Straitly was she in need of employment, forasmuch as without an income, the door of her house would be riven and the walls of her home would fall down flat, and the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they would take from the treasury of the house.

And it came to be that by the power of the mighty word processor and the e-mail, posted she her résumé unto many an organization, including unto those that call themselves Financial Institutions.

And so it was that with mighty trumpets the Tribe of Human Resources responded to her. And they declared unto her that without a special power called “financial experience” she was as a beggar cast into the night, and they smote her down into the good earth with the jawbone of the Ox .

And she was afraid.

And so it was that she said this tale unto me, and she beseeched unto me “What is this Financial Experience in Fund Management that they speak of?”

And I said unto her:

“Verily, fear not these Children of the Almighty Dollar!

For it has come to pass that they are responsible for many a woe among the people, including the fearsome Enron Scandal, and the lending of the silver and the gold in the Sub-Prime Sector, and the Dealing upon the Inside, and the Credit Crunch, and Bear Stearns and Northern Rock shall be as naught. The Prince of Citigroup and the chief of the tribe of Merrill Lynch will rightly fall upon their swords, and they will be mocked when they speak of Golden Parachutes, for they spoke not of fiscal rectitude, and the Walls of The Street did tremble.

Believe ye in the power of Education and Technology, and the Learning that is called ‘E’!

For in days to come, the Children of the Almighty Dollar will see that they too are mere knowledge workers, like unto all others in different sectors of the economy.

I say unto thee, they will cry across the land:

“Oh woe are we who were blind! We could not see that learning and development skills are cross-discipline! And frankly we could have done with a bit of expertise from outside the narrow confines of the financial world considering the fix we’re in! We thought ourselves as blessèd among ordinary knowledge workers, with skills in software and pharmaceuticals and such.

Oh! Vanity! Pride! In our ignorance of the meaning of the global economy we have been led astray from the path of righteousness!”

For during the Boom Years they did utter nonsense and PR, and the diviners they call stockbrokers saw lies; the analysts told false dreams, and gave empty consolation.

Therefore the People of Finance wander like sheep; they are afflicted for want of a shepherd. Go unto them with thine expertise in workplace learning and say unto them “WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE THE STABILITY OF THY TIMES!”

And nail ye them to the wall with high Per Diem consultancy rates, for revenge is sweet.

Here Endeth The Lesson.

–

Straitly was she in need of employment, forasmuch as without an income, the door of her house would be riven and the walls of her home would fall down flat, and the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they would take from the treasury of the house.

And it came to be that by the power of the mighty word processor and the e-mail, posted she her résumé unto many an organization, including unto those that call themselves Financial Institutions.

And so it was that with mighty trumpets the Tribe of Human Resources responded to her. And they declared unto her that without a special power called “financial experience” she was as a beggar cast into the night, and they smote her down into the good earth with the jawbone of the Ox .

And she was afraid.

And so it was that she said this tale unto me, and she beseeched unto me “What is this Financial Experience in Fund Management that they speak of?”

And I said unto her:

“Verily, fear not these Children of the Almighty Dollar!

For it has come to pass that they are responsible for many a woe among the people, including the fearsome Enron Scandal, and the lending of the silver and the gold in the Sub-Prime Sector, and the Dealing upon the Inside, and the Credit Crunch, and Bear Stearns and Northern Rock shall be as naught. The Prince of Citigroup and the chief of the tribe of Merrill Lynch will rightly fall upon their swords, and they will be mocked when they speak of Golden Parachutes, for they spoke not of fiscal rectitude, and the Walls of The Street did tremble.

Believe ye in the power of Education and Technology, and the Learning that is called ‘E’!

For in days to come, the Children of the Almighty Dollar will see that they too are mere knowledge workers, like unto all others in different sectors of the economy.

I say unto thee, they will cry across the land:

“Oh woe are we who were blind! We could not see that learning and development skills are cross-discipline! And frankly we could have done with a bit of expertise from outside the narrow confines of the financial world considering the fix we’re in! We thought ourselves as blessèd among ordinary knowledge workers, with skills in software and pharmaceuticals and such.

Oh! Vanity! Pride! In our ignorance of the meaning of the global economy we have been led astray from the path of righteousness!”

For during the Boom Years they did utter nonsense and PR, and the diviners they call stockbrokers saw lies; the analysts told false dreams, and gave empty consolation.

Therefore the People of Finance wander like sheep; they are afflicted for want of a shepherd. Go unto them with thine expertise in workplace learning and say unto them “WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE THE STABILITY OF THY TIMES!”

