Leveraging technology with Principle 5 (Education, Training, and Information) is a win-win-win for cooperatives that dare to take leaps forward in this way.

Ready for digital literacy

Co-ops have a lot of teaching to do. To build a cooperative ecosystem with knowledgeable and invested stakeholders aware of what it is they have become a part of, it takes a lot of orienting, sharing, demonstrating, and educating. A cooperative can fail if it does not consistently apply Co-op Principle 5: Education, Training, and Information. Lack of strong education systems within a co-op culture can slowly erode its core.

When we at Columinate envision cultivating a strong healthy co-op culture, a critical piece of the pie is fostering excitement through innovative thinking about supporting the co-op operationally, functionally, or socially. One way we do that is through learning. From that perspective, Learning Management Systems provide essential opportunities for us to achieve our current and future goals. 

Learning Management Systems

An educational technology that has emerged is Learning Management Systems (LMS). According to Wikipedia, a learning management system is a software system that supports the delivery of learning content and the organization of a learning process. The extended version is that it is also a software application for the administration, documentation, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials, or learning and development programs. The learning management system concept emerged directly from e-learning.

Learning management systems are the largest segment of the learning system market.  According to fortunebusinessinsights.com industry reports, the global market for LMS was worth over $18 billion in 2023. It has grown several hundred percent since 2000, making it the fastest-growing market in the education industry.

The impact of digital/technological innovation on teaching and learning has been significant. The use of information and communication technology has optimized teaching methods, leading to a variety of approaches and expanded accessibility to education for a larger audience. Both educators and learners alike appreciate these tools, which help solve logistical and operational problems and also offer many additional features such as tracking and analysis of data, a crucial aspect of a learning cycle.

Understanding whether students are engaging with material, learning, retaining, or applying knowledge learned, is essential in continuing to update and improve upon curriculum, delivery methods, etc. Training materials, reading lists, syllabi, communications, payments—all can be consolidated into one platform. This allows for a more comprehensive and efficiently managed cycle, made less lengthy and easier for the instructor, internal user, and/or the student or learner.

Columinate Learn launch

Columinate is excited and proud to be launching Columinate Learn, a Learning Management System and one of the new, valuable resources Columinate provides its consultants. Columinate Learn could yield great rewards: creating solutions to problems, delivering what clients or staff are seeking, and delivering experiences that are easily accessible.  This is the direction in which the traditional business industry has been moving.

Regardless of the industry, analysis and data science are used to measure and monitor customer trends, customer service-oriented products, and more in each category.  We’ve been primed in our personal lives to use technology to access our choices on demand. The process has been happening for the past twenty years or so. But as cooperative businesses, we’ve got some catching up to do.

Columinate Learn is the latest in online learning software solutions. It was developed for consultant groups like Columinate, to cultivate an expansion of learning opportunities online or on-demand, for consultants to share with their clients as well as their collaborators. With the ability to create new educational programs through online learning and on-demand infrastructure, consultants can expand their reach, impact, and offerings while increasing their digital literacy, intelligence, and fluency. With the vision we have to grow local economies and the larger co-op ecosystem with this model, we’ll need to be equipped with the necessary tools of the day!

Columinate Learn pioneers

Consultants and Columinate Learn pioneers Leslie Watson and Jeannie Wells are courageously jumping in and seeing great successes.

Watson, a veteran CBLD consultant and program specialist, for many years facilitated the in-person CBLD 101 (Cooperative Board Leadership Development) program, on-site. It has served co-ops well, and literally thousands have participated in the program, sharing educational information that continues to support the empowerment of healthy co-op boards. But many more have never had the opportunity due to geography and/or financial capacity. Watson saw this as another opportunity to transform the way we educate in our consulting ecosystem.

Wells, a former retail co-op general manager, transitioned into consulting in 2011. She noticed that the co-op ecosystem was losing a lot of veteran cooperators, but the demand for cooperative knowledge was growing. She herself had trouble keeping up with the demands and requests for assistance. She also noticed that most of her calls came from small co-ops who really needed the support but couldn’t afford to fly a consultant out to do the work. She realized she could offer the basic building blocks online and still incorporate human-to-human contact at key points in the learning cycle. Moving forward with her vision, she created Mighty Community Markets and had 105 signups out the gate.

