1. Workplace Learning with Podcasting Presentation to the Executive Committee Medtronic Corporate Education & Training Minneapolis, Minnesota Presented by Mark G. Bearss Education & Training Program Manager Medtronic Revascularization & Surgical Therapies
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8. Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog The Web-Blog
9. How we got from the blog to the “pod”. MP3 file Upload to Web site Check for new entries Download
10. How we got from the blog to the “pod”. The RSS Feed
17. MEDTRONIC PODCAST NOTIFICATION You are monitoring presentation changes on this page, and will receive email updates when a new entry is . You are currently monitoring changes to the SALES PORTAL. To change/stop monitoring this page, visit the Podcast notification page . Page Feeds: Announcements: Podcasts: Feeds are an easy way to keep track of changes on an intranet site. A feed is a specially formatted web page that is read by an application called a feed reader or aggregator. This application lists a summary of each change or new page, sorted by date. Sometimes you'll see feeds called syndication, XML, or RSS - they're all the same thing. Wikispaces provides feeds of page edits and messages for all of our wikis. You may also use feeds for specific pages and discussion areas.
Greetings and thank you for taking the time to review this audio-video introduction on “Workplace Learning with Podcasting”. This is intended to describe some background information and pertinent considerations on the proposal I have prepared on how Medtronic can successfully introduce and insure adoption of podcasting as an available technological innovation that can improve the way your employees learn and work.
My name is Mark Bearss and I will be your facilitator in this process for assessing Podcasting. As an education and training program manager for Medtronic RST, I am confident this will provide enough background information to help you become more informed and better prepared for our planning meeting scheduled in September. It is my objective for Podcasting to be implemented into the Medtronic intranet and become a widely used, reliable and adopted communication and learning tool. So, let’s begin.
TIME….PLACES….CONTENT…DELIVERY METHODS…LEARNER APTITUDES…SCHEDULES. These are words that describe the variables of a mobile work-force that need to receive periodic learning sessions, corporate messages, and competitive updates. When scheduling a conference call the current paradigm is to post it on the Outlook calendar be conducted on a convenient date at such and such a time, post the dial-in number, the conference code, and email a reminder. But, convenient for who??It does not take into account variables like…
Personnel who have previously-scheduled travel and are going to be on the road or at an airport or in the air.
Personnel who are traveling for vacation.
Personnel who are with a customer and cannot be interrupted.
Locations with marginal or intermittent or even NO cell-phone access. For example, many hospitals ban cell-phone usage in all patient care areas. There is a better way. Let’s take a few moments to review the evolution of podcasting as it will help illustrate its growing adoption into corporate communications and networking.
Shortly after the arrival of the internet, we began to see the appearance of web-logs, or more commonly referred to as blogs. Blogging has become a popular way for people to share their thoughts and rants on the internet in a very casual format. You have probably read a blog or two while surfing the internet whether you realized it or not. Over the years blogs have popped up on anything from politics to personal journals. In recent years blogging has earned its status as a very popular and legitimate medium.
The ability to transfer larger pieces of information and faster connection speeds led some bloggers to start producing audio blogs. Instead of writing their thoughts, they recorded themselves speaking and posted it to their blogs as an MP3 file. The spoken word added a new personal element to the media of blogging. The problem with audio blogs was that readers had to regularly check for new MP3 files by visiting the web site and then listening on their computer. This was not convenient for taking the audio content on the go. There were some who would download the file and then sync them to their MP3 players by hand. This was not a seamless task for the average computer user.
Applying the creation of news feed technology called RSS solves this problem. RSS (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently- updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—into a standardized format. With the development of RSS, listening to audio-blogs has become significantly easier. Basically an RSS aggregator, such as iTunes, retrieves an RSS feed generated by the software used to post an audio-blog. While it became the most rapidly adopted MP3 player, most of the audio-blogs were being listened to on the Apple iPod. These aggregators updating new content to the site with the audio-blog and became referred to as "Podcatcher's." The audio-blogs soon became “PODCASTS.
