Before you know it, the spring, Technology Services World (TSW) conference will be here. So, it’s not too early to start thinking about the sessions you’d like to attend. While you do have the liberty to attend any session at the conference, of course I think it would be foolhardy to miss a single session in the Education Services (ES) track. The interest in speaking was so great within the ES membership that I had to go to the conference chair and ask for additional speaking slots. I was able to secure only one more, so a couple of presentations have been deferred to the October TSW conference, in Las Vegas. I love the enthusiasm of the education services community!!
We have a great agenda planned, with topics ranging from optimizing the cloud for ES delivery, to collaborating with other service-lines to bring value-added services to the marketplace. So, if you want to; (1) leverage the cloud to scale education, globally, (2) improve course development productivity while decreasing costs, (3) get ES a seat at the executive table, (4) transition from a regional to global business model or, (5) enable product adoption via collaboration, then you won’t want to miss a single session. My fellow researchers and I were asked for “top picks” within our service track. Well, I think all of the ES sessions are top picks and here’s why…
- There’s a ton of buzz about the cloud and everyone wants to know what they can do NOW to use this promising technology. Education in a Cloud World: Building a Global and Scalable Learning Community is an interactive, workout session, in which a facilitator(s) presents what he/she is doing in reference to the topic and then opens the floor for discussion and questions. The workout format provides a great opportunity to learn from colleagues and ask any specific questions about using the cloud to provide education offerings. Don’t miss the chance to learn how Robert Castaneda, at CustomWare, and others, are leveraging the cloud to extend their reach and scale education globally, using this often discussed, but within Education Services, vastly under-used, technology.
- There are a lot of nuts to crack in the education services world, but one that seems to be the hardest to crack is optimizing the content development process. Many development personnel feel like hamsters running in a wheel, working hard, but getting nowhere. Authoring Topic-Based Training Content outlines Parametric Technology Corporation’s (PTC’s) approach to the challenge of creating net new content on a timely basis, for multiple modalities, in several languages, while also maintaining vast amounts of existing content. So jump off the spinning wheel, catch your breath, and come hear what Spencer Cutting has to say about how single-source authoring, or topic-based training, helped PTC improve its productivity, while decreasing costs.
- If there’s one, common, resounding theme that I hear consistently from the Education Services community it’s – How can ES get a seat at the table? How can ES demonstrate its value to the company? Well, wonder no more. Get a Seat at the Executive Table: Accelerate Customer Success and Optimize Costs answers these questions. Daniel West will present how expanding his education charter to include training for all members of the “value delivery system” (sales, presales, partners and customers) has enabled Informatica to optimize its cost base, by spreading processes, resources and infrastructure across both internal and external audiences. The best news – this transformational change has opened the door for ES to participate in strategic, corporate-level conversations. So, if you want to join your peers at the table, pull up a chair, because you won’t want to miss hearing the valuable information in this session.
- As the marketplace continues to expand, and more and more Education Services organizations establish a global presence, the age old debate of centralized versus decentralized management comes up for discussion. Regions that often times have operated quite autonomously must now adhere to standard processes and procedures, and often feel like those “folks back at headquarters” don’t have a clue about how the regions really operate. At the end of 2010, Tellabs made the decision to transition from a regional to global business model, in which decision making and all processes are identical, globally. There is much to be said about learning from someone else’s experience, so capitalize on this opportunity and come listen to Tomi Urho as he shares lessons learned in The Long and Winding Road: Tellabs’ Journey from a Regional to Global Education Services Business Model.
- There’s a lot of talk about collaboration between service-lines, but not a lot of action. It’s surprising how minimal the partnering actually is between Education, Professional, Field and Support Services. Partnering between these organizations may occur at a product level, in which some combination of services are packaged into a composite offering for the customer, or at an operational level, where infrastructure, tools, systems and information are shared between service-lines, or both. A driving force behind service collaboration is to enable customers to use more of the product, more quickly, in other words, product adoption. Maria Manning-Chapman, Sr. Research Director at TSIA, will share research that illustrates some of the collaborative practices of its member-companies and the results they are achieving in Service Collaboration: Accelerating Time to Product Value. So take action and start collaborating now! Plan on bringing your PS, SS and FS counterparts with you to this informative session.
Make sure to reserve May 7-9 on your calendar and I’ll see you in Santa Clara, at what promises to be another stellar Technology Services World conference.
