IBM Taps Employees for Innovation Using Blog Like Tools

On ComputerWorld, ran into an article IBM: Tapping Employee Brain Power you may find the print version easier to read (and on one page). The article mentions something that I had heard about from Tony O'Driscoll at IBM, but had not seen in print:

IBM’s new values, which include putting client needs first and fostering innovation, may seem obvious, but Truskowski says the participatory, grass-roots means by which they were developed gives them credibility with employees — something they would have lacked if they’d been developed by “a senior executive sitting in Armonk.”

Armed with the freshly minted corporate values, senior management charged business unit managers to find and close the gaps between those values and actual business practices. To help with that, IT rolled out in October 2004 a so-called jam ­— a worldwide brainstorming session that Truskowski describes as “a blog on steroids.” It drew ideas from 33,000 employees, and IBM later implemented the top 35 suggestions as determined by an employee vote.

More recently they've used "Jams" to look at innovative product/service ideas. This jam was open (somewhat) to outside input and it "generated 37,000 ideas from 140,000 people in 75 countries and 67 companies."

Google Acquires JotSpot

Just saw this on TechCrunch - Google Acquires Wiki Collaboration Company Jotspot. Interesting timing in that I just posted about Matt Glotzbach's presentation at the Web 2.0 event. This suggests that Google will have a Wiki tool (that's partyly aimed at the enterprise) as part of their Google Office. Google already has blogger. Google now has a great wiki tool. VERY INTERESTING.

Web 2.0

As I scour the Internet for new applications I am amazed by all of the new Web 2.0 developments and can only imagine what the future holds. A lot of venture capital is now being invested in some of these new companies looking for the next Google. In my travels I came across this wonderfully crafted site that has aggregated new and upcoming Web 2.0 companies. Take a look at www.go2web20.net to get a sense of what is happening on the Web 2.0 front.

If you haven't already used it Google has integrated Writely and their Spreadsheet application on the web. This is just a glimpse of what is possible-just imagine access to a word processor and spreadsheet wherever you are. Just add a text to speech and their you have it a talking word processor over the web. Better yet, you can collaborate on your documents by giving others permission to share your documents. I

In the drawing realm you could access Gliffy and have at your disposal an easy to use drawing and design application . It is easy to create flow charts and simple diagrams using the application on the web.

These are just a couple of applications that give you a glimpse of what is to happen as the Internet gets faster. Just for fun go to Springdoo and send someone a audio or video email. The future is exciting as more and more companies begin to weave their applications on the web.

Corporate Learning Laggards?

Last week I moderated a Technology Council event on Web 2.0 in Los Angeles. We had great speakers from IBM, Google, Sony, Microsoft, Move.com (Homestore) and others. There were lots of interesting things to be taken from the presentations that relate directly to what's happening in corporate learning, but one of the high level trends that made me think came from Matt Glotzbach, Head of Products at Google Enterprise.

The point that Matt made was the corporate IT has gone from leading technology innovation to being a laggard that adopts after consumers. It used to be that your corporate computer, your Internet connection, the applications that you used, all were better than what you used at home. Now the opposite is often the case. He attributed some of this to the fact that consumers have direct, easy access to services and because of Software as a Service, innovation happens really fast and gets to consumers quickly. Corporate IT just can't keep up and maybe shouldn't because they need to police what is done. Matt also pointed out that often Corporate IT makes different choices for itself than it does for the rest of the corporation. For example, they may have access to sites or have installed desktop search or have other things that they restrict from the rest of the corporation.

What's interesting in eLearning is that it used to be that corporations were way out in front of what was happening in the consumer space and even farther ahead of what I saw in academia. Back in 1993-4, I lead the development of a project for Lexus salespeople that had video-based selling skills simulations, an online reference, tools, and more. It was truly a ground breaking project that was ahead of what you would find in consumer multimedia learning.

Interestingly, as we transitioned to delivery over the Internet - did I mention that Lexus Labs was delivered on six CD ROMs so it came with a CD ROM changer? - we took a big step back. We've also stepped back as we look at doing things more quickly at lower cost to keep up with the pace of change. And now as things begin to transition to eLearning 2.0 what I see happening in the consumer space and in academia is far ahead of what we are seeing in corporations. Individual instructors are able to incorporate blogs and wikis into their classroom experiences much more readily than in the corporate land.

Is that our destiny in the world of eLearning 2.0? Is Corporate Learning going to continue to be a Laggard?

Why Wikis Are Conquering the Enterprise

Found via 7 Days and More, interesting article on InternetNews.com - Why Wikis Are Conquering The Enterprise by Michael Hickins. Couple of thoughts from the article:

• adoption is coming mainly from project managers and department-level executives not senior management (and, of course, corporate learning was not mentioned)
• "In almost every big corporation, some group is already using a wiki," said Andrew McAfee, associate professor of technology and operations management at the Harvard Business School.

This echoes what I've been seeing as well. It's kinda like Web Servers, Open Source and other technologies creeping into the enterprise through the back door because it provides value, can be done by workgroups without corporate sponsorship, and provides immediate value.

Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge - Decisions Learning Professionals Make Everyday

A post by Jack Vinson pointed me to What's so great about tacit knowledge? and What's So Great About Tacit Knowledge? - Cont'd. Basically, a lot of what we do in Workplace Learning is trying to extract tacit knowledge (in people's heads), make it explicit (write it down) and then we even turn it into something that can be learned so it will become tacit knowledge in our learners heads.

Much of the focus of Knowledge Management has been finding ways to support capture of tacit knowledge. As stated by one article:

The knowledge management and capabilities literatures are in love in love with tacit knowledge. Managing tacit knowledge, leveraging tacit knowledge, growing tacit knowledge these are seen as the keys to achieving sustained competitive advantage.

But they also know that tacit knowledge and human judgment based on it is often flawed:

He correctly points out that tacit knowledge may well be erroneous, to which it may be added that erroneous tacit knowledge is usually more of a problem than erroneous explicit knowledge, since the latter is presumably easier to correct.

A couple of things that this sparked for me as it relates to Workplace Learning. First, one of the things that has been argued against providing tools to end-users to create their own content is that they will create information that is not all that great or is wrong. I've always said that I'd rather have them putting the information down somewhere (in a Wiki for example) and making it explicit so that we can find it and hopefully correct it. The alternative is that they will hand it out below the radar, and we won't know that they are spreading it around.

Second, since much of the choice between eLearning 1.0 and eLearning 2.0 comes down to the cost of us directly working to make information explicit as compared to providing tools that allow the learners to make it explicit (or to create their own tacit knowledge). Thus, the authors suggestion that knowledge runs from:

knowledge-that-is-extremely-costly-to-articulate and knowledge-that-isn't-at-all as defining the two ends of a continuum.

This is where we live all the time. Deciding whether its worth the cost of extracting the tacit knowledge and making it explicit or not.

Finally, the author points out something that is quite controversial. He essentially argues that its only a matter of cost of extracting tacit knowledge. He states:

the literature on tacit knowledge sometimes reads as if there is tacit knowledge that is inherently impossible to articulate; no matter the costs If you go and look on Wikipedia's definition:

The tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified..

So which is it? Can it be extracted or not? Well it really is about the cost of extracting it AND the cost of providing it in a form that can be learned so that it can be used or learned. So, my feeling is that it all can become explicit - and that's our job in a lot of cases - but we are constantly being forced to consider the cost.

Other Blogs of Interest

One of the highlights of going to conferences like Closing the Gap is having a chance to sit down with your colleagues and find out how they are using various technologies to meet the needs of students with disabilities. At closing the Gap I had a chance to chat with Lucy, Brian, Nora, Kirk, and David and was just amazed at how they are using technology.

Some of my colleagues have some wonderful blogs which should be of interest to use.

Lucy Gray is an Apple Distinguished Educator from Chicago and has some wonderful ideas about using technology with students. Lucy's blog can be found at: http://elemenous.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/friday_5_found_.html

Brian W. Wojcik, Nora Bardi, Kirk Behnke, and Dave Hohulin did a presentation about

Blogs, Wiki's, Webcasts, Etc. - New Tools for Students with Disabilities at

Closing the Gap which you should find interesting. Here is their link:
http://closingthegap.wikispaces.com/

Very new, very active, very impressive!...

A quick note to make a reference to a new IBM Informix dedicated site.
It's called Informix Zone ( http://informix-zone.com/ ) and it's maintained by Eric Herber, but it's a cooperative site. You can sign in and give him an hand.

