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NP Training Works are a relatively small, US-based company who have developed an elearning content delivery business model that's quite different from the mainstream.
They are aiming at small companies and non-profit-making organisations, who don't have the budget to create content for themselves.
You're given the option to either buy into their existing library of content (delivered through a branded NP Training Works LMS), or to become a content expert. It's this latter model that's of most interest to me. The content expert provides the subject matter knowledge, NP Training Works provides the development expertise and the marketing know-how (for free), and the content expert receives a royalty payment whenever the content is used.
It looks to me like a very low-risk way for small companies to explore the potential of online content delivery, and get their message more widely known. NP Training Works is taking on much of the upfront risk, but mitigates that by being in control of the marketing of the content, which gets added to their content library - for use by their wider network.
It's the content library where they need to do most work, but this is probably on the back-burner until the number of available titles increases. Currently learners just browse a straightforward heirarchical catalog, but, if you really want to market well online you need to think about:
- putting your products in multiple categories
- intelligent algorithms that base recommendations on user activity
- providing ways for users to rate and comment on products
- allowing users to sort search results by criteria such as price, ratings, relevance etc
In other words, a combination of an ecommerce engine with an LMS delivery engine. If they get this right, they'll have a very powerful system indeed. I don't yet know of any LMS that has really cracked this concept of how to market the content they contain. For some reason, providers still seem to think that learners will use their content because they have to...
1 comment
NP Training Works appreciates the review of our company. We totally agree with Mark’s assessment on how an e-Learning company should work in order to provide a superior product; and how to better market that product online.
We are currently updating our LMS and will soon have a system that does allow for recommendations, searchable criteria, etc., making it easily the most robust system on the market….and one we provide to our customers for free.
If you have any further questions about NP Training Works, please feel free to contact me, Paul Cypher, at pcypher “at” nptrainingworks.com
