U-Blog 3

Not too far back we watched a video about JebBlue U. It had mixed reviews with some saying it was a great idea and others saying it was just a polished training program to gain publicity.

I think that's great either way. Even if the training was no different than the typical orientations and tests, it's still flashy, draws attention and praise from the media, and keeps training somewhat interesting to the participants.

Everyone knows that if you have a boring class, with boring material, and a boring professor that you aren't going to learn much. Learning takes attention, and to get someone's attention you need to be either interesting or engaging. JetBlue U chose to be engaging, and so far it seems to be working out just fine.

Training these days is bland, uninteresting stuff- that is if you get training, what with a lot of training programs going the way of the dodo because employers are afraid to invest in a worker, they're looking in the short term, love their money, and are afraid of that big bad government that is socializing banks and feeding them truckloads of money. It's a terrible thing, all that free money for trips to Vegas work functions.

I digress.

Training needs a face lift, needs to be more interesting. It can be accomplished simply by involving the participants, changing the scenarios (like JetBlue U has done), and any number of other ways. If things don't change, the trainees are going to perform like a certain CSCE student in an operating systems lecture at 8am trying to keep his eyes open to watch a monotone professor talk about clock cycles. That is to say, he'll show up, nod, and trudge away at it until he's done.

That's not a good way to get performance out of an investment.