The enterprise learning market witnessed another big consolidation event today as SumTotal Systems announced it acquired GeoLearning thus further positioning SumTotal as the largest platform provider for LMS and talent management solutions in the industry. According to leading analyst Josh Bersin, the combined entity will grow SumTotal's "total market share to 12.5% ... (and) makes SumTotal approximately 50% larger than the #2 LMS player (Saba), clearly establishing their leadership in the market."  Interesting news indeed.So, what does this move mean to the enterprise mobile learning market? From my perspective, both companies have worked on "baking and serving up" a mobile learning strategy to one extent or another but both have placed a higher priority on building out their talent management suites rather than their mobility solutions -- for good reason too as that's where the money has been in recent years as mobile has been taking shape. SumTotal's ToolBook authoring tool, now in version 10.x, is a well crafted desktop-based application that we've used many times in the past to help design and produce mobile learning content that can be packaged for delivery with many different enterprise mobile learning platforms including our own, Intuition's and others. There are also nice hooks in place to allow mobile-ready courses to be accessed by mlearners via the SumTotal LMS using a mobile web browser but SumTotal has yet to take the leap from basic "mobile web" delivery into the more sophisticated and polished "mobile app" methods.GeoLearning, on the other hand, has made solid strides in recent months with their GeoMaestro Mobility Solution to design and develop their own mobile apps (for iPhone, iPad, Android and WebOS/Palm-based devices) and provide a continuum of mobile authoring, delivery and reporting via their GeoMaestro suite to the benefit of their customers now considering mobile learning for the first time (and who isn't?). I certainly applaud their efforts to get into the pool but I can state with conviction that any "version 1.0" effort only represents the first steps on a long journey as we move into the highly complex arena of mobility with its vastly different technologies and delivery models when compared with delivering online content in the enterprise LMS space. In short, "getting a course on a phone" is relatively easy while the 250+ other things the  enterprise is now concerned with represent the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the learning experience is fully functional, appropriate, customizable, secure and fully scalable. But actually getting a version 1.0 out the door IS an important start! Geo's new "client-side" tools/apps may represent a key ingredient for SumTotal's push into the enterprise mobile learning market but, unfortunately, the official press release doesn't mention mobile in any shape or fashion. SumTotal would be well served to take a quick and hard look at the GeoLearning tools and figure out how they can start to leverage them under the bigger umbrella this consolidation represents as it will serve their combined customer base well. And the increased visibility and adoption of mobile learning across the broader market is good news for everyone in the enterprise mLearning space as more and more companies seek solutions that can meet their current and future requirements.

It is the first week in January and the annual International CES ("Consumer Electronics Show") is in full swing out in Las Vegas - just as if Santa Claus came twice within a two-week period for gadget freaks and tech nerds alike. This year’s event is as big as ever with 100K+ attendees roaming through 2,700 vendor booths across multiple sites. In the midst of all the new 3D TVs, streaming home entertainment, futuristic toys and smart appliances, the primary market focus of this year’s show seems to be on mobility with smartphones, tablets and apps taking center stage in many of the main keynotes and featured front-and-center in larger vendor booths. And many of these advances drive the potential and increase the affordances of mobile learning and performance support across the enterprise. Better Devices. It is starting to feel like the smartphone is finally going to start replacing the feature phone inside every knowledge worker’s pocket or purse; I’m not saying my mom is going to replace her Jitterbug anytime soon but she’s a grandmother not an enterprise employee. For those of us with the means and the desire, the choices are plentiful and reasonable in most markets and the up-trending Bring Your Own Device movement is starting to influence IT departments to allow newer Apple iOS, Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone7 devices to coexist on the highly restricted/locked down networks IT has operated in the past. As security and control issues for enterprise-grade mlearning solutions are mitigated to infosec’s satisfaction, BYOD policies can actually save organization tremendous amounts of money every year. CES showcased a myriad of Android smartphones and tablet devices for consumers from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Erickson, Dell and many others plus specialized offerings from Cisco Systems on the enterprise end of the spectrum to Vizio on the consumer end; that said, most every contemporary Android device can install/run an "app" and that brings an opportunity for learning closer to any worker in the time of need.Tablets devices are all the rage at CES as vendors from across the world all seek to cash in on Apple’s success with their iPad. Tablets ranging in size from pocket minis to full-sized and dockable slates are featured everywhere with many supporting the newer Android 3.0/Honeycomb OS, Windows 7/Phone 7 and even some Linux variations. Tablets from the "tier one players" will obviously have an impact on the market and the fact that many of them run Flash content makes them ultra-appealing for mobile learning situations. The real question is whether the application ecosystems that surround each of these new devices can overcome the market lead Apple’s current (and future) generation iPads already enjoy. I suspect we’ll see Apple conceding some nominal but measurable market share to the new crème of the crop and this will drive most enterprise organizations to need to support multiple tablets in much the same way they support multiple smartphones for their enterprise mobile learning initiatives. I anticipate seeing projects with lots of iPads alongside several Android tabs and a smattering of BlackBerry PlayBooks all coexisting in one learning deployment. Thus, great things are coming along with increased complexity for content creation, management and distribution since the cool Flash content won't play across the range of devices an enterprise must manage for their mobile learning programs.Way Faster Networks. To me, the more significant advances introduced at CES 2011 were the formal introductions from the leading carriers of their much anticipated "4G", high-speed networks. All four of the major US wireless carriers (ATT, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint) plus several others announced support for next-gen device communications resulting in faster access speeds. These faster networks drive the need/desire for more capable smartphones and tablet devices that can leverage the network benefits. What’s needed are better applications to serve as the third leg of the new "technology stool" and enterprise mobile learning represents one of the real world examples that can take advantage of these faster networks, better devices and richer learning experiences anytime and anywhere. In summary, this year’s show seems bigger and more impressive than many in recent years and I believe many of the products and services introduced this week will play a critical role in the adoption and proliferation of enterprise mobile learning here and abroad. And the gadget geek in me really looks forward to getting a new device (or four!) in the coming weeks and months as we push the future of tech into the future of learning.

