"Boomerang Migration" for Global Technologists

In a telling sign that India has become one of the world's leading engines of technical innovation, Indian technologists who have been working abroad are now moving back home. In fact, technology professionals throughout the world are doing likewise, reversing a 50-year trend of migrating to the US and Europe, as their native countries move to deregulate and encourage business growth.

Indian expatriates (known as NRIs, or non-resident Indians) are finding that they are welcomed back with open arms, valued for their international experience, and can command top salaries. NRIs tend to live in gated communities that are more reflective of American suburbs than anything native to India. Those who have lived in the US experience a bit of culture shock, adjusting to the more traditional Indian lifestyle while importing American practices such as celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving.

This "boomerang migration" illustrates how globalism has loosened the US's position as a unique innovation incubator and the land of opportunity. A quote from Dutt Kalluri, an IT manager who recently returned to India from Rockville, Maryland, is particularly revealing: "If you want to be in the latest trends, you have to be in India... Technology development happens in India. Technology consumption happens in the US."

Source: Washington Post

Corporate eLearning Development: Learning2.0, Identity2.0 and

On Brent's blog, he has a good post with a link to a presentation on Identity 2.0:

Corporate eLearning Development: Learning2.0, Identity2.0

Definitely we are going to have to deal with authentication and identity issues at some point to get integration and groups to work effectively in distributed applications. Can't say that it's here and now though.

Web Attacks on the Rise

As the Web becomes an ever more important part of business, it's also becoming an increasingly rough neighborhood. For instance, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks -- the practice of flooding websites with so much incoming traffic that they can't operate properly -- increased by nearly 700% between 2004 and 2005, according to security firm Symantec. Attacked e-commerce sites can be knocked offline for days, losing millions in sales. These attacks are done not by teenage pranksters, but by e-commerce competitors (some from countries where cybercrime laws are lax), or customers who feel wronged. Symantec also notes the practice of using "bots" -- hacked "zombie" PCs that can be remote-controlled and directed to flood a site with traffic. Some hackers rent out the bots they control, acting as digital hit-men.

Meanwhile, "click fraud" in web advertising is on the rise, with scam artists learning how to manipulate ads from Google and others. One estimate claims that click fraud activity accounts for 20% of all Internet traffic, and costs advertisers up to $1 billion every year. Click fraud has become such a problem that it caused Standard & Poor to downgrade Google's stock to a "sell" rating in January. As with DDOS attacks, click fraud is conducted by sophisticated criminals who often use bots and zombies.

Malcolm Gladwell Blogs

Malcolm Gladwell, renowned author of books such as Blink and The Tipping Point has started a blog at http://gladwell.typepad.com/. So far there's not much to it, but that will surely change considering the buzz this early effort has already generated.

India Considers a Reusable Spacecraft

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is considering plans for a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) capable of placing a 10-ton payload into low earth orbit.

The craft would be launched in two stages, with one part gliding back to a runway like the US Space Shuttle, and another landing via airbags.

ISRO officials, however, caution that the RLV is in its conceptual stage, and that deployment is a long way off. But when the RLV does (literally) get off the ground, the ISRO undoubtedly hopes it will solidify India's position in the satellite-launch industry. They will also surely incorporate lessons learned from the US space program as to the realistic expectations of a reusable spacecraft.

Source: Zeenews.com

You Are Feeling Veeerrrry Sleeeeeeepy...

Feeling tired? If so, you're in good company.

Seventy million Americans aren't getting a good night's sleep, according to the National Institutes of Health. The resulting sleeplessness is affecting work performance ($50 billion annually in lost productivity) and causing safety hazards (100,000 car crashes each year, plus many other undocumented accidents). Sleeping pills and caffiene-laden beverages, experts say, only mask the problem.

Causes of sleeplessness range from stress to overloaded schedules to disorders such as sleep apnea. Scientists are investigating genetic causes of sleep troubles, and are improving their ability to diagnose specific problems.

So if you have trouble falling asleep at night, see your doctor. And sweet dreams.

Source: WCAU-TV

Little Robots, Big Jobs

An EU-funded research team called MICRON is exploring the potential of floating "micro robots" just a few cubic centimeters in size. Each unit can be controlled wirelessly, powered through a coil system that transmitted electricity through the air, and can interact with other micro robots... in effect, acting as a flock or swarm (choose your metaphor).

Successful tests involve having the robots perform biological tasks at the cellular level, injecting liquid into cells, as well as soldering metal. With those tasks under its belt, the researchers are perfecting the robots' internetworking abilities, hoping to leverage "swarm" intelligence.

Source: Roland Piquepaille's Tech Trends

Does eLearning 2.0 Make a Difference?

I want to thank Al Moser and Claude Ostyn for some interesting discussion over on the Brandon Hall AT group. They’ve helped to clarify a couple of aspects of eLearning 2.0 especially in terms of differences in terms of authoring…

Background Example

I can best illustrate by having you look at my blog: http://vietnamtech.blogspot.com/
Obviously, my blog is not a course, but some interesting aspects of my blog:

1. It was created with an online service within about 10 minutes of sign-up. No authoring tool to download.
2. Subscribe to Feed (right side chicklets). I went to an online tool that I typed in the name of my blog and it created a small HTML block that I could put into my course (no I mean blog). It has all the chicklets.
3. Email Subscription. I went to an online tool that handles email feeds for people who don't want to use RSS. It gave me a small piece of code that is being pulled dynamically from their service - and FeedBlitz handles all the email for me.
4. Bookmarks ... another service that creates HTML.
5. Blogs ... used BlogLines to compose together my reading list. This gets pulled dynamically. When I add something into BlogLines - it is updated on my blog.
6. My Del.icio.us Tags & Links - same thing as BlogLines, but with my top tags and recently added links.
7. SiteMeter - at the very bottom of the page, used SiteMeter to track how many people and who is going on my site.

Differences in eLearning 2.0

A lot of what is discussed as being the interesting possibilities in eLearning 2.0 authoring (link to my article), are theoretically possible with tools that are available today.

As Al Moser points out –

> Today, you can have many people participate with chat rooms, mail lists,
> bulletin boards, alt groups, teleconferences, etc.

In other words, one of the common complaints against eLearning 2.0 is simply that all of this capability really already exists in eLearning 1.0 world. So, what’s different?

I agree that we have a lot of the same capabilities in the eLearning 1.0 world. We sometimes use tools like the ones that Al cites. But some differences that eLearning 2.0 makes …

1. Ease-of-Creation.

In eLearning 1.0, these tools take more work to get set up. If they are provided as services, it only takes 10 minutes in a lot of cases to pull something together. So, as a course designer/author, I’m much more willing to try them out. So, if I want students going through my eLearning course to take a poll question and see other past student responses. Buying a shrink wrap poll creation tool that I need to integrate - I just never bothered. I am doing it today because its so easy. Quite easy to do this with eLearning 2.0 tools, but I’m not sure I would do it without the eLearning 2.0 solution. All the rest of those tools in use on my blog also made the adoption barrier so low, that I'm using these tools.

2. Seamless Integration.

Let’s take a different scenario for this one. Let’s assume that I’m creating a course and what to pose a thought provoking question and ask the students to put in their answer and then review and comment on other students answers.

Under Learning 1.0, I can set up a threaded discussion and point my students to it within my course. And let's assume for a minute that it is equally easy to set up a threaded discussion in both eLearning 1.0 and eLearning 2.0 (which it isn't).

I am still generally more reluctant to try it in eLearning 1.0 because it sits outside the course as a separate tool, students are going to get a different interface to learn. They may not feel comfortable with it.

In eLearning 2.0, I can integrate this seamlessly into the course where there is very little overhead for the student. I would present the on the first page with a text input box embedded right in the course. And then on the subsequent page, allow them to explore other answers embedded right in the course. And see commentary from me on the answers in the course.
In some ways, it is the same thing as eLearning 1.0, but I believe that learners can be much more easily led into this kind of experience with the seamless integration.
And the proliferation of these kinds of eLearning Patterns are going to explode with eLearning 2.0.

