Friday, July 31, 2009

Second Calendar Curator Joins to Help with List of Free Webinars

I've received very positive feedback and lots of good ideas on the concept of having a combined calendar of Free Webinars. The really nice thing about the way Jon Udell has set up his elmcity project (the system we are using) is that it acts a lot like social curation on RSS sources as provided by Browse My Stuff, but brings together designated calendars instead of blogs or other RSS sources.

In English, that means that we can have many different people each own their separate calendar and we can bring it together.

The initial list of calendar entries, we added ourselves. But I'm pleased to announce that we've just signed up our second calendar curator - Coaching Ourselves. Their events are now appearing in the listings:

Free eLearning Webinars

For now you won't be able to necessarily distinguish the source, but we will work on exposing that in the future. One of the recommendations we've already received.

It is exactly because we can distribute the load of keeping this list current that makes me think this will work really well in the long run.

If you are doing webinars that would be of interest to workplace learning professionals, please contact me: akarrer@techempower.com.

MindMap Navigator 1.3 is Released

FYI

I want to inform you that MindMap Navigator 1.3 is released. With new functionality it becomes more powerful and easier to use. Below is the list of features being added in the new version:

- Mapview context menu item "Sync with Navigator" allows to position the currently selected MindManager topic in Navigator tree;
- Enhanced "show branch alone" option: now you can set the level of details for the filter - 1,2 or expand all levels;
- MindMap Navigator now works with Mindjet Connect maps;
- State of options on the toolbar is saved when MindManager closes ;
- Ability to Cut/Copy/Paste and Delete multiple topics in the Navigator tree.
Also, several errors were fixed.

You can download your trial copy with a following link: http://www.mind2chart.com/Downloads/Trial/MMNavigator13_en.zip

This upgrade is free for existing users.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Outsource Training to Customers

The Business of Learning (see Free Online Conference – Future of Learning with Recordings Here) event went really well. One of the really interesting ideas came from Allessandria Polizzi who is Group Manager for Accountant Training & Relations at Intuit. Her role is to make sure that accountants are trained on the Quickbook products.

You can see Allessandria at 21:30 of the following video:


If you have problem seeing the video you can view them here as well.

Intuit used to produce the content themselves, but they have transitioned to hiring their Accountants (their customers) to produce the training content for them. This includes a varied mix of solutions - webinars, seminars, self-paced eLearning. One of the examples of how they did this was to give the Accountants camcorders and software (along with training) so that they could produce small training pieces. One example that she mentions is a video piece on mobile access showing how they can access client information from the beach via a mobile device.

There are 100 accountants who produce training for them as compared to 12 in her organization. These accountants are experts in using their software. They add legitimacy to the content. Many of these accountants already provided training to their end customers, so providing training to other accountants was an easy extension.

It's an interesting idea and something that can be applied in many other domains. While this is similar to having SMEs produce the content - I think that Intuit takes it a bit further with how they are engaging and paying them. They also audition/test their customers. They spread the work pretty wide.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Embedding your WebBrain in Your Blog


I recently posted about how you can post your PersonalBrain 5 to the web with WebBrain with a click of the mouse. Well pretty close to it. One of the really exciting features of the WebBrain is being able to have access to your links and attachments as if you were working with the PersonalBrain 5 on your desktop. Think of all the possibilities! This is a very powerful feature and one that I will certainly use when I am planning my workshops. Think about giving your attendees a simple URL to your WebBrian that they can access that would allow them to jump to web sites and have access to your attached handouts. That is really an outstanding feature.

WebBrain is evolving as we speak and I just learned that you can now embed your WebBrain in a blog or website by simply clicking on the Share button and copying the embedding code from the Webbrain site. If you click on the Customize option you can change the dimensions to suit your need. I should mention that you can also upload your PersonalBrain 5 files and keep them private so that only you can access them over the web. Likewise you can determine which Thoughts to keep private so that they don't appear when you upload them to WebBrain by marking them as Private thoughts in the PersonalBrain 5. If you have any questions or ideas on how you would use WebBrain - please leave me some comments.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Free Webinars

Have you ever wanted to have a single list of the various free webinars brought together in a single place?   In conjunction with eLearning Learning, we are working with Jon Udell (thanks Jon) to use his calendar aggregation technology to bring together a list of free webinars that we believe will be of interest to learning professionals.

Free eLearning Webinars

Let me know if you think this will be valuable. 

Integrated with Best of eLearning Learning

We are planning to include events that are coming up in the Best of eLearning Learning each week.  We just did exactly that for the post:

Learning Management Systems Flash Technology - Best of eLearning Learning

where we listed three upcoming webinars.  Hopefully another reason to subscribe to the best of eLearning Learning.

Get the Word Out

Hopefully this can grow to address both sides of this need – consumers and producers. 

As a consumer, I seem to randomly run into webinars like you probably did when I just announced: Free Webinar - Models for Learning in a New World.  Because they hit me somewhat randomly, I most often don't schedule it into my calendar at that time.  I know that I'll make a decision later about the event.

As a producer, I know that getting the word out on a webinar can be very difficult.  I will publish the information about the webinar I just mentioned on my blog, but that hits exactly the same audience.  I will tweet about it.  Hopefully a few people will Retweet.  But it doesn't reach all that wide.  I'm hoping that this will become a good way for producers to get the word out.  By the way, if you are producing events that will be of interest to a learning professionals audience, then drop me an email.

Thoughts and Ideas

We are just beginning this process.  We have some ideas on where this will go and how to make it better, but I would really like to get your input.

Is this a good idea?

What can we do to make this better?

Free Webinar - Models for Learning in a New World

I'm doing a free webinar in a few weeks where I will be discussing some of the major trends that are affecting models of learning.  I think this will be an interesting discussion and I welcome your participation.

Models for Learning in a New World

This is a very interesting time to be a learning professional. Fragmentation of jobs, increasing concept work, and constant change all put a premium on learning. At the same time, we are seeing an explosion of information sources, greatly increased accessibility of experts and expertise around the world, and new tools emerging every day. This environment means that workplace learning is changing. We have to look beyond formal learning solutions towards solutions that support self-directed and social learning.

