It helps to look at social media on a communications timeline. Tammy Erickson does just that noting the advent of writing, the printing press, the telex (early telephone), the Internet, and now, the next evolution of the Internet "Web 2.0″ (social media). Erickson notes the significant resistance associated with past advances: Early assessments of the telephone predicted that it would be used primarily for social, non-business applications. What business would want to use a technology that provides no permanent record of a conversation, when the telex was available as a dependable alternative? Initial assessments of what became the core technology for Xerox completely missed the mark — no one could imagine why any business would need copies of a document. It’s hard to envision the usefulness of new ways of communicating, and easy to dismiss new technologies as frivolous. Yup. She says, "each time our communication capability expands, several predictable things occur: namely increased scope and richness of interactions and perhaps more importantly, the effect it has on "organization, power, and how we get things done." Summarizing the 1951 work, The Bias of Communication, she notes how predictions by the writer, Harold Adams Innis reflect trends of today. The Moment Social Media Became Serious Business | Harvard Business Review | Tammy Erickson | January 19 2009

There were several postings today and yesterday about Forrester Research’s update to their Social Technographics Ladder. They’ve added a new category - the conversationalist. They define the conversationalist as someone who updates their status on a social networking site and/or posts updates on Twitter. Among US adults who are online, they make up 33%. Jason Falls’ shares some interesting numbers from the Forrester report in his post, Apparently, It Was All About The Conversation: inactives (those who do none of the listed activities) dropped from 52% in 2006 to just 17% in the last quarter of 2009 creators jumped from 13% to 24% in the same time frame critics jumped from 19% to 37% collectors jumped from 15% to 20% joiners jumped from 19% to 59% (wow!) I did the second of three presentations today, one of the few local presentations I’ve done, for a small business social networking group. Doing "introduction"-type  presentations is always a good way to update data. I wish I had shared that this today - maybe next week. It’s one of those ‘why you should care’ graphics. Make sure you check out the comments too for some interesting observations. Apparently, It Was All About the Conversation | Social Media Explorer | Jason Falls | January 20 2010

This is just what I needed - clarification on Facebook pages, groups, and profiles. Thanks to Eliza Sherman, for this straightforward explanation. Profile = Individuals connect with friends and see (and share or tag) their status updates in a News Feed. You can be removed under Facebook’s terms of service, something I wrote about before in Avatarcide, when a friend who is an avatar in SecondLife was booted from Facebook. It’s complex. Page = A fan base for individuals, products, companies, organizations, and campaigns. People become FANS of pages. This is good for promotion and are fully viewable to the public (even when not logged in). Administrators are not visible. Group = For building a community. Administrators are listed. You can send a message to the entire group (something you can’t do on a page). Additional details are on her post along with a nice reference table (below). THANKS! Facebook Pages, Groups and Profiles Explained | Web Worker Daily | Aliza Sherman | January 19 2010

Via Brent MacKinnon, a pecha kucha video by Mark Schenk about complexity. Mark uses Dave Snowden’s Cynefin model to explain complexity and chaos. Key points for organizations looking to solve complex problems: numbers are not enough - you need to understand patterns experimentation is vital little things have a huge impact The Case for Complexity, the Pecha Kucha way | Anecdote | Mark Schenk | July 16, 2009 (via Brent MacKinnon)

If you’re not a hard core Twitter user, you may want to give Seesmic a look. Seesmic teamed up with Microsoft to provide a Windows desktop solution for browsing Twitter. Robert Scoble provides a review. Review: How should Twitter’s design shift? Seesmic gives us a "look" | Scobleizer | Robert Scoble | January 21, 2009

JD Lasica has put together a great list of conference & events in 2010. They’re primarily U.S.-based and include those focused on social media, technology, media, and marketing. Thanks! The Ultimate Guide to conference & events, month by month | Socialmedia.biz | JD Lasica | January 21, 2009

