Technology Duo Makes Link to e-Learning
By Karen Brown
from the June 18, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
Cisco Systems isn't the only player looking to tap the lure of Internet learning. Streaming video and interactive technology provider Centerseat Inc. recently teamed up with Learnframe, a developer of e-learning systems, to offer Internet video-based learning systems to enterprise customers.
"I think it is going to become fairly standard that people use their existing information and craft learning environments that help them get their agenda across to their constituents," says Centerseat CEO Scott Harmolin. "It is incumbent on all of us as business people to evangelize, to train ... to get people to understand what we do. And one way to do that is to offer e-learning in various guises."
Centerseat is finding interest in e-learning from all kinds of companies and organizations. It is finding particularly fertile ground among companies wanting to train sales staff.
"For instance, technology companies typically have training courses that their own people need to go through, that their customers and partners need to go through," Harmolin says. "This type of activity--crafting courseware, especially with the use of video--makes it less travel and expense intensive than it has been historically.
"It just makes it so much more accessible," he adds. "It's a point-and-click on a computer network. People can access a Web site effectively and start to train themselves."
Traditional education also is gaining an Internet arm, not so much among universities but rather among traditional textbook publishers that also own a fair amount of video, Harmolin says.
"They are interested in digitizing all of these analog videos that they have and then being able to use them for distribution," he says. "There are definitely people in the publishing space that are interested in that."
While saving money may be attractive, the economic downturn has slowed companies' efforts somewhat to adopt multimedia-based training.
"There is a great amount of interest, but companies are not moving as quickly as I would like," Harmolin says. "It's still not a bed of roses out there. There is business going on but you have to go out and get it."
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