The site is very active, and this seems to reflect all the excitement surrounding IDS technology that keeps increasing, fuelled by IBM investment it this technology.

Keep an open eye on this!

When 'Exclusive' is not really exclusive...

One situation that can really annoy an IBM Informix DBA happens when you're trying to ALTER TABLE [...] and you get the error "Non exclusive access when executing a DDL...". You then think... "Oh... I'll lock it in exclusive mode"... And after killling some sessions, setting the lock mode to WAIT and opening a transaction you get the desired 'exclusive' lock. Then you try the ALTER TABLE again and what happens? The same error! How can it be you ask?! Read on...

First let me say that this same subject is referenced in one of the many technical support articles. The link is here. Why am I writing this then? Well, because I think there's a bit more than what the article says... But please understand that everyhing in that article is correct, and that it solves the problem in most cases.

Let's start by making a few points:

1. When you set the exclusive lock on a table using "BEGIN WORK; LOCK TABLE IN EXCLUSIVE MODE you don't prevent sessions with DIRTY READ isolation level from accessing the table
2. In order to do an ALTER TABLE on a table, you need exclusive access on a different level. The fact that no one (besides dirty readers) can't read data from the table is not enough. There must be no references to the table structure. This is on a lower level than the SQL layer. This means for example that there can be no open cursors, no prepared statements using the table, and there can be no sessions waiting for the lock you establish. If for example at time T0 you get the exclusive lock, and before you make the ALTER TABLE, at T1, a session in LOCK MODE WAIT tries to SELECT FROM THE TABLE, this session will have a reference to the table. At T2 when you give the ALTER command, you won't be able to execute it. This needs a very precise timming to happen, but it can be easy when you're dealing with an "hot" table
   

For the first situation, our friends at R&D have come up with a solution, documented in the already mentioned article. There is an otherwise undocumented variable called IFX_DIRRTY_WAIT which allows us to specify a maximum number of seconds that we will wait for DIRTY READERS to release the table structure. This will also prevent new sessions to attach to the table structure.
So, two things can happen. If the ammount of time specified in IFX_DIRTY_WAIT is enough to let all dirty readers to complete their jobs, your ALTER TABLE statement will wait for a while and successfuly execute after the last one ends their reads. Otherwise, if there are still any dirty reader after the timeout, you'll get the normal error. In this case you'll have to increase the value you put in IFX_DIRTY_WAIT or use the time to kill some sessions.

But this won't solve the second situation. For this you will have to find what sessions have references to the table and close them. And if you have a "wild" environment where you can't stop sessions from popping up, and many of this sessions make references to the table, you'll also need a way to stop this new sessions from using the table. I had cases where I checked which sessions were preventing me from doing the DDL and closed them. But when I retried the ALTER, there were already other sessions with references to the table. So, how can we find which session has a reference to a table?

> ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -g opn

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 00:43:22 -- 87776 Kbytes
tid rstcb isfd op_mode op_flags partnum ucount ocount lockmode
39 0x477bf4c8 0 0x00000400 0x00000397 0x00100071 2 2 0
39 0x477bf4c8 1 0x00000002 0x00000003 0x00100071 2 2 0
39 0x477bf4c8 3 0x00000408 0x00000017 0x001000a3 1 1 0

Err... and now? Well, as you can see you have a column called "partnum", and another with the "rstcb". Knowing the tablename allows you to find out the partnum (and vice-versa) by looking at sysmaster:systabnames.

[informix@PacMan ~]$ dbaccess sysmaster -

Database selected.

> select hex(partnum), tabname, dbsname from systabnames where partnum = '0x001000a3';



(expression) 0x001000A3
tabname customer
dbsname stores_demo

1 row(s) retrieved.

And you can find the session ID from the "rstcb", using something like:

[informix@PacMan ~]$ onstat -u | grep 477bf4c8
477bf4c8 Y--P--- 21 informix 2 482d71a8 0 1 0 0
[informix@PacMan ~]$ onstat -g sql 21

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 00:48:19 -- 87776 Kbytes

Sess SQL Current Iso Lock SQL ISAM F.E.
Id Stmt type Database Lvl Mode ERR ERR Vers Explain
21 SELECT stores_demo NL Not Wait 0 0 9.03 Off

Current statement name : slctcur

Current SQL statement :
select * from customer

As long as session 21 continues to reference the table structure you won't be able to issue any ALTER TABLE on customer table, even after being able to lock it:

[informix@PacMan ~]$ dbaccess stores_demo -

Database selected.

> begin work;

Started transaction.

> lock table customer in exclusive mode;

Table locked.

> alter table customer add (dummy_col char);

242: Could not open database table (informix.customer).

106: ISAM error: non-exclusive access.
Error in line 1
Near character position 40
>

So, this are the basics to find which sessions are referencing a specific table. But I really don't want to see anybody messing around with a lot of onstat commands, greps etc. I've already wrote a script which can do all this. It's called ixtableuse and it will be available soon.

So, by now, we have ways to handle dirty readers and to find out the sessions referencing the tables. We only need a way to prevent new sessions from getting references while we clear the ones we identified. How can we do this? Well... using a dirty trick... All the sessions trying to access a table somehow will have to read it's record from the systables table. Yes... that's it... If somehow we lock that record also, the sessions in LOCK MODE WAIT will get stuck on this systables record, before they open the table in question. How can we lock a record on systables? For example by GRANTing that table some dummy privilege.

So, let's see how to do some DDL on a very "hot" table in a "wild" environment.
In session 1 (the session where you want to ALTER TABLE):

> IFX_DIRTT_WAIT=300
> export IFX_DIRTY_WAIT
> #the above will take care of dirty readers...
> [informix@PacMan ~]$ dbaccess stores_demo -

Database selected.

> set lock mode to wait;

Lockmode set.

> begin work;

Started transaction.

> grant select on customer to dummy_user;

Permission granted.

> lock table customer in exclusive mode;

Table locked.

After this, if you try to access the table from another session in default isolation and lock mode you'll get:

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> dbaccess stores_demo -

Database selected.

> select * from customer;

211: Cannot read system catalog (systables).

107: ISAM error: record is locked.
Error in line 1
Near character position 22

Note that the error refers to systables, not the table customer.


Back to session 1:

> alter table customer add (dummy_col char);

242: Could not open database table (informix.customer).

106: ISAM error: non-exclusive access.
Error in line 1
Near character position 40

Why?! Well, the initial session that ended the select * from customer statement is still referencing the table. You can see how many "users" are referencing it using another onstat:

> ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -t

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:22:31 -- 87776 Kbytes

Tblspaces
n address flgs ucnt tblnum physaddr npages nused npdata nrows nextns
4 477f8d38 0 1 100001 1:14 250 250 0 0 1
30 47de1018 0 2 100071 1:126 16 11 5 65 2
80 47e6f018 0 2 1000a3 1:176 8 3 2 28 1
3 active, 108 total

This can be cleared by an onmode -z or a kill to the client process:

onmode -z 21

And again:

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -t

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:24:52 -- 87776 Kbytes

Tblspaces
n address flgs ucnt tblnum physaddr npages nused npdata nrows nextns
4 477f8d38 0 1 100001 1:14 250 250 0 0 1
30 47de1018 0 1 100071 1:126 16 11 5 65 2
80 47e6f018 0 1 1000a3 1:176 8 3 2 28 1

Only one ucnt for the table... We can now ALTER the table... but what happens when the user who got the error on systables retries with anothe LOCK MODE? Check it:

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> dbaccess stores_demo -

Database selected.

> set lock mode to wait;

Lockmode set.

