As the New Year gets under way, many of us are looking for professional development opportunities for our staff and ourselves. If your development plans include improving your skills in anything related to the training profession, you’ll want to take a look at the site belonging to Friesen, Kaye and Associates (FKA), appropriately titled FKA.com.

If you have been in the training business very long, you’ve probably heard of this organization. FKA aggressively markets workshops and materials for trainers through direct mail. FKA specializes in “Training and Performance Improvement solutions.” The company offers a broad line of products and services including:

  • Workshops for training analysts, training designers, training deliverers, training managers, and performance specialists
  • Consulting services
  • Software tools for trainers

We will be looking at this site in two stages. This week’s review highlights the workshops and consulting portions of the site. Next week we’ll focus on the software and exam simulator sections, which really warrant a review in and of themselves.
Site setup
Although I am not a fan of framed Web sites, I must admit this site uses frames quite well. The home page features several areas, including:

  • Workshops
  • Consulting
  • Software
  • Links/Resources
  • Online Registration
  • CTT Exam Simulator
  • Pre-Course Surveys

Often, sites that have many sections, as this one does, will be sparse in content. This is clearly not the case with the FKA Web site. Each section is full of relevant material.

Workshops
According to the site, FKA has been delivering workshops for over 30 years. One can assume that workshops are the backbone of its business. The range of workshops, which all focus on the training profession, is impressive. Along with the usual “instructor skills” and “needs assessment” types of workshops are more specialized and harder to find workshops on performance consulting, job-aid design, and on-the-job training design and delivery. There is also a “train the trainer” workshop for those of you interested in obtaining MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer) certification.

FKA’s workshops are available for internal delivery (the site offers an extensive list of the benefits of conducting workshops in-house). You can view or download a year 2000 schedule, as well as view the workshops that already have set dates (this is listed on the individual workshop description page). You may also register online for any of the workshops.

Consulting
FKA uses its site to define its consulting expertise. Among the areas highlighted include:

  • Training design and development
  • Needs analysis
  • Evaluation

The site does a nice job of describing this expertise. If you drill down to FKA’s fact sheets, you’ll find that the company also does a fine job of describing the specifics for certain jobs, including cost estimates. Another nice touch is the option to download an Adobe Acrobat brochure for all of these services, which is a great feature if you need to share your research into this organization with others in your group.

Overall impressions
The FKA Web site is big, with lots to offer. It does a fine job of introducing the company to visitors on the site.

In the areas of workshops and consulting, the site does what you would expect. It provides extensive information and the ability to register online, and it does all of this in a clean, quick site design. FKA.com is definitely worth knowing about, especially if you’re a training professional.

Kevin Eikenberry is President of The Discian Group, a learning consulting company in Indianapolis.

If you would like to comment on this article or have any suggestions of other Web sites to review, please follow this link to write to Kevin.