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"Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know" - Daniel J. Boorstin

In running a company, we face new and ongoing challenges with the business every day. And therefore, we seldom take the time to learn that which we don't know, or encourage our people to learn new things; things that could be critical to our business success. This often reminds me of an old joke = "I really need time-management training, but I just don't have the time to take the course."

Having worked in and around business software for more than 20 years, I find the same thing - often times business software users don't know what they don't know. Often time, that leads to furstration, and reduced productivity when the user feels as though the software doesn't do what they want it to do; so, they use a spreadsheet. Or what's worse, take three more steps to accomplish something that oculd have easily been done with the right amount of knowledge.

Sometimes, the lack of knowledge stems from poor initial training and education. However, far more often, the education was delivered properly, but unfortunately, most people can only retain about 70% of what they learn in a single session. And it only gets worse when the person who was originally trained is promoted, or leaves the company, causing the new user to receive little or no training at all, or receiving training from a pervious user. In this case, the new user learns 70% of the original 70%, causing the resulting knowledge to go down to 50%. As the timeline moves forward another few years, and the current user is now 3 users removed, the knowledge base dhifts down to 35%. And with inevitable software upgrades, with new features and functions, the problem only worsens.

Internally, Navigator is committed to the ongoing education of our sales, consulting, and support staff. In our case, that means (4) "all-Hands" meetings per year, where we train, practice our craft, and learn new applications and eatures. Going further, we also do 1-2 montly web sessions, in the evenings, to train, practice, and coach on various modules. And out people are encouraged further (in fact, required) to continue to study the various eLearning tools available, on their own.

Externally, Navigator offers its customers Business One education through the Web. Education is provided with most new system implementations, and it provides significant value for those needing to learn the new software for the first time. However, it is also as valuable, if not more valuable, for customers that have already implemented Business One; perhaps to refresh their knowledge or to train new hires. Navigator offers a variety of options from training on Business One, customizing Business One, and our advanced Add-On modules. These are based on an annual subscription fee, allowing anyone from your company to attend selected sessions anytime they wish, as many times as they choose, for one year.

Looking back to the quote above - Web Education is a great way to have users learn those things they didn't know they didn't know. At Navigator, even our most experienced people, often with (5) or more years experience in Business One, are still learning new things.