"Authorware is Dead"...I have heard these words ever since I started using the product, back when it was sold by Authorware, Inc., in May 1990. I fell in love with this product, its flow line approach, its inclusion of a scripting language...albeit a very limited one in that first version on the Mac. With time, the scripting language got more powerful and JavaScript was added as an alternative, and a few icons were added, including the Framework and Navigate icons.Eventually Macromedia asked me to help with the product and as you can see above, my name appeared in the credits.Articles and BooksThe product for me was simple but challenging and I liked it enough to start writing books about it, books that sold relatively well in such a small niche market. I wrote articles about it for Brandon Hall and for the eLearning Guild, among others. Writing my first book instantly made me recognized by many who previously didn't know me.ConferencesI am the only person alive who has attended every single Authorware conference. Not only that, but I have also spoke and taught at every one of them. Let's start with The Alternative Authorware Conference (TAAC), started by my good friend Tom Adams. Did TAAC really mean Tom Adams Authorware Conference? It was continued later by Mark Henry. A couple of times Mark held TAAC in the Adams Mark hotel - really? Adams Mark? Tom Adams Mark Henry? Strange. I keynoted at several TAACs and was presented with a lifetime achievement award, seen here. The very first year of TAAC I was asked to be keynote speaker by Tom. I arrived in Snowbird, Utah, with bronchitis. The thinner air didn't help. I gave my keynote and then was brought to Urgent Care where they gave me antibiotics and promised me I wouldn't die (ever). Ah, memories of imminent death!Then there was EuroTAAC, which was held in The Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany over the years. This year my friend Ole Kristensen held it in Randers, Denmark. I keynoted at several of these and taught precon at most of these as well. This year I even appeared on the Danish TV news. You can see the clip here. It's in Danish, but you can make out the words "guru Joe Ganci", "e-learning" and something about "what a sexy guy."Tom Adams later created another conference called TAW - the Texas Authorware Workshop. Once again, though, we wondered if it didn't stand for the Tom Adams Workshop! Kidding, kidding. This was held in Dallas two years in a row. Very enjoyable, very informative.Finally, there was AMGAC (Aviation, Military and Government Authorware Conference) founded by AMy Blankenship. It was small but wonderful, held in Biloxi, Mississippi. Amy and I became better friends. I was already friends with Steve Howard, who is originally from Scotland, lived in England, and helped take over EuroTAAC after the Dutchies sold it off. Steve and Amy eventually married in Biloxi. I went to their wedding. Never had I heard a stranger mix of accents - Scottish and Mississipian! They are good friends to me and always will be. They were in the path of Hurricane Katrina later, but survived and are doing well today.You can see lots of conference photos here on our Authorware site.TrainingOver the years, I trained Authorware all over the United States, Canada and Europe. I love teaching and it gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people, many of whom I count among my friends.LoyaltyAuthorware developers tend to be fierce defenders of the product. The battles between religious sects are nothing when compared with the battles between Authorware adherents and those who liked opposing tools!Recent HistoryWhen I started my own company, the esteemed DazzleTech, I was well-known as an Authorware guru, so naturally most of the work we got were from clients using Authorware. It wasn't long, though, before we realized we had to diversify to be able to reach the largest number of clients. I was an old-time programmer and became conversant with Flash. I had already used Director and other tools and then started looking for contractors and employees to hire that knew more than I did. I hit pay dirt when I brought on Chris Swenson and eventually made him a partner in the company. He not only sponges up new technologies easily, he is innovative and comes up with great solutions all the time. He is the author behind our own authoring system, Substance.The Death of AuthorwareAuthorware's demise has been predicted from the start. Every few months, rumors of Authorware's death were circulated, usually by those who used other authoring tools. Sometimes the rumors came from Adobe employees, but it was hard to know what to believe because the rumors were so frequent and then another version of Authorware would be released. I always said that like any software, Authorware would eventually reach the end of its life cycle. I'm happy to say it has lasted twenty years in the marketplace! That's quite an achievement and a tribute to Michael Allen, who created the product, and to Jamil Zainasheff, among many others, who continued to engineer and defend the product at Macromedia.But now we've reached the end, for all practical purposes. Yes, for the time being version 7.02 will continue to be sold, but it's time to move on. Good luck to us all.Read Adobe's announcement here.Subscribe to my blog.

Even if you're not in the Denver area, you may want to consider joining this Yahoo group. It is very active:Denver Metro E-Learning Developers Grouphttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmeldMeets about four times a yearNext meeting date: see linkTime: 7:00 - 9:00 pmLocation: FX One Seven Zero, Technical Marketing Group, 424 East Simpson Street, LafayetteContact: Phil Tobias philtobias@aol.comSubscribe to my blog.