In this session, Dr. Karrer will discuss the big picture trends that are impacting workplace learning. He will present how learning solutions are evolving in organizations to meet changing needs. Holly and Monika will discuss a model for learning that integrates various learning strategies that combine formal, performance support and informal learning.

Come join this interesting presentation and discussion around models for learning in a new world of learning.

Presenters:

Dr. Tony Karrer, TechEmpower, Inc.

Holly St. John Peck, Peck Training Group, LLC

Monika Ebert, Different Lens, LLC

Date/Time: Tuesday, August 25th 10-11 AM Pacific, 1-2 PM Eastern, 5 PM GMT

Register for the Webinar

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Fifth Year Anniversary of Blogging

It is hard to believe that this is my Fifth year anniversary of the AssistiveTek Blog which started back in July 2004. Little did I know that this experiment would survive all of these years, and as I close in on my 500th blog post some time this summer I can say thank-you, to all the readers out there that keep me going. It has been a very exciting trip being able to share information and my ideas about mind mapping, assistive technology, project management and Web 2.0 technologies. Along the way I have met some incredible people who have the same passion for the technologies that I speak about. And while others may speak about social networking in the abstract, I would have to say that because of my blog I have enriched my life by meeting so many wonderful people that I keep in touch with on a weekly basis. So as I reflect on the Fifth Anniversary of the AssistiveTek Blog it has been a great road trip and one that I'm sure will continue for another million miles or so. If you have a chance I would enjoy your comments as I celebrate the 5th Anniversary of this blog.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Brain Technologies Unveils WebBrain Beta

One of my favorite features of the PersonalBrain 5 is the ability to create a SiteBrain from your PersonalBrain. I have used this feature many times in my workshops as a way to give my participants and easy way to move about various resources that I would provide. In the past you would need to Export your Brain as a SiteBrain and then upload it to your ftp site. Now with the release of the WebBrain Beta you can quickly upload your BrainZips and share your Brains with others. Once you sign up for a free account you can upload your BrainZip files and determine whether you want to make your Brain-Public or Private. You can also set the permission to share your Brain by sending a link via an email. I have posted one of my Brain files to show you how it looks on the web. The ability to share your Brain's on the web is a killer feature and one that I will begin to use more and more. You will find find this feature to be invaluable whenever your want to have access to your Brain data when you are connected to the web. So if you are a PersonalBrain 5, please take a look at the WebBrain- you will be glad you did.

Download a Free Trial Version of PersonalBrain 5 by Clicking on the Link Below
Windows
Macintosh

To purchase a copy of the PersonalBrain 5 click here. If you need training or support on how to best use the PersonalBrain send me an email

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Context Organizer for MindManager Webinar

Yesterday I had a chance to participate and present information about Context Organizer, in a virtual MindManager User Group Meeting at a Fortune 100 company. After presenting and being a participant in various webinars, I am still amazed at what can be accomplished without the need to be in a face to face meeting. The hour long meeting went very smoothly and when it was my turn to present I shared my computer desktop with the group and showed them how Context Organizer, a MindManager add-in can be used to summarize Word documents, web addresses, and PDF files right within a MindManager map.

I have posted about Context Organizer before and I have a couple of video demonstrations to show you the power of this tool. The MindManager User Group had selected to see a demonstration of Context Organizer in action because one of the member's of the group had been using it to plow through large documents with great success. You can think of Context Organizer as a "search engine for documents," in that it finds the most relevant keyphrases and information and succinctly summarizes it for you. If your work requires you to read through large documents or to do analyze web sites, PDF's or Word documents you really owe it to yourself to look at Context Organizer. Having the ability to access Context Organizer within MindManager is a real asset in how the information is graphically organized. For those of you who don't own a copy of MindManager 8 you will be happy to learn that Context Organizer is also a standalone product that can help you summarize documents and send the information directly to Microsoft Word.

As a postscript to this webinar, I should share with you that I used my recently purchased Acer Aspire Netbook to present from. You see when I went to use my Dell XPS laptop the virtual meeting platform did not support Internet Explorer 8, so my only option was to use my netbook. I am happy to report that my netbook worked just fine even with all of the heavy lifting. To complement my presentation, I also used Canson's Papershow product which is an ideal tool to use when you are doing a webinar. With Papershow I could share my ideas and write them down so that other could see them as if I was writing on a whiteboard. Everything I wrote down was shared and at the end of the webinar I could save it as a PDF file to email. Here is an example of what I wrote and shared with the group using Papershow. Papershow is a real natural-when doing virtual presentations or distance learning and is as easy to use as pen and paper.

Please feel free to leave me a question about mindmapping

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Interview with Mike Taylor Developer of StrengthsMapper for MindManager

Last week I had the opportunity to interview Mike Taylor the developer of the recently released MindManager 8 add-in called StrengthsMapper. Mike was kind enough to invite me into the beta testing of StrengthsMapper so that I could get a chance to use it before it was released. I also had the opportunity to read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie which is the foundation for understanding how StrengthMapper can be used on a personal level and with a team in a business environment. Essential to understanding how StrengthsMapper can be used is the notion that as an individual we all possess strengths which when identified can be used to propel us forward in our personal and professional lives. As a psychologist, I can certainly relate to these premises and in my own work with children and adults know how important it is to help focus on an individual's strength as a means to work through their difficulties.

In 2001, Gallup introduced an online assessment, StrengthFinder which helped individuals identify their Top 5 talents among 34 different themes. You can find out more information about the online assessment which has been updated to StrengthsFinder 2, and take the assessment online for a nominal fee. Once you have identified your Top 5 themes you can now begin to put together an Action Plan around them. During the interview, Mike Taylor explained to me that as an engineer and business consulting he learned early on that he could make more headway with his clients when he focused on their individual strengths. Managing talent by helping others focus on their top 5 themes and then developing an Action Plan was a very powerful tool and one that Mike wanted to share with others. Being an avid MindManager 8 user, Mike thought that if he could marry the power of MindManager 8 and present a graphic depiction of an individual's 5 Top themes that he could have a very powerful personal development tool. With this, Mike set out to do just that and developed the MindManager 8 add-in called StrengthsMapper.

