I participated in a great session last week at NELA by Saul Carliner. You can read some of my notes on the talk at the NELA Blog.
It got me thinking about some work I did in the past with a large Seattle based software company. The focus was on training with their field sales and channel sales teams and how they could use Pocket PCs (PPC) and the (then about to be launched) Pocket PC cell phone edition.
Initially, we researched how these tools could be used for mobile learning, but by the end of the project it was obvious that the most effective use of the tool was for more instant support and knowledge sharing.
All of the field sales people had laptops, which were much more useful as their primary training platform. If a sales person wanted to train on anything that would take longer than 2-5 minutes they would use their laptop, not the tiny screen of the PPC.
The key demand was for instant access to timely information. When a sales person was on the road at an account, what they wanted was to be able to look up pertinent info in the parking lot prior to the meeting. This was not the time for a 10-minute training session, but was the perfect time to reinforce prior learning and present a refresher on the sales process or a checklist of the key 3 – 5 selling points to remember for the meeting.
Sales people also wanted to be able to get any other relevant client information such as their past licenses, competitive information, and some of the best selling points that were relevant for that specific customer or industry. Additionally, if a client asked them a question they did not know the answer to, they wanted to be able to either look it up immediately to get the answer, or be able to post questions to an expert as they were leaving the account so they could respond to their client as soon as possible.
These are all very good ways to use a PPC or any small handheld device. They are very effective when used as part of larger blended learning program but focused more on very small training reinforcements and performance support. Leave the heavy lifting to the laptops, desktops and classrooms.