As detailed in my list of mobile learning predictions for 2011, a collection of smart and savvy authoring tool vendors offering solutions for online training delivery will start to introduce specialized tools that will enable some form of single sourcing that outputs mobile-friendly content with little or nominal effort over and above what's already been invested to create online courseware and training materials.  It took no longer than the end of January for new product announcements to be made by two of the leading authoring tool vendors who are now offering both Flash and HTML5 course publication output options to instructional designers using their respective applications. Let's take a quick look at both companies and their respective offerings:Rapid Intake's mLearning Studio.  Garin Hess and his team over at Rapid Intake have announced a new suite of tools called mLearning Studio that will allow content authors to output SCORM-conformant courseware along with included assessments as either web-friendly Flash courseware or mobile-friendly HTML5 packages with the click of a button.  I got to play around with some early content samples and found their mobile packaging to be clean, flexible and very well structured for playback on compatible mobile devices based on Apple's iOS or on Android-based mobiles or tablets. We are still experimenting to determine if the produced content can be easily managed when downloaded and secured to a mobile device for offline playback using the app-based approach but online delivery works quite nicely with gesture-based navigation, nice media support and engaging assessment capabilities.  Moreover, we really like what we see in their "version 1.0" effort here and look forward to seeing where they can take it all when supporting legacy mobile devices like the ever popular BlackBerry in the enterprise as well as newer smartphones like those based on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS that don't fully support the HTML5 spec as of yet. Rapid Intake is considering releasing their mobility options as both a standalone mlearning authoring tool as well as via an extension to their core Unison offering. You can learn more about the upcoming release of mLearning Studio in a video featured on their web site here.Harbinger Group's Raptivity.  Raptivity is a well regarded "rapid interactivity builder" application used by many companies to "add some spice" to their online learning courses through the delivery of interactive exercises. To facilitate wider mobile delivery of these interactions, Vikas Joshi and his team over at Harbinger have added new functionality that allows IDs to output defined interactions as either Flash or HTML5 packages that can then be assigned and taken via online or offline delivery.  No word yet as to whether the mobile-friendly Raptivity interactions can also be embedded into a Rapid Intake mLearning Studio-based mobile course but given these two companies have interacted fully in the past, its logical to think they will at some point. You can learn more about the new mobile-friendly Raptivity offering here.We are excited every time new tools are introduced and these two organizations are leading the way in 2011 by delivering viable options for mobile learning content creation and delivery where there's much to gain and not much at all IDs need to learn to make the jump from online to mobile for their learning communities.

Another month, another trip to Orlando it seems and last week had me attending two different shows down near the Mouse House; Learning Solutions 2011 and CTIA Wireless 2011. This first post will focus on LS2011 and I’ll post again on CTIA tomorrow.The Learning Solutions 2011 Event. The eLearning Guild’s LS2011 event was well attended and features 50+ vendors and more than 1300 participants from the training and development industry.  The Guild continues to put on a great show although the focus on mobile learning at this show is somewhat muted given their upcoming mLearnCon event in San Jose is being held in less than 3 months; the next show will certainly be "all mobile all the time" and a better bet for both the experienced and the curious as it relates to enterprise mobile learning. That said, interest in the various products and sessions and "morning buzz" gatherings that related to mobile all seemed well attended and topical.I was able to spend time with several different vendors who are all preparing to deliver their own mobile learning offers into the marketplace in the coming months. Much of the need and innovation behind these new products is in direct response to the growing market perception that mobile learning either has or will hit the "tipping point" this year for enterprise adoption and the fact every organization is now faced with questions about how they’ll deliver on this potential and the various expectations being promoted by scores of training departments, sales teams, engineering groups and senior managers waving iPads and Android tablets. Of the 45+ vendors exhibiting at LS2011, about a dozen had some form of mobile messaging clearly on display and there were certainly a few standouts as follows:Claro from dominKnow.  Luke Hickey and team over the dominKnow took center stage in the LS2011 exhibits area to herald the launch of their next generation authoring platform called Claro. The new web-based HTML5 authoring package looks and performs quite well and delivers an impressive array of authoring features that can produce exceptionally nice looking mobile content for the various web kit-based mobile devices and tablets including Apple’s iPad and the full range of Android-based tablets. Published modules are packaged as SCORM objects and deployed with nominal hiccups for local/disconnected playback via an installed CellCast application on our test iPhones, iPads and Android devices. We now plan to take the next few steps down the technical integration front to make it easy to publish and deploy a Claro-generated course directly into our CellCast Manager/mLMS platform with "one click" simplicity.  Contact them directly to sign up for the official beta of Claro too! Storyline from Articulate. I actually got to check out the new Storyline application from Articulate running in pre-beta form this past week and it is impressive and promising on many fronts. Whereas I expected Articulate to simply add some sort of option to "publish to HTML5" to their already popular Presenter add-in to PowerPoint, they actually decided to go a whole new direction and build an application from scratch that looks/functions in much the same way as PowerPoint but the created content is then published in tablet-friendly deliverables. There were plenty of tools to create interactions (ala Engage-style functionality) as well as define animations and path-based motions which all rendered well in the final outputs. And, of course, you can import existing PPT/PPTX presentations right into the new app and manipulate all the sides while still leveraging most of the defined interactions (e.g., slide to slide hyperlinks). For a pre-beta application, it seemed generally polished and stable too meaning it will be great addition to many ID tool kits in the future for those targeting deliverables to high resolution iOS and Android screens -- not sure this will work on many if any BlackBerry devices though.  Articulate expects to issue a select number of public beta invitations sometime in the latter part of Q2 and we’re hoping to participate and provide active feedback for these new tools as they prepare to come to market.  See a screen shot of the application on display from the show below.mLearning Studio from Rapid Intake.  As detailed in a recent post, Rapid Intake’s new mLearning Studio tools are preparing to hit the market and will enable IDs to publish their content as either Flash or HTML5 packages.  Check it out here.Questionmark Mobile Apps from Questionmark.  Questionmark was highlighting ways to publish their standard assessments into mobile friendly formats and SCORM packages that can be delivered to and accessed via mobile apps. OnPoint plans to run these offerings through their paces in the coming weeks to see how it all works and performs. Check it out here.OnQue from Impatica.  Mike Doyle and the Impatica team continue to advance their efforts to produce some great tools that can help publish mobile friendly virtual learning environments to tablet devices like the iPad.  Their latest offering renders content that includes a video stream, a slide deck, notes and other learning resources using a consolidated time line metaphor all using HTML5.  Check it out here.  Simwriter from NexLearn.  Finally, I had a chance to see one of NexLearn’s simulations - normally a Flash-based deliverable - running on an Apple iPad tablet using a new new delivery format they are working on.  We are already in discussions about how to package, deliver and manage these simulations for disconnected on-device playback and hope to have a way to support them in the coming weeks.I suspect there will be three times as many interesting and compelling offer announcements across a full range of products and services in the coming months culminating with activities surrounding the mLearnCon event in late June.  These are interesting times indeed!

