And the adventure continues…

My current research project of finding an LMS continues, albeit slowly. I’ve said before that my needs for an LMS are pretty simple – basic tracking, nothing fancy. All the systems I’ve looked at so far do more than I need and charge accordingly.

Then last week some people who are starting up an internal training program came to me asking what I use to track online courses. I have a homegrown LMS that sort of works for me, but definitely won’t work for them. However, now all those features of commercial LMSs that I don’t need may be relevant for the new internal training. For example, with external training we have one user group – customers. We don’t have learning plans based on job roles or skills matrices. We just have courses. Internally, we do have job roles. Everyone will need certain courses, but engineers might not need customer service training.

I want to help the internal folks come up requirements and then help them make a good choice. I figure there’s a 99% chance that whatever works for them will work for me. Working together always benefits all parties.

In terms of what I’ve seen lately, GeoLearning was the last product I looked at. The product looks great – lots of features, very robust, well thought out user interface, easy to use. The demo was not so great. I didn’t actually make it all the way through because the presenter’s wireless connection kept dropping forcing him to reconnect to WebEx. After the third time, I left. Fortunately for him I’d seen enough that I forwarded the sales person’s contact info to the internal training folks. Here’s a helpful tip for giving online presentations: Use a wired Internet connection, especially if you are presenting to eLearning professionals who probably know a few things about online presentations.

I was scheduled to attend a demo of Outstart’s LMS, but project deadlines got in the way, and my workgroup took a half day off to go wine tasting. Sometimes you need to relax to gain some perspective. The perspective I gained is that riding around in a limo and sipping wine is a good way to spend the afternoon.