We released Oregon State University’s first official iPhone application recently. Three of us worked on the application for many months and also helped define the licensing requirements that would allow us to release this application via the Apple Standard licensing type. This basically allows anyone to download the application using iTunes. It was a wild (and mostly enjoyable) ride with several twists and turns. First, a little about the application: The OSU Campus Tree Tour iPhone/iPad application is the first official iPhone application released by Oregon State University. The application uses photos, GPS, maps, and research-based tree information to learn about the different trees on and around campus while "on the go." The iPhone application provides information about tree leaf type, tree bloom, whether a tree is native to Oregon, and a page number reference to the OSU Extension Trees to Know handbook. The application uses a place-based approach to learning and is extensible. This is important as we plan on adding more themed tree tours as the weather improves here on campus. Here’s a link to the iTunes description and download. We look forward to your input. I would be remiss in not mentioning some of the key players in the app development. Nick Piatt did a wonderful job as our lead programmer, Aaron Senecal provided graphical support and Dave King, our Associate Provost really provided the initial vision for an iPhone application and provided us with the resources and backing we needed to see the project through. Jos Accapadi from Central Web Services partnered with us to define licensing and a path to sustain the application. David Baker from University Advancement also partnered with licensing efforts and marketing. Shayne Huddleston from CWS also deserves mention for his assistance with Red Mine and software archival process. Lastly, Pat Breen, Professor Emeritus in Horticulture was our subject matter expert and kept the project enjoyable. Hope you’ll download the app! The post Our New OSU Campus Tree Tour iPhone/iPad Application appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

I’ve had several recent discussions with colleagues about whether one’s blogging actually influences others in meaningful ways. And we’re not just talking about page views, comments, and pingbacks. Over the last several years of blogging, I’ve searched for articles or studies that examine blogging from a more rigorous social science perspective and have found very little. A group of us presented on the topic a year ago at a conference and shared some lessons learned. There is of course a sizable amount of advice, like the Slideshare presentation referenced above, that covers blogging guidelines, how to convert readers into customers (marketing), understanding analytics (number of visitors, length of visit, etc.); but in terms of a more traditional longitudinal study that captures a group’s changed behavior over time, very little. I’ve been asking myself why this is the case while sporadically scanning the web for something new on the topic. My primary goal for this post is to generate some discussion. I don’t pretend to have the answers yet, just informed questions. (1) Should blogging be viewed as a discrete activity with predictable input and output? The most obvious challenge presents itself when simply trying to define blogging. For example, does micro-blogging justify inclusion (Twitter, etc.)? What is the difference between a webpage and a blog? How often does a blog require update for it to be a blog and do academic requirements apply if the hoped for output is scholarship? Even if we agree on a definition today, technology advances will quickly unravel our current conventions and approach. There are some other challenges related to definition. While a sizable scholarship discusses the physiological and cognitive processes underlying the act of reading and writing, blogging is a different animal. Blogging is physiological and cognitive, but occurs within a more complex cultural web of competing influences. In many ways, blogging demonstrates some of the original objectives of the printing press in exaggerated fashion: mass distribution and democratization of knowledge creation.  Consequently, some of the more interesting discussions about blogging situate blogging against the larger and interconnected world of social media and personal knowledge creation and management (see Harold Jarche’s blog). While there are some interesting domain-specific discussions on how blogging impacts a discipline or industry (or more recently a country’s form of government), the social dimension of blogging must also explain how blogging contributes to the individual’s connection to the online community network that is the Internet. And that’s just for starters. So, even the most informed current descriptive framework is at best a crude working model when applied to tomorrow’s usage. As mentioned, blogging in its current form happens across a spectrum of cognitive processes (reading, writing, scanning, categorizing), media, cultures, and conventions. Studying something this broad in scope is an obvious challenge. (2) Is blogging really "epiphenomenal"? Lawrence Solum wrote an interesting article entitled "Blogging and the Transformation of Legal Scholarship" (2006). It’s dense and the conclusions reached are based on anecdote and personal impression. However, Solum makes some important points. First, he suggests that blogging is "epiphenomenal," or basically several layers removed from the more important underlying influences.  He also suggests that the value of blogging can be reduced to three main transitions or paradigm shifts:  the long form to short form, exclusive rights to open access, and mediation to disintermediation. Some of his rationale is specific to legal scholarship, but I find much of his reasoning applies to all forms of blogging, especially academic blogging. He has much more to say, but he summarizes his paper with the following thoughts: I have argued for the proposition that blogs are symptoms of the larger forces at work in the world of legal scholarship. The importance of blogs, if any, is as the medium (or technology) through which the incentives and institutional forces that are pushing legal scholarship toward the short form, open access, and disintermediation are doing their work. If it had not been blogs, it would have been something else. If someone invents a medium that provides a more effective or less costly mechanism through which the forces can operate, then blogs will recede and that medium will take their place. It’s not about the blogging…. But I do have an opinion: blogs will play only a modest supporting role in the future of legal scholarship. Scholarship is about ‘papers,’ not ‘posts.’ Imagine the early beneficiaries of the printing press holding their Gutenberg Bible in one hand and a list of printing press 2.0 features in the other. Our culture today participates in defining new technologies in ways that are unimaginable several hundred years ago but the inclusion of rapidly changing technologies make these waters both deep and opaque, especially if we are looking for predictive models that cut across industries, blog objectives, and fluctuating cultural influences. (3) Is the "Long Tail" better than no tail? The concept of the long tail is an important concept in understanding how blog impact can be measured relative to other communication approaches. Truth be told, I only find a tiny fraction of existing blogs worth following—perhaps 5-10 total. Sure, I peruse a longer list sporadically, but time is precious and I’m very picky about my syndicated reading activities. Thankfully, many online micro-communities are much larger than the local "macro" communities I rub shoulders with in my locale. So, even though my online audience may seem small compared to the total online community, I’m usually reaching a much larger audience (albeit more superficially) using blogging technology than I could ever reach using most other communication technologies—and, with a minimal ongoing effort. The "ROI" equation generally comes down favorably from this perspective and as mentioned, the Internet is filled with these types of testimonials. (4) Is blogging truly equitable? Blogging nobility and the techno-peasants While blogging is often described as a "leveling" communication technology, I’m convinced that there are clearly the "haves" and "have-nots" in terms of audience size. So, is it fair to say that the blogging nobility generally attract tremendous traffic and the rest of us find our place on the long tail? If so, how does one push through the strata and become blogging nobility? More importantly, is this even advisable? I’ve read books like "Crush It" by  Gary Vaynerchuk, but they often strike me as 8 parts reality TV and 2 parts substance. No disrespect to Gary as his efforts are laudable, but I struggle with leaning on examples that sell the process along with the product and rely primarily on personal branding. This approach excludes a vast number of bloggers in various institutional contexts who must be very careful about pushing their own personal brand alongside their university, company, or organizational branding. While there are indeed some helpful tips in books like "Crush It," I’ve found that common to all of these stories is that blogging superstars spend a tremendous amount of time "feeding the machine." At some point, they have become "full-time" bloggers who build personal brand through a practiced Zen-like coordination of relationship building activity (much of which has nothing to do with a blog per se): conferences, guest writing, coalition building, workshop hosting, etc. There also seems to be a certain quelque chose that is often captured in their online persona and commitment to, or knowledge of a topic that attracts others. Blogging simply makes their voice more accessible to an already interested population.  Nevertheless, how do they keep an audience’s interest over time and grow that audience? In the same way that an alumni office or insurance company depends on the health of their personal network, blogging heavyweights who outlast a single post of viral interest seem to have found the balance between the high time commitment their social media channels demand and their business or financial requirements. In short, they figure out how to make the commitment work for them. For the already famous, blogging is an extension of already established reputation (think of following Bill Gates via Twitter), but for the handful of bloggers who have made blogging their living or have entered the rarified air of the blogging elite, it would be fascinating to know whether any common principles can be derived between different domains, i.e. academic, business, political. So, in the spirit of a level playing field that pulls in diverse viewpoints, I would like to hear your thoughts on these topics. I will also welcome some guest writers to the blog over the next month and ask for their opinions, especially around the questions asked in my post. What would the ideal study or article examine if it were to adequately define this question of "do blogs change lives" and how can we measure our impact beyond statistics and comments? How often and by how much does the "long tail" exceed the reach of our local audience? Is this justification enough for our blogging effort? What principles or common approaches jettison some into the blogging nobility? Like Jim Collin’s profile study of successful CEOs, "Good to Great," or the recent case study of the New York Times Interactive News Technology department, what do blogging superstars have in common and how do we measure our ROI relative to our career objectives? I would particularly welcome a guest post from someone outside of academia. Please let me know if you’re interested. The post Is Blogging Really Worth My Time? Throwing Down The Gauntlet (Part 1) appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