3. Fine-grained Tools

This relates closely to the previous two points. With the ease of creation, I’m simply willing to use smaller, more focused tools that do one job, but do it very well.

4. Static vs. Dynamic Composition

Al Moser points out…
> 1. The difference between the "lego blocks" idea where content is
> provided by different computers and using courses built from different
> media is about where the content is hosted. What I understand is that
> at delivery time in "Web 2.0" you are merging the content from various
> locations, possibly created at real time. Today we merge content built
> by different tools into a "web site". The site is prepared (or it has
> links to other content, and these links are prepared) ahead of time.

In the eLearning world, we routinely compose our courses out of combinations of things like Lectora + Flash + Captivate where Flash and Captivate are used to create components that are embedded within the Lectora container. As Al points out, these objects get composed ahead of time into a course. This is the norm in eLearning 1.0.

In eLearning 2.0, we will use both static and dynamic composition.

Static Composition is when the content is create by an authoring tool ahead of time into its presentation format and embedded within the course. In my blog, the Chicklet creator was an example of this. I went to the site and gave it some parameters. It handed me back some HTML to put in my page. I never have to talk with the Chicklet creation tool again unless I change something. The only difference between this example and embedded Flash is that one is provided via “software as service” and the other is provided shrink wrap.

Dynamic Composition is when the component is called each time that the content is needed and is provided by a remote system. The Links, Blogroll, etc. on the right side of my blog are all the result of my blog calling out to these services. The poll question example is exactly this as well.

5. Dynamic Content

The other obvious difference in the example is that some of the content is updated on my blog by the dynamically composed services. In my blog, its my links, blogroll, etc. If I use del.icio.us to mark a page as interesting, my blog is now updated with that information (and anywhere else that has it). In the eLearning course examples, polls, question answers, questions to the teacher, etc. are all dynamic content that will be updated as people take the courses.

Up to eLearning 2.0, most of us inherently think of a course as having all static content.

While we’ve been able to have dynamic content for quite a while, we haven’t done it because of many of the reasons I’ve cited already.

6. Software as Service vs. Shrink Wrap

The previous sections point out that eLearning 2.0 is going to continue the trend towards more and more software being provided as a service. We already have lots of services, e.g., hosted LMS products.

There is an ever changing answer to what will be provided as software services vs. shrink wrap. Clearly a graphics heavy tool like Flash will probably stay on the desktop for a while. While simple, form based authoring will make sense to be provided as a service.

Interesting Issues

Even under most eLearning 2.0 scenarios, I'm still going to use ReadyGo, Lectora, etc. or an LCMS or something that will allow me to (if nothing else) compose together my content into Courses/SCOs so that I can deliver it at the end of the day. So, I think we are again on the same page.

And, the nice thing is that many of these tools allow you to embed HTML snippets (and hopefully JavaScript snippets) right into the course.

Thus, using an authoring tool and one of the online poll creation services, I can within about 5-10 minutes create a course that has an embedded poll. So,

1. Do we care?

Does having a seamlessly embedded poll question inside your course make the course more interesting or engaging. Anecdotally the answer seems to be it depends. But, I'm designing this into a course right now. We'll see. And, I'm wondering why I didn't do this before? Was it just that I didn't think of it? Or did I worry about technical complexity? But, it's here now!

2. What can/should authoring tools do to make this easier/better?

Assuming that an authoring tool wants to be a leader, I would claim that composition (dynamic or static) needs to be something it supports. The poll is an easy example because there doesn't need to be identity passed to the poll (it can be anonymous). And the poll doesn't need to pass back information on what the user answered. But, as these become more common, we need ways for the composed units to talk. And authoring tool companies would likely do well to make it easy to pull these things together.

3. Broader Programs?

And all of this discussion is focused on singular, contained learning units that you would author with ReadyGo or whatever. But, I want to create a blended learning program where this learning unit is one piece of the program at one point in time. I want the learners to review and comment on each other's answers. Or have their manager get involved at the end. I think this is going to be an interesting place to watch.

Pimp Chic

If someone called you a pimp or a whore, how would you react? If you're over the age of 30, you would almost certainly be offended. But to younger people, the terms have become fashionable -- a fashion that has many concerned.

Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, has come out strongly against such sexualized images in pop culture and marketing, where they are held up as role models:

A lot of people seem to think that it's cool to be a pimp or whore. It's not cool. The reality is dark, evil and appalling and unregulated. The reality is sex trafficking, which is about young women being forced into rooms to have sex however many times a day so that the pimp can take all the money.

There are thousands of ads, mostly focused on women and young girls, that say you are not attractive, you are not sexy, you are not intelligent, unless you look like this. In kids' magazines there is a passivity and a stupidity that is seen as a great way forward. Something has gone very wrong.

The Ypulse blog, which tracks youth trends, calls this phenomenon "pornification." Sexuality has been an element in marketing from the era of the Gibson Girl of the early 1900's. But critics of today's imagery suggest that there's a difference between sexuality (which can be coy, discreet and fun) and raw, in-your-face sex (which can be scary and brutal), with the latter all too short a distance from actual pornography. And not the Playboy variety, either.

The Gaslight Era's Answer to the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue!

As the contrast between the images of the past 100 years shows, the history of sex in advertising (and the media in general) is that of greater tolerance and permissiveness, taking twists and turns in response to the zeitgeist of the moment. In fact, some have suggested that the current infatuation with pimp culture is a direct backlash against feminism.

Are the current fashions simply a continuation of this trend, and the controversy something we'll look back on with bemusement in a few years? Is Anita Roddick's criticism of pornification a voice in the wilderness, or the start of a genuine rebellion? Attitudes, after all, are flexible, as reactions against behaviors such as smoking and drug abuse prove (remember the "heroin chic" of the '90s?). Regardless of whether pimp chic is a passing fad or the shape of things to come, it is having an undeniable effect on the young people who are embracing it.

Add-ins & Mash-ups - Poll Results w/ 44 Responses

In my post, Authoring in eLearning 2.0 / Add-ins & Mash-ups, I discussed a few different kinds of simple tools that could be (today) easily added into an online course. So far, out of 44 responses:


The results are fairly even across the board. I would have expected polls and discussions to be clear front runners. Also, clearly I should do another poll but include "not very useful" as a category. Certainly discussions in other places have suggested that is a common opinion.

Two other notes:

1. You can still vote at the original post location.

2. The one "other" was virtual characters. I've since seen several other good suggestions around simulation tools and such.

Keywords: eLearning 2.0, Web 2.0

The Underwater Airplane

From Lockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works comes a proposal for an unmanned plane that would be launched from submarines.

The Cormorant jet aircraft would be launched from a retrofitted missile tube of a Trident nuclear submarine to perform surveillance or surgical strikes, taking off from and landing in the sea.

The Cormorant is still in the proposal stage. DARPA will make its decision to fund the project by this fall.

Source: we make money not art

Interesting Discussion on eLearning 2.0

Over on the Brandon Hall AT group, there's a discussion around eLearning 2.0 (okay I'll fess up to having started it), but there are definitely a couple of interesting comments and some strong opinions on both sides.

One of the more interesting ones was from John Cleave of Experience Builders which is probably worth the aggrevation of having to register, but he definitely points to some interesting ways in which composition can help that line up with what I've been talking about. He also comments:

Move away from the packaging model. If my course consists of an amalgamation of 6 different feeds, and I want to continuously update and improve it as per Flickr, does it make sense for me to have to package and upload the thing to the LMS server? How about I host it, the LMS routes to my site when a user wants to take the course, and my course will simply send the user tracking info back to the LMS as needed.

Push away from “objects” and toward “layers.” The SCO model envisions a world where there are self-contained e-learning units that can be freely mixed and matched. Yet, these are done in a chain: users work through SCO1, then SCO2, and so on. If you look at some of Reilly’s examples and those above, we might have to start thinking in layers: you’re in SCO1 and SCO2 simultaneously, and SCO3 comes in and goes out as the user needs it. The SCO could be a link, an RSS, a data entry form, or even a package of algorithms, never seen by users, that govern communication between sim1 and sim2 and determines when to bring up coaching as contained in SCO3.

