This short presentation provides results and general design principles from what we call x-learning...a form of e-learning that relies on eXamples, eXploration, and eXperiences that leverage avatars and simulations into a very natural style of learning by doing.

If you find yourself wishing you could get more out of your e-learning efforts, there are a lot of alternatives to consider. x-Learning, as we've designed it, simply mimics the way we choose to learn, on our own, everyday. It's high impact, but it doesn't have to be high budget.

You can read more about x-learning in other recent posts here. And certainly, if you have any questions, you can always post them on this blog. You can also give us a call or send a quick email. We love to talk about declaring war on ineffective e-learning!

After the short video introduction, please consider this post and leave your comments...

If you’ve been around sales and sales training long enough, you’ve seen and heard pretty much everything. But in the end, growing revenues is the ultimate proof of results.

And really, you’re still just qualifying, recommending, overcoming objections and closing...so what really changes?

Maybe it’s not the what that changes; maybe it’s the how.  In this case, I’m talking about how you prepare, to improve sales results.

With our clients, the change in how has become familiar, but for some it may be relatively new. You see, we’ve thrown out linear, page-by-page e-learning and replaced it with the one-two punch of exploration and experimentation.

Working from this approach, 76% of over 1,000 sales managers recently told us our courses had increased their sales by an average of 12.5%. Based on client revenues of approximately $8 billion, that would be an increase of another cool $1 billion. That’s exciting, but let me be quick to add that this is anecdotal data. Still, as I like to say, even if they’re half right...

Learning, naturally.

The way we naturally learn is by exploring the possibilities, and then experimenting and trying things out. In short: learning by doing. And learning by doing is at the heart of the approach we call PowerSims™.  Through PowerSims, our learners gain valuable practice by applying new knowledge within a simulated selling situation.

Practice...mistakes...feedback. The sims are a safe place to learn and build confidence. And I think they’re particularly appealing because of the avatars we use. The avatars lip-synch to the audio. And the emotion in the voices, combined with their body language, make the experience very real...very social and engaging.

From the same survey mentioned above, sales managers also “agreed or strongly agreed” that our courses helped salespeople to:

• 96%...recommend the right solution or product,

• 93%...overcome customer objections to close the sale

• 95%...avatar, simulation-based courses help salespeople overcome specific objections and close the sale

• 81%...characters and simulations increase the learning in a course

• 85%...actually meeting the customer characters made them more real for me

• 89%...it was helpful to observe the retail sales character’s approach to selling

• 92%...the avatar coach provided useful insights and advice on customers and selling

• 89%...it was useful to actually practice selling to the customers

After the short video introduction, please consider this post and leave your comments...

We aren’t taught to learn. We grow up doing it naturally: through exploration, example, and experimentation. Think about it: ever since that first time...you’ve avoided hot stoves, right? That’s because you’re an awesome, natural born, mean, lean, learning machine!

Now think about your e-learning program. Does it let your learners naturally explore new information? Does it allow them to practice applying that information, until they’re confident they can get the right results in the real world?

Or is your program more e-reading than e-learning? Maybe you’re getting sucked into that vortex of page-by-page, PowerPoint-like courses! If you are, that really does suck...and it's wrong, because your learners aren't getting all they need to perform at top levels.

At w/ we refer to that natural process of eXploration and eXperience as X-learning. When we formalize it, digitize it and put it online, we call it a PowerSim™.

Want me to give you a quick run through on how it works?

• In a PowerSim, we generally start by exposing learners to a category of products or services. We include strategic sound bites about markets and customers, but we don’t overdue it. This category overview module provides greater context and meaning, as learners move on to a non-linear exploration of feature/benefit information.

• In the feature/benefit module, we utilize engaging, full-body avatars to demonstrate good selling techniques. All of the feature/benefit information from all of the products is included, so learners can visualize how they would do the same thing.
  

• Then, in the simulation module, learners apply the information gained from the first two modules, to practice selling. This is how they internalize decision-making skills and new behaviors. The results are an increase in sales and satisfied customers.

Why do PowerSims work?