Vimeo Vimeo is optimized for HD video (default playback setting) and gives the user numerous ways to share and distribute video. However, Vimeo, like YouTube, works best when your video is exported and optimized for the compression settings Vimeo prefers. Keep in mind that these settings change sporadically, so it’s best to check the Vimeo website for the latest information if you are working on a high profile project. Vimeo is especially well suited for embedding higher quality video as there are numerous playback options and Vimeo sets their default values somewhat higher for video playback. This can be either an advantage or disadvantage depending on your audience. Vimeo compression website: http://www.vimeo.com/help/compression If you are using Final Cut Pro to export your video, here are some helpful tips related to settings. Again, it’s wise to check the most current settings on the Vimeo site before moving into a large export project. (1) Export Type You can export your videos using File->Export-> Quicktime Conversion or File->Send To->Compressor. The compressor provides more settings and also allows you to save a profile such as "Vimeo Export Settings." (2) Format and User Type Format: MP4 User: LAN/Intranet (3) Specifications Click on the Options Button-> Video format: H.264 Data rate: 4500-5000 kbits/sec (may need to drop this to 3000 if you expect "slower" systems playing this content Image size: 1280×720 Frame rate: current / key frame = 30 fps (4) Audio Click on the Audio Button (on top)-> AAC-LC, 320 kbps, channels=stereo, output sample rate=44.100khz, encoding quality=better YouTube Technical requirements for uploading video to YouTube http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=165543| You’ll notice that the recommended export settings are very similar to Vimeo although the data rate is "automatic," which could drop your intended image and audio quality below desired thresholds. So, should you use Vimeo or YouTube? This is a difficult question. Ideally, you should use both. The platforms have become very similar in terms of technical features, but YouTube is still the preferred platform for reaching a larger audience. Vimeo plays video by default in HD (YouTube plays HD only when the user selects this option—assuming the video is available in HD format) and still seems to use slightly higher quality settings for playback. So, if you are sure your end users have slower connectivity speeds, i.e. dial up, or are primarily rural-YouTube is often the preferred choice to ensure quicker download. Both platforms allow videos to be embedded on remote websites and allow keywords, channel/album association, customized shells, etc. Another visible difference concerns advertisements. Currently, even when using a Vimeo Plus account, your Vimeo videos will playback on webpages that contain advertisements—normally at the bottom of the page. YouTube does not push advertising alongside of video playback, but you must be careful when directing users outside of your dedicated channel or embedded pages as videos played outside of this can sometimes associate with "unsavory" or inappropriate videos that show up on the heels of your screen in the form of thumbnails. The post YouTube versus Vimeo — What’s the Difference? appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

While technology is often about manipulating physical matter to achieve some kind of efficiency or product, it is also very much about perspective and thinking about doing old things in new ways. And so, it hasn’t surprised me that my own thinking of technology has been heavily influenced by watching how my 10- and 6-year old boys interact with computers, mobile devices, and new media. Perhaps the most relevant part of this discussion stems from one important observation-the issue of technology adoption is largely moot for the young in many contexts. Past habits, preconceptions, and preferences rarely factor in for kids as they pick up a new technology and I am often left wondering whether or not the lessons I learned as a linguist (in my past academic life) about how kids acquire language resembles their uptake of technology. Some of the more well-known linguists, like Pinker or Chomsky, have referred to this as the "language instinct" and I must admit I see a very similar latent competency in my own children. This kind of in-born fluency with technology acquisition is also discussed in one of my favorite TED talks by Sugata Mitra. The "Hole in the Wall" talk asserts that very poor children in the slums of India are predisposed to acquire technology skills when Internet-ready computers mysteriously show up embedded in neighborhood walls. It’s a fascinating study and Sugata is relying heavily on the belief that kids are hard-wired to learn technology. A little closer to home…here are some observations about how my own kids’ interface with technology has informed some of my thinking in this area. 1. Adoption of new technology is primarily schema changing for adults and schema acquisition for youth. This has various implications and I’m leaning hard on a specific model of learning theory. I’ve seen the same issue in play when learning and teaching foreign language as an adult. Adults are oftentimes scaffolding new information around already acquired schema whereas children (with their reduced experience and improved mental "plasticity") are establishing new neuronal connections with little "extra" mental processing, hence, children tend to learn language more with greater potential to reach native speaker pronunciation. Example: My children see very little difference between an Apple, Windows and iOS mobile platform. They have not established opinions and been exposed to marketing, peer value statements and prolonged exposure to earlier iterations. They therefore move quickly and seamlessly between devices. Locating user preferences, cameras, games, video editing—no problem for them and no real preference (if you ask them) about which platform is better. It just is. 2. Children "get" technology as soon as they find a relevant purpose. On some level, this holds true for adults as well, but we’re often forced to prioritize our technology usage and can quickly relegate new technologies to the recycling bin. Example: When augmented reality (AR) came out, I found it interesting, but could not find any practical uses in my own life. The same might be true (so far) of RFID and most iPhone apps. My youngest quickly found that the lego.com website allows him to print different Lego vehicle pages with AR markers placed in the middle. He now holds up the AR printouts in front of the computer so that he can see the 3-D AR lego ship appear on the monitor. He was also pointed to the iPhone game for the site, which encouraged him to use my phone to scan the box of a certain Lego box to receive more points. Admittedly, there is some unneeded advertising here, but he was more than excited to join me on my recent trip to the store where he opened the app, accessed my mobile device camera, scanned the box, and jumped right back into the game. To some degree, I’ve already ruled out AR, RFID, and some of the scanning technologies. He has no such opinion and will most likely continue using it, even if he has months of non-usage in between. It felt a little bit like a glimpse of the future for me. 3. The curiosity children exhibit towards technology is often unusually strong. Example: Chase bank recently announced that their iPhone app allows customers to take a photo of their check and make this deposit remotely—no ATM needed. While other smaller banks have moved in this direction, Chase is the first mainstream bank to do this. When I shared this with my wife, she immediately wanted to know about the security issues and constraints. She was not very excited. I know that if my children get a hold of this, they will move quickly to use the technology without a single neuron slowing down the adoption process. Sounds like the perfect experiment! While these are obviously anecdotal stories couched in my own set of quasi-scientific opinions, each example reminds me that technology just "is" for children. As adults, we obviously have a responsibility to bring discretion to the larger issue of how and when technology is used, but I think that we are well served by acknowledging that we have an awful lot to learn from our kids in this domain and we are surely looking at the future as we watch children use technology to seamlessly connect the private, public, consumer, and personal domains of our cultural terrain. The post Technology for the Next Decade - What I’ve Learned from Children appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