Which raises the same kinds of questions being looked at by the LMOS folks.

KFC Develops Ads for DVR Users

Users of digital video recorders are notorious for skipping over ads when replaying recorded TV programs -- a practice that deeply concerns advertisers. In response, fried chicken purveyor KFC is producing ads that are specifically designed for viewers who watch them on recording devices.

When viewers play back the ad slowly, they can view a "secret code" that they can then enter at the KFC website to get a coupon for a free sandwich. The ads debuted during NBC's broadcast of the Winter Olympics and will run until the end of March.

The advertising industry is applauding KFC's if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em approach, though the actual impact of the campaign is not yet known. “Any strategy that gets a message to rise above the clutter is terrific from the advertiser’s perspective,� says Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research.

UPDATE: ABC is reportedly refusing to air the KFC ads, calling the secret code "subliminal advertising."

Source: MSNBC

Defending Cell Phones Against Viruses

So far, the virus threat to cell phones has been minimal, despite nearly 150 cell phone viruses discovered since 2004. But security experts believe that a widespread phone virus outbreak is only a matter of time... and to that end, antivirus software is being developed for cell phones.

The prevalence of advanced features on cell phones, especially Bluetooth wireless connections and MMS messaging, leave cell phones increasingly vulnerable to viruses. Gartner, in fact, believes a fast-spreading cell phone virus is likely to strike sometime before the end of 2007. In response, antivirus software developers Symantec, McAfee and F-Secure are developing security software for smart phones. Although these products have made inroads in Japan, the major US phone carriers have resisted such protection, declaring their networks safe from malicious use. Verizon and T-Mobile routinely scan their networks for virus activity and block anything suspicious.

Whether consumers demand antivirus software for their phones will depend largely on perception and media attention given to a virus outbreak, and the sense among corporate mobile phone customers that their assets need maximum protection. But as phones become more complex, contain more data and become ever more deeply ingrained in our lives, a serious virus could become downright crippling.

Source: ZDNet

Chinese Mobile Phone Users Top 400 Million

China, home to the world's largest mobile phone market, now claims to have 400 million users. Chinese mobile phone users also sent nearly 34 billion text messages in January alone. By contrast, the US has about 200 million cell phone users.

Three-Dimensional Images in Midair

3D displays that hover in midair have been a staple of science fiction for decades; after all, who can forget the hologram of Princess Leia in the first Star Wars? Now, Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has developed a method of projecting three-dimensional images in the air.

The system reflects laser light off of mirrors, and focuses that light into a point in the air using a plasma emission phenomenon.

The technology remains experimental, so there is no estimate of when it might appear in the marketplace.

Source: Minding the Planet

Why MySpace Appeals to Teens

According to a presentation by media researcher danah boyd, young people are attracted to MySpace because they perceive it as a literal place where they can relax with their peers and do things they can't do physically.

MySpace neatly mirrors the way teens perceive the world, allowing them to meet others easily, interact with their "real time" friends, and share their feelings and preferences.

For most teens, it is simply a part of everyday life - they are there because their friends are there and they are there to hang out with those friends. Of course, its ubiquitousness does not mean that everyone thinks that it is cool. Many teens complain that the site is lame, noting that they have better things to do. Yet, even those teens have an account which they check regularly because it's the only way to keep up with the Jones's.

Additionally, teens turns to the online world because their physical space is increasingly "structured space," where their behavior is regulated. Few physical places exist where teens can do as they please without adult supervision. "Classic 1950s hang out locations like the roller rink and burger joint are disappearing while malls and 7/11s are banning teens unaccompanied by parents." Online, though, no such structure exists... and it's this lack of structure that causes the problems associated with MySpace, such as the presence of adult predators.

"What we're seeing right now," boyd writes, "is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the emergence of greater restrictions on youth mobility and access. The long-term implications of this are unclear. Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture."

RELATED: For parents worried about or simply confused by MySpace, Wired offers a Q&A mini-tutorial. Another Wired article sorts out the real, perceived and overhyped dangers of MySpace.

Source: Many-to-Many

A Christian Utopia

South Carolina is already a solidly "red" state, but if Cory Burnell has his way, the Palmetto State will become a true promised land for Christian conservatives.

The 30-year-old financial advisor from California (a state he considers a "lost cause") has founded a movement called Christian Exodus, which encourages Christian families to move to South Carolina, with the intent of reforming local and state government under biblical principles. With a fundamentalist Christian majority in place, Burnell hopes to pass laws that outlaw abortion, restrict sexual practices, ban the teaching of evolution and "revisionist history," and allow government displays of Christian symbols.

Although only 20 people have signed on so far, Burnell is optimistic, as over 1,000 more have expressed interest. Taking a county-by-county approach, he believes he only needs about 100 committed people to take political control of six counties. Christian Exodus, he says, could have an "overwhelming impact" on state elections by 2014. According to its plan of action, the group has a goal of placing 2,500 members in key counties by the end of this September.

If Christian Exodus catches on, the movement could gain momentum by attracting support from current South Carolina natives sympathetic to the group's goals. It could also be accelerated if South Carolinians who don't support Christian Exodus feel disenfranchised -- even oppressed -- and decide to move out of the state.

Not all of those who would seem to be logical allies of Christian Exodus are supporters. Among those is Bob Jones University, South Carolina's famously Christian conservative college. "As Christians, it's not our job to start a new country," said Bob Jones spokesman Jonathan Pait. Another interesting paradox is that, through his blog, Cory Burnell supports the impeachment of President Bush for violating the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution (unwarranted searches and seizures) with his secret wiretapping policy.

How serious is Burnell about converting South Carolina into a Christian utopia? He does not rule out secession from the union, though only as a "last resort" if his hoped-for state laws conflict too greatly with federal law.

Source: USA Today (via AOL), FOXNews.com

Poopy Power!

There isn't a dog owner alive who hasn't occasionally wondered, while poop-scooping, why their pooch's by-product couldn't have some productive value other than messing up the lawn. Officials in San Francisco have wondered the same thing -- and are launching a program to turn doggy doo into an alternative energy source.

The city will pilot the program at a dog park, where residents can deposit dog droppings into a "methane digester" that uses bacteria to break the feces down into methane gas.

It would seem that it would take a lot of dog doo to make a significant amount of methane. But San Francisco officials estimate that city dogs generate 6,500 tons of the stuff every year. Another benefit to the program would be to keep the poop out of landfills, as 4% of San Francisco's trash volume consists of discarded poop.

If the program is successful, the next logical step would be for the city to pay for it. Then, you would most assuredly never again step in a mess... or complain about cleaning up after your dog!

Source: Washington Post

Designing "Walkable Neighborhoods" For Better Health

Your health may be determined in large part by your community's design, according to a recent study by the American Planning Association.

Most communities in the US have grown up in an ad hoc manner, or planned with considerations other than the residents' health. The APA recommends that communities be designed to support pedestrians and cyclists, with ample sidewalks, bike paths, and closer proximity of retail and recreational areas to residences. "Walkable neighborhoods" would encourage residents to exercise, and would reduce the level of pollution from motor vehicles.

"Walkability of neighborhoods around each participant's home was significantly related to overall physical activity levels, minutes per week devoted to active transportation, and body mass index," Says Lawrence D. Frank of the University of British Columbia, who led the study. "People living in high-walkable neighborhoods were more physically active, walked more and had lower BMI."

Source: World Future Society

Learning Trends Point To and Shape eLearning 2.0

Okay - somehow I messed up in a previous post that introduces What is eLearning 2.0?

Somehow it lost a middle section that talks about important trends that are a big reason for the move to eLearning 2.0. I've fixed the original post and I'm putting a better version of the missing contents here...

There are a few articles on this, probably the two most commonly cited (up until this article) are: E-Learning 2.0, Stephen Downes, E-learning 2.0, whatever that is, David Jennings.

