Innovation interview

Or a summary of my assignment!

Back in February we were set the task to interview an innovator for our second assignment. Well, the assignment has come and gone, and here is a summary of my interview.

I interviewed Jacqui Nelson of Nelson Croom, an elearning company formed in 2000.

Nelson Croom

Nelson Croom creates bespoke elearning resources for clients and publishes a range of professional development courses. Their philosophy is that the learner should always be at the centre of the experience.  When the company was founded by those who had previously worked in publishing companies, they were not 100% sure of the direction they were going in, but knew they wanted to exploit the growing internet market. They had plenty of experience in publishing educational material, and plenty of enthusiasm to do something new, but they had no experience in developing elearning. Elearning itself was still viewed with suspicion by the business and professional world, as many learning designs focussed on instructional screen led learning, so they needed an elearning concept in order to build a business that would attract both investors and clients.

The innovation that was Nelson Croom emerged after meeting with Trevor Bentley and adopted his learner centred design. Nelson Croom became an elearning company that would take clients specialist and technical learning content and turn this into engaging non-linear, learner-centric elearning.

The technology

Nelson Croom use an Application Service Provider model, whereby learners access the applications through a web browser, all the software was hosted centrally. This solution offered a significant reduction in financial investment and structure for clients, as there was no need for software integration and NC’s technical team were responsible for ensuring the technology was supported, maintained and developed. It is currently home to over 150,000 active learners and 1,000 courses. The technology was not developed until they got their first client, and thereafter it developed intuitively, using the same technology throughout, based on their clients’ demands.

Clients

Originally they targeted professional bodies, like the Market Research Society and the Pensions Management Institute, as they were organisations attempting to provide services to members all over the country, on a relatively small budget, with differing levels of experience and different specialisms. As they gained success working in this area, their client-base grew to include government bodies, and public and professional service providers with diverse clients, e.g. Diabetes UK. Many of the clients were looking at ways to improve the professional development of their members or employees, often wanting to enhance or improve face-to-face experiences. Most already had comprehensive technical or professional training programmes, but wanted to utilise both time and money to get the best in exploiting the use of elearning. With each of their clients there was an extensive research period, often lasting for over a year, where they learned more about the client’s area of knowledge and researched the needs of the learners directly, thus ensuring that the solution they provided would be compatible. Solutions have included educational programmes, interactive learning and induction tools, diploma programmes, online testing and resources centres, blended approaches and in one instance the use of actors in real life scenarios during face-to-face training.

Elearning innovation

NC changed their business model in their third year by moving away from being a purely bespoke elearning company, and creating a set of course portfolios, which clients or individuals purchase. These centred on Accounting and Finance, Professional Development, Publishing and Peer-enriched Learning. Accounting for 50% of revenue, this gives them financial security, ensuring a regular income and long-term employment for their team and enabling them to continue to support their innovative bespoke projects.

Once a month company meetings bring the whole team together, which is a vital component in continuing to foster creativity, implement new ideas and motivate the team – “an evolution rather than a revolution.” Creative freedom within the team allows a small flexible business, to adapt quickly to circumstances and continue to innovate for clients. They continues to be learner led and innovates with their technology by listening to both clients and learners. The technology gives them insights into how a learner engages material in a way that a hardcopy never could, for example, by allowing learners to make comments or by seeing where they have difficulties, and this in turn helps to develop learning activities.

They actively participates in conferences and industry communities like the Learning Technology Exhibition hosted annually by the Learning and Skills Group. Looking at what people and technology are doing they learn how to adapt new approaches into the services they provide, whether it is a browser update or a focus towards Web 2.0 tools and collaboration.

Summary

Nelson Croom’s work has been recognised and celebrated by others in the industry (E-Learning Awards, 2010). They still remain an innovation in themselves; although the market now accepts many of the principles of learner led, non-linear approach they began with. They continue to work with clients to create their own innovative practices, by taking their specialist knowledge and transforming it into engaging elearning environments. They foster creativity throughout the company by giving employees the freedom to develop, which is realised by the financial security that their portfolios bring. They continue to embody the enthusiasm and spirit they began with and channel this into new innovations that exploit the need needs of their clients and the technology available to them.

How has that helped in my understanding of innovation?

Innovation recap……..

