Confession: I’m pretty spoiled.
I’ve been working in a cloud-based authoring tool for almost two decades. (Um, wow, it’s crazy to see that in actual type!)
And it’s been interesting to see how organizations have changed their views on cloud-based tools over that time.
Just think of how many cloud-based tools are used in your organization today. Three examples from our own organization that come to mind immediately for me:
- the sales department’s customer relationship management system
- the marketing team’s website and analytics tools
- the software development team’s communications tools
For all of these tools, being cloud-based makes so much sense for so many reasons.
So, back to being spoiled.
Because I’ve been working in a cloud-based authoring tool for so long, I sometimes take it for granted that I can do things with a couple of clicks that desktop-tool users just can’t do easily.
As much as the learning and development world thinks of itself as one of constant change, in many ways our industry is slow to actually alter our practices. I’m sure a few specific things come to your mind right away, so I won’t go down a rabbit hole here.
What’s made cloud-based tools so successful for other areas of our organizations is that they solve real business problems.
So here are five things that aren’t problems for our elearning development team because a cloud-based authoring tool solves them every day.
Cloud-based authoring tools help you work well with others
This benefit is the probably most obvious.
When you create projects in a centralized, cloud-based authoring tool they can be accessed from anywhere at any time.
More importantly– they can be accessed by anyone* from anywhere at any time. (* with permission – more on this in a minute!)
And that sets up real opportunities for collaboration.
You can work on one part of a project while your colleague works on another section, all in real time and without any limitations on where either of you is located. No more waiting for your colleague to finish their work and send the file back to you or save it back to the shared drive on the network (and then remember to let you know).