Once you take the StrengthsFinder 2 online assessment, you can quickly key in the information into StrengthsMapper and have a visual depicition of your Top 5 themes. You can see my 5 Top themes in the map to the Left. The power of this tool is not only on being able to visually stay focused on your strengths but by being able to build an Action Plan for the week, month and year ahead. StrengthsMapper is an easy and powerful tool to help you tune into your strengths and to build upon them via the Action Plans you create. Two version of StrengthsMapper are available, one for personal use called StrengthsMapper, and StrengthsMapper Pro which was developed for building effective teams by helping organizations to match talents and skills that are needed for a project. For more information you can go to StregthMapper.com

To listen to the audio interview click here or hover over the speaker icon: Interview with Mike Taylor

Personal in Personal Knowledge Management

Great dialog between Harold Jarche and Stephen Downes around Harold's PKM process

image

Stephen Downes wrote in response:

… what does the concept of a ‘method’ here imply? That there is a ‘best’ way to manage knowledge an information? Isn’t that what we’ve learned there isn’t? It’s a pick-and-choose sort of thing: the way we manage information has a lot to do with the information, and a lot to do with who we are and what we want the information for …

Harold responded with Other PKM processes where he shows some other models and states:

To be clear, my intention is to show what works for me and perhaps some part of this may work others. All of my articles on PKM are descriptive, not prescriptive. Take what you need, as there are no “best practices” for complex and personal learning processes.

Harold and I have discussed this exact issue before and we are both on the same page that Personal is really important word in Personal Knowledge Management.  Studies of Personal Information Management say that what works is often highly personal.  However, a lot can be gained from sharing approaches and practices.

Anyone who has seen me present know that I give a big caveat with the word Personal on the slide.  While I use the words, "you should" … what I mean is that "you should consider and maybe try" … not necessarily "you should adopt" …  What works for me, may or may not work for you.

However, there are some people who take that to mean that they can be successful continuing to use the same approaches without being aware of, considering or trying alternatives.  That's a real mistake.  And Harold and Stephen are great at trying to provide ways to think about and think through these alternatives.

So, while I push a lot around tools and methods for work and learning:

and the list goes on. ( In fact, Work Literacy is pretty much this topic. )

This is a good opportunity to add the same caveat:

The real intent is to provide context, alternatives and suggestions of where things might apply.  Your mileage will vary.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Pre-network with LinkedIn

There are a wide variety of local events in the Los Angeles area that I periodically attend. I must say that I go through phases where I attend more events for a while and then I pull back and only attend a few. Right now, I'm in a fairly selective mode. So, when I go to an event, I want to make sure that I get the most I can from the time. Generally, it's a commitment of 3-4 hours between driving, networking, program. I have to make sure that I get at least as much value from that 3-4 hours as I would from spending the same time using LinkedIn for Networking – and that's tough competition.

Over the years, I've somewhat changed what I'm looking for when I attend a local event. It used to be that I first looked for good content. A program that had interesting speakers and where I expected to learn a lot. Now, unless its someone really great, I don't go because of the program. Most often I can spend 30 minutes on my own to get a better result in terms of content than I get from 60 minutes at an event. And most in-person events do not give you a back-channel or much opportunity for Q&A.

Side note: I very much enjoy local events where I'm the moderator because then I do get to shape the topic to my interests.

Obviously, if it's not content, then the key ingredient is who else is going to be in the room.

Quick Decision Process

I spend about 5-10 minutes deciding if I'm going to attend. The way I do this is simple. I try to find a list of people who are attending the event. Many events now publish the list such as the following:

image

If they don't have a similar list and I can't find the event on Facebook or LinkedIn or somewhere else, then likely I won't attend. I've found that it suggests that it's not going to be a good group and I definitely won't be able to pre-network so even if it's a good group, it will be hard for me to get much value from the group.

Using the list of attendees, I randomly sample 5-10 people. Actually, it's most often not random, I choose more people who have Profile Photos (but don't get me started on that). I choose people with names that are a bit more unique so that it will be more likely to find them on LinkedIn.

I have the LinkedIn Browser Toolbar installed which gives me a right click action …

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So I can see a few mini-profiles:

image

image

image

image

Okay, I won't be spending more time on this list and I won't be attending. No offense to attorneys and investment advisors, but the attendee list suggests this is general networking mixer and not likely worth the time investment.

Side note: there generally is a high correlation between the people who have profile pictures on the site and the people who have profile photos on LinkedIn.

If the results had been better, then I would have spent time drilling down on people like Lee:

image

I don't know Lee, but by scrolling through his profile I can see some possibly interesting things to discuss. Does Browse My Stuff make sense from a channel marketing standpoint? What is happening from an eLearning 2.0 perspective around channel training? So, Lee and I could have a very nice conversation.

Gee – maybe I should change my mind and plan to attend. I could go back and look for 4 or 5 other Lee quality people and decide to attend after all.

Alternatively, I can reach out to Lee directly through LinkedIn and just set up a quick 30 minute call. In fact, that's what I will do after I'm done writing this post. And 95% likely that we'll talk within a few days. That's what makes it harder to convince me to go to a local event.

But, let's assume that I was going to the event after all, then I would spend time on what I discussed on my Socal CTO blog in my post on Prenetworking.

Pre-network the Event

Assuming that I am seeing a few different Lee-quality people, then my next step is that I'm going to pre-network with them prior to the event. I try to do this roughly about 2-3 days ahead of the event. That way the list of people attending is fairly complete and there's still time for back and forth with the person.

I will go through the list of attendees more thoroughly on this pass looking for anyone who I want to meet at the event. I look to find 5-8 people. You want to have a large enough list of people because some won't end up going and if you've committed to meeting someone at the event, you will end up going. And you could find yourself at an event waiting for that one person talking to attorneys and wealth planners.

For each of those people on your pre-network list, you simply send a "Get Introduced Through a Connection" to them:

image

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It's nice that I have multiple people who can introduce us. It gives me a nice touch point with someone I already know. And they can vouch for me in the introduction. You don't get that when you are at the event.

image

Then you compose your message. The nice thing is that the subject is easy – name the local event.

My message to Lee would be very similar to what I'd say when I would meet him in person. Maybe something like:

Hi Lee,

I saw you on the attendee list for the upcoming event. I'm planning on going as well and it looks like we might have some good things to discuss. It looks like you have a background in eLearning and I'm going to be curious to hear how you are applying it for channel sales. I also have a technology that I think might apply in an interesting way.

