It hasn’t been a long time but a lot has happened in the short amount of time since I founded IT Training Department. I’ve been building training for IT projects and systems since about 2007 or 8. But, I’ve worked inside organizations from school districts to healthcare companies. But, always in IT but helping train those who aren’t in IT.
I’ve been told many times that I was good at helping bridge the gap between overly techie IT and regular people. That’s why I decided to go into training and develop training content. I found over the years that the ideal way to do this was either through digital means or one on one.
One-on-one training isn’t exactly efficient nor is it possible for most large-scale IT projects. That leaves digital training solutions as the ideal solution for training staff on new IT systems or even using IT systems more efficiently.
And that is why I launched IT Training Department. Because IT sometimes has a bad rep and if not, still occasionally needs a bit of assistance to train employees who aren’t techie for new systems.
Even though the IT Training Department is new, being founded in November 2022 it has already come a long way. I launched it with a new website and a blog post on November 21st about the blog launch and goals of techstructioal.
Continuous improvement is a way of life of every successful organization. Never stop improving or learning.
Even though it has barely been a month, a lot of headway has been made in founding and establishing the company. No organization is ever complete, though. Continuous improvement is a way of life and every organization is under constant development and improvement.
That’s why we’re summing up our first major accomplishments and what some of our plans are for the next year. 2023 will be our first full year and it’s going to be an adventurous year.
So, onward to our accomplishments in a short but productive 2022.
Accomplishments In A Short 2022
Just over a month and we have a good list of accomplishments to share. We have the background, the skill, and the passion. Those are things we’re continuing to build as we work our way toward our first client. In the name of transparency, we’re still developing the business and how others see the value we can deliver to their organization.
That’s why we’re being transparent in that nothing magically happens overnight. We’re no different because it’s a work in progress to earn our first client. It’s all a process to add value, be seen by others as valuable, and turn that value into a better project launch for one organization’s next big IT project.
If we can accomplish this in just over a month, there’s no question that we can accomplish even greater things for IT department project launches. So, take a gander through what we’ve put together in the last month and how we’re working our way into growth.
Launched The techstructional (previously IT Training Department) Website
Our first major hurdle was to launch our website. That meant having a domain (and a company name) as well as colors, logo, and all else that goes with establishing a company online.
I’m lucky to have come from a web design background well before I ever worked in training. That means I have a background in HTML, CSS, and design in general. Then again, no training can be well-built without a good amount of design skills and UX skills.
So, after all was said in done, this is what I ended up creating. While I’m not in love with the logo, it’s functional and works well enough for what we need.
While the overall design has stayed the same, there have been additions, changes, and more since the initial launch. The entire home page messaging and content was completely redone shortly after launch. that’s how launching a new business goes, though.
As soon as you launch a new business, messaging changes, information gets refined, and how that’s communicated to the world gets simplified and becomes more valuable. That’s exactly what we did and I’m sure that won’t be the last time.
Create LinkedIn Presence
Given that our target audience is medium to large organization IT departments and the project and change managers who work with them, LinkedIn is our social media platform of choice. That means we needed to focus on creating a great LinkedIn page that cemented our messaging and helps make sense of what we do.
This one is still a work in progress since our overall messaging has changed a bit. Once we had a good LinkedIn page setup, the next most important part was to establish it and add value.
Contribute Value To LinkedIn
We had our first post, second post, videos, and more. That even includes the announcement that our website was launched with a quick scroll-through video similar to the one above. That’s not much value, though.
So, we worked on creating a quick video that explains what we do to kick off our story and how we help organization IT departments launch their projects more successfully. That quick video and the post that goes along with it remains pinned to our LinkedIn page as of the time of writing this post.
It won’t always remain there as we continue to refine, but that isn’t a lot of value beyond telling others about what we do. The real value comes from sharing others’ work and also engaging with the LinkedIn community. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing nearly every day.
That means going out there, finding valuable content for Project Managers, Change Managers, and the Training & Development community, and sharing it with others through our page. It also means engaging by liking and commenting when others add value to the community.
Another piece of LinkedIn engagement is to share interesting and useful content we’ve run across. In that mix, we also share some of the content that we create on the IT Training Blog.
Create Other Social Media Presence
While we don’t put a lot (if any) of energy into any other social media presence besides LinkedIn, we did establish our business on other social networks. There’s the techstructional Facebook page. Then we also created a techstructional Instagram profile which we occasionally post to.
