Managing Intellectual Capital - via E-Learning - at Cisco

CHAPTER 56

Managing Intellectual Capital - via E-Learning - at Cisco

Thomas M. Kelly and Diane K. Bauer

Internet Learning Solutions Group, Cisco Systems, San Jose, CA, USA

Cisco uses a blend of knowledge management and learning management concepts, via a global and comprehensive e-learning infrastructure, to manage its intellectual capital. Knowledge management initiatives at Cisco are not exclusive to e-learning, nor are they explicitly defined as knowledge management. At Cisco, e-learning is the preferred term describing the Internet-enabling of information, training, communication, and collabora-tion. The end goal of Cisco's e-learning initiative is measurable business impact. The examples covered in this chapter offer insight into how knowledge management and e-learning blend together to impact Cisco's business results in a positive and sustainable way.

Keywords: Architecture; Content Delivery Networks; Dynamic Curriculum; E-Learning; Knowledge Management; Metadata Framework; Personalization; Reusable Learning Ob-jects; Reusable Information Objects

1 Introduction

1.1 What This Chapter Is and Isn't about

Our first order of business is to forewarn you that we won't be referring to Knowledge Management, per se, in this chapter. We tend to prefer the term 'e-learning' to describe the technology, processes, and cultural shifts that are chang-ing how information, training, collaboration, and communication are managed at Cisco. We believe that the terms e-learning and knowledge management are in-terchangeable, as both address the tools, processes, and organizational methods by which knowledge sharing (and the more personal form, learning) take place across an organization. E-learning is not e-training. At Cisco, we use the term e-learning to describe how we're helping people learn more continuously, with more direc-tion and choice, virtually or in person, from each other and from the organiza-tion's stored knowledge resources, and for measured business outcomes.

Applying knowledge management technologies in the larger context of an e-learning strategy is the approach Cisco has taken. That said, Cisco's e-learning story ... how it all started, where it's going, and what we've learned along the way is the focus of this chapter. We will provide you with useful tips, ideas, insights, and most importantly encouragement to help accelerate your success in deploying

e-learning and knowledge management strategies. To remain consistent with Cisco's terminology, we will use the term e-learning throughout this chapter as opposed to further distinguishing it from knowledge management.

1.2 Chapter in Summary

E-learning began at Cisco when it became clear that certain business problems could no longer be solved using traditional, approaches to the transfer of informa-tion, skills, and knowledge. Common to these business problems was the realiza-tion that the speed with which we were adopting innovative technologies, acquiring companies, and introducing new products was exceeding the rate at which our employees, partners, and customers could absorb them. What began as a focus on improving employee communications, development and training, evolved into a strategic and global approach to solving a wide range of business problems. At the heart of Cisco's e-learning efforts is a vision: IT enabled knowledge capture, creation, and sharing is as natural and pervasive a part of the job as email and voice-mail are today. The result? An agile workforce, more empowered distribution partners and supply chain vendors, and ever-higher levels of customer satisfaction. The technologies that make this possible range from tools to create, capture, tag, and distribute both live and static content, as well as the network that ensures scalable delivery and optimal learner experiences.

The culture shift to e-learning exceeds in scope and impact the technology adoption that enabled the shift. The manner in which learners engage and how they interact with other students and instructors has changed. The involvement of 'experts' around the company in contributing to the creation and maintenance of content, and ultimately our institutional intellect and memory, has changed. In ac-complishing that, the level of accountability that our executives have taken on for the knowledge, skills, performance and results of their teams has changed.

How Cisco is managing its intellectual capital, and the culture shift brought on by these changes, raises the discussion of e-learning, and Internet-enabled business processes to yet another level.

2 What Drives E-Learning at Cisco

2.1 Business Problems as Drivers for E-Learning

At the heart of Cisco's e-learning story is the understanding that e-learning solves business problems, not just training problems. Let us restate that e-learning is more than e-training. E-learning is Web-enabled communication, collaboration, learning, knowledge transfer, and training ... with the end goal resulting in positive impact on the learner and the business. Wherever a change in human performance posi-tively impacts business outcomes, you have a business problem and an opportunity that e-learning can solve: the introduction of a new product, the adoption of a new technology, a merger or acquisition, entry into a new market, or identification of a new competitor. Common to these changes are the need for immediate and scalable communications, collaboration, and re-skilling. Examples are shown in Table 1.

Managing Intellectual Capital - via E-Learning - at Cisco 513

2.1.1 Assembly Line Woes

A manufacturing business problem: an e-learning solution

Our manufacturing e-learning example, recognized as the first Cisco implementa-tion of e-learning, was a case of misplaced 'returns'. Cisco assembly-line workers were preparing to undergo a process change (driven by the introduction of a-new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system). During this process, the financial team noticed product 'returns' (parts sent back by customers) not being appropri-ately credited, resulting in a loss of $1.2 million per quarter. The proposed solu-tion to the business problem was a new approach to preparing assembly line workers for a new procedure. The challenge? If select assembly-line workers could master a new procedure to a) receive parts from customers, b) fill out the correct form and, c) register returns via the supply chain software tool (ensuring the owed financial credit would be received from component vendors), the prob-lem would be solved.

