The Reinvention of E-Learning

Last year we were commissioned by Massmart in South Africa to develop a learner management system for their ethics department.  It was collaborative project which involved our partners from Clear Fusion, Banter Media and Torque.  After interviewing a few people we discovered a couple things that did'nt work about e-learning, namely,  it feels like a chore, it takes time away from work, its too long (according to TED Talks the max attention span of someone is 18 minutes), it can be expensive to develop and implement and it’s difficult to measure.

Also, completing an e-learning programme doesn’t ensure that there will be a change in behaviour or performance, so it may give a false sense of whether staff have actually adopted the training.  Because there isn’t only one solution for every performance challenge, we look at the challenges that our clients present to us and address them with an innovative solution that addresses Massmart's unique needs:

• First off, we don’t do boring, plain or run-of-the-mill.  We’re always pushing ourselves to be better than we were yesterday and so we put a lot of energy into creating fun edutaining content.
• Secondly, our solution is mobile and optimised for multiple devices so it can be accessed wherever and whenever employees need it.
• The training is gamified and broken up into short segments followed by an interactive moment which unlocks the next clip.
• It’s trackable through a back end system and can be supervised by line managers.
• It’s low maintenance as it includes automated emailing and SMS triggers that assist both the user and the line manager.
• It’s cost-effective.
• It drives people towards using the programme through fun, personalised and creative communication.
• We created an animated character who would teach and engage with the students.

Well, the results speak for themselves in that of all those that registered 90% completed the training within three months and 100% of those that completed the course rated it has an excellent learning experience.  Some of the employees  who struggled to register with their work email went on with their personal emails because they were so excited to get going.  People related so well to the animated character that people shared brand sentiment confiding in the character we fondly named Sandile.


We are now rolling this out across other industries with hopes that we could disrupt and ignite the digital learning space.