I just wanted to make the connection so that I'd be sure to meet up with you at the event.

Tony

You generally will get a very positive response to this kind of message and your time at the event will be much better because of the pre-network effort that you've put in.

This technique equally applies to conferences and other kinds of events. Unfortunately, few conferences provide attendee lists.

For more discussions on networking and LinkedIn see Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California, Secret for Networking at Events – Prenetworking, Pre-network with LinkedIn, Local Event Organizers Need to Adopt Social Media.

Monday, July 20, 2009

eLearning Topics

I've done a few posts in the past that take a look at the topics that are Hot Topics in Training.  In each case, these are crude in that they look only at what terms people are using in a given content set.  Back in 2007, I pointed out various aspects of what I was seeing:

  • strategy/strategic and performance are back as topics after dropping way down in 2006
  • surprisingly trainer is also back, you would think in the age of eLearning 2.0 this would be down
  • notable dropping topics: games, simulations, knowledge, interactive and blended

Karyn Romeis commented:

Hmm. I have doubts about the validity of these data. Perhaps some topics are on the wane because they have become so integrated as to be invisible and no longer a topic to remark about. Just a thought.

And she's absolutely correct, that these are only general indications of what people are talking about.   Also, it only indicates what the presenters and conference organizers (for that data set) thought that the audience would be interested in and was worth presenting at the conference. I still maintain that it's helpful to keep an eye on these things.

And now, because of eLearning Learning, I have a much better way to track these things over a much more interesting content sets.

Background Explanation

By selecting LMS, I've selected content that is the latest and best stuff that's associated with the term LMS.   The keywords on left side are changed to keywords which are more closely associated with that term.  For example, we see terms now at the top like Learning Management System, AICC, SCORM. Take a look at the companies:

  • Saba (28)
  • GeoLearning (17)
  • SumTotal (22)
  • Meridian (9)
  • Cornerstone (19)

    You notice the counts are out of order (not descending).  That's because they are ordered according to how closely the system thinks the companies are associated with the selected term within the content set.

    This works across any subset of the content including sources, keywords and arbitrary searches.

    For example, when I view my blog's content through the eLearning Learning lens, it shows me that relative to other sources of content in the system, I tend to talk about:

  • eLearning 2.0 (130)
  • Work Skills (26)
  • PWLE (16)
  • Flash Quiz (8)
  • Knowledge Work (40)

    That's a pretty fair representation of topics that I talk about.

    Topics by Year

    By selecting 2009, I've selected a subset of the content, but in this case it's basically content associated with this year.  When you look at the keywords on the left you see things like:

  • Social Learning (356)
  • Social Media (411)
  • Twitter (725)
  • Google Wave (22)
  • Camtasia (76)
  • Adobe Captivate (71)
  • Social Network (460)

    Now, the content set in this case are highly skewed towards innovators as compared to the topic sets being used by my past analysis (training conferences).  But still, this gives a general indication and it's especially interesting when you compare it to 2007:

  • Corporate Blog (20)
  • Personal Learning (23)
  • eLearning Tools (323)
  • Software Simulation (21)
  • Qarbon (6)
  • Second Life (135)
  • PowerPoint (148)
  • Google Scholar (9)
  • Authorware (16)

    Ah the good old days of 2007.  Seems so long ago. :)

    How about 2005?

  • Folksonomy (11)
  • Knowledge (233)
  • Off-shore (7)
  • Leadership (44)
  • Creative Commons (16)

    Back when we still had hope that folksonomy (tagging) would make sense of the flood of content. 

    Year by Topic

    You can also go the other way to see things like selecting Twitter and you can see that the associated years are:

  • 2009
  • 2020 
  • 2008 

    2020?  That indicates that someone is talking about that year and about twitter in the same content.  So, predictions for the future and how twitter might relate. 

    This stuff is definitely not exact, but it gives a general indication.  Twitter is a hot topic right now as compared to some others.

    The years associated with Wiki suggest it was more discussed a couple years ago and now is discussed less.

  • 2006
  • 2010
  • 2007

    Does the associated years for SharePoint suggest it's a technology for the future?

  • 2010 
  • 2015 
  • 2011 
  • 2013 

    You can pretty much do this endlessly.

    I often will use this technique when I run into a new company to see if anyone is blogging about it and generally what is associated with it.

    Looking Back

    So when I go back to Hot Topics in Training, the topics that were hot then and by looking at the associated years I can get a sense that:

    This is definitely something that I'll be using as I go forward. 

  • Thursday, July 16, 2009

    Network Skills

    I personally believe that one of the areas where learning professionals need the most help is how communities and networks impact learning and building individual and facilitation skills around these:

    • Knowing how to individually leverage Network Skills and Communities to help with work and learning tasks
    • Community and Network Facilitation Skills to help others learn and work using networks and communities

    In my post Networks and Learning Communities, I looked a bit at this topic.  But, I by no means consider myself an expert and find that I spend quite a bit of my time building my network skills so I can do this more effectively.  

    So I was super excited when I saw that Nancy White, who helps me learn about all things communities and networks, posted a response to the New Skills for Learning Professionals Big Question for July 2009.   When I looked at her first post, I was actually disappointed because it wasn't really about networks and communities.  My disappointment was purely my own making.  But Nancy came through and posted her follow-up pieces and especially Part 3 and the Online Facilitation Wiki that was a great launch point for me to read a bit more.  I also used both the Communities and Networks Connection and Work Literacy to source additional reading.

    So, starting with her post I've spent the past few hours going through a lot of material, processing the information and writing this post.

    I've come to few realizations from the process.

    My Focus is on Networks

    There were great definitions of communities, groups, networks, facilitation, management, etc.  I realized during the process that I mostly focus on networks and less on actual communities.

    • Community - a group of people with bounded membership who have some shared, congruent interest and interact with each other over time.
    • Network - a constellation of individuals associated via fuzzy, unbounded membership and overlapping … not fully congruent … interests

    For me a couple of examples:

    • LA CTO Forum – definitely a community.  Meet once a month.  Invite only.  Learning and peer support.  Somewhat a classic community or practice.
    • Learn Trends – not quite sure this fits Nancy's definition of a community – it looks like one, but my sense is that it's somewhere in between a community and a network

    Where I spend most of my time is with the blogging network and various other networks.  In some ways, Learn Trends is just part of this network allowing us to meet at various points and act a bit more community like.  We share our interest of learning.  There's quite a lot of discussion/debate whether blogs act as networks or community.  Probably don't want to kick that hornet's nest.

