Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

 

Years ago the only delivery method for education was a live presentation. In those days whether we were educating staff or exhibitors this type of training often proved to be a logistic nightmare. But then along came social media.

 

I found an interesting article in the American Express Open Forum titled “Why Social Learning Benefits Your Business.” http://www.openforum.com/

 

The jist of the article is that while much training still involves a trainer and a classroom, social media has created a new and interesting alternative. The most common form of this type of training is the webinar. These training sessions provide an opportunity to teach people who are geographically spread across large areas. It gives a company a permanent record of the session and they can often archive it for those who missed the original broadcast. In addition, web tools have become sophisticated enough to allow sharing of ideas through a well-organized electronic training session.

 

Webinars may be the tip of the iceberg as more and more people scramble to conveniently share and learn from each other. Providing meaningful training to staff and exhibitors is an issue many organizers struggle with.

 

UFI’s new Education Centre which will launch in June promised to be an excellent resource for the industry but there are more. What are some of the tools you have seen and how well have they worked.