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Are people noticing this? It seems that face-to-face and online presenting are becoming more similar. Some aspects: Wireless access is becoming more common in places where presentations occur. If you are a conference organizer and you don't arrange for wireless, be prepared for some negative comments. See Better Conferences . A larger percentage of the audience these days brings a laptop to presentations and it seems that the factor of Laptop Distraction is quieting down. If your audience is already on a laptop and connected wirelessly, then you can use techniques such as Twitter Conference Ideas with twitter as a back-channel or twitter to post links to the audience. You can get the audience to provide thoughts and suggestions just like chat online. In fact, this is on of my favorite things about online presentations (see Examples of eLearning 2.0 for how great the audience input can be). But now you can somewhat do this at Face-to-Face presentations. It...

Interesting post by Dan Pontefract where he provides definitions of some different "2.0" definitions and the HR & Organizational impacts. It's worth taking a look at some of these: Enterprise 2.0 Definition (via Andrew McAfee ): the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers HR & Org Implication: Enterprise 2.0 is the use of Web 2.0 concepts in an organization; thus, failure to drive its introduction may result in redundant platforms/processes & confused employees Learning 2.0 Definition: the shift from a predominantly formal instructor-led/eLearning model to one that encompasses formal, informal and social learning methodologies HR & Org Implication: organizational culture can evolve via a stron...

Interesting post by Vic Uzumeri where he responds to a question that I asked him.  I'm going to also address the broader concept he raises about Work Networking.  But in this post, I want to consider: We developed CoSolvent because we couldn’t find a reliable way move rich media (typically video) to and from the individual subject matter experts (SMEs) and managers among our various corporate training clients. Living near Hollywood and the many different production companies and studios, I've talked to and worked on several projects that were digital asset management systems.  This includes working on the software the runs sites like Nasa Images .  So, I'm pretty familiar with the issues of digital asset management (DAM) and having to move large and manage large media assets. Vic provides the following list of reasons that companies use his digital asset management software for eLearning projects: The companies that employ our target audience strongly...

I received a question that I've heard in many forms and I'd like to ask help on this. I am looking for some advice about whether or not my choice to use Dreamweaver with learning extensions (CourseBuilder + Learning Site) is a good idea or not.  I understand that Dreamweaver is not SCORM compliant (or at least it wasn't). The reason why I thought it would be good to use, is because I work for a small company, and I am the only Technical Writer / eLearning Developer, so needed something simple and straightforward to use, but that could also offer me flexibility to design my own modules.  My modules are going to take a previously written training guide and turn it into an online interactive format.  It will need to have Forward & Back buttons, interactive exercises, tests & quizzes integration.  We don't have an LMS at this point, but we may need to track it in the future. Also, Dreamweaver is relatively cheap, so I could make a good case to my man...

Harold Jarche had a great post If learning was free that raises questions that need to be continually asked by learning and development around the issues of Free . In the Business of Learning , I compared publishing and learning. Big publishers are having problems as the cost of distribution goes towards zero and as that brings along a ton of competition from the low end. Learning as a publisher of courses, content, etc. is facing the same thing. There's a lot of other content out there. How differentiated is the content that we produce from all of the Free Learning that's otherwise available? Is our content really that much better? The typical response of large publishers is that their content is better. And yes, Britannica, New York Times, etc. that have paid, professional editors, writers are better quality than alternatives for the specific content that they cover. But all major publications have limitations in that because of the cost, they have to go ...

George Siemens , Jay Cross and Tony Karrer are pleased to announce the first ever LearnTrends 2009 Innovation Awards. These awards are designed to recognize the products, projects and companies that represent interesting innovations in use of technology for Corporate / Workplace Learning and Performance. Winners will be announced and will be asked to do short presentations during the conference. Deadline for submission is: October 30. You can see details of what we are asking for in the form below. To apply for an award, please fill out the: Submission Form If you have questions, feel free to Leave a Comment or drop me an email: akarrer@techempower.com Please Help We very much want to get nominations from all corners. If you can help us spread the word about these awards, that would be greatly appreciated. Think something is innovative – please let them know about this. Post about this on your blog. Tweet about it. Any help would be appreciated. Here are so...

George Siemens , Jay Cross and Tony Karrer are pleased to announce our third annual free online conference: LearnTrends 2009 - Agenda and Speakers The Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations Conference November 17-19, 2009 | Online | Free The theme/focus this year is on Convergence in Workplace Learning. We will bring together people who look at different aspects of learning and knowledge work to understand better what's going on in those areas and how we should be thinking about this holistically. I'm particularly looking forward to discussions of how: Enterprise 2.0 Communities and Networks Knowledge Management Corporate Libraries Talent Management come together to form a cohesive picture. What should L&D managers be doing relative to these related efforts? How does this impact our eLearning Strategy ? Heck just discussing eLearning Strategy should be fun with the right people in the room. As always, this conference is about getting together i...

Just a quick note to announce that the crew at Brandon Hall have joined up as eLearning Calendar Curators . Janet Clarey just announced it today on Workplace Learning Today. The bottom line to this is that we will all be working together to create a calendar of Free Online eLearning Events . If you want to subscribe to be notified of upcoming events , go subscribe to the Best of from eLearning Learning . If you want to help by becoming a calendar curator , please Leave A Comment . If you see events that we are missing, please Leave A Comment .