    And I'm not alone in my questioning / focus.  Take a look at: How relevant are communities of practice in a network age?

    My Community Facilitation Skills are Hopeless

    One thing I started to realize is that good community facilitation takes time, desire, skills and appropriate mentality.  For the LA CTO Forum, I have a couple of cohorts who help to organize things, but there's quite a bit more we could be doing.

    For Learn Trends, Jay, George and myself do not spend time on facilitation.  We should.  But we don't.  In fact, this is probably a great opportunity for someone to learn about facilitating an online community. 

    Does anyone want to jump in who does have time, desire, skills (or willing to learn) and appropriate mentality to help facilitate the Learn Trends community?

    I found this great piece - The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online – I will go back to refer to this quite a bit to remind me of all the kinds of things I should be thinking about.

    But frankly, I will have to grow these skills over time based on specific situations.  It doesn't look good for me to become a really adept, willing community facilitator.

    Network Weaving

    I don't like the term, Network Weaving, but that's what Nancy calls it – although I don't think she likes it either. 

    In the eLearning space there's this very complex network of people, organizations, content that forms this amorphous thing where we all play.  The combination of blogs, sites like LinkedIn, various discussion groups, etc. weave us all together in a weird way.  We still have the core human desire to connect.  Many of us enjoy learning and discussion around these topics.  But we really don't act like a community.  And people vary widely in their connectedness and activity level.

    What I found on Network Weaving left me wanting something quite different … I would run into materials that talk about how you analyze and map networks.  Such as the advice:

    Improved connectivity starts with a map – knowing the complex human system you are embedded in.

    I'm sorry, but I'm simply are not going to try to really map out this incredibly complex network.  Of course, the folks who are writing this are networking mapping folks who come at it from that perspective.  I think it would be a really interesting picture and there's real value in it.  But it's only a starting point if it's relatively easy to do.

    Instead, what I'm asking about is:

    • What could I do to get more from the network? 
    • What can I do to help other people get more from the network?

    And when I say "Get more" … I think about the ability to tap a larger network of folks, get to them for help more quickly and easily, learn from them faster, more easily establish conversations, draw them together into ad hoc groups as needed, and ??? a lot of things I don't know even what they are yet ???

    In fact, some of the nuggets I found helped me think a bit about this knowledge gap.  In What Networks Do?, they point to filter, amplify, convene among other things.  With Browse My Stuff I should have thought of social filtering a lot sooner. 

    I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

    And, I'm probably thinking about this more than most.

    Which leaves me with …

    Where's the help for Network Skills?

    Nancy talks about how community facilitation skills sound a lot like network skills.  After reading a lot of the material, I'm not convinced that the mapping is that easy and I certainly don't get the path from one set to specific actions in the other. 

    So, I know some of the materials I've produced such as the LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers.  

    The ironic thing is that like network themselves – how to kinds of information around network skills seems to be missing.  Most of it is unfortunately more tool centric.

    So where's the help for building my / our / their Network Skills?

    Wednesday, July 15, 2009

    Vision Objects Releases MyScript for Livescribe Macintosh Version


    I have blogged about my experience with the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen since its release and glad to share with you that Vision Objects has released MyScript for Macintosh. MyScript will now give Macintosh Users the ability to convert their handwriting to text for easy editing and formatting. I have used MyScript for Windows with my Livescrobe Pulse Smartpen and found it to work well, even with my handwriting (lets not go there :-).

    MyScript for Livescribe is an application that converts your handwritten notes to digital text:

    puce

    Send your handwritten notes directly from Livescribe Desktop to MyScript for Livescribe for conversion to text.

    puce

    Use your personal dictionary to add names, terms and abbreviations for even more accurate conversion.

    puce

    Convert handwriting, shapes, drawings and tables into print.

    puce

    Edit the resulting digital text directly in My Script for Livescribe application.

    puce

    Edited results can be sent to Microsoft Word or another word processor, to a text file, to your default email application or saved as a picture file.

    Learning Performance Business Talent Focus

    One of the more interesting aspects of the discussions I've had over the past few weeks as I prepare for the free online conference on the future of learning is the perspective on the focus and scope of responsibility of internal learning organizations and external learning/training companies.

    Caveat: This is definitely not a new issue. I'm not really claiming any great new insights.  It's a first cut at a developing mental model.  This is only partially formed and I need help to flesh out my thinking.

    Please let me know what you think.

    • Does this ring true? 
    • Does the model work for you? 
    • Do you similarly hear these kinds of clues?  And what other clues do you use to identify?
    • What are the implications? 

    With all that said, I believe that I'm beginning to get a handle on the differences in focus that people bring to bear around their responsibilities.  The following crude diagram captures a bit of it:

    learning-performance-business-talent-focus

    I'm finding that learning professionals of all types (IDs, CLOs, VP Learning, C-level at Training Company, etc.) tend to own a different view of their responsibilities in this space.

    • Learning – Responsible for ensuring learning objectives are achieved regardless of the delivery mode.
    • Talent – Responsible for ensuring that talent is analyzed, selected and developed to meet the needs of the organization. 
    • Performance – Responsible for ensuring that behavior change occurs in a way that improves performance.
    • Business – Responsible for ensuring that business objectives are met.

    Know the "Right Answer"

    Let's say that we are interviewing a potential new learning professional.  We pose the question to them:

    What do you see as the responsibility of a learning organization?

    Many (probably most) learning professionals are smart enough to be able to answer the question such that they focus on creating solutions that are ultimately about all of these.  They would position themselves right in the middle of the diagram.  This is, of course, the right answer although a very adept job seeker will be able to adjust the answer quickly based on the focus on the organization that's doing the interviewing.

    If you've done much interviewing in your life, you know that asking this kind of question is most often not effective.  Instead, it's much better to find out by asking about specific examples of projects they've worked on and listen to the focus.  You ask about things like the types of solutions that they've used, what were the objectives, how did they tackle the problems, etc.