Netflix surpassed yet another milestone this week: It now has more subscribers than the largest cable TV operator in the U.S. You heard right…that’s 23.6 million users to be exact… an awful lot of subscribers. Their subscription base grew over 70% last year and that means that more than 7% of Americans now subscribe to Netflix. So, how did they do it? I’m not a business analyst, but as someone who worked at Netflix a few years ago, I’m intrigued by this company’s unstoppable growth and what we can learn by what they’ve done right. I’m also interested with those companies that fail and are left in the wake of the stronger business model, product, or service. Many of the top selling books over the last decade have focused on management principles, leadership development, and developing a culture of innovation. Interestingly, these resources weren’t enough to save the myriad of businesses that have gone under the last decade due to a problem with their business model (Hollywood video, GM), customer base (Crispy Cream Doughnuts, TiVo), or management effectiveness (Enron). In short, their boat took on too much water for any one person, strategy, or "tiger" team to bail out the water fast enough. So, how does a company like Netflix start strong and leave so many able competitors in its wake? And how might these principles or values be transferred to your business environment? Here are a few thoughts. 1. Core business. Netflix is about delivering movies to customers in the most efficient and convenient manner possible. Yes, they’ve added Hulu, Pandora, and Vimeo integration—and videos can be streamed via some Blu-Ray players and video game systems, but, don’t hold your breath if you’re waiting for Netflix to ship toys with their movies or start selling hardware. They’ve dipped their toe into these peripheral areas a few times (Roku box), but think of the In and Out Burger menu as their nearest of kin when it comes to business models—they provide a singular service and do it better than anyone else. 2. It’s about the software. Sure, they ship movies and answer customer calls and emails, but they’re primarily a small group of highly educated programmers focused on instantiating a customer-focused service. Their algorithms crunch numbers and predict movie preferences while their queues organize user choices and ensure your time spent "on site" is maximized and translates to a steady stream of movies. Their primary strength is the competency of their cadre of programmers from the CEO down. Ironically, I heard many times while at Netflix that Reed Hastings runs his company similar to how a coder writes code. 3. Their price is hard to beat. While Blockbuster kiosks seem to be exercising a "bait and switch" tactic by raising newer movie rentals to $2.99 from 99 cents, Netflix has largely kept their subscription prices fixed—with one nominal increase several months back. 4. Their main asset is their employee base. This is obviously tied to item number two and reflected in their attempt to pay employees above everyone else’s cap. Where else will you find an "open" vacation policy where you simply take time off when you need it? I also remember rolling into the office and arguing with their IT person that I didn’t need the most expensive equipment. There is rarely an expense spared when the implementation of a project is in focus.  In all honesty, working at Netflix wasn’t my favorite job by any stretch of the imagination, but their focus on pay, vacation, and equipment spoke to their commitment to the employee as an asset. The post Netflix’s rise to the top - how did they do it? appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

Understanding technological literacy, or the lack thereof, is a crucial issue not just for small scale instructional technology projects, but also for qualifying some of the social or environmental drivers that influence and shape our audience’s behavior and preferences. Serif or sans serif font? Sharing or bookmarking digital text and the conventions to support this activity? As we’re working on a statewide online course for the Master Naturalist program, we’ve been reminded of how important these issues are for our audience as we’ve collected data from a recent pilot class. Below are a few recent articles on the topic of digital literacy. The first article suggests that e-learning technologies still have some ground to cover until they replace the bound book while the second article captures Sherry Turkle’s thoughts about how many technology consumers use technology with little awareness or concern for how technology functions below the interface (or application layer). Turkle believes this has adverse effects on both the individual and society. E-Readers Fail At Education "A recent University of Washington study interviewed 39 first-year graduate students in the university’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering, which participated in a pilot study of Amazon’s Kindle DX (a large-screen e-reader). By seven months into the study, fewer than 40% of the students did their schoolwork on the Kindle. The problem: the Kindle has poor note-taking support, doesn’t allow for easy skimming, and makes it difficult for students to look up references (in comparison with computers and textbooks)." "Perhaps the solution-for textbooks, at least-is to bolster conventional text and images with more interactive and multimedia content." Read the article…. Rethinking Technological Literacy Sherry Turkle is a "professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, and the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and the Self, Turkle has invested years thinking about and publishing her work on these problems….She has also made extensive observations of the generation of students appearing on college and university campuses now. Broadly, she concludes that these students really do not possess the technological literacy they need to understand the technology environments they are engaging with-and she is concerned." Read the article…. The post Digital Literacy - Recent Articles appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

