Please Don't Call Your LMS an LMS

For Pete’s sake, do not call your learning management system, the “learning management system.” That is like telling your friend to call you on your “hand-held, long-range, mobile, radio-telephone device.” Too many times in organizations, I have seen that link on the intranet. It is ironic that no one calls their intranet, the “intranet.” The organization comes up with a branded name for the intranet. We should do the same for the LMS.

Avoid industry jargon. Isn’t that what we train customer service and sales people to do when talking to customers? Why don’t learning professionals do the same inside the organization? Trust me when I say that no one in your organization (except you) knows what you are talking about when you use phrases like, “Level 1 Survey” or “LMS” or “ILT” or “Chevron-style.” This is consistent with the training professional’s bad habit of trying to educate business leaders on their own language, instead of speaking their client’s language; a mistake that holds learning professionals back from earning a seat at the table.

Do this … and do it today. Yes. I mean today … NOW!

Get a fellow trainer from your team, walk down the hall and meet with someone in marketing. Ask them if they will help you create a brand for your LMS. I am definitely not a marketing expert, but here are a few names to get you started, when you approach someone in marketing … or if you choose to do it yourself:

1. Learning Zone
2. Learning Café
3. The Learning Channel (oops, this one might have a copyright)
4. The Knowledge Center

It comes down to this … you want people in the organization to use all of the training you have worked so hard to make available. So why not make it a little easier for them to discover their own reasons for accessing “the place in the intranet where an employee can find, take, and complete self-paced electronic WBT modules, and also find and register for training sessions.”

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