    Of course, I'm not interviewing people for a job.  Normally, I'm talking to people with the goal of getting help on particular needs, e.g., how is social learning being used in insurance companies or other highly regulated industries, how does this technology work out in practice, what other things should I be looking at to solve this issue.  In this case, I've had a bunch of conversations around the Business of Learning and this model is somewhat falling out from the discussions.  But it's still conversations and I'm coming to fairly quickly recognize some clues that indicate the focus of the individual.

    So what are some clues about the focus that you can listen for?

    Learning Focus Clues

    The person is showing learning focus when you hear:

    "… learning objectives … "

    "… learners …"

    "We have very limited budget and our focus needs to be on building critical, core skills."

    "I wish we had the time and money to spend on informal and social learning solutions."

    "We want to make sure that our informal learning still ensures that we meet the learning objectives?"

    "Our trainers don't have time to get involved with the learners after the training."

    Performance Focus Clues

    The person is showing performance focus when you hear:

    "behavior change"

    "performer support"

    "toolkits and job aids"

    "involve the managers"

    "back on the job"

    "feedback"

    Business Focus Clues

    The person is showing business focus when you hear:

    "customer satisfaction" (or a host of other business metrics)

    "metrics" (and they don't mean Level 1 and 2)

    "move the needle"

    "we probably don't need much training"

    Talent Focus Clues

    The person is showing performance focus when you hear:

    "fill the talent pipeline"

    "talent mix"

    "job profiles"

    "succession planning"

    "competencies"

    "recruiting and selection"

    "performance review process"

    Notes, Questions and Thoughts

    Unfair Bias around Learning Focus?

    As I wrote down the clues that indicate a learning focus, I felt I was being unfair.  I've talked to a lot of very smart people who clearly have the learning focus.  I respect them, consider them to be valuable contributors, and feel like I'm being unfair when I put down those clues.  I feel I should somehow even this out a bit.  But I wasn't sure how.

    Obviously, this is partly personal bias.  All things being equal (which they never are), I'm guessing my focus is more a business and performance focus.  I was a professor for 11 years and still do lots of presentations and workshops where clearly the focus is learning.  Certainly Work Literacy has a learning and performance focus and is a passion of mine.  But day-to-day, my passion and where I probably play best are things like data driven solutions.  Working on eHarmony for its first 4 years with a combined purpose of making money, making better marriages and supporting a rather complex performance was fantastic.  Working with emerging or established companies is fantastic.  Looking at social learning as a performance mechanism is fantastic.  So maybe I have a strong bias towards business, performance, and then learning and that's why it doesn't sound quite right the way I've positioned it.

    You will notice I didn't say much about talent focus.  I'm know about it.  I do work in it.  I've actually done data driven solutions in that space.  But it's not my normal focus and I feel a little bit removed from a talent focus.  I definitely struggle the most when talking with people who have a very strong talent focus.

    So, I'm really not sure how to level this playing field a bit so that my bias is not coming through.  Thoughts?

    Also, I'm sure that most people do flow between these things a bit, but have a more natural home.  I'm not quite sure how that fits into this whole discussion.

    Separation of Performance and Business Focus?

    I debated on separating performance and business focus.  You may notice that they two overlap more than most of the other sections.  That's intentional.  I believe that there are quite a few people who take a combined business and performance focus.  There are relatively fewer who are dominant on the performance focus – but occasionally I run into people who seem to come at it with that focus.

    Talent and Performance Intersection?

    When I first did the diagram I intentionally did not have an intersection point right in the middle – and specifically it excluded intersection of Talent and Performance. 

    Most people who I talk to who have a talent focus seem to come at this whole picture from a completely different angle.  They describe goals in terms of looking at the overall mix of talent in the organization.  They look at the picture much more holistically.  They are quite often trying to align this with top level goals of the organization, but in many cases they really are not talking about moving the needle.  They care about learning as part of development and to build important competencies in the organization and to fill the talent pipeline.  So, intersection with learning and business – not necessarily focus – is clear.

    Intersection between talent and performance seems less common.  Normally the folks who look at the big picture talent issues are far removed from day-to-day behavior and performance.  They would claim that they look at it in terms of skills and competencies.  They need to know about behavior in the form of job profiles, selection, performance reviews, etc.  But the reality is that they are typically not thinking about what it takes to directly help to get the sales people to sell more, or change how retail sales managers get the associates to act in a way that improves customer satisfaction, etc.  They won't be building a job aid anytime soon.  They are likely not talking to the performers or facilitating interactions on the job to get performance to improve.  It's a level indirect from that.

    As I said, I initially put these as non-intersecting, and then I thought about people who work directly with sales management that really do take a look across all of these issues.  I'm not saying that all sales management improvement professionals take this approach, but certainly some do.  They look at who the sales people are, how they get selected, the comp packages.  But they also look at the sales support materials, sales meetings.  They get in and get dirty day-to-day.  So, clearly this kind of dual focus exists, especially around specific goals.

    Organizational Expectations

    When I discussed the "right answer", I pointed out that an adept learning professional seeking a job would quickly adapt to the interviewer and make sure that their answer corresponded to what the person wanted to hear.  You would listen for clues and use the language that fits.  Same as what I just described.

    Of course, that happens in organizations as well.  The collection of people in the organization establish what the expectation is around focus.  If they expect you to have a learning focus and deliver formal training solutions and not bother them back on the job when they are doing real work, you will quickly find yourself taking a learning focus in order to fit. 

    Meaning and Use of the Model?

    I debated on whether this model is useful and meaningful enough to post.  It's pretty much an internal mental model that developed based on many discussions (and really many years).  That doesn't mean it will make sense for anyone else.  Nor does it necessarily suggest that it's useful.

    So, can you tell me whether this makes any sense to you?

    In terms of use, for a long time – without having thought through this model, I've known that there's incredible friction trying to move someone from a particular focus.  This comes up all the time in practice:

    • To convince someone who's primarily learning focused to spend time and effort on solutions that come after training, you need to talk about it in terms of additional learning transfer opportunities.  The learning won't stick unless we get out there after they are back on the job and reinforce it.  We can talk about "office hours" where learners come together to discuss issues they face when they are back on the job.  And you know going in that this all will be a tough sell.
    • You need to talk to most talent focused people in talent terms.  If you have a toolkit / set of job aids, you need to talk about it in terms of reducing the time to competence or how it fits with development planning.
    • If you are talking to business or performance focused people, prepare to get in and get dirty.  You need to be prepared to be in there working with the people to get the performance to change or the needle to move.  I'd suggest not using the words "learning objective" … they may perceive you as "one of those people" … they'll let you know when they will need some of that kind of thing. 