It has been my pleasure to be associated with The eLearning Guild (www.elearningguild.com) since near its start in 2002. I have taught preconference classes and sessions at most of the Guild conferences and at each conference I have also enjoyed myself immensely and have learned tremendous amounts from others.The folks running the Guild are topnotch professionals and awfully nice to boot.David Holcombe and Heidi Fisk have run the Guild from the start, helping it grow from a few hundred members to several tens of thousands! David is the executive leader of the Guild while Heidi wears several hats, including the all-important organizer of all the Guild events.Steve Wexler is the Guild's Director of Research and Emerging Technologies. The Research site is the best around; in fact, it's downright fantastic. Besides several valuable reports that have been published, the site has live, up-to-the minute reports based on surveys being filled out around the clock on various subjects by Guild members. Remember there are tens of thousands of them and they represent a cross-section of e-learning professionals and learners. It's very interactive, allowing you to drill down and find the exact answers you need. WELL WORTH IT!Bill Brandon is the nicest editor with whom I have ever worked and that is saying something considering how much work it is for him to put together each issue of the Guild's Learning Solutions e-Magazine! As of this writing, there are 230 issues of of this great publication and each issue is chock full of practical advice, strategies, discussions and more. We're talking good stuff here, folks. I've had the pleasure to have had a few articles published in the Magazine, though I'm sorry to say it's been a while since I've written an article for Bill. He's a very patient man. Soon, Bill, as soon as I can!Karen Hyder runs all of the on-line forums and conferences. Officially she's the Online Events Moderator and Speaker coach. I can't think of anything to say about Karen that doesn't sound as if she's paying me. I hold her in high esteem, very friendly and a real pro, she makes both teaching and learning online very easy. She also is at all the conferences and is always running around helping out. What a great asset she is to the Guild.Tim Martin arranges for the conference expositions and advertising. He also is a great guy with whom to work, friendly, knowledgeable and always ready to help. Luis Malbas is the tech guy, and he knows what he's doing. The site is powerful and runs really well!The Guild has an Advisory Board that has some of the biggest names in eLearning on it (no, I'm not on it yet haha). They help guide the Guild in various ways - I guess you can call them Guild Guides!I know I'm leaving out some folks but these guys and gals are the heart and brains of the Guild. They have made the Guild what it is - a fantastic resource for all e-learning professionals and those who are interested in e-learning.DazzleTech has helped the Guild whenever possible and we're happy that in our own small ways we have been privileged to be associated with this great organization! There are several levels of membership, including a free level - why not take advantage of the Guild's offerings? I am very proud of my eLearning Guild membership! Join and you will be too!Subscribe to my blog.

I had the pleasure of delivering an on-line presentation this week for the eLearning Guild called Choosing the Right Tools for your e-Learning Project. You can see the description by clicking here.I guess it went well! Here is the feedback I got from the Guild today:Thank you for another great session. The eLearning Guild and I appreciate your commitment and willingness to share your perspective and extensive knowledge with Online Forum participants. My survey numbers:Number of respondents to survey: 15 1. The presenter was knowledgeable about the topic strongly agree 12 agree 2 disagree 0 strongly disagree 0 2. The presentation content matched the session description on the website. strongly agree 14 agree 1 disagree 0 strongly disagree 0 3. I will be able to apply the information I learned in this session. In the next 3 months 13 In the next 6 months 1 In the next 9 months 0 In the next 12 months 0 Never 0 4. The speaker effectively used Polls 10 Open- ended questions/ Chat 11 Demonstrations 11 Slides 11 Sample file 2 5. Materials were appropriate to the session strongly agree 12 agree 3 disagree 0 strongly disagree 0 6. I would attend another session by this speaker strongly agree 15 agree 1 disagree 0 strongly disagree 0 Feedback: - Entertaining and engaging delivery style - Used polls very effectively to get and give information - Joe's depth of knowledge on the subject was greatly appreciated by the attendees (see Chat Pod contents) - His comparison and demonstration of the major content-creating tools was extremely well-done - Very attentive to both the regular Chat Pod and the Presenter Chat Pod It’s always a pleasure to work with you. See you in San Jose!Subscribe to my blog.

You may find these results interesting! These are the participant polls I conducted during my forum session. Click the image below to see it full size.Subscribe to my blog.

My friend Susan McDonald-Osborne just started a new m-Learning forum on Facebook.If you have a Facebook account or are ready to start one, click here. Subscribe to my blog.

My earlier post about Advanced Persistent Threats just got more interesting. Today, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that China Telecom redirected up to 15% of all of internet traffic on April 8th, 2010. The attack targeted US Government Servers, Dell, IBM, Yahoo and Microsoft.This means that Google is not alone, since they were viciously attacked in December 2009 (see previous post). In fact, what is interesting is that so far, the only company to stand up to the Chinese has been Google. How will these companies react?  Hard to tell since these kind of attacks are nearly impossible to stop, except that this attack was preventable.So how did they do it? It was the result of changing the routing tables that are generated by network routers. As I have said in the past, the world is not a nice place and trusting all of the actors on the internet is no longer a smart business proposition. No enterprise and no government can really assume that they are not at risk from these types of attacks.The net result of all of this is that a private, secure business network will emerge. Companies, such as the government owned China Telecom, if they keep perpetrating this kind of alleged behavior, will be blocked from conducting business outside of China.

