Y2K, often called the
"millennium bug", generated huge media hype and
global insecurity at the close of 1999. Across continents,
it was feared that the Y2K problem, a design fault inherent
to computers designed or built before 1996, could bring
about a worldwide systems shutdown. However, timely intervention
and the expenditure of $600 billion saw a potential "millennial
meltdown" reduced to the proverbial damp squib.
Laragh Courseware's Year 2000: Training for Non-IS
Managers played a crucial role
in alerting and informing decision-makers in the corporate
community about the dangers of Y2K. Presupposing no technical
knowledge and explaining Y2K simply and succinctly, the
interactive, audio-enabled CD-based course put into perspective
the technical, legal, and organizational issues that confronted
companies preparing their Y2K projects.
Eschewing sensationalism for levelheaded
pragmatism, Laragh's graphic-rich CBT package contained
a range of evaluation and monitoring tools facilitating
implementation and tracking project progress in various
operational areas. Laragh CEO Tom O'Neill said of his
company's answer to the promised Cyber-pocalypse: "This
course is not a fix or a patch. It offers a solution to
a problem that affects every person in the organization."
It was a sober, fast track business
solution to Y2K giving an in-depth appreciation while
kick starting a full-blown Y2K project. Year
2000: Training for Non-IS Managers
drew informed accolades from the media and Y2K experts.
The IT press gave the course the green light when Computerweek
found it to be "...extremely useful for non-IT people
and should be mandatory", and Computing SA
reported: "This tool is an excellent means of getting
started."
The traditional media, reporting
the hurly-burly leading to the millennial changeover,
welcomed a breath of sanity. In its Millennium 2000 Preview,
the Chicago Tribune urged its readers to visit
Laragh's eminently "practical" web site where
they could find "a CD-ROM that explains the issues,
assesses how vulnerable your company is to the Y2K bug,
and helps put a project in motion."
In similar vein, Tsietsi Maleho,
CEO of South Africa's Cabinet-appointed National Year
2000 Decision Support Centre (NYDSC), called it "...
one of the most useful Year 2000 tools that I have come
across", while Y2K guru Chris Anderson reported it
to be: "A great tool, world class in its quality
and applicability."
Accolades from the experts are heartening,
but acclaim from one's peers signals far greater achievement.
In his 1999 review of Millennial Courseware, Inside
Technology Training's Ned Snell said the following
of Year 2000:
Training for Non-IS Managers.
"This manager's course provides
a simple-yet-thorough overview of the Y2K problem, delivered
in pure business language - the student need not understand
a thing about computers in advance. After taking the course,
the student will know not only what Y2K faults can do
to a computer system, but more importantly, what they
can do to a company, both financially and legally."
Importantly for Laragh, Ned went
on to review Laragh's instructional design methods in
detail.
"I was concerned that the imported
course might contain South Africa-specific Y2K legal or
government issues. Other than a few UK-style word spellings
in the brief installation manual folded into the CD case,
there's nothing in the course that's nation-specific.
"It raises the right issues
without attempting to solve them - this course teaches
what to look out for, not how to fix anything.
"The course supplies a number
of calls to action. After the bulk of the course, a few
final modules lead the student through questionnaires
that generate a preliminary impact assessment, a management
evaluation, and a Y2K project checklist. Another module
shows a variety of sample Y2K solution scenarios at various
types of dummy companies. The course even tips off the
student that a company can litigate against partners and
suppliers who fail to address Y2K in a timely manner,
and can use any judgments collected to help offset the
company's own Y2K compliance costs.
"The course installs smoothly,
and is very easy to navigate (befitting a course for non-IT
types). The student can switch among text-only, audio-only,
and text-plus-audio modes; I found the text-plus-audio
mode most effective.
"Users must set their Windows
taskbar to "auto-hide" mode before running the
course, to prevent the taskbar from covering the course's
navigation controls. On the plus side, this ... means
that the student can effectively multitask the course
with other programs."
Today, Year 2000: Training for Non-IS
Managers has moved onto our backlist.
Nevertheless, we at Laragh Courseware take pride in the
knowledge that, through this remarkable course, we were
able to make a small but significant contribution to the
transition marking a new age in IT and technology-based
training.
