard some Indian e-learning company employees talking about Indian e-learning companies taking over the U.S. marketplace within the next 10 years…
4. Many U.S. vendors I have talked with who off-shored their development work to India talked about poor instructional design. Of course, they might just be ticked off at the price competition or worried about their jobs.
5. NIIT bought one of our most premium brands, Cognitive Arts, many years ago now, but such mergers don't seem to be trending up.

What's going on? If you have an idea–or just some more data points–leave a comment below.

Until they begin to hire me, I won't believe they are truly ready to innovate.

I can be reached in the U. S. at my contact information. SMILE.

Seriously though, anybody know who's keeping tabs on the Indian e-learning invasion? Anybody know what's going on?

If social cognition comes down to just two dimensions, Warmth and Competence, might our learners also rely on these two categories in deciding how much to engage in our learning interventions? AND, if so, do we need to ensure that all our learning events exude both warmth and competence?

I got thinking about this while reading a review of Susan Fiske's keynote for the Association for Psychological Sciences. Susan Fiske, who was awarded the 2009 William James Fellow Award, is one of the world's leading social psychologists, often working with Shelley E. Taylor.

As Jesse Erwin's review states, "…after years of research, it looks like social cognition [how we make decisions about other people] can be boiled down into judgments of two key elements: warmth and competence."

As Erwin suggests, we might imagine this in a 2×2 matrix (my drawing):

Boiling it down to two dimensions might have provided evolutionary value in that people often had to make quick decisions about who to trust, who to partner with, etc. Having a simple framework might have allowed quick decision making, enabling survival.

If human beings are programmed to think in this way, might this programming affect learning? Certainly, learners evaluate trainers in the same way they evaluate other humans. When I was a young leadership trainer, I learned how to emphasize my credibility in a stealthy way so as not to appear as if I was bragging. I upped my credibility without lowering my warmth factor.

Good trainers boost their warmth index by appropriately using humor, telling stories, exuding respect for learners, listening, giving others a chance to speak, etc.

Good trainers emphasize their credibility by surreptitiously mentioning their experiences, citing clients they've worked with, having great content, citing research, being organized, etc. Clearly, we ought to design facilitated training with warmth and competence in mind.

But what about non-facilitated learning interventions like CBT's, asynchronous e-learning programs, etc.? 

I think warmth and competence play a central role there as well. One of the biggest e-learning mistakes is to forget to focus on the warmth dimension. Off the cuff, I would estimate that 95% of all e-learning programs are almost completely devoid of humanity. They lack a human connection.

Research lends support here as well. A more personalized writing style (using the second person instead of the third person for example) has been shown to improve learning engagement and results. Using people-based learning guides (a talking head, an avatar, etc.) has been found to improve learning for some learners. The secret here is that the learning guide can't be seen as goofy or too game-like, hey, because that reduces credibility!!

Based on reviewing lots of e-learning programs, here's some quick advice on ensuring more warmth:

1. Write in a personalize style
2. Don't present too much material.
3. Keep material particularly relevant, and emphasize the relevance.
4. Provide realistic situations for learners to engage with.
5. Use audio–it really helps in adding emotional depth.
6. Maintain reasonably high production values.
7. Show the learner how the program will help them.
8. Be honest with the learner about what it will really take to put what they're learning into practice.
9. Consider using a personalizing agent to talk directly to the learner (as long as it maintains credibility).
10. Pilot test your e-learning and measure your e-learning so you can add warmth if needed.

Here's what the warmth-competence matrix might look like for learning interventions:

This warmth-credibility hypothesis (regarding learning interventions) is certainly worth testing. In the meantime, based on tangential lines of research and based on my review of hundreds of learning programs, I'd bet this simple formulation is worth following. From the point of practicality–and evolutionary survival–sometimes simple is better.

The review of Susan Fiske's keynote can be found in the Association for Psychological Sciences, Volume 22, Number 8, edition of the Observer, Jesse Erwin author.