And nail ye them to the wall with high Per Diem consultancy rates, for revenge is sweet.

Here Endeth The Lesson.

–

Straitly was she in need of employment, forasmuch as without an income, the door of her house would be riven and the walls of her home would fall down flat, and the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they would take from the treasury of the house.

And it came to be that by the power of the mighty word processor and the e-mail, posted she her résumé unto many an organization, including unto those that call themselves Financial Institutions.

And so it was that with mighty trumpets the Tribe of Human Resources responded to her. And they declared unto her that without a special power called “financial experience” she was as a beggar cast into the night, and they smote her down into the good earth with the jawbone of the Ox .

And she was afraid.

And so it was that she said this tale unto me, and she beseeched unto me “What is this Financial Experience in Fund Management that they speak of?”

And I said unto her:

“Verily, fear not these Children of the Almighty Dollar!

For it has come to pass that they are responsible for many a woe among the people, including the fearsome Enron Scandal, and the lending of the silver and the gold in the Sub-Prime Sector, and the Dealing upon the Inside, and the Credit Crunch, and Bear Stearns and Northern Rock shall be as naught. The chiefs of the tribes of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup will rightly fall upon their swords, and they will be mocked when they speak of Golden Parachutes, for they spoke not of fiscal rectitude, and the Walls of The Street did tremble.

There will be the taking away of the honey and the wheat and the barley, and the oxen, and the axe and the plough that is called Repossession. For they that giveth, also they taketh away.

Believe ye in the power of Education and Technology, and the Learning that is called ‘E’!

For in days to come, the Children of the Almighty Dollar will see that they too are mere knowledge workers, unto like all others in different sectors of the economy.

I say unto thee, they will cry across the land:

“Oh woe are we who were blind! We could not see that learning and development skills are cross-discipline! And frankly we could have done with a bit of expertise from outside the narrow confines of the financial world! We thought ourselves as blessèd among ordinary knowledge workers, with skills in software and pharmaceuticals and such.

Oh! Vanity! Pride! In our ignorance of the meaning of the global economy we have been led astray from the path of righteousness!”

For during the Boom Years they did utter nonsense and PR, and the diviners they call stockbrokers saw lies; the analysts told false dreams, and gave empty consolation.

Therefore the People of Finance wander like sheep; they are afflicted for want of a shepherd. Go unto them with thine expertise in workplace learning and say unto them “WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE THE STABILITY OF THY TIMES!”

And nail ye them to the wall with high Per Diem consultancy rates, for revenge is sweet.

Here Endeth The Lesson.

–

As a reminder, at the time I suggested that the appropriate social and economic innovations required to support e-learning were now sufficiently embedded (compared to 2001) to ensure the e-learning industry would certainly survive and maybe even thrive an economic downturn. I tempered this assertion by asking

will the positive economic, organisational, and social value of e-learning outweigh traditional human responses to recessionary times? What strategies can we use to ensure the survival of and even the growth of e-learning as an industry in these changing times?

Now read on…

Some preliminary evidence is now emerging which may indicate that the E-learning Industry is doing quite in the current economic climate. Electric News Net (ENN) has reported that SkillSoft and ThirdForce two of the largest Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) producers of e-learning content have posted profits for the last quarter and the year, respectively.

According to ENN,

e-learning firm SkillSoft posted another great set of quarterly results with revenues up by 34 percent and profits nearly quadrupling. Coming off the back of a third quarter where profits nearly trebled SkillSoft managed to perform even better in the fourth quarter as it posted profits of USD34.3 million, up from USD8.2 million for the same quarter the previous year.

SkillSoft say that the increase in revenue was down to:

• higher-than-planned rates of contract retention and renewal
• incremental revenues of USD4.6 million related to the amortisation of deferred revenue acquired by SkillSoft in the acquisition of NETg
• incremental revenues from NETg customer contracts which were renewed after acquisition

ThirdForce has seen its operating profit up by 160 per cent for 2007, while revenue increased by 35 per cent for the same period. Since acquiring MindLeaders, the US has become a key market for ThirdForce, and the company says it is targeting US companies in the sub-Fortune 1,000 sector. In the UK, ThirdForce is continuing to see growth in its core hospitality market, adding a number of multi-year contracts with major clients during 2007.