Both of these took me a long time to partially understand. Part of the what makes understanding eLearning 2.0 hard is that several different “camps” have all landed on the same basic kinds of approaches from different directions. I would, via a gross generalization, put these camps down as:

• eLearning
• Collaboration / Communities
• Knowledge Management

Again, this article is primarily aimed at people coming from the eLearning world and in my case I'm mostly familiar with eLearning in corporate settings. In this world, there are significant business and learning trends moving us towards eLearning 2.0.

In 2004, my company, TechEmpower, conducted a research effort around eLearning Technology Trends. We interviewed CLOs and Training Directors from 75 corporations (revenue 300M+, 1000+ employees). The interviews were fairly free-form, but followed along three basic questions:

• What are the primary challenges facing your business today?
• What does this mean in terms of learning challenges?
• How is technology supporting what you need to do?

Business Challenges

From almost every training executive, we heard various primary drivers for their business such as:

• Company moving from product-centric to customer-centric
• Facing more/different competition, price pressure, insurgents
• Changing marketplace

But, we definitely heard a fairly consistent message that their business was facing “change” and an “ever increasing pace.” “We need to move fast.”

Learning Challenges

On the learning front, there was a good-news, bad-news situation. We heard fairly consistently:

• Senior management in their organizations are definitely focused on human capital issues.
• CLOs are consistently hearing the following messages from senior management: “People,” “innovation,” “learning,” “organizational effectiveness,” or “agility” are “the only sustainable competitive advantage” – “Execution is key!”
• Senior management was keenly aware that – 50-70% of their costs were people costs.
• Ability to change performance was often the key barrier to execution.
• There was often a sense of growing frustration level among senior management in terms of the ability of learning and training functions to be able to accommodate the pace of change. This was further heightened by factors such as:
• People in organizations have no time for change or development
• Complexity of jobs are increasing and changing more rapidly
• Demographics are having a major impact

The net is a real sense of concern among CLOs in terms of the challenge around learning strategy. If you step back and look at it, the general sentiment was that they needed learning solutions that were:

• Very fast transfer
• Occurred in short bursts w/o leaving the workplace
• Fast to develop (and low cost)
• Had real impact on performance

When the CLO looks at their typical arsenal of solutions, it’s no surprise that they are concerned. The central question comes from the fact that traditional learning strategies that are really based on a class model, don’t match with the requirements listed above. Thus, they are asking:

What learning models will address these challenges?

In my mind, this goes to the heart of the eLearning 2.0 definition. There is a need for new kinds of learning solutions. We’ve seen the slow smushing together of Online Reference, Online Job Aids, small eLearning pieces, Rapid eLearning and Blended Learning. So, my concept of eLearning 2.0 starts with the trend towards:

• Small pieces of content
• Delivered closer to time / place of work
• Likely delivered in pieces over time as part of a larger program

This trend exists independent of the whole discussion of Web 2.0. In reality it is what is driving a lot of the discussions around Blended Learning and Rapid eLearning. And it’s really a big piece of what eLearning 2.0 is. An interesting discussion of this trend can be found in Elliot Masie’s column in CLO Magazine (but I hate his title) “Nano-Learning: Miniaturization of Design.”

The reality is that eLearning 2.0 is going to be driven as much or more by this question than the folks who are coming from a Web 2.0 (read/write web) standpoint.

To put this another way, if you come at this from a Web 2.0 standpoint, you would be talking about how learning is going to be shaped by:

• Information and learning objects created more easily and by a broader collection of people
• Information and learning objects enhanced by tagging and group use
• Communities providing access to people and information

While I agree that these are important, I personally believe that eLearning 2.0 will first and foremost be shaped by:

• Seamless integration of information objects and learning objects
• Short-burst learning objects in the context of work
• Increased frequency of small communication / awareness learning objects
• Increasing diversity of tools / resources
• Multiple interventions over a period of time
• Involve multiple people in the overall intervention, especially managers and peers
• System proaction (prompts) as follow-up
• Reporting tools and assessments tied directly to information and learning objects
• Integration of metrics and community use information to track utility

I have seen interesting examples of each of these types of approaches that exist already today, but with Web 2.0 technologies, this is becoming even easier. Furthermore, as you combine the two lists, the combination strikes me as having real potential to be a game changing approach.

I will attempt to provide more information and examples of these over time.

Keywords: eLearning Trends

Interesting Articles on Web 2.0 Impact - eLearning 2.0 Implications

Thanks to Eilif Trondsen for pointing me to these articles found at Commerce.Net. They can all be found at:

http://www.commerce.net/publications/

I found most interesting:

AI Meets Web 2.0: Building the Web of Tomorrow, Today December 2005. 34pp

Microformats: A Pragmatic Path to the Semantic Web January 2006. 20pp

Both suggest the impact of Web 2.0 technology. The article about AI could have easily been written about the impact on eLearning.

Big Mother is Watching You (With Help from the Lunch Ladies)

If you're a kid who attends a Houston public school, the days of being able to select whatever you want for lunch in the cafeteria are numbered.

Within the next year, the Houston Independent School District plans to launch a prepaid lunch account system that tracks kids' eating habits, and lets parents control which food items they are allowed to choose. Parents can access their children's menu permissions and purchase history through the web, limiting or prohibiting sweets and other types of food as they see fit.

RELATED: For parents worred about how much time Junior is spending playing video games, watching TV or on the computer, a new device called "Bob" allows parents to set a limit on the time allowed on these devices, and cuts off access when time's up. Meanwhile, Techdirt wonders if these kid-controlling devices are getting just a little too creepy.

Source: WTSP-TV

Is Web 2.0 Capitalist or Marxist?

As the conversation around Web 2.0 becomes more mainstream, those who examine it from a business perspective are wondering whether its components and effects more closely mirror capitalism or socialism.

The New York Times weighs in on the side of a pro-capialist web, examining how it is benefitting "gazelles" -- small businesses that are able to quickly adapt to and exploit change. The article profiles "virtual" companies that grow and profit using online collaboration tools to network widespread freelance talent, and more traditional companies that have enjoyed renewed growth through online sales channels and supply chain tools.

Meanwhile, Andrew Keen of the Weekly Standard declares that "[j]ust as Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-realization in a communist utopia, so the Web 2.0 cult of creative self-realization has seduced everyone in Silicon Valley." Keen argues that, although Web 2.0 media appropriates egalitarian language ("citizen journalists," etc.), it fosters nothing more than irresponsible narcissism.

The purpose of our media and culture industries — beyond the obvious need to make money and entertain people — is to discover, nurture, and reward elite talent... Without an elite mainstream media, we will lose our memory for things learnt, read, experienced, or heard... [O]ne of the unintended consequences of the Web 2.0 future may well be that everyone is an author, while there is no longer any audience...

As easy as it is to dismiss Keen as a snobbish crank, he does make some valid observations. However, he fails to take into account the ways in which Web 2.0 promotes quality through social ranking of content. Though still maturing, tools such as Digg and del.icio.us allow readers to rank and "vote" for items that, to them, have the greatest value, allowing the proverbial cream to rise to the top. New media has its ways to "discover, nurture, and reward elite talent" -- those ways are just different, and are still emerging.

Unplugged

WorldChanging offers this bit of "speculative fiction", set in the year 2030, about a growing sustainable-lifestyle movement called "Unplugging," rooted in "a combination of the economic theories of Mahatma Gandhi and the political science of Buckminster Fuller":

The core of [Unplugging] theory is that we can all live off the interest generated by our savings, or the profits from our investments, if we possess enough capital - and generations of Capitalists have dreamed of "getting off at the top" - making enough money to cash out of the workplace and live as they like for the rest of their lives...

To "get off at the top" requires millions and millions of dollars of stored wealth. Exactly how much depends on your lifestyle and rate of return, but it's a lot of money, and it's volatile depending on economic conditions. A crash can wipe out your capital base and leave you helpless, because all you had was shares in a machine.

So we Unpluggers found a new way to unplug: an independent life-support infrastructure and financial architecture - a society within society - which allowed anybody who wanted to "buy out" to "buy out at the bottom" rather than "buying out at the top."