The e-learning solution involved a screen-cam scenario showing video clips of employees receiving and labeling product returns, an online simulation of a 'returns form' being filled out via the new manufacturing software program, and mentor-supported practice sessions on the shop floor. Manufacturing employees

accessed the modules from a networked 'training workstation'. A manufacturing expert acted as facilitator to guide the learners through the learning process, after which they had to pass an online assessment exam and demonstrate their new skill to a supervisor.

Within two months, an estimated 200 people had completed the e-learning pro-gram. The behaviors changed, the processes were implemented and adopted, and immediate financial impact resulted - business problem solved. Since then, the manufacturing training process has been fully developed as a combination of e-learning and expert mentoring enabling Cisco's supply chain manufacturing community (internal and external manufacturing entities) to reduce errors, im-prove processes, and standardize on skill assessment and development.

Lessons learned

The key lessons learned from this manufacturing e-learning implementation fo-cused on risk-taking, executive support, and getting to user acceptance.

• Risk Taking is Vital to the Success of E-learning: Given the challenges the department was already undergoing with the rollout of a new ERP system, the suggestion to experiment with a whole new way of training employees on key procedures was not received with immediate enthusi asm. It took the resolve and creativity of the training manager to influence her team, her management, and the manufacturing 'audience' to adopt a new approach to solving a departmental problem. Without risk- taking, courage and commitment, the project wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

• Executive Support Early On Can Ease the Path to Success: Coupled with risk-taking, the training manager also needed resources, time, and participation in an unplanned, unbudgeted way. The manager made sure the VP of manufacturing understood the scope and impact of the prob lem, agreed to apply an e-learning solution, and was supportive through out the initiative to keep it moving forward.

• Getting to User Acceptance Involves Listening: The initial rollout of the solution came with some grumbling from the audience over the self- study approach, their required participation in the program, and the need to prove (via assessment) their newfound skills prior to being able to re turn to the shop floor. The training team was extremely active in talking with the employees, collecting feedback, and influencing the informal leaders to be active in supporting the solution with their co-workers. Learners were paired with expert-mentors, and the experts became train ing facilitators. A training room with self-study workstations was set up and users were invited to participate together in teams. All of these tacti cal solutions (involving the blending of traditional training and e-learning methods) came from user feedback, and ultimately ensured user accep tance of the program.


2.1.2 Feeding the Sales Beast (The "We Need It Faster, Better, Smaller, Cheaper, and More" Problem)

A number of separate and diverse e-learning initiatives were already in process when Cisco shifted its e-learning focus to solving the needs of the global sales or-ganization. This focus eventually gave rise to a unified e-learning portal. That portal was called the Field E-Learning Connection (FELC), and was brought about by a partnership of several internal groups called the 'e-learning project team'.

A sales force business problem: An e-learning solution

By January of 1999, Cisco's sales force, which was known for its technical excel-lence, had grown to over 5000 people worldwide and was projected to more than double within three years. So Cisco's global sales team was faced with the chal-lenge of maintaining standards of excellence in spite of dramatic growth and a rapidly expanding product and technology base. Sales Management had to find a way to ensure that the knowledge of its systems engineers (SEs) was developed and shared in a standard and globally accessible way. The existing field training methods (traditional instructor-led or CD-Rom based) had proven insufficient and ineffective on a global scale.

Over the next nine months Cisco instituted a complete shift in how training cur-riculum was designed, product and technology expertise captured, and learning content developed. We altered processes for instructor readiness, training admini-stration, and skills assessment for Cisco's worldwide sales and systems engineer-ing workforce. This challenge led to the creation and rollout of Cisco's first en-terprise-wide e-learning system.

From insufficient resources to training coalitions

The first problem the e-learning project team would face was insufficient content development resources. Their initial challenge was to create seven times more content than was being produced by the existing development team, in less time, with no new resources. On the other side of the 'it's impossible' argument from die-hard training professionals, the team recruited content experts from engineer-ing, marketing, and from the sales force. These experts were grouped into tech-nology specialization teams and directed to scour the company in search of con-tent that already existed and could be re-purposed.

The first assignment of these cross-functional teams was to identify, review, and rate existing learning resources that could be leveraged, modified, or re-used. Their next task was to prioritize new courses and learning resources in develop-ment by Cisco's 20 plus training groups. Finally, the teams would identify vital, but missing, content and plot those requirements into curriculum paths by job roles.

What began as voluntary participation on temporary cross functional teams ma-tured over time into ongoing assignments on Training Coalitions. These coalitions, comprised of individuals from sales and product groups, drive requirements for new learning resources, based on audience needs. By collaborating with people in similar roles across the company while leveraging existing and planned learning resources -resource problem solved.

