There's never been a shortage of training materials for
entrepreneurs; classes have been around for decades, and in recent
years, there have been plenty of classes on videotape and CD-ROM.
As for videocassettes, they're good as far as they go. Keep in
mind, however, videos aren't interactive--the teaching comes at
the student without demanding participation. And CD-ROMs? Again,
the medium is fine--if you have an equipped computer; many
computers (both in businesses and in homes) don't have CD-ROM
drives.
Now picture this: At a slack time in the workday, instead of
pestering you with questions about how to do formulas in Microsoft
Excel, your assistant can log on to the Web and take a class that
teaches him or her all the ins and outs of the spreadsheet
program.
There's never slack time at your company? The course can be
taken at home, too--the appeal of Web-based training is that it
requires only a computer, Internet access and an up-to-date browser
(usually Netscape 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or
higher). It doesn't matter that your sales manager uses a Sun
workstation in the office, an IBM laptop on the road and an iMac at
home--the same course material can be digested in bites that suit
the student.
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Another big plus of Web-based training? Even in a world moving
at "Internet speed," there's no excuse for class
materials ever to become outdated. "It's very easy to
update Web materials to reflect new developments, whereas a
6-month-old CD-ROM may contain outdated information," says
Mark Hanner, vice president of marketing for Web-Based Training
Systems (http://www.wbtsystems.com) in San
Francisco, a Web-based learning management firm.
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