I receive somewhere in the region of 400 emails a week trying to get me to buy training. I received one this week that somehow slipped through my junk filter and I was going to delete it but it promised me a

very different learning experience

so I read through it to find out what was so different. What I found was an offer so far removed from what I’d buy that I thought I’d deconstruct it.

Firstly, the email was selling Microsoft Office product training – this is an especially difficult sell for me as I don’t think there’s much basic training in the Microsoft suite that you can sell to beginners. If someone comes to me for this kind of training I tend to pair them up with an ‘expert’, point them at Youtube, or send them to the Microsoft site.

Next up, it wasn’t addressed to anyone. If you’re trying to sell something to me, at least have the thought to put my name onto the invitation. Putting my name isn’t going to guarantee I’ll read it but you give yourself a better chance if you’ve at least researched who I am.

If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know that I don’t deliver traditional L&D – provision isn’t my bag so I’m always on the lookout for something new and radical. What made this experience very different? That would be because it was ‘hands off’ training.

Just consider that for a moment.

If I enrol people for this they would have 3 hours watching someone, in a large venue, demonstrating different Excel functions on a large screen. This isn’t using a computer to practice with others. This is sitting in an auditorium, listening and watching a sage on a stage demonstrate Excel functions.

Definitely a very different learning experience; a good learning experience?

On her excellent blog, Jane Hart is completing the Learning in the Workplace Survey and, unsurprisingly, company training is poorly rated. 

Do training interventions like the one I was being pushed maintain this rating? Stuck in a provision mentality, are we sold to far too easily? Do we look through what we’re being sold to see if it is of value?

Comments, as always, very welcome.