Do You REALLY Care About The Environment But Do Also You Want MORE Of What We Have?

David Ratcliffe, President | March 28, 2013 Events

At the beginning of this month we launched our e-materials strategy for all education products. In a nutshell, what this means is we no longer automatically provide printed manuals & handouts for our courses. Instead we load everything up to a server and give students the ability to download the materials and choose whether to continue to access them electronically on their own devices, or print them (in a variety of formats) themselves. So we're not taking anything away, in fact we're giving the customer more options to chose from in how they take delivery of their materials. Even though this strategy has been launched across all our education products this month, the concept is not new. 1. All of our courses in Self-Paced Online format have only ever used e-materials. 2. All of our courses in Instructor-Led Online format have also only ever used e-materials. 3. We have not provided hardcopy reference materials for our special events and conferences for a number of years now. (The sad sight of abandoned 3-ring binders in hotel lobbies around the world gave us the message loud and clear - people don't want to carry half a ton of paper on their flights home!) We provide access to all session materials, along with audio recordings, on a special web server before and after the events. Not only does our e-materials strategy save paper and shipping resources, but it also provides our customers with a number of added value items:

  • The opportunity to access materials on a variety of platforms, in addition to printed form if desired.
  • Because we use a web portal for delivering e-materials, we can now make available much more in the way of complementary materials and resources. For example, the actual files in PPT format to reuse back at work in shorter presentations to co-workers, or to replay and refresh their learning.
  • The e-files are made available for download soon after the student signs-up for the course. So materials can be reviewed well in advance of showing up in the classroom.
  • In the classroom, if the student now brings along an e-reading device (laptop, tablet or smartphone) it means they can access a lot more material than they typically would if they only had hardcopies with them.
  • We can quickly update files when necessary, so students can be assured of a better quality and more up-to-date set of materials.

All this sounds good to me, because you can:

  • Download the materials to your favourite device well in advance of attending the course!
  • Get a heads-up on what will be covered in the course and pre-read to your heart's content!
  • Cut & paste the PPT files to your heart's content!
  • If you want printed materials - fine. "Here they are, review them and print whichever sections you want in whichever format you chose!"

So far the response from our customers is encouraging. Most people see the sense in this and have either seized the opportunity vigorously with a good natured "About time too!" or have adapted quickly because they're BYOD buffs already. But I guess I'm not surprised at some of the cynical remarks I've heard too:

  • "Pink is cutting back and not passing the cost savings on to us!"
  • "My employer doesn't allow me to print!" (Really?? We've heard this more than once, so I guess it must be true.)
  • "Our firewall won't allow us to access your e-materials portal."

I shudder to think what other missed opportunities must exist out there when a big company restricts employees from printing or accessing useful services via the web. The truth is this isn't motivated by a goal to cut costs. In fact when I look at what we've spent on constructing the tools and resources to make this work, and the ongoing promotion, maintenance and management - I'll be happy if we've managed to avoid increasing costs! Our goal has been two-fold: 1. A desire to conserve precious natural resources and reduce our carbon footprint. It just seems like the right thing to do, even if in the grand scheme of things our impact is relatively small. 2. To take advantage of e-world technologies to provide our customers with more choices and more resources. Handing out bigger (and heavier) books is just not a viable option. So I ask the cynics - "Do you REALLY care about the environment? And do you want MORE from Pink?" Come on, give me a "Yes!" and a "Yes!"

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