If you are willing to live as an Unplugger does, your cost to buy out is only around three months of wages for a factory worker, the price of a used car. You never need to "work" again, although there are plenty of life support activities to keep you busy, and a lot of basic research and science to do. Unplugging is not an off-the-shelf solution, it's a research career!

The story, set as a futuristic news report, states that "the Unplugged have now reduced the GDP of the United States of America by 20% over their 15 year programme."

IBM Declares TV "As We Know It" Dead by 2012

IBM's Institute for Business Value has released a study reflecting what most new-media experts have been saying for some time: that a fragmented marketplace combined with more tools for interactivity will lead to "the end of TV as we know it."

The IBM analysts predict that the television audience will cleave into two main segments within the next several years. The "passive mass audience" -- those who view TV in the traditional sense -- will still be around by 2012. But even that audience will demand greater control over their media experience, while groups that push the envelope of content access and control ("Gadgetiers" and "Kool Kids") will grow ever larger. The two groups will be separated, predictably, by a "generational chasm."

IBM urges those in the television industry to start preparing now for this future state. Experiment with new formats and business models, pursue mobile content, and develop more diverse offerings, to name a few of the report's suggestions. However, while a worthwhile and valuable read, nothing in this report should surprise anyone who's been paying attention to the state of media for the past several years.

Source: BuzzMachine

Poll: Most Americans Would Vote for a Woman President

Nearly a year after a Marist poll found significant interest in both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Condoleezza Rice running for President -- and several weeks after First Lady Laura Bush informally endorsed Secretary Rice for the office -- another poll finds widespread support for the idea of a female Chief Executive.

According to this survey, commissioned by Hearst Newspapers and conducted by Siena College in Albany, NY, 79% of Americans polled said they would be willing to vote for a woman as President. However, no potential candidate was named in the survey, and the available results were not broken down by party affiliation or gender.

Source: WFMY-TV

Greenland Glacier Speed Doubled in Past Five Years

The glaciers of Greenland are accelerating, doubling the amount of ice they dump into the Atlantic Ocean over the past five years. Caused by rising surface air temperatures, this acceleration could ultimately lead to a rise in sea level.

A study published in Science magazine notes that Greenland's melting glaciers cause global sea levels to rise approximately 0.5 mm per year, and that overall sea levels are rising by 3 mm per year. Yearly ice loss from the glaciers has increased from 50 cubic kilometers in 1996 to 150 cubic kilometers in 2005.

In related research, scientists studying Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya believe the loss of ice on its summit is accelerating as well, and may disappear entirely by 2020.

Source: Green Car Congress, WorldChanging

Hotels Go High-Tech

With business booming (bookings were up 8% in 2004) and a bevy of new technologies at their disposal, the hospitality industry is looking to give hotels a high-tech upgrade. Among the innovations likely to appear in hotels over the next few years are:

• Self-check-in kiosks, similar to those used by airlines to obtain boarding passes. The Holiday Inn chain is already piloting a check-in kiosk.
• TVs that deliver guests' hometown news, as well as channels from around the world.
• Docking stations for iPods (Hilton hotels have been providing iPod-friendly alarm clocks for the past year).
• Lights that allow guests to adjust the wall color.
• Ubiquitous, free Internet access.
• Iris scanners in place of key cards.
• Room cleaning systems that use an "ozone shock treatment" to wipe out foul odors, dust mites and mold.
• Rooms that "remember" the preferences of frequent guests (temperature, TV stations, favorite room service orders, speed-dial numbers on the phone, etc.).
• Pervasive sensors that monitor a guest's health and alert the front desk if a problem is detected. This may seem invasive to some, but may be welcomed by others, particularly elderly travelers.
• Increased use of eco-friendly, organic amenities.

Through it all, hotels hope to distinguish themselves from the competition and increase guest satisfaction while cutting costs.

Source: CNN/Money

Birth of an Atomic Blast

An interesting end-of-the-week diversion...

Ever wondered what an atomic blast looks like before it obliterates everything around it? Before the smoke, the mushroom cloud, the devastation, it's really quite amazing to see the first few fractions of an atomic bomb upon detonation...

Source: RapidNewsWire

Web 2.0 Office - Next Wave in Productivity Tools

This is a great white paper:

http://www.innovationcreators.com/Web%20Office%20White%20Paper%20-%20Rod%20Boothby.pdf

It does a great job talking about the impact of Web 2.0 tools on the future of computing.

eLearning Blogs - Quick Way to Find Good Ones

Someone recently posted on ASTD that they would like to know what blogs people subscribe to. Since I've only been getting really into blogging over the past couple of months, I've gone through the experience of following links from web sites / blogs. Here's the problem:

• 50% of the links point to blogs with old content only (6 months since last post) - at least that's a pretty quick rejection.
• If it has a recent post, then I need to scan the contents to determine if they are posting things that will interest me.
• If they pass that test, then I go through the process of finding their RSS or Atom link and adding that content to my reader.

That takes me quite a bit of work. So I've tried to figure out how to make this easier for the next person.

Solution 1 - BlogLines

BlogLines allows you to review blogs online and has some nice features to find related blogs based on what other people are subscribing to. It also allows you to have a BlogRoll (which I've put in my template on the right).

You can check out the blogs I subscribe to at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/TonyKarrer

Of course, unless you are signed up in BlogLines, then it doesn't make subscription any easier.

Solution 2 - OPML Files

The other approach is to sign-up for a whole bunch of Blogs and slowly delete the ones you don't like. Some readers help you out with this, but I find I just push them to the bottom and delete after a while (or I just ignore them). Note: all the blogs I've got listed in my Blog and on BlogLines I think have good stuff on them (these are not in the junk pile).

Of course, to do this, you ideally could just sign up. The good news is that this is starting to become easier because of OPML files. These files contain a list of subscriptions and many readers will allow you to import and export OPML files.

Since I'm using BlogLines to track the good stuff, you can grab my subscriptions at:

http://www.bloglines.com/export?id=TonyKarrer or click on the OPML file link on the right.

For anyone with a list of blogs, they really should be handing out OPML files to make life better.

Remaining Problem

One problem with this approach is that after you've grabbed my OPML file and imported it, if I find a new interesting blog - which I probably find about one a week - add it to my list of blogs, you won't find out about the new one.

Of course, I could post the blog to my blog to let you know, but it would be so nice if that was just automated. In other words, I should allow my reader to subscribe me to anything that you are reading and it will automatically update the list of blogs. It would remember the ones that I've marked as junk.

My guess is that this is where BlogLines is going (or maybe they already do it).

Synch or Swim

Ted Schadler of Forrester believes that the "next big thing" in tech is a killer app for synchronizing devices -- and he's probably right:

I've seen the future, and its name is sync. The company that can synchronize everything in my little digital universe -- photos, songs, contacts, bookmarks, blog posts -- on my PC, phone, and any other device I happen to throw at you, will win my heart forever. After all, it frustrates me to tears that my Outlook contacts don't immediately show up on my phone or in my Gmail account. And that my high-alert emails don't come as text messages to my phone...

It's an opportunity because a platform approach to synchronization addresses its biggest challenge: There is no single killer application; there's only my killer application. Some consumers want photo sync; others want contact sync; others want video sync, or email sync, or bookmark sync. The company that builds out and brings to market the best synchronization platform will win.

It's a problem because each kind of synchronization involves a different application, a different retail channel partner, and a different stakeholder...

As we acquire more devices and keep more of our important content on them, synching will become an ever greater challenge. Currently I use a kludgy application to synch files between my laptop and desktop PC; it presents more difficulty than the average user would put up with, but it gets the job done. However, it doesn't synch Outlook, and it doesn't talk to cell phones, blogs, DVRs or photo sites.

The killer synch app, therefore, needs to be more than just universally compatible. It needs to be transparent, nearly effortless to set up and use. And, of course, fail-safe.

Schadler notes Vizrea, which allows camera phone users to easily upload photos to a web-based account. This is a step in the right direction... but the uber-synch remains elusive.