Here on the last day of the year, I offer my predications for the big and shaping trends we’ll see in the enterprise mobile learning space for 2012.  As in the past, this year’s list includes predictions across a gamut of new technologies, consumer/buyer trends plus a few anticipated seismic shifts in the world of business that should collectively reshape the landscape for the adoption and accelerated growth of mobile learning for businesses. So, in no certain order, here are my predictions… 1. Mobile Learning Goes Mainstream. Or perhaps this is more a case of the classic "frog in boiling water" scenario. Whatever it is, this one is music to my ears after many years of toiling away to make mLearning a reality for the enterprise. The acceptance of mobile learning within the business community probably won’t happen with much fanfare, it will just happen and be accepted as a "norm" wherein the market no longer asks "should we offer learning to our employees (or partners or customers) via mobile device?" and will simply state "we need to offer learning to our workers via their omnipresent mobiles!" The reasons will be plentiful but largely driven by better/cheaper/more ubiquitous technologies and everyone’s acceptance of the fact we all use our phones (tablets, et al) to improve both personal and business communications and to be more productive. 2. Access Points Diversify.  There will be more types of devices and ways to connect with our mobile learning world in 2012. And I am not just talking about the classic iOS vs. Android vs. other argument but the fact that different classes of hardware will start to get into our learning mix too. By next December, the average corporate learner will likely have a capable smartphone and their desktop/laptop PLUS a media tablet and/or eBook reader and perhaps even a smart TV back at home that is web-connected and runs apps. The ability to move seamlessly from one device experience to another will be critical with complete synchronization of our learning progress, status, achievements, etc. no matter where or when we choose/need to learn. 3. Mobile Web vs. Mobile App Debate Intensifies. Is enterprise mobile learning best delivered via native mobile apps or using mobile web apps? I agree the technologies to create, deploy and manage HTML5-based mobile web apps will greatly improve in 2012 but I don't feel they will mature to the point they can replace all native apps - at least in most of the primary enterprise use cases for learning that’s managed and tracked. The many advantages of mobile web apps - like cross platform OS support for iOS, Android and others - will still be mitigated in key areas like security, off-line storage, sync updates, access to device features like cameras (although this is improving in the spec) plus critical infosec concerns like SSO support when disconnected and remote wipe capabilities that just don’t work in mobile web apps yet. We do sense that mobile web apps will start to take their rightful place when looking to support an organization’s external learners (e.g., partners, customers) where ease of install/access are paramount and the required features can be limited to what’s essential instead of everything that’s required by IT, security and management.  We also think hybrid apps that mix the best of native apps and mobile web apps will have a bigger impact on enterprise mobile learning thoroughout 2012 than just pure mobile web apps for that same market. 4. Flash Falters, HTML5 & ePUBs Gain in Popularity. 2012 will be a pivotal year in the way enterprises must think about designing, producing, delivering and managing their content strategies, and mobility strategies will alter many of our current tool kit and business process choices.  Adobe’s move to stop developing Flash Player plug-ins for mobile web browsers set a BIG BALL in motion that quelled the desire for many Instructional Designers to use pure Flash or popular rapid development tools outputting Flash-based content as their unified content delivery strategy.  Part of this shift was driven by the fact that Flash-based content actually didn’t perform/behave well on most Flash-enabled handsets and tablets especially when the content was local rather than on a server. Much has been said and written about the next wave of HTML5-based authoring tools or updates that will transform yesterday’s authoring tools into tomorrow’s more flexible and functional authoring systems and I suspect we’ll have nice working versions of the top five offerings able to create content that’s both desktop and mobile device friendly by mid year with commercial ready offerings from Adobe, Articulate and a host of others. I also think many teams will begin to rethink their content creation and delivery options resulting in new ways to chuck up or package content that’s friendly to both online and mobile consumption scenarios. One trend is to move away from monolithic, structured 20 to 30 minute courses that worked fine online via a PC towards the notion of shorter, standalone learning objects that can be more easily discovered, accessed and consumed at the time of need from any device/app.  Another counter-balanced trend gaining momentum will be the use of eBook style delivery formats that make it easier to produce and manage long-form content that is far more feature rich than static PDF files. Growing interest in the ePUB content formats, especially media-friendly ePUB-3s, will allow learners to gain more from and interact better with the content packages themselves and enable cool functionality like highlighting, like better indexing/threading and both personal and shared note taking all with the same level of access control and tracking that’s generally only found today with an online eLearning course.      5. Gamification Accelerates mLearning Adoption.  Once everyone has the right devices and organizations accept the mandate to provide training, performance support and business communications via mobile, what will compel learners to participate and keep them engaged when there are so many distractions like Facebook, Twitter, Farmville and mobile shopping? Gamification seems to be a likely answer to that question. Not that companies need to even create "games" per se; rather, the trend will be towards gamifying our standard formal learning actions and informal social interactions through the addition of point systems, achievement leveling/scaling, overall leader boards, badging systems and tangible reward/incentives. Increased awareness of who’s ahead and how can others beat them to the finish line will drive learner engagement and overall organizational behavior and mobile access to these learning materials and communities makes it easier to participate and stay connected whenever the mood suits us. 6. Fewer but More Capable Tablets. I suspect the annual Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") event in Las Vegas next week will have far fewer tech OEMs wading into the tablet pool as compared with January 2011. Apple’s iPad will continue to be the market leader in 2012 though a collection of tablet devices based on Android (in older Honeycomb to newer Ice Cream Sandwich flavors), Microsoft Windows 8 and possibly even RIM’s PlayBook 2.0 OS will continue to eat away at Apple’s market share as organizations seek to take advantage of the tablets for media consumption, user-generated content creation and in situ selling supported. Interest in using tablets for business purposes comes across business sectors large and small alike too and we see the broader trend of tablets replacing laptops in many instances and even becoming shared devices in certain use cases (e.g., retail sales, in field tech trucks, departmental loaners) but requiring enterprise level controls and security too.  7. Cool Mobile Tech Sparks Learning Innovations. The latest mobile devices support a wide array of new features that will ignite some nifty innovations in the learning space throughout 2012. As people and companies replace their older BlackBerries, iPhones and Android devices, their new equipment will sport cool next-gen functions like dual core processors making big media and big data easier to manage on our smaller devices. We will benefit from faster data speeds using LTE ("long term evolution") or true 4G radios enabling quicker access to high value content as well as video access to our experts and web conferencing access to scheduled ILT events. And more advanced operating systems combined with embedded chips will provide support for new forms of proximity computing using Near Field Communication ("NFC") thus allowing new kinds of location-based services for learning. I feel the positive effects of the aforementioned evolutions will be more pronounced than similar advances in areas like augmented reality that will remain costly to design, produce and manage.   8. Market Consolidations Continue/Accelerate.  The big will continue to eat the small as larger vendors seek to increase their market appeal to both customers and investors. According to Bersin & Associates, 2011 already saw several of the tier one Talent Management vendors actively engaged in expanding their market reach and the portfolio offerings through strategic acquisitions and mergers and these moves make the resulting companies far more attractive acquisitions to the larger enterprise software whales that rule their respective oceans. SAP’s planned takeover of SuccessFactors and Oracle’s move on RightNow (approved this week) all are harbingers of more market consolidation as larger companies look to flesh out their cloud, mobile and social strategies.  Summary. That is what I see in my crystal ball. It should prove to be an interesting year for all of us involved in the training & development and technology spaces and I, for one, look forward to seeing how these cited advances and many others we can’t foresee today will influence how we all interact and learn. Happy New Year 2012!