A small group of early podcasters emerged from the blogging community. The buzz grew rapidly and the podcasting revolution began. The term "podcasting" became the popular term for portable listening to audioblogs entered the technology vocabulary in February 2004. But it wasn’t until September of 2004 when things really started happening. Multiple developer groups picked up the idea of the iPodder and began introducing formats and software for listening to audioblogs and music. Thousands of podcasters have popped up on the Internet.
As MP3 players have spread and the storage on them has gotten larger, listeners have started looking for new audio content to take on the go. By October 2004 Google registered 2750 hits for “podcasting” and that number continued to double every few days. By November the number of podcasts had exceeded 100,000. Once Apple staked its claim by adding podcasting to its iTunes music software, the numbers began to grow rapidly. September 2005 was when the number of Google hits for “podcasts” exceeded 1 million.
As gadgets with digital audio capability proliferate, podcast downloading continues to increase. Currently, 19% of all internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they could listen to it or view it later.
This clearly illustrates that the technologies surrounding Podcasting are not new innovations and already not new to being utilized in industries similar to Medtronic. Therefore you do not have to fear you have to break untested ground or launch an expensive feasibility study. Steve Jobs of Apple has already done that. He recognized the opportunity to accommodate the growing number music enthusiasts by enabling them to carry their music library with them in an efficient and affordable way. Society has seen an exponential growth in the number of iPods sold each year. In addition to recording and listening to music files, the iPod is equally capable of downloading and listening to lectures and presentations. Cost savings are realized by not having to produce and distribute numerous CD’s.
EMC, a Massachusetts-based computer company has already made podcasting a mainstay of its sales communications and training missions. Company leaders at EMC note “Enthusiasm about learning has grown since incorporating podcasting. The car ride to the client meeting may be the only time the sales reps have in a busy day to catch up on corporate news. Employees do not have to stop what they are doing in order to learn”.
Here is an example of how the RSS feed works with a Podcast. This is a web site visited by educators to view or listen to scholars on new innovative and current topics in educational technologies. One can subscribe to this site by finding the RSS Feed icon and then clicking on it. This opens a page to sign up for automatic feeds to a destination of the subscribers choosing. Then, the next time the subscriber synchronizes their MP3 device with their computer, all the new MP3 audio files that may contain lectures or debates from this website are downloaded to an iPod for future listening. This same mechanism is available to be set up with the Medtronic SALES PORTAL that you use as the repository for your training files, business announcements, and competitive updates and for tracking sales numbers.
What does this means to Medtronic? It means that one source of information, such as audio content, is no longer limited to long phone-mail messages, synchronous phone conferences, or drive-time CD’s. Your programs for corporate training, corporate announcements, competitive updates, business news, or anything one would wish to broadcast to the field representatives, can arrive at any time to any employee who has a computer and an MP3 player. To experience how all this is tied together, I will plan to conduct a live demonstration for you during our September meeting. I will also present a plan to conduct a trial period to assess the integration of an RSS feed and podcasting within your existing Sales Portal. If you have not already done so, it would be very helpful to include your IT manager into the September meeting.
To implement the program, the implementation plan would include a phased roll-out. First, you would select a test group of individuals from all the adopter categories (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards). Then we will provide thorough training for you and this team. I would propose that you permit a trial period of at least 3 months before collecting feedback. Based on the pilot team’s feedback, we can then refine the implementation plan and either proceed to a full roll-out or abandon the project.
I am sure questions will be raised about the speed at which podcasting will be adopted by the organization and whether the perceived attributes will be enough to provide a compelling rationale for the organization to embrace podcasting. There are those in your sales force who already have the knowledge of downloading files onto podcast devices like the iPod for listening to music. Downloading audio-cast files from your sales portal will be no different. These innovators and early adopters will recognize the relative advantage of capturing and listening to sales updates and competitive intelligence at times when it fits their schedule as opposed to having to stop everything to call into the often-untimely but mandated phone conference. This also sends message to your customers that using new educational technologies is consistent with the corporation’s mission and values of developing innovative medical devices to save lives and prolong life.