Source: EMERGIC.org

Building a "Network on Wheels"

Cars and trucks in the future are likely to network continually with other vehicles and the surrounding environment, sharing road information (an upcoming traffic jam, accident or hazardous road conditions) and calculating alternative routes, or alerting police in case of emergency. High-tech though it may be, it's the same principle as truck drivers talking on CB radios.

Motor vehicles, however, pose special problems for networks. With vehicles moving rapidly between nodes and attempting to communicate with one another in an ad hoc manner, security, authentication and seamless communication all become crucial concerns.

To address this problem, the German government has authorized the Network on Wheels project to address inter-vehicle communication systems while the technology is still in its relative infancy. The project will examine how vehicles interact, how to ensure the privacy of drivers, and how to guard the network against malicious attacks.

Source: Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

Future Wikis

Two futures-related wikis to take note of:

• A new effort simply titled "Future." It's in its early stages, but already has a lot of useful information. Built in Wikicities, it has a structure very similar to that of Wikipedia.


• ScenarioThinking.org is a more established wiki that focuses on scenario thinking, driving forces, innovations and strategy development.

As with most all wikis, input is welcome for both these efforts.

Fast, After-Hours Delivery Services

If you were in a Northeast city during this past weekend's snowstorm, you might have appreciated someone braving the elements to bring you a gallon of milk. Especially if you realized you were out of milk at 3 AM.

The Turkish firm After-9 saw a niche here and has built a unique service, delivering everything from groceries to prescription refills to take-out food orders between the hours of 9 PM to 6 AM. After-9 aims for delivery within 45 minutes, and charges a 25-30% fee (with a $7 minimum order).

Here in the States, MaxDelivery delivers your order by bike in under an hour (giving bicycle messengers a new business model). According to MaxDelivery's website, "We carry items as diverse as milk, bread, cold medicines, DVD rentals and sales, paper towels, baby bottles, cereal, frozen meals, ice cream, shampoo, gourmet & organic foods, cleaning supplies and much more. " MaxDelivery even offers free delivery for orders above $50. However, the service is limited to Manhattan, between 24th and 26th Streets. And if you place an order after hours, you have to do so by midnight.

Source: Springwise

Web 2.0 Resource Page

This page from the "wwwtools" section of the Fastfind online magazine contains dozens of links to Web 2.0 articles, papers and example resources. Although aimed primarily at educators, this page will be of interest to anyone looking to investigate Web 2.0.

eLearning 2.0: Informal Learning, Communities, Bottom-up vs. Top-Down

As you can see from earlier posts, my approach to eLearning 2.0 is more from an evolutionary, pragmatic side of how does it help me with my eLearning solutions today. However, as you review some of the best thinks on eLearning (and really learning) Trends, one of the things that they quickly point to as a big part of the eLearning 2.0 trend is the ability to leverage the community as part of the larger eLearning picture.

Informal Learning and Loss of Control

Jay Cross' presentation How to Leverage Informal Learning there's very interesting slides that shows the net effect of formal learning. With his calculation, formal learning impacts less than 1% of behavior change.

Now, whether you agree or not with his final number, I think its safe to say that we all agree that blending in other kinds of support including follow-up, job aids, involving managers and peers, and other elements that we would put in Blended Learning yields better results.

Jay Cross' article Informal Learning: A Sound Investment in CLO Magazine I think begins to show more specifics of what he means when he talks about informal learning.

Support the informal learning process:

• Provide time for informal learning on the job.
• Create useful, peer-rated FAQs and knowledge bases.
• Provide places for workers to congregate and learn.
• Supplement self-directed learning with mentors and experts.
• Set up help desks 24x7 for informal inquiries.
• Build networks, blogs, Wikis and knowledge bases to facilitate
  discovery.
• Use smart tech to make it easier to collaborate and network.
• Encourage cross-functional gatherings.

Marcia Conner's introduction to Informal Learning. She points to a balance between formal & informal but also adds the dimension of intentional and unexpected.

I really see a lot of what is discussed around Informal Learning on the "Intentional" side as being fairly well in line with many of the things we are trying to do in our Blended Learning solutions today. But what's very interesting about the graphic is that once you get into the realm of Unexpected, it becomes much less comfortable.

Now, once we start to look at what is being discussed around eLearning 2.0, it becomes even more uncomfortable. In Stephen Downes' article "eLearning 2.0" in eLearn Magazine:

the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along.

He's talking about the fact that now everyone can create content. I agree that this has a big impact on how we should be thinking about creating our eLearning / Blended Learning solutions. Also in Stephen Downes' article "eLearning 2.0" in eLearn Magazine.

What happens when online learning ceases to be like a medium, and becomes more like a platform? What happens when online learning software ceases to be a type of content-consumption tool, where learning is "delivered," and becomes more like a content-authoring tool, where learning is created? The model of e-learning as being a type of content, produced by publishers, organized and structured into courses, and consumed by students, is turned on its head.

Insofar as there is content, it is used rather than read and is, in any case, more likely to be produced by students than courseware authors. And insofar as there is structure, it is more likely to resemble a language or a conversation rather than a book or a manual.

Whoa, hang on Stephen. This is where it starts to get really different and uncomfortable for many practitioners. In particular, once you begin to head down this path (and Stephen is far from alone), we've lost control of the process.

We naturally begin to ask questions like:

• Even if I'm successful in creating a community or a learner produced content source, how do I know that learners are getting the right information and that its support the performance that we want at the end of the day?


• How can I make sure that I'm able to hit my learning objectives if I don't control the content and the learning process?

There is a natural feeling of a loss of control of the learning experience when we open it up to informal learning, communities, and other techniques where we are not prescribing the learning content.

I think George Siemens also strikes a chord in his article Theories for Informal Learning Design:

Informal learning is too important leave to chance. But why don't we have theories that provide guidelines?

even more amazing was that George was looking at this back in 2004 in his article Learning Development Cycle: Bridging Learning Design and Modern Knowledge Needs.

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up

In the discussions around informal learning, eLearning 2.0, communities, etc., one of the things that I quickly realized is that I'm a "top-down" or "intentional" kind of person. Unfortunately, both terms are somewhat derogatory terms in certain circles.

What I mean by "Top-Down" and "Intentional" is that I am used to thinking about prescribing a blended learning regime that my learners will be asked to follow that at the end of the day, I'm confident will result in knowledge transfer and performance. This was the case as a professor. This is the case as a designer of eLearning / Blended Learning solutions.

"Bottom-up" and "Unexpected" learning means that you provide tools to your learners to allow them to be more self-directed, peer-supported, community based, etc. You create the environment for learning and foster it, but really you don't control it.

While I don't really dispute the need and value of the Bottom-up (99+% of my personal learning is bottom up), like most people in eLearning, I'm being asked to create Intentional learning. Someone (a client of some kind) wants to support/improve particular performance. And there is an expectation that some element of the solution will address a known knowledge gap. Likely the expectation is that additional follow-up support will be provided. If I tell the client that I'm going to create an environment for learning, that had better be after I've explained my Top-Down/ Intentional learning design.

Okay, Tony, so what?

There are lots of times and places for creating environments for pure Bottom-Up / Informal / Unexpected. Each of us reading this will probably live mostly in this domain for the rest of our lives. There are times and places for pure Top-Down / Formal / Intentional - think compliance training.

The real interesting place right now for me is thinking about the broader context of Blended Learning solutions by taking advantage of techniques/tools such as collaboration, community, learner created content, effective follow-up activities, coaching, etc. Yet, I need this to be done in an Intentional / Top-Down (structured) manner to ensure that I'm first supporting the learning objectives (performance objectives) are being met.

Putting This in Practice

So, what are we talking about here?

Look at what Bill Bruck is doing over at Q2Learning. He has communities tools that are similar to threaded discussions, wikis, groups, etc. On top of that, we has a system for creating "programs" which are a structured series of expected activities by all the participants in the learning. For example, you can set up a program that requires learners to post a review of an article and comment on two other reviews (peer-review). It tracks all the activities (which is something you don't get in most of these applications) and thus allows you to know if people are following your program.

