Online learning elearning strategies for executive education and corporate training

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E-LEARNING STRATEGIES
for executive education
and corporate training
E-learning: A Revolution in the Way People Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S5

Thanks to the Internet, e-learning has reached a whole new level:
it’s interactive, engaging, and available anytime, anywhere.
Bullish Outlook for the Online Learning Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S10
This market is poised to boom. By the year 2003, the Gartner Group predicts
it could hit $22 billion annually.
The International Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S14
Entire countries – including the United Arab Emirates – are using online learning
to upgrade the skills of their national workforces.
Three Major Market Segments of the Online Learning Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S16
Broadly speaking, the online learning market breaks down into content firms,
learning service firms, and technology providers.
Some Stumbling Blocks Remain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S20
Online learning is still a young, evolving industry, and has to address issues such as
standards, technological limitations and pricing models.
How to Choose an Online Learning Provider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S24
Experts offer criteria for selecting the right online learning provider for your organization.
The Year of the IPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S26
A number of top online learning companies will go public this year, and Wall Street is
taking an active interest.
Uses That Go Far Beyond Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S30
Online learning is not only key to maintaining a well-trained workforce, it can be used
to leverage the intellectual capital of the entire firm.
Determining Whether Web-based Training Is Right for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S32
Not all training materials are suited for the online medium – nor are all organizations
equipped to implement such a system.
Building the Best E-learning Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S38
Once you’ve decided to put in place an online learning program, you need to assemble
the proper team to run it successfully.
A Market Whose Time Has Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S40
Thanks to technological innovation, coupled with content that has reached new levels of

excellence, online learning has become an imperative for business success.
Learning Portals: An Important Trend in Online Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S42
Elliott Masie, a respected international authority in technology and learning, talks about centralized
Web sites that aggregate a company’s training information.
Online Learning Industry Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S44
A discussion by industry expert John Bucher.
How Digital Learning Differs in Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S54
Attitudes and expectations vary widely from one sector to another.
President Clinton Gives Major Policy Address About E-learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S56
Addressing an audience of top high-tech executives in March, Clinton discusses the need
to make online learning a top national priority.
Web Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S59

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REVOLUTIONIZING
CORPORATE TRAINING
AND STRATEGY

A Revolution Is
Under Way —
A Revolution
in the Way
People Learn
Over the course of hundreds
of years, since the 12th
century in Italy when
universities first came into
being, people became
accustomed to the notion
of education taking place
in a classroom, with an
instructor – presumably
an expert – lecturing a
group of students.
Indeed, up until fairly recent times, education was
conducted almost exclusively in just that format –
whether it was in the context of a university, a corporation, a government entity, or a nonprofit group.
But thanks to technology, coupled with the
explosion of knowledge in the information age,
the notion of a traditional classroom and a group
of students taught by a teacher is becoming a

bit quaint – perhaps even outmoded, in many
instances. The old way of doing things is just too
slow and too costly; furthermore, given the short
shelf life of information in our current era, knowledge can quickly become obsolete by the time
it is printed in a book or a training manual.
Also, qualified teachers – especially in subjects
like information technology – are in short supply.
And, in this era of globalization, many organizations must deal with the issues of training a farflung workforce, speaking different languages,
scattered around the world. Thus, a whole new
way of teaching people had to come about. And
so it has: The marriage of technology and learning

now allows people to be
taught from afar, using
any number of techniques, including interactive courses delivered on
the World Wide Web,
via video conferencing
systems, or by way of
multimedia CD-ROMs.
But probably the hottest
method of them all involves the Internet.
The development of the Internet has taken
technology and learning to a whole new level.
About a decade ago, there were the first, crude
attempts at “distance learning,” which means using
various methods to teach people who are widely
dispersed geographically. This was generally done
by using a video to broadcast a lecture. In addition,
there were early attempts at computer-based
learning, which consisted of merely throwing up

text on the computer screen. Frankly, most of
these approaches ended up being rather dull.
“A lot of the early e-books simply looked like
poor-quality books,” says Clark Aldrich, research
director at the Gartner Group, who is writing
a book about evolution of the online learning
industry. He likens the debut of distance learning
to the introduction of plastic to the marketplace.
When plastic first came out, its creators wanted
it to be a substitute for wood, and consequently
made it brown, in wood-grain patterns; but it
invariably ended up looking worse than the wood
it was trying to replace. Then the next generation

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of designers began looking at plastic through fresh
of the Internet, such as interactivity, chat rooms,
eyes. “They played to its strengths,” notes Aldrich.
and online communities; and it’s entertaining,
“They made it all different colors. They molded in
making use of music, audio, animation, and even
into different shapes. Plastic never replaced wood,
Hollywood-style cinematic experiences. Its probut successful designers know how to use each
ponents point out that those who partake of
medium for what it is good for.”
online learning retain as much, or more, cogniAldrich thinks the same thing holds true for
tively than those who are taught in traditional
online learning. It’s no longer trying to ape the
classroom settings. And there are techniques now
print world; instead, it’s using
to manage corporate online
technology to transform not
learning systems, to assess
Online learning is
only the delivery mechanism of
students before and after
becoming increasingly
the courses, but also the conthey take the courses, and
tent, in new and vibrant ways
to calculate the return on
fine-tuned; it’s leveraging

never before seen.
investment (ROI) from such
the unique attributes of
It’s allowing companies to
a venture.
the Internet, such as
deliver “just-in-time” training
The cost savings alone are
interactivity, chat rooms,
to sales professionals who may
compelling. Industry experts
have only an hour here or there
say that online learning costs
and online communities;
in a busy day to do some
on average about half as
and it’s entertaining,
studying about the latest prodmuch as traditional classroom
making use of music,
ucts that their firm makes. It
training. That doesn’t even
audio, animation, and
allows software engineers to
include the more intangible
keep up with the latest applicabenefits, such as the opportueven Hollywood-style
tions in information technology,
nity cost of not having to send
cinematic experiences.
clicking and pointing at the
large numbers of employees

computer screen, all at their
away from their jobs at a
desktops, without having to
physical training site for
wade through a dense technical manual. Instead,
several days. Nor does it include the increased
they can learn at their own pace, whenever and
competitive advantages that companies derive from
wherever it’s convenient – whether it be at home,
having a well-trained workforce that’s up to date on
on an airplane, or at the office. Nor do employees
all the latest trends, collaborating with one another
have to fly off to a conference for three days for
and sharing information throughout the company.
a training session, costing their employer huge
Today’s Web-savvy online learners can not only
amounts of money in travel and lodging as well
access their interactive, multimedia studies from
as the opportunity cost of having the employees
remote locations, but they can also build online
away from their posts for several days.
communities, swapping questions and answers
Online learning is becoming increasingly
with their tutors and fellow students via e-mail
fine-tuned; it’s leveraging the unique attributes
and bulletin boards. Ultimately, online learning

Ninth House Network

N

inth House Network believes learning
should be a lifelong, engaging experience.
Delivering multiple channels of interactive
programming right to the user’s desktop, Ninth
House Network provides a safe environment to
engage in interactive business scenarios that
simulate real-world situations. It is the only
broadband media network for corporate
e-learning that uses storytelling and the latest
in media technology to create an interactive,
personalized, cinematic e-learning experience
for employees at all levels. The company melds
instant advice, personalized virtual mentors,

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and Hollywood-style role-playing to teach employees critical business and communication skills.
In each program, participants test their
business acumen by making decisions for one
of the program’s characters struggling with a
particular business problem. All the programs
offer immediate feedback on performance and
show the results of decisions made by the user.
Ninth House Network helps organizations such
as First Union National Bank, Insight, and
Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield leverage
individual knowledge into a sustainable

competitive advantage through the creation

of a highly effective workforce.
Ninth House Network partners with respected
business thinkers such as Tom Peters, Ken
Blanchard, Larraine Segil, and Peter Senge
to continuously expand program content.
Recently, Ninth House Network announced it
raised $40 million in second-round equity financing. The funding, which made it the 10th largest
equity deal of 1999, was led by Chase Capital
Partners and included Merrill Lynch, Chase H & Q,
Arena Capital, and others.
www.ninthhouse.com
1.800.577.8887

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can make possible successful “knowledge management”; that is, using technology to leverage the
intellectual capital of the entire company, which,
in turn, leads to increased productivity, shorter time
to market, and superior competitive advantage.

investment firm of W. R. Hambrecht & Co. Weggen
has just written a new report about the industry
entitled “Corporate E-Learning: Exploring a New
Frontier,” which can be viewed online at the firm’s
Web site: www.wrhambrecht.com.
In the report, she notes several major factors
that are driving the growth in online learning
(see graphic, page S14). First, the U.S. economy
is evolving into a knowledge-based economy,

Bullish Outlook for the Market
Online learning is projected to boom in the near
future. Corporations
already spend $66 billion a year on training,
about 20 percent of
which is spent on
e-learning, and 80 percent on traditional
classroom instruction.
However, Corporate
University Xchange, a
New York City-based
organization, says that
by 2003, that figure is
expected to shift to

40 percent for online
learning and 60 percent
for traditional classroom
instruction, as corporations increasingly
embrace the new
technology (see chart,
right).
“While the market is
currently relatively small
and in an early stage, it is poised to explode,”
writes Cornelia Weggen, research analyst at the

which, in Weggen’s words, “puts a premium on
intellectual capital.” In this setting, lifelong learning
is not just a buzzword: it’s “an imperative.”
Secondly, a paradigm shift is taking place in the
way education is viewed and delivered. Business
success “depends more and more on high-quality
employee performance, which in turn requires
high-quality training,” Weggen says.
Thirdly, there are huge knowledge gaps in the
education system that demand reform. Weggen
notes that U.S students lag behind students from
other industrialized nations in crucial areas such as
mathematics and science. Not to mention the fact
that certain segments of the American workforce
lack basic literacy skills. According to the U.S.
Department of Labor, more than 40 percent of the
U.S. labor force performs at the two lowest levels on
government literacy scales. Warns the Hambrecht

report: “The chasm between the higher demands
of a knowledge economy and the educational status
of the workforce is deep and must be addressed if
the U.S. is to remain competitive internationally.”

