Hi everyone, Here is my Elevator Pitch. I have created a website for my Venture Pitch which is a combination of video, interactive demo, and text. Good luck to all next week!
Continue reading Corporate Personal Learning Platform Venture Posted in: Week 13: Venture Forum First of all, I just want to say thanks to the mobile team as you have pulled together a wealth of information on the subject of m-Learning. It’s impossible for me to get through all of the content, by this I mean following and reviewing all of the linked in information, so I’m glad it’s […]
Continue reading Combined Mobile Answers Posted in: Week 11: Mobiles
Thanks for the comprehensive post.
As for learning languages, I share your pain. I think we often try to do too much and we stay at a very superficial level. My own efforts to learn Japanese have not made me a speaker. The issue is I learned a lot of vocabulary (although a lot of it was highly esoteric, a bad design decision!) but I didn’t practice it in authentic contexts. A proper mobile resource might help scaffold me before and during conversations… beyond a simple phrase book.
Corporate is late to the party with mobile. My own talks with a multinational about their mobile strategy show that it is very much in progress and there are few mature service providers available who can scale solutions on a global basis. Content is focused on performance support, meaning it’s highly domain-specific. Content can also be highly culture-specific given that major corporations have distinctive cultures. This means their content is pretty much beyond our reach… it’s designed in house for in house use. The multinational I spoke with however indicated they are focusing on providing performance support and knowledge refreshment for use in taxis and waiting rooms… when professionals are just about to meet clients and solve problems or explain complex regulations or other requirements.
I wouldn’t worry to much about being stale-dated. Corporate focuses on a chosen lowest-common denominator to ensure they will work over a broad set of devices. Churn in hardware and operating systems updates doesn’t help corporate sales… it drives their IT departments crazy– how can they support everything? It seems the idea of buying everyone a device may be dated… employees have their own devices and want to use them.
Very cool that you tried development! No Canadian cities??????
Hi David,
I think you are right about the language learning in an authentic setting and the mobile application could help a lot – if designed well. I went to Japan for two weeks with my Japanese friend and her family and I was speechless for most of the time because I felt pretty overwhelmed. I would have loved to have a mobile app to help decipher phrases. Even being able to punch in the menu items would have helped so my friend didn’t have to order for me most of the time.
I agree about the content problems in the corporation and my venture project for this course has been focused on researching possible approaches to the challenge. Particularly the metadata which is needed to expose the company specific content in order to take advanatage of it in e-learning applications. I think that the web has really taken off with the concept of folksonomy and something like this is needed to replace the metadata management platform in place in the corporate world. This would mean getting the employees involved in update and maintenance where now there is currently mostly corporate control to ensure standards and accuracy. Which you have to wonder, why bother if there is not content or if the content is so out of date because the limited resources can’t keep up.
Very good point about not needing to worry about the stale datedness of my devices with respect to the corporate enviornment. You are exactly right. Corporate IT hates change and they can’t possibly keep up with the demands of such rapid change.
As for the development – You’re right! No Canadaian cities – these are the training files so you can tell it’s a U.S. software training company! I am using it as a base for my demo as part of my venture program that won’t have anything to do with geography 🙂
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bcourey 11:26 am on November 27, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Julie…your link says that the video is private, so we can’t view it from this link.
Brenda
Julie S 3:55 pm on November 27, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Brenda,
I’ve updated the setting and the link. Please let me know if you still have problems.
Sorry about that.
jarvise 10:18 am on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
now that I went through your presentation, I’m wondering why we don’t all target corporate learning? It seems that this culture is just more open to new innovation in methods, given that they promise results, and are likely to work. As I view presentations and developed my own, I am frustrated by the fact that the traditional education system is so resistant to change. Those of us who work within it can attest to the fact that those ideas that seem to make it in are those that continue to maintain and validate the status quo rather than push the system to rethink its structures. It’s unfortunate, but to make money in elearning, it seems that a focus on the private sector is the way to go. You have clearly laid out the market and need here, and have identified how you are differentiated. I’m sold, even if I’m still unsure what metadat means. You have convinced me that you know, and I’m good with that. So how do I get in to this market? You have me thinking now… If I had the money, I would invest in this venture.
Emily
Julie S 11:05 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your feedback Emily. The Corporate market definitely has the funds but it is hard sometimes to know where the next big thing is going to be. Everything that I have been reading in the marketing research says the workplace learning market is going to be significant for the reasons I put in the elevator pitch. You’ve nailed the challenge for this pitch – who the heck knows what metadata is so I have to try to visualize what they will get for addressing the problem.
Deb Giesbrecht 5:44 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Julie,
Great elevator pitch – loved the music and graphics. There is a lot of information to consume in a minute, but I really think that you touched on an important gap (and marketable one) within the system. Corporate learning is a huge niche that can easily be tapped as it impacts overall investments of a growing company. It is certainly something that I deal with on a daily basis. Your venture looks well thought out and researched, and certainly something that I would seriously consider investing in. Your concept appears very feasible and doable. You leave the viewer interested at the end – a nice touch.
Deb
Julie S 11:11 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Deb,
I’m in the midst of reviewing your venture and thought that you would have a pretty good understanding about this problem area which is nice because I wasn’t expecting anyone to have a background in these underlying systems concepts. In reading some of the replies I’m wondering if I should have just focussed on the market for elearning and not tried to get the sense of the metadata problem across. I’ll need to think about this a little more.
hall 1:10 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Julie S.