> select * from customer;

He gets stuck... where?:

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -u

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:30:03 -- 87776 Kbytes

Userthreads
address flags sessid user tty wait tout locks nreads nwrites
477be018 ---P--D 1 informix - 0 0 0 30 42
477be544 ---P--F 0 informix - 0 0 0 0 682
477bea70 ---P--- 7 informix - 0 0 0 0 0
477bef9c ---P--B 8 informix - 0 0 0 0 0
477bf9f4 Y--P--D 14 informix - 4407d574 0 0 0 0
477bff20 ---P--D 11 informix - 0 0 0 0 0
477c044c Y-BP--- 43 informix 4 47f706d0 0 10 0 0
477c0978 L--PR-- 45 informix 5 440d03c4 -1 1 0 0
8 active, 128 total, 18 maximum concurrent

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -k

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:30:06 -- 87776 Kbytes

Locks
address wtlist owner lklist type tblsnum rowid key#/bsiz
440d0314 0 477c0978 0 HDR+S 100002 204 0
440d036c 0 477c044c 440d057c HDR+IX 100074 0 0
440d03c4 477c0978 477c044c 440d04cc HDR+X 100071 80b 0
440d041c 0 477c044c 440d036c HDR+X 100074 911 0
440d0474 0 477c044c 440d041c HDR+X 100074 911 K- 1
440d04cc 0 477c044c 440d0524 HDR+IX 100071 0 0
440d0524 0 477c044c 440d0474 HDR+X 100074 911 K- 2
440d057c 0 477c044c 0 S 100002 204 0
440d05d4 0 477c044c 440d03c4 HDR+X 1000a3 0 0
440d062c 0 477c044c 440d05d4 HDR+U 100071 80c 0
440d0684 0 477c044c 440d062c HDR+U 100071 903 0
11 active, 10000 total, 16384 hash buckets, 0 lock table overflows
ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -u | grep 477c0978
477c0978 L--PR-- 45 informix 5 440d03c4 -1 1 0 0
ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -u | grep 477c044c
477c044c Y-BP--- 43 informix 4 47f706d0 0 10 0 0
ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -g sql 45

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:30:44 -- 87776 Kbytes

Sess SQL Current Iso Lock SQL ISAM F.E.
Id Stmt type Database Lvl Mode ERR ERR Vers Explain
45 SELECT stores_demo CR Wait 0 0 9.03 Off

Current SQL statement :
select * from customer

Last parsed SQL statement :
select * from customer

ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -g sql 43

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:30:47 -- 87776 Kbytes

Sess SQL Current Iso Lock SQL ISAM F.E.
Id Stmt type Database Lvl Mode ERR ERR Vers Explain
43 - stores_demo CR Wait 0 0 9.03 Off

Last parsed SQL statement :
alter table customer add (dummy_col char)

> ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> dbaccess sysmaster -

Database selected.

> select hex(partnum), tabname, dbsname from systabnames where partnum = '0x100071';



(expression) 0x00100071
tabname systables
dbsname stores_demo

1 row(s) retrieved.

He is waiting on the lock you got on systables, and this prevents his session from grabbing a reference to the table structure:

> ideiafix@PacMan.domus.online.pt:informix-> onstat -t

IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.00.UC5 -- On-Line -- Up 01:34:12 -- 87776 Kbytes

Tblspaces
n address flgs ucnt tblnum physaddr npages nused npdata nrows nextns
4 477f8d38 0 1 100001 1:14 250 250 0 0 1
30 47de1018 0 2 100071 1:126 16 11 5 65 2
80 47e6f018 0 1 1000a3 1:176 8 3 2 28 1

so you can complete your work (back to session 1):

> alter table customer add (dummy_col char);

Table altered.

> revoke select on customer from dummy_user;

Permission revoked.

> commit work;

Data committed.

And after this, the waiting session will continue:

[...]

customer_num 128
fname Frank
lname Lessor
company Phoenix University
address1 Athletic Department
address2 1817 N. Thomas Road
city Phoenix
state AZ
zipcode 85008
phone 602-533-1817
dummy_col

28 row(s) retrieved.

Please, remember to include the REVOKE...


So, this ends the article. To summarize it:
When you need to alter some table structure you'll need more than exclusive lock on the table because you'll need that no more sessions are referencing the table structure. These other sessions can be of two types:

• Dirty readers - for these set IFX_DIRTY_WAIT=300 in your environment (this will give you at most 300 seconds while you can kill the sessions or simply wait for them to finish)
• Other sessions with holds on the table structure. These can be sessions in LOCK MODE WAIT [x], that are waiting for your lock (but that already have a reference to the table structure) or sessions with open cursors, prepared statements etc. referencing the table
  
  For these use:
  
  SET LOCK MODE TO WAIT;
  BEGIN WORK;
  LOCK TABLE IN EXCLUSIVE MODE;
  -- dummy grant to prevent new sessions from getting holds on the table structure
  GRANT SELECT ON FOR dummy_user;
  -- before continuing use onstat -g opn to identify the sessions with references
  -- and kill them...
  ALTER TABLE ;
  -- clean up the dummy GRANT
  REVOKE SELECT ON FROM dummy_user;
  COMMIT WORK;
  
  

A Good Experience

Just yesterday I had the opportunity to try out video conferencing over Skype with my graduate class in assistive technology. Deb Barrows from Crick Software was gracious enough to come on-line using the video feature found in Skype. For the most part it worked out great-we are having some bandwidth issues on the campus which should be remedied shortly but every once in awhile Deb's voice would break up and go in and out. This was partially fixed by turning off the video stream. Everyone in the class was able to see her as we spoke about Clicker 5 and the just announced Clicker Paint programs. After a short introduction, Deb set up a GotoMeeting session and we were able to share Deb's computer desktop. Deb walked us through creating a Clicker 5 ebook which went extremely well and then she introduced everyone to Clicker Paint. I think that everyone was generally very excited to use this technology and have someone come into the classroom using the Skype setup. Having access to these technologies can transform classrooms and I hope that my graduate students whom themselves are teachers will take the risks and give these technologies a try in their classrooms. Think about all the exciting ways you could use simple video-conferencing in your classrooms. I know that there are a lot of eager teachers who are looking to use these technologies and what a great way to do link classrooms across town or across the continent. Take a look at the iSighted web site for ways to hook up with other teachers who are using webs cams in their classrooms.

Are Children Suffering from "Nature Deficit Disorder"?

Clearly, the more time children spend indoors with technology like video games and television, the less time they're spending outside, getting in touch with nature. Now, studies are suggesting that children are beginning to suffer from "nature deficit disorder," leading to hyperactivity, obesity and attention deficit. These studies point to this as a growing health threat... yet recommend that kids spend more time outdoors to foster their creativity and challenge their intellect.

Source: World Future Society

Mixing and Matching

Today I was working with a middle school student trying to put together a system of tools that could work for him at home. As much I would like to find tools that give students the most coverage for what they need, it often comes down to looking at several different pieces of software to do the trick. Working with the middle school student who has difficulty getting started with writing book reports and essays, it was apparent that looking at programs like Inspiration and Draft:Builder would be great starting points. I showed the student the programs and had him try it out so that I could get his feedback. After using the programs he thought that Draft:Builder could do the trick for him. We next took a look how Dragon Naturally Speaking could integrate with Draft:Builder and I had the student dictate into a Draft:Builder Note-which worked quite well. Between Draft:Builder and Dragon Naturally Speaking we had a real winning combination to support this students writing. I guess if there is a lesson to be learned sometime you need to think out of the box and mix and match your AT.

Brandon Hall Network - Nicely Done?

I just saw a post by Mark Oehlert - The Brandon Hall Network - nicely done who said:

The functionality set looks good. The UI is pretty good - I find the initial color set to be a bit jarring but they do make the CSS available to you which will allow folks to really customize their profile page. So congrats on a nicely designed, functional network!

Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood because Brandon Hall got rid of their Yahoo Discussion Groups to provide this network. The network UI is hardly "nicely design and functional." It will take you a while to understand what you are doing and where you go to do what. Part of the issue is that there's not much content today so it feels a bit hollow.

Part of my reservation is that it is yet another social networking tool and a blogging tool. Do I need to use it in addition to Linked In and Blogger? Part of my reservation is that unless it achieves a large number of active users and displaces existing means of community, then it won't hold enough value.

Maybe I'm grumpy and missing the point? But my guess is that this is going to be a big failure.

Am I wrong? What does Mark see?

Informal Learning and Learning Management Systems

Saw an interesting post by Dennis Coxe - Sailing by the Sound: What Informal Learning Means To Me where he points out the conflict today between learning management systems and content access / informal learning:

But what really struck me is that from what I have read is that the real rebellion against formal training versus what is called "informal training" is
the slavish devotion to learning management systems. A learning management system is probably the apex of top-down training. It places toll booths inbetween the learner and the knowledge he or she needs to perform their duties. Informal learning proponents are saying "Tear down that wall." Make learning accessible.

While I don't necessarily agree with Dennis on "guilds" as the model and the profit center aspect, I completely agree that the LMS is a "toll" the learner must pay right now to get at the content. As I've saidm when you look at Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS? the clear answer is that the LMS is a barrier to learning that provides management and reporting that corporate training functions want. That's not what they have to be - but it's what they are right now. As we continue to explore new paths in eLearning - we will continue to see LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise and I wonder if we'll find that LMS Products are Two Generations Behind.