Analysis
At face value, these results look very positive, but these revenue reports are now a matter of history. Certainly in the case of ThirdForce, the results are based on performance before the current downturn really began to bite, and as such I don’t know if the results can be interpreted in terms of how the organization is performing in 08H1. It will be interesting to see how their strategy of growing their presence in the sub-Fortune 1,000 marketspace, given the fact that both SkillSoft and ThirdForce are headquartered in the Euro Zone, and given the current Dollar weakness against the Euro.

Similarly, a presence in the UK market would have at one time been viewed as a triple-bound low-risk revenue generator, but again, the current Sterling to Euro differential may mitigate against growth in that territory.

Dilemma
Consider the dilemma for both organizations: they both have substantial interests in territories with weakening currencies. Their sales and revenue numbers for 2008 – say arbitrarily $10M or €7.7M (at December 2007 exchange rates) – would have been agreed in 2007Q3, and strategies would have been put in place to meet those objectives. Now, even if the sales teams hit their targets numerically, they are struggling in a weakened Dollar situation where their $10M is now worth €6.3M – a substantial shortfall in revenue.

However, what’s more interesting to me is that both organizations’ customers intend to either renew or extend their current contracts with the two content providers. In my view, this indicates the increasingly positive reaction to and growing reliance upon e-learning as means of meeting employee training and development requirements. Is it trend that will be reflected across markets generally?

We’ll see.

It’s still early days, and no doubt I will be returning to this topic presently.

–

As a reminder, at the time I suggested that the appropriate social and economic innovations required to support e-learning were now sufficiently embedded (compared to 2001) the ensure the e-learning industry would certainly survive and maybe even thrive an economic downturn. I tempered this assertion by asking

will the positive economic, organisational, and social value of e-learning outweigh traditional human responses to recessionary times? What strategies can we use to ensure the survival of and even the growth of e-learning as an industry in these changing times?

Now read on…

Some preliminary evidence is now emerging which may indicate that the E-learning Industry is doing quite in the current economic climate. Electric News Net (ENN) has reported that SkillSoft and ThirdForce two of the largest Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) producers of e-learning content have posted profits for the last quarter and the year, respectively.

According to ENN,

e-learning firm SkillSoft posted another great set of quarterly results with revenues up by 34 percent and profits nearly quadrupling. Coming off the back of a third quarter where profits nearly trebled SkillSoft managed to perform even better in the fourth quarter as it posted profits of USD34.3 million, up from USD8.2 million for the same quarter the previous year.

SkillSoft say that the increase in revenue was down to:

• higher-than-planned rates of contract retention and renewal
• incremental revenues of USD4.6 million related to the amortisation of deferred revenue acquired by SkillSoft in the acquisition of NETg
• incremental revenues from NETg customer contracts which were renewed after acquisition

ThirdForce has seen its operating profit up by 160 per cent for 2007, while revenue increased by 35 per cent for the same period. Since acquiring MindLeaders, the US has become a key market for ThirdForce, and the company says it is targeting US companies in the sub-Fortune 1,000 sector. In the UK, ThirdForce is continuing to see growth in its core hospitality market, adding a number of multi-year contracts with major clients during 2007.

Analysis
At face value, these results look very positive, but these revenue reports are now a matter of history. Certainly in the case of ThirdForce, the results are based on performance before the current downturn really began to bite, and as such I don’t know if the results can be interpreted in terms of how the organization is performing in 08H1. It will be interesting to see how their strategy of growing their presence in the sub-Fortune 1,000 marketspace, given the fact that both SkillSoft and ThirdForce are headquartered in the Euro Zone, and given the current Dollar weakness against the Euro.

Similarly, a presence in the UK market would have at one time been viewed as a triple-bound low-risk revenue generator, but again, the current Sterling to Euro differential may mitigate against growth in that territory.

Dilemma
Consider the dilemma for both organizations: they both have substantial interests in territories with weakening currencies. Their sales and revenue numbers for 2008 – say arbitrarily $10M or €7.7M – would have been agreed in 2007Q3, and strategies would have been put in place to meet those objectives. Now, even if the sales teams hit their targets numerically, they are struggling in a weakened Dollar situation where their $10M is now worth €6.3M – a substantial shortfall in revenue.

However, what’s more interesting to me is how both organizations customers’ intention to either renew or extend their current contracts with the two content providers. In my view, this indicates the increasingly positive reaction in industry to e-learning as means of meeting employee training and development requirements. Is it trend that will be reflected across markets generally?

We’ll see.

It’s still early days, and no doubt I will be returning to this topic presently.

–