I have some Twitter fatigue so this seems like sound advice for overcoming fatigue (in this case a Twitter "block"): quit. Yes. Quit. Take some time away from whatever getting stale. "If you have used Twitter for x number of days or months or years and never changed your usage, I challenge you to take a break. Take a day off, take a weekend off, take a month off. Don’t quit cold turkey but stop tweeting and start listening. I guarantee you will feel healthier as a result, and when you decide to return to writing tweets, there will be a purpose." I’m up for a challenge and am going to try this next week. I’m going to comment more and catch up with some other sites I haven’t been on in awhile. And, I’d like to have a go at Posterous. Why Quitting Twitter is Healthy For You | TwiTip | Ari Herzog | January 21, 2009

Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research, uses the phrase Splinternet to describe the age of new devices - each with their own ad networks, format, and technology - and new social sites each with a login which hides content from search engines. He says this will splint the Web as a unified system. He offers some advice: choose your devices carefully rethink analytics, links, and measurement promote new channels Here are two charts from Forrester comparing the Internet and the Splinternet. The Splinternet means the end of the Web’s golden age | Groundswell | Josh Bernoff | January 26, 2010

(That could be my longest title ever.) Via Mike Gotta,  a FINRA- issued guidance document for securities firms and brokers regarding the use of social networking Web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs to communicate with the public. The notice addresses the "use by a firm or its personnel of social media sites for business purposes." It doesn’t address the use by individuals of social media sites for purely personal reasons. Gee thanks. The guide covers such questions as recordkeeping responsibility, and suitability responsibilities.  As well, it identifies the types of "interactive electronic forums" such as forums, chat rooms, online seminars, blogs, and social networking sites. Advice on supervision of social media sites is also covered. There have been an increasing number of jobs associated with the business side of social media, namely  community management-type jobs, and here’s yet another area: compliance. FINRA and Social Media | Collaborative Thinking | Mike Gotta | January 26, 2010

I’m doing some work right now for a small community nonprofit (gratis work for a community pool). The best site for information on nonprofits and social media, in my experience, is Beth Kanter’s. Here’s a guest post from Julio Vasconcello on lessons learned after the launch of TwitCause last week (TwitCause currently has over 500,000 followers).   TwitCause works to highlight a cause every week and encourage people to follow it, promote it, and consider making a donation. Julio lists 5 lessons learned on the road to 500,000 followers. Great ideas for nonprofits and causes! Guest Post by Julio Vasconcello: Lessons Learned from Twitter Campaigns on Twitcause | Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Changes | Beth Kanter | January 26, 2010

I read Johnny Truant’s brave I do everything wrong post. It resonated with me because when it comes to the social web I also do everything wrong. It is reaffirmed every time I read a "how to do it right" post written by someone else. It’s reaffirmed every time I run a class on social media. It’s not that I teach people to do things wrong because I don’t. I teach people how to do it right. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. But I don’t walk the talk and I let people know that. I curse. I post NSFW stuff. I’m serious, sarcastic, and silly rolled into one. More than once I’ve been called irreverent. I’m sure this will make anyone that works with me really happy : ) Doing everything wrong is why I work sixty hours a week instead of the forty I report.  I feel I have to use my own time when coloring outside the lines. When doing it wrong. I’m not sure my employer wants to pay me for this sort of comment  "my blog has so much crap running on it you literally have time to get coffee while it loads." I think they’d rather pay me to write this kind of stuff "Open source Flash-based eLearning IDE for Linux," "How Conceptual Metaphors are Stunting Web Innovation," and "Cloud-hosted collaboration: multi-tenant or dedicated?" I did write those. But also a lot of the wrong stuff too. Over the years, here’s how I’ve been doing it wrong: I don’t stay in my niche. For instance in Exposing Yourself on Twitter Nando Rodriguez gives an example of a calming G-rated  mommy blogger suddenly taking an R-rated turn. How to do it right he says: When you’re trying to establish yourself as an expert in your field or niche, find your twitter voice and stay within it. Yes, you’ll sway once in a while, after all twitter reflects your life, business and habits, but be careful what that voice says if you want to engage and add value to the people who are currently following you. I don’t have a plan. No plan to boost readership. No plan for writing. I don’t analyze traffic meaningfully. I’m not professional. I don’t push (much) for sales. I curse. I have no concern about SEO. I have no meaningful interlinking of old posts. I don’t always get back to people who comment or gtalk on my blog. I’m not good at thinking on my feet. I’m inconsistent. I could go on. Johnny Truant says enough wrongs make a right. His "wrong" approach works for him. You’re wrong approach will work for you. What you see is what you get he says. I’m feeling about the same. Message: Just be who you are. Be authentic. That’s the social web.