Curriculum roadmaps - Where training meets information and content becomes king

The root of the equation for e-learning at Cisco (e-learning = information + train-ing + communication + collaboration) stemmed from the creation of the first Web-enabled curriculum roadmaps. These roadmaps are comprised of a variety of learning resources, including:

• White Papers, CD-ROMs or books • Registration in leader-led classes or 'virtual classroom' events • Video and Audio on Demand segments • Live broadcast events delivered (via multicast) over the network • Structured, instructionally designed training courses, simulations, role-

plays, or hands-on labs • Moderated chats or online discussions • Online assessments and tests

Another cultural change that took place at Cisco was the broad recognition and acceptance that people learn in a variety of ways. In accepting this as part of the learning challenge, the project team needed to provide new methods and tools to enable the capturing, creation, sharing, re-using, and scalable delivery of content, for a range of learning needs. As information, training, and communication origi-nate from different places inside the company, the proliferation of standard devel-opment processes and tools for diverse content types became vital in rolling out the enterprise-wide e-learning system.

Scaling live and event-based learning

The most popular, live, information exchange and communications sessions at Cisco take place virtually. The first method is televised, uni-directional presenta-tions or announcements. These live sessions are transmitted to employees via their IP/TV equipped laptops, via Cisco's network. Additionally, these same sessions are stored and made available 'on demand' for the company's global workforce.

The second method by which live events are accessed virtually is via 'virtual classroom'. A virtual class or meeting can be accessed by a user via collaboration software (at the client), or by downloading a plug-in. The combination of soft-ware whiteboard, voice over IP, audience polling, and electronic dialogue directly with the instructor or with other students are all features of collaboration software providing rich interactivity. Cisco uses these technologies for new product an-nouncements, training sessions, and team meetings. This type of meeting can be captured and stored for access 'on demand'.

Overcoming the testing threat Shortly after online assessment exams were rolled out to systems engineers in the field, a flurry of issues arose. The first was privacy. 'Who can see my exam re-sults?' was a commonly asked concern. The human resources department quickly defined the legalities of testing or assessing the skills and knowledge of employ-ees. This led to business rules dictating the circumstances under which learner test results could be captured, stored, and communicated - privacy problem solved.


The second issue was learners expecting to be linked back to learning content when he or she incorrectly answered an assessment question. This expectation led to further integration of assessment tools within online courses, and planted an important seed in our efforts to personalize the learner's experience.

The final testing issue that arose was one of tone and language. We learned early on that online quiz answers either discourage or encourage the learner, based on the tone and language associated with responses to 'right' and 'wrong' an-swers. With E-learning how you treat online learners matters; creating a positive event and encouraging learning experiences is essential.

Global portals and IT-supported applications

Perhaps the most fulfilling part of Cisco's E-learning rollout has been getting to an agreed set of features and underlying IT architecture for global e-learning applica-tion. Given the 'built from the ground up' nature and evolution of e-learning at Cisco, it is extraordinary to note that the company's e-learning feature set is shared across all sales theaters (USA, Canada, South America, EMEA, Japan, and Greater Asia) with one unifying learning management system, one e-commerce system, a global video-on-demand (VOD) distribution network, and similar busi-ness processes for capturing, meta-tagging, and posting content. The differences provided by localization have been narrowed to just the content issues, leaving the IT features supported by Cisco's IT infrastructure team.

This has been achieved by extending communications, collaboration, team-work, and active stakeholder engagement across Cisco's geographically distributed workforce. The results are seen in the enterprise-wide, and partner-wide, e-learning solutions that are available 24-7 across the world - globalization problem solved.

Familiarity works best After researching usage rates of pure self-study, it became clear that drop-out rates rose as the length of the e-learning module or lesson increased. The message was that the e-learning programs had too little structure, no human interaction, no hard start or end date ... in effect, learners felt alone, isolated, and disenfranchised in this new learning environment. There was nothing familiar about the surround-ings in a completely online learning experience.

The e-learning team designed 'blended' programs that added more familiar pat-terns back into the learning process to complement the new e-learning content. Traditional patterns of engagement were interspersed with pure self-study exer-cises. Students were invited to register for 'class' online and these six-week study sessions were kicked off with an instructor welcoming the learners via a virtual class session. Students were then expected to attend weekly on-line discussion sessions. The work assignments were paced for independent learning between scheduled discussion sessions. Students were bound to a group that together started and completed the course on the same schedule. Together they worked through the familiar pattern of being led by an instructor through a paced learning experience, ending with a final online exam. This 'blended' approach to e-learning saw a dramatic upswing in completion rates. Learner satisfaction was higher for these blended courses, over pure online self-study.

Lessons learned - Key factors

The three key lessons learned in the field e-learning example, were relentless fo-cus on the customer, engaging early and completely with IT, and not allowing training dogma to get in the way of e-learning progress.

• Engage early and completely with IT: This was the first and most im pactful lesson for Cisco's e-learning team. The Internet applications group will be key to helping define, choose, integrate, scale for growth, and support the various tools you'll need to include in the e-learning ar chitecture. The networking and telecommunications groups are vital to the delivery aspects of the e-learning solution. Provide them your busi ness problem, customer requirements, and desired functionality up front, and then engage them to get creative technical solutions that will scale across the entire enterprise.

