Filtered has a long, intimate relationship with content, creating our own through to Content Intelligence vs Content Chaos. We have many battle scars, shortcuts & tips to share.
1. Ugly duckling.
Content gets relatively little attention from HR and L&D. The side of skills that gets the attention is talent. And yet, a) it’s a $100 billion industry, and b) the world just went crazy about content, thanks to GenAI.
2. Categories.
It may be helpful to split the providers into categories, such as:
General-purpose: Skillsoft, LinkedIn Learning, HBR
Format-specific: getAbstract, TED
Marketplaces: Udemy
Aggregators: Go1, OpenSesame
MOOCs: FutureLearn, edX, Coursera, Udacity
Specialists: Pluralsight
Web: Internal (Subject Matter Expert Generated), Internal (User-Generated Content)
We talk to clients about three buckets: libraries, internal, and web. They’ve found this helpful and tend to adopt these larger categories.
3. Too generic.
The #1 complaint about content is that it’s too generic to be helpful.
4. Big libraries.
The main libraries are (deliberately unordered): O'Reilly, Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Skillsoft, Pluralsight, edX, HBP, TED@Work, Go1, OpenSesame, Cegos, Udacity, and GetAbstract. But having given them all an advertisement, we should say that topic-wise, there’s huge overlap among these, and some (not all) are very expensive.
5. Skillsoft & LinkedIn Learning.
For large companies, the fastest way to reduce costs is to determine the overlap between two large providers and pick one. We often see this come down to Skillsoft vs. LinkedIn.
6. Niche providers.
You can only really go for these if/when you KNOW you’ve got all the main skill bases covered. Do that first with a larger library, then start shopping like an artisan. There’s more love and care among some of these.
7. Vendor selection.
You’re not looking for the vendor with the best fit for your skills. You’re looking for the best combination of vendors to give you the skills and topics coverage you need.
8. Costs.
The range between providers is huge. The per-license cost between small and large is huge. The difference between pre-negotiated and hard-negotiated rates is huge.
9. Metrics.
Easy metrics for assessing content include language, duration, publication date, format, etc. The two most talked about are relevance and quality. Relevance, which is essential and our focus, is greatly desired and hotly debated.
10. Timeliness.
Some content needs to get out there fast, or it becomes obsolete. We saw this with the speed at which prompt engineering became suddenly hot and then suddenly cold. GenAI may solve this in the future. Careful curation of web content is the best bet for now. Creating content yourself or expecting vendors to do so quickly enough to stay ahead is often unrealistic.
11. Context.
Content isn’t just what you buy or make. Some context about your company can frame it usefully. For example, asking, "Why is this article important for our industry?" before the learner reads it turns it into a different beast instantly.
12. AI-generated content.
AI-generated content is unlikely to replace learning content anytime soon due to trust issues, strict IT policies, perceived quality, hallucinations, and a lack of deep expertise where little training data is available. Hyper-personalised content will be a big part of the future, but it won’t be everything, as humans still like and need to learn together in many contexts.
13. Pathways a mess too.
Many large companies we work with have thousands of pathways on top of tens or hundreds of thousands of learning assets. Pathway chaos is a subset of content chaos, and it doesn’t help anyone.
14. Quality.
Quality is hard to achieve. Many factors go into making a piece of content valuable to someone, and much (but not all!) of this is context-dependent—i.e., what it will do for that person at that time. Relevance to the organisation is also important, given who’s paying. "Consumer grade" is a glibly touted phrase, but very little learning content meets this standard. (I think of this as the "have-your-friends-heard-of-it" standard.) Maybe TED, Harvard, and Coursera do, just about.
15. Magic.
Once in a blue moon, content can be magical. Please take a look at this.
16. A question.
“How much content do you need for a particular skill or topic?” is a question most clients agree is a good one, but few have an answer to.
17. PAYG.
There’s a glacial shift towards a PAYG model of content buying. It’s glacial because although buyers want it, vendors (in general) do not. But the all-you-can-eat model (just like in restaurants) is not good for the quality and long-lasting impact of the experience!
If navigating the complexities of content selection, curation, and content management feels overwhelming, we're here to help. Whether you're struggling with vendor choices, content relevance, or simply want to optimise your learning resources, booking a demo can provide clarity. Our expertise spans the full spectrum of content, from the big libraries to niche providers, helping you make informed decisions. Let us guide you through solutions tailored to your organisation's unique needs. Ready to bring order to the chaos? Book a demo today and see how we can transform your content strategy.
