This is a great reminder of why I’m modelling Participo’s business approach and client ‘solutions’ on the advertising/marketing business – the following paragraph of the Wall Street Journal article:

“…Naked’s premise is simple: If you go to a coal company looking for an energy supply, you’ll get coal as the recommended solution. It’s the same with most advertising agencies, which rarely meet a marketing problem that cannot be solved or a sales goal that cannot be met by a TV and radio campaign supported by direct marketing, some pop-up ads on Web sites and a bit of public relations.
It’s what they do, the way they are organized and how they make their money…”

That’s probably the most succinct description of the underlying reasons why so much ‘e-learning’ ends up as courseware, or other ‘interactive’ media – they don’t/won’t know how to come up with other ideas.

Participo is becoming a ‘problem solver’ agency – companies should look at employee information flow/eduction as individual ‘campaigns’ and use (ahem) specialist agencies with broad knowledge and decent contacts to develop innovative programs of engagement…who knows what the best (and potentially lo-fi) solution would be, but it wouldn’t matter to the agency, whose remit is to provide the most effective solution.

And payment is for time, not the ‘solution’ – a truly independent viewpoint.

Here’s an innovation – one of the metrics Participo will use will be lowest cost – when was the last time an learning supplier truly asked and advised a company to spend the least amount required for a learning activity?

Time to move away from asking coal companies for energy solutions…