When someone has data and/or case studies (not just blah blah conversation blah) about corporate blogging I’m all ears. Here, Jason Falls writes about Aprilaire and their approach to corporate blogging. It begins and ends with business metrics. …there was but a single comment on their last 10 blog posts combined — your corporate blog can (and should) drive your business. The Aprilaire blog features good content focused on targeted keywords and drives traffic. This traffic isn’t their "community" but rather web searchers trying to find content on they keywords Aprilaire is writing about. When they arrive on a blog post, there are clear calls to action on the page and links to action items (more information requests, landing pages, etc.). The blog converts more readers into customers. I’m all about the blah blah conversation blah blah when I write. Sitting down and thinking about key words, calls to action, etc. feel kind of surgical. However, looking at some of the postings on our group blog, I can see how the use of keywords could drive traffic. The group blog is a filter blog so it’s natural. If we’re already doing it, we might as well keep track. I can’t view to data on the corporate blog because the tracking apparently was not added back on after a recent upgrade. Off to do that now and will report back what I find in some future post. Corporate Blog Success Starts and Ends With Business Metrics | Social Media Explorer | Jason Falls | February 8, 2010

I write an analyst blog and contribute to a group blog for my employer, Brandon Hall Research. The blogs are on the company’s URL. I also have this blog on my own URL here. So it was interesting to read of Forrester Research’s directive to analysts using their own personally branded research blogs: take them down or re-direct them to the Forrester site. Ugh. Forrester’s reasoning: to increase value to clients by aggregating all of the content in one space. Jacob Morgan wrote about the downside of their decision: "No analyst with a shred of talent or ambition will likely ever choose to work for Forrester, assuming this policy is enforced." He thinks the move will "kill the spark of innovation and curiosity that most research analyst have in their DNA…" I disagree with that part. Read my analyst blog and you’ll know I am curious, innovative, and ambitious. Talent, you have to be the judge of but I do know I drive traffic to the main site. Some of the other downsides Morgan lists I DO agree with: SEO value for the company, feelings around ownership, and brand visibility. That middle one - feelings around ownership-  is the tough one. I’ve spilled my guts on my analyst blog. I’ve dug deep and worked through some research questions publicly. I’ve thrown half-baked ideas around. If the company suddenly deleted me, I’d have four years of learning undocumented. Nothing to refer back to…"I wrote about that once…" would be no more. And, I’d have lost hundreds of hours of (additional) "work" I was not paid for. After all, I can’t be paid for 8 hours of work a day just for blogging. But if it takes me three hours to write something, I eat that cost. I find reward in the process of writing, thinking, reading what others think, etc. It’s difficult because I get paid  to write about work on the blogs but a lot of what I write drifts from that. I feel that’s mine. I did that on my own time. Too bad so sad, huh? Dawn Foster wrote about it. Given the current economic situation, I agree that this decision is unlikely to have much short-term impact on Forrester, but the long-term effects could be devastating. I suspect that several of their analysts will leave over this decision, although they may wait until the economy starts to improve before making the jump. I also think that they will have a hard time recruiting top talent. Very few people who have built active blogs in their areas of expertise will be willing to give them up. I know that I would never consider working for Forrester under these restrictions. She points to one analysts feelings on the issue. Am I thrilled at the prospect of giving up Experience: The Blog, my personal/professional blog? Well no—it’s become part of my digital identity and represents thousands of hours of time and effort. But I also understand Forrester’s reasons for the changes. There are obvious benefits to the company of aggregating intellectual property on Forrester.com, including Search Engine relevance and creating a marketing platform that demonstrates the breadth and depth of analysts’ brainpower and coverage. Dennis Howlett also wrote about it. He refers to SageCircle’s assessment of Forrester’s reasoning: Forrester CEO George Colony is well aware of that savvy analysts can build their personal brands via their positions as Forrester analysts amplified by social media (see the post on "Altimeter Envy"). As a consequence, a Forrester policy that tries to restrict analysts’ personally-branded research blogs works to reduce the possibility that the analysts will build a valuable personal brand leading to their departure. In addition, forcing analysts to only blog on Forrester-branded blogs concentrates intellectual property onto Forrester properties increasing the value of the Forrester brand. Forrester’s Corporate Communications posted this response to Sage Circle’s post: Regarding Forrester analyst blogs: We believe we can best serve our clients in their professional roles by aggregating our intellectual property in one place - at Forrester.com. Make no mistake: Forrester is committed to social media, and the number of our analyst bloggers is increasing, not decreasing. Analysts will still have the ability to blog outside of Forrester on topics not related to their coverage areas. Dennis Howlett calls the decision an epic 2.0 fail. …both Jeremiah and Ray (former Forrester analysts) were generating huge interest in Forrester thinking. Not bad for a distant second placed player in the analyst community. Crucially and largely as a result of their solo efforts, Forrester was getting a LOT of new, incoming revenue. But equally crucially, neither Jeremiah nor Ray were rewarded for their efforts, often on top of 80+ hour working weeks. He goes on… Enterprise 2.0 mavens consistently argue that bottom up adoption of Enterprise 2.0 will make business better. That’s fine except in one crucial regard: pre-existing success history dictating future policy. There is plenty of evidence for that. Forrester’s belated but still knee jerk reaction confirms. Worse still. Rather than behaving as the doyen of what it preaches regarding social media, Forrester is showing itself as hypocritical in the worst possible way. Josh Bernoff, Forrester, tells it like it is: Forrester is an intellectual property company, and the opinions of our analysts are our products. Blogging is an extension of the work… I hope I don’t have to deal with having my company blog deleted. But it is always a possibility and that said, if I had a choice, I’d put it on my own site.