I recently attended the Webvisions conference in Portland, Oregon. Blaise Aguera y Arcas and Douglas Rushkoff were a few of the well-known speakers. Many of the sessions were led by developers who were working with cutting-edge web technologies. Some of the main themes I heard at the conference were as follows: HTML5, CS3, and JQuery Dave McFarland from PSU framed this discussion well. Our own group at OSU has been leveraging jQuery more with every new project. jQuery is essentially a library of Javascript functions that can be called with simplified code. jQuery is frequently updated and is much more cross-browser compatible than using Javscript in the past. We’ve been using it in our e-learning course development and also with mobile projects—jQuery mobile and the new Dreamweaver CS5.5 with PhoneGap and jQuery mobile support. CS3 and HTML5 sessions were to a large extent focused on future web features, potential web TV usage, and multimedia presentation examples. Digital ethnography, especially as it relates to user interface (UX) and mobility Many of the sessions, including Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ talk focused on user interface and understanding user preference and technology usage on a contextualized level. Kelly Goto and Rachel Hinman were all-star UX proponents and offered numerous ideas for moving beyond analytics and demographics to how individuals use technology at various times of the day. It appears many companies have moved beyond seeking a "sticky" site to one that is addictive. And so, branding and product design were related to sensory activity (especially tacticle) and emotional connection. Hinman’s discussion about the new ecology of untethered mobile devices and how mobile devices can "unlock" place was inspiring. Vision for future (the ecology of new devices) Rachel Hinman and Douglas Rushkoff covered a large swathe of ideas related to future technology trends. Much of Rushkoff’s talk focused on corporate interests versus individual interests and how technology is being used to subvert individuality and free thinking by corporate interests. One of his more memorable claims was that Facebook’s product was not the software, but the child—more specifically, the child’s social graph that can be monetized. He suggested Portland was "our last hope"-whatever that meant…and, he believed technology is most effective in the hands of the youth and "stoners"-not sure he was trying to directly correlate a location with this claim…but, the two were said at various points of his talk. While some of this was tongue in cheek banter, his main goal was to encourage the individual user of technology to be more efficacious and aware of the underlying technologies enabling our daily usage of software and devices. Without such awareness and discretion, he believed that we would be beholden to corporate interests and those who would use technology to slowly devalue individual rights. He said so much more, but the core of his talk reminded me of some of Sherry Turkle’s writings. When Rushkoff heard one of my colleagues worked with Blackboard, he seemed a bit disappointed, but then signed his book with the following, "Blackboard is intentional"—great sense of humor. Hinman recommended several articles. I found the following very enlightening (The Coming Zombie Apocalypse). Media queries, prototyping (Check out Axure), and WebM versus h.264. The post Webvisions 2011 - Technology Snapshots of the Future appeared first on Electronic Papyrus.

We’ll call it a technological earthquake (because we’re currently in Soutern California; you can call it a tornado or hurricane or monsoon… whatever). The "seismologists" are the researchers at the USC Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future. They’re reporting on more than ten years of studies, tracking the emergence and use of technology and online activity. (You can find a summary of the results here.) The article identifies some key takeaways from their work. Despite its popularity, social networking suffers from just a 14% confidence rate. According to Jeffrey I. Cole, Director of the Center for Digital Future, "…51% of users said that only a small portion or none of the information they see on social networking sites is reliable." Yep. Makes you wonder: how credible do people think your association’s Facebook presence is? What can you do to improve their confidence in your social networking presence?   The desktop PC is going to dwindle to 4-6% of computer users — and those will primarily be professionals who rely on computers for their work (programmers, financial planners, scientists, writers, gamers, analysts, and scientists). Tablets will soon become the most used personal computing devices because they are "more convenient and accessible than laptops and much more engaging to use." Are you preparing for this shift? And, as you know I like to warn, do your members fit into the tablet profile, or are they in a field that will be in the minority but devoted group of desktop PC users? Because it won’t matter if 96% of the country is using tablets if 98% of your members are still using desktop PCs and/or laptops. Just sayin’.   The irony about personal computing is that we believed they would be labor-saving devices — and they are — but they have also extended the workday into the evening and expanded the workweek into the weekend. Many people on vacations stay tethered to the office via e-mail, Twitter, and other methods. So here’s what you should be asking about your online offerings: are you making it worth your members’ time to participate in your Webinars, social networking discussions, online courses, and otherwise engage in the online activities you make available to them? Better make sure. The report suggests that people are soon going to have had it with all this and start cutting back. Don’t give your members reasons to cut you out.   With the exception of four major newspapers (the NY Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal), Sunday metros and small weeklies, most US print newspapers will be gone in five years. The report asks, "How will the changing delivery of content affect the quality and depth of journalism?" What opportunities for you does this open up? How can your organization make up for any lost quality or depth of journalism? Where are the gaps that you can fill?   How transparent are you? How do you reassure your members that their online presence with you is safe? "Our latest Digital Future study found that almost half of users age 16 and older are worried about companies checking what they do online; by comparison, 38% said that the government checking on them is a concern," says Cole. While our members love making purchases and connecting with others online, they’re also very aware that the Web is public, and that information on them is collected with nearly every click. So far that isn’t stopping people from participating in online shopping, surveys, commenting on blogs, reviewing purchase experiences, adding rankings and ratings, etc…. But what are you doing to make sure your members don’t log off your site or your blog or move away from your Facebook or LinkedIn pages thinking, "Darn… I wonder what they’ll do with what I said there?" What are you doing to make sure your members aren’t balking at the information you’re asking for on profile pages? The tipping point for privacy concerns might still be a ways off… but there’s no doubt it’s on people’s minds.   "Even though online outreach to voters continues to expand, and Internet fundraising is a major priority for candidates, the Internet is not yet considered a tool that voters can use to gain more political power or influence," Cole says. Yet they believe this is changing and over the next two election cycles the Internet will become "a major factor in changing the political landscape." Occupy Wall Street, Occupy LA, Occupy [fill in the name of your organization]. Occupy it online. What are the possibilities here? Threats? How can you get ahead of the potential impact of influencing politics online to benefit your organization’s mission? Is there a part you can play in accelerating this trend?   Can you believe online buying is 18 years old? Amazon has flourished and Borders Books has suffered because of it, to cite an example from just one industry. Music CDs have pretty much gone by the wayside as fans download digital files. "Even though purchasing online has already had a significant impact on buying habits, the changes still to come in American purchasing brought by the Internet will no doubt be even more extensive," says Cole. Are you leveraging online buying trends as fully as you could be? Are you taking orders online but still shipping out print books and manuals? Time to think hard about converting to ebooks…. I’ll digress from the report summary here to mention that ebook readers have satisfaction rates of 60% and higher (up to 75% for Kindle buyers). Kindle books outsold print books at Amazon this past year for the first time. It isn’t a fad. It’s a trend. Don’t be the Borders to someone else’s Amazon.   A friend recently recounted his nephew’s description of a college party. "About fifteen people were there. And they were all texting each other. In the same room. My nephew said it was quiet. The quietest party you can imagine. Except for the occasional laughter when someone forwarded something funny or texted something witty. Then there would be a laugh, then another, as the message floated around the room." Yes. In the same room. Texting each other. It’s no joke, it’s true, and the Digital Future’s report validates it. People are spending more time connected online than they do face-to-face. "But is quality being sacrificed for quantity?" Cole asks. "Will those who use social networking services consider them as alternatives to face-to-face involvement with the people in their lives?" In your organization’s social networking and other online environments, how are you ensuring that quality is overriding quantity? That your members are getting something valuable for their time? That they are able to make the same sorts of strong connections online that they make at face-to-face events?   Are you ready for what’s next? "In 2006, YouTube and Twitter had just been born, and Facebook was a toddler. Six years ago, who would have thought that these nascent technologies would become the standard for social communication in 2011? The next major online trend is being developed right now by a new crop of Internet visionaries just waiting to be heard," says Cole. How adaptable is your organization to upcoming change? Because there will be change. And if I were to guess it would be about personalization.  Think about it. You can order M&M candies with any message you want (that will fit their basic specs). You can create your own movies and upload them for the world to see. You can write and publish your own books with a few clicks of the mouse (okay, the publishing part… not the writing part). You can produce your own music and market it to your fans. You can order any number of items with your name or logo on them. So can your members. And the youngest members of our associations have been growing up in a personalized, customized, all about "me" world for a long time. What are you doing to give your members a unique experience in your organization? Do they get the same tee-shirt as everyone else, or do you give them the opportunity to design their own? Do they have a say in the educational sessions available at the national conference? Can they control how and where and for how long they access online learning sessions? Or are you still making them fit your schedule? (Oh, that’s so last century!!) Okay, glad I got that off my chest. At least you can start with these ideas from the Center for the Digital Future and your pal here at aLearning, right?