Watson began thinking about designing an online course after hearing Ladonna Sanders Redmond speak about how we needed to be more dynamic with our education offerings and delivery methods for online engagement. Leslie and education partner Brittany Baird thought that boards could really use more financial training, and they began developing a four-part online seminar for directors. They have facilitated approximately eleven of those sessions and will be adding more through Columinate Learn, including a virtual CBLD 101 and CBLD 101 on-demand in 2024.

These sessions are designed for boards to digest in bite-size chunks and can be utilized for board member orientations, refreshers on good governance practices and fiduciary responsibility, or policy governance essentials. The 101 Foundation series will debut in beta form in late 2023, and 2024 will bring the on-demand version through CBLD Academy on Columinate Learn, followed by an array of relevant offerings she has already carved out, once the initial segments are up and running.

Wells shared that some fundamentals transcend size, and that was a key place to start. Co-ops can customize their applications of what they learn through the homework offered. Later, more specialized offerings can be designed based on size, when scaling is inevitable. Wells has been supporting smaller stores, but mid-level managers in the larger stores also tend to be attracted to her courses. Her earlier vision for Mighty Community Markets curriculum was a boot-camp version that takes participants through a six-week period with both live classes as well as virtual and on-demand aspects.

Her more recent vision, scheduled for launch in 2024, is for a fully on-demand experience with a series of intensives that are self-contained learning modules that take deeper dives into specific topics. With a Cooperative Innovator Award under her belt for her work on Mighty Community Markets, it appears Wells has a winning formula. She also recently posted a Grocery Industry Trends Report for 2023, demonstrating another way that LMS can create additional digital assets, revenue, and digital fluency for consultants and co-op clients alike; you can see it by visiting here.

Things to consider

When looking at integrating Columinate Learn into your consulting work, here are some things to consider:

• What is the co-op community asking for, and for which there isn’t yet a resource?

• Ways to make more information more accessible

• Topics of interest that clients/co-ops would be excited about learning

• Multi-level courses that have basic, intermediate, or advanced levels

• One-offs that might be valuable to fellow Columinators

• One-offs that might be valuable to clients/co-ops

• Workbooks and homework

• Supporting articles

• Data tracking

• Researching other courses and the aspects above

Secret success ingredient

If you’d like to give the Columinate Learn a try, there is one secret ingredient that both Leslie Watson and Jeannie Wells swear by and credit for much of their ease with the development and launching of their courses. His name is Joel Brock. They couldn’t say enough about how helpful he was, and they could not see being as successful without his talent, skill, and support. Our very own technology guru and course designer, Brock helped to refine the courses so they would include more seamless logistics, better functionality, student progress tracking, as well as other added value aspects in the curriculum.

Leslie: “Joel was so supportive and made things so easy for me. I can’t say enough about his ability to facilitate this process from beginning to end.”

Jeannie: “I have so much gratitude for Joel, he was amazing and phenomenal to work with. So gifted, and he came through whenever needed.”

In conclusion

While these consultants are exploring the digital divide and the possibilities of online learning and Columinate Learn, they still greatly value visiting co-ops and working on-site with direct contact, building the relational wealth that is key to building cooperatives. Nothing compares with in-person contact, feeling someone’s energy, or even just a good old-fashioned hug. In addition, offering alternatives that expand access to necessary information lifts up the cooperative value of equity. It provides more access for all and is equally important.

I’ve seen some stats in multiple places that really stuck with me: 60–70 percent of businesses that survived the pandemic did so because they innovated or pivoted to digitally transform or hybridize some aspect of their business. Other success factors included an ability to establish new or strengthen existing community-building methods, and having lots of cash on hand. Primarily, however, it was the innovative pivot in many different forms. Online and digital innovation were key solutions through which innovation could be channeled.

Columinate is taking intentional steps to usher in both internal transformation and create the externally transformational impacts for our clients, members, co-ops, small businesses, the full ecosystem! It’s imperative that cooperative businesses as a whole wade into the digital waters and be developing their digital literacy, fluency, and intelligence. This is needed if we are to meet the needs and service demands of consumers and our communities.