Trainers: can you use the iPad for live online learning?

The vast majority of our customers are talking iPad for their field reps.  Many of them are in the midst of pilots, some are starting pilots, some have finished pilots and are deploying.  At this point, the question is just when not if.

But interestingly, we’re also seeing that while deployments are happening, there is a lot of ambiguity around how reps will actually use the iPad.  Will be just for CRM and sales aids, or will it be for doc management/admin work, and what about training – how can we do live training on the iPad?

In our design and usability studies for iPad for training, we’ve found the following good and bad things for the iPad:

1. CRM:  If your CRM system is good on the iPad, it’s great for in-field updates.  If your CRM does not port well, it’s a major issue.
2. Sales Aids:  Most sales aids can port fairly easily.  However, current sales aids need to be re-envisioned for the capabilities of the iPad.
3. PDF/Module conversion:  Same as sales aids – documents can be converted to ePub/iBook fairly easily (watch out for formatting problems), but misses a lot of the potential of the iPad
4. Office apps (eg: Word, Excel, Powerpoint):  the iPad fails here, the software is just not ready for enterprise level office document manipulation, storage and versioning. You’re going to need to maintain a second computer if you need to do Office app work.
5. Live online Learning:  WebEx is basically Powerpoint sharing, Adobe Connect is much better. However, Adobe Connect is basically a desktop port to the iPad; it does not really leverage the iPad capabilities. And user-to-user meetings with doc sharing does not work for any of the current app offerings (wait for rVibe Vusion).
6. Effectiveness: If you’re doing formal live-online-learning (Trainer to reps rather than informal or Manager based training), Reps can effectively be trained while in the field over 3G, but you have to pay attention to methodology even more closely than before.

Some things to be thinking about as it relates to live online training on the iPad

1. Shorten the duration of your classes: 4-6 hour, multi-day training is possible at the desktop, but not the iPad and misses the value of field based live training. Short, bursty updates are the most effective methods for the iPad with users in the field.
2. Drive greater interactivity: don’t broadcast, work hard for it: Make sure users give multi-way video a try during the session and interact with content and polls. Make sure they talk back.  Don’t let 3G or a noisy environment be an excuse. Obviously for 2 way video, you need an iPad 2.  Don’t worry about data unless you do a ton, you’re only looking at about 200MB per hour of video based training.
3. Liven up your presentation with images:  the iPad is a highly visual device. If you can control your content, make it more image centric. But remember, people can hold it up close, so don’t be afraid of eye charts too.

The biggest take aways and our recommendations on iPad deployment are these:

• Use cases: Know how you intend to use the iPad; rely on subject matter experts to guide you
• Port then experiment: Port your existing processes/models/content first, then migrate to forward looking functionality and methodology
• Technical support:  For training departments that are not highly technical, use a technical subject matter expert to face off to I

The importance of audio in live video training

It’s pretty well understood that (although not commonly implemented) that live video in the live online training environment makes a significantly better training experience. However, it’s not fully appreciated the importance of high quality audio, and with video, the synchronization of audio to video.

At a core human level, research has shown that people are predominately visual in their perception of the world.  That said, one of the interesting aspects of video interpretation is the association of audio.  With changes in audio quality, the  perception of the quality if video changes independent to the video quality.  For example, if a video is encoded at a low resolution and frame rate, and the audio has a narrow filter applied and small bit depth, the perception of the quality of the overall image is lower.  If the audio quality to the same video is increased dramatically, the perception of the video quality increases as well.

The same goes for audio synchronization. Chalk it up to decades of badly dubbed movies, or that  icky feeling you get when you see a robot that does not look quite human, or whatever, but when a person’s lips and voice are out of sync, it is problematic for effective communication. Unfortunately it’s one of those things that you don’t notice until it happens, and you don’t really want it to happen.

The thing is, traditional telephone, and now services such as skype or webinar services, sacrifice audio quality and video synchronization in the service of connection.  It’s tricky balance to strike – low latency (lower bandwidth) or higher quality audio (higher bandwith and often higher latency).  And – when video is incorporated, services like webinars and skype will send the audio and video separately leading to out-of-sync situations on a regular basis.

There are a couple ways to combat this:

1. For big-tent productions with limited online interaction, use a broadcast medium rather than a webinar or voice-based medium.  That means using a streaming appliance such as rVibe’s rCast with best in class audio.
2. Ensure your audio source has the highest quality possible. Using on-board computer microphones, or tiny USB mics are a receipie for low quality.  Make sure the microhones you use are high quality. Best quality starts at the source.
3. Increase the bandwidth and quality of connect you have available. The fatter the bandwidth and the higher quality (low jitter and latency) the connection, the greater quality you can drive through to the other end.

At the end of it, the goal is training engagement. Content is super important, but it’s also important to not underestimate the quality of the medium of delivery,

In-car video chat, sales reps can rejoice!

Ok, this is about in-car video chat, but it’s also about why we’re talking about it.

Most of our clients are looking seriously at the iPad for their sales environments, and so we’ve been doing a lot of playing, supporting, piloting, developing and testing on iPads around here.

We’re pretty keen on video (obviously) as a live communication medium, and one of the key element of live communication on the iPad is two/multi-way video chat.  We also are pretty sure it has to be more than video, and more than just webinarized (presentation centric) powerpoint.  We’ve actually just put a pilot plan together for our clients, and in our design tests, collaborative video and content manipulation are critical to training and learning usage. Since there are no apps that adequately support that model, we are in the middle of developing a nice collaborative, video centric iPad app as well.

That said, since our app is not ready yet,we are trying out other things for a work around. As a company, we use Google Apps for our email, calendaring, instant messaging and video chatting (since it’s embedded in the gmail client). However, until recently there has no iPad app that can handle the video chat piece of it – vTok changed that.  vTok allows Gtalk Video chatting over wi-fi and 3G.

So, I am driving down the road last week, when my iPad chirps altering me that a vTok message has come in. I turn it on, and low and behold, I am video chatting with our CTO. Driving down the road, with my iPad on the dash, talking live via Video!  It was like he was riding with me.  And, as with what we’ve noticed with all video chat, the conversation takes a more natural, nuanced tone that is more effective.

Now, you may think it’s dangerous to be chatting this way, but I would counsel that done properly, it’s no more or less dangerous that talking on a cell while driving (which can be pretty dangerous of course).

Regardless, this test provided us with a bunch of important data:

1. In car, video centric, rich collaboration is possible.
2. In car, video centric communication continues to be richer than audio along.
3. Ad hoc, video centric, interrupt driven communication in the car is possible.
4. Rich content sharing in real time on the iPad is still very limited.

And – then, when I pulled over, our CTO (who was on an iPad 2 also), then walked around and showed me the inside of his new house.

Once some rich content sharing is available in a single app that allows for interrupt driven communication, in-field, live training will be a reality.  Reps and managers can keep their numbers up, training departments can reduce out of territory time, marketing departments can reduce the communication cycle time.  Some kind of in-car Nirvana will be achieved.

Wait wait – did we also just point to a new kind of sales model?  The live, video centric sales model?  Yes, yes we did.  Did we just allude to the way Pharma sales reps of the future can create a richer, deeper relationship between Doctors and the extended Pharma company?  Yes, yes we did.