Cross post Could you disconnect from the Web for a week and still work? I couldn’t. I was unable to disconnect for even half a week and still work. Not even half a week! Weak. I started my quest to disconnect by turning off my presence indicators (Skype and Gtalk) and I signed out of my Google account. I scheduled future Workplace Learning Today blog posts. I cleared my feed reader.  I disabled Web access on my BlackBerry. I learned pretty quickly that email is central to my work and couldn’t get much done without it. Most people working in corporations rely on email to communicate so I must also communicate that way. Without email I would not have known what was going on with the business.If I had planned ahead, I could have had enough work but that isn’t the point. So, I decided (within 24 hours) to go back to Outlook and see email only from co-workers and customers on my brandon-hall e-mail address during this social hiatus experiment. I’d only respond if absolutely critical (I said to myself). A very 1990s approach. I sent one email and responded to one other. I don’t have a land line phone so really I would have had to locate a pay phone to communicate that way. I justified in my mind that email isn’t really social until you act on it (although that really isn’t true if you hold to the definition of social). Plus, email is one-to-many (web 1.0) vs. many-to-many (web 2.0). I should have been more realistic and made a goal of not using the social web vs. totally disconnecting. Not using the social web, to me, means not: connecting with others online via the web collaborating online interacting with others on the web Even though I was unsuccessful with totally disconnecting, I was moderately successful with my plan to abandon the social web (i.e., all things ‘2.0′). I say moderately because I did access the web (WEAK!) to make travel arrangements and used TripIt, an online travel itinerary and trip planner. (Making travel arrangements is like a half-day event for me. It’s a huge time sink and I was procrastinating the details.) TripIt is supposed to make it easier to manage all the details. (So far so good.) At least one person called me out for connecting online with others using TripIt… I thought you were disconnecting this week Totally busted. TripIt allows you to share (or invite to share) your travel plans with people you are connected with on other social networks. I imagine the value in that connection is sharing (try this restaurant while you’re in Vancouver) and connecting (you’re in Vancouver, let’s get together). I thought I was just creating an itinerary but not so because my action of using it created other connections. Could I have called various airlines? Yes, I guess I could have it I knew where there’s a pay phone. But that would probably be a bigger time sink than doing it online and not as easy to compare prices. I could’ve used a local travel agent. I believe either option would have cost me more money than doing it myself on the Web. Especially because I had procrastinated. The social web is great for procrastinators, people looking for greater efficiency, and/or those looking for services that previously were not free. I also used Doodle to make my schedule available for someone setting up a meeting with multiple people across time zones. I would have been rude not to respond within a day to that invitation, because it was time sensitive. Time. That’s a common denominator of my two digressions and was what I missed most about the social web. The immediacy. I lost the ability to learn, work, access, and retrieve in real-time. Clearly if the need for immediacy (without regard to time or place) is what you need, the social web is the way to go. Of course life is real-time but my social network is very small (fewer people and limited geographical reach) without the Web. I also missed getting answers. I realized I rely on search engines and my networks for answers to many questions. I ask a lot of questions. Without the web, I felt lost. Based on my very limited experiment, the social web is most valuable for me for the following: comparative analysis of digital content real-time communication in online networks time-sensitive digital tasks linkage between and among people greater reach (work with more people) collaboration development of relationships self-education I can’t imagine what work would be like without the social web. I wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading this. I wouldn’t know many people who work in the e-learning industry. I wouldn’t be as far ahead in my thinking. It’s like playing up a level in sports. Where else could you connect directly with great minds in the field? It would be hard to do that even at a conference. Being a virtual web worker, I’d  be pretty lonely and isolated too without the social web. My job wouldn’t be as fun and I’d be without some great relationships. Humorous, casual, frustrated, or even personal exchanges are the building blocks of relationships. One last thing: productivity. I realize I have to find bigger blocks of time where I’m not doing anything. At least a full day with no social web. I also have to find bigger blocks of time for reading books, articles, and papers. Basically, I have to manage my time differently which really isn’t a social web issue at all. I highly recommend trying this exercise or one like it. It’s been eye opening. It was also an epic fail.

