<b><strong>Myca-Pope Offers Powerful Diversity eLearning Solutions</strong></b>
DiversityInc Magazine, July/August, 2005
Nearly 30 years after the late Merlin Pope used the term "diversity" to refer to changing demographics of the U.S. workforce, his wife and co-founder of Pope & Associates, Pat Pope, recognized the opportunity to to leverage new technology in the delivery of training.
In 2002, she joined with Myca Group to create Cincinnati-based MYCA-Pope. Two of the firm's partners, Pat Pope and Patti Massey, link Pope's proprietary content with Massey's technology and project-management expertise.
"A lot of eLearning on the market today is simply 'Power Point' on steroids," Pope says. "Pope &*Associates' core strength has been designing and delivering experiential learning, so it was essential to us that our elearning courses were also highly interactive."
Massey adds, "Because of the hundreds of thousands of participants that Pope has trained, we start with a good sense of what managers and employees are struggling with. eLearning technologies also provide a lot of opportunity for us to customize our product to ensure that it is a good fit within an organization's culture."
A strong advocate for "blended learning solutions", which incorporate the best of both worlds, Pat Pope sees several distinct benefits with eLearning. One of the down-sides of instructor-led training is ensuring that everyone receives the same content, delivered in the same high-quality way. A company that wants to train 10,000 employees can take years to get everyone trained, not to mention the cost of coordinating all of the classes, travel costs, training rooms, meals, etc. With eLearning, they can be trained in the same material, with the same delivery method and message, but at their own pace -- or the organization can choose to have everyone complete the training in one month.
"We're proud of the diversity eLearning products we've created and have received great recognition from the training industry, including two Axiem Awards and a glowing write-up in
Training Media Review (the review arm of ASTD)," says Massey.
8/9/2005