• Keep a relentless focus on the customer: Core to Cisco's culture is a relentless focus on the customer, whether internal or external. In deploy ing an e-learning strategy, you may test many new approaches until you find the right mix for your environment, your business, and your learner/customer audiences. Start your e-learning strategy paying serious attention to identifying who your customer is. Segment your customer base into discrete audiences to better understand their specific needs and desires. Keeping a close eye on your customers' requirements provides focus and clarity to your vision, and provides the tangible direction your e-learning practitioners need to make decisions. Core to accomplishing this is maintaining active communications with stakeholders representing your various audience segments.

• Don't allow "training" dogma to get in the way of e-learning pro gress: What characterizes successful e-business applications, knowledge management and e-learning is quick time to execution, and leveraging Internet technologies to find new ways to solve old problems. The train ing profession is filled with rules that will need to at least bend if not shatter altogether in order to tackle skill & knowledge challenges in a whole new way. The goal with e-learning is speed and agility ... both on the content provider side and on the learner side. Don't let the rules of instructional design, classroom training, or course development limit your approach to e-learning. Don't focus so much on "training" that you ignore information, communications, and collaboration. This is a new medium and needing new approaches while building on the old successes and lessons learned by the training professionals.

2.1.3 The Auditors Are Coming (The ISO Story)

The business problem and solution in review

Several months prior to a visit from International Standards Organization (ISO) auditors, Cisco's VP of Success Engineering was preparing to launch a time-consuming and costly training program. The task was to prepare several thousand people within Cisco's manufacturing, engineering, and customer service departments for the ISO 9001 re-certification audit. Three years prior, the ISO readiness


training program had cost $1.4 million in travel, classroom expenses, content de-velopment and materials costs over a period of three months.

The process of transforming the ISO re-certification training program to an e-learning platform took slightly over three weeks. 'Live trainers' were video-taped, their audio scripts transcribed to text, and their PowerPoint presentations synced with the audio and video files. Unique content and assessment exams were created to differentiate the content across manufacturing, customer service, and engineering audiences. The program was announced and launched via Cisco's internal web, featuring the department VP on video-on-demand requiring partici-pation and offering a cash-prize lottery incentive to drive early completion of the program.

Instead of three months, the readiness process took 5 weeks. The groups passed inspection, rating Cisco second only to Ford Motor Company in ISO readiness that year. Additionally, the program reduced ISO readiness costs (travel, materials crea-tion, production and delivery) from the previous $1.4 million to under $17,000.

Lessons learned

Lessons learned from the ISO e-learning program included Simpler is Better and Understand the User's Technology Environment.

• Simpler is Better: In order to launch the program within the current quarter, the team compromised on technological and content sophistica tion, focusing on accuracy of message, global access, and the ability to track completion. Leveraging existing e-learning tools, and seeking con sultative and project management help enabled the Customer Success Engineering department to keep their solution simple and meet their tight deadline.

• Understand the User's Technology Environment: An oversight in not thoroughly assessing the end-user's computing environment presented a slight problem in the program, just days after it rolled out. The engineering communities used Unix-based workstations, not Windows-equipped lap tops as assumed. The discrepancy meant the video files were not initially viewable by the Unix-based community. An immediate solution was to transcribe the scripts from the videotaped sessions, and provide the lessons in text format. The technical team had enabled VOD viewership on the Unix-based workstations a little over a week later, and all audiences were able to complete the online learning as designed. The delay in program rollout and confusion caused with the user audience could have been avoided by an up front assessment of the users' technology environment.

2.2 The ROI of E-Learning

2.2.1 Beyond Cutting Costs

Yes, e-learning can save you money. Yes, the money saved can be substantial. Then what? After realizing first-year savings from reduced travel expenses and decreased classroom-training costs, most e-learning strategies then 'hit the ROI wall' because those funds are no longer available (they are not in the budget the

following year). This is the point where additional investments will demand fur-ther justification and other ways to measure future returns on investment.

The real ROI impact of e-learning comes when employee readiness and per-formance maps to improvements in customer satisfaction, revenue attainment, workforce productivity, or some other business metric. The 'what should we measure' question needs to be answered by each business function, with a focus on business impact, to get to the real ROI for e-learning. Examples from Cisco in-clude reducing the number of individuals required on a sales call (efficiency), eliminating product credit losses by ensuring mastery of appropriate procedures in manufacturing (process improvement), reducing the time customers spend waiting for an answer from a phone inquiry (customer satisfaction), and winning more ac-counts due to improved technical competence of the sales team (technology ab-sorption).

