Laurence Smith, SmartUp’s Head of Learning and Talent shares more in a MoneyFM 89.3 radio interview with DJ Howie Lim.
SmartUp is here to disrupt the corporate learning industry.
And it’s not just about giving search engines or newer knowledge-sharing competitors a run for their money.
SmartUp changes the way we interact with knowledge.
It presents microlearning modules in Digital Readiness, Entrepreneurship and the latest in Tech for large corporate organisations, government associations, and casual learners alike.
But some of you might ask, ‘There are easier ways of obtaining knowledge from search engines. So why SmartUp?’
SmartUp can be more effective than search engines
Sure– in the Internet Age, knowledge is everywhere. If you have a burning question, you’d probably search Google. So why a knowledge-sharing platform over search engines?
“Google is good for giving you answers on-the-go, but with search engines you get 10 million answers. The one that’s got the most links and popularity will be at the top,” shares Laurence.
“This doesn’t mean you’ve found a concise answer to what you’re looking for. Instead, the top entry could be a very long document or video.
With SmartUp, complicated concepts are broken down to 5-minute chunks where people can access them as much as they need, whenever they need it, however they need it.”
That’s the power of microlearning.
You learn specific, curated content on-the-go
“It doesn’t matter if you’re going out for a meeting, working on a project, or just on the commute home. With SmartUp’s 5-minute microlearning modules, you can pair modules for a quick lesson or stagger them into a longer course.
But more importantly, we typically want to learn about something right away— whether it’s writing a proposal, answering a question, or completing a project.
With microlearning, you only need just enough. It’s really that ‘just-in-time’ factor that makes our platform so relevant.”
Data is shared two-ways
SmartUp’s sleek interface also embeds polls and quizzes for interactive learning, shares Laurence.
“On one hand, you get to share your opinion, see how your opinion compares with everyone else’s, and get quizzed on your understanding.
Conversely, content creators- be it a university, company, or organisation- get their employees or customers’ attitudes and capabilities. It’s a two-way sharing of data.
What differentiates SmartUp from traditional platforms or even newer competitors is its ease in content conversion. You can take whatever content you have inside an organisation, and convert it to a microlearning format with no major technical skills required.”
Keep scrolling to see how one major professional training and education body in Singapore did just that:
Boring e-learning, no more: big corporate names are riding the SmartUp wave!
“The biggest recent deal in Singapore that we’re pleased about is the Singapore College of Insurance. They provide training certification for every financial advisor in Singapore.
We’re moving all their content on SmartUp, as well as letting insurance professionals earn Continual Professional Development (CPD) hours, 5 or 10 minutes a time on the phone.
Financial advisors have to do 30 CPD hours a year, but they really would rather be meeting clients and making money than sit in the classroom for a few days.”
That’s where SmartUp comes in, shares Laurence.
“Now everytime they’re on their daily commute, they can do 10 minutes here, and another 10 minutes there. Before you know it, they’re already 2 out of 30 hours down. That’s a great first step.”
SmartUp supports a multipolar learning system
This doesn’t mean a radical overhaul of how we learn. Rather, we’ll see a multipolar trend.
“The classroom or face-to-face experience is not going away,” says Laurence. “What you’re going to see less of is lectures and classrooms where it’s just a delivery of content.
I think we’ll see learning moving towards two ends: firstly, you’ll see more experiential workshops, discovery-based learning, and action-learning simulations. On the other hand, you’ll have more microlearning.”
You’ll get access to insider knowledge
Previously, such specialised knowledge would be available to an elite circle of thought leaders and their mentees.
However, SmartUp democratises knowledge by sharing insider tips with multiple audiences.
“They were successful entrepreneurs who are now Venture Capitalists and investors—and they like giving back and mentoring young start-ups as they themselves were mentored. But being busy people, they wanted to it at scale.
Thus, they built SmartUp to capture the essence, secrets, and learnings, but also added polls and quizzes to get data on which is the best startup to invest in.
So, there was both a corporate doing good by giving back, and the self-interest of getting data on which is the best startup to invest in.”
Want some free-to-access content?
“Be More SmartUp is our free-to-access community on the App Store or Play Store. Simply download the “SmartUp Learn” app,” says Laurence.
Log in using your Google, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts, and tap on “browse all communities”.
“For large corporate companies who want to use SmartUp’s platform, there’s an Annual Enterprise License. At US$30/user/year (US$2.50/user/month), companies get platform access. On top of learning more about the latest in Tech, they can create their own content too.”
Get in on the SmartUp revolution and connect with our team!
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Interview has been edited for brevity and coherence.
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