Learnframe

L

earnframe, formerly Pinnacle Multimedia, is quickly becoming
the framework of choice for companies launching e-learning
programs, as well as integrators seeking to provide customers
with a complete and robust solution. Learnframe offers a fully
integrated e-learning solution that manages all aspects of learning
with the Pinnacle Learning Manager, the leading learning management
system (LMS). This powerful infrastructure automatically connects
to nearly 11,000 computer-based training (CBT) titles from 60-plus
vendors, builds corporate universities, and hosts the full spectrum
of e-learning technologies.
Learnframe also offers a vast library of training materials, including
CBT, video, text, and more. Customers such as Rockwell Collins,
Honeywell, Abbott Labs, Novell, and Intraware use Learnframe to
drive their training programs.
www.learnframe.com
1.800.738.9800

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(see excerpts,
pages S56-S58).
Already, more
than 90 percent
of American
schools have
Internet access,
and the rest are
targeted to be
put online in the
near future.
More than
a third of U.S.
higher education

institutions offer
online courses –
Harvard, U.C.
Berkeley,
Stanford, and
New York
University
among them –
and some are
moving to offer
full accredited degrees on the Net, too, in a full array
of subjects. The academic sector – in and of itself –
will be a huge market for this industry. In the United
States, the education and training sector is second
only to health care as a percentage of gross national
product. The total education market is a whopping $772 billion in the United States, or 9 percent
of GNP.

Thus, corporations will compete fiercely with one
another for skilled workers, especially in an era of
unemployment rates at historical lows. According
to PricewaterhouseCoopers, 70 percent of the
world’s 1,000 top-tier companies cite lack of
trained employees as their number one barrier
to sustaining growth.
Not only will corporations invest in the field,
but also governments, nonprofit organizations,
universities, and schools from grades K through
12. On March 3, President Bill Clinton gave a major
policy address at a forum sponsored by the Aspen

Institute in which he stressed that online learning
is a major national initiative in America’s schools

The International Potential
And it’s going global. Worldwide, the education
market is currently worth $2.1 trillion, according
to W. R. Hambrecht & Co. The potential for online

VCampus

T

hroughout its 130-year history, Graybar
Electric, an independent, employee-owned
distributor of electrical and communications/data products, has earned a reputation for
quality products and value-added customer service because of its commitment to employee training. Faced with a growing marketplace and
increasing specialization, the company recognized the need to expand its employee educational offering and streamline its delivery.
Graybar went to VCampus ® for help in creating
its own online virtual campus.
In addition to offering the company its library of

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more than 300 Web-based courses, VCampus has
allowed Graybar to create its own courses using its
Courseware Construction Set®. Today, more than
9,000 Graybar employees at 282 locations have
access to the company’s virtual campus; many of

those employees have taken three or more courses. Graybar’s ability to serve its customers is maximized through the use of the VCampus platform.
Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, VCampus
(NASDAQ: VCMP) is an application service provider
(ASP) for the e-learning market. The company
hosts, manages, and creates virtual campuses for
corporations, academic institutions, and govern-

ment agencies, enabling them to provide their own
employees, students, and customers with global
distance learning.
The company offers a complete outsourced
solution using its VCampus 2.5 distributed learning
platform. The remotely hosted components allow
for the enrollment, registration, teaching, tracking,
testing, grading, and certification of distance
learners. For more information, call 800-9159298, or visit the VCampus Web site at
.
www.vcampus.com
1.877.9VCAMPUS (8226787)

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learning around the world is vast, according to
Other industry sources also predict high growth
many industry leaders. Consider this scenario,
in the industry, albeit at a somewhat more restrained
envisioned by Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, speaking
pace than Aldrich’s forecast. Nevertheless, the
before the 1998 World Congress on Information
numbers are still huge. Cushing Anderson, program
Technology in Fairfax, Virginia: “One day, a man
manager for learning services at IDC, an industry
in rural China will be able to get a master’s
research firm, predicts that the U.S. corporate
degree from MIT online, then start a business
market for e-learning will exceed $11 billion by
in cyberspace – all without leaving his village.”
2003, representing a compound annual growth
Quite apart from these futuristic scenarios, there
rate of 83 percent from 1998 to 2003. “While
are concrete, real-world examples
e-learning still faces some obstaof online learning being utilized
cles, vendors without an e-learning
“While e-learning still
around the globe. Elliott Masie,
strategy will lose share to their

faces some obstacles,
president of a think tank called The
competitors,” writes Anderson in
MASIE Center and guru in the
his recent forecast for the market.
vendors without an
online learning field for almost
By way of definition, IDC defines
e-learning strategy
three decades, travels the world
e-learning as the asynchronous or
will lose share to
conducting seminars about the revsynchronous (real-time) delivery
their competitors.”
olution in technology and learning.
of training and education over the
Recently, he was in Abu Dhabi, the
Internet to an end user’s computer.
capital of the United Arab Emirates
Anderson also predicts that in
and a center of information technology training in
2003 the non-IT learning share of the market will
the Middle East, where he gave the keynote address
surpass IT e-learning for the first time (see chart,
at the first Middle East Workforce and Human
page S18). Quite beyond simply teaching people
Resources Conference. Reports Masie: “Online
computer skills, online learning is evolving to
learning and distance learning is seen as a mustinclude a whole array of subjects, including what
have for them to take a leadership role in the

are known as “soft skills” at corporations. This
region. There was no need to build the case for
includes course work in such areas as business
IT training in their country. They ‘get it’ and are
writing and communication, or how to invest funds
using skill development as a national strategy.”
contributed by your company’s retirement plan.
At the Gartner Group, Clark Aldrich is predicting
that the online learning business could soar from
Three Major Market
its current $1.5 billion level annually to at least $22
Segments of the Industry
billion by 2003. “There’s no ‘inherent’ limit to the
The online learning industry has three major market
market size of this industry,” he says. “There is such
segments, according to IDC. First are “content”
a capacity to absorb good courses – not just from
organizations, consisting of firms that furnish course
corporations, but from other groups, including the
structure, multimedia (graphics, video, sound, and
elderly, high school students, not to mention the vast
animation), simulations, testing, and assessments.
populations of countries such as India and China.”

Hewlett-Packard Co.

T

he e-learning landscape is replete with
companies seeking ways to transfer skills

and exchange knowledge with employees,
business partners, and customers. So how do you
choose the right e-learning provider? Here are
some key questions to ask:
• Do you want to maintain your own learning
infrastructure or have an external provider
handle maintenance, uptime, and scalability?
• Once you have access to a virtual classroom,
will your provider offer consulting services
to make your class leaders more effective?
• Will your provider offer content and assess-

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ment services to ensure that your curriculum
matches your employees’ needs?
• If you’re a dot-com company, will your
provider invest in you by offering special
financing and revenue sharing plans?
• Can your provider offer traditional classroom
training globally and help you develop an
integrated learning solution?
• Can your provider supply a readily available,
hosted virtual classroom?
Hewlett-Packard believes that some of the
greatest factors in determining e-learning success
are the additional consulting and value-added

services that accompany a virtual classroom. These
services speed implementation and better prepare
you to deal with issues like classroom management, technical support, and integration with
legacy learning applications. Ask any e-learning
providers you are considering what extra services
they offer and if they can provide a total solution
to meet your needs.
To pose these questions to us, visit our
Internet site at www.hp.com/e-learning or call
us at 1.800.333.0223 or +1.650.691.3902.
www.hp.com/e-learning
1.800.440.3022

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solutions category does

not include hardware
and network infrastructure such as routers
and firewalls.
Cushing Anderson at
IDC predicts that “content will be king, and
will garner the greatest
share of the market”
during the next five
years. Learning services
will be the fastestgrowing sector of the
e-learning industry, in
his view. Furthermore,
his forecast says that
delivery solutions will
account for a less significant portion of the
market over time, “as
customers shift toward
increased spending on
content and services,
such as course development, administration, and maintenance.”
He continues: “Tools will become a commodity
as the industry consolidates around particular
authoring, management systems, and synchronous
learning solutions. In addition, we anticipate
these tools to be embedded within end-to-end
e-learning solutions. Obstacles to e-learning
market opportunities will become less formidable
in the near term. Specifically, Y2K time and
budget constraints will subside in 2000, vendors
will continue to enhance their course offerings

in digestible ‘chunks’ – called ‘chunking’ – for
more interactivity, and more content will be

This includes both off-the-shelf as well as specially
developed, customized applications.
Second are “learning services” firms, which
provide needs assessments, program-building
components – content design, development and
programming, technical and systems integration,
site management and hosting, maintenance, and
online mentoring.
Third are “delivery solutions” companies,
which sell technologies associated with e-learning,
including training, authoring tools, course management systems, collaborative software and
virtual classrooms, and add-on tools. The delivery

Experient Technologies

W

ith more than 6,000 field representatives, Ventiv Health, Inc., the industry
leader in outsourced sales and marketing for pharmaceutical companies, faced a
challenge in providing the latest knowledge
to its sales force. With new products debuting
faster than ever from clients who invested
millions in R&D, Ventiv needed a knowledge
management and training solution to remain
the market leader.
Experient Technologies developed a comprehensive plan to ensure that Ventiv’s sales force
had access to real-time training and news about

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their products. Through Experient’s unique
e-learning delivery management system utilizing
its Calypso technology, Ventiv sales representatives
could access information through their laptop
computers or handheld devices, and then disconnect from the Internet, as needed, while doing
course work.
“The ability for our sales force to tap up-todate training from the Web while having all
activities and results recorded offline for retrieval
later by our training manager was a major
decision in selecting Experient,” says Stephen
Cottrell, vice president of marketing at Ventiv.