2.2.2 What about the ROI of Email and Voicemail?

Once you've challenged your organization to define the success metrics and de-sired business impact of e-learning, step back and ask yourself a related question: what is the ROI of email, or perhaps of voicemail? Few business organizations still operate without one or both of these technological innovations. And yet, has anyone ever read an ROI study on either email or voicemail? Email and voicemail are communications tools intended to keep people connected to each other; e-learning is a communication tool intended to keep people connected to the organi-zation. Like email and voicemail, once e-learning becomes pervasive few busi-nesses will operate without it, regardless of explicitly stated ROI, because it is ob-vious that learning is communications and that it enables business success.

2.2.3 On to the Numbers

Cisco has operationalized the process of measuring and communicating the 'net impact' of its Internet-enabled business processes, by reporting cost savings and productivity enhancements year over year, by Internet business solution area. Cisco's total 'net impact' number for its fiscal year 2000 (ending July 2000) was $1.352billion, representing savings from these Internet business processes: Work-force Automation, E-Commerce, Customer Care, and (our financial system) Vir-tual Close. While final fiscal year 2001 numbers are being tallied as of this writ-ing, the net savings contribution from e-learning during fiscal year 2001 is esti-mated at $42million. These savings were calculated by measuring travel and de-livery costs for Web-based training, virtual classroom knowledge transfer ses-sions, video-on-demand content delivery, and live broadcasts over Cisco's IP/TV network, in comparison with their predecessor 'in person' delivery venues from the year prior.


3 Past the Portal and Into the Future

Given the infancy of e-learning within the enterprise, and the still-evolving nature of e-learning technologies, many companies are finding themselves moving through phases of a maturity curve as depicted in Figure 1. In this section, we de-scribe the characteristics of each phase, offer examples of how Cisco worked through each of them, and focus on the benefits of aiming for the 'Learner Centric' phase (the 'Holy Grail' of e-learning). The maturity curve is plotted against two axes, Business Outcomes and Learning Outcomes.

3.1 The Portal Frenzy - When the Solution Becomes the Problem

The first two stages of e-learning maturity represented in Figure 1 are about Web-readying content, then organizing that content into Web portals designed for audi-ences with unique communications needs (such as a manufacturing or sales team). The key functions of portals include authentication of users, registration of learn-ers to specific online training courses or learning resources, search and browse for applicable content, management reporting, community access such as chat, online help and mentors, usage statistics, and the behind the scenes marketing to attract users to the site. The chief benefit of e-learning portals is that it drives behavior change - learners begin to see the Web as an easy resource for learning.

And while moving legacy content such as training course guides and other pa-per documentation to the Web provides new levels of access for learners, it can become problematic to search and navigate as the amount of content on the portal increases.

The inherent problem with simply moving existing training or information re-sources to the Web, is that many of your existing scaling problems come with you. While you have solved on-demand access to information, you are still no closer to dynamic knowledge sharing. Your once paper-bound information and knowledge is now electronically bound, still static, and it lacks the essential ingredient that made it successful in its prior life - namely, the instructor! Posting of static con-tent, even when organized into tidy and appealing portals, is what clutters internal and external Web sites, but is a necessary first step. It also represents the most primitive use of Internet technologies for learning: e-reading. But don't despair, there are many useful functions a portal provides, even after you've evolved your Web-based static content problem.

3.2 When Content Becomes Objects: The Tipping Point

The tipping point to most e-learning strategies comes when content moves from static creation, collection, and Web posting to object creation, tagging, and data-base management for reuse. A re-usable information object strategy affects how content is captured, organized, shared, re-used, blended, presented to the user, and kept current. Authoring tools designed to support and create reusable learning ob-jects; metadata tagging tools and tag lists; browser based content upload, distribu-tion, and management, all work together to enable a dynamic content, a.k.a. knowledge management strategy. The end result is the ability to capture, create, re-purpose, archive and ultimately share more content across the enterprise, in real-time manner.

Figure 2 depicts the reusable learning object strategy at Cisco. Content is cap-tured, tagged, and then re-purposed into a choice of delivery methods or course versions.

3.3 Performance-Centric and Learner-Centric E-Learning: The Holy Grail of E-Learning

Let's shift now to the last two phases of e-learning maturity and focus in on per-formance- and learner-centricity phases.

3.3.1 Performance-Centricity

Performance-centric e-learning challenges us to tie e-learning content to explicit competencies and abilities that drive business improvement. An example is of-fered here to explain what performance-centric e-learning looks like. Figure 3 below presents a screen-shot from the Cisco Account Manager Learning Envi-ronment (AMLE), presenting a question/answer dialogue simulating a qualifying sales call with an inquiring CIO. The competence being learned is that of


effectively positioning Cisco's technology architecture in the context of questions posed from a technical or business buyer. The specific skill is that of discerning technical relevance, from financial, or business questions, then delivering the most appropriate and compelling response.