Yesterday was a banner day in the tech biz as Apple unveiled their third generation tablet device to an eager audience and overall market. Apple’s much admired/discussed ability to keep mum on new products and features notwithstanding, the actual device they’ve released is largely a reflection of what the market and consumers hoped for and expected and includes the following key features:       High-rez retina display (2048x1536 with 3.1 million pixels)       Faster A5X processor & quad core graphics support       Standard Wi-Fi and optional 4G/LTE high-speed modem       Improved cameras (front & back) with image stabilization       Content capture at true 1080p HD       Bluetooth 4.0       Voice recognition supporting dictation (but not "Siri")       High capacity batteryThis list of core features and the many other minor additions - all at the same price as the previous iPad 2 - make "The New iPad" the most capable and well-equipped mobile device ever marketed albeit bearing a cumbersome name. My colleague RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez) quipped on Twitter it should be called the "iPad 4G HD 3" which actually seems as good or likely as Apple’s "The New iPad" but I’m sure we’ll all settle in to just referring to it as our iPad.Whatever they call it, I - like millions of others - probably spent a frustrating few hours hitting the refresh button on the Apple Store web site until I was able to then access then painfully move through the process of ordering up several units for our team of developers. When it was all over, I’d spent the better part of an afternoon monitoring the launch event, chatting with colleagues about what we thought/liked/disappointed us, and committing my cash to having the latest and greatest.  And it remains astounding these products can go from "doesn’t actually exist" to being built and packaged and shipped across the planet and into our hands in less than nine days.The New iPad - What It Is and What It Isn’tWhere consensus of opinion proved correct on things like the awesome display, the faster network access, the cameras and even the price points, the fringes of the rumor mill got it wrong on several of their prognostications including enhanced haptic/tactile response and a smaller, 7-inch iPad model amongst others. Having Siri would have been a nice too although time will tell how and if we’re able to leverage the voice recognition technologies through available iOS APIs in order to add a new dimension to enterprise mobile learning.Will this latest iteration of the iPad prove to be as revolutionary as the original iPad or the iPad2 on the learning industry?  Or does it really matter?Frankly, I’m not sure the technical specs are the real story here. The true and tangible benefit to the market is Apple has again raised the ante for all tech OEMs to create better, faster and more innovative mobile devices that can continue to capture the hearts and minds of not only the faithful fan boys like me but also enlist the masses to get into the adoption curve as well. This morning I was happy and surprised to learn that several non-tech geeks I know - friends, family, neighbors - were also hitting Apple’s web store and call centers ordering their own iPad "3"s so they could start taking advantage of the many new features manifest in these "post PC era" computing wonders.I also know my iPad2 will quickly find a home with others around our offices - probably replacing the iPad1s that had previously trickled down to others when the iPad2s shipped last spring.  And unlike most mobile handsets we’ve bought and used over the years, it seems no iPad around here - of any generation - ever lies dormant on a shelf in favor of the latest "shiny object" we might acquire.  Overall, this means the base of devices is growing wide and deep, and that fact alone will accelerate demand and adoption for enterprise mobile learning for organizations of all sizes.  Despite the Apple bias of this post, this is actually good news for ALL tablet devices given the things we can do with them as a general class - be they iOS or Android or PlayBook QNX or Windows 8-based - is changing the way we work, relax and learn.  And so yesterday was a very good day for enterprise mobile learning.  And March 16th - the day the UPS or Fedex guy starts delivering all "The New iPad 4G HD" devices to the homes, offices and retail stores out there - will be yet another. 

I'm pleased to share details about a new social venture I'm supporting with my friend and colleague, RJ Jacquez; namely, a weekly podcast titled This Week in mLearning.  We've already recorded and published our first episode and I welcome the readers of this blog to subscribe to this series where we hope to share leading news stories and happenings across the world of mobile devices and apps in general and Training and Development initiatives in particular.  For those who don't know him (and you should), RJ is an "Über" bright and insightful T-n-D professional, an avid blogger, a budding author, an app designer and one of the recognized talents in our growing industry. He worked as Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe for several years before striking out on his own last December (see bio below).  He now focuses much of his energy and passion in the area of mobility/mLearning recognizing how important the tools, technologies and processes our industry is now developing will be to everyone's ability to learn and prosper now and in all the years to come. For my part, I serve as RJ's sidekick, technical jack-of-all-trades and resident humorist as best I can -- an Andy Richter to his Conan O'Brien if you will -- and will also help mold the conversation based on the practical implementations and experiences I've gained from working with my team here at OnPoint. Most of my experiences in mLearning have been gained through the school of "hard knocks" delivering commercial mobile learning solutions well beyond simply planning or consulting on same for a series of very progressive customers who have thrown caution to the wind and jumped into the deep end of the pool sometime long before these technologies or practices were ready; armed with those experiences, I hope to bring a unique spin to the conversation each week.  We are planning to present relevant news and tips about all things mobile, and also plan to have a variety of guests joining us from time to time to share their real world experiences and talk about new tools and methods too. It should prove to be fun, engaging and hopefully beneficial to all who invest their time to listen.  RJ is also doing "double duty" by recording a podcast each week in Spanish too with Mayra Aixa Villar, another avid mLearning aficionado, blogger and tweeter who hails from Argentina! My Espanol is too rusty to get much from their conversations but I'll reason they will be just as interesting and compelling as anything I can contribute to.You can connect to and subscribe to the podcast series via the following link:This Week in mLearningFinally, here's RJ's bio to learn more about him. My name is RJ Jacquez and I am a Former Adobe Senior Evangelist. I spent 6 years at Adobe Evangelizing existing products and launching new ones. I'm currently writing an eBook on what I learned and why companies need Passionate Evangelist in today' Social Media world. I'm honored to be among great company in the following lists and articles: 1) Top 25 Most Influential Bloggers in Technical Communications (http://bit.ly/a8ooZC) 2) Top 20 most influential tweeters in eLearning, training and HR (http://bit.ly/vScfc0). 3) I was also mentioned in this article on Why Every Company Needs a Robert Scoble (infographic) for my work as an Adobe Evangelist (http://bit.ly/v0IMHs). Please follow me on Twitter @rjacquez 

We've put the finishing touches on our second weekly podcast detailing all the happenings in the mobile learning field for the week of April 9, 2012 and you can listen to RJ Jacquez and I talk about the week that was by clicking the link here.The central theme for this week's episode was a discussion of the use of  "Mobile App vs. Mobile Web" for creating and delivery mobile learning but we also covered a variety of other topics including announcements like Google's new Project Glass initiative, ADL's Project Tin Can preview and recent rumblings from Adobe as to what we can expect in the upcoming Creative Suite 6/CS6 in foundational products like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash and how these new features will help push the boundaries of possibility for mobile learning content creation and deployment.While we're still trying to gain our footing in terms of pace and approach, the first couple of podcasts have been well received and we're appreciative of the comments and suggestions being offered by early listeners. RJ continues to perform double duty by recording a second weekly podcast in Spanish with Mayra Aixa Villar that is bringing benefit and knowledge to a whole other market...I only wish I had paid attention enough in high school Spanish class so I could at least listen to each episode much less participate in any substantive way. I know their episode "dos" will be posted by Monday, April 16th so watch (and listen) for that!Finally, RJ is working to gain approval from Apple to release the weekly recordings to a broader audience via the iTunes App Store and we'll let everyone know when that's a reality.#TWmLearning App of the WeekThis week's choice for App of the Week is Snapguide, which bills itself as "the easiest way to make and share good looking guides".  This free App for iOS devices is quite cleaver and an excellent example of how compelling user generated content can be built on-the-fly using only an iPhone or iPad and easily shared with a broader audience.  Everything is KISS elegent here including and sign-up and friending process.Thanks in advance for listening and please share any comments or ideas with me below so I can pass them on to my fellow podcast collaborators too.Robert  ;?)

