Part of my task in my current consulting assignment is to develop the client’s strategy for the use of e-learning and other communication tools. So I thought I’d update the decision tree I developed about three years ago. The result is shown above, and reflects the decision from the perspective of employees of larger organizations with a broad range of communication technologies at their disposal (or, in some cases, technologies that should be at their disposal). This assumes the organization has sufficient budget to invest in some commercial solutions, or to build their own.Some interesting observations about all this:
With a peer-to-peer, self-help, and self-management approach to use of communication technologies, you should be able to slash how much you spend on centralized training and support. Then you can get your support people doing what front-line people can’t — fixing the stuff that’s broken.
What are the reasons we use faulty judgement, and use the wrong technology for communications?
I won’t get into the debate about which particular product is best-of-breed for each type of technology tool — this is a highly personal matter, and probably depends on the organization, industry and people. But what is clear is that these technologies are getting better and cheaper at the same time, and there is a long-overdue trend to more simplicity and intuitiveness in some new tools. Unfortunately, many large organizations remain in the communication stone age, locked into expensive, centrally managed, unfriendly, sub-optimal legacy technologies. The change to decentralized, free, and open tools is justtoo frightening for many heavily-invested organizations to contemplate. |
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Dave,Great diagram.I’m curious what you would include in the “commercial groupware” category? The part of the tree where you say “if > 5 people, then commercial groupware not wiki” puzzled me.Ron
Congratulations for a very fine job done.Most organizations are lost when they look at the options and go for what they know.As an example, explaining what is a Wiki to large organizations is very tricky.Thanks again,
Great job Dave. Thanks!It’s a pitty you did not consider podcasting, video podcasting and photo casting.Maybe in the next release? :-)
Excellent explanation for why and when as well as how to use virtual communications.Can you answer me this? What “Free” web based communication tools are you speaking about?I use elluminate, and blackboard…all that have a cost.mhkilleen@comcast.net
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