3.3.2 Learner-Centricity

What moves this example from a Performance-Centric example to a Learner-Centric example, centers on how the learner accesses, and the system delivers, this scenario. Learner-centricity calls for a set of requirements that add flexibility, per-sonal preference, bandwidth-sensing, content subscription, and personalization to the delivery of content. The assumption here is that the content is already explic-itly performance-centric, and dynamically generated from objects tagged in the database. The user-learner experiences immediate and appropriate delivery of just the right content, in a format appropriate to style preference (stored in their pro-file), available bandwidth, and capability of their receiving device (palmtop, lap-top, desktop, or other Internet protocol (IP) device).

The fifth phase of e-learning maturity is achieved when the network recognizes the uniqueness of learner preferences and his or her connected environment. Pro-files, and networked content delivery, indicate the learner's language and format preferences, connectivity speed, display options inherent in the receiving device,

job role and/or career goal, performance issue, etc. When the learning system rec-ognizes the learners' profile at login, the system can dynamically deliver the most appropriate content, on demand. Learner Personalization is the ultimate maturity phase for an e-learning strategy.

3.4 Is it E-Learning or Is It E-Business - the Unification of Web Ser-vices Behind Cisco.com

As we move closer to mapping employee, partner, supplier, and even customer needs to top-line and bottom line business results, we begin to see similarities and overlaps between the functionality of e-learning and the Web services core to an e-business application. In scanning the list of Web services required for a robust e-learning strategy (user authentication, collaboration, dynamic content manage-ment, delivery, performance management, e-commerce, security, personalization, event registration, usage and satisfaction measurement) we discover a Web ser-vices architecture that extends to other functions such as e-marketing, customer support, and more.


4 The Culture Shift

While the business impact (beyond cost and time savings) of first phase e-learning may be difficult to measure, it is a vital step in beginning to shift the culture. Con-sider the number of job roles that are affected by an enterprise-wide e-learning ini-tiative and you begin to sense the magnitude of change.

4.1 Shifting Culture at the Learner Level

4.1.1 Make It Voluntary and Listen Carefully

Engaging volunteers across the learner audience is the first step in shifting the learner culture. Enlist volunteers (learners, reviewers, advisors) who are influen-tial. Expect a challenge in balancing those who are supportive and those who are doubtful or even hostile. The influential naysayers are perhaps the most important group to engage early on. Behind the doubt and negativity are fears and concerns that can provide valuable insight into the reasons your project may fail if left unaddressed. Enthusiastically listen to the opinions and feedback of a wide cross-section of user types, then act on that with changes, adjustments, and 'do-overs' that will bring your program closer to acceptable by the user communities, as you move it from pilot program to enterprise application.

Beyond learning how to adjust the program based on user feedback and input, the pilot period allows you to track usage in various forms such as keystrokes, du-ration of visits, profile of user types, learning resources reviewed, content modules completed, dropout rates, and exams passed. This is how you learn about the draw of your content and that of your user interface.

4.1.2 Fuel Internal Competition

During the early days of e-learning, we made the initial move from pilot program to widespread usage as a result of executive sponsorship and internal competition. Once the program had been developed and tested a regional sales executive threw down the gauntlet by announcing to his team their mandatory participation in the e-learning program. A regional counterpart of his followed suit, though upping the ante by requiring a completion date within three months for the 'final on-line exam'. This internal competition fueled usage across the organization, and pro-vided an even greater body of feedback for the e-learning team.

After usage rates picked up, three behaviors emerged as core to the e-learning team: (1) monitoring usage stats, (2) proactively gathering user feedback and in-put, (3) enhancing the learning offerings and releasing new content and functional-ity on a periodic basis.

4.13 Aim for "Virally Contagious and Critically Acclaimed" Success

Just below the surface of survey responses and usage statistics, lies an unsettling truth about most e-learning programs: the content is boring. The recent movement toward edutainment (games, simulations, and role-playing) came about to address

this problem. Let's face it, sitting in front of a computer screen for any length of time, can be lonely and boring. It doesn't have to be, but it all too often is. It takes well designed, often humorous content, and certainly a creative interface to keep an online learner engaged and interested.

Cisco has named a new success metric to drive the creation of compelling e-learning content that both engages and holds a learner's attention long enough for real learning to take place. The metric is simple: when the content is both critically acclaimed and virally contagious, we've hit the quality level we're looking for.

Cisco had its first experience with critically acclaimed, virally contagious con-tent in the summer of '99, when an e-learning 'game' was released internally for a beta test. The test module was distributed by email, to three hundred volunteers, with an aim at 20% usage and feedback. Within two months, online registrations for the module had surpassed 3000 users, and were growing daily. The module required a special login and password, which was being distributed by users to their peers and friends inside the company. The e-learning team had created an e-learning phenomenon -both 'critically acclaimed' by the sales force users, and virally contagious across an audience that expanded exponentially in size once the original pilot announcement was distributed.

4.1.4 Tie It to Personnel

Another step in shifting the learner culture is tying e-learning participation and performance to employee records. This is a step that involves close partnering with Human Resources as well as IT. Making visible to employees the e-learning tools and individual learning 'history' on their online records, will further promote the awareness and use of e-learning for career mobility and development.