In addition to its online/offline capability,
Experient’s e-learning system translates any content into its environment and manages a company’s curriculum and employee learning activities.
“In today’s knowledge economy, businesses need
to ensure optimal utilization of their personnel to
make a profit,” says Michael Glotz, CEO of
Experient. “Providing a way to develop skilled,
motivated and loyal knowledge workers in the
fastest, most flexible and cost-effective manner
possible is what Experient offers.”
www.experient.com
804.359.6888

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converted to or originate in Internet-ready
formats.”
Anderson’s study, entitled “IDC’s Fifth Annual
U.S. Training and
Education Industry Survey,
1999,” utilized material
from interviews with over
200 corporate purchasers
of training and more than
40 providers of training
content, learning services,
or delivery solutions.

development. As matters now stand, organizations
are building significant learning projects in “closed

and proprietary systems,” he points out. As a
result, he says, “Their
course development
investment may not
be able to be leveraged
to other authoring or
distribution agents.”
A second major area
that needs work involves
piloting and experimentation. Organizations
will be investing tens of
millions of dollars in the
development of intranetbased learning delivery in
the near future. However,
there is little research on
the impact or effectiveness of such efforts. Masie
urges companies to take
the time to run pilots
on these programs and
evaluate them.
Still another matter to
be overcome is getting
used to the new images
and new metaphors
online learning is creating. Most corporate trainers
come out of the traditional classroom environment,
and their frame of reference is that of classes,
instructors, lessons, and modules. But business
managers take a much more performance-oriented
approach to online learning. They want to know its

impact on the bottom line. “They are interested in
small chunks of learning, support for single tasks,
and access to knowledge and expertise rather

Some Stumbling
Blocks Remain
Nonetheless, there are
hurdles that still must be
surmounted. Experts say
online will never completely replace classroom
instruction; rather, it will
exist side-by-side with and
complement brick-andmortar education. Plus,
there is sometimes a
“generation gap” in terms
of its acceptance among
participants. Some older
people – say, over age 40 – prefer traditional classroom training, because that is what they were used
to growing up, whereas younger people, reared
on the Net and personal computers, tend to be
more comfortable with online learning.
Moreover, according to Elliott Masie, there
are structural issues that the online learning industry needs to work out. Among these: There are
currently no standards for online learning

Learn2.com, Inc.

I

n March this year, Honeywell (NYSE: HON)

selected Learn2.com (NASDAQ: LTWO), a
leading provider of e-learning solutions,
to deliver Web-based learning solutions to
Honeywell’s 120,000 employees worldwide.
“At Honeywell, our e-learning initiatives reflect
our belief that providing employees with the means
to efficiently and effectively learn new skills gives
us an important competitive advantage,” says
Dennis Zeleny, vice president of human resources
at Honeywell. “We chose to partner with
Learn2.com for this service because Web technology development is one of their core competencies.

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Their hosted learning solutions result in both bandwidth-friendly and user-friendly streaming multimedia, which is extremely important when supporting a global workforce. Our partnership with
Learn2.com fulfills our corporate vision to leverage
Internet technologies, which will ultimately drive
growth and productivity in the new Honeywell.”
Honeywell is a $24 billion diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers
worldwide with aerospace products and services;
control technologies for buildings, homes, and
industry; automotive products; power generation
systems; specialty chemicals; and fibers; plastics;

and electronic and advanced materials.
Stephen Gott, president and chief executive
officer of Learn2.com, says the company has
equally strong sales both in the business-to-business (b-to-b) and business-to-consumer (b-to-c)

arenas. Gott attributes the company’s success to
Learn2.com’s engaging and interactive courseware,
patented technologies, innovative products such as
the Learn2.com SmartCard™ and the Learn2.com
PerformanceMotivatorSM, and a wide and varied
distribution network.
www.learn2.com
1.800.214.8000

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than faculty and lesson plans,” says Masie.
“Trainers should listen clearly to the business
unit mantra,” because the business units will
be the ones calling the tune.
Here’s just one example of how “chunking” information can work in the online

world. At the online learning firm of
click2learn.com, it’s possible to buy books
online, in the format of a book, or a videotape, or an online synchronous course. But
the company wants to carry it a step further,
and “chunk” books online – that is, enable
consumers to buy a single chapter of a book,
rather than the entire volume. For busy professionals who need just a specific piece of
information, this makes eminently good
sense. In an era of information overload,
why slog through the entire work, after all?
Why not just cut to the chase, and read just
the section that you need to?
Or take another example: Mark Cavender,
managing director of The Chasm Group, a
consulting firm that advises technology
companies about strategic marketing, says
he’s currently working on a project with more than
100 management gurus. He’s going to break their
most compelling, state-of-the-art advice to business
executives down into 30-second-to-five-minute
nuggets of information and put it into a search
engine with a format like “Ask Jeeves.” You type
in your question or a phrase about the piece of
information you’re seeking, and the system will take
you exactly where you need to go – instantly. “This
is learning on demand, where you need it, when
you need it,” says Cavender, “as opposed to just
paving the cow path.”
There are other issues that loom large before
online learning will fully mature, says Elliott Masie.

People will have to be trained in new skills to manage and deploy online learning systems in organizations. Already, many large companies have created
positions of “chief learning officer” or “chief knowledge officer,” that may oversee this function, while
firms with a virtual corporate university often have
a “dean” who runs the operation.
Plus, there are some technological matters that
need ironing out. Bandwidth is an issue for many
companies – that is, having sufficiently fat pipes
through which to transmit the online information
at high speeds to large numbers of people dispersed globally. Experts say that in a couple of
years, however, the bandwidth issue will be

ISOPIA

B

CE Nexxia, one of Canada’s leading Internet
protocol (IP) and broadband service
providers, needed to build a state-of-the-art
Internet training solution for its sales force.
The company, a part of Bell Canada, realized
that a well-trained sales force was key to
success in the telecommunications industry.
So they hired ISOPIA Interactive Network,
Inc., a Toronto-based provider of Internet learning solutions. Josie Scioli, vice president of sales
operations for BCE Nexxia, says, “ISOPIA offered
the most cost-effective, flexible solution with
the speediest time to market.” BCE Nexxia has

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about 400 sales professionals dispersed across
Canada, who call on the 500 largest corporations
in the country.
ISOPIA provided BCE Nexxia with key components to create an Internet-based training
solution. Their learning management system
set up a corporate learning portal so BCE
Nexxia’s employees could have an instantaneous, integrated “one-stop” solution. Plus,
it was cost-effective. Scioli said the online system
cost about 50 percent less than traditional
classroom instruction.
In addition, because online training takes

much less time than traditional classroom
instruction, “this frees the sales professional
to focus more on their customers and generate
more revenue,” says Scioli. She points out that
in, general, material that takes one day to teach
in a traditional classroom can be compressed to
just two hours in an online training session.
“We intend to expand the Nexxia Learning
Network in the future,” says Scioli. “It’s a key
competitive tool in our industry.”
www.isopia.com
416.964.2001

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resolved. Thanks to streaming technology, it will
become easier to send audio and video online.
Finally, there are pricing issues. Companies
need to figure out a new model for pricing online
learning. Some vendors are using a “pay-per-view”
approach, or a subscription system, similar to that
used by cable television viewers.

see a base of existing implementations. Talk to
clients. Hear the horror stories and the good stories.
A series of happy clients will make a successful
company.” The longer the list of those clients,
the better, she adds.
In addition, HP Education also offers some tips
for firms seeking an online learning provider. You
can refer to the case study on page S16, or go to

www.hp.com/e-learning.
Readers also might want to become familiar with
some of the terms in this industry. The terminology
is in flux, reflecting the fact that the industry is
evolving rapidly. See sidebar below.