If the growth of Facebook and the emergence of the Apple iPad were the most widely reported tech stories in 2010, the emergence of Cyber Warfare that targets governments and enterprises is the most under reported one, with far greater consequences.  In fact 2010, could be viewed as the year that Cyber Warfare emerged as a true weapon. Below I outline six steps to take to protect your enterprise.It is now very clear that certain governments are using Cyber warfare to attack adversaries, including private/public companies. Some key things that occurred in 2010:1. Facebook and other consumer social sites played a role in the Great Hack of Google and 34 other firms. However, it is worse than that. Thousands of firms may have been breached according to Kevin Mandia, CEO of security firm Mandiant.2. Redirection of US Internet Traffic by China on April 8, 2010 and the attack of at least 5 other firms.3. Confirmation by the US Federal Government that attacks against Google and other enterprises were ordered by Chinese Government officials (via CNBC).A key conclusion from an earlier post: these new modes of attack, known as Advanced Persistent Threats, are far too sophisticated to stop with software and firewalls.  The best known method to protect your corporate assets (source code and intellectual property) is to isolate key corporate systems from the normal corporate network. In other words, you need two networks.What does all of this really mean? Well, for starters, it is a new era of electronic warfare and this time it is information that is the currency that is being fought over. There stakes are very high: the future of countries and the future economic well being of both the country and the companies that operate in those countries.Why? Well, the military and technology firms are linked together in interesting ways, as this article (based on research by Rand Corp) demonstrates. Companies have become fronts for governments and military organizations. Some may say that this is not new, but the scale of what is going on now has not been seen in the past.For enterprises, all of the investment in products that represent the future could be wasted if those secrets are stolen. Cisco learned this a few years back when some of its code was stolen by Huawei Technologies Inc. The lawyer who represented Cisco, G. Hopkins Guy, won an injunction against Huawei and was widely recognized for his ground breaking work that resulted in a worldwide injunction against Huawei.What does this all mean to you and your enterprise? For starters consider doing this:1. . Develop a comprehensive strategy to combat cyber warfare and make sure it includes a training program (cyber war gaming) for executives, not just IT staff. 2. Take the steps to isolate your corporate systems. No matter what you hear from major analyst firms or anyone else, physical separation of information on computers (e.g. a separate network) is the only sure way to stop intrusion right now. Look at models that the military has used (classified vs unclassified systems). This also has major implications for desktop/pc access.3. Shield key data centers/systems from wireless access and wireless monitoring. For those with remote sites (e.g. retail branches), don't over look these sites as methods of access. If you have any doubts about this action, you need to read The Great Cyber Heist (courtesy of the NY Times).4. Re-evaluate all browser and operating system security at an architectural level. Evaluate roadmaps from all providers and make the tough, but correct decisions on what platforms you will invest in going forward. Blindly following the incumbent provider may not be the answer that solves your issues.5. Intrusion from the inside is also a growing issue. Compartmentalizing information so that no one person has access to everything is key, as is a practice of not keeping all source code in one location or on one physical server.6. Block Facebook. As popular as it is, Facebook isn't secure and it isn't good for your corporate security. Run Facebook in conjunction with certain web browsers and you have the perfect system for intrusion. Many governments and enterprises block access to Facebook and now you know why. This won't be a popular decision, but it is the right one.So, in 2011, expect to keep hearing more about Facebook and its growing valuation.  2011 may also be called the year of the Tablet (the rise of Android based Tablets). That is all well and good, but the number one issue your enterprise or government needs to prepare for is cyber warfare. 2011 is the time to get prepared for the attacks that are yet to come.....Happy New Year.

People communicate in different ways and for many, communicating via email has had its set of issues.  Over the years, people started to use email as a way to harass others. It got so bad that many states passed laws that  made it a misdemeanor to send e-mail "with the intent to harass".  Normally, the line gets crossed when multiple emails (or tweets) are involved that are intentionally abusive.Sometimes, a twitter chat can turn unexpectedly ugly.  If you get harassed on Twitter and the person persists in their abusive behavior, the best thing to do is not to respond. If it is an associate you work with, you can report it to your HR department. If it is someone you don't work with, you can block the user and report them to Twitter via this link. If it involves real threats, call your local police department.It is clear that the day is coming when states will update their legislation to make harassment via Twitter the same as email.

So the iPhone is going to launch on Verizon's network. Cool, many people will be happy. That said, for many business executives who travel, the issue is having a phone and wireless carrier that they can use on a worldwide basis.For many years, Blackberry RIM devices were THE standard and today for many, they still are. It is a great device for email and phone calls. I used mine all over the place, but about a year ago, I switched to the iPhone. On a recent trip around the world, the only device I took was the iPhone. It worked - flawlessly.I used it for calls, for email, SMS texting and Web Conferencing. One of my products - Saba Centra Web Conferencing runs on the iPhone. I had to join a meeting right after landing in Amsterdam, and joined it via iPhone. I was in the meeting, watching the slides and talking via VoIP. Try that with other products.So, anyway, my transition from Blackberry to iPhone has been a positive one. I'm much better at touch typing than I used to be. I'll also note that in Silicon Valley, I have very few dropped calls, but I'm not in San Francisco.