InformationWeek.com

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

January 1, 2001

Printer ready

Innovators And Influencers 2001

Rethinking The Way We Work

Cisco Systems VP Tom Kelly is transforming the company's training program to match the CEO's vision of E-learning

By Sandra Swanson

More on Cisco:

TechWeb Finance: Cisco Buys ExiO Communications (12/14/00)

Reuters: Cisco Determined To Keep Growing (12/5/00)

Computer Reseller News: Cisco Faces New Challenges -- And Competitors (10/16/00)

Send Us Your Feedback

otorcycle rallies and bonsai gardening--not a likely pair of hobbies, right? Unless you're Tom Kelly, Cisco Systems' VP of worldwide training. When he isn't evangelizing Cisco's E-learning efforts, Kelly tends to about 70 bonsai-tree pots and rides his black '98 Wide Glide and '00 Electra Glide Harley Davidsons.

Kelly kicked up plenty of dust this summer during the Saddle Sore 1,000, a 24-hour, 1,000-mile ride, and the Northwest Passage Rally, 4,400 miles in five days, on 14 hours of sleep. That may sound grueling to some, but Kelly enjoys it. "In a car you remember the music or the close call or the one great vista of the day. On a bike, you're part of that vista--it stays with you longer and better."

Kelly likes to be where the rubber meets the road, and that applies to E-learning as well. Cisco's CEO John Chambers calls E-learning the "next killer app," creating significant expectations for innovative Cisco E-learning projects and putting pressure on Kelly to deliver. It's up to him to transform Cisco's training into Chambers' vision. When he joined the company in December 1997, about 95% of Cisco's sales-force training was done in the classroom. But that approach represented a "model for extended failure," says Kelly, since salespeople couldn't spend the necessary time to keep pace with weekly product introductions. Today, Cisco's sales force gets about 80% of the information for their jobs online.

One E-learning tool he says will gain momentum is business simulations. Scenario-based online games can help assess a salesperson's customer interaction or a system engineer's router knowledge. And business simulations may also infuse employee training with some much-needed panache. "Learning could very easily become a competitive part of your job, if there are ways to keep score," says Kelly. Even if bosses don't monitor employees' skill level, it may become a source of pride for co-workers. "It's like Doom without the blood and gore--how many levels have you been through?" he says. The key is to create a buzz about learning's importance.

Tom Kelly Photo by While E-learning doesn't deserve the rap it sometimes gets of "self-paced hell," it certainly hasn't achieved its real potential yet, Kelly says. "Imagine if E-mail was sent to a repository somewhere, and you had to go search for the E-mail that was appropriate for you." That's the current approach to training and learning: "We make people go search for what's appropriate to them."

Kelly's solution? Metadata tagging for content that works with a profiling structure, so individuals have germane content delivered to personal training home pages, for example. "The whole profiling mechanism is going to be a little clumsy for two or three years, but it will probably address 50% to 80% of the problem of what content do you need to do your job," says Kelly.

To accomplish E-learning goals, Kelly emphasizes the need for IT support. "We come to them with a learning problem and they help us design a technical solution," he says. "If IT isn't your very best partner inside the company, you can't be successful."

For Kelly, the challenges and rewards of large-scale E-learning programs parallel those of bonsai gardening. That's because bonsai artists must continually respond to their trees' additional growth or damaged branches.

"A bonsai is never finished," Kelly says. "You have to keep working on it, evaluating, and often adapting your vision to the changes. It's a great metaphor for life, for work, and especially for hard projects."