Mobile learning will transform how enterprises train their workforces and keep them current. Adding the missing ingredient of mobility, a worker will be able to take a training course in small snippets of available time: while awaiting a flight, waiting for a meeting to begin, taking a break over coffee, or relaxing in the hotel room.

Some of the benefits of e-learning you're already quite familiar with are lower training costs, improved workforce participation, leading to a more uniformly trained workforce, and higher training content retention, leading to a more highly proficient, productive workforce. In addition, e-learning also increases enterprise compliance, leading to lower penalty costs. A more highly skilled workforce leads to more revenue, less costly errors or safety violations, and fewer lawsuits.

All of this, of course, leads to lower enterprise costs and corporate exposures, as well as increased revenue and opportunity. The mobile factor is the icing on the cake. Any time, anywhere learning is readying to go extreme!

Applying video to the workplace
Mobile devices have revolutionized field service. Today, field service employees rely on the handheld to inform and optimize their daily work dockets, allow parts availability checks and order placement, and view field equipment diagrams and schematics. Mobile field solutions allow representatives to collect field data, dynamically create the final customer bill, transfer data electronically to the central office, and receive timely central office updates.

Now add Video On Demand to this capability mix. Imagine field service staff accessing video knowledge bases that bring visual, how-to instruction at the customer site. Such on-demand e-learning applications will help field service staff overcome field problems and better ensure that the field job is successfully completed.

The need for repeat field service calls plagues enterprises because of the inherent extra service cost and customer satisfaction penalties. Bringing how-to knowledge to the field force will be instrumental to increasing field service effectiveness. Field service forces will transcend to a continuous learning environment where the complete knowledge base is in their hip pocket.

Spam, the next generation
Corporate marketing departments won't miss the opportunity to bring their messaging to this new multimedia environment. VOD will be the means to deliver "educational" infomercials to mobile devices. This is one side effect of technology enablement that may result in additional enterprise cost instead of a bottom line ROI (Return On Investment) benefit.

What makes mobile devices attractive for this type of marketing is that the worker is mobile, outside of the supervised, controlled, corporate environment. Furthermore, this active content is handy for viewing in personal downtime that was previously unavailable to marketers, except in flat print, making the handheld and smartphone persuasive marketing tools.

In conclusion
Mobile media brings the potential of taking mobile devices into a new realm of just-in-time productivity tools for the enterprise workforce. Mobile media will take the handhelds and smartphones from being flat informational transfer devices, to 3-D visual communication devices. Applied and used correctly, enterprises can reap significant benefits for a more informed, educated, and skilled workforce. Sales cycles will shorten; close rates will increase. Field service staff can perform higher quality tasks with lower instances of failure and safety violations.