e e learning

de.lic.ious and my folksonomy

i'm curious if anyone else has experienced what i experienced this morning.  as i was using the sidebar feature of the de.lic.ious extension for firefox i sensed that some of my bookmarks weren't coming up as search results.  but i knew that they were there. 

it didn't take long before i determined the problem.  in my listing of web 2.0 titles, some were tagged with "web2.0", others tagged "web-2.0", yet others tagged "web_2.0", and even a few were tagged "web20".  links to content on informal learning  was tagged either "informal-learning", "informal_learning", or "informallearning."  and it wasn't just inconsistent filling in of spaces.  did i tag the content i was looking for as "workplace learning" or "organizational learning"?  or was it "thebigquestion" or "tbq"? "learningcircuitsblog" or "lcb"?

i spent hours this morning combining and deleting tags in my de.lic.ious account.  clearly my folksonomy is getting in the way of my efficient access of my de.lic.ious links.  of course, de.lic.ious could offer a tag joining feature - mysyndicaat does this very  nicely. the renaming and deleting tools for editing your tags in de.lic.ious are quite simple to use and do help prune my burgeoning tags.  but even if they provide the solution, the problem still lies in my brain's ability to remember what tags i'm using. 

besides memory, there is also the issue of the influence of the other de.lic.ious users.  what if i tag all my content web-2.0, but everyone else uses web_2.0.  my contributions will never be seen!  so i incorporate the de.lic.ious community's favorite tags in my folksonomy.  then my friends send me links with tags that fit with their conception of the world.  but i don't have time to change them, so i just add web2.0 and web20 to my cloud.

wait, i'm right back where i started!  i'm curious.  does anyone else have problems managing their folksonomy?  or should i start attending a 12-step program for tagaholics?

Tags: folksonomies, tags, delicious, social-bookmarking

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there they go with the powerpoint thing, again!

i will admit that when i first saw tony's choice for the may big question, i was a bit surprised.  after all, it feels like we've discussed and argued the pros and cons of powerpoint as a presentation aide over and over in the past few years. 

but given the reaction to the big question, it seems to be, as tony suggests, a still hot topic. i'm in the camp of  those who say blame the user not the tool.  powerpoint allows you to create fantastic presentation support materials, but it also allows you to create really bad presentation support materials. in a comment to the home post,  tj taylor points to dick hardt's identity 2.0 presentation as great use of powerpoint and i agree (although I'm not 100% sure that it's identified that dick used powerpoint versus one of the other quality presentation tools available).

in another comment to the home post, donald clark points to the slideshare best presentations in the world contest winners.  from his comment, it's not clear if donald is just presenting information or whether he's endorsing the winners.  but in my book, the winners are fabulous visual content ebooks.  the difference between dick hardt's identity 2.0 presentation and the slidepoint contest winners is simple. dick. in fact, without dick, the identity 2.0 presentation wouldn't make any sense at all.  and thus, by slideshare's perspective, the identity 2.0 presentation is atrocious.

karen romeis points to an old post of hers on this topic for her response to the big question and she lays out great guidelines for presentations.  the theme of her guidelines is it's about the speaker, not the slides. 

clark quinn makes a statement that i think plays into our perception that we need a crutch like powerpoint to make a successful presentation.  in his post he says:

I also understand the realities of most presentation situations: that people’s attention can be distracted by someone coming in the room, by an email or text message, by a colleague’s wry comment, whatever. Having the structure of the handout and the slides helps them reconnect.

my feeling that if the audience is more interested in who's coming into the room or their email, then i'm not doing my job as a presenter.  the most memorable presentation/speech i ever saw, was when i was 16 and participating in a statewide youth-in-government program back in ohio.  on a sweltering june afternoon 30 years ago, 1200 15- and 16-year-old boys were crammed into the gymnasium at bowling green state university to listen to c. william o'neill, then chief justice of the ohio supreme court, speak on leadership.  within minutes of starting, chief justice o'neill had us so riveted to his speech, that you could have heard a pin drop in that gym.  his soft spoken, genuine words about our futures were spoken directly to each individual in that gym. he cared about me. about my future. so i listened.  i listened with every cell in my body.  i've never quite experienced anything like it sense.  and done years before powerpoint was even a twinkle in bill gates' eye.