How to Choose an
Online Learning Provider
There are well over 300 online learning providers
in the United States alone, a total of about 500
worldwide, and new entrants jumping into the
market each day. It’s still a very young industry,
and one that is highly fragmented and diffuse. So
how do you, as a corporate executive, go about
choosing the right online learning provider for
your company?
Masie’s advice is: “Always ask, ‘What are the
situations in which this product doesn’t work?’”
And “How soon will there be an upgrade, revision,
or change in your technology – and what happens
to my investment when that takes place?”
Another tactic is to talk to the clients of potential vendors. Have vendors show you a list of the
companies they’ve worked for, then go talk to those
companies yourself, advises Shanti Mittra, a director
at Primus Venture Partners, a $350 million venture
firm based in Cleveland, which has focused on the
education and training market for the last 15 years.
“The only real way to measure a successful
e-learning company is to see if they’ve successfully
implemented somewhere else,” says Mittra. “Go

ONLINE LEARNING GLOSSARY
Computer-assisted education. A term used
more commonly in education for any instruction
where a computer is used as a learning tool.
Computer-based training (CBT). An allencompassing term used to describe any computerdelivered training, including CD-ROM and the
World Wide Web. Some people use the term to
refer only to old-time, text-only training.
Desktop training. Any training delivered by a
computer to a user’s desk.
Desktop video conferencing. A real-time conference using pictures between two or more people
on a network who communicate via computer.
Distance learning. This refers to a broadcast of
a lecture to distant locations, usually through video
presentations.
Interactive training. An umbrella term that
includes both computer-based and multimedia
training.
Internet-based training. Any training that can
be accessed by the Internet. Usually this is done
with the World Wide Web, although e-mail correspondence courses and file transfers also fall into
this category.
Intranet-based training. Training based on a
company’s intranet network. Web browsers are
used to access the company pages. They are only
available within the company.
Multimedia training. A type of computer-based
training that uses two or more media, including
text, graphics, animation, audio (sound/music),
and video. This can produce a colorful, engaging

program delivered via the computer.
Online training. An all-encompassing term that
refers to all training done with a computer over
a network, including a company’s intranet, the
company’s local area network, and the Internet.
Also called Net-based training.

NETg

A

T&T is constantly fighting to keep abreast of emerging technologies.
AT&T runs the world’s largest, most sophisticated communications
network and is the leading provider of long distance and
wireless services.
Mike Harbon, IT skills development consultant in training and
development for AT&T’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division,
says that in early 1997, the company, “decided we really wanted
to embrace online learning in a strategic manner.”
AT&T retained NETg, a leading global provider of online- and
multimedia-based technology training, or e-learning, based on exclusive
Learning Object™ technology. “Their content was much better than that
of the competitors,” says Harbon.
Currently, AT&T employees take IT-related courses on the company’s
HR intranet. The feedback thus far has been very positive.
www.NETg.com
1.877.561.6384

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The Year of the IPO

of recognition of some of the potential of this
market” by investors.
Bucher tracks 188 publicly traded e-learning
companies. In addition, he maintains a database
of some 2,200 companies he broadly terms as
e-learning companies, or those poised to be such
companies. He sees the
industry breaking into
three broad categories:
“edutainment,” or the

consumer market; “bigiron,” back-end software
providers for corporations;
and the academic realm.
“We see it as part of a
whole big universe,” he
says, “whereas, most
people just see it as the
corporate market.” The
consumer market alone,
Bucher continues, will
likely consist of two major
parts: the “lifelong learning” segment, which
could consist of using
online learning to educate
consumers – as well as
sell them things – about
hobbies and pastimes
such as gardening or
fly-fishing or decorating, and could leverage
major brand names to do so. Then there’s the huge
field of professional continuing education. Many
fields – including law, medicine, insurance, and
accounting – require professionals to take a certain
number of hours of courses every year to remain
accredited. Online learning provides the perfect
mechanism to do this, asserts Bucher.

Thus far, online learning is a young, emerging
industry, with many players and no clear market
winners. Experts predict that, as with any maturing

industry, there will be a number of initial public
offerings as these firms go
public, along with a rash
of mergers and acquisitions
as bigger firms buy up
smaller ones.
“This will be the year of
the IPO for online learning
firms,” predicts Mittra. So
far in the first quarter of
this year, there have been
several very successful
online learning IPOs, including those of Saba and
DigitalThink. The wave of
public offerings is powered,
Mittra adds, by the fact that
“corporations are ready to
focus on bringing technology and learning together.”
Cornelia Weggen at W. R.
Hambrecht & Co. concurs
that investment banks and
venture capital firms are
showing brisk interest in
online learning companies. “This year, investor
interest is a lot bigger than last year,” she observes.
John Bucher, vice president of operations for the
Private Investment Group, a private investment
boutique focused on e-learning companies, says
of the industry: “We’re in the early innings of this
game.” He thinks this will be the year not so much

of the IPO for these firms, but instead “the year

Training Server, Inc.

L

ucent Technologies plans for the future. As
the worldwide leader in providing leadingedge communication networking solutions,
Lucent knows the value of the people that drive
the company’s success. That’s why Lucent is
serious about training its 153,000 employees
in hundreds of locations worldwide.
In 1997, Lucent’s corporate Learning
& Performance Center knew that managing
the delivery of its training had to move from
approximately 40 different systems to one
solution. Plus, the solution had to integrate
with the company’s HR databases, including

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training, payroll, and benefits. Lucent also
had special business requirements – such as
data segmentation and pre- and post-course
material management – to be considered.
The search for a system to handle all facets
of training management in a single, centralized
database was undertaken with an eye for not

just a product, but also a strategic partner.
Lucent’s research led to TrainingServer®
LMS, the world’s most advanced and widely
used learning management system, offering
a team of learning experts. Working together
since 1997, the team developed new features

that were added to TrainingServer LMS. Now
each Lucent training group worldwide can log
on to the central system and see its individual
segment, with the option of monitoring all
other segments simultaneously. By accessing
the same informational database and sharing
the same educational resources, Lucent cut
its overall training costs dramatically, while
adding synergy to its course scheduling, facility
arrangement and instructor availability.
www.trainingserver.com
1.800.869.9461

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“If you add that up, it’s a big number,”
he says of the potential market for e-learning. “We’re an investor in this space. We tell
people: ‘If you’re an early-stage company
with a sound business plan and strategy
and a good idea of your target market,
we’re interested.’”
Mark Cavender at The Chasm Group,
works with high-tech firms to develop
marketing strategies. His partner, Geoffrey
Moore, wrote the book Crossing the Chasm
(HarperBusiness) that’s referred to as “the
Bible for high-tech companies looking for
direction with marketing and distribution
challenges,” according to Robert K. Weller,
senior vice president of the North American
Business Group.
The book proposes a “technology adoption life cycle” in the form of a bell curve,
consisting of a few early innovators and early
adopters; swelling to a peak with early majority and
late majority users; then tapering off at the tail end
with laggards. There is a gap between each one of
these five phases: early innovators; early adopters;
early majority; late majority; and laggards. Writes
Moore: “Each of these gaps represents an opportunity for marketing to lose momentum, to miss the

transition to the next segment, thereby never to
gain the promised land of profit-margin leadership
in the middle of the bell curve.”
According to Cavender, the e-learning companies
are currently in the early stages of convincing
adopters to implement their products. “This hasn’t
reached the mainstream market yet,” says the

consultant. “We’re at the very beginnings of this
stuff, with a few exceptions.”
Nonetheless, he believes online learning could
well become a multibillion-dollar industry in a
few years. He sees it as a natural progression of
the automation of business. In the early 1990s, for
example, companies automated their back offices,
using systems such as those devised by SAP, Oracle,
and PeopleSoft; in the mid-1990s, firms automated
their front office, in the way they handle their
relationships with customers; and now, this new
wave of automation is taking place in the way
people engage in commerce with each other, as
well as in the productivity of people.

SMGnet

Carlson Marketing Group/VuePoint

T

S

raining doesn’t work very well unless you get participants to
use the information in their everyday work,” says Ira Kasdan,
vice president of employee marketing at Carlson Marketing Group.
“The combination of e-learning, and recognition and reinforcement,
is the key to measurably improving employee performance and
bottom-line results.”
Carlson Marketing Group, a world leader in relationship marketing,
and VuePoint Corp., the leading technology company for enterprise
knowledge sharing, have formed an alliance to offer the industry’s only
integrated, enterprisewide e-learning system energized by employee
recognition solutions.
“The VuePoint/Carlson Marketing alliance centralizes different learning
tools into a single platform,” says Ara Ohanian, CEO of VuePoint. “This
enables knowledge-driven companies to rapidly capture, share, and
manage knowledge, as well as drive employee performance.”
e-mail:
1.888.521.2200

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MGnet focuses on improving business performance through
enhancing human capital. Founded in 1997, the company
helps businesses build their human capital by creating solutions
that link business tools to performance and development. SMGnet
combines e-learning, assessment, performance management tools,
coaching and mentoring, learning communities and interactive
simulations into an integrated online system for continuous

performance improvement.
SMGnet views the Internet as an integral part of how people are
going to learn today and in the future. The company harnesses the
power of the Internet to provide professionals with comprehensive
e-learning solutions in the areas of finance, project management,
marketing, strategy, sales, leadership, and e-business.
“We concentrate on providing e-learning the right way,” says
Robert Brodo, managing director.
www.smgnet.net
1.888.503.8122

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Uses That Go
Far Beyond Training

was a useful valuation measure,
because it represents physical capital
that companies leveraged into earnings power. In 1980, the price-to-book
of the largest companies in the U.S.
was 1.2x. Today, the price-to-book
is 12.3x or 10 times greater. “Given
the intangible nature of human capital, it simply cannot be ‘line-itemized’
on a balance sheet, as with tangible
assets,” they write. “We believe rising
price-to-book ratios reflect, in large
part, the fact that the productive
assets driving growth are increasingly
‘off balance sheet’ assets.”
Improved training will, therefore,
have a positive ripple effect throughout a company, enhancing its productivity and ultimately its overall value. Furthermore, the widening
gamut of online courses can be used to hone the
skills of employees on any rung of the corporate
ladder. So, while lower-level employees may be
studying things like how to use PowerPoint
presentations in
their e-learning
Improved
seminar, the highertraining will
level managers will
have a positive
be able to simulate
ripple effect
critical business situations and role-play
throughout a
their decision-making

company,
online – whether it be
enhancing its
deciding on a major
productivity
acquisition, spinning
and ultimately
off a division, or going
its overall
public – without any
adverse consequences.
value.
They’ll be able to

“The well-trained
employee has
transcended
brand, technology, and even
corporate equipment as the
most valuable
corporate asset.
Training is the
key to maintaining that.”