I’m finally getting around to reading the ASTD State of the Industry Report for 2009 which was released in November. I found this graphic quite interesting. I suspect one of the greatest needs now is to come up with an actual strategy for implementation. Or is the plan just to let the horses out of the barn? Might I suggest a first step if you’re talking the strategy route - understand the common problems that get in the way of execution and analyze your organization within the context of these overarching things: Process and governance Technology and standards Organizational and learning culture Utilization of local and global resources Skills and competencies You’ll be looking for stuff like this: Initially, I thought governance was out of step with Web 2.0. It’s not. I like this definition of governance from AACSB (my original link is now dead): Governance is the process of decision-making and the process of implementing (or not implementing) those decisions. Learning governance consists of planning for learning, allocating investments to learning, and managing those investments. Governance should be aligned with business objectives and performance goals. You’ll have a better shot at getting resources and support with common goals. That might be a no brainer but some organizations are a bit out of step. If your goal is to create an environment for collaborative learning using technology, you’ll have to discuss a specific strategy for technology. Not readily available to me is this oldie but goodie: Itami, H. & Numagami, T. (1992). Dynamic Interaction Between Strategy and Technology. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 13, 119-135. ABI/INFORM Global. They defined three relationships between strategy and technology: between current strategy and current technology between current strategy and future technology between future strategy and current technology Typical questions they proposed include: How should technology be used as a tool? When should technology be introduced? What type of strategic focus is most effective given the constraints on the technology available? How should the organization cope with technological innovation and trends? Basically, you’ve got a couple of ways to go…piggyback on an existing enterprise-wide strategy or move forward with baby steps. If strategy is about doing the right things, implementation is about doing things right. (Harvard Business Essentials, 2005) This is the process I used for executing: Here’s a two-pager with some key points about learning 2.0. (This post is based on a report I wrote just over a year ago. I hope you find the excerpts from it helpful.)