Each selling scenario in the simulation module is purposefully designed around a critical risk area. These risk areas are key elements of sales and business strategy where your people are likely to falter or fail, without practice in making the right decisions. Focusing on these critical issues means your learners are getting the highest-value training available.

The PowerSims approach is effective because it takes advantage of the way people naturally learn. But you know what I think is even cooler than that? Because PowerSims go the extra mile in making your learners successful, these same learners turn around and go the extra mile in promoting your products and building your brand. Now that’s a return on investment!

What results do we get?

In a recent survey, over 1000 sales managers “agreed or strongly agreed” that our courses helped their salespeople:

• Recommend our customer’s brand over the competition, 93% of the time

• Recommend the right solution or product, 96% of the time, and

• Overcome customer objections to close the sale, 93% of the time

Many times, managers approach e-learning with cost concerns. Fair enough...as long as you take a broad enough view. A wider perspective has to include the results you get from the money you spend. But ROI can be so difficult to measure, most of the time we just give up.

So take another approach. Sometimes a regular hammer does the trick, and it's cheap. On the other hand, a sledge hammer is only incrementally more expensive, but gets a whole lot more results.

As a case in point: in one survey, our sales learners--and their sales managers--both tell us that our courses helped them to sell 8% more product, on average. 

Now, there's no doubt that immersive e-learning costs incrementally more, but the results hit like a sledge hammer!

And you have to ask yourself: What's it worth to hit a home run with your e-learning courses? What if you spend 10 or 15 percent more, but doubled the results? No doubt that even a few points increase in sales could pay for your course...even your whole program!

So, the next time you start thinking about the cost of your e-learning programs, be really budget conscious and figure in the return on your investment, as best you can. The increased results from using avatars and simulations may be just what you need.  And even if you can't measure it directly, let us show you how to get data back from your learners that supports you in doing the best job you can do.

Most of the time, we concentrate on helping learners practice the decisions they need to be good at to succeed. Those decisions may be rooted in some kind of policy or procedure, or in many cases, they have to do with qualifying, recommending and overcoming objections in sales training.

Of course, interacting with an avatar is a really effective way to practice because we're closely simulating the real situation, in an environment where there are no penalties for mistakes.

Besides interacting with learners, we know that avatars can do a very good job of demonstrating and they can be used effectively as a coach, too. But there's one more role that we hadn't been so aware of, and that's avatar as facilitator.

Using our avatars as facilitators came into sharp focus as we were planning for an online resource that would take the place of several days of new employee training. The role of interacting so that learners could practice decision-making was greatly diminished because our learners would be new hires.

One thing about online vs. instructor led training (ILT), you can cover the same material much more quickly. Balanced against that advantage, however, you don't have the facilitator there to tell war stories or make important connections. Enter the w/ avatars!

As we looked at the content, we realized that, much like a facilitator on a leash (always enough, never too much), the avatar could intoduce and direct whenever it was required. That wasn't a big a surprise. But we were delighted when we realized that the avatar could also make cogent observations, pointing out when two plus two was more than four, anytime...heck, everytime it was appropriate. Not just a facilitator, this avatar would be insight-on-tap. Stored company wisdom-on-tap!

So just like any other conversion of ILT to online, everything could be done more quickly and directly...and we're not missing the facilitator at all!

Yet, of the three majorpushes within elearning these days, only one puts this astounding fact to gooduse. The three options I'm talking about are: social elearning, rapidelearning, and immersive learning simulations.

Social elearning tends tobe more about a different way to learn or introduce learning content. It'sabout collaboration and sharing, and it seeks to capture and share front linelessons without all the energy, time and expense of formally developed content.With this in mind, social elearning more or less falls out of the retentiondiscussion.

Rapid elearning is economydriven. It may be sold as some sort of step up, but one-size-fits-all templatesand game show contrivances are hardly advances. They're more like puttinglipstick on a pig, at least where retention is concerned. Let's get real here,remembering where a fact is on a game board so that you can match it withsomething else isn't the kind practice that the research is talking about.

Immersive learningsimulations, on the other hand, take learners into the gray areas of a subject,allowing them to discern subtle differences and experience the consequences oftheir decisions. In short: real, effective practice.