More on Modes of Information Consumption and Creation

In response to my recent post Personal Publishing - Balance of Blog vs. PPT Audio – Help Needed, I've received some good input via comments (you'll have to visit the page to see the comments - and then maybe you'll leave a comment as well). I also found a post Joan Vinall-Cox :: Weblog :: What Medium for What Purpose (or Perceptual Mode)? that responded with some interesting comments including something that really resonated with me:

Personally, when I want information, especially non-emotional, apparently 'objective' information, I like to read, to scan and dig. When I want to know about the context, the people involved, to get a sense of the whole (or the emotional space), I want audio or video.

This is very true! Voice, video or in-person gives you a much better sense of the emotional aspect of any discussion and a feeling of greater understanding. I continually push people to use the phone to discuss topics rather than relying on email because email can seem harsh.

But, what content that I'm producing needs greater emotional semantic value? I'm really not sure. Any ideas?

By the way, I just used the term "scan and dig" in my post ... but as I've been thinking about it, it really applies to a lot of what I do. I'm sure there's a better term. I just don't know what it is.

IDS@IIUG

IIUG - International Informix Users Group has made available a version of IDS - Informix Dynamic Server version 10.00xC5.

This version is limited to 5 concurrent sessions, has no "timebomb" and has some legal limitations. It's mainly for educational purposes and can't be used in production environments.

To have access to the download area one has to become an IIUG member. This is free, easy, and you'll have access to some other resources.
If you need to study or want to find out more about IDS, then you shouldn't miss this opportunity.
You're just about 130MB away before you can install, test and learn anything you want about IDS. This is the newest version available and you can download it for several OS (AIX, Solaris and HPUX in 64 bit versions, Linux [x86] and Windows in 32 bit versions)

Size of Captivate Files

In reference to my article Captivate File Size Tricks for Software Training via Simulations, I was just asked:

I was hoping you could answer a real easy question for me?

For an enterprise wide LMS system, would a Captivate movie (file) that is 1.5mb or less too big? I think this file size is micro, and that for real good elearning a file size of 40+mb is getting to a threshold. But these are tiny files, and I want to make sure we don’t get any pushback from IT on slow load times being a result of file sizes.

First, when you ask a question, never say its "real easy" - at least not to a developer. Anytime someone says the word "easy" - you generally should look out! :)

Let me start my answer by saying that if you are doing this within the US only, and on high speed connections, then 1.5mb should be no problem. That said, if you are international and/or have people running on slower connection speeds, you should be aware of two possible speed issues: load time and streaming issues.

With Captivate, theoretically the movies should have some initial load time and then should stream the remainder of the content while you are going through the movie. I personally believe (but am not sure) that larger movies have longer up-front load times. Still, I wouldn't be all that concerned with a 1.5 MB file. I would with a 40MB file.

You should also check out what is being reported in the bandwidth monitor. As long as the streaming requirements are reasonably below the line of your slower connection speeds, you should be in good shape for streaming.

All that said, one of the bigger reasons for splitting up the files is just authoring / managing large files in Captivate itself. Again, though, our experience says that 1.5MB (with audio) is not that big.

If any blog readers have had challenges with Captivate file sizes and want to help, please comment.

Wicked Weather May Be in Our Future

Droughts... floods... heat waves... bugs! That's some of what many regions in the world will have more of in the years to come, thanks to global warming.

A study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research has found that the western US, the Mediterranean region and Brazil are especially vulnerable to changing weather patterns brought on by a warmer atmosphere. The results could be longer dry spells followed by torrential rains, as well as deadly heat waves caused by warmer nights that do not allow daytime heat to dissipate. Also, more rain combined with more days with above-freezing temperatures could lead to more insect infestations.

The news, however, is not entirely grim. Many regions of the world will see a longer growing season from a milder climate.

Source: AP (via Breitbart.com)

Free iPod Nano for Conference Attendees

Just saw a post by David Warlick that said:

The CECA 2006 conference is giving each attendee a free iPod Nano.

The Nanos will come preloaded with a number of audio files about the conference, the theme of the conference, and pre-recorded highlights of many of the presentations, including the keynote address.

In addition, a team of podcasters has been assembled with missions to record specific presentations, with permission from presenters, and make them available as part of a central podcast feed.

As a result, conference attendees, after the conference, will be able to subscribe to the CECA feed and download all of those podcast presentations to take home with them.

Great idea! A nice perk for going. Of course, there's a question of whether this actually is all that great from a consumption standpoint.

Personal Publishing - Balance of Blog vs. PPT+Audio – Help Needed

I received a comment from Jesse Ezell that brings up an issue that I’ve been grappling with and I would love to get some input (comments) from everyone who reads this blog. Jesse saw a post where I pointed to slides from a recent presentation and he commented:

A PPT slide deck is a horrible way to convey anything significant. How about a link to audio, or better yet something like an Articulate Presenter or Breeze presentation that combines the audio and the slide deck? I would very much be interested in what you had to say in your presentation, but a PDF of the slide deck doesn’t do much for me.

I can completely understand his sentiment. How many times have I told someone that emailing around a PowerPoint slide deck to the sales people doesn’t constitute training. Yet, here I am posting my slides. Why am I willing to do that? The short answer is because the content already exists in that form and I’d like to leverage what I’m already doing – which is not unlike what we all face. But let’s drill down on this a bit.

Before I get too far, let me express a personal bias, shortcoming, style, or whatever you want to call it that has a big impact on how I decide to spend my time when I'm creating content:

I’m far too impatient to sit through an audio (MP3 or embedded) that goes along with a presentation deck.

The amount of content transfer vs. the time it takes is just too long. I also have a hard time sitting in a meeting, classroom or any other venue where I feel the pace is too slow. Having had to sit through a recent back-to-school night where the teachers were basically reading you what was in the notes was almost too painful to bear. Where’s the fast forward button like I’m now used to doing on TV shows? And before you tell me that with some presentations you can jump around, I know that and I use those controls when available, its still just that normally unless I’m extremely interested in a topic or it’s a particularly engaging presenter:

I’m more interested in written words that I can scan and drill-down on much more quickly.

As an example, take a look at Masie’s recent piece. While I think this is pretty good, I’d rather have had it written out for quick skimming and drill down – Is he going to say anything interesting on this topic? I skim, then I read in detail once I find some interesting stuff. Hard to do in audio. But several people mentioned in the blog world that they liked Masie's piece. Similarly, several people mentioned that they liked going through my presentation on What's Next in eLearning for ASTD Los Angeles even though you likely would need to have Interwise to be able to go through it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do like in-person exchanges on particular topics so that through Q&A you can find out what you want. Of course, I tend to be a person who is happy asking questions so that I drill down on topics that I find interesting. It’s almost the same as my reading style:

• skimming = initial discourse
• drill down = Q&A

So finally, let me get to the question … I’m creating content on topics all the time. Around the general topic of What’s Next in eLearning (or eLearning 2.0), I’ve created three presentations (one of which is recorded), written lots of blog posts, written an article (coming soon) and had lots of discussions. I have limited time to spend. So, my questions are:

1. Given my content and my limited time, how should I choose my medium to provide the best value to people reading my blog?
2. Do others share my bias about PPT + Audio value vs. written word?
3. Should I personally spend more time recording audio that goes with presentation materials?

I’d would welcome any thoughts that folks have on this topic.

And this is especially timely for me, since I'm going to be making choices around it as I begin to pull together content for ASTD TechKnowledge and my blog on the topic of blogging and social bookmarking.

CTG 2006 Comments

I am exhausted just getting in from Newark Airport and having spent the week at Closing the Gap. Having a chance to walk the Exhibit Hall and spending lots of time talking to other assistive technology specialists is invigorating. If anything, everyone pushes themselves to the limit and tries to squeeze out every minute learning and talking about our experiences in the field. Having walked the Exhibit Hall, there was lots of new assistive technologies displayed but there were no really big announcements to speak of. Crick Software showed Clicker Paint which I am sure that you will enjoy using with your students, it integrates with Clicker 5 and is truly accessible by mouse, switch or any other access method. Clicker Paint can also be used as a stand alone paint application, It will be a great addition to Clicker 5 when it is released in January. John Crick has done some outstanding programming to make the Clicker Paint a truly accessible tool. Also look for a free upgrade to Clicker 5 in the next couple of weeks. TextHelp released Read & Write Gold on a USB Flash drive which now brings true portability to their full featured assistive technology suite. Likewise, Don Johnston was showing off their recently released Incite videos which is a great way for teachers to help provide students with the background information they need when accessing the curriculum. For teacher working with students with more severe disabilities, SoftTouch just announced the release of Test Me Score Me 2.0 which is a wonderful tool for teachers to have at their disposal for alternate assessment. The program is easy to set up and use and keeps a running record of the students performance. Teachers can use graphics, sound, text and select from many access methods. If you need to design alternate assessment for your students with moderatge to severe disabilites then Take a look at Test Me Score Me 2.0.

