In a past life during my career in the business world, I was a corporate trainer. Interestingly, I received training on becoming an instructor from the Army (Reserves) and the corporate world at the same time. Many of the core principles were very similar (understand your audience, clear learning objectives, inform and interact, evaluate for competence), although the subject matter was clearly different.

One of the key lessons I learned after developing various training programs and running hundreds of people through them is that skills development is never finished for a company. The temptation to create a certification program and then consider your staff “trained” is simply not realistic. This is especially true when it comes to the multi-dimensional aspects of social media and what it means for improving business.