Simulations take longer tofor an instructional designer to create. They take longer to produce, too.There's no question, then, that immersive learning simulations are moreexpensive, on their face. But on the backside, when there's an opportunity for10 times the results, where do you feel better about spending your money? Whichresult would you rather be held accountable for...rapid elearning, or effectiveelearning?

Semantics is an academic's pastime. I'm usually more interested in action than talk. So let's boil it down. As learning professionals, what are we really trying to get at? The most effective learning possible, right? That should make it pretty simple, then.

While some read for entertainment, most learning content isn't entertaining enough to keep you awake. So that leaves out reading as the most effective method for learning. But let's face it: even if it's called e-learning, if I'm not actively engaged, it's just e-reading.

The best learning, all things considered, has always been learning by doing. Put another way, we're talking about practice. And practice makes perfect, so why not give learners a perfect place to practice? If two plus two is four, we're talking about a simulation as a safe place to practice.

Practicing on your own isn't always optimum. On the other hand, not being in front of others, and working at your own pace, can be the perfect combination for learning by doing. So, online simulations, or immersive learning simulations as some like to say, can provide a real advantage.

In our experience at w/, two things make learning simulations more immersive: valued outcomes that can be used right away, and avatars the learner interacts with and learns from.

There's nothing like the "ah-ha" of learning something new and using it to get ahead. That's what I mean by a valued outcome. And avatars...well, they make a simulation human. I mean, I'd rather have a relationship with an avatar than text on a screen. And unequivocally, we humans are wired at the factory, to work and play and learn most naturally from within relationships.

This post summarizes a Stanford University study that was published in 2002. Like a lot of academic papers, it's well, pretty academic reading. But it makes a very strong case for the use of animated characters, or avatars, in online learning. And it has a ton of impressive research behind it. You can (download) this study from us, but below is the short version.

First of all, we are all familiar with the concept of social intelligence. It's well documented that the quality of facial and emotional expressions, along with speaking ability and other personal skills, result in greater or lesser degrees of engagement, trust and satisfaction during a social interaction.

According to the Stanford study, a significant body of research shows that the presentation of social intelligence is just as critical in online interactions as it is in interpersonal interactions. They make the point that people do not discount interactions as unreal, simply because they are on screen. Further, it asserts that interactive media automatically engages brain systems that are meant to evaluate social experiences. Therefore online characters that speak and interact with learners can create a more meaningful experience, increasing trust, satisfaction, memory and learning, and a willingness to return for more learning.

The study goes on to say that online characters can create a positive feeling towards the organization that sponsors the interaction, make people feel special, rather than one of a multitude of learners, and make the web less lonely. The study goes on to fortify these assertions in a list of 10 benefits to using online characters:

1. Characters make explicit the social responses that are inevitable in online interactions, giving us more control over outcomes.
2. Interactive characters are perceived as real social actors; we know they are not real, but we treat them as if they are.
3. Interactivity increases the perceived realism and effectiveness of characters, as it simulates human-to-human conversation.
4. Interactive characters increase trust in information sources, and research shows that when characters guide interactions, people trust the information more than in identical interactions without characters.
5. Characters have personalities that represent brands, create predictability and help to build relationships.
6. Characters can communicate social roles, thus making their function--as a teacher, coach, teammate, salesperson, customer service rep--clear, and improving the message and experience.
7. Characters can effectively express and regulate emotions, responding appropriately to learner interactions and adding impact and meaning to what is being learned.
8. Characters can effectively display important social manners, with polite greetings, effective encouragement, and even simple apologies...all making the interaction more human and more effective.
9. Characters can make interfaces easier to use because they make it more obvious where to find help, and more like getting help from someone down the hall than from a manual or help file.
10. Characters are well liked because they make online interactions more personal. When presented with only a single character for interaction only 15% of users dislike the character. When presented with a choice of multiple characters, more than 90% of people prefer interaction with the character, to no character at all.

The Stanford paper is well documented, referencing 36 different studies, articles and conference proceedings. It is well worth the read, if you have the time, but this summary gets to most of it. Bottom line, if you're wondering about using characters in your online learning programs...you can probably erase any doubts you previously had. Online avatars can crate immersive learning.