As 2012 draws to a close, its time to evaluate how in focus my lens on the future of enterprise mobile learning proved to be this past year and how many of my year ago predictions hit their targets. Back on December 30 2011, I scoped eight predictions ranging from hardware/software to content types and authoring tools to macro-level mobility trends our team felt would influence the market for mLearning products and services for the year and I wasn’t disappointed (or much surprised) about how it all played out. Here’s the analysis of how it all played out.Prediction #1 - Mobile Learning Goes Mainstream. Or perhaps this is more a case of the classic "frog in boiling water" scenario. Whatever it is, this one is music to my ears after many years of toiling away to make mLearning a reality for the enterprise. The acceptance of mobile learning within the business community probably won’t happen with much fanfare, it will just happen and be accepted as a "norm" wherein the market no longer asks "should we offer learning to our employees (or partners or customers) via mobile device?" and will simply state "we need to offer learning to our workers via their omnipresent mobiles!" The reasons will be plentiful but largely driven by better/cheaper/more ubiquitous technologies and everyone’s acceptance of the fact we all use our phones (tablets, et al) to improve both personal and business communications and to be more productive.On Target But... Overall interest in enterprise mobile learning definitely accelerated in 2012 with various surveys reporting that more than a simple majority of Learning and Development teams are committed to identifying ways to implement mobile learning for their workers and perhaps even customers as soon as practical in their organizations. We’ve certainly witnessed much of the inertia being driven at the grass roots level from executives, sales pros and other mobile-equipped employees sporting their own smartphones and tablets rather than in response to strategies being developed by the training department. For enterprise mobile learning to be considered a "bullseye" and truly mainstream, the level of adoption will needs to be measured in wide scale usage not just varying levels of investigation, pilots and strategy development.  All that said, our company witnessed large scale enterprise deployments in 2012 from several early adopter customers and partners who are now being rewarded for their progressive thinking and are now gaining "first mover advantage" over their peers and competitors. And wherein a typical mLearning deployment was measured in 100s of mobile workers back in 2008 through 2010 and in the 1000s of mobile workers as recently as this past year, the target and committed audience for several active programs is expanding to 25K, 50K and more mobile workers for several planned initiatives we are supporting moving into 2013 - that’s something I’ll categorize as mainstream for sure for a lucky few!   Prediction #2 - Access Points Diversify.  There will be more types of devices and ways to connect with our mobile learning world in 2012. And I am not just talking about the classic iOS vs. Android vs. other argument but the fact that different classes of hardware will start to get into our learning mix too. By next December, the average corporate learner will likely have a capable smartphone and their desktop/laptop PLUS a media tablet and/or eBook reader and perhaps even a smart TV back at home that is web-connected and runs apps. The ability to move seamlessly from one device experience to another will be critical with complete synchronization of our learning progress, status, achievements, etc. no matter where or when we choose/need to learn.A Hit & A Miss. The first part of this prediction was "spot on" - enterprise workers are better equipped on the mobile front at the end of 2012 than they’ve ever been. A simple majority of all workers are now sporting data-driven smartphones versus the simple feature phones that have dominated the landscape into 2012. And highly capable tablets and eBook readers now occupy prime real estate in many of our briefcases and messenger bags and likely sit atop everyone else’s tech toy wish list. This recent post suggests more tablets were received/activated on Christmas Day than smartphones fueled by our sustained interest in gadgets to help inform, entertain and hopefully educate us in times of need. I admit the level interest in smart TVs did not materialize in 2012 as I had expected it might for a variety of reasons and without capable intelligent displays in our living rooms learning won’t begin to happen there. I ponder how this would have played out if Apple had ventured into the television market as many analysts expected them to 2012 and that opportunity remains for 2013.Prediction #3 - Mobile Web vs. Mobile App Debate Intensifies. Is enterprise mobile learning best delivered via native mobile apps or using mobile web apps? I agree the technologies to create, deploy and manage HTML5-based mobile web apps will greatly improve in 2012 but I don't feel they will mature to the point they can replace all native apps - at least in most of the primary enterprise use cases for learning that’s managed and tracked. The many advantages of mobile web apps - like cross platform OS support for iOS, Android and others - will still be mitigated in key areas like security, off-line storage, sync updates, access to device features like cameras (although this is improving in the spec) plus critical infosec concerns like SSO support when disconnected and remote wipe capabilities that just don’t work in mobile web apps yet. We do sense that mobile web apps will start to take their rightful place when looking to support an organization’s external learners (e.g., partners, customers) where ease of install/access are paramount and the required features can be limited to what’s essential instead of everything that’s required by IT, security and management.  We also think hybrid apps that mix the best of native apps and mobile web apps will have a bigger impact on enterprise mobile learning thoroughout 2012 than just pure mobile web apps for that same market.Bullseye. The use of native apps continued to dominate the enterprise mobile learning landscape in our experience throughout 2012. Interest in the mobile web app approach remains strong with many organizations especially from those wading into the mobile learning pool for the first time (from both the customer and vendor perspective). True, mobile web app access methods are cheaper to design and deliver in multi-device mobile environments but the feature set still remains limited with respect to things like access to core device features (camera, accelerometer), device security, offline access and experience customization. I agree the HTML5 tools used for mobile development are improving with each and every quarter but it will take a year or more for these capabilities to begin to match the native experience. Finally, given we can deliver mobile learning to our customers using either approach - as we have native app frameworks for every major device and content can also be accessed via any web kit-enabled mobile browser - our actual access stats suggest the majority of mobile learners prefer the native app route and will take the time to download, install and configure an app to gain a better overall learning experience.  And learning vendors (e.g., Brainshark, Plateau/SF/SAP, Saba, Skillsoft) who suggest the mobile web app approach is superior to the native app approach have simply not made the necessary investments required in building the right teams and selecting the proper tools and methods that meet contemporary mobile learner and more general business app mobility expectations.Prediction #4 - Flash Falters, HTML5 and ePUBs Gain in Popularity. 2012 will be a pivotal year in the way enterprises must think about designing, producing, delivering and managing their content strategies, and mobility strategies will alter many of our current tool kit and business process choices.  Adobe’s move to stop developing Flash Player plug-ins for mobile web browsers set a BIG BALL in motion that quelled the desire for many Instructional Designers to use pure Flash or popular rapid development tools outputting Flash-based content as their unified content delivery strategy.  Part of this shift was driven by the fact that Flash-based content actually didn’t perform/behave well on most Flash-enabled handsets and tablets especially when the content was local rather than on a server. Much has been said and written about the next wave of HTML5-based authoring tools or updates that will transform yesterday’s authoring tools into tomorrow’s more flexible and functional authoring systems and I suspect we’ll have nice working versions of the top five offerings able to create content that’s both desktop and mobile device friendly by mid year with commercial ready offerings from Adobe, Articulate and a host of others.I also think many teams will begin to rethink their content creation and delivery options resulting in new ways to chuck up or package content that’s friendly to both online and mobile consumption scenarios. One trend is to move away from monolithic, structured 20 to 30 minute courses that worked fine online via a PC towards the notion of shorter, standalone learning objects that can be more easily discovered, accessed and consumed at the time of need from any device/app.  Another counter-balanced trend gaining momentum will be the use of eBook style delivery formats that make it easier to produce and manage long-form content that is far more feature rich than static PDF files. Growing interest in the ePUB content formats, especially media-friendly ePUB-3s, will allow learners to gain more from and interact better with the content packages themselves and enable cool functionality like highlighting, like better indexing/threading and both personal and shared note taking all with the same level of access control and tracking that’s generally only found today with an online eLearning course.     Near Bullseye. 2012 will be remembered as the year the current shifted on Adobe Flash as the preferred training content and rich media delivery format. Steve Jobs’ 2010 insistence that his company’s devices would rely on more "open standards" based on HTML5 and CSS over the then ubiquitous Flash standard proved both powerful and prophetic resulting in a slow but steady transition away the well established but dated comfort zone our industry had grown accustomed to. Learning tool makers are finally starting to step in to fill the void created by this seismic shift and 2012 witnessed acceptable (albeit inaugural) levels of mobile-centric capabilities coming from several leading and formally Flash-centric stalwarts like Adobe, Articulate, Harbinger, iSpring and others. Early mobile-focused tool innovators like dominKnow and Rapid Intake (now part of Callidus) also benefited from their HTML5 first mover advantages and real world experience making their respective core offerings more flexible and powerful in the mobile realm. Every vendor currently stuck with Flash-only content delivery methods is extolling the virtue of their "soon to be released" HTML5 (or other mobile friendly) offerings to stay relevant in the face of all these new choices. And many of these product refreshes are working to include other mobile-optimized extensions like the Tin Can/Experience API that will make mobile tracking easier to manage and manage. Finally, I really like what’s happened on the ePUB front though there’s still a lack of nice tools for creating cross-platform/device compatible eBook-style deliverables. I’d love to see some nice innovation in this area in 2013 knowing this new world content/media packaging movement represents a truly fresh and interactive way to rethink a plethora of mobile content use cases.Prediction #5 - Gamification Accelerates mLearning Adoption.  Once everyone has the right devices and organizations accept the mandate to provide training, performance support and business communications via mobile, what will compel learners to participate and keep them engaged when there are so many distractions like Facebook, Twitter, Farmville and mobile shopping? Gamification seems to be a likely answer to that question. Not that companies need to even create "games" per se; rather, the trend will be towards gamifying our standard formal learning actions and informal social interactions through the addition of point systems, achievement leveling/scaling, overall leader boards, badging systems and tangible reward/incentives. Increased awareness of who’s ahead and how can others beat them to the finish line will drive learner engagement and overall organizational behavior and mobile access to these learning materials and communities makes it easier to participate and stay connected whenever the mood suits us.On Target But...The word "gamification" definitely entered the lexicon of many training teams in 2012 although what is means/represents is still in question and misunderstood by many and debate of its merits will continue well into 2013. For the uninitiated, gamification as it relates to learning is the practice of applying game mechanics and dynamics - commonly things like points, badges and leader boards (and so much more) - to non-gaming activities or learning interactions to drive engagement and accelerate business outcomes. As a vendor who offers a fully integrated "gamification engine" that ties directly to an online and mobile LMS platform, I can comfortably say two things: (1) gamification is NEVER going to marginalize nor replace the efforts of real game designers and the highly polished, immersive and effective environments they deliver (nor was it ever meant to), and (2) gamification IS making a real difference in driving learning engagement, improving product/service knowledge levels and increasing organization performance when applied to the proper learning interactions and situations. We’ve seen training completion and knowledge retention rates in game-enabled learning environments increase anywhere from 200% to more than 900% meaning more people are actively engaged and better prepared to perform their jobs. True, not all organizations are ready to take a leap at adding gamified learning practices into their mix but they certainly should be open to checking out what’s possible/practical without dismissing it outright for reasons various pundits assume but generally can’t confirm.Prediction #6 - Fewer but More Capable Tablets. I suspect the annual Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") event in Las Vegas next week will have far fewer tech OEMs wading into the tablet pool as compared with January 2011. Apple’s iPad will continue to be the market leader in 2012 though a collection of tablet devices based on Android (in older Honeycomb to newer Ice Cream Sandwich flavors), Microsoft Windows 8 and possibly even RIM’s PlayBook 2.0 OS will continue to eat away at Apple’s market share as organizations seek to take advantage of the tablets for media consumption, user-generated content creation and in situ selling supported. Interest in using tablets for business purposes comes across business sectors large and small alike too and we see the broader trend of tablets replacing laptops in many instances and even becoming shared devices in certain use cases (e.g., retail sales, in field tech trucks, departmental loaners) but requiring enterprise level controls and security too. Near Bullseye. There’s a large and growing chorus that tablets are the first and only viable way to deliver highly functional mobile experiences - from sales tools to performance support to line of business applications to learning - to our on-the-go enterprise workers. Having spent eight plus years developing mobile learning solutions for the enterprise, I would tend to disagree with that statement but will concede that tablets have captured our attentions and are driving new and renewed interest in enterprise mobility solutions spanning a wide array of business use cases. Part of this trend is less about the tablet being a better form factor than a smartphone but more about the tablet being a more practical and cost effective alternative to a standard issue laptop. Companies across industries and geographies alike are replacing last generation PCs with next generation tablets for myriad reasons including being instant on, always connected and often just more fun to use and interact with. As predicted, the number and variety of tablets introduced throughout 2012 was smaller than seen in 2011 and serious market leadership was relegated to a select number of tier one vendors including Apple, Samsung, Google/Motorola and Amazon fighting to stay a few steps ahead of tier two competitors like RIM, Microsoft, Lenovo, Barnes & Noble. Despite the fragmentation at all levels, the lion’s share of tablet adoption for mobile learning within the enterprise was concentrated on Apple’s various iPad offerings especially when firms were looking to equip their sales teams and executives.  I think Apple will continue to be the majority player for the next year although their overall market share will continue to erode to the benefit of various Android-based alternatives. Microsoft had a tough go of trying to convince the market that their Windows 8 and RT/Surface-based tablets were the right enterprise alternative to the iPad as evidenced here.  And being the low cost provider in this sector hasn’t proved to make much of a difference in what an enterprise will purchase for their mobile workers.Prediction #7 - Cool Mobile Tech Sparks Learning Innovations. The latest mobile devices support a wide array of new features that will ignite some nifty innovations in the learning space throughout 2012. As people and companies replace their older BlackBerries, iPhones and Android devices, their new equipment will sport cool next-gen functions like dual core processors making big media and big data easier to manage on our smaller devices. We will benefit from faster data speeds using LTE ("long term evolution") or true 4G radios enabling quicker access to high value content as well as video access to our experts and web conferencing access to scheduled ILT events. And more advanced operating systems combined with embedded chips will provide support for new forms of proximity computing using Near Field Communication ("NFC") thus allowing new kinds of location-based services for learning. I feel the positive effects of the aforementioned evolutions will be more pronounced than similar advances in areas like augmented reality that will remain costly to design, produce and manage.  Target Missed. It’s true that better and faster devices were everywhere this year but I think most of these delivered innovation promises failed to have much effect on driving the learning side of the market. And while I am pleased to have LTE-enhanced handsets and tablets at my beck and call, the learning experience hasn’t really improved appreciably because I had a faster connection. The promise of NFC, location-based services and augmented reality-based use cases were not attained either nor did they seem to be compelling enough for our customers to demand these sorts of services - at least not yet. Prediction #8 - Market Consolidations Continue/Accelerate.  The big will continue to eat the small as larger vendors seek to increase their market appeal to both customers and investors. According to Bersin and Associates, 2011 already saw several of the tier one Talent Management vendors actively engaged in expanding their market reach and the portfolio offerings through strategic acquisitions and mergers and these moves make the resulting companies far more attractive acquisitions to the larger enterprise software whales that rule their respective oceans. SAP’s planned takeover of SuccessFactors and Oracle’s move on RightNow (approved this week) all are harbingers of more market consolidation as larger companies look to flesh out their cloud, mobile and social strategies. On Target.  The big continued to eat the small throughout 2012 in an effort to protect market share while bolstering their portfolios with innovative product and service offerings at all ends of the business spectrum. Tier Ones like Oracle captured Tier Twos like Taleo to strengthen cloud and talent appeals alike. IBM consumed Kenexa right after they had acquired LCMS vendor Outstart who had previously bought Hot Lava for their mobile learning offering - a food chain process that will be repeated time and again. Several of the LMS/TM players like Saba, Cornerstone on Demand and Callidus Cloud each gobbled up smaller and flexible innovators across a variety of disciplines to beef up their product suites and help tell a better story to both customers and investors. I suspect even more of the same in 2013 especially with the looming uncertainty the financial and general business markets and the effects these constraints will have on R&D budgets and resulting lack of innovation coming from hobbled teams.So, that’s a wrap for 2012. Stand by for my 2013 predictions in the next few days as we look into what the future hold for enterprise mobile learning.  And thanks for reading this and sharing it with others too!  Robert ;)