The JISC (2008) case studies and readings in weeks 1 and 2 had explored the concept of innovation and given us some examples of the benefits, which helped in the formation of a working definition of elearning innovation - using technology and practice to directly benefit learning in a unique, new or pioneering way. Technology should enhance and enable the learning experience (Rich and Holtman, 2005) and focus on creating something new and exciting for learners. (Luck and Lawrence, 2005) In the forums we talked about the need to add value, to renew existing practices and to ensure that there were sound pedagogies behind the learning. Mark Nichols (2003) highlighted that often a breakthrough of practice was more important than a breakthrough of technology.

Reflecting on Nelson Croom

Interestingly NC started from a point of wanting to exploit the Internet and a need to be fully immersed in the technology (Weller, 2002). NC’s innovation actually ended up being about new practice in elearning, learner centred design , creating exciting and motivating learning in an online environment and the technology was really the support structure to enable this.

It was interesting to view in light of Rogers (2003) theories around the diffusion of innovations. The decision of the innovation in this instance is a mixture of optional innovation-decision and collective innovation-decision. They were likeminded individuals working in different companies who decided to go outside their current ‘social system’ as the companies they were working in couldn’t accommodate the freedom with which they wanted to work. They became the market leaders for that which they created. In the forums we talked about the difficulties of individuals in organisations to innovate, so there was a correlation with tehir experience of a big structures not being able to sponsor innovation.

The decision process was less about accepting a specific innovation and more about creating that innovation for themselves. They had the knowledge that they wanted to exploit the Internet but didn’t know how, so their persuasion phase was about information gathering and formulating their concept. The decision came when they formed Nelson Croom. Implementation came through their first clients and adapting the technology and methods to suit them and confirmation through the continuation of their success. In many ways they are the innovators, and their clients are the adopters, although in 2010, with a wider acceptance of Web 2.0 tools and philosophies, more likeminded elearning companies exist and so they could now be moving into the early majority.

Nelson Croom’s relative advantage is in offering a solution, meaning they are the innovators so their clients don’t need to be. They offer compatibility and simplicity by thoroughly investigating the needs of their clients, listening to learner feedback and offering a hosted solution so that clients have a financial and structural advantage. As they have worked with clients and learners for ten years, they have the advantage of knowledge and practice in the field, tried and tested and their results can be observed, and have been commended by the industry.

I felt that creativity, sustainability, and evaluation were the priorities when looking at the criteria to assess innovation (Kaye and Hawkridge, 2003 and Freeman and Capper, 2000), and in the forum we talked about the need to define our success criteria and plan for longevity. Although they say they don’t have a long term plan they did change their business model by introducing their portfolio of courses which created a financial security to continue with innovative bespoke projects. This parallels the structural changes needed in embedding innovation and the idea that innovations change and adapt depending on the circumstances and needs (Moore, 2004). They also affirmed my belief that if you foster creativity then it becomes the commonplace and you create a more innovative environment.

At the end of the interview I felt that Nelson Croom embodied my ideas of creativity, sustainability and evaluation. They also confirmed that innovation can come from the outside and should be led by those who are enthusiastic about it. They are successful because they listen to what the need is, adapt the technology they have to suit the solution and are open and responsive to feedback from clients, learners and the wider world.

Freeman, M.A. and Capper, J.M. (2000). ‘Obstacles and opportunities for technological innovation in business teaching and learning.’ International Journal of Management Education, 1, pp. 37-47.

JISC (2008) Exploring Tangible Benefits of e-Learning: Does Investment Yield Interest? [Online] http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/publications/publications/info/tangible-benefits-publication  (Accessed 14 February 2011).

Kaye, R. and Hawkridge, D. (eds) (2003) Learning and Teaching for Business: Case Studies of Successful Innovation, London and Sterling, Kogan Page.

Lück, M. and Laurence, G.M. (2005) ‘Innovative teaching: sharing expertise through videoconferencing’, Innovate, vol.2, no .1.

Moore, G.A. (2004) ‘Darwin and the demon: innovating within established enterprises’, Harvard Business Review, vol.82, no.7/8, pp.86–92.

Nichols,M. (2003) ‘A theory for e-Learning’ International Forum of Educational Technology & Society[online]. Available from http://home.tiscali.nl/schopmanlanden.nl/Papers/LearningTheory.html  (accessed 10th February 2011).

Rich, M. and Holtham, C. (2005) ‘New technology in learning: a decade’s experience in a business school’, British Journal of Educational Technology – Special Issue on Innovation in Elearning, vol.36, no.4, pp.677–9.

Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.

Weller, M. (2002) Delivering Learning on the Net: The Why, What and How of Online Education, London,Kogan Page.