Diffusion Channels would be best implemented beginning with a centralized approach via an early adopter whom the organization views as a credible resource (Rogers, 2006). The target for accomplishing diffusion of adoption is focused on those adopters characterized as the Early and Late Majority. These are the ones who are aware of the innovation and are thinking about it, but will wait until the innovation has gained some momentum. They don’t want to be the first, but they also don’t want to be the last either. This comprises approximately 68% of the network of people in your organization.
To facilitate adoption with the intent to reach critical mass, we recommend utilizing 2 key strategies. The first is to promote its relative advantage through marketing communications. Right now it is difficult to coordinate the schedules of 55 sales reps in the field and conduct a synchronized webinar or phone conference. We will need to promote how this innovation will allow them to listen to business, competitive and financial updates when it best suits their schedule. Secondly, we will have to demonstrate the ease-of-use of podcasting. Complexity of any new technology is directly related to reluctance towards adoption.
What about the laggards? Who are they and what hurdles would we have to overcome to push adoption? There are those who do not perceive this new innovation is better than what they are already using or accustomed to. If there is no perceived relative advantage then adoption will slowed (Rogers, 2003). This may come from their natural aversion to innovations. There are those who are near retirement or a job change who doesn’t feel it’s necessary to take on a new and what is perceived to be a complex challenge. Regardless, there needs to be a plan in place for how to bring them on-board. For them we recommend to continue to provide the back-up methods; drive-time CD’s or Voice mail messages.
Moving the laggards into late majority category would mean either changing their perception or a behavior shift. The organization would have to first instill the sense that this innovation is compatible with the corporate mission and values on innovation. New innovations to laggards are often viewed as too complex to embrace. Complexity of an innovation is a recognized obstacle to adoption. Training would have to instill the confidence that the podcasting hardware and software are user-friendly and intuitive to operate. Then podcasting might be adopted successfully.
Once training on its functionality and ease-of-use is complete, adoption can be further induced by applying an indirect monetary incentive for using podcasting. One example would be to incorporate critical information into the audiocast that the listener would have to report in order to receive the money. Lastly, using the innovators and early adopters as role models and peer-support is another key motivational factor in the adoption and diffusion of technology.
For implementation throughout the organization, success is assured by having someone on staff to embrace the role as an effective and convincing champion for podcasting. The innovation champion will serve as the technology and assurance liaison for the rest of the staff, particularly those who may be having difficulty in adopting, or for those occasional laggards previous discussed. This is contingent on having full cooperation from the company, sales management and sales administration. The champion will bridge published variables to implementation by… Insuring Reliability of the technology Providing training so employees know how to use the technology Serve as an advocate who Believe the technology improves or enhances learning Help others overcome Difficulty in using the technology Perpetuate institutional support for using
I am confident following the initial trial period, benefits will be readily apparent to the first users and potentials for additional uses will be identified and adoption will grow. Continuing a post-market surveillance program at regular intervals will provide feedback on improved adoption methods and will serve to keep up with the growing trends in networking technology innovations.
Consider this: MP3 players came about to allow people to take their music with them on the go. The Apple iPod is by far the most popular of the MP3 players. As of September 2008, more than 173,000,000 iPods had been sold worldwide. Podcasting, MP3 and the iPod are fast-becoming part of the same powerful trend as Mobile phones…..Blackberry’s…..Smartphone’s…..Wireless PDA’s…..WiFi…..3G networks already embraced by Medtronic. Instead of people going to their work, now you can have work go to them. It’s Asynchronous…..It’s mobile…..It reaches employees wherever they are……It’s accessible…..on demand…..and, it’s low cost. By adopting podcasting as a communication and networking innovation, you will demonstrate to your employees and your competition the corporation’s mission to be innovative. I look forward to our meeting in September so we can design the first stages of implementing Podcasting as a Medtronic corporate initiative. Thank you.
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