Also look at tools that are being positioned in the "follow-up" camp. There's a review of ActionPlan Mapper that describes the basic idea of having a series of follow-up activities. Certainly, we've used this kind of approach as part of solutions with big effect.

By looking at these tools, I come away thinking that I can at least have the level of control that lets me be prescriptive about a whole series of expected activities that make up my broader blended learning solution.

The Long Tail is Killing Hit Albums, Blockbuster Movies

Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame has put together some statistics indicating that mass-appeal music albums and movies are on the decline. This is not news to anyone who follows new media, but Anderson's figures are particularly compelling.

Although noting that US box office revenue has been rising steadily since the early 1990s (though it dipped a bit in 2005), that can be attributed simply to rising ticket prices. Perhaps more importantly, theatre attendance as a percent of the total population has been declining sharply since 2002 (around the time that DVDs hit the mainstream). Anderson also notes that revenue generated by the the most popular movies has dropped since the '90s, while production and marketing costs have soared. It's not uncommon these days to see a movie earn $100 million or more in box office revenue... and barely turning a profit (not to mention big-budget productions that are genuine bombs).

As for music, Anderson references sales figures showing the number of hit albums (500,000+ copies sold) rising sharply during the '80s (the advent of compact discs and MTV's hit-making capacity), and then falling just as steeply since around 2000 (the advent of online music downloading). Even when adjusted for the overall growth of the music industry, sales figures show a steep rise in the early '60s (Beatlemania and the British Invasion? The stereo LP?) and a general plateau that held until the late '90s.

Music and movie fans shouldn't fret, however. Says Anderson, "It's not that people aren't watching films and listening to music, it's that they're watching different films and different music--we're just not following the herd to the same hits the way we used to." The movie and music industries are quick to attribute sales declines to piracy, but the causes are deeper and more long-term. Not only does technology give us more choice than ever before, it keeps us better informed about what's out there, helping to generate buzz for small projects as well as big ones, and creating new channels for sales.

Hit music and movies are not going away anytime soon; American Idol, for instance, is an new and enormously powerful tool for mainstream hitmakers. But the age of the album that "everyone" must own (Michael Jackson's Thriller comes to mind) and the movie that "everyone" must see (Titanic might have been the last of these) may be over.

Real-Time Location Systems for Miners and Tunnel Workers

The recent West Virginia mining tragedies have focused national attention on mine safety. One class of technologies that can aid in this is real-time location systems (RTLS).

Using an RTLS, workers in a mine or tunnel carry radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and can be tracked precisely and continually through a standard wi-fi network. The tags also serve as two-way communicators; workers can be notified of impending danger by central operators, and can also press "panic buttons" on their tags to signal trouble.

RTLS is hardly a bleeding-edge technology that can be applied to a variety of industries. Ekahau, a leader in real-time location systems, has deployed systems in mines throughout Europe, Africa and South America. RTLS is also poised for explosive growth; owing to the combined drivers of falling costs, proven return on investment and the safety imperative (saved lives is the ultimate ROI), the Yankee Group predicts that the RTLS market will expand from $20 million in 2005 to $1.6 billion in 2010.

Source: RFID Update

eLearning 2.0

Updates made Apr 2008. I need to do a bigger set of edits to incorporate thinking from:

• eLearning 2.0 Presentation - ASTD Orange
• Have Work and Learning Changed or the Way We Do Work and Learning?
• Learning and Networking with a Blog (Deleted Scenes)
• Understanding eLearning 2.0
• Needed Skills for New Media
  
• eLearning 2.0 - An Immediate, Important Shift
• Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools
• Personal Work and Learning Environments
• eLearning 1.0, 1.3 and 2.0
• Learning Trends Point To and Shape eLearning 2.0
• Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Start-Up Guides
• Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools
• Authoring in eLearning 2.0 / Add-ins & Mash-ups

and others on the topic. Related posts from several eLearning Blogs:

• eLearning 2.0
• Web 2.0
• eLearning Trends
• Enterprise 2.0

Someone from the Institute of the Future said (and Bill Gates likes to say it as well):

The impact of Technology is often overestimated in the short-term and underestimated in the long-term.

I think eLearning 2.0 is an example of where technology has snuck up on us and there’s something very interesting going on that we are only beginning to recognize. Another time, I’ll talk about how amazing the technology revolution is, right now, let’s just focus on something I just heard. The person roughly said, I’ve been hearing about Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 and I don’t think I get it. What is eLearning 2.o anyhow?

It’s really not an easy question to answer, but let me take you through what I see as the cornerstones of eLearning 2.0. And let me apologize up front that I’m not trying to give any kind of formal definition. Instead, I’m trying to describe how I see eLearning 2.0 playing out in the short-term and medium-term for people in corporate eLearning.

Also, as you read this, if you have questions, comments, additions, please put a comment at the bottom and I’ll try to improve this over time.

Finally, if you really want to help yourself to “get it” – I strongly believe you need to play around with some of this technology. I’ve put a couple of Action Items within the contents. I don’t think I really “got it” until I played with these things.


Web 2.0

To get a sense of eLearning 2.0, it’s helpful to have some sense of what Web 2.0 is. Probably the most cited article on this is from Tim O’Reilly called "What is Web 2.o?"

To pull the most relevant aspects for eLearning 2.0:

• Software Services
  
  Today, you can easily go out and get software that runs completely outside of your own systems – “software as a service.” All you need is a browser. Probably the most known example of this is www.SalesForce.com – which is a CRM package that you just sign-up for on the web. Now, this is becoming quite common.
  
  If you aren’t sure what this means, take a look at: http://www.writely.com/ & http://www.writeboard.com/. These are two examples of Word Processor applications delivered through the web. And since they are web enabled, you can easily share this with others.
  
  Action Item: sign-up for Writely or WriteBoard and try it out. It’s instant. No installation.
  


• Harnessing Collective Intelligence
  
  In some ways this is very simple to understand, Google and Amazon have made fortunes on using this approach. Google ranks search results partly based on how many other sites link to that page. They are relying on the fact that the more other people have linked to something, the greater likelihood that it has value. Similarly, Amazon uses other shoppers patterns to help you find things you might like.Under Web 2.0, this approach is being used with dramatic results. Consider the following:
  
  · Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com/) – a fantastic online encyclopedia based on entries from everyone.
  · del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) – shared, tagged bookmarks
  · Cloudmark – collaborative spam filtering
  
  Action Item: If you’ve not been to WikiPedia, you really need to go visit it.
  


• Everyone as Publisher
  
  While related to the previous item, this is slightly different. The barrier to being able to create content has dramatically fallen. Probably the best example of this are blogs. Also included are wikis (like that used for WikiPedia). But in reality it also includes all sorts of other ways for us to create content including Flickr (photos), eVite (invitations), Podcasts, and the list goes on and on. Many people have referred to this as the transition to the “Read-Write Web.”
  
  Action Item: Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and create your own blog. Takes about 5-10 minutes. Only hard part is what the topic for your blog should be. How about posting your take on eLearning 2.0 and putting in a comment that points us to your blog. (I know – this is a really cruddy kind of threaded discussion. Don’t get me started on that again.)
  


• Aggregation & Tagging
  
  Of course, now that everyone publishes, information overload is taken to even new heights. So, to help make sense of this, we have ways of grabbing this information and pulling it together through mechanisms like RSS aggregators. We similarly have the problem that the information is not neatly organized, so one of the approaches to help make sense of this is Tagging as is done in systems like del.icio.us.
  


• Lightweight Programming & Composition
  
  A really BIG trend for all of this is a change in the way software is being designed and built. Many applications are being built as small components that can be plugged into the middle of other applications. The classic example of this is Google Maps that allows you to embed a map in the middle of your web page (which is now your application) that shows your data on top of the Google Map. This kind of composition is often called a Mash-up. For an example, check out http://www.housingmaps.com/.
  

eLearning 2.0 Base Trend

Okay so that’s Web 2.0. Now onto eLearning 2.0…

There are a few articles on this, probably the two most commonly cited (up until this article) are: E-Learning 2.0, Stephen Downes,

E-learning 2.0, whatever that is, David Jennings

But both of these took me a long time to partially understand, so let me give you a slightly different angle or take on eLearning 2.0. Oh, and also part of the what makes understanding eLearning 2.0 hard is that several different “camps” have all landed on the same basic kinds of approaches from different directions. I would, via a gross generalization, put these camps down as:

• eLearning
• Collaboration / Communities
• Knowledge Management

Again, this article is primarily aimed at people coming from the eLearning world.