You’ve heard that old expression, right? Don’t assume anything, it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me." Haven’t ranted in awhile, but I ran into one of those situations lately that had me swearing under my breath. And it had to do with some of you, probably. Yes, you. You who have your blog comments linked to particular response vehicles. Nothing worse that reading a long post, getting into the point of view expressed in it, drafting and editing a thoughtful response, then starting to submit it when — wait! What’s this?!?!? I have to have a FACEBOOK account or a TWITTER account or another some-such account to post my comment?!??!?!?? PUH-LEEZ!! Has it not occurred to you that not everyone is enamored of Facebook or Twitter? Sure, I’ve heard that it’s business-smart to have these accounts so I can keep my followers up-to-date and all that. I had a Facebook account for awhile, but cancelled it when I read the agreement (do you read those? If not, you really, really, really should), which said they could use what they wanted from what I posted there…. Yes, that’s what it said. It might be my property (my photos, for example), but by using Facebook I was agreeing that they could use it too, whether for advertising or other purposes. Hmmm….. Maybe you’re comfortable with that, but I wasn’t. Personal (and business) choice. I get all that. But it’s not about you or me, remember?!? It’s about your members. Your potential members. Your clients and potential clients. How many are you gagging when you insist they use Facebook or Twitter or another specific account to contact you? Who’s really benefitting? Not you. Not those who want to comment or contact you. The only ones benefitting are Facebook, Twitter, and the like. And who is it you want to benefit? Right. Yes, I’m peeved about this. Anything that drives people to use one specific online tool or application to the exclusion of all others rankles me. Ruffles my feathers. Goes against my grain. Why should someone else decide what tools I should be using? Why should you be deciding the tools your members must use? Just because "everyone" is on Facebook doesn’t mean it should be the only avenue open. Remember what your mother used to say: "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" I have nothing against people using Facebook or Twitter, mind you. I just choose not to use it and resent anyone trying to force me into it. I’m guessing some (many?) of your members feel the same way. Even if you’ve surveyed your members and your profile says that 95% have Facebook accounts, that still means 5% of your members don’t have the same access. How will you reach them? How will they reach out to you? Aren’t they as deserving to be "in the loop" as the others? Ah! Now you’re thinking. And thinking it through is always better than assuming anything.

In her reaction to our recent post, "Did You Feel That?" Adrienne Gross said, "One thing that technology can’t really help with though is motivation: ‘I want to do this training.'" I responded by agreeing that we can lead people to training but we can’t make them learn. And that got me thinking about a key difference between corporate training and association training. Our problems are 180-degrees in difference. Corporate trainers struggle to get learners engaged. Often they’re showing up for courses because they’ve been sent, the sessions are mandatory, attendance is required. They aren’t always in the mood. They don’t feel close to the content. Etc. Etc. Trainers spend a lot of time with "WIIFM" — what’s in it for me. Getting learners to connect with the content. Trying to motivate them to engage in the content, to figure out how they’ll eventually apply what they’re learning. Yes, we do some of that. But mostly we’re struggling with getting the trainers — usually our volunteer content leaders — to get out of the way of our members, who generally show up ready and eager to learn. Quite the opposite of corporate trainees. Corporate trainees attend sessions that the company pays for. Even when that training requires travel, the employee’s costs are covered, at minimum via a per diem. Our members, on the other hand, consciously choose to attend our learning events, whether they be online or face-to-face. Think about that a second. They’ve paid to be a member. Now they’re paying a registration fee to attend an event. Sometimes they even pay to travel to that event. That’s motivation, don’t you think? So if we’re sending people out the door frustrated that they didn’t learn anything, that’s our bad. Our very bad. (And the topic of a different post entirely.) What are we doing right that corporations seem to be getting wrong? Why are our learners showing up so ready to learn while corporate learners are reluctant to show up at all? What can corporate trainers learn from us? Probably a lot more than what I’ll describe here, but we’ll consider it a start. In no particular order, we design sessions that: Deliver what people need to know and do so they can make better decisions and perform tasks more efficiently. We don’t assume we know what they need — we find out from them what they need to know, and work from there. Leverage various experience levels, so those newer in the profession learn from those who have more experience and do so in an environment where organizational, reporting hierarchy doesn’t matter. We know our sessions will be filled with individuals from across the professional spectrum, and do our best to make that combination work for the session, rather than against it. Create online and in-person environments where social, informal learning is a natural outflow from the session. We expect attendees to meet others and learn from them in the hallways, during breaks and meals, and often well beyond the session itself. Start with the assumption that people want the latest information, research, strategies, tactics, tools, etc. They want an edge over their competition and know we can give them that edge. Never mind that those competitors are often sitting in the same room! Encourage an atmosphere of open discussion, networking, debate, sharing, and exchange. Our members have discovered over time that often they get the answer to a problem in the least-expected way — usually outside of the formal training situation. Appreciate the value of social interaction. Sharing meals, taking tours, and participating in other activities together isn’t just about "team building." It’s about relaxing enough in the presence of others that you can feel comfortable sharing your problems, asking necessary questions, and generally letting your hair down. Corporate trainers out there: yes, you probably think you’re doing these things already. But you’re not. The next time you attend a professional development event offered through an association, pay close attention. What made you want to attend this event? What about your decision can you incorporate into your corporate offerings? Do you need to change a venue? Re-order your agenda? When were you particularly engaged? Why? What was being done that you can steal and use in your own sessions? Do you need to change-up your facilitators? Tools? Training techniques? Where were you when you picked up a particularly helpful bit of information, advice, skill, or other nugget of learning? Do you provide that sort of interaction in the corporate training sessions you design? How can you do that? Did your attention flag at some point? When? Why? Do your corporate training session attendees suffer in a similar way? What do you wish had been done during that session to re-engage you? How could you elevate the engagement in your sessions, based on what you experienced at the PD session? When did you feel most comfortable? Why? What about the session’s environment or facilitation or other aspect made you feel this way? How can you integrate that into your own corporate sessions? Generally, you can approach this from a lot of directions. Here’s one more (a bonus suggestion!): if you were to put a pricetag on the corporate sessions you offer, what do you think your employees would be willing to spend on them? Why? Would they be willing to pay membership dues, then a registration fee and travel costs on top of that us to attend? What can you be doing differently so they would? Answer this question, and you’ll likely solve much of that  "motivation" problem that Adrienne mentions and that  plagues so much of corporate training these days.