Ultimately, this new approach to
learning will have ramifications that
extend far beyond the traditional
spheres of training and development
at corporations. It will become a tool
for e-commerce, as well as a strategic

weapon, enabling companies to
hone their competitive edge and
engage in knowledge management.
They will be able to use technology
to leverage the intellectual capital of
the organization, which is the most
important asset in today’s economy.
As Mittra puts it, “The well-trained
employee has transcended brand, technology,
and even corporate equipment as the most valuable corporate asset. Training is the key to maintaining that.”
Merrill Lynch, in an April 1999 report entitled
“The Book of Knowledge,” echoed the view that
knowledge workers bolster a company’s bottom
line – a fact that’s even reflected in a company’s
share price. The report was written by a team led
by Michael Moe, director of global growth
research at Merrill Lynch.
The team compares how companies’ share
prices are valued in the old economy versus the
new one. The authors compared valuations of the
10 largest companies in the old economy, with
that of the 10 largest companies in the new.
“Those companies that have created growth by
leveraging their ’off balance sheet’ human capital
assets have, in turn, seen their share prices rewarded with higher valuations,” write the authors. They
conclude that in the “old” economy, price-to-book

SmartForce

I

n size and scope, Unisys is undergoing one of
the most dramatic transformations in IT training
history. Over a two-year period, the 34,000employee company is switching from an informal,
undocumented training program to a corporate
university that will serve as a benchmark to other
major firms. It turned to SmartForce (NASDAQ:
SMTF), a premier e-learning company with more
than 2,500 major corporate customers, to help
make the new university a reality.
Unisys Corporation provides customers in
100 countries with global information services,
as well as enterprisewide servers and associated

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middleware, software, and storage.
“Unisys had both a centralized and a decentralized training operation,” says George Dunne, vice
president of Unisys University. “The centralized
organization was not always responsive to the
needs of the business. In turn, business units did
not always leverage corporate resources or drive
consistent cultural messages. Unisys University
represents an integrated training approach and
an investment in employee development.” The
university can now use training to give the
company a key strategic advantage.
Working with Unisys University personnel,

SmartForce will provide management of the
certification school for the university’s Technology School, which will be operational by
mid-2000. This includes marketing; deployment;
integration with existing systems; mentoring;
centralized reporting and tracking; management
of hosted courseware; and program evaluation
and modification.
“Enlisting SmartForce to manage segments of
the Technology School is helping us to create a
university that is truly world-class,” says Dunne.
www.smartforce.com
1.888.395.0014

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see how the results of these decisions play out in
a simulated setting – a “virtual experience” – and,
in so doing, groom
themselves for the
CEO slot.
Online learning can
also be a powerful tool
in e-commerce. It can
be used as a way of
educating your customers, and hence
inducing them to buy
your product. By way
of example, Clark
Aldrich at the Gartner
Group cites the Web
site of Charles Schwab
& Co., Inc., one of
the nation’s leading
brokerage firms. People
can log on to the Web
site and take free,
online investing
courses. This, in turn,
may spur them to
become customers
of Schwab. Or, notes
Aldrich, a company with a complex product to sell
– say, a sophisticated type of camera – could offer
free, online courses at its Web site teaching people
the proper way to take pictures with the camera.

“And what if you could learn how to use the
camera before you bought it?” asks Aldrich. Such
a feature could spur sales, potentially from new and
unexpected quarters.
Palm Pilot is already doing this with its small,
handheld information devices. If you go to Palm
Pilot’s Web site, www.palmpilot.com, you can

take a simple tutorial on how to use the Palm
Pilot, including information about inputting special
characters and stylized
script.
“Not just training
your customers, but
training your prospective customers is awfully important,” says
Aldrich. And, with the
power of the Internet,
you can reach potential customers all over
the world. Used in this
way, online learning
is no longer an
expense at a firm;
rather, it becomes
a profit center.
Training – seen in
this broad light – then
becomes cost-effective
in its own right. “It’s
worth it to develop
an organizational

capability in e-learning,” says Aldrich. “It
increases the organizational capacity to learn, and
it will become a business imperative.”

Determining Whether
Web-based Training
Is Right for You
Before companies decide to implement an
online learning program at their firms, they
need to ask themselves a series of questions,
according to Brandon Hall, a leading expert in

Saba/Cisco

C

isco Systems Inc., a worldwide leader in
networking for the Internet, views
e-learning as essential to success in the
global business world. “Leading companies
are increasingly embracing Internet business
solutions in many disciplines, including learning”
says Tom Kelly, vice president of worldwide
training at Cisco.
Cisco has made e-learning a top priority.
For example, Cisco has developed a complete
Web-based learning solution for its internal
and reseller sales staff to deal with the rapid
pace of change in Internet technologies. As

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part of this initiative, Cisco has developed
“learning maps” for individuals in different
job categories. These maps help the employees
and resellers track their progress and provide
direct access to on-demand learning modules
as well as registration for traditional instructorled courses.
Cisco has chosen several partners to build
its online learning system. One of them is
Saba (www.saba.com), which provides global
Internet-based learning networks that consist
of learning management software, business-tobusiness learning exchanges, and related

services. “Saba provides the training management capability within the Cisco e-learning
architecture,” says Kelly. “We’re working
closely with Saba to tailor their system to our
specific needs.”
Other Cisco e-learning partners include
MentorLabs, LLC, and Avulet, Inc. for remote
lab offerings; PlaceWare for Web conferencing;
Outstart for object-based curriculum authoring;
and Ernst & Young LLP, Digital Think, Inc., and
others for integration services and hosting.
www.saba.com
1.877.Saba101 (722.2101)

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the technology-based training industry. Namely:
• Do you have management support for this
initiative?
• Do you have enough potential users to justify
the cost of purchase or development?
• Do you have a target audience who can use
or learn to use the computer?
• Will they accept a Web-based program?
• Will they learn from this particular program?
• Will the program
provide a method
of instruction that is
easier, faster, cheaper, safer, or more
engaging than the
alternative?

Hall points to several
advantages, as well as
disadvantages, of Webbased training.
First, the advantages:
Web-based training
offers flexibility, accessibility, and convenience.
Users can get just as
much training as they
need, just when they
want it, wherever they
happen to be located.
Such training has a
“cross platform” feature, meaning that it can
be accessed by Web-browsing software on any
platform – Windows, Mac, Unix, etc. Plus, Webbrowser software and Internet connections are
widely available, and allow inexpensive worldwide
distribution. No separate delivery system is
needed, keeping delivery costs to a minimum.
It’s also easy to update Web-based training.

Changes can be made on the server, which stores
the program, and then everyone around the world
who uses the system can instantly have access
to these updates. And, as discussed before, online
training – versus traditional classroom instruction –
accords major savings to companies, in the form
of travel cost and time savings for their employees,
who can simply learn at their desktops, as opposed
to being sent off to a learning center or conference
to take a course.

However, Hall warns
that there are also
disadvantages to online
learning. First is the
bandwidth issue. Limited
bandwidth means “slower performance for
sound, video, and intensive graphics, causing
long waits for download
that can affect the
ease of the learning
process,” he cautions.
The problem is greater
over the public Internet,
where more traffic jams
occur, and is less of a
consideration on a corporate intranet.
On the plus side, Hall
believes there will be technological advances in the
near future to solve this problem. Emerging technologies will provide greater bandwidth – “fatter
pipes” to send the data, as well as greater compression of the data; that is, more data will be
able to be squeezed into smaller packets, which
take up less bandwidth. Meanwhile, hybrid CDs –
also called Internet CDs – are an alternative in

DigitalThink, Inc.

T

he Internet and e-commerce are dramatically changing the way companies do business. So KPMG – a leader in e-commerce
business solutions – took steps to ensure that all

its consultants were ahead of the curve on the
latest Web and e-commerce business strategies.
KPMG realized that increasing the speed at
which its consultants could gain new information
about the latest e-commerce strategies would pay
big dividends. Furthermore, the firm understood
that the Internet was an ideal mechanism for
delivering information to consultants all over
the globe.