IBM Bloggers - A Lengthy List - But No Worries

I've been reading Luis Suarez's blog for a while, and he just had an interesting post that pointed me to IBM's BlogRoll. While lots of the blogs listed there have interesting technical topics, I don't have the time to examine them each ... but I'm not worried. I've found that if they are blogging about topics that I'm interested in, the natural network effect of blogs will eventually get me there. (Or maybe I'm deluding myself.)

One thing that it does say is that corporate blogging is slowly taking off!

IBM Bloggers - A Lengthy List - But No Worries

I've been reading Luis Suarez's blog for a while, and he just had an interesting post that pointed me to IBM's BlogRoll. While lots of the blogs listed there have interesting technical topics, I don't have the time to examine them each ... but I'm not worried. I've found that if they are blogging about topics that I'm interested in, the natural network effect of blogs will eventually get me there. (Or maybe I'm deluding myself.)

Space as a Battlefield

Through Star Wars and other works of science fiction, we have become so accustomed to thinking about space-based warfare that the Bush Administration's recently revised National Space Policy comes as little surprise.

Aside from encouraging research and free enterprise in space, the policy declares America's right to defend space against anyone "hostile to US interests." It also rejects US participation in future arms control agreements that would attempt to limit or ban space weaponry.

Despite the concerns of critics, the Bush Administration denies that the purpose of the new National Space Policy is to develop space weapons. Rather, according to National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, the policy merely "reflect[s] the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security." Additionally, the idea of militarizing space is nothing new, with serious discussions on the matter dating back to at least the Clinton years.

TIE and X-Wing fighters won't be duking it out in Earth orbit anytime soon, but the policy speaks to the importance of space and very real concerns about space warfare. According to the National Reconnaissance Office, China recently aimed a ground-based laser at a US satellite... an act that could have destroyed the satellite given a powerful enough laser. As such devices become increasingly powerful, and potentially fall into the hands of rogue states like North Korea or terrorist groups, the need to protect our space-based infrastructure will quickly move from the theoretical to the critical.

Source: Washington Post

Closing the Gap Day 2

I'm sitting here checking my email and waiting for the festivities to start this evening. From 5pm - 8 pm the Exhibit Hall opens for a preview of the latest hardware and software. It is very exciting to be able to catch up with my colleagues in the field to find out what they are up to. I'll let you know what happens and keep you posted.

Social Bookmarking Tricks for Group Learning

Have I mentioned that I love getting questions. Recently I received two great questions, I'll address the first one in this post. The question was:

How are you posting the social bookmarking links on your site?

So let me answer that question first and then let me mention a couple of other things that you might want to do with Social Bookmarking tools.

Badges (Widgets)

The quick answer to the actual question is that I'm using a Yahoo MyWeb badge. You can see the badge creator and options (pages/cloud, tag filter, number of links, what to include) at:

http://myweb.yahoo.com/myresults/badge

It produces a badge that looks like:

and gives you the code that you will need to either paste into your post, web page, blog template, etc.

You can do the same thing on del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/help/linkrolls and most of the other Social Bookmarking services have similar capabilities.

RSS Feed With Search Results (and Subscribing)

In my article on Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools, I described a scenario where a workgroup would independently research a particular topic, e.g., Rapid eLearning, and would share those links under a particular tag, e.g., "rapid".

One neat trick using Social Bookmarking tools, is that you can easily create an RSS Feed for a particular term. In Yahoo MyWeb, there's an XML Button in the bottom right of result pages. I simply click that button and it will show me a page with a bunch of XML code. Anytime that search results is updated the RSS feed will be updated.

Now, the really neat part. You can easily subscribe to that feed. The URL of the XML code might be something like:

http://myweb.yahoo.com/mywebrss/tag/elearning/urls.xml

For me, all I have to do is either manually go to bloglines and subscribe, or use the trick of putting "bloglines.com/sub/" in front of the URL, e.g.,

bloglines.com/sub/http://myweb.yahoo.com/mywebrss/tag/elearning/urls.xml

I now will see any pages that are being tagged with eLearning. There are several researchers who use this approach publicly in order to allow people to share links on services like del.icio.us. See: http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/2006/02/thinking-out-loud-our.htm for an example by Nancy White.

Which Tool?

If you look at the recent comparsion on Read/Write Web, you'll get a sense of some of the features of the different tools. But, I've commented before that I think Yahoo MyWeb better than del.icio.us, rollyo, et.al. for Personal / Group Learning and it comes down to:

• Saving copies of pages
• Limiting who sees what links
• Full-text search of contents of bookmarked pages

I'm hoping that eventually Yahoo MyWeb and del.icio.us merge (Yahoo owns both after acquiring del.icio.us).

The Learning Circuits Blog: DevLearn Handouts and A Success Story: Elearning and Instructional Design Musings

Whoops, yesterday I posted a link to my recent presentation on the wrong blog. You can find the post with my thoughts around a direct success story from the presentation on LCB at:

The Learning Circuits Blog: DevLearn Handouts and A Success Story: Elearning and Instructional Design Musings

and you can find my presentation at:

What’s Now and What’s Next in e-Learning: Technologies and Practices

edited 10/19 to remove the link to other handouts.

Ultimate Knowledge Bank?

I was just talking about how with Blogs, Wikis and Social Networks, we were on the path to trying to make it easy to have content get created as part of work and have it available to others in controlled ways. I said at the time that what we needed was something that would record everything we did or thought. I just saw this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/16/explorers.memory/index.html

It certainly makes you think about the longer term implications of learning and technology are in a world where we have access to all information stored by everyone.

Closing the Gap 2006

It is that time of year again when I make the annual pilgrimage to the Minneapolis , MN for the 2006 Closing the Gap Conference. If you have never been to this conference it is a lot of fun. It is a chance to connect with other educators in the field of assistive technology and to share our stories of working with students, teachers, and families. With hundreds of lectures, workshops and presentation it can be a little overwhelming but for seasoned Closing the Gappers we have a good handle on how to pace ourselves. Tomorrow night the Exhibit Hall opens for us to preview what is new and soon to be released products. I am always on the prowl for the next great assistive technology tool or software application. I know that Don Johnston will be showing their newly released videos called Incite and Crick Software will be showing off their new Clicker Paint program. Can't wait to see them in actions. I will be presenting on Thursday morning and again on Saturday on using Mac OSX and the accessibility features. Keep tuned in to the blog as I report on some of the highlights of the 2006 Closing the Gap Conference.

Laser TV

Just when you got used to the idea that plasma and LCD were television's state-of-the-art technologies, an entirely new approach is emerging. Earlier this month, Mitsubishi unveiled a prototype for a 50-inch laser TV.

By using laser technology, the TVs can display more colors than plasma or LCD sets. What's more, wide-screen laser TVs use less energy than other technologies, and may sell for less than $1,000 when available.

Speaking of which, don't expect laser TVs to be on Santa's sleigh this year. At the earliest, laser TVs won't reach the consumer market until next year's holiday season.

Source: Red Herring

Disease Database

When fighting diseases, physicians, pharmacists and geneticists don't always speak the same languages. Even when they do, finding treatments is a painstaking trial-and-error process. Now, a new database promises to match drug compounds with disease symptoms, helping researchers identify potential treatments much more quickly than before.

The Connectivity Map, a database being developed by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Broad Institute, uses gene-expression signatures as a common meta-language to link the behavior of certain compounds with their effects on cells.

Already, the Connectivity Map is credited with helping to identify treatments for prostate cancer and leukemia. The ultimate goal of the Broad Institute development team is to include all 1,400 drugs that are currently approved by the FDA.