on the other end of the spectrum, a company i worked at had a simple, yet ultimately destructive (in my mind), policy regarding presentations and powerpoint.  first, you were required to have a powerpoint "deck" (as they called it) which you would not only use in the presentation, but would send to remote participants in advance.  you also would then send the presentation to all invited participants and, if you were lucky, a list of higher ups who should be informed of your ideas.  this meant that 1) anything you were going to say had to be included in the text or the diagrams of the powerpoint deck so that everyone would get the same content and 2) you were forbidden from using transitions, animations, video, or anything else that would not be presented clearly when paper copies were made.  this meant your :"presentation" was simply you standing before the group that was unfortunately enough to not have another commitment and reading your slides to them. 

now how could anyone blame powerpoint for being the cause of that silliness.  powerpoint wasn't meant to be used as a word processor.  going back to slideshare and all the tools available to turn your powerpoint presentations into elearning the misuse and misunderstanding of presentation tools is multiplied by these tools which, for the most part are no better than the "shovel ware" that would convert textbooks or "your handouts" into a electronic course on cd or the web.  while we have successfully placed that shovelware in its rightful place in the trash, there are thousands of us who praise these new tools for converting powerpoint.  shovelware is shovelware no matter how flashy it is.

today i use some simple guidelines for my presentations:

1. if i can hand you a copy of my powerpoint slides and you can accurately tell me what i'm going to say and present, then they're not ready yet.  a good powerpoint presentation should border on being meaningless prior to its use in my presentations.
2. if i'm using text, is it there for me or for my audience?  text is there to remind me of what i want to say and then secondarily as an organizer of what i've said for my audience.
3. is there something that will emotionally move my audience?  make them laugh, remind them of something from their past, excite them about the future, surprise them to the point of being startled, something that boggles their mind, etc.  look at dick hardt's presentation again with this guideline in mind and you'll quickly understand why you were so engaged by it.
4. remember, in any given presentation, each member of my audience is capable of walking away remember three, maybe five, if i'm really good, ideas and concepts.  focus on the effective delivery of these key concepts and I'll succeed.
5. and, personally for me, i need to be able to have fun.  if i'm having fun, the it's likely my audience will walk away with a good feeling for what i had to share with them. and there's a better chance they'll retain it.

as karen romeis says in her post, it's about the speaker, not the powerpoint slides. there is no such thing as death by powerpoint.  death by a boring presenter - now that's a real problem.

if you're still puzzled about all this, give me a jingle, i'd be glad to coach you on your next presenation - at my usual hourly rate.

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presenting about blogs

last week i attended the learning consortium's conference in ontario, california.  on thursday afternoon i gave a presentation entitled expanding the reach of a blog which covers some of the data i've been collecting on the effect of the big question feature on learning circuits blog.  the session was lively with questions about the use of blogs in corporate settings, skepticism that blogs are just time sinks, and the explosion of tools and information that everyone is trying to cope with today.  i'll be summarizing some of the key points of the presentation in a post on learning circuits blog in the near future.

On friday i facilitated a hands-on workshop for people just starting to get involved in using blogs, wikis, and rss.  despite a technology snafu on the part of the organizers which had me scrambling for the first 30 minutes, the workshop went well.  all of the participants were new to anything but reading blogs.  by the end of the two hour workshop they had created their own blog and posted to it, worked extensively in a wiki, and walked away with a basic understanding of the simplicity and power of rss. 

this workshop grew out of a conversation i had with pat gallagan of astd at astd's techknowledge conference in las vegas last fall.  pat and i discussed that while there are indeed exciting possibilities that are emerging from all the new technologies that are being introduced daily, a small percentage of workplace learning professionals make up those who are truly competent in their use.  most learning professionals are still at the most fundamental levels of knowledge and skill with these tools - if that.  for those, like myself, who are adherents to moore/rogers diffusion of innovations model, this is no surprise.  these tools have been adopted by the innovators in our field, but truly wide spread adoption of blogs and wikis is yet to come.  introductory workshops for these tools are still necessary.  Thus my decision to create this workshop.

if you are interested in hosting this workshop for your company or organization, please drop me a note at eelearning at mac doc com.  i'll be glad to work with you to bring a fun and educational experience to your employees or members efforts to learn about these tools.  if you are a convention coordinator looking for pre-conference or post-conference workshops, please let me know if this sounds interesting.