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Thus, KPMG chose DigitalThink to develop a
customized, e-learning solution that could deliver
information to thousands of consultants in a
matter of weeks. To remain a leading consulting
firm in the Internet age, KPMG is continually
investing in the knowledge, skills, and abilities
of its employees. And, according to the firm,
DigitalThink delivered an immediately deployable e-learning solution tailored to help them
realize their goals.
Today, KPMG consultants access the learning
portal using only a Web browser on any computer connected to the Internet, anywhere in

the world. The portal contains an initial test to
determine their current knowledge, provides
access to white papers and articles, facilitates
the shipping of books and CD-ROMs, and

offers an online e-commerce course that
DigitalThink customized for KPMG. KPMG
continues to use the learning portal to support
its 22,000 consultants worldwide, and has
efforts under way to develop more custom
courses with DigitalThink.
www.digitalthink.com
415.625.4000

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which the program with audio and video are
delivered on a CD-ROM, with updates delivered
automatically over the Web.
Hall draws an analogy to the automotive industry. “Think of Detroit in the early- to mid-1900s,”
he says, “when

carmakers were
trying to figure
out basic technologies such as
automatic transmissions and 10cylinder engines.
Everyone knew
the problems
would get solved
eventually, and
just about everyone was working
on it. Once
someone hits on
a good idea,
everyone jumps
on board.”
A more philosophical issue
that accompanies online learning is the question: “Are computers
replacing human contact?” Opinion on this is
mixed. There are live, online classes available that
offer plenty of interaction with people, including,
in some cases, people who log in from all over the
world, so it could be argued that online learning
can actually increase certain types of human
interaction. It could enable you to meet people that
you never would have met in a traditional classroom
setting. However, Hall does say that decreasing
instructor-led training does make some trainees

“uneasy.” He advises: “If this is a concern, consider
a gradual introduction of the technology.”
And there are other arguments against online

learning. Opponents say it’s too static, but that’s
really a criticism more appropriate to the old-style
“distance learning” of a few
years back. As has
been discussed
in this article,
the medium has
improved and
continues to
improve, with
the introduction
of entertaining,
interactive multimedia content,
utilizing music,
animation, and
Hollywood-style
role-playing that
simulates various
situations in
business. This
is an important
development,
because dull content – no matter how it is delivered – is not an effective way to teach people.
Yet another caveat about online learning is that
it takes more time and money to develop than
many people expected, points out Hall. “You can
make it easier by starting with a simple program
and building on success,” he says. “Also, remember
that the greater portion of costs associated with
Web-based training are start-up costs.” After that

initial hump has been passed, the programs can
then be reused and modified with great ease, and

Docent, Inc.

A

1998 Grant Thornton survey for the
National Association of Manufacturers
(NAM) revealed that 83 percent of the
NAM membership, representing 14,000 member
companies employing 18 million workers, cited
lack of worker skills as a hurdle to future
growth. The firms were eager to find a way
to train employees without taking them away
from their regular jobs.
In response, the NAM launched NAM Virtual
University (NAM VU). NAM’s goal was to
introduce the benefits of e-learning while
offering a valuable service to member

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companies. Says NAM president Jerry
Jasinowski, “With skilled workers becoming
an increasingly precious commodity, affordable
and accessible distance learning applications
will be a key to continued productivity growth

and competitiveness.”
Working in partnership with NAM and
General Physics Corporation, Docent, Inc., of
Mountain View, California, a global leader in
e-learning solutions, delivered an e-learning
solution for NAM VU that provides the ease-ofuse, e-commerce capabilities, account management, tracking, and assessment functions

needed by NAM’s membership.
The Docent-powered NAM VU, with 350
courses from a variety of course providers,
launched on-budget and on-time.
Implementation by General Physics – including
a fully customized site – took less than 30
days. By the end of 2000, NAM VU expects to
offer more than 1,000 online courses and use
the Docent enterprise knowledge exchange
platform to manage classroom instruction,
as well.
www.docent.com
1.888.DOCENT5 (362.3685)

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will end up costing dramatically less than traditional
classroom instruction.
A final consideration: Not all courses are delivered
well by computer. Some topics simply require a more
personal touch. Teaching team-building and dealing
with such emotional issues as downsizing might serve
as two examples. An online course in these areas might
be used to complement a live instructor-led class, but
perhaps not replace it altogether.
Hall serves as a judge in the semiannual Multimedia
and Internet Training Awards program, sponsored by
an industry publication called the “Multimedia and
Internet Training Newsletter.” The judges rate online
learning programs according to 10 criteria, which
Hall discusses on his Web site: www.brandon-hall.com.
The criteria are:
1. Content. Does the program include the right
amount and quality of information?
2. Instructional design. Is the course designed in
such a way that users will find it easy to learn?
3. Interactivity. Is the user engaged by having the
opportunity of contributing input?
4. Navigation. Can users determine their own way

through the program? Is there an exit option? Is
there a course map that’s accessible? Is there an
appropriate use of icons and/or clear labels so that
users don’t have to read excessive documentation
to determine program options?
5. Motivational components. Does the program
engage the user through novelty, humor, game
elements, testing, adventure, unusual content,
surprise elements, etc.?
6. Use of media. Does the program appropriately
and effectively employ graphics, animation, music,
sound, video, etc.? Is the gratuitous use of these
media avoided?
7. Evaluation. Is there some type of evaluation,
such as:
• Completion of a simulation?
• Mastery of each section’s content before
proceeding to the next?
• Section quizzes?
• Final exam?
8. Aesthetics. Is the program attractive and appealing to the eye and ear? Does the structure of the
screen add to the program?
9. Record keeping. Are student performance data
recorded, such as time it took to complete the
program, question analyses, and final scores?
Is the data forwarded to the course manager
automatically?
10. Overall tone. Is the program designed for its
target audience? Does it avoid being condescending, trite, pedantic, etc.?

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Building the Best
E-learning Team
Companies that put in place an
e-learning initiative need skilled professionals to help them successfully
run the program. Depending on the
size of the organization and the scope
of the e-learning initiative, the number
of people needed could range from
several up to project teams of more
than 40. These groups of professionals

can be developed in-house at companies, or else they can outsource some
of these responsibilities, and rely on
their online learning vendors to carry
out these functions for them.
To implement Web-based training,
Brandon Hall suggests that, at a minimum,
companies need a project manager capable of
dealing with diverse work styles and personalities;
an instructional designer familiar with computerdelivered instruction; a programmer or author
to use the authoring tool; a graphic artist; a subject
matter expert; a Web master for maintaining the
program on the server; and someone who can
obtain funding for Web training from management.
Thanks to innovations in the industry, it’s getting
easier to administer large, complex e-learning
systems. During the last two years, which have
seen a dramatic increase in online training systems,
software developers have begun to offer betterintegrated packages that handle increasingly broad
functions. These programs borrow some of their
functionality from software designed for academia,
says Hall, “but they are clearly tailored and aimed
at commercial enterprises (primarily large or midrange companies).” He refers to them as “learning

management systems” (LMS’s), and they usually
have features that enable people to transfer and
assemble various elements of course work, present
the work to students, and test and record student
progress. The LMS has features to make the system
easy to administer, and some can be integrated with
other types of computer systems at a company.

Associated with this is a trend for organizations
to aggregate all their online learning course work
and related material in a single “learning portal”–
a site that allows “one-stop” shopping for employees, customers, and others who want to access the
information. Once the data is centralized at one
site, it’s also easier to monitor and assess.
“Many large companies have traditionally had
fragmented training departments. But it’s to the
company’s advantage to create the biggest learning
portal, and centralize corporate learning under
one umbrella,” says Jeanne Meister, president of
Corporate University Xchange (CUX), a New York

click2learn.com, Inc.

N

YUonline brings courses from the New York
City campus of a leading university to the
global business community, and to students
around the world.
NYUonline’s mission is to leverage the brand
and content from New York University – one of
the country’s best-regarded institutions of higher
education – and make that content accessible from
any location in the world through the Internet.
NYUonline offers career-focused courses, certificate
programs, and knowledge management consulting
to companies and individuals. By making the
courses available over the Internet, the traditional

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barriers to training – such as travel, scheduling,
and cost – are alleviated.
Working with the click2learn.com Professional
Services Group, NYUonline is building Web courses
using click2learn.com’s state-of-the-art Rapid
e-Learning Development System (REDS). By using
REDS, click2learn.com (NASDAQ: CLKS) rapidly
built a curriculum of Web-based content that consisted of over 50 hours of online material. The
courseware, which will be delivered entirely
through a standard Web browser, will be managed
by click2learn.com’s Ingenium, the industry’s
leading learning management system. NYUonline’s

courseware combines course content available
anytime and anywhere with some live interaction
with subject experts. NYUonline students can
thereby take classes whenever and wherever it
is most convenient.
“We chose click2learn.com because they
offered a fully integrated solution combining the
best-in-breed products and services with the capability to scale production for large volume, high
quality, and cost-effectiveness,” says Gordon
Macomber, president and CEO of NYUonline.
www.click2learn.com
1.800.448.6543

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City-based corporate education research and
consulting firm that assists organizations in optimizing their training resources. Various types of learning
portals have sprung up to meet different corporate
needs (see page S42). The best systems, in Meister’s
view, will be those that combine the right technology with customer support and branding for the
end user.

