The prevalence of iPods, iPhones and other mp3 players, the massive adoption of podcasting by the general public, and your learner's ever-busy schedule makes the idea of training via podcast a very exciting prospect.  If implemented properly, podcast training strategies can be incredibly effective.

What has made podcasting such a phenomenon is the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. By subscribing to your training department's RSS feed, learners are agreeing to receive your training updates as soon as you publish them. They can then listen to those podcasts at their own convenience. Learners are no longer required to attend a 9:00am sharp training session that conflicts with another meeting they had already scheduled or a dentist appointment. Now, the same session can be automatically delivered to their mp3 player and they can listen to it whenever they have time. By delivering training this way, the training department is enabling people to learn while commuting, walking their dog or simply relaxing.

If your learners work in an environment that has frequent, minor changes that the training department can communicate frequently, podcasting is perfect. It allows you to get the information to people quickly and effectively without running the risk of losing their attention that, say, a one-hour recording of a lecture might.  If you are going to try to train people using podcasting, you need to make the information short; generally between 5 and 15 minutes. People who have adopted RSS feeds to receive information generally check them at least once a week; if not once a day! If your delivery is infrequent, people will forget to check for updates. Instead of delivering a single, one-hour long audio file, break it down into four 15-minute files each delivered individually over a 2-week period.

Short & frequent. That's the secret to an effective podcast training strategy.