    But this is more than language.  It translates into how they think about tackling problems and the kinds of solutions that they consider. 

     

    Again – this is all partially formed and I'm really hoping that you will weigh in with thoughts.

    Tuesday, July 14, 2009

    EtherPad & Skype Perfect Together

    I was in the middle of doing some brainstorming on the topic of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Math, when I had IM'ed Karen Janowski to see how she was doing via Skype; and when I told her what I was doing, she suggested that we put our heads together and come up with some ideas. I decided to give her call via Skype and then Karen shared an EtherPad address with me so that we could both collaborate in real time over the Internet and record our ideas. EtherPad is a Web 2.0 application that lets anyone quickly share a document so that all parties can collaborate in real time. With EtherPad you are just a click away from collaborating with each other in real time. Once I clicked on the link that Karen had provided me, I quickly copied and pasted my initial ideas that I had in a mind map and we were off and running. Using EtherPad, Karen and I quickly added more ideas and when we were through I was able to export my EtherPad session as a Word document to my computer. Karen and I marveled how easy it was to use Skype for the audio component and EtherPad to record our ideas. Give it a try when you are collaborating to find out just how easy and powerful this combination is.

    Subscribed to Best of eLearning Learning?

    I just got through posting the eLearning Learning Best Of for this week:

    Knowledge Skills Mentoring Tips - Best of eLearning Learning

    There's something that doesn't make sense to me, so I need your help!

    Best of eLearning Learning is a Must Subscribe

    I could be completely wrong, but I feel like these Best Of posts represent a really valuable contribution to people who don't have the time to read all of the posts from all the great eLearning bloggers and all the other sources that we track and include on eLearning Learning.

    In fact, even for me, and I'm on the extreme end of reading blogs, I often miss good items that are surfaced through the Best of eLearning Learning lists.

    In my experience doing presentations to learning professionals, polling the audience I find that roughly:

    • 10% – use an RSS Reader to monitor blogs as sources of content related to their professional interests
    • 90% – do not use an RSS Reader, but do subscribe to various email lists and other sources of content related to their professional interest

    The Best of eLearning Learning is really aimed at the 90% audience. It's my belief that if you are interested in eLearning and only could subscribe to a single email (or RSS feed), you should subscribe to the Best Of feed. I also don't know that there's anything close to that available anywhere else. And I also believe that even if you are in the 10% you probably should subscribe (although via RSS) to the Best Of list just to help make sure you didn't miss good stuff during the past week, month or year.

    Or to put this another, rather blunt way -

    If you had to choose to subscribe to eLearning Technology, this blog, or the the Best of eLearning Learning, you should subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning.

    Of course, the right answer is to subscribe to both. ;)

    Please Help Me Figure This Out

    My expectation is that eLearning Learning with it's higher traffic rates and great content should be acquiring new subscribers at a faster rate than this blog.

    But that's not the case. Both are growing. But for the first 5 months of this year eLearning Technology adds about 20 new subscribers per day at a fairly constant rate and eLearning Learning is adding about 10 per day since it started a few weeks ago to offer email subscriptions. Heck, I would think that most of the subscribers here would immediately have subscribed to the Best of eLearning Learning and the numbers would be much higher already.

    All of this doesn't make any sense to me:

    • Any thoughts on an explanation?
    • Have you subscribed to the Best of eLearning Learning? Why or why not?

    Part of the issue may be reaching the 90% audience. By definition, the 90% are not subscribed to this blog and are not reading this. So maybe there's an additional question:

    • How can bloggers reach the other 90%?

    I'd appreciate your help in figuring this out.

    Monday, July 13, 2009

    Matchware Releases Service Pack 1 for MindView 3

    FYI

    I just found out that Matchware has released Service Pack 1 for Mindview 3 which can be downloaded from their website. I have upgrade my version of MindView 3 BE to the latest version without a hitch. MindView 3 feels faster when changing from the various views. Going from a Mind map to a Gantt Chart is much faster than in previous versions. Give it a try and let me know what you think. You can download the Service Pack 1 by clicking on this link. According to the Matchware website here are some of the features of the Service Pack 1.

    This Service Pack contains the following changes:

    Service Pack 1:

    • Panels now include scroll bars when screen resolution is low or when space is limited.
    • Converting between views has been slightly optimized.
    • Branch text editor: Several usability issues and other problems have been corrected.
    • Icons: The Icons gallery now closes upon selection of an icon.
    • Outline view: The font settings can now be changed as expected.
    • Spellchecker: The problem whereby correct text was sometimes underlined in red has been resolved.
    • Word export:
      • PDF files are now handled correctly.
      • Links to embedded files are now handled correctly.
      • Pictures located in text notes on the Mind Map are now shown in the exported Word document.
    • PowerPoint export: The problem whereby comments were not exported to PowerPoint when using a non-English version of MindView has now been fixed.
    • SharePoint: Now fully compatible with SharePoint 2003. With SharePoint 2007 it may be necessary to check out the file before being able to save it from within MindView.
    • Many other usability and internal issues have been corrected.
    • Resources:
      • Adding resources from the Address Book now works as expected.
      • Resources assigned to tasks are now preserved when copying to another document.
    • Dragging a link from the web browser onto a branch now creates a hyperlink.
    • The Calculation Defaults and Formats dialog now supports localized decimal separators.
    • Excel export: You can now export to Excel even when Excel is not installed, but you will only be able to save the file in the XML 2003 Spreadsheet format.
    • HTML export: New export templates have been included.
    • Microsoft Project import: Files containing unsupported characters can now be imported.
    • It is now possible to export to the older OpenMind/MindView 2 XML format.

    MindMap Navigator Released for MindManager 8

    One of the features that is often asked for in MindManager 8 is a Map Explorer. For anyone who has used MindManager 8 with large maps you know that it can get rather unwieldy to navigate the map once it gets to large proportions. There was time when Mindjet Labs had put together an exploratory add-in that added a Map Explorer to MindManager 6 but development stopped and it was never upgraded for the current version of MindManager. This week I was excited to see that the Mind2Chart Team had just released a new add-in called MindMap Navigator that adds a full featured Map Explorer Pane to MindManager 8.