Oh what a difference a few years makes, eh? Our team has been involved in mobile learning for enterprise customers for almost a decade now on devices spanning basic feature phones in the beginning (think old Nokia handsets with voice only service) through simple smartphone devices (remember Windows Mobile?) popular four or five years ago. The next few years of the enterprise mLearning landscape were focused on supporting mobile workers equipped with nearly ubiquitous BlackBerry smartphones from Research in Motion; sure, there were some new Apple iPhones out there and Google had just introduced Android into the market but real companies needed real devices with real security so most organizations sought to leverage those BlackBerry populations for their mobile learning needs. What transpired next will become fodder for many future business case studies as the venerable RIM/BlackBerry began to lose market share to more sexy iOS and Android-based alternatives due to what the market perceived as a lack of innovation coming from the folks in Waterloo.  Enterprise IT organizations started thinking about devices that were fun to use, had more capable features and better web browsers, and provided extensive app ecosystems to meet address unique business requirements. Much of the pressure on these teams to start considering non-RIM hardware was driven at the grassroots level via the consumer-oriented adoption of Apple iPhones and iPads and Motorola Droids that began to sweep through the market. When the sales executive up in the corner office demands she needs her new personal handset or tablet working with corporate email server and connected to the office Wi-Fi network, yesterday’s mobile device risks were suddenly evaluated under different light thus driving a wedge into the restrictive mobile device policies enforced by many IT security teams. None of these facts was lost on RIM, their ecosystem or their investors for that matter. Over the past year, RIM (now officially renamed BlackBerry in both name and core product) has transformed the company’s vision and strategy in the mobile computing market to dramatically transform both their product hardware and the underlying mobile device software with differentiated, next generation offerings that leverage past strengths as well as support future ones. All this culminated today with the official launch of the BlackBerry 10 operating system and announcement of the first two of six planned handsets - the touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 and the upcoming QWERTY-based BlackBerry Q10. These devices are launching globally in the coming weeks/months and are sure to not just energize the CrackBerry faithful with long-awaited features but also begin to rebuild their base with new customers who feel the current crop of mobile offerings leaves them wanting something different and more secure.  Our team has had the good fortunate to work on project to bring our CellCast Solution platform for enterprise mobile learning to the BlackBerry 10 device platform and we officially launched our new offering in the BlackBerry App World earlier this month in support of today’s product introduction (along with 70K other applications). The core functionality of our new BB10 app is virtually identical feature-wise to all our other native smartphone, tablet and eBook reader apps in other popular App stores but what sets this new app apart from its siblings is the "wow factor" users gain from BlackBerry’s new Cascades-based development environment and interface. The level of what’s possible has easily changed by an order of magnitude from the current BlackBerry/BBOS7 operating environment versus this new realm.As evidence, the picture above shows our current BlackBerry 7 CellCast app next to our new BlackBerry 10 CellCast app each configured with the same selection of features and options. The graphical interface is more engaging and simplified - hallmarks of the new "less is more" mobile design doctrine my friends like RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez) and Mayra Aixa Villar (@mayraAixaVillar) both espouse. Both apps allow users to access training content, complete surveys, interact within defined social networks, and actively participate in game-enabled learning environments and check their status on leader boards - the BB10 just makes all those formal and informal learning interactions more enjoyable. Overall, the "look and feel" is truly wonderful as you’ll see in the short promo video included below that I produced using another excellent feature found on the BlackBerry 10 that’s not found on many other smartphone handsets - HDMI video output that can be recorded by an external video source. Add to that some other compelling BB10-only features like BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Balance and the new video-capable BlackBerry Messenger/BBM with cool screen sharing capabilities to amass even more reasons (beyond control and tight security) why enterprises are going include BlackBerry 10 solutions in their mobile computing universes. BlackBerry 10 will definitely improve the mobile learning experience for all who adopt and use one.Finally, my thanks to our whole team who worked diligently to design, create, test and deploy our next generation app for all our BlackBerry 10 users, partners and customers - you make me proud! :)

