SuccessFactors acquires Jambok and maybe training videos won't be so terrible
Perhaps if human resources let us make our own training videos, they would be less laughable. Perhaps we might even learn something.
That's the idea behind Jambok and the intent of SuccessFactors which agreed, today, to acquire Jambok.
Jambok makes social creating and sharing tools it calls a YouTube for training that lets employees create their own training tools to share among each other on a social network.
It is an attempt to put structure around the informal, peer-to-peer learning that happens at the departmental and employee level, said Lars Dalgaard, CEO and founder of SuccessFactors, in a corporate press release. Most learning in the workplace is done on the job between peers and outside the official training apparatus, Dalgaard said.
U.S. businesses spend more than $100 billion annually on corporate training, according to SuccessFactors, and almost all of that on management-ordered programs that fail to incorporate the real-world practicalities of on-the-job situations. The company said:
The ability to tap into the informal learning that happens on the job is limited, and the power of user-generated content remains untapped. With this acquisition, SuccessFactors makes a significant step forward in defining the next generation of results-oriented learning for organizations.
Jambok allows any employ to build training documents, videos, screenshots and narrated screencasts to be shared with a department or company wide.
Nike is already using Jambok. From the release:
"At NIKE most of our learning happens on the job, in real-time and from the subject matter experts, not from canned videos and training alone," said Joe Campbell, director of talent development & global design and delivery solutions, NIKE. "Jambok allows our team members, regardless of their technological capabilities, to complete screen captures, create videos, upload and share easily with the team, accelerating learning and helping to create a smarter workforce. This is the future of corporate learning and we're ahead of the curve with Jambok."
Jambok was founded by former Sun Chief Learning Officer Karie Willyerd and former Sun chief technology officer Charles Beckham.
It is the latest in a number of cloud acquisitions for SuccessFactors, noted TechCrunch.
This is SuccessFactors' fourth acquisition in a year. The cloud software giant bought social enterprise software company CubeTree for $50 million, Inform for $40 million, and cloud-based analytics platform YouCalc for an undisclosed amount.
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