between a two-hour online session and a two-hour
classroom session covering the same topic, they
would prefer the online session. While most
e-learners participated in their course from their
desk at work, nearly two-thirds indicated that they
would have preferred to learn from home. And

e-learning – contrary to some people’s beliefs –
was not a solitary pursuit. E-learners interacted with
each other both through face-to-face meetings
and on the telephone, according
What Do Online
Learners Think about
to CUX. Plus, almost half of the
“The next big killer
e-learners said they invited a friend
Their Experience?
application for the
over to take an online course
with them.
Because online training is a relaInternet is going to
Meanwhile, Internet-based traintively new field, there’s not a lot of
be education.
ing got a big thumbs-up from
data available about what online
Education over the
participants in a survey conducted
learners actually think of the experiInternet is going to
by IDC last year. Almost all those
ence. So CUX has set out to find
polled said they would recommend
some answers. The organization
be so big, it is going
Internet-based training, and 60 percreated a database of 10,000
to make e-mail
cent said they would recommend
e-learners, culled from FORTUNE

usage look like
it highly. Those surveyed included
500® companies, who are currently
a rounding error.”
training managers, information
taking or have recently completed
system managers, and business
online courses from a variety of
unit managers.
sources. CUX is in the process of
According to IDC analyst Ellen Julian, three
surveying these individuals and plans to publish the
factors contribute to the success of Internet-based
results of the survey, entitled “Learning in the Dottraining programs: “flexibility, convenience, and
Com World: E-Learners Speak Out,” later this year.
cost-effectiveness.” The survey also found that
The results will shed light on some areas of keen
lack of desktop access keeps some companies from
interest to corporations. Among them: how to
trying Internet-based training.
avoid “churn,” or the problem of paying for
courses that employees won’t use. “We’re trying
to understand the impediments to people not
A Market Whose Time Has Come
finishing online course work,” says Meister. “It
says something about instructional design.”
“Online learning was a market for some time
CUX already has some preliminary findings from
waiting to happen. It’s only now, that the infrastrucabout 200 respondents. For instance, many of
ture has matured enough, that it can be a reality,”

these respondents said that if they had a choice
says Nathaniel Palmer, an analyst at the Delphi

gForce Systems

I

n the information economy, learning is a critical
business process. According to Arie De Geus,
former Royal Dutch Shell VP and a leading business thinker, “The ability to learn faster than your
competitors may be the only sustainable advantage.” In this environment, e-learning is becoming
a core piece of business infrastructure.
gForce Systems, a leading e-learning company, recognizes the vital nature of rapidly distributing training and knowledge and converting
them into corporate know-how. “Companies
that don’t move to e-learning will be run over
by those who do,” says David Pratt, gForce’s

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president and CEO. To that end, gForce offers an
Enterprise Learning Portal Platform to support
learning and knowledge exchange for the
employees, customers, and partners of the
extended enterprise.
The gForce e-learning platform provides an
end-to-end enterprise learning solution including
multimedia content, authoring capabilities,
content management tools, and a personalized

browser interface for learner access and contribution. What is truly novel about gForce’s
approach is that it combines traditional training
with current knowledge culled directly from a

company’s experts. The platform offers a single
source for the training and knowledge necessary
for optimal performance.
“We believe e-learning is about enabling any
company to transform into a true e-business by
scaling its expertise,” says Pratt. “gForce’s
eLearning platform can help distribute vital training, information, and knowledge instantly around
the globe, providing an applied knowledge edge
that can translate into a competitive advantage
in the marketplace.”
www.gforce.com
1.877.430.6541

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Group, a consulting firm that focuses on the strategic use of technology
in business. Since the late 1980s,
he says, there have been a series of
technological advances that have
enabled more and more companies
to successfully utilize this type of
training. In the past, the price
of content and the price of the
delivery vehicle were major barriers
to widespread usage by corporations; but today, those barriers are
breaking down. Online learning
will be feasible both for large
companies as well as smaller ones.
Palmer also has some thoughts
on the rise of new partnerships
between the corporate world and
academia. “The lines are blurring
between traditional neutral delivery
vehicles and those that have a stake
in what’s being delivered,” he says.
Thus, many major universities will
begin striking partnerships with
corporations to create content in
what he refers to as “New Age
co-opetition.” One example: Top
academic institutions could sell
their high-end, branded courses

to corporate universities.
E-learning, in summary, adds a
whole new dimension to education –
an ancient human endeavor.
“Training is older than dirt,” says
Jim Ayube, senior analyst at the
Aberdeen Group, a market research
firm that focuses on IT. “A lot of
people don’t get that excited by it.”
But e-learning has changed all
that, he says. It promises to create
engaging courses, accessible instantaneously anywhere in the world,
at an affordable price.
John Chambers, president and
CEO of Cisco Systems, which
recently launched a major online
learning initiative, put it best. As
he wrote in a New York Times
op-ed piece on November 17,
1999: “The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be
education. Education over the
Internet is going to be so big, it is
going to make e-mail usage look
like a rounding error.”

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Learning Portals: An Important
Trend in Online Learning

a single class is purchased, all the portal’s information
regarding training can be accessed. Or, the portal
supplies free or usage-based access to a virtual classroom with digital collaboration tools. These portals
are vending technology more than content.

Learning portals allow people to gain access to all
of an organization’s online training information and
other resources from one central site. Because of
their ease of use, they have become an increasingly
popular resource; there has been a tremendous
surge of rollouts for learning portal sites. Each portal
has a different definition of learning and training
management. Here are some tips and definitions
for distinguishing the difference between the vast

number of sites to visit, as discussed by industry
expert Elliott Masie:

Internal portal. Why go to the Internet if you
can have a portal built to your specifications? A
customized portal is located on the internal server,
and offers content consolidation and/or embedded
technology. This strategy enables a learning site to
be rapidly built. It also offers secure access because
it does not require a connection to the Internet.

Portal. Any site that offers a learner or an organization a consolidated access to learning and training
resources. A portal can range from a simple page
filled with links to a sophisticated virtual classroom
and learning center. If the site defines itself as a single
source for learning, it is a portal.
Content consolidation portal. A good number
of portals are aiming at the content consolidation
and aggregation business. These portals offer the
learner or buyer a simple way to shop for all of their
training needs on a single page. This means a wide
selection of offerings from a multitude of vendors.
The portal benefits financially by claiming a percentage of the sales generated from the vendor. Some
are “treating” the content so that it can be used
interchangeably, mixing and matching training
modules from several vendors.

Community and collaboration portals. These
portals focus on building a digital community of
users. These portals are recognized by the presence

of standard community technologies like chat rooms,
new information on learning, discussions and links
to books to buy. We know that learning is a social
experience, so it is anticipated that community
portals will proliferate in the coming months.
Affiliation portals. These portals, similar to
community and collaboration portals, are primarily
for nonprofit organizations. They evaluate products
and offer their version of a “Good Housekeeping seal
of approval,” allow content screening and, in some
cases, discounts on purchases.
The portal race has just begun. Portals are hitting the
marketplace as a large response to the e-commerce
frenzy. Many venture capitalists are behind the idea
of a single portal for global learning. In time, we will
learn if customers too share enthusiasm for portals. It
is believed that the growing experimentation in the
portal arena is healthy for the industry, creating new
offers of capability and pricing.

Embedded technology portal. These groups are
using the portal as a way of embedding and selling
their technology as a component of learning or on an
LSP (learning service provider) basis. For example, after

University Access

U

niversity Access (UA) is an e-learning

company that focuses solely on business
education and training for the corporate
and academic markets. Its mission is to be
the global leader in the provision of complete
e-learning solutions that encompass content,
technology, service, and community.
University Access helps develop business
leaders by delivering some of the finest
online business education and training
in the world.
University Access, the fastest-growing
online corporate education company in

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America, is building management education
programs designed to serve the needs of
its corporate clients at every level.
Earlier this year, University Access
announced the first global executive MBA
program custom-designed for corporate teams,
the Corporate MBA. University Access is
launching the CMBA in partnership with the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s
Kenan-Flagler Business School. The Corporate
MBA is a hybrid of executive MBA and custom
executive programs. Its content and delivery
are designed to meet the needs of global

enterprises to prepare fast-track executives
for advanced leadership while keeping
them on the job. The innovative curriculum
combines the best of on-site and distance
learning in a 20-month program that begins
in October 2000.
UA’s other partnerships include the London
Business School, University of California at
Los Angeles, and the University of Southern
California.
www.universityaccess.com
1.888.960.1700

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Online Learning
Industry Overview
By John R. Bucher. Originally published in industry leader Brandon Hall’s
“Multimedia and Internet Training Newsletter,” available at www.john.bucher.com

Industry Trends

To many investors, the term “online learning”
connotes a wide range of business activities
and technologies, including distance education,
Web-based training, courseware delivery, and
online testing. International Data Corporation
recently forecast that the online learning industry will account for $10 billion in annual revenues by 2002, up from an estimated $600 million last year. In light of the high growth
prospects for this industry, myriad companies
are positioning themselves to target these
business opportunities.
When the online learning industry became
our focus of effort nearly three years ago, our
group analyzed this industry’s market segments
and company categories. Over the last year,
we have used the online learning industry
matrix...to plot the relative positions of
individual companies within this emergent
industry.
Individual companies are categorized within
the matrix based on their primary target market
and their principal business activity. Since there
is not always a clear-cut distinction among
content, service and tool/technology providers,
many online learning companies straddle several blocks of the matrix. As the online learning

industry continues to evolve and mature, the
matrix requires periodic updating.