First off, my apologies to all subscribers for being absent for so long in posting anything new to this blog. While my time and focus have never veered away from all things enterprise mobile learning centric, the time to write my thoughts down and share them with subscribers has been in short supply. The advent of our updated corporate web presence in the coming weeks has energized my efforts to write and share so hopefully this will be the first of many new postings in the coming months and quarters. Onward and upward, eh?This inaugural "Generation 2" blog posting comes on the heels of a tectonic shift in the mobile learning authoring tool wars…namely, the availability last week of Adobe Captivate 8 officially unveiled on May 20, 2014 in company press releases. The introduction was also several months ahead of rumors I’d heard from others "in the know" who had alluded to an arrival later this fall. As such things go, I spent many unplanned hours over the recent 3-day holiday weekend here in the US digging into what this new release holds and its significance on the mobile learning community moving forward. Upon initial review, Adobe Captivate 8 is well positioned as a key technology for heralding in a new era of "mobile first" capabilities and attitudes that can accelerate change and ultimately transform a mobile learning landscape that has plodded along for years. It couldn’t come at a better time.One of the web tangents I followed over the long weekend brought me to a blog posting by Dr. Allen Partridge, Senior Technical Evangelist for eLearning Products at Adobe Systems, who recently penned "The Mobile Learning Tipping Point" on Adobe’s Rapid eLearning/Captivate Blog. Dr. Partridge’s article poses several interesting and provocative thoughts on the "state of the union" of mLearning and his words rallied me to not only to think but also to respond. I happened upon that posting after reviewing a great set of video tutorials exploring Cp8 prepared by Dr. Partridge along with Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, Adobe’s Senior eLearning Evangelist for learning products and I encourage you to check out this informative collection of videos which are certainly worth your time if you are curious about Cp8’s many new features and improvements.As a technologist who has been involved in the enterprise mLearning space for 10+ years - spanning features phones at the outset into web access on smartphones on through native apps for handsets, tablets, eReaders and all manner of other intelligent, connected devices - I can assert that interest in mobile learning from the device-enabled masses is truly real and the proverbial tipping point Dr. Partridge refers to is now or well within our immediate reach. Myriad obstacles contributed to the slow pace of market adoption over the years and the widely held view by several pundits and experts that mobile learning might not be a ready for prime time. The four most commonly cited limitations included the "lack of capable smart devices" (reality: smartphones now outsell feature phones, and tablets outsell traditional laptops as well), the "lack of interest" to use mobile devices for anything besides making calls and sending texts/emails (reality: the simple majority of information access over the web now happens via a mobile device), the perceived "lack of security" (reality: enterprise-grade mLearning is actually MORE secure than traditional eLearning), and the "lack of flexible tools and platforms" to package and present mLearning courseware (reality: the mobile experience can actually be as good or even BETTER than an online experience). I have experienced all of these challenges from the front lines of enterprise mobile Ed Tech and while new challenges arise all the time, yesterday’s complaints have largely been squelched and progressive organizations of all sizes have attained fantastic, measurable results mobile learning, performance support and business communications.And like the world of mobile tech in general, the landscape of enabling tech providing support for mLearning is also evolving at a rapid rate with most passing quarters yielding better tools, templates, and approaches. In one fell swoop, Adobe has significantly "changed the game" from what (until recently) I considered their "sub-standard support" for mobile learning in Captivate 5/6/7 to what’s now clearly an offering that’s running at or certainly with the front of the pack of authoring tools for mobile content.What’s my one word review of the new Captivate 8? How about "WOW!"The new Cp8 has great features, a simplified user interface for instructional designers, lots of flexibility to build content along with simulations, learning interactions, quizzes and even some simple game-enabled learning elements all through one industry standard and market recognized offering. And Cp8 is competitively priced as well costing less than $20/month via Adobe’s Creative Cloud services. In all honesty, I have complained many times to customers and partners alike about my disappointment in Adobe’s learning products not keeping up with the progressive and innovative feature sets they already offered in their other tools like InDesign and Dreamweaver. I guess they have finally found a way to get me to shut up and get onboard by actively endorsing their new product and approach.Not only does Cp8 provide support for a highly customizable set of responsive content templates, a plethora of extended features also make it easy to set "smart positioning" of graphical and text objects, to include support for common haptic responses like swipes, pinches/zooms, to include geo-location support, to add quizzes and interactions that leverage device accelerometers, and to preview your responsive projects across the common online-tablet-handset display metaphors using Adobe’s Edge Inspect offering (based on Adobe Shadow, I’d reason). Our team still needs to dig into the gory technical details on the various Cp8 publication options for output/delivery to LMS platforms as well as native app-focused delivery, bookmarking support between modalities for multi-screen learners, and available support for xAPI statements but overall Cp8 represents a giant leap forward and it will help virtually all their current customers bridge the gap between online and mobile faster, easier and with better results. They are likely to grab converts from other authoring tools as well.With Cp8, Adobe is clearly advancing what’s possible in our mLearning universe and coaxing the whole industry through that elusive "tipping point" we’ve anticipated for years. Clearly, other mainstream authoring tool vendors must now respond in kind with their own responsive and "mobile first" offerings or concede the field to what’s proving to be a very advanced and practical solution for enterprise mobile content authoring. And I think The Gartner Group should rethink that 10-year adoption landscape Allen referred to in his original posting too.So, congrats to Adobe for a job well done - a long, long time in coming but nicely executed in the end.  And thanks for inspiring me to get back into the blogosphere as well.

