TechExecs
Training in a Social World
Now that we’re in to course design for the TechExecs Professional Growth Network (that’s the new name) I’ve confirmed that’s it is really a lot of work if you want to do it well (big surprise). To that end we’ve settled on using the active training techniques laid out in “Training the Active 
Training Way” by Mel Silberman for our base framework. Notice that I use the word “framework”. We don’t want to build just more “cookie cutter” professional training courses. We want a format that integrates the social component that TechExecs does well with a solid foundation of training best practices.
Clicking on the book image on the left will take you to its Amazon.com page where you can find out more about it. For more information on the whole idea of active training and what Mel Silverman is all about, click on the Active Training icon on the right. What attracted us to this approach is that it recommends various components that should be present in some form to achieve the desired course objectives. Our objective is to provide practical advice to IT professionals and leadership to help them build a better bond with their customers, either internal or external to their company. That means incorporating real world insight from multiple sources as well as a means for members to collaborate on customer relationship topics and business skills.
Most of us have been to some form of training at some point in our careers that failed to keep our attention and interest. When that happens, not only do we not gain anything from the training but we may actually become more negative about the subject in general. That problem becomes more acute today since wireless technology lets us do many things from any location. The students can engage in email exchanges on their phones or laptops. They can surf the web. They can even watch a movie or other video. For those of us who will be delivering the course content the bar has been raised for being interesting and relevant.
This is why Silberman’s work is so useful. He talks about some social interaction prior to the start of the class, getting the student’s brain engaged early and getting students more involved during the class. He discusses blending eLearning into the mix and helping them retain what they’ve learned. That plays well into the whole idea behind TechExecs which is 
to create a collaborative community of senior IT professionals. His inclusion of both social content as well as eLearning makes this approach an ideal fit for the TechExecs PGN.
We also have to have some overall view of what the PGN can be in the long term. While all the pieces won’t be there on day one, it’s vital that we have some form of a roadmap. Having done a tour of duty in the world of software product management, I can assure you that the absence of a roadmap for the growth of your software will result in a poor feature set as well as slow delivery. The same is true for training (just another product). The trick is not to get lost in “analysis paralysis”. We must have a basic roadmap but leave it open enough to adapt to what we learn from our experience and our customer’s needs.
That’s the trick. Taking one part lecture, one part coaching, one part social interaction, one part eLearning and one part collaborative environment then rolling them up into one cohesive offering that provides genuine value to our members. That will undoubtedly be an iterative process that includes as much feedback from our membership as possible. I’ve already received some feedback and offers of help. I will be following up on those offers as soon as I get a little more work done on the framework for the PGN. I still want to encourage more feedback from our members on what structure would be the most valuable to you.
This is tough work for us non-career trainers (that’s me whining) but I believe that the final product will be worth it. Stay tuned for more and don’t be afraid to speak up.
Thanks for stopping by…
A New Branch on the TechExecs Tree
I recently became the new National Programs Chair at TechExecs. I’m excited about this new role because I believe that this provides another means of helping the IT community build closer bonds with their customers. I often have written about the benefits of business-IT alignment. Mostly it’s been about improving business processes and then making sure the client’s IT hardware and systems are supportive of those processes. This time it’s different.
In this new role we can expand that focus to include more support of the human resources of the IT world. Over the years, I have observed a very persistent disconnect between the technical community and their customers. The core problem is that there is minimal shared vocabulary and sensitivity to the other side’s issues. We will be providing seminars and workshops on topics like:
- Relationship building
- Consensus building
- Internal customer relationship management
- Internal sales techniques
Understanding your internal customer’s business issues
- Business skills development for IT professionals
- Understanding your customer’s business processes
- Other similar topics of interest to our members …
These are some of the types of topics we will cover but these are not necessarily the titles we’ll use. The overall goal is to help our membership grow the skills that will help them be better at their current jobs as well as make them more competitive in the marketplace. Obviously, we have our own ideas but we need to hear from our customers. We need to hear your ideas and needs. We’d like to hear your opinions on this topic as well. We want to make this new offering as valuable as we can for our membership. Please either comment on this post or send me an email at mnpattison@gmail.com.
This is a short post but it won’t be the last on the topic. Don’t forget to send me your ideas on this post as soon as you can. Thanks for stopping by…