Yes, aLearning has been distracted these past few months with some non-blog projects… so although a few of these resource items are a little older than a month or two, they’ve been re-vetted and we think they’re still worth your attention. LMS Resources The most popular topics on this blog are those on LMSes. They get the most initial hits, and some posts that even date back a few years are still getting a lot of attention. Having said that, here are a few excellent resources — in no particular order — if you’re trying to decide whether to get an LMS or not. First, Jon Aleckson blogged on the topic here: http://managingelearning.com/2012/02/10/association-lms-yes-or-no/ And you can get a copy of their free white paper, "When is the Right Time to Adopt an LMS" by filling out a quick form here: http://www.webcourseworks.com/adopting-an-lms-white-paper DigitecInteractive’s white paper on selecting an LMS includes an example timeline for the process: http://www.knowledgedirectweb.com/company1/content/296/8-Steps-to-Selecting-Your-Association_LMS.pdf Social Learning An oldie but goodie: "Social Learning Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does!" from Jane Hart’s "Learning in the Social Workplace" blog. Moving from "Command and Control" to "Encourage and Engage" is sometimes harder than we think. Her charts contrasting these provide a great checklist: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/blog/2011/09/12/social-learning-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-does/ Wondering why you set up a social learning network but nobody’s participating? Get some help from Mary Arnold’s Learning Solutions article, "The Human Factor: Creating Opportunities to Participate in Social Learning."  Read it here: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/492/the-human-factor-creating-opportunities-to-participate-in-social-learning Mobile Learning Kineo has released a terrific white paper on getting started in mobile learning. "Terrific" because it not only provides the "what" you need to know and do, but examples as well — including images of various applications. Go here to download your copy: http://www.kineo.com/us/elearning-reports/mobile-learning-guide-part-1-designing-it-right.html General Topics Avectra’s been offering a Book of the Month, delivering excerpts on all kinds of topics. If you’re not getting the alerts about these, here’s where to sign up: http://www.avectra.com/association-management-resources/resources/book-of-the-month.php Gotta love the idea of using the "speed dating" technique at a conference or workshop for changing up the same-old, same-old format. How would you incorporate it? (Not my idea, I confess… my source was this: http://blog.hansdezwart.info/2012/02/01/speed-dating-at-the-2012-learning-technologies/)

Regular aLearning blog readers have probably noticed a sudden drop in activity here. No worries! We’re fine. But we are involved in some other areas these days and providing up-to-date insight on association-related elearning topics hasn’t been at the top of the list, sorry to say. Previous posts on various topics continue to garner so many hits daily that the blog will sit, waiting and ready for new posts, when the time comes. In the meantime, please know that the aLearning Fundamentals tutorials — always free and never requiring registration — are still live and will remain available here: http://www.ellenbooks.com/alearning.html And the book aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning also continues to be available for purchase (in print, PDF, or e-book format) via http://www.lulu.com. Just click the image or button on the left for more information on how to order your copy. As ever, you’re welcome to send me an e-mail directly via the link on the left (below "Contact Ellen" on the left). I appreciate your support!  

My apologies! After promising that the tutorials and resources available at the aLearning Fundamentals site (an extension of ellenbooks.com) would continue to be available while the blog is on hiatus, my hosting service has dumped all its clients. I’m in the process of shifting the site to another hosting service which will take some time. If you need access to any of the tutorials or other resources before they’re back up and running, please contact me directly (my e-mail link is in the sidebar) and I’ll do what I can to get the materials to you another way. Hope you’re all enjoying a great summer!

Not my choice, but the days for ordering e-versions of aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning are numbered.* The e-reader enabled versions and possibly the PDF version will no longer be available after the end of this month. If you’ve been putting off purchasing the aLearning Trail Guide, don’t wait much longer. You can order here. For info on this book and others, click here. The print version will continue to be available (with its accompanying postage and shipping fees) for the foreseeable future. *Lulu.com has decided to no longer support DRM, which provides certain protections for the way e-versions are made available.

Though I’d thought it was time to retire aLearning: A Trail Guide for Association eLearning, I continue to see sales and interest in the book — a great sign that online learning is alive and well and growing in the world of nonprofit and trade associations! Much has changed in the technology of elearning since the trail guide was originally published in 2009, but the step-by-step instructions for gathering what you need to develop, and then create, your association’s elearning strategy are still valid. When the book came out, it was the only place to get such detailed information in a practical, useful format. Whether your online learning strategy needs an overhaul or you’re just getting started, the aLearning trail guide can help. And that help is easier to get than ever. While I still believe the book is best used in print format, those who’d prefer a copy on their Kindle or other device can now purchase and download it. And the e-book can be given as a gift: with a few clicks, you can purchase it and have it sent to someone else via their e-mail address. How cool is that? Order now, for just $9.99. Oh, and tell your friends!  

It’s been a long time coming, but aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning is now available for reading on your Kindle, Nook, or Kobo device. Prices range from $9.99 to about $13. I’ve always believed this book is best used in print format, but so many people rely on their tablets and phones for content now that I decided to release this book in these formats. The continued popularity of the aLearning book shouldn’t surprise any of us, but despite planning to retire the book, it sells consistently enough that I know its practical, step-by-step instructions and procedures for developing an online strategy haven’t lost their value, despite some changes in technology since the book was first published. As always, if you purchase the book, have questions about various aspects of the strategic planning process or other topics, feel free to contact me directly by e-mail. If you’re interested, or know someone who might benefit from this book, here are the links: Kindle Nook Kobo Still prefer the print version? Good for you! Just click the image of the book cover on the left to purchase a copy from Lulu. (If you’re asked to register, it’s free and worth it!)