Tags: blogs, wikis, rss, workshops, training, web20, train-the-trainer, instructional design

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buggy whip makers

 the april big question on learning circuits blog is about content vendors and how to help them solve their problems in an ever more competitive marketplace, providing more customized content, which costs more but sells at lower and lower prices. 

around about 100 years ago, there were manufacturers who specialized in one thing - buggy whips.  fashion accessories of the second half of the 19th century, buggy whips served a major function in transportation of the time.  need to go a bit faster? crack!  off you go.  sudden stop needed?  crack! you stop on a dime.  the onset of the 20th century saw gas pedals and brakes replacing the need to get horsepower by cracking your whip.  unfortunately the buggy whip makers saw themselves as buggy whip makers, not transportation accelerators and decelerators.  as the demand for buggy whips died, so did the buggy whip makers.

flash back to the present and there is a strong parallel when we look at learning content vendors.  clearly a new paradigm of how learners learn and how they access the content they need is well on it's way to being cemented in place.  i left college textbook publishing after 14 very successful years of publishing and promoting course based textbooks.  i left and joined carol vallone and barb ross at universal learning technology (which upon merger became webct) because i just didn't see the established publishers making the radical shift that is being demanded by today's marketplace.

i have no interest in bailing out or bucking up content vendors who refuse to listen to what the marketplace is demanding.  so part of me agrees with tom haskins' leave a clean corpse post.  if you aren't changing to meet the market, you might as well send out your finest outfit to the dry cleaners and prepare for the day when people will ask, why did they have to pass now.

wendy  wickham voices the feeling of many learning professionals in what i need now.  this is not a whining varuka salt, i-want-it now plea, but rather an understanding that learning and development at the speed of business is a "solve today's problem today" proposition versus a plan for tomorrow environment.  perhaps we have forgotten that the rapid elearning movement wasn't created to eliminate vendors and instructional designers.  rapid elearning's impetus came from the realization that we were taking 12 months to develop a training course for a product with a 9 month development cycle. 

for years the content vendors had enough sway to make us learn and teach the way they felt we should. but it is no longer "buyer beware."  it's vendor beware.  if you don't want to provide what the customer truly wants, someone else will.  a classic example is the explosion is the number of cut-rate basic functionality lms's that have hit the market. in the past few years to compete against blackboard, desire2learn, and moodle.

that said, i agree with claudia escribano in thinking about big questions and valerie bock in formal learning: it's not dead yet! that there is a valid place for content and content vendors in the learningsphere.  high quality content that is priced appropriately has always been welcomed and appreciated.  such content is focused on customer/learner needs and provides an extension of what can be provided by other instructional means (ilt, online discussions, one-on-one tutoring, etc.).

 i'm a believer that good facilitators and good content serve as accelerators to the learning process.  providing best practices, case studies, compendia of relevant facts and resources, guides to prerequisite information to support subsequent content, access to experts in specific fields, are just some of the possible types of content that can be used by facilitator and learners alike to advance learning at a pace that is faster that what an individual could do if they sought out content to learn on their own.

certainly, content vendors are struggling with the change the face today.  that's to be expected.  it's also likely that some of them won't make it through the change.  but that's natural too.  those who understand what their customers want, are willing to drop their previous conceptions regarding what content development is, and embrace new types and forms of content will survive and, likely, earn the types of profits they yearn for today.  for those who are whining about not making enough profits or trying to convince us that we should change our approach to learning are just sitting being the steering wheel trying to figure out how to use their buggy whip to get this contraption moving.

Tags: content-vendors, do-it-yourself-learning, instructor-lead-training, content-vendors, rapid-elearning

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embedding learning into the workflow

in a webinar by jeffrey mann from gartner sponsored by interwise, mann discussed how to better integrate collaboration tools into the corporate culture.  one thing that drew my attention was his frequent use of the phrase "embed collaboration into the workflow."

my reaction  that this seems to be such an odd statement because collaboration is already a part of business processes - either formally or informally.  now i'm not clueless, so i get that mann was likely talking about embedding collaboration tools into the business process.  although he didn't talk much about it systems integration. the problem that concerns me is that my immediate reaction was to be dismissive of the rest of his message.  "if this guy doesn't know collaboration is a part of normal business processes, then what worth does everything else he have to say have for me." 

malcolm gladwell tells us in blink that i'm not alone in making snap value judgments like this.  why do i bring it up here?  because in our profession we constantly take about embedding learning into the workflow.  i'm confident that our using this particular phrasing is working to undermine our credibility with the people we are most seeking to impress.

learning is already a part of the workflow.  employees are constantly looking for new resources and new ways to do things. good managers know it's their job to help employees understand their job and how the organization works. customers are patient with new trainees.  executives plan out organization change initiatives to help the company learn how to compete better.

language is a huge part of how we present ourselves and how others perceive us.  talking of "embedding learning into the workflow" likely makes us look clueless to our colleagues. how many of our colleague are tuning out our message because of what we are saying?

