Rip, mix and burn your training

Do some of the words in the title sound familiar?

The words refer to how most people today are sharing and listening to their music. You create your music... rip or copy it... mix the songs to create new beats and then burn it into a CD.

Richard Baraniuk, Professor at Rice University is bringing this concept to books and other written material. His website, Connexions, is a free stockroom of publications and other courseware. Imagine... you can now take material from any book posted on the website to copy it and mix it with some content you created. It's like customizing a book for your needs. Teachers, professors, parents, workplace educators and a number of others can dip into this material to build teaching materials as when they need them and how they need them.

Imagine the potential of this tool in the workplace.

Imagine supervisors, managers and other employees accessing a database of standard materials and adapting them for their particular needs within their department. Employees trained using this material would further contribute to the process by removing content that wasn't effective and adding more useful information. Supervisors would have seamless access to the information and update it instantly as policies and procedures change. Local needs could be immediately integrated into the material.

Which companies would be daring enough to completely let go of centralized and rigid training programs?