Visit with Chris DeDe, Harvard University

Chris discussed his Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE), in particular, River City.

This ties with the visit with Marc Pensky as it promotes engagement, and learning. The MUVE is in its third generation, and has been demonstrated at a number of middle schools. The question was how to engage the lower third learners that have given up on school.

My question, how to engage the sales team (including the service engineers)?

Chris says there has been a convergence of MUVEs
+ Chat & IM, include artifact sharing
+ Groupware
+ Distributed Learning (military)
+ MUDS, MOOS
+ Video games
+ Massively multi-player online games => this is one direction

River City MUVE experience
+ Artifacts were used
+ Team made up of different talents - this is applicable to the sales team (including engineers) + expert + customer service?
+ Avatars used
+ Teachers were trained - the experts are the facilitators? More thought needed on this.
+ High fidelity, such as video game quality, was found not to be necessary. How much for training the sales team has yet to be determined

The MUVE requires about 2 person months per set (640 manhours). Changes requires about 20% to be changed. The program used is Active World.

Putting this together for sales team training. The best possible training would incorporate the entire sales process. The sales team would be extended to include the internal sales, or those that provide quotes, and samples. The salesperson must be the "quarterback" to give guidance as to his or her expectations. Thus in the end, a well coordinated group is formed. The heart of the training is the salesperson, and then others will come into the picture.

The scenario starts out with salesperson learning how to present the new products, which customer applications are best suited, and close the deal. Internal sales aids in the process by providing the marketing collateral needed, such as samples, and quotations (if applicable). The salesperson is on hand while the engineer makes the installation, and then learns from that experience. At the wrap-up, there should be a lessons learned. The lessons learned could carry through to the next scenario if there are more than one primary application. As a note, in practice, a lessons learned process would be good, and could provide input into the corporate knowledge bank.

As a note, this appears to be one-on-one training. Further thoughts need to evaluate this for larger numbers of participants.

Visit with Marc Pensky

12 Nov 04
Probably the most practical thought on training from Marc is to engage the learner. His concept was engagement before content. Engagement can be obtained by having a great teacher, one-to-one, community of practice, activities, and/or relating to student's interest.

Relating this to training salespersons. Because of the numbers, and variety in the teaching techniques, the first two could not be ensured. However, self-interest, activities, and community of practice are very good possibilities. The communities of practice are already in place, although learning about a new product launch would not be effective through this channel.

Marc goes on to say, to make e-learning more game-like. There are five ways to help ensure the games will be effective:
1) Focus on engagement
2) Increase the rate of decision-making. This is not found in simulations very often.
3) Provide clear goals
4) Allow user customization
5) Adaptable to increased levels of difficulty

My thoughts move towards the construction of the training. Conceptually thinking, there could be multi-user (synchrounous) scenarios (below game quality), and each scenario involve a number of salespersons, and a facilitator expert. In one company that also includes service engineers for the installation, there could be teams, thus the salesperson is not only learning about the new product, but is also getting feedback from the engineer on installation issues. This ties with Dave's blog in October, and with flight simulators as far as the visuals. The trainer (expert) could notch up the scenario with additional detail, or other applications that the sales team (including the engineer) could experience. A side thought. Similar training could be given to existing products and only training the sales team in their use in different applications.

How to develop training for a new product? To develop the simulation will require observing an actual installation. Thus, several beta sites would be established, and the learnings recorded. The salesperson and the engineer would be observed, and lessons learned come from this experience. This should be done for each primary application.

In closing, Marc provided two quotations:
James Gee: "Without motivation, there's no learning"
Will Wright: "If a learner is motivated, there's no stopping him"