Tags: collaboration, communication, professionalism, workflow-learning, informal-learning

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the dark side reaches the blogosphere

while the timing tells you how far being on the news i am, imagine my surprise when, as i was sifting through my rss reader late last Sunday night working on a project due on Monday, my sleepy eyes stumbled across these four words:

death threats against bloggers

what the.....?  of course, i immediately clicked through to kathy sierra's creating passionate users to see what this was about. no, it wasn't another odd marketing technique from kathy.  it was a post announcing that she feels compelled to stop blogging because of the death threats and other heinous comments being made both to her blog and in posts on other blogs about her.

as i read the post, which she has moved off of creating passionate users and links to from there, i was in total shock.  shock that kathy has been enduring this hell for months.  shock that the outrage hasn't been louder (after all, i'm just now seeing it).  shock that one of the very best blogs in the blogosphere has been swallowed by the black hole of puerile pranks, at best, or a sociopathic stalkers in the worst case.

as i've previously written (see The Future of Media, Part 2 on Learning Circuits Blog) there are those who are predicting some dark times ahead for the internet.  perhaps, if they are correct, and i wouldn't bet against them, the anonymous threats against kathy are likely just the tip of a much larger iceberg to come.  why might i feel this way?

throughout history, whenever society was presented with new technologies, there was a ramp up time in which scammers and folks with other nefarious intentions were able to take advantage of a public yet unaware of how to identify the authentic from the fake or otherwise protect themselves.  when paper money was introduced, counterfeiters had a field day exchanging fake bills for real.  when i was a teen, the newly introduced, credit card-sized driver licenses were a  snap to fake. postal scams and telephone scams both were prevalent as those services spread to every household.  atm's and public phones had their dangers until we learned to silence the beep-boop-beep's that told the sharp eared scammer standing just out of sight that you pin is 3-2-3.

why would we think the advance of the internet isn't going to be the same or worse. most of the innovations i mention above were regulated as they were introduced.  but the internet we've created is regulated by no one. and we're proud of that.  we should be.  but let's not be naive and believe there won't be a downside to that freedom.  currently there is no way to truly verify that someone is who they say they are on the internet.  even those cryptographic "words" we have to decipher to enter a comment on this and many other blogs and websites don't keep out the spammer's robots (just look at the recent comments over there in the right sidebar and you'll see what i mean). in the discussion of tim o'reilly's blogging code of conduct, several people point out that requiring an e-mail address means nothing because there are numerous ways to get an email that doesn't identify you nor can be linked to you.  is it more anonymous for me to be "anonymous" or to be "diane armstrong"?  (even kathy suggests in her last post to her blog that she might create a fake persona to continue her blogging under.)

maybe we thought the blogosphere was a different part of the internet.  a safe haven from the ills of the world due to our collective commitment to authentic discourse and honest disagreement.  in many ways it is true. the rallying behind kathy has been much like a neighborhood watch being formed.  the blogosphere has shown it's compassion and willingness to protect it's turf.  but even neighborhood watches often can't do it all.  fortunately, organizations like sxip, openid, lid, oasis/saml, pingidentity, and others are working on solutions.  the question is, will they be just in time or a little to late to avert widespread scams?

tags: anonymity, scams, kathy-sierra, code-of-conduct, blogophere, identity, identity-management

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collective intelligence excites execs

zdnet.com's dion hinchcliffe provides a tremendous post covering various research reports regarding corporate use of web 2.0 technologies.  not only does he discuss reports by big boys forrester, gartner, and mckinsey, but he includes a dozen or so other small er reports on related topics. what comes out is that web 2.0 is slipping comfortably into the consciousness of executives despite it's continued concern about these new tools. what's catching their attention is the idea of collective intelligence.  capturing and sharing as much knowledge as possible within the organization to accelerate innovation and growth.

this post is a great resource that anyone interested in web 2.0 technologies should consider a must read.