In my first two posts for Learning Circuits, I explored how I use Twitter as a professional development tool, and last week we looked at Filtering: A Challenge and Responsibility for Learning Professionals.  This week we're going to explore filtering further, and explain how learning professionals will provide filtering services on an increasing basis. There are two primary ways that filtering will impact learning professionals. The first impact is in helping workers understand the need and techniques for filtering.  For many, this need to filter is something they may not have considered before.  However, in an age of ever-increasing data, being able to focus on what's important and what isn't is a required skill.   It’s also something that needs to be learned.  Filtering doesn't just apply to Twitter, it applies everywhere. In a world of 300 television channels, countless websites, and Reply-To-All emails, being able to narrow your focus on what is valuable is critical.  So the first impact of learning and performance professionals is to assist workers with understanding and applying filtering skills; the second impact is of greater importance, and will become a core competency in the near future.  That competency is curation. What is curation? Consider the most common example of curation: the museum curator. This person does not create content in the traditional sense. He or she listens to what is going on, and finds topics that resonate with museum guests.  He or she scours the globe for artifacts related to that topic, and organizes the artifacts in such a way that guests are taken on a learning journey as they experience the exhibit.  Of course, museum curators are highly trained and educated in doing this. It is their specialty.  How does curation fit into the existing world of organizational learning and performance? A large percentage of learning and skill building is done informally.  Estimates show that upwards of 90% of workplace learning takes place outside of formal programs. Most actual learning takes place informally on-the-job, through coaching, mentoring, experience, and other sharing. This learning doesn't go through the training department, and it isn’t tracked by the organization’s learning management system. Capturing this type of learning has been a logistical impossibility (or at least very difficult) in the past, as it was taking place serendipitously, and without any sort of documentation.  Interactions like water-cooler conversations, over-the-cubicle requests for assistance, and on-the-job coaching provide the majority of performance support, but usually happens in a vacuum, shared only between the participants that are present. In recent years, this social learning has expanded and exploded via online social networks. Networks like Twitter, facebook, or internal solutions like Yammer enable this social workplace learning to break through the constraints of face-to-face meetings. We can now share with counterparts across the globe almost as easily as we do across the room.  Better still, learning that once was limited to those present in a face-to-face interaction can now be shared with the world. Learning and performance professionals need to discover where the information is being shared in their organizations, and tap into it.  That networking resource is a gold mine for learning curation. The sharing taking place could be identifying new performance support needs, or it could be sharing new solutions. This all might sound overwhelming, making you think that you don't have the time to monitor every single learning experience that happens within your organization. That's not the expectation. What you're trying to do is identify the most common and valuable things that people share. Curation is less about the quantity of resources, and more about the quality of resources. There are multiple layers to curation, each of which has benefits when applied to learning and performance:·         Aggregation: Gathering and sharing relevant content. It releases the individual worker from needing to seek out the content.·         Filtering: Instead of simply aggregating content, filtering shares only those resources that are most relevant and valuable.·         Elevation: Recognizing a larger trend in the sea of seemingly less important content.·         Mashups: Merging two or more unrelated pieces of content to form a new message.·         Timelines: Organizing random pieces of content in chronological order to show the evolution of an idea. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools that can help us with these tasks.  However, there is still a human need in curation; a role that is built on a foundation of trust.  When I follow a curator I do so because I feel that work the curator is doing is filtering on my behalf.  I may not feel the need to seek out content as much if there is someone that is already providing pre-filtered content relevant to my needs. In the book Curation Nation, Steven Rosenbaum describes it this way: "Curation replaces noise with clarity. And it’s the clarity of your choosing; it’s the things that people you trust help you find." That’s the role learning and performance professionals are going to be playing more and more in the future.  With content growing at an exponential rate, our need to create will slowly diminish.  In its place will be the growing need to filter on behalf of workers; to curate the sea of content that is available and being shared and bring the most relevant and valuable to the forefront of worker attention. In my final post of this series I will drill down deeper into the process, exploring what technology can (and can’t) do to aid curation, and paint a picture of how I see curation fitting into the future of learning and performance.Thanks for reading - see you next week.David Kelly is the director of training at Carver Federal Savings Bank and Member of the ASTD National Advisors for Chapters. He is also the author of the blog Misadventures in Learning, where he discusses the future of the learning field and curates the backchannel of learning conferences.

They say that the best fruit of the olive, which has the best properties, is not the one that is protected by the leaves, or the one that is easy to collect at the bottom… but the one that is on the … Continue reading →

A friend showed me her resume today on Visual CV.  Nice product - your should check it out.  Link articles, presentations, video etc. that directly highly your skills and abilities.  Here's Kathleen's resume - http://www.visualcv.com/kathleenkelley.  Notice how items that relate specifically to her position show side-by-side.  There's a reference to her work for the City of Houston directly next to her position information.  The CV can be downloaded as a  nicely formatted PDF file.  Oh and the service is free!  You can get a premium account with your own URL for $60/yr.Check it out:  http://www.visualcv.com/www/indexc.html

The results of an investigation into the connection between mobile learning (mLearning) and interactive design processes through the adaption of transformative learning and self-motivational learning were presented in the chapter of "Interactive Learning Strategies for Mobile Learning"(by Anthony Ralston) in the open licensed ebook "Increasing Access through Mobile Learning"(published by Commonwealth of Learning and Athabasca University, 2014). The author argues that the integration... Read More ›

The belief that working in teams makes us more creative and productive is so widespread that when faced with a challenging new task, leaders are quick to assume that teams are the best way to get the job done . . .. . . Contrary to conventional wisdom, teams may be your worst option for tackling a challenging task. Problems with coordination, motivation, and competition can badly damage team performance. Even the best leaders can’t make a team deliver great results. But you can increase the likelihood of success—by setting the right conditions. - Harvard Business Review May 2009.I stumbled across the article Why Teams Don't Work by Daine Courtu. Having been a coach, team-teacher, team-leader and also team member in many successful (and some unsuccessful) teams,I immediately pounced on the pages and scanned the content.Courtu interviews J. Richard Hackman, Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at Harvard University, and author of the book, Leading Teams.Hackman, a notable expert on teams with a lifetime of experience in studying and working with teams, has an authoritative opinion that makes a lot of sense to me. He comes over as a straight thinker who cuts to the chase when it comes to matters about the worth of teams.Hackman’s stance is that teams can generate magic (didn’t we always believe that?) though we shouldn’t always count on every spell working the way we’d like. In his book Leading Teams, Hackman rationalises five critical conditions governing the balance between success and failure:"Teams must be real. People have to know who is on the team and who is not. It’s the leader’s job to make that clear.Teams need a compelling direction. Members need to know, and agree on, what they’re supposed to be doing together. Unless a leader articulates a clear direction, there is a real risk that different members will pursue different agendas.Teams need enabling structures. Teams that have poorly designed tasks, the wrong number or mix of members, or fuzzy or unenforced norms of conduct invariably get into trouble.Teams need a supportive organisation. The organisational context - including the reward system, the human resource system, and the information system - must facilitate teamwork.Teams need expert coaching. Most executive coaches focus on individual performance, which does not significantly improve teamwork. Teams need coaching as a group in team processes - especially at the beginning, midpoint and end of a team project."