Source: MIT Technology Review

DevLearn: Ze Frank Keynote - Level of Engagement

Just saw an entertaining keynote at DevLearn by Ze Frank (www.zefrank.com). He creates social media spaces with the intent of entertaining and engaging his audience. One of the things that struck me was that he sees the same 1% rule across a very large audience but believes that there are many levels of audience engagement. And challenges us to find something to satisfy users (learners) who are:

• passive
• active
• interactive

But later during Q&A, he talked about how he thinks through the challenge and he really tries ways to allow initial engagement in "one click." What can you do to begin to engage your audience with one click? A rating? A vote?

September Blog Clean Up

As I've mentioned before (eLearning Technology: Managing your RSS Feeds), I go through a ritual every three months to add and remove blogs. You can see the blogs that are in my highest priority reading list and not quarantined in the list on the right. Better yet, you can grab my OPML list and subscribe to the same list as me and then let yours evolve. See also: eLearning Technology: eLearning Blogs - Quick Way to Find Good Ones.

Move from Sept. quarantine to Front Page:

mLearning-World.com
Communities of practice for development

Kept in quarantine (gave it another chance):

Technology For Communities - Note: partial feeds is really annoying (see eLearning Technology: Why You Should Provide Full Feeds (especially on Blogger))

The other 20 or so I ended up deleting.

December's crop looks to be a lot better.

I also probably need to go through my blogs listed on the right to clean out some. If you have suggestions of blogs that I should be reading that are on eLearning, KM, PKM, communities, I'm always happy to hear about them.

The LCB Big Question Reframed: Should More Learning Professionals Be Blogging?

Out of the original October 2006: Should All Learning Professionals Be Blogging?, we've seen some pretty amazing discussion. But, we've also reached an interesting point. As Peter posted (The Learning Circuits Blog: Community Net Worth):

Now that the first wave of bloggers and blog-readers have read the initial results both in the form of serious utterances, straw polls and comic reformulations (thanks, Tony for that refreshing exercise), whither go we? Do we know more about our marketplace or do we simply know more about the individuals who have so far participated?

I would claim that I know a lot more about both the individuals out there and their perspecitves and also I know something about perception of the marketplace (but its skewed because people participating obviously have a built in bias towards blogs). More on this in a second...

Separately, Dave Lee (The Learning Circuits Blog: Throwing a Big Community Net) has provided a couple of interesting follow-up opportunities including keeping track of conversations across various posts that relate to the original post and a poll.

Personally, I feel great about how this discussion so far. It's actually gone way beyond my expectations. A few of the things that have struck me:

• The speed of contribution was much faster than I expected. I thought this would take 2-3 weeks to get responses in order to have any chance of going into a "summarizing" mode.
  
• I found that by going through and creating my lists (eLearning Technology: Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog), I personally learned quite a bit about reasons on both sides. It was a fantastic exercise for my own learning.
  
• Maybe I'm deluded, but I actually think the list is a pretty good representation of some of the important issues.
  
• There were a few "aha" moments and some great ideas. Including the suggestion - blog for a month (Karl Kapp).
  
• I've also learned a bit about dynamic of blog community as compared to discussion communities. Not sure I can capture these differences effectively - it's just a "feel" right now.
  
• I also found that there was signficant Mis-Understanding Blog Reading and Blog Communities especially in the world of discussion groups.

Peter - I get the sense that you also felt you learned something by participating. Maybe not? I would assume others did. Maybe not?

One thing that appears to be different about this exercise than in a discussion group, half of the response posts to any question is a response of "Here's why you are asking the wrong question..." Now before you assume that's negative, in most cases my firm belief is that having the right question is the whole battle - eLearning Technology: Be an Insanely Great Professional Conference Attendee (at eLearningGuild’s DevLearn). On the other hand, sometimes I feel that a discussion group immediately derails the conversation by forcing you into a question you didn't want to ask.

There were many posts that did challenge the question including my own. But, I didn't feel like we arrived at the next level of questions nearly as well as a discussion group might have. Or maybe I needed to look at the posts with a different perspective.

Certainly, some of the questions raised that I remember:

• What's a learning professional? (ASTD - that's an ouch given that's how you define your audience right?) (several)
• Given limited time, how do learning professionals decide how to use their time for learning, research, etc.? Then, where does blog reading and writing fit in? (several)
• Should all learning professionals be actively engaging with the current developments in their discipline? If yes, then how? And where does blogging fit in? (Bronwyn Clarke)
• What is the role of a professional should be in a networked environment? (Stephen Downes)
• What and how should other applications be used by learning professionals to share and learn? (Dave Lee)
• When do you use blogging vs. using other tools? (Bill Bruck)
• Should all learning professionals blog at least once? (Mike Oehlert)
• Should all learning professionals be aware of the potential of blogging? (Jane)
• How can we better invite others to be part of our thinking? (Nancy White)
• Should learning professionals shift some of their time from discussion groups to blogging? (Tony Karrer)

But what I think was the most appropriate next question, and probably the reason I thought of the question in the first place:

• Should more learning professionals be blogging? (Barry Sampson)

Independently, Dave Lee suggested that question as well. It would seem obvious that the answer is "Yes" - if you answer anything else, then you would have to think that there's a few who should stop blogging.

Of course, then it raises a couple of questions:

• Which learning professionals should blog?
• When? How long?
• Should we encourage them to blog? If so, how?

In discussing this with Dave Lee, I wasn't convinced that this is very interesting ground to go over. I'm not particularly missionary here. I want people to understand the value proposition (and draw backs) of blogging (my previous post). And, they can make up their own mind. At the same time, it does seem like we've not come anywhere close to 1%.

So, back to Peter's point - where to from here? I feel like I found out some really interesting things, and I'm not sure I need anything more. At the same time, I didn't go into this from a missionary position (sorry couldn't resist) and so I'm open to whether any further discussion is useful, interesting, etc. Maybe others have a different perspective and expectation of where to go from here.

Left on its own, this discussion will die off. Is that a problem?

I feel great about this whole thing. Do people feel cheated?

Blogger Permalink - Not Really

Over at LCB we ran into an interesting problem and I've just run into it as well on my blog. The situation reminds me of one of my favorite Seinfeld scenes when he goes to get his rental car, but they are out of cars:

JERRY: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my
reservation?

RENTAL CAR AGENT: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.

JERRY: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the
reservation.

RENTAL CAR AGENT: I know why we have reservations.

JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how
to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and
that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody
can just take them.

It turns out that the people behind Blogger (now Google right) don't really understand the concept of a permalink.

The intent of a permalink is a permanent link (a URL) that points to that blog post. That way, anyone in the blogosphere can point to the URL.

Well Blogger seems to mysteriously add version numbers in the URL as you edit the post. Thus, we started with a URL that looks like:

http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-question-for-october-should-all.html

then we edited it and it became:

http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-question-for-october-should-all_02.html

then it became

http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-question-for-october-should-all_04.html

Now, it seems to have stopped changing at _04, but we aren't sure why or how it stopped or when it will change again. The same thing just happened on my own blog when I edited one of my posts.

Of course, this messes up everyone who linked to the post originally. And it messed up within the blog.

You see Blogger, you know how to make a permalink, you just don't know how to *hold* a permalink and that's really the most important part of the permalink, the holding. Anybody can just make them.

Why You Should Provide Full Feeds (especially on Blogger)

I've been talking recently about blogging for learning professionals and claiming that as a blog reader, you spend your time in the RSS reader. Someone pointed out that many bloggers use partial feeds which forces readers to their blog.

I did that for a while as well. I started with full feeds and then found myself curious about who my readers were. So, I added SiteMeter to my blog to track traffic. Then I realized that very few people who subscribe to my blog actually go to the blog - they stay in their RSS Reader. Ah, so to fix that I decided to change my feed to a partial feed so you only get the first paragraph.

What I've learned since:

• Partial feeds are annoying as a blog reader, so I was being annoying providing a partial feed.
• Google only indexes Blogger's feed (not the blog itself) - so search is terrible on blogs with partial feeds.
• And, most interesting, when I switched back to full feeds, I didn't really see much traffic change. Readers rarely click through to the blog post in either case.

Bottom line: I would highly encourage anyone with a blog to provide a full feed.

I'd be curious if I've missed something here or if anyone who's providing a partial feed can convince me why they shouldn't provide a full feed.

Later maybe I'll start naming names.

The New News?

Could Jon Stewart's The Daily Show be the model for news programming of the future? Why not?, says a study by the University of Indiana that has found that The Daily Show is as substantive as any conventional news program -- perhaps more so.