A number of trends cut across all three major
market segments of the online learning industry:
Active learning. Education and training are
being transformed from passive to interactive
processes where learners participate in and even
self-direct their personal and professional development. The most effective learning is active
learning by doing. Learning is less about classrooms, textbooks, and memorizing facts than
about acquiring relevant knowledge and critical
thinking and creative problem-solving skills.
Learning is, therefore, becoming more learnercentric than teacher-centric.
Continuous learning. Learning is being transformed from a front-loaded, finite life event to a
lifelong, continuous activity. The industry is less
about learning at specific ages and more about
learning at any age on a continuous basis. In
many fields, especially science and technology,
continuous learning has become a requirement
in order to survive the current rate of technological innovation.
Individualized learning. The industry is
undergoing what James Duderstadt, president
emeritus and professor of science and engineer-

KnowledgeNet

H

ewlett-Packard and KnowledgeNet have
joined together to offer HP’s technical

professionals an alternative training
solution. “The response so far at our firm is
very positive,” reports Dexter Daniel, Microsoft
training program manager for HP in the
Americas. Employees retain information learned
in the virtual classes as well or better than
material taught in a traditional classroom
setting.
Plus, the cost savings are considerable. Daniel
estimates that online learning is about half as
expensive as traditional classroom instruction.

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When choosing an online learning provider, he
urges companies to look for a delivery method
that allows demonstrations and interactions
between students and instructors. “If you don’t
have interactivity, you might as well just read
a book,” he says.
Tom Graunke, CEO of KnowledgeNet, emphasizes the difference between first generation
and next generation e-learning. “First generation e-learning just puts up text on a Web site,”
he says, “whereas next generation e-learning
has an engaging, multimedia format. It
leverages ‘smart’ technology by dynamically

adjusting the content to the user’s knowledge
on the fly.”

KnowledgeNet (www.knowledgenet.com),
which was recently selected by Cisco to be a
partner in a global e-learning initiative, is
enjoying tremendous growth. Just one year ago
it had 20 employees; today it has 300. “We are
helping customers cut training expenses in half,
and train faster with higher retention,” says
Graunke. “We’re absolutely at the beginning
of a revolution in learning.”
www.knowledgenet.com
1.888.577.5779

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ing at the University of Michigan, calls a demand
shift from “just-in-case” learning to “just-in-time”

and “just-for-you” learning. Ubiquitous Internet
access, a vast supply of content and powerful
asynchronous communication tools make possible more timely and tailored individual learning.

Enterprise segment. Content providers
include corporations, schools, teachers, government agencies, standards organizations, and
individual subject matter experts. In the enterprise market segment, corporate content is not
necessarily confined only to internal employee
consumption. In the increasingly competitive
climate that e-commerce has ushered in,
corporations recognize that learning content
can be used to competitively differentiate
products and services with customers, partners,
and suppliers. Corporate universities and enterprise information portals (EIP) have emerged
to leverage corporate learning content and
make information available to even the most
remote employees, customers, or partners.

Cost-effective. Online technologies have made
learning more affordable. Learners can take
online classes from many of the best universities
without incurring the cost in time and money
of traveling to, and boarding at, the campus.
Nevertheless, brand name and reputation, if not
quality, still affect online learning pricing –
Duke’s online MBA program, for example, is
more expensive than that of the University of
Phoenix. Still, learners have numerous and rapidly increasing numbers of cost-effective online
options for obtaining the courses they need.

Academic segment. In the academic market
segment, colleges, schools, and universities as
a group have historically had near monopoly
power in supplying learning content; however,
these institutions face increasing competition
from for-profit schools, software developers and
publishers, independent courseware developers,
and even their own faculty. Content ownership
in the academic market is being increasingly
challenged by entrepreneurial teachers who
provide their lessons and courses directly to
commercial online learning service providers
(LSPs). Encountering unprecedented competitive pressures, many universities are leveraging
their learning content and brand names by
contracting with LSPs for online course delivery.
For example, in order to add a wholesale
component to its role as a content provider,
Columbia University’s business school will

The Online Learning
Industry Matrix
The following sections provide a few select
points about each of the three major matrix
categories of online learning companies that
make up this industry.
Content providers. “As these networks create
the potential for global university outreach
across significant elements of higher education’s
mission, course content and intellectual property
holdings will become scarce economic goods

and will command an economic premium.”
– Richard N. Katz, EDUCAUSE
Source: Dancing with the Devil, 1999

IBT Technologies, Inc.

I

ron Horse Multimedia, based in Montreal,
creates courses that teach companies how
to leverage their competitive information
and turn it into intelligence they can act
upon. Iron Horse serves clients in a total of
25 countries, half of whom are FORTUNE
1000 companies.
Iron Horse needed a superior technology
that could put their material online. After
evaluating 12 different firms, they turned
to IBT Technologies, based in Austin, Texas.
“We went in-depth and crunched the
numbers, based on cost, technology and

www.fortunesections.com

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intangibles,” says Spike Stockdale, vice president
of products and services at Iron Horse. “The
application service provider [ASP] model that
IBT offered made a lot more sense.”

The ASP model enables firms to outsource
the technological infrastructure – as well as
costs of maintaining and administering it – to
the vendor. It was an excellent solution for
a small firm like Iron Horse, which has just
25 employees. “IBT took their business model
and made sure it fit with ours,” says Stockdale.
Plus, it was economical; as Iron Horse scaled
up its usage of the system, IBT’s cost of

servicing it dropped.
Compared with the other vendors, IBT had
a “simple, easy-to-use, end-to-end solution,”
adds Stockdale. It featured a virtual campus,
an authoring platform, and a course delivery
and management platform. In April, Iron
Horse will launch a virtual learning portal
in competitive intelligence, and the IBT engine
will power the site.

www.ibt-technologies.com
1.877.IBT-TECH (428.8324)

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provide educational materials to UNEXT.com,
which plans to offer online postgraduate-level
programs to the corporate market.

enabled courseware as well as engaging
educational online games.
Service Providers. “If students could actually
obtain the classroom experience provided by
some of the most renowned teachers in the
world, why would they want to take classes
from the local professor (or, in many cases,
the local teaching assistant)?”
– James J. Duderstadt, University of Michigan
Source: Dancing with the Devil, 1999

Individual professional/consumer
segment. Compared with the immense
academic and enterprise markets, the individual
professional/consumer market has received
less attention. This rapidly growing market
consists of two major sub-segments. The first

sub-segment is that of continuing education
for professionals, especially the medical, legal,
financial, and real estate sectors. The second
major sub-segment of this market is that of
lifelong learning for individual consumers.
The sources of content for this market include
a broad spectrum, ranging from academic
content for home schooling to subject matter
experts in numerous hobby and special
interest categories, including health/fitness,
alternative medicine, gardening, photography,
and astronomy.

Enterprise segment. Online learning service
providers perform the online mechanics of
serving the learner. In the enterprise market
segment, some 1,600 corporations emphasize
employee training and development through
their physical or even virtual universities. At the
opposite end of the spectrum, many companies
offer just-in-time training via Web-based portals, which are particularly effective for rapidly
changing content such as new product information for sales forces. Other companies use a
mix of in-house and outsourced online training
for delivery of formal courses via the Web. In
some cases, enterprises can cost effectively
outsource all of their online training to turnkey
training providers who will create, host, and
maintain entire libraries of online content.
One of the advantages of outsourcing to
turnkey training providers is that they can

develop and host online training without burdening the client company’s IT department.

Emerging content. Across all three market
segments, online interactive simulations hold
potential as more immersive, participatory
forms of learning content. Simulations give
learners a more active, participatory role in
their education/training and permit learning
by doing, not by just listening or reading.
With the ever-increasing capabilities of
computing technology and broader-bandwidth
data communications, online simulations are
becoming more realistic and cost-effective.
In addition to simulations, software developers
and publishers offer multimedia-rich, online-

Academic segment. The academic market
segment is served by for-profit schools, LSPs,

Learning.net

E

xperts argue about the old economy
versus the new economy,” says David
Mangone, CEO of The Learning Network,
Inc. “Whatever the case, the value of every
economy is based on knowledge, and the
currency is learning.” Learning.net is a new
breed of application service provider (ASP),

combining custom content, proprietary technology, and extensive service in an à la carte,
yet fully integrated offering.
The company’s creative business model
can best be illustrated in its most recent series
of strategic partnerships. CCH Incorporated,

www.fortunesections.com

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a leading provider of tax and business law
information and software, was seeking a
partner to turn content into online courseware.
At the same time, Learning.net had been
approached by a Big Five accounting firm whose
consultants required the most up-to-date tax
information and 40 hours of continuing education credit every year. Learning.net was able
to combine the CCH content with the accounting
firm’s in-house technical training. The result is
a private, customized knowledge community,
administered and maintained by Learning.net.
The accounting firm gains password-protected

access to a robust set of authoring tools
and course-tracking data, and the capability
to rapidly implement customized features programmed and maintained by Learning.net.
“Our partnership with Learning.net is the
best way for us to leverage a core competency
in developing authoritative content with their
expertise as an online developer and service

provider,” says Joe Gornick, executive editor
at CCH.
www.learning.net
818.845.2800 ext. 102

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