Case Study: 'Walter’ Makes E-learning a Breeze
By Paul Harris

Here's how Canon USA worked with competing suppliers to create a user-friendly e-learning program for its sales force.

Now that dealer sales representatives for Canon USA’s Imaging Systems Group have made a smooth transition from classroom learning to a blended solution, it’s time to properly thank someone who helped make it possible. Way to go, Walter.

Who’s Walter? He’s a chatty little interactive cartoon guy who appears on their computer screens to introduce some 86 courses on products, technology, and other topics contained on the Canon USA Know-How Learning Zone (Meet Walter). The hosted Website trains a mixture of internal and external sales organizations that distribute Canon’s digital office products.

Walter is a personable fellow and modest, too. He's eager to share the limelight for Canon’s e-learning success story. As well he should. The full team includes inventive minds from Canon and several e-learning providers including Ernst & Young’s Intellinex LLC, Dallas-based CABC, and eHelp, provider of the RoboDemo simulation tool.

Officially, Walter is a “LearningAgent™,” a training mascot who walks and talks users through courseware via streaming technology. The concept was created by Learn2 Corporation, a company now owned by Learn.com. The e-learning provider customized Walter as Canon’s own interactive spokesperson and is one of five agents Canon uses to provide an instructor-led training approach to e-learning. LearningAgents operate on Learn.com’s CourseMaker Studio authoring software, but can be integrated into web-based courses authored in other tools.

He is crucial to Canon USA’s goal set just over three years ago to introduce e-learning to a community of dealer sales people largely unfamiliar with the Internet, says Mitch Bardwell, director of sales training for Canon USA Imaging Systems Group. It wanted a hosted environment, including a LMS, LCMS, and other features, and insisted they meet a 28.8 bandwidth standard to accommodate the disparate universe of learners. Most importantly, the entire package had to be user-friendly so it could captivate a classroom oriented audience and encourage course completion.

An informal steering committee appointed to assess learning solutions concluded that an LMS was necessary, preferably a hosted one. Impressed with the capabilities of Intellinex as an e-learning integrator and supporter, Canon signed with the E&Y enterprise. Intellinex created the private-branded training Website, the Canon USA. Know-How Learning Zone, accessible by the company’s internal and external sales force. Hosting services were offered on the Intellinex ASP platform, along with a Solution Management Office that provided ongoing, on-site management and support services.

Other elements of the Intellinex package included the LEAP™ LMS, the LEAP Learning Development System (a distributed authoring and content management system), as well as configuration, installation, portal design and project management. In addition, E&Y management experts were tasked to develop ROI metrics so the client could assess results of its new training program. “Intellinex helped us to create custom applications that integrate with Intellinex learning and development systems for Canon online and instructor-led courseware,” says Bardwell.

Then came the initial foray into courseware development, a “painful experience” because sample courses were deemed unsuitable for the sales team, says Bardwell. But previous experience with Learn.com’s CourseMaker Studio provided the answer--the LearningAgent component with streaming technology. “It solved the whole bandwidth e-learning issue and brought the courses alive,” he says.

Bardwell figures the technology also helps solve “the biggest problem” in online learning because “nobody wants to read what’s on screen.” he says. In addition, it provides valuable branding opportunities, says J.W. Ray, chief operating officer of Learn.com. “It creates iconic representation of an initiative,” says Ray.

Canon’s concept also created a unique obstacle. Intellinex and Learn.com are direct competitors in the LMS marketplace, and both separately wanted the prestigious contract. But Bardwell and colleagues insisted on an integration of their strengths, meaning proprietary information would have to be shared if they were to jointly serve the account. Walter had to operate within the Intellinex LMS.

Would the two suppliers be willing and able to do that? With Bardwell acting as mediator, an accord was reached and legal obstacles were overcome. Walter and several other specially created LearningAgents were integrated where necessary, including customized and off-the-shelf courseware for Canon USA. Contracts were signed in May 2000 and programs began flowing in January 2001.

Meanwhile, other suppliers also were invited, such as CABC, provided a backdoor download technology that enables the sales force to download large files in the background using available bandwidth. When the download is complete, Walter pops up to deliver the news.

So how’s it going? “We’re exciting about the usage of the Learning Zone,” says Bardwell, who contends that course completion is upwards of 65 percent. Gina Orefice, Canon USA’s curriculum development specialist, says courses are extremely inviting for students. The curriculum includes a virtual trip around the world to visit various Canon facilities. In each stop, learners get their passports stamped.

“We enable our instructional designers to integrate storytelling and narration, instruction design techniques,” says Orefice. The highly modularized courses allow learners to select their preferred learning style. For example, younger sales reps are drawn to interactive game technologies while others might prefer to simply download text. The RoboDemo simulation tool also is employed. Bardwell reports a 60-40 ratio of e-learning to classroom training under the blended learning solution. 

The e-learning initiative comes at a time of radical change in the field of digital office products. The days of stand-alone machines with copy functions are over, replaced by multi-functional products (MFPs) that defy imagination. As a result, the level of technological know-how required of sales forces is high. At the same time, the gap of computer expertise between young and older sales reps is wide, further demonstrating the need to allow learners to designate their preferred e-learning styles. With Walter and colleagues leading the way, the solution created for Canon USA meets all objectives.