This evening, I was listening to the latest edition of Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur ( from TWiT.tv ) as they were discussing a new education site called Digication.
Not only did I get to hear a human being [ Leo Laporte ] use the word matriculate in a sentence, but I also got to hear a bit about a [ not so new ] site created for Educators and their Students.
I find this site absolutely fascinating because I just had this conversation with a friend of mine, a private-school teacher. She needs the ability to share her course materials with her students so they can access the information from home.
This site can do this – and mostly for free. The first 1,000 users are free with a nominal charge for additional users.
In addition, Digication actually opens up what is really a social network where the teachers and students can discuss, on-line, the class and materials.
About Digication:
Digication represents an entirely new concept in educational software. Easier to master. Simpler to use. With all the connectivity, file sharing and e-portfolio tools educators and students want. Designed by educators to serve the core needs of educators, Digication Campus & Spotlight open the lines of communications by combining elements of social networking and learning content management systems. The software allows users to create a community that can learn and grow both inside and outside the classroom.
Simple by design, Digication Campus & Spotlight steer clear of superfluous features and extended training, and instead relies on an intuitive interface that can be learned in minutes. Educators can create a simpler, more appealing and more cost effective web-based solution for creating, managing, sharing and accessing educational content.
Digication was founded by faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. In an effort to bring educators a simple way to communicate with their students, the founders designed a network community intended to be populated with high quality users and content simplifying the latest developments in technology.
If you are an educator, or know one, I would strongly advise that you point them to both the TWiT Podcast and the Digication site itself.
And for the record, I'm just a little more than disappointed that I didn't think of this first. :)
Gaining user acceptance and adoption of Dynamics CRM can, of course, be greatly increased with proper instruction and training.
I have begun to notice a pattern in acceptance should you be installing CRM into an organization that does not currently utilize Outlook, or uses it minimally.
If the user isn't familiar and comfortable with Outlook, installing the CRM Outlook client can confuse the heck out of them. This is caused by the fact that once the Outlook client is installed, the user now has at least two different methods to do many things. And, if they don't know where Outlook ends, and where the CRM client begins, it can lead to more than a little bit of frustration as they attempt to determine the correct way to do something.
But doesn't everyone use Outlook?
Not as much as you think, especially in smaller organizations, and especially if they don't have Exchange installed. Either they use Outlook Express for email or use Outlook and then, only for email. That means that things many of us take for granted, like: Contacts, Scheduling, and Shared or Group Calendars are totally new and different. New and different many times is translated into "scary" and scary is bad.
Working through the issues
Here is one approach that I think will work in many organizations who make little or no use of Outlook.
1) Take time to know and understand the product knowledge-level of user community.
2) Perform a phased implementation and get the user working and productive with Outlook before CRM is implemented.
3) Have you or your staff be physically present during this initial phase so that people can ask stupid and embarrassing questions.
Note: There are no such things as stupid and embarrassing questions, but people still think they exist.
4) Perform a simple, quarter or half-day group training session so people can get an exposure to the product.
5) Engage with the users one-on-one, to provide personalized responses to questions and issues.
People will generally react much better to personal coaching than group training and will tend to ask better and more questions when outside of the group setting.
6) By this point you have probably finished your CRM installation, configuration, and customization activities and it is now time to roll-out the CRM Outlook client.
7) Repeat steps 3 through 5 and outline the differences between Outlook and CRM and discuss in detail how the two products work together.
8) Have users keep a notepad to document questions and concerns as they use the system.
9) Perform frequent visits to each user's office to review and address any questions and concerns they may have document in their notepad.
While these steps may not handle everything you encounter, I think it covers most of the issues that I've seen in the past couple CRM implementations.
If you have experiences of your own that you would like to share, please leave a comment.
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