Enterprise Learning Solutions

The founders of Semantech have been working with Learning Technology solutions for nearly 20 years. We have contracted with major universities, worked on Cisco’s E-learning architecture team, been contributors to ASTD’s E-learning Glossary and Learning Circuits magazine and ran one of the premier newsgroups dedicated to this market segment for three years – E-learning Leaders. Our vision though for Enterprise Learning Solutions has been and is still somewhat different than the mainstream doctrine.  

 

Learning architecture requires flexbility to handle the true quantity of content available

Why are we different, why not follow the crowd? Well, sometimes the crowd is just flat-out wrong. For the past 15 years, the mainstream learning technology market tried to define itself rather than allowing its marketplace help them understand the true needs for Learning Technology within organizations. This led to an obsessive focus on assessment-based metadata standards and interface compliance to a small set of applications known as Learning Management Systems (LMS’s).

E-learning is not and never was about LMS management and integration of SCORM or AICC complaint courseware. E-learning is a philosophy underlying the management of all information within an organization and how that is translated into knowledge and applied to the real world. It is a pervasive and ubiquitous set of processes that can be exploited or harnessed in many different ways using a myriad of technologies. There is no one right way to do it – the system infrastructure is ultimately not as important as the learning content, process and culture that arises within an enterprise.

The E-learning industry has begun to realize this but as usual it is taking years for the mainstream market to adjust. True innovation is occurring outside of that market driven by users and organizations who understand what they really want and really need. Semantech is dedicated to bring about the true Learning Technology revolution predicted back in 1999 – this time though it will be a grass roots revolution driven by true need and value, rather than by a handful of experts’ and vendors’ assumptions of what learning should be.

 

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Content + Culture = Sustainable Learning Ecosystems

Some years ago, we advocated very strongly for the integration of Formal and Informal learning content. We defined Informal Learning as learning which is not constructed using formal ISD methodologies and is not focused on assessment-based outcomes. In our experience within a typical organization, this informal learning (which generally occurs at the individual rather than corporate level), actually constitutes the vast majority of learning that actually occurs.

When people need to know something, they seldom have the access to formal classes or courseware to learn it, they go on Internet, go to the library or talk to people who do know. This type of learning is as valid and probably more valuable than most Formal learning materials ever will be. So, why arbitrarily exclude this from Enterprise Learning Solutions? Well, we don't - Semantech has always understood that this is the future of Learning. We are dedicated to creating new cultures where individual learning is empowered and more importantly integrating that core learner-centric process back to the larger organizational goals.

The ironic thing is that this type of holistic approach, focusing on the value of the content and the learner's needs within the organization is actually less complex to build and less expensive to maintain. The most critical knowledge within any organization comes from internal experience, not external generic instruction - moving to this type of learning solution makes content more relevant and allows organizations to build and exploit their own knowledge capital. We call this M.E-Learning.

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