4.2 Shifting Culture at the Provider Level

4.2.1 From Chaos Comes Order: Enter the E-Learning Business Council

Cisco implemented an internal E-Learning Business Council (ELBC) the same year e-learning was cutting its teeth as an enterprise application. The first few gatherings were structured 'show-n-tell' sessions attended by groups from across the company who were implementing e-learning projects. These initial sessions proved helpful in two ways; first, by exposing internal duplication and competi-tion among tools and vendors, as well as demonstrating that we were re-inventing several wheels in our rush to innovate. The second way the ELBC sessions proved valuable was the formation of a virtual community, which, over time, would help shape the corporate vision for e-learning, with collaboration to over-come barriers that were impeding progress.

4.2.2 Driving Standardization

Following the discovery and community building period of the ELBC, focus shifted to create a balance of both innovation and standardization relating to tech-nology choices and business process. Tough decisions were made to eliminate


overlapping tools and bring projects into alignment; this included backing certain vendors whose solutions were best designed to help us grow e-learning into a ro-bust, globally scalable, and IT supported Web application. The E-Learning Toolkit Web site (see Figure 4) was launched during this period to house meeting minutes, business process guidelines, and to provide a Web-enabled venue to support ongo-ing collaboration and project sharing.

4.2.3 Re-Skilling the Content Providers via the Tools

One of the most effective methods for shifting the culture with content providers was to drive e-learning education using e-learning tools to deliver the message. Course developers, marketing writers, product managers, classroom instructors, and other 'old-world' content practitioners were invited to attend virtual learning events to produce online content, design blended e-learning solutions, and become aware of and adept at using Cisco's growing toolkit of e-learning tools and proc-esses. Over time, these educational events have evolved into Web-enabled, self-help resource and support areas on the E-learning Toolkit. Figure 5 shows an on-demand learning module for producing Video on Demand content, available from Cisco's internal e-learning toolkit Web site.

A list of authoring tools is made available here:

Video on Demand: users can to view the content in whole, or in part (video stream, audio stream, PowerPoint files or presentation material, text transcript), online or downloaded from the network. The G-force system is available throughout Cisco for in-office video capture, in addi-tion to studio produced video files.

Virtual Classroom: employees can access the Placeware Virtual Class-room tool, for use in informal virtual meetings, or to schedule an event to be attended by geographically distributed participants. Audio on Demand: Audio files captured for replay on portable MP3 players, or to be downloaded along with associated video or PowerPoint files. These are easily created using a Digital Lava product called 'Hot Foot' or another from Brainshark. IP/TV: Cisco's own product, IP/TV, is a software platform enabling the live capture and broadcast of streaming video across Cisco's global net-work. Cisco TV programs are available for simultaneous viewing from a browser. Assessment Tools: Cisco Online testing (COLT) is another tool made available to e-learning developers, seeking to provide users with assess-ment exams or with interactive Q&A's integrated into online lessons. Metadata Tag libraries: For documents, graphics, or other existing learning resources, metadata tag libraries enabling internal content pub-lishers to ensure access to content aimed at a particular user base or audi-ence type. The pervasive push for standardization of tags is an essential factor in the success of the tagging process.


4.2.4 The Marketing of E-Learning

As with any Web-based product or service, e-learning demands strict attention to marketing basics. Success comes by striking a balance between meeting the ex-pectations and needs of users, while achieving the department's goals and objec-tives for e-learning. The following are basic marketing elements Cisco focuses on in managing its e-learning programs:

• Audience Focus Groups: Site review sessions are held with representa tives from user communities to validate Web site design and functional ity, content, and navigational assumptions.

• Awareness Generation: Web Banners, scheduled webcasts, online tours & seminars, news releases and other Web-enabled promotional ap proaches are used to drive site traffic and ensure repeat visits. Keeping the content fresh and the audience aware of the changes is a key success factor.

• Fulfillment: The purpose of creating awareness is to drive demand for your e-learning offerings. Ensure the fulfillment model is clear, func tional, and easy for the user to navigate. Fulfillment is the method or methods by which e-learning users receive what they asked for. This may be entering a credit card to completing a book order or a class registra tion. It may also mean receiving an email access code in order to enter a live webcast session already in progress. Whatever the fulfillment model, ensure it works. Sounds easy, but it's often ignored or overlooked.

• Site Usage Statistics: With e-learning, success is dictated by users you can't see, and their impressions, which you can't capture. Ensuring you have good usage and survey information becomes vital to your success. Daily site visits (hits), time spent at a particular link, url traffic indicating where the user came from and went to following a page hit, explicit sur vey responses, site penetration (most and least popular links), module completion rates, time spent at a particular url (and frequency of repeat visits) and online test results are all examples of usage statistics that will help you analyze the effectiveness of your e-learning program. There is more, measure everything you can think of for six to nine months in or der to report on relevant trend data.

• User Satisfaction: Give the user plenty of opportunity to ask questions, get help, and provide feedback. Cisco's e -learning sites provide for online help as well as Web-posted feedback summaries providing vital input to content providers and program owners.