I just quick wanted to share this blended learning graphic from EMC, a provider of information infrastructure systems (and thanks for letting me use it!). Because they’ve acquired over 35 companies in the last five years (and have 50 new product launches each quarter), they have 10,000+ people who need an in-depth understanding of products. I would call that a boatload. I like how they used this three level approach. The formal components include rapid eLearning (Articulate), virtual classroom, and live instructor-led and workshop. Informal learning involves audio and video podcasts, best practice sharing in communities, and coaching and mentoring. EMC used an analytical framework where the level of objective determines the blended learning methodology and delivery approach. A nice model, isn’t it?

Seriously, this is uplifting. I believe 2009 was the year of "more cowbell."

Did you ever see the "results not typical" comment at the bottom of an ad for some product? In the US, it once was* a legal loophole. Something like this: "This miracle powder worked for this genetically engineered buxom red head with six-pack abs but probably won’t work for fat brunette cows eating Chicken McNuggets in front of the TV." It’s (1) potentially damaging (I almost tore my rotator cuff hurling a McNugget at the TV screen) and (2) costly (people blow a ton a money buying "results not typical" products and subsequently consulting with psychiatrists only to learn that it’s all their mother’s fault anyway). Part of my job (and my nature) has  always been searching for the best, most innovative examples. In my mind, I see inspiration in the "non-typical." I search for what is typical among non-typical programs and write about it. I hope to inspire. I hope people say, "we could do this…" But be warned. If you don’t take a "results not typical" mindset when it comes to e-learning, you should. Be inspired but don’t try to be something you can’t. And don’t think you’ll do better than everyone else that is equally typical. You won’t.

Could you disconnect from the Web for a week and still work? I couldn’t. I was unable to disconnect for even half a week and still work. Not even half a week! Weak. I started my quest to disconnect by turning off my presence indicators (Skype and Gtalk) and I signed out of my Google account. I scheduled future Workplace Learning Today blog posts. I cleared my feed reader.  I disabled Web access on my BlackBerry. I learned pretty quickly that email is central to my work and couldn’t get much done without it. Most people working in corporations rely on email to communicate so I must also communicate that way. Without email I would not have known what was going on with the business.If I had planned ahead, I could have had enough work but that isn’t the point. So, I decided (within 24 hours) to go back to Outlook and see email only from co-workers and customers on my brandon-hall e-mail address during this social hiatus experiment. I’d only respond if absolutely critical (I said to myself). A very 1990s approach. I sent one email and responded to one other. I don’t have a land line phone so really I would have had to locate a pay phone to communicate that way. I justified in my mind that email isn’t really social until you act on it (although that really isn’t true if you hold to the definition of social). Plus, email is one-to-many (web 1.0) vs. many-to-many (web 2.0). I should have been more realistic and made a goal of not using the social web vs. totally disconnecting. Not using the social web, to me, means not: connecting with others online via the web collaborating online interacting with others on the web Even though I was unsuccessful with totally disconnecting, I was moderately successful with my plan to abandon the social web (i.e., all things ‘2.0′). I say moderately because I did access the web (WEAK!) to make travel arrangements and used TripIt, an online travel itinerary and trip planner. (Making travel arrangements is like a half-day event for me. It’s a huge time sink and I was procrastinating the details.) TripIt is supposed to make it easier to manage all the details. (So far so good.) At least one person called me out for connecting online with others using TripIt… I thought you were disconnecting this week Totally busted. TripIt allows you to share (or invite to share) your travel plans with people you are connected with on other social networks. I imagine the value in that connection is sharing (try this restaurant while you’re in Vancouver) and connecting (you’re in Vancouver, let’s get together). I thought I was just creating an itinerary but not so because my action of using it created other connections. Could I have called various airlines? Yes, I guess I could have it I knew where there’s a pay phone. But that would probably be a bigger time sink than doing it online and not as easy to compare prices. I could’ve used a local travel agent. I believe either option would have cost me more money than doing it myself on the Web. Especially because I had procrastinated. The social web is great for procrastinators, people looking for greater efficiency, and/or those looking for services that previously were not free. I also used Doodle to make my schedule available for someone setting up a meeting with multiple people across time zones. I would have been rude not to respond within a day to that invitation, because it was time sensitive. Time. That’s a common denominator of my two digressions and was what I missed most