Blogs are all about conversation. I just saw a post that explained to readers how to leave a comment, and I thought that might be a good idea to have that post as well and it would be a nice addition to the content in my First Time Visitor's Guide . Please, if you have thoughts or questions on one of my posts leave a comment. It shows me that you care. That it inspired a thought or a question. I learn a tremendous amount from the comments on my blog. So, please, please, leave a comment. Have I begged enough? Comment Policy I welcome comments on this blog — suggestions, affirmations, critiques, questions. I ask that your comments: are constructive and not personal or hurtful are related to the content of the post include personal connections to what the post is about. A comment which does not add to the conversation, runs of on an inappropriate tangent, or kills the conversation may be edited, moved, or deleted. I try to respond to com...

Looking at Capital City Bank from the outside, I wouldn’t have expected to find a great example of social learning inside.  They are a solid, conservative bank. They have more than 1,100 associates spread out across Florida, Georgia and Alabama.  I recently had a great conversation with Becky Barch, a performance consultant at the Bank, about her smart application of discussion forum software from ElementK. The forum is targeted to a small group – loan/lending assistants. There are roughly 22 people in that role in at Capital City Bank. Because loans can be fairly complex and unique, there were continual questions that came up. One person had become the “defacto associate help desk”. This individual ended up fielding all of the calls. Becky turned around and used a discussion forum to make the situation better. The same associate who received and handled the questions before now gets the question as a discussion item and responds in the forum. They also have enlisted ...

I spend a fair amount of my consulting time working with large organizations to help define how they will apply technology to particular business / performance / learning needs. This is either in terms of specific needs, e.g., improve customer satisfaction, or as part of an overall eLearning strategy. I've spent several hours this morning trying to find good resources on eLearning Strategy development and particularly looking for examples to use in this post. I've really been striking out. I'm hoping that people will help out. Update Nov. 2010 - I just did a search for eLearning Strategy articles and through eLearning Learning found a bunch more around eLearning Strategies , Learning Strategies that resulted in Top 35 Articles on eLearning Strategy. Most of the time I'm working with a centralized technology groups within Learning and Development that acts as a services arm to corporate L&D and to distributed L&D that is spread throughout the organi...

A reader sent a note asking my opinion on the vendor pricing in The Great eTrain Robbery? (Please Opine) . Here's his brief description: The particular course in question is approximately 2 hours of classroom soft skills training that needs to be delivered in an eLearning format. The content has already been written for the classroom. It needs to be repurposed for eLearning. The course will be developed using a Lectora-style system that produces what is essentially an HTML/javascript page turner. Multimedia (animation, narration, etc.) will be minimal. The course will not be narrated in its entirety, but there may be some snippets of narration here and there. Interactions should be basic form-based questions created within the development application. Graphics will include basic stock images/clip art in the classic “eLearning that looks like a bad PowerPoint presentation” style. The fixed-price contract that has been signed with the vendor for this course is for 766 hour...

Based on my post Top 99 Workplace eLearning Blogs several people contacted me with suggestions for additional blogs to include in eLearning Learning .  So, I'm happy to say that eLearning Learning now includes the 15 following great sources in addition to the 99 previously listed: Living in Learning ZaidLearn Off Course-On Target Viplav Baxi Meanderings The Writers Gateway Speak Out eLearning Path Learnability Matters IDiot Games can Teach Free as in Freedom eLearning NOT As Usual Getting Down to Business Leveraging Learning Web Courseworks Several of these came courtesy of Mainsh's list - Blogs by Indian Learning Professionals and Companies .  Thanks for helping Manish. I'm excited to have all of these new sources as part of eLearning Learning.  It helps me find great stuff and especially to make sure that I don't miss good stuff.  With the Best Of feature, I know that I'll see what...

Richard Hoeg points out that for his blog Twitter = High Visits But Low Conversion . Basically, he shows his "referring sites" from Google Analytics for the past two weeks: His conclusion: Folks who visit from Twitter don't visit as many pages and spend less time of the site. Of course, that made me wonder if twitter really was bringing lower quality clicks than other sources. That's contrary to what I would expect. You would think that someone who gets a link referred by someone they know would visit and then look around. It should be pretty qualified. So, I looked at a similar view of referring sites: Indeed, people coming from twitter are the lowest in pages viewed per visit and near the bottom in time on site and highest bounce rate. Likely they were interested in the specific item that they came there for, but still it's a bit disappointing that they don't click around a bit more. Of course, a relatively small percentage of traffic...

I'm co-founder and CTO of a new start-up, Fantasy World , that creates fun, online games that allow groups of people to have fun, win prizes, play-along with celebrities, and most of all to socialize outside the normal context of the group. It's backed by a major entertainment company and my co-founder comes from the fantasy sports space. Our first game has just launched, Survivor Football '09 . If you like American rules football (sorry this is not soccer), and you would enjoy socializing with a group of people who read this blog, please sign-up and join the Fight Club that is called - the eLearning Fun Club. I'd especially welcome any of you who can help us make better picks during the season, i.e., actually have some knowledge of Fantasy Football. I'm a fan, but have never done fantasy football before. Luckily the game is pretty simple, but still helpful to have a couple of ringers in our fight club to help us out. Here's a video that explains a bit more ...

From Jay Cross' Informal Learning Flow Hot List for August , fantastic video with Seth Godin and Tom Peters discussing the value of blogging. .   They sound a lot like what I say about blogging and learning.  This is going to be pretty good for an upcoming presentation to professional speakers about the use of social media. Seth Godin Doesn't matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the metacognition of thinking about what you are going to say. How do you force yourself to describe in three paragraphs why you did something. You are doing it for yourself to become part of the conversation even if it's very small. Tom Peters No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important in my life than blogging. It has changed my life.  It has changed my perspective.  It has changed my intellectual outlook.  It has changed my emotional outlook. Best damn marketing tool by an order of magnitude. Both ...