In the US, having fun!!!!

I am currently in the US, off to NYC and laving loads of fun, here is the story so far...

I started my travel on 30-April to Chicago via New York. I was very skeptical as I was travelling Air India for the first time on long haul. I must say Air India did surpised me, pleasently i.e. :) The food was good, the plane was brand new and clean, the hostess were very pleasant etc etc.

I reached Chicago for a 1 week training (management training!!). Yeah, I know what you are thinking but there was another surprise, the training was really GOOD, it was one of very few instances where I came out asking for more :) I met some amazing new people and co-workers. I also met my career counsellor for the first time and that was quite an experience as well. He is a very interesting person and he has influenced me in more than 1 way in those 3 meetings, thanks Raj!

From Chicago, I went to Bloomington to spend the weekend with 3 friends. We had soooo much fun, cooked, boozed around and chatted till late nights. It was like back in my college days and nothing to worry for 2 nights. Thanks Shaleen, Banner, and Gunjan!

I am off to NYC tomorrow and will keep you posted...more to come...

In Orlando, Florida!

Am headed to Orlando, Florida for about 2 weeks. This will be my first time in Orlando, I know some of my friends have been there and I am looking forward to call/meet them.

This is a business training I have to attend and look forward to meet some of my colleagues I have been interacting over the last 6 months but never met.

ERP Training - It's HOT!!!

I've been with the e-Learning (read online Training) industry for over 10 yrs now. The industry has evolved in these years from being just creating page turners to interactive to "Content is King" to "Context before Content" to simulations to 4-Tier Blended learning (BTW, this is patented by IBM). While we see a lot of technical (Java, C++ etc) and soft skills (we created 6 hrs e-Learning induction programme while at Infosys!) e-Learning content, these days ERP trainings seems to be the hot topic in our industry.
So what is ERP training some may ask? Organisations like IBM, Oracle, Accenture implement ERP software like SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards etc. for large organisations. While implementing ERP is no doubt a big task for any org, training that organisation's employees to use that ERP software is a greater challenge as it has been experienced in the recent past.
So how do we train these employees effectively to use the new ERP software? We have seen lot of training cos. creating WBT or CBT or ILT for delivering training. While it may be partially successful, it has been observed that what works best is the Blended Learning solution. What it means is that you have the basic overview trainings through WBT, then have classroom sessions where the instructor teaches the topics at length and then the learner practices in the simulated environment to get the hands on view of the software.
I would like to hear some views on what you think of the above, there may be situations where you took a different approch and succeded, I would love to hear about them.

NIIT, Genpact form JV; to impart IT training

Just read on Economics times, one time rivals have joined hands in a JV to impart IT training. BPO firm Genpact and IT training institute NIIT today joined hands to form a new venture - NIIT Institute of Process Excellence -- which will offer training in business process services where the training institute would have 75 per cent stake and BPO major would have 25 per cent. The two firms would invest Rs 25 crore in the first phase.
The first centre would come up in Gurgaon in September this year. Both the companies expect the new institute to have over 250 centres by 2012.
Read the full article here.

Oracle University Training at Bangalore

I am in Bangalore these days for a 3 day long (May 11 - May 14) training by Oracle University. I hate to say this but it was a huge disappointment. I had high regards for Oracle University (couple of my friends work there) and thought this would be a great learning experience. Unfortunately, that is exactly what it did NOT turn out to be.
To start off, the training could have easily be over in 1 day flat. It was stretched beyond limits; both the instructor and the training material were designed to discuss and ponder over useless information. The instructor manual was over 300 pages and may I add that it was an absolute waste of human and natural resources. There were topics like "Find and Replace" and "Spell Check" which were discussed at lengths.
The instructor too was a huge disappointment. I think he had never experienced scenario based trainings which is very critical for these kinds of tool based training. He, instead went word by word in the manual and wanted us to behave like "brain dead" students. He was absolutely unwelcoming to the questions and to top it all, inspite of him having worked on the tool for 4 years, he had no clue about a lot of topics like LMS/SCORM implementation. I wonder how they deploy their online trainings at Oracle!!
Lastly, I would like to suggest the Oracle training folks to come to IBM and attend a couple of trainings here. They boast themselves to be the best online training center in the world but they have a long way to go through. I hope they learn fast!!!