In this world, probably THE major trend that we’ve seen is a demand for faster learning in the context of work. We’ve also seen the slow smushing together of Online Reference, Online Job Aids, small eLearning pieces, Rapid eLearning and Blended Learning.

So, my concept of eLearning 2.0 starts with the trend towards:

• Small pieces of content
• Delivered closer to time / place of work
• Likely delivered in pieces over time as part of a larger program

This trend exists independent of the whole discussion of Web 2.0. In reality it is what is driving a lot of the discussions around Blended Learning and Rapid eLearning. And it’s really a big piece of what eLearning 2.0 is. An interesting discussion of this trend can be found in Elliot Masie’s column in CLO Magazine (but I hate his title) “Nano-Learning: Miniaturization of Design.”

eLearning 2.0 Meets Web 2.0

But, let’s start to add in a couple of things from Web 2.0.

If you did the Action Items above, you likely had the same reaction when you created your blog. Wow! That was incredibly easy! For me, it was really an “aha” moment. Wow, this software as services thing really works. Wow, I can now create a web page incredibly fast that’s publicly available.

Another “aha” was when I looked at the Add-ins for Blogger. These are small modules that are provided by completely separate companies (which are also very easy to set up) and plug right into my Blog. I created a poll and put it right in my blog. Wow, this small software component stuff really works.

Content Creation in eLearning 2.0

Okay, at the end of the day, a lot of us in eLearning think of ourselves as delivering content. Sure, sure, we are trying to improve performance in a way that has bottom line impact, but I’d also better produce some content.

Because of the Base Trend described above, we are today creating more content that looks like Online Reference and Online Job Aids. CMS & Wiki solutions make this really easy to do. It’s basically no harder than using a MS Word. Again, did you look at Writely? Better yet, chances are that your company already owns a CMS / Portal tool (and is looking for someone like you to use it).

Action Item: Go find out what Portal software you have in your company. It has CMS built in. You’ve got your easy to use content creation tool.

What you don’t get when you put up Online Reference or Online Job Aids is tracking. In other words, you won’t know who’s gone in and looked at the materials. Right now this is the big advantage of LCMS solutions, but you can actually create an add-on for the CMS solutions to track this today. Today, most companies are forgoing the tracking of who’s accessing the reference material and instead looking to gauge overall hits (total usage) and if they really want to test competence, they look use a follow-on test, they survey the manager or they look at the numbers.

Okay, so first content creation trend is the insanely easily creation of reference materials.

But it gets better…

We all know that in the middle of my HTML based course I can easily drop in a Flash interaction, right? Or I can also drop in a brief demonstration or simulation authored in Captivate. I’ve done this many times to create a kind of hybrid reference / courseware piece.

Now, the number of components that I can drop-in is increasing dramatically (think about Blogger Add-ons). See my previous article to get some ideas about different interactive elements that I can drop in.

Hang on – I use Lectora and I already have “drop in” interactions. What’s different here? Well you do and its pretty much the same. But using add-ins instead of what the authoring tool provides allows me to choose best of breed. I can use what Lectora gives me or I can choose a different add-in. And, that add-in can allow my students to interact with the content and each other!

Wait, what was that?

Yep, interaction with your students within your content. I’ve done this the hard way in the past. For example, a few years ago for one of our clients we created a pretty cool little feature. The client would be bringing a new customer up on their software and would need to train five people how to operate and run the software. These learners would go through online courseware for about 6 hours that would teach them about the software and test them using simulations. At any time during the course, the learner could click “Ask a Question” and it would allow them to type in a question that would be saved in their question list. At the end, they would be able to edit their list and then it was sent to the instructor. Once all five people were done with the courseware, the instructor would schedule a WebEx and go through the questions.

It really worked well. But, of course, we had to build that capability. Now I can drop it into my course for free. I could also drop in other opportunities to interact with the content that would get back to the instructor and also to share thoughts and comments with other learners.

This is GOOD STUFF!!! And it’s here today!!!

And, by adding in the ability for students to interact with our content, we are suddenly opening a lot of possibilities. I’m citing some very narrow examples above. Remember that this also means that I can very easily set up blended learning opportunities that have significant follow-up components that include active participation by learners and other related people. For example, in retail, when we have an intervention aimed at store managers, we will include the district managers as coaches and require that the store managers create action plans that are reviewed and commented on by district managers. We could also ask them to review other store manager’s plans and provide comments. We can then track the intervention through online discussions to find what’s working and not working.

Of course, this is where the KM and community / collaboration folks look at us and say “welcome to the party.” But, I’m not here to tell you that it’s easy to go to the next level of multi-point content creation where you are capturing knowledge and fostering communities that help with individual and organizational learning. But, I am saying that eLearning 2.0 has opened the door where there is a low-barrier to looking at models for going beyond one-way communication (trainer -> learner) or even two-way (trainer <-> learner) and consider many-to-many communication schemes that involve training, SMEs, coaches, peers, managers and others who are involved in fostering the performance at the end of the day.

Can anyone argue that given a low barrier to creating a 10 minute piece for the learner’s manager that we shouldn’t be creating that piece in most cases? That we shouldn’t foster some kind of communication and follow-up? The tools to do this are really here today and the barriers to using them are dropping rapidly.

As a community, and with the help of folks from KM and community / collaboration backgrounds, hopefully we can figure out what patterns really work here. I do believe the next few years are going to be times of incredible experimentation with many-to-many communication approaches as part of learning initiatives.

Content Access in eLearning 2.0

And one more thing that I put in eLearning 2.0 is content access through search, aggregation and tagging. As we lower the barrier to content creation, look to create smaller objects, have students create content, have SMEs create content, we are going to have an explosion of content. We need this content to be searchable. We also need ways to aggregate it into interesting “courses” and “programs.” We need to be able to tag it so that we can later find it.

Out of these three, aggregation you are already doing – in fact that’s almost half of our job description - it’s just that we are going to need new tools and techniques as multi-point content creation becomes more prevalent. Search is a slam dunk. In fact, Action Item: go find out what search you have in your company. Tagging I’m still trying to figure out how necessary its going to be. I know as a means of fostering community research, its great. I’m assuming that it will be important to help us aggregate.


Again – if you have comments, questions, thoughts, ideas, I welcome them.

Retro Future

The website Retro Future offers a catalog of "futuristic" concepts popular in ages past, including the famed Futurama of the 1939 World's Fair, flying cars, Smell-O-Vision, time capsules, and rocket mail.

Retro Future contains links to related sites, for those interested in further reading.

Envisioning the Future of Warfare

We've known for some time -- since 9/11, at least -- that warfare of the 21st century isn't going to be anything like conflicts of the past. In September 2005, researchers and military experts at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico developed scenarios for how wars of the future might be fought.

Among the possibilities the Future of Warfare team considered:

• Traditional military strength will be marginalized as warfare becomes more asymmetric and indirect (terrorism, sabotage, disinformation campaigns).


• Military forces will see a larger role in peacekeeping, and a smaller role in direct combat.


• Nonlethal attacks on systems (economic disruption, cyberattacks, etc.) will become more important... and more devastating. Terrorism expert John Robb calls such attacks, when designed to cause a cascading effect of infrastructure or market failures, systempunkt.


• The relationship between the US and China will shape much of the geopolitical landscape as the 21st century moves forward.


• Military strategists need to pay more attention to culture and identity when managing conflicts, and may employ sociologists and anthropologists to help in their planning.

One of the more interesting scenarios the team considered involved unintended consequences of the switch to alternative energy sources. If oil prices crash as a result, already volatile regions such as the Middle East could become even more explosive, and an even greater threat to the West.

Source: World Future Society