Not much to report this week. Did some cleanup work for Act 2 which finishes the line work for that specific shot. Still needed is flat color and shading and a background, then it's good to go.7-13 - 7-19: 2 hours

This week I have started my new workflow which aims to tie down animation quicker and more efficiently. I am able to work with Ido more cooperatively in showing accurate visuals of timing and movement. Using this method, changes are easily made as we can add and delete frames in a more timely manner without spending much time tying down poses until they see final color.Of course, this method doesn't actually speed up the animation process at all. Why? Because I've upped the animation quality yet again. What does that mean for the movie? Basically, now that I'm able to see exactly how a shot is going to look, I can play with the timing and make the characters move more realistically and fluidly, creating a richer viewing experience. More frames = smoother animation and overall raises the bar on production quality which is what I strive to do continually throughout the animation process. It's going to be good.7-20 - 7-26: 5 hours

Lots of progress made this week. The new workflow seems to be very helpful in the development of accurate timing. The Act 2 pencil test has been finished and has received Ido's approval. There were a few things changed in terms of timing and shot composition, but it's good to go. It came to about 13-14 seconds of new animation over the course of 6 shots.In other news, I'm still finalizing one of the shots with color so I can post a screenshot. Coloring it takes so long because the shot is over 30 hand drawn frames for 2 characters. It may take some time, but giving you guys some eye candy is a high on my to do list.7-27 - 8-2: 17 hours

OK, so, here's a screenshot.You may recognize this image as the prelim was posted 10 months ago. The entire 60 frame animation of this shot has been completed, and this is just one of them. This takes place at the end of Act 2 after Sonic becomes hyper. Hope you guys like it.8-3 - 8-9: 15 hours 15 minutes

Not much happened this week. Didn't have much time to work on it as I had hoped. Flash kept on crashing at work so I wasn't able to get anything done.8-10 - 8-16: 1 hour 30 minutes

Here's a little something for you patient fans of mine:Here's a preliminary sketch of Hyper Sonic looking badass. Another shot from the final seconds of Act 2. This image is solid proof that progress is being made, albeit a slow pace.

Here is the finalized animation of Hyper Sonic previously showcased last week. It shows all of the steps taken to get a sketch into full color. Hope you guys enjoy it.

More of the same. Tying down frames, doing line work. This week I would like to clean up some line work.I've been keeping accurate records of the project as time has passed. It's fun to look back and see different incremental saves and seeing the amount of progress that's been made over the years. In the future, I'd like to break down certain shots and go through them in-depth and talk about how it was set up and created and everything that goes along with the workflow at the time. But that won't be until after the movie is released. Stay strong.8-31 - 9-6: 5 hours

More cleanup work, just taking it easy for a while. Classes began and I'm just starting to get a new routine going. Homework will eventually get in the way of Cosmic Chase but I'll try not to let it overshadow it completely.9-7 - 9-13: 2 hours 15 minutes

No progress this week. Computer was down for half the week as my power supply blew out late Sunday night. Had to order a replacement and what not. Been busy with school and other stuff.Mega Man 9 came out today for Wii. Can't wait to check it out.I'm selling this Guitar Hero 3 bundle of mine on ebay.9-14 - 9-20: 0 hours :(

No progress this week either. I ended up upgrading my computer to the fact that I ended up building one. It's a pretty beefy budget system that's great for gaming and working.Chassis: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813141005CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184Graphics Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150314PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005In the near future I want to get another graphics card to run SLI. The new Adobe CS4 suite utilizes GPUs now so running Flash and Photoshop should be much faster. Not to mention rendering in Maya will take less time.9-21 - 9-27: 0 hours :(

So October has come and gone and I didn't work on CC all that much. Currently I have no idea when I will get the motivation and time to work on the project, but I do work on it inbetween homework now and then.Total time: 3 hours 45 minutes

I hope you guys enjoyed the April Fools pic. It was indeed a joke, but the part about my job is real.