Are you old enough to remember the VHS vs. Betamax battle? Or, more recently, the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD battle? In both instances people waited on the sidelines, watching to see which technology would emerge victorious before investing. Many companies have looked at the mobile space with that same “wait and see” approach. No company wanted to invest in a particular mobile delivery method until it was certain which device was going to win.
In 2005 and 2006 years ago every company outfitted their executives with Blackberries, but their market share fell from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011 . The market has changed considerably in the last seven or so years, and instead of having just one winner, the market has shifted to a number of different available devices that mainly run on one of two operating systems: Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android Architecture. Companies no longer need to design for a specific device, but instead can build learning once and deploy to a number of different devices through a Learning Management system that allows content to render correctly for the type of device accessing the information.
Now that the device wars are essentially in the past, what does this proliferation of mobile devices mean for corporate learning? How does mobile change the learning landscape? Just because your workforce has mobile devices isn’t enough of a business imperative to create mobile learning. When considering your mobile strategy, think about the business goals you’re trying to achieve, and be sure that mobile matches your current technology capabilities.
Mobile learning can help organizations:
- Save money
- Make information more accessible
- Encourage users to access learning content during non-business hours or business down time
- Allow for different delivery options such as videos, simulations, and learning games
Mobile devices can allow people to access the right information at the right time. Often, people don’t want to go seek out information, and mobile allows for learning to be delivered in a just-in-time format based on contextual information that allows for personalization.
Is your organization going mobile? Or are you already delivering mobile learning but want to do it better? If you want to learn more about going mobile please register for our upcoming webinar, Rise of the Machines: Mobile Learning Comes to Life, where Dave Wentworth, Senior Analyst at Brandon Hall Group and Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing at BizLibrary will talk about the rise of mobile learning and share case studies from companies successfully implementing mLearning.
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1 http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/02/13/120213ta_talk_surowiecki