Tags: web-2.0, enterprise-2.0, collective-intelligence

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managerial axioms

i couldn't resist.  the other day when i was writing my big question post, various axioms kept popping into my head.  you know those annoying phrases that people put on posters, plaques, post-its, pens, and other promotion prizes? so here's a whole list of axioms to clutter up your next powerpoint presentation.

• you'll always have too much on your plate, so learn to delegate.

• micro-manage at your own peril.  your employees will hate you and you'll be exhausted.

• never punish honesty.

• the company grapevine is for listening. make sure you can hear it.

• learn. in every moment.  in every crisis. in every victory.   learn.

• everyone learns from failure.

• learning when to let someone fail is one of the hardest lessons you'll learn.

• remember everyone's birthday.

• be consistent in what you say, make sure your actions follow your words and your employees will go to the ends of the earth for you.

• be inconsistent in word and deed and you'll learn how quickly employees have survival instincts that don't include you.

• praise others when they succeed.

• always take the time to find out what your employees are laughing about.

• the grass on your side of the fence doesn't get greener by pointing out your neighbor's lawn care deficiencies.

• if you already know the answer, don’t ask the question.

• keep your eyes on the horizon. looking down at the mess at your feet will paralyze you.
• are you having fun?

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learning to manage

this month's, big question on learning circuits blog is about how to support new managers.  while we haven't had a lot of responses thus far, the contributions have been great.  rather than repeat what others have already said (because I agree with almost everything I've read so far), let me take a more personal approach.

whenever i get thinking about good management, i immediately think of the fortune i've had to have had more than my share of awesome managers.  some times i've had great personal connection with my manager and other times personally we were like oil and water.  i'm grateful to all of them, whether mentioned below or not, for their patience and willingness to teach me.

ed henson was my first boss out of college and he shared a practice with me i've continued over the past 24 years.  ed had a "happy file." when ever he received something that praised his work or him, he stuffed it in his happy file.  as he explained to me, as a leader you will have moments of doubt.  are you any good?  can you pull off another miracle and meet this deadline?  in those moments, you pull out your happy file and sift through those accolades to remind yourself how good you are.

jim poe was my first district sales manager.  jim knew how to close a sale as well as anyone, but what he taught me was to relax, keep moving, and have fun.  no matter what else we needed to discuss in our weekly, or more frequent, phone calls i could always count on jim asking, "hey buddy.  are you having fun?"  learning new things, interacting with customers and colleagues, and helping customers solve problems have been activities of joy and play for me ever since i worked for jim.

not surprisingly, i learned to pick my fights from a tough little irishman named jack macgarrie.  jack was my regional sales manager when i moved to boston.  a sage piece of advice i'll never forget was "dave, we have 14% of the market and

skewing the data

in my efforts to push the envelop on improving our professional image, I've been calling out gross instances of the type of work that makes us look bad to our peers and superiors thus harming our reputations and calling into question our professionalism. 

this example is from the report on training administration and operations just published by expertus and trainingoutsourcing.com.  you can get a free copy of the report if you are a member of trainingoutsourcing.com.  membership is free.

take a look at this graphic and think about how you would write or talk about the data set that it represents.

now you might say something like a majority of programs estimate that their percentage spend on administration and operations is under 20%.   or 8% have cost control problems.  right?  Here's what the survey's report says about this data:

Survey Highlights

• Results show that administrative expenses are high in most organizations:  7.6% of respondents said their companies spent more than 50% of their training budgets on administration and operations; 10.2% spent between 36 and 50%; and 29.3% spent 20 to 35%.

what!!!!!  what about the other 53% of the respondents.  47% does not constitute "most" of the respondents.  what's the break down of the 53% of organizations who are below 20%.  for all we know, cost could be running under 10% for half the respondents.  but then again, that wouldn't be good for an organization who is in existence to promote the efficiencies that outsourcing can bring to an organization.

this ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is a particularly mangled attempt to skew the presentation of the data to make it look more favorable to one's own position, no matter what the data actually says.  usually skewing the data will be seen by your audience and will undercut your credibility on this and future topics. 

if you do research in hopes of supporting your position, but end up with data that harms your position you might be able to pretend that there was no research was done or that some how the study was compromised.  but the best thing to do in the long run is to study what you have found and change your position accordingly.   you might lose the current battle, but you will earn a level of respect that will pay dividends well into the future.