In my first post for Learning Circuits, I explored how I use Twitter as a professional development tool. Over the past two weeks, we've looked at Filtering: A Challenge and Responsibility for Learning Professionals, and Curation: A Core Competency for Learning Professionals. In this closing post in my Learning Circuits series, I want to dig into curation in greater detail, describing what role technology plays in the curation workflow, and what  it looks like for learning.Who Qualifies as a Curator?Part of the reason curation is such a popular term right now is that the definition of curation has been changed by technology.  Years ago 'curation' was a specialized field that was found only in places like museums, performed by individuals who have studied their field and the techniques of curation for years. The definition of curator has expanded in recent years, largely in line with the expansion of social media technologies. The fact is, if you're reading this post on the Learning Circuits Blog, chances are you already are a curator, whether your realize it or not.This fact was proven to me in the most unlikely of places: my mother's dining room table. My family was visiting, and my mother was telling me that I don't post enough pictures of my kids on facebook. It was a little confusing; after all, my mother lives only a few miles away and sees my kids often. When I explained that, she replied "But my friends don't".  What I didn't realize was that my mother often saw pictures of her grandchildren on facebook and clicked the SHARE button to share it on her wall.  She was curating a story that was essentially titled "My Grandkids", and sharing it with all her friends.In the age of facebook shares/likes, Twitter retweets, and other social media sharing tools... anyone can be a curator.Let's back up a second though; perhaps saying the definition of curator has expanded isn't accurate, as it implies expanding a single definition to include a broader group. I do believe what a curator does for a museum is different than what a my mother does for her facebook wall.  Perhaps it's two levels of curation, professional and amatuer, similar to the differences between a professional and amatuer photographer. Digital camera technology has advanced so much that even an amatuer can take high quality photos... but that doesn't make someone a professional photographer.Social media technologies have had a similar impact on curation, allowing anyone with an internet connection to become an amatuer curator. In fact, some would argue that technology has advanced far enough that the technology itself can curate.Automated Curation: Can a Computer be a Curator?Technology definitely aids in the curation process. Search engine optimization and filtering tools make it much easier for a curator to find resources he or she wants to share. But can a computer do the job so well that a human curator is no longer needed?To answer this, I think we need to revisit the different examples of curation we discussed in my last post:Aggregation: Gathering and sharing relevant content. It releases the individual worker from needing to seek out the content.Filtering: Instead of simply aggregating content, filtering shares only those resources that are most relevant and valuable.Elevation: Recognizing a larger trend in the sea of seemingly less important content.Mashups: Merging two or more unrelated pieces of content to form a new message.Timelines: Organizing random pieces of content in chronological order to show the evolution of an idea.I think technology does a very good job of automating aggregation. In fact, I don't think a human is required at all for aggregation, unless the human is adding content from a source outside the data source being aggregated. Once you go beyond aggregation though, I believe the human is still required.Some would argue that computers can filter, and from a technical standpoint they can; I just don't think computers can do enough to filter in the context of curation.I often curate the resources from conference backchannels on my blog. What I do there is - by design - a very light-level of curation. My goal in curating backchannel resources is not to to provide a personally recommended list of resources. I could do that, but it would be a different post, with a different focus.After all, what I find valuable may be different than what you do. My goal in curating the backchannel is to collect the resources that most people likely missed, and to have them as an ongoing point of reference.  I share all of the resources that could have value to someone that is interested.In that sense, a large percentage of what I do with conferences is aggregation, and a computer can do that. However, I also provide filtering and elevation in my curated resource lists that most automated curation tools would miss. For example:I group resources into categories, such as official conference resources, session specific resources, conference recaps, keynotes, etc.I seek out resources from outside the backchannel stream that have not yet been shared that I believe will add value.If a shared link is mostly self-promotional marketing - with little pass-along value - I filter it out. I do this with SPAM messages as well.I recognize themes in seemingly unrelated posts within the backchannel stream and link them.These are simple examples of things that a human curator adds that computers currently can not replace, at least not in most cases.  For more advanced forms of curation like mashups and timelines, the need for human interpretation is even more critical. In short, I think the human is still a required part of the curation equation.  That may change at some point though; the gap between what a human does and what a computer can automate continues to shrink.A Glimpse into the FutureSo what does this all mean to a learning and performance professional? How will what we do look differently when we add curation to our skill sets?  Consider these examples:Social media usage continues to rise as a means for supporting social learning. Learning and performance professionals will need to be a part of the communities that emerge, possibly even serving as community managers. Technology could be used to analyze the sharing going on and spot potential trends (as a simplified example, consider a word cloud). As a curator, learning and performance professionals would seek out these themes and trends and elevate them to higher visibility across the entire organization.In a world where anyone can create content, our need to create content to address a learning and performance need is  dramatically reduced.  Learning and performance professionals would function as curators of content, connecting workers with existing resources both internally and externally that support performance. The definition of 'course' will likely change in the future.  Currently course content is constrained and controlled, usually behind an LMS portal login.  Courses are becoming increasingly open, allowing learners and workers to find and reference their own resources. Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) are a step in this direction. In this open format, learning professionals can help curate the shared resources, highlighting those that resonate best with the objectives of the program.Curation is already here, and it's already impacting the learning and performance profession. The technology is already readily available to bring curation into organizations, and many forward-thinking organizations are already using it to their advantage.  If you aren't already enhancing your learning and performance strategies via curation, you should be enhancing your awareness and skill sets in this area.  It isn't so much a matter of 'If' your learning and performance programs will be impacted by curation; it's a matter of 'When'.  The only question is: Will you be ready to support it?

This free webinar provides practical information and strategies  to be considered by small and medium sized organizations to get the best Return on Investment (ROI) when choosing a LMS.  Items included will be LMS selection, LMS administration, eLearning creation and eLearning deployment. This webinar will include valuable information on how to introduce eLearning to you organization and produce success.  If you are looking at adding in eLearning and a LMS, or are considering changing to a new LMS you will definitely want to join this webinar.   If there are others in your organization that are interested in eLearning and LMS's please forward this to them. Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ESTCheck it out:  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/701940610

Whether you are simply taking a selfie, traveling around the world, watching your child’s first steps or living a moment that you want to remember forever, cameras have become an important and vital part of our lives not only to … Continue reading →