Political heavy-hitters such as Sen. John McCain and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf have made recent appearances that have become newsworthy themselves, and Stewart's humor helps make important issues relevant in a way a "straight" delivery can't. Moreover, the show often picks up significant stories that the mainstream media miss. Add to that the Daily Show's popularity among college students and other highly educated, highly informed young viewers, and all the makings of a new wave in newscasting are in place. If the "Big Three" news ratings continue to fall, they may want to catch that wave.

Source: Huffington Post

Study Says US Rich in Renewable Energy

Oil prices are coming down for the moment, but that's hardly reducing exploration into wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources. And the US has great potential to harness such energy, according to a recent report the the Worldwatch Institute.

The American land mass ideal for generating wind power, and solar cell and biodiesel production has increased exponentially since 2000. Currently, the state of California gets over 30% of its energy through renewable sources (though renewable energy in the US overall is only 6% of total consumptions).

Worldwide, investment in renewable energy has reached nearly $180 billion since 1995. In addition to being clean and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, renewable energy also boosts economies. In Germany, which has a campaign to achieve energy independence, renewable energy projects have created 20,000 jobs in the past three years... not to mention lessening the volatility of imported oil dependence.

Source: Worldwatch Institute

Teleportation Moves Closer to Reality

Long a staple of science fiction, teleportation is rapidly becoming a reality, if only on a small scale.

In the past, scientists have managed to transport atoms and light short distances. Now, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have conducted experiments that use light as a transmitter of information between matter.

The Copenhagen experiments have teleported information only a few feet, but the researchers are confident that the distances can be expanded. Although teleporting large objects and individuals a la Star Trek is a very long way off at best, the transmission of quantum information has applications in transmitting digital information in new and powerful ways.

Source: News.com.au

Harnessing PlayStations to Fight Disease

Sony's PlayStation 3 is expected to be one of the hot must-have items this holiday season... and it might have an unexpected benefit for public health.

The Internet-ready game device contains a powerful Cell processor -- the same model used in IBM's supercomputers -- as well as ample hard drive space (up to 60GB), inspiring a project by Stanford University to harness the power of all these online PlayStations.

The project, Folding@home, is similar to the seti@home initiative that utilized the processing cycles of idle PCs to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. In this case, the project has created a distributed computing system out of idle computers to run complex calculations and simulations so that scientists can analyze proteins related to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, and other challenging diseases.

The project, active since 2000, has 1 million CPUs online. One estimate is that a network of 10,000 PlayStations would increase the speed of conventional calculations by a factor of five. A network of 100,000 machines would make it 50 times faster.

To participate, PlayStation users should visit this page on the Folding@home site. Windows, Linux and Mac users can also download software to participate.

Source: CNN.com

Temperatures in Northeast Could Rise by 12 Degrees by 2100

Cool, crisp New England weather could become a thing of the past if climate warming trends continue unchecked. A two-year study by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment has found that, by 2100, the average temperature in the Northeastern US could rise by 12 degrees F (nearly 7 degrees C).

Typically, cities in the Northeast have only a couple of days each year when temperatures reach 100 degrees F. If the warming trends continue, days of triple-digit temperatures could increase to anywhere between 9 and 28 days... making New England weather feel more like that of the Deep South. And imagine what the South will feel like!

The good news in the report, however, is that a reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by only 3% could reduce this warming trend. In one low-emission scenario, the temperatures could rise as little as 3.5 degrees F.

Source: Reuters

Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog

Updates recent studies show additional reasons:

• Blogging and Social Networking Boosts Your Social Life.
• Blogging -- It's Good for You.

Update on Nov 21, 2007 - There's been a lot of discussion recently around using blogs for learning and I wanted to point to a few newer thoughts on this:

• Learning and Networking with a Blog (Deleted Scenes)
• Blogging - I'm Pushing Harder Now
• New Debate on Value of Blogs and Wikis in the Enterprise
• More eLearning Bloggers

I must say that the response to The Learning Circuits Blog: The Big Question for October: Should All Learning Professionals Be Blogging? has been fantastic and it's great to see such a wide variety of thoughts on the subject. I wanted to summarize, for everyone, the responses in a completely unbiased way. :)

Most everyone, who has at least half a brain, and certainly most of the responses made it over that hurdle, came back and said more or less what Mark Oehlert said “My answer is ..........yes........and no.” Even those who were pretty adamant quickly qualified their answer so that it was really a “maybe.”

The only consensus I found was that it’s a loaded, ambiguous and actually pretty lamely worded question. I wonder who came up with such a lame question. Sheesh. But, let’s try to muddle through this anyhow.

Oh, and before I offend anyone, I’ve taken a few liberties by paraphrasing what people wrote into their posts and comments and instead have included in this post what they really meant to say. However, if I used quote marks, they really said that. But I may have used them slightly out of context. :) Oh, and finally, to all of you who commented or put up blog posts already, if I didn’t happen to quote you out of context, I apologize.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Blog

10. Because you stopped learning anything new a couple years ago and it’s about time you started again.

Or as Karyn Romeis & Barry Sampson both said - I’ve learned more via blogging over the past year than I learned in the preceding several years!

9. Because it forces you to do your homework (Rodolpho Arruda)

8. Because this is how you are going to learn in the future.

“This is the difference represented in the shift from traditional classroom based learning and network learning. The idea of the latter is that learning occurs when the learner immerses him or herself in a community of practice, learning by performing authentic tasks, learning by interacting with and becoming a member of the community.” (Stephen Downes)

7. Because if you don’t we’ll think you’re lame and don’t know how to do your job.

“What can you know about a professional who doesn't blog his or her work? How do you know they are competent, that they have the respect of their peers, that they understand the issues, that they practice sound methodology, that they show consideration for their clients? You cannot know any of this without the openness blogging (or equivalent) provides. Which means, once a substantial number begin to share, there will be increasing pressure on all to share.” (Stephen Downes)

6. Because it will change your life.

“there is something that happens to a person when they hit that "publish" button - you cross a threshold - you move from consumer to producer - you put your intellectual neck on the line and I really think that you aren't the same person after that.” (Mark Oehlert)

5. Because you’ll hook up all over the place.

“all learning professionals need to exchange ideas with others, to test their ideas, to question their assumptions, to learn from each other in ways that come with dialog. Blogging is great for forming networks based on weak social ties.” (Bill Bruck)

4. Because learning is conversation and that blogging lets you have more and better conversations (Harold Jarche)

“The lack of formality and the ease of cross-referencing other blog content or references means is great to accelerate discussion and promote broader thinking and understanding.” (David Wilson)

3. Because Professionalism is more than consumption, it is contribution. (Rovy Bronson)

2. Because it’s “a swap meet for the mind.” (Nancy White)

1. Because your job depends on it.

“If for no other reason than your job is changing, and you might want to be engaged in the process of what your new job will include.” (Brent Shlenker) and “They don't get what blogs are about and possibly never will. We just need to encourage them towards retirement.” (Barry Sampson)


Top Reasons Why You Shouldn’t or Won’t Blog

10. Because you are too lame

Dave Lee “that all learning professionals should be blogging is about as likely that your ancestors all wrote a novel when the printing press was created or wrote a tv script when the telly was introduced.”

9. Because if you live in the US you don’t know how to write (Peter Isackson)

8. Because you’re a scared little wuss - Fear of Blogging (Wendy)

7. Because you don’t have your priorities straight so you lack the time to read blogs much less write a blog. (almost everyone said this)

5. Because bloggers are narcissists (Peter Isackson) only interested in establishing a Cult of Personality (saw that in a discussion group) – and you’re so not that way.

4. Because you’ll screw up blogging just like you screwed up using PowerPoint. (Matthew N.)

Poorly implemented and/or designed learning technologies are an embarrassment to the field (think shovelware e-learning courses or boring PowerPoint lectures transformed to boring online courses). (Karl Kapp)

3. Because no one really wants to read what you have to say.

“Why should all learning professionals be blogging any more than they should all be presenting at conferences, producing papers, writing books or sharing their views, opinions and knowledge through any other medium?” (Barry Sampson)

2. Because “I know some people that would get nothing out of blogging” (Howard Cronin)

1. Because “my 9 and 11 year old sons have a deeper understanding of the tools” than you do. (Karl Kapp)

Blogs vs. Discussion Groups or Mis-Understanding Blog Reading and Blog Communities

On a new discussion group, eLearningAll, formed by disgruntled ex-Brandon Hall discussion group members, there's been an interesting discussion related to The Big Question on LCB. What's been most enlightening for me is the "bad rap" that blogging gets from people who've probably only visited a few blogs and have been inundated with a general media bias against blogging.