4.3 Shifting Culture at the Executive Level

At Cisco we talk a lot about the importance of executive endorsement in imple-menting e-business initiatives. We've learned first hand what makes for an effec-tive sponsor for e-learning: generally speaking, it is the executive whose success is most literally tied to a team's changing knowledge or competency (as measured by pre and post assessment scores, in addition to changes in job performance). Shift-

ing the culture at the executive level requires solving an executive's problem or helping ensure their success through e-learning, and then promoting that success.

Driving e-learning across the enterprise, with executive sponsorship in hand, requires a governance model to promote the use of e-learning and standardize on implementation processes, IT tools, content models, e-learning vendors, and fund-ing sources. Cisco's cross-enterprise governance model came with setting up the E-Learning Business Council described in sections 4.21-4.24.

5 The Role of the Network ... for Network-Illiterates

Cisco's chief role in the e-learning market is that of equipping networks with the requisite technologies to produce the best possible outcome for communications, collaboration, information dissemination, and educational uses of the network.

5.1 Speed Matters ... and Available Bandwidth Determines Speed

There is no question that the network supporting your e-learning program will make or break your success. Even the best designed, most engaging content won't entice a user to finish a module or return to a site if the wait time is slow, incon-venient or otherwise irritating. With e-learning, speed matters, and speed is deter-mined by how much available bandwidth there is between the user requesting the content, and the location of that content. While e-learning may promise 'anytime, anywhere' access to a greater selection of content, e-learning doesn't inherently promise high speed, or even acceptable speeds of access to that content, unless the network has been designed or upgraded to support e-learning activity.

5.2 Quality Matters ... and Intelligent Network Services Determine Quality

To draw an old-world training analogy, if a student opened a training manual to discover section tabs out of order, graphics missing, and page text unreadable, the material would get thrown away. The same holds true for online learning experi-ences, where video segments can appear jerky, the sound garbled, and graphics appear to hang on the screen in suspended animation while the browser refreshes itself. These problems occur when the network has not been sufficiently designed for e-business applications, and the learner will throw away the URL.

At Cisco, we enable Internet business applications by providing an intelligent IP network framework, ensuring quality of service to the end user, scalability, se-curity, and the ability to efficiently broadcast a live event to as many simultaneous users as request it without clogging up the network. With Cisco's AVVID archi-tecture for integrating voice traffic (traditional telephone conversations) with video, graphics, and standard document or text data, the possibilities are endless for extending the reach of either 'canned' or 'live' communications and educa-tional content.


5.3 But What about the Last Mile ... Content Delivery Networks to the Rescue

The 'last mile' refers to the connection speed between the user and his or her point of entry to intranet, extranet, or Internet service. Internet service providers and traditional telephone companies are working to overcome the 'last mile' problem by providing DSL, cable, and ISDN network connections, all of which offer higher bandwidth than traditional dial-up modem speeds. But with the wide range in quality and service levels, and still a wide population depending on dial-up speeds, the quality of service problem lingers on.

This is where Cisco's Content Delivery Networks come into play and address-ing this last mile problem. Given the efficient streaming and routing of e-learning traffic described above (which assumes an end-to-end intelligent IP network) con-tent engines are placed near the edges of the network to store rich media content requiring high bandwidths to deliver. By caching graphic files and high bandwidth video on local content engines, the network is ready to respond locally, and im-mediately. This technology optimizes current bandwidth/capacity.

Implementing e-learning without a sufficiently designed network strategy is paramount to failure.

6 On Leadership

Effective leadership is a combination of situational and organizational style mixed with the unique character attributes of the leader. To successfully lead your or-ganization through an e-learning transformation, particularly in these times of technology innovation and questionable global economies, we believe there are also a few 'must haves' that go beyond these fundamental points on leadership.

• Boringly consistent fixation on the vision • Courage to go where no one else dares to ... or wants ... to go • Humility: There is no limit to success if you don't care who gets the

credit. • Unwavering persistence in the face of political and financial challenges • A diverse team of loyalists whose skills may not fit conventional job de

scriptions • And most important, a passionate belief in the vision and the team

7 Conclusion

The learning industry finally has the tools, infrastructure, and building blocks around content to actually accomplish the dreams associated with a learning en-terprise, with life-long learning, and with career development accessible and af-fordable for anyone seeking it. It's in our hands, our hearts, and our heads. This

revolution is about the learners and the organizations, not whether content is really 'training' or just information.

All content has value to the learner who needs it, and the choices need to be as varied as our entertainment choices. If you have a need for Shakespeare, you can read a book, watch a play, go to a movie, listen to an audio tape, or pop in a DVD. What you choose is based on many factors, and all will meet your need within whatever constraints are real at that moment. Learners need that spectrum of choice to meet their immediate and long term goals. E-learning empowers choice, and will be successful because of that single fact, combined with a fast and/or ef-ficient network. Knowledge management tools and processes are the foundation of that success.

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Managing Intellectual Capital - via E-Learning - at Cisco