CEdMA Blog

submissions for the 2022 CEdMA Impact Award are now open!

Many training organizations are asked to answer the following question -  what impact did your efforts have on the business? 
You and your teams create a lot of material and train a lot of people. But are you able to prove all of that work made a difference for your organization? Did it help your target audience? Can you demonstrate a direct correlation between your team's work and contribution to your organization's success?  

The CEdMA Impact Award seeks to recognize a CEdMA member who demonstrates excellence both in the impact they and their organization have, as well as their ability to clearly prove that impact. 

If you are a leader in Education Services at a Technology company, answer this question – do your sponsors and stakeholders value Education Services? I often talk to technology training leaders. A pet peeve for a vast majority of them is their inability to get executive attention, funding and buy-in for their services. The few exceptions are leaders who work for SaaS companies or enlightened leaders. My own experience inside industry-leading hardware and software companies was similar. I invested more time and effort in selling the value of Education Services to internal stakeholders than selling the services to customers!

The past 18 months have been surreal. Change and uncertainty left no global stone unturned. Work from home mandates forced the long-overdue shift to hybrid, virtual staffing models that those of us deep into the software industry had already begun to embrace (crowdsourcing, gig economy-based teams, etc.). Companies struggled to make the shift from in-person technology training to online eLearning platforms.

Customer success (CS) and customer experience (CX) are big buzz words today. According to the American Marketing Association, the majority of companies say improving the customer experience is one of their top priorities. This has led to an explosion of CS and CX teams. How does customer education (CE) fit into the new landscape? Can CE increase CX by itself or does it need to align with CS teams to have a greater impact?