Below I've listed a few of the more interesting reasons that people don't like blogs:

• "you have to go there to 'pull' out information"
  
  Most people participating in blog reading and especially those participating in the blog community do so using an RSS Reader such as Bloglines. They subscribe to the blogs (and other sources) that interest them. Then you just run through the content much like you do threaded discussions. The only time I am "going there" in the world of blogs is when I want to read related links or make a comment.
  
• "A Blog often covers a wide range of topics. Some of it doesn't interest me."
  
  Yep, but again, with an RSS reader, there is little to no investment of time to ignore bad stuff. Further, people who produce bad stuff you never subscribe to or you unsubscribe. The same problem of topics that you aren't interested in happens in discussion groups.
  
• "felt so ... old white guys club"
  
  Hmmm - I'm only 41 so "old" depends on perspective. But, in defense of bloggers everywhere take a look at two of my favorites: Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra and Full Circle Online Interaction Blog by Nancy White. Now, before I get into trouble here - I would NOT say that I personally see much of a "female perspective" from Kathy or Nancy - they just say lots of really smart things and they aren't male. I'll leave it to Kathy and Nancy to defend their age status. Both are quite young at heart and both may actually qualify as not "old" ... whoops, what was I saying about not getting into trouble. Sorry.
  
• "many of these blogs are one-way discussion mechanisms"
  
  Really? Most bloggers will tell you that they want comments. They would like people to respond.
  
• "Success for blogs seems more based on ability to establish readership -a cult of personality. Why is it that the words "me" and "I" are so prevalent in blogs?"
  
  What a loaded statement. One of the things I least like about discussion groups is that you'll get those kinds of loaded terms being used - "cult" - cmon. And while all of us like to have people read our blog - better yet comment or post their thoughts on the topic - most of us will neverhave much in the way of readers. And bloggers who start out to only build readership will generally stop pretty quickly.
  
  On "I" ... Blogs are mostly written in first person because they are an opportunity to share your experience and your thoughts on the subject. Is that a bad thing? I'm not so sure. Part of the reason that I like blogs is because I get awide variety of perspectives and most people are clear that it's their perspective or their experience. See eLearning Technology: Perspective in Blogs (or how Guy Kawasaki almost ruined my blogging experience and especially look at the coments. Oh, and notice who the first person to comment was - "Guy" - that's pretty cool itself and suggests something about the world of blogs.

All I'm saying is sign up for an RSS Reader and give blogs a chance.

At Georgia Church, ATM Means "Automatic Tithing Machine"

Anyone who attends church knows the embarrassment of not having cash on hand when the collection plate is being passed. If you're one of those, Pastor Marty Baker of the Stevens Creek Community Church in Augusta, Georgia, feels your pain.

That's why he has installed "giving kiosks" that allow any of the congregation's 1,100 members to make an offering via credit or debit card. The kiosks allow members to donate to specific church funds, and print out a receipt as well as send a confirmation via e-mail.

Baker debuted what he calls his "ATMs for Jesus" in early 2005, and is now marketing them to churches across the country through a firm called SecureGive. With an eye toward future trends, Baker sees the kiosks as a solution for a "post-cash society," for members who are willing to give, yet who increasingly rely on credit or debit cards in place of cash.

Baker has run into some challenges in promoting the kiosks, such as resistance from older congregation members, congregations that discourage credit card use (the machines can be set to accept only debit cards), and those who feel that not passing the collection plate takes away from the worship experience.

Source: L.A. Times

eLearning 2.0 Adoption - Early Adopters

Interesting post Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited that discusses adoption of these techniques. This relates to several of my posts about eLearning 2.0:

• Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited
• Personal Learning for Learning Professionals - Using Web 2.0 Tools to Make Reading & Research More Effective
• Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools

As a side note - I'm very surprised that the Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools hasn't received more attention. It lays out an interesting roadmap for the practical use of Web 2.0 tools as part of Learning. And it's done in a way that is inline with how most of us learn things every day.

One of the more interesting points in the post cited above: adoption will be driven by having a group of early adopters. But even more so, he gives practical advice on how to support that.

LCB's Big Question - Should All Learning Professionals be Blogging?

Over on LCB, The Big Question for October has been posted:

Should All Learning Professionals be Blogging?

This is an interesting question and it’s quite timely given recent occurrences.

• Brandon Hall Closes Free Yahoo Discussion Groups
  
  In case you hadn't seen this, Brandon Hall has decided to stop moderating and to close their Yahoo Groups discussion groups and BH is starting an eventually paid social networking service. This sparked heated response from people who were heavier users of these groups.
  


• Corporate eLearning Professionals are Blogging More
  
  More corporate eLearning professionals are taking up blogging. A couple recent interesting blogs as examples are:
  
  In the Middle of the Curve - Good example post that I cite later: Fear of Blogging.
  
  eTraining in the Trenches - Example post - Who Spends 2 Nonstop Hours on a Single Course?
  
  Learn Me Happy - Example post - A really worrying trend....
  
  and of course,
  
  Corporate eLearning Development - Example - Is Your eLearning Broken?

Okay, so to me this is a timely question, but I want to avoid the "Should all do it?" question. "All" won’t happen anytime soon. Instead, but let me make a case for why YOU should.

Blogs are a Great Personal Learning Tool

As learning professionals, we should all be at the forefront of knowing how to learn ourselves. Writing is probably the single best way to codify personal knowledge. A blog is a fantastic way to do this and at the same time do it in a way that allows you to explore topics with others.

And as you gain experience with blogs, you can start to gain experience with other Personal Learning Tools.

Blogs are a Great New Community Mechanism

Take a look at Nancy White’s great paper - Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?

What Nancy calls a topic centric community points out that as posts occur and other people comment on those posts or put up posts on their own blog, a discussion forms. Sure, it's messier than a discussion in a forum, but it allows communities to form in a more organic way (based on common interests). It also allows more of the person to come through. Personally, I’ve connected with several bloggers and have got to know them through their blogs. Brent Schlenker - Corporate eLearning Development - I met through blogging and through that he's going to be on a panel with me at DevLearn. I don’t feel the same sense of connection from threaded discussions.

On this topic, it's worth looking at What's Better to Build Community: Blogs or Forums? What struck me was:

• In general, blogs are great at connecting and bridging to a NEW community.
  
• In general, forums are great at harnessing and growing an EXISTING community.

Put in a different way, blogs allow us to grow a community without going to a single location. A forum or mailing list is most effective if everyone agrees to go to that single location and abide by those norms. Blogs allow community to be formed based on common interests and the community grows and evolves in a very fluid manner.

So, let me end this section by saying that YOU SHOULD take up starts with greatly improving your personal learning and includes a nice benefit of blogging to join an interesting community.

Now Let’s Examine Why You Won’t Start Blogging
The 1% Rule says that in collaborative environments, e.g., discussion groups, for every 100 people who sign up, 89 will lurk, 10 will participate in a limited fashion, and 1 will regularly post content. This has been seen across a variety of collaborative environments. So, history tells us that we should expect relatively low participation levels with Blogs (maybe 1%). However, learning professionals are way below 1% levels.

So, what reasons do people give?

1. Cost or No Blog Tools Available
   
   Whoops, it’s free from a lot of places. Try http://www.blogger.com/.
   


2. Fear – Take a look at the post Fear of Blogging:
   
   

   I had to fight through ALL of these emotions when I started blogging. - Will I be accepted or rejected?- How much criticism will I get?- Will others discover
   that I am a phony and realize that I have absolutely no clue of what I am talking about?

   Note: Wendy got over her fear and does a great job raising interesting questions on her blog.
   


3. Lack of Time
   
   How much time should you spend learning on your own each month about eLearning? Do you think you would be better served rearranging the time you spend to actually codify your learning?
   


4. My Corporation Won’t Let Me
   
   Most corporations have no such restrictions. Of course, you shouldn’t come close to the line of divulging anything sensitive and should avoid calling your boss a jerk, but having a discussion around a topic like – "should we be blogging" – is a great thing to do.

My honest belief is that even if you don't post regularly on your blog, but do post around interesting challenges you are facing, you will find personal value in blogging. If you start, let bloggers know. Post a response to the LCB Big Question. Post a challenge you are facing. If you don't find value, then let me know - because I will be really surprised.

Come on in - the water's fine.