Sustaining Distance Training

Sustaining Distance Training

Integrating Learning Technologies into the Fabric of the Enterprise

Zane L. Berge, Editor

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (888) 378-2537, 448 pages, $36.95



In the past five years, the Internet and other computer-based communication tools have made rapid change a staple for enterprising people in private business, the public sector, home businesses and neighborhood schools. I often wonder how it is that my third-grader's teachers are able to "compete" with Tony Hawk and his speedy, on-screen acrobatics. The answer is they don't cope very well, if the listless grunts I get when I ask my son how his day at school went are any indication.

And so it is with business people, who are being asked to keep up with our dynamic world economy in part by reading and in part by attending three-day workshops such as "Selling Widgets in Today's Vicious, Cutthroat, Multitasking World." Not gonna happen. Nobody I know has time to read (except for excellent reviews such as this one, of course) and even fewer want to take time from work to travel to headquarters and attend a course of dubious value. As the philosopher Yogi Berra once said: "If they're not gonna come, you can't stop them."

The answer for this mess is computer-based, or distance, learning, which is now a reality in many companies, 17 of which are profiled in Mr. Berge's new book. Among the profilees are the Army, the irs, Nortel, Ernst & Young, the Red Cross, and, most compellingly, Hewlett-Packard. HP's planning and implementation processes for training people who aren't all in the same place are clearly and beautifully treated in Chapter 14 by three of Mr. Berge's coauthors, who provide us with some very useful guidelines and cautionary ideas.

Though the writing style will not attract a National Book Award, there is a lot of meat in this book about how to make distance training work. If you have made the decision to go full speed, this book should be on your desk and open.