One network that we created our profile for but only post to is the techstructional Twitter profile. We’re not a big fan of the current direction of Twitter but that seems to have gotten too political. So, we created the profile, and post to it, but don’t monitor it at all.
Then there’s the techstructional YouTube channel. It’s a work in progress as we slowly post a few videos and work on content to post there. We’ll be using the channel heavily but also posting nearly all video content to LinkedIn and Facebook. They are both decent platforms for posting full-length video content.
That’s the extent of what we can handle for social media for now, but TikTok may be on the horizon, but we’re not sure when or if we could even offer enough value there.
Creating Valuable Content
This has been a huge priority. Ever since we launched our LinkedIn page the goal has been to create valuable content for it. We’ve created original posts with valuable information and no other goals in mind. Our initial focus was to create content that helps people understand the importance of accessibility and how to create accessible content.
We’ve even begun developing some text-based videos for posting that are an easy-to-watch version of our blog posts. Some of our content is more engaging than others but that’s to be expected.
Typically, 80-90% of engagement comes from 10-20% of your content.
We’ll continue to create content as well as add our insights while sharing other people’s valuable content. If we can add value, then we’re going to reshare and increase the value. That’s what social media is all about: sharing, growing, thinking, and engaging with others.
Refine Messaging On Our Website & Social Media
Shortly after launching our website and social media profiles, the idea came to refine our messaging. While I had the message in my head, it was not always clear to begin with. A bit of thought helped me clarify how IT Training Department helps IT projects and the IT department in organizations.
As I’ve worked as an Instructional Designer in an IT department, I got to see firsthand how it helps people and helps the organization perform better. That’s how I thought of the messaging that covers the four major topics of how training helps the organization and IT department.
- Cutting training in less than half. Yes, I’ve done this on many different occasions by taking in-person or virtual instructor-led training and streamlining it.
- More effective training comes from spaced learning and simplifying training content so people don’t suffer from cognitive overload. It’s so easy to do but good (and thoughtful) training makes it all possible.
- Designing effective training for IT project launches can save an organization tons of money. That’s pretty important!
- Training helps every IT project go more smoothly while adding more value to the organization.
With that new messaging, we completely redid our home page to explain those important facts of training for IT projects. It also took a bit of remastering our social media profiles which will continue to be a work in progress throughout the year.
Create Valuable Blog Content
As of writing this post, we have nine active blog posts available. Each week I’ve written a post since the first one on November 21st. That means a new post on Monday and Thursday of each week. The only break in that schedule has been for the day after Christmas (I’m not writing on Christmas) and there will be a break on Monday due to New Year’s day observed.
There’s no guarantee that the schedule will stick as our content grows, but it just might. Either way, we’re growing the value of our blog while helping Project Managers and Change Managers understand how we can help their projects and also how to work with us.
Our content also covers some topics that help us connect with the L&D and eLearning community. That means creating content that helps others improve training. One of our first big focuses has been about creating accessible training content which includes making videos more accessible with subtitles.
Our list of ideas for creating good content for our blog is large and we continue to add to it. That doesn’t mean we’re not open to suggestions, though. If you have a good idea for content you’d like to see us create, let us know!
Planning For 2023 And Beyond
While we don’t have an exact plan for the coming year, we do have a long to-do list. Part of our immediate list is to create a video that sums up our four big points that prove the value of our training to IT projects.
It’s proven because we’ve done it for years inside IT departments for large organizations. Now it’s just a matter of communicating that value to those who will decide to use our solutions to make their IT projects more successful.
Proper digital training adds tremendous value to IT project both at launch and to ongoing support.
We want to add value to IT and help transform how people see IT departments and innovations coming from them and being pushed to the rest of the organization. If people aren’t properly supported and trained in new technology then it will fall flat.
Our goal for the next year is to refine our messaging and communicate that value. That means becoming a valuable part of the LinkedIn community for Change Managers, Project Managers, and L&D as well.
Wrap Up
We’re ready to change how IT projects are launched company-wide. There is proven value in training that’s effective and helps people get up to speed faster in new technology. Employees who feel well-supported and know how to use IT systems will have higher job satisfaction and less turnover. That’s a fact that’s hard to argue with.
Even though we live in a technological age with incredible technology, people still need support in new systems and need to know how to use them right. That will ensure more success with IT systems, and employees using them more efficiently and effectively by using them the right way.
Proper training can have that effect immediately. We’d love to work with you on your next IT project to help employees adopt and use the systems better than without effective training.