    MindMap Navigator 8 add-in adds a fully functional Map Explorer to MindManager 8 that allows you to view your map in a Tree structure. Once MindMap Navigator is installed you will find a new pane called MindMap Navigator that you can open and close. Once the pane is opened you will be able to view all of your recent mind maps and open them from the MindMap Navigator pane. MindMap Navigator lets you quickly move from one branch in your map to another via the Tree structure. By double clicking on a branch in the MindMap Navigator pane you can jump to the branch in your map. View a video demonstration of MindMap Navigator by clicking on this link. Additionally, you can click on the Show Branch Alone button to isolate your branch in the map. You can also select branches and set a Relationship which you can format in your map. You also have the ability to Expand and Collapse Branches to help you quickly navigator through your mind maps. MindMap Navigator is a welcome addition and a must have for anyone who creates large maps. Having a Tree structure to navigate through your large mind maps makes it an ideal tool and one that you will say "how did I ever do without it." For more information and to download a trial version of MindMap Navigator click here.

    Future of Learning

    This is probably the last update on the upcoming online conference. We are finally announcing the speakers and a bit more about what they will be discussing.

    On July 23 - click the following to: Launch the Session

    You won't want to miss this ... Intuit talks about their move to outsource learning development to their customers and redefining value of learning. Hearing Dave Wilkins talk about selling social learning solutions. Or Gary Wise talking about selling incremental changes to learning designs on the path to richer solutions. Amit Garg discussing where his innovation team is focusing. Or senior leaders from major training companies talk about the challenges and opportunities in the market. This is going to be really great stuff.

    clip_image002 clip_image004

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    Future of the Business of Learning

    Free Online Event

    July 23

    9 AM - 2 PM Pacific Time (Click on times to see Time Zone Conversion)

    Brought to you by: Learn Trends, ISA and Training Magazine Network.
    Moderated by Tony Karrer.

    Register Here

    Description:

    Corporate training departments and training companies are facing challenging times. It’s clear to thrive they need to focus on business critical issues for the organization, provide solutions provide real value, differentiate their offerings, and look at ways to provide value beyond being a publisher of courses and courseware. However, that’s easier said than done.

    This online event will bring together people with a variety of perspectives on what we should be doing today to set ourselves up for success going forward. We will look at questions that include:

    • Is this a temporary downturn or changing landscape?
    • How will demand change?
    • What will internal or external customers pay for that's not traditional training?
    • What's already selling today?
    • What business models, products, companies should we be watching?
    • What should we be doing today to be in position for the future?

    Panel #1 - Industry Perspectives

    9 AM - 10 AM Pacific Time

    This distinguished panel will provide overview of the challenges going on in the industry, major trends that they are seeing, what is selling and what’s not, and where they believe that organizations need to go to be successful going forward. Josh, a long time analyst and source for trends in learning product and market data, trends and expert advice, will provide us with perspectives on what’s going on. Paul, a connector between training companies and other kinds of providers and the marketplace, has some very specific suggestions on where training companies need to focus. Lisa, as President of ISA and a long-time consultant to training companies, understands a lot of the challenges they face.

    • Josh Bersin, CEO and President, Bersin and Associates
    • Paul Terlemezian, President, iFive Alliances
    • Lisa Fagan, President, Amplify Selling

    Panel #2 – Internal Training Perspectives

    10 AM - 11 AM Pacific Time

    This panel consists of senior managers responsible for aspects of corporate learning who will discuss what they are doing today and opportunities they see in the future. Gary will talk about his Prepare-Deploy-Reinforce (PDR) model, how it represents an incremental transition, and how he sells to various audiences. Rob will talk about how he sees his offerings transition in the future. Allessandria from Intuit will discuss how they’ve outsourced parts of their development to their customers and have changed how they view “return” on learning investments.

    • Gary Wise, Sr. Director Learning Architecture, Cincinnati Children's Hospital
    • Rob Robertson, SVP, Learning Technology and Architecture, Citi
    • Allessandria Polizzi, PhD, Group Manager, Accountant Training & Relations, Intuit

    Panel #3 – Training Company Perspectives

    11 AM - Noon Pacific Time

    This panel consists of senior executives at training companies who are looking at how they can create more compelling offerings in the market. They will discuss aspects of how their offerings are evolving and the kinds of new offerings they are trying to sell. Ann, who facilitated a session for ISA with CEOs of Training Companies to look at the future of the business of learning, will start the session with an overview of key take-aways from that session. Jeff, Pete and Ben will all discuss their particular perspectives on what it’s going to take to be successful going forward. Because of their very different kinds of companies and offerings, we’ll likely have a lively discussion.

    • Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, CEO Herrmann International
    • Jeff Sugerman, President and CEO, Inscape Publishing
    • Pete Weaver Senior Vice President of Leadership Solutions and Chief Learning Officer, DDI
    • Ben Snyder, CEO, Systemation

    Panel #4 – Software and Services Perspectives

    Noon1 PM Pacific Time

    This panel consists of senior executives at software and services companies who are trying to create compelling offerings in the market. They will discuss aspects of how their offerings are evolving and the kinds of new offerings they are trying to sell and the challenges they have selling these offerings. Amit will discuss their interesting innovation team that works closely with training company partners to showcase new offerings that the partners can sell in the marketplace such as mobile, performance support, simulations and games, integrated accountability, and social learning solutions. Dave will discuss the challenges and opportunities around social learning solutions. Holly and Monika will talk about capitalizing on development opportunities that exist in every day work environments.

    • Amit Garg, Director, Upside Learning – The Training Company Back Office
    • Dave Wilkins, Executive Director of Product Marketing, Learn.com
    • Monika Ebert, CEO, DifferentLens
    • Holly St. John Peck, CEO, Peck Training Group

    Panel #5 – Discussion

    1 PM2 PM Pacific Time

    We will transition into a more open discussion around what we heard and what we think are some of the important answers coming from the session. We have several interesting folks joining the discussion that I’m sure will challenge us a bit. Some of these folks include:

    • Jay Cross
    • Harold Jarche
    • Ray Jimenez