I am interested. Your elevator pitch definitely caught my attention. It highlighted some keys points which are needed in failing educational system. I think the graphics and music selection are very good. The idea is very good one, corporate learning has revolutionized our education systems. Many educators moving away the traditional educational system to one that actively incorporate the learners. Thus, your product will attract a large market.
I think drawbacks to your pitch were the amount written material and the font size of words. But overall it is a good presentation.
Conroy
Julie S 11:12 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Conroy,
My big challenge was tryint to give a sense of the problem without going into too much detail so I was hoping this was a good balance. I was actually thinking about increasing the font but didn’t get back to it. Thanks for the reminder.
– Julie
mcquaid 2:52 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi, Julie.
I thought your music and graphics / transitions were spot-on – very “business-like”. I also thought your ending was a good one. It made it seem like even a small gain in the market would yield large results (although a show like Dragon’s Den often highlights how tough it is to get even just 1% of some markets) – a good way to whet someone’s appetite or pique their interest enough to explore your venture further.
There were a few things that could be done to improve the pitch:
– it exceeded the maximum length
– my eyes were very busy during it, but not in a good way. I was all over the place, trying to read things that weren’t on the screen long enough or were a bit small
– not exactly sure what your business is about, other than just corporate learning
Cheers,
Stephen
Julie S 11:21 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for your feedback. This venture is for a pretty niche market so I was really concerned about whether or not I could get any sense of the problem across. I wasn’t trying to get you to fully understand the problem or read the slides in detail. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for metadata you’ll get a bit of an idea about how complicated it seems for people to try to describe what it is.
When I’ve done work in this area in the past it has always been with a company where there are experts on staff who understand the metadata problem so this was a first for me. I’m glad I was at least able to get your interest. I thought that what I really need to get this pitch more successful was a set of demo screens that would show the business value but I didn’t have time given that I just came up with the idea when I started on this project.
I was thinking of Dragon’s Den when I did the stat for the 1% so I like that you caught this. I knew that I could explain it better once I got to the venture part. However, I didn’t go into detail because David had said not to worry so much about the financials because we wouldn’t have time.
Thanks for taking the time for the feedback.
bcourey 3:30 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Julie,
I was very impressed with your presentation, even though I have no corporate experience at all…although, when I consider the learning needs of our employees who are NOT teachers in our board (and there are hundreds) I must say that our organization could use a platform such as yours.
You used a very good combination of videos and text and I was impressed with your use of graphics – very professional appearance. You described your pain point well – the disillusionment with current training programs – I can recall some dreadful modules for my WHMIS training and my Violence in the Workplace training – really sad little learning events that left me cold, so your idea of providing a customized training platform is a great one. I agree with you that for industrial training, the current elearning systems are not very useful.
Your market is well researched and the potential is huge – this is a growing area for ventures. I really enjoyed the interactive part of your presentation – an additional feature I have not seen in other pitches yet. It shows that you have done a great deal of research. I believe that your venture has great potential for return on investment.
Brenda
Julie S 11:29 am on December 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Brenda,
I appreciate the feedback of your non-corporate perspective. You’ve shown me an insight into the educational industry where of course there are positions other than just teaching and therefore mulitple perspectives just like in the corporate world.
I’m so glad to hear that you tried out the interactive part. I was experimenting with layering information and ideas in the venture pitch. I would have liked to have more time to combine the two to really demonstate the power of the solution but that will have to be saved for another time.
Thanks again for your feedback,
Julie
Keisha Edwards-Hamilton 7:20 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Julie,
Great Pitch. Great concept. Very good use of graphics and I really loved the interactivity you add to your presentation. Your idea is well researched and I am very keen to learning more about this opportunity.
Keisha
Julie S 11:32 am on December 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Keisha – I spent quite a few hours on that interactive component and wasn’t sure if it would work. I’m so glad to hear you liked it.
Thanks for your feedback,
– Julie
andrea 8:48 pm on December 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Julie,
Great pitch, and a great idea! “Corporations who invested heavily in e-learning and were disillusioned by the results have realized the need for more a personalized approach to training.” The big systems – which cost hundreds of thousands per year for the infrastructure alone – didn’t always deliver the value people wanted. I really like your idea, and would be interested to see it in action as both an employee and an instructional designer.
Andrea
Deb Kim 10:51 pm on December 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Julie,
Your elevator pitch looked very professional. I liked the images and the music you presented in your pitch. However, as it had too much information and images/diagrams in a short pitch, I had hard time focusing and reading things that appeared and disappeared so quickly. In my opinion, it could’ve grabbed more attention if your explanation (your voice) was added to it.
I liked your venture pitch. It was a lot better for me to read your venture pitch and understand what those diagrams in your elevator pitch meant.
Great work, overall!
Deb
khenry 5:46 pm on December 4, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Julie,
Thank you for adding to our experience and analysis by contributing a corporate focus. This is actually an area I am interested in as well. I agree with Deb’s comments. Your pitch looked professional indeed but too much information to digest and read. I also had a challenge with this very thing. You could use less text and still get your point across actually.
I really liked the interactive aspect within your venture pitch and the clean presentation. I like the clear presentation of your product details which really offered essential elements that I think you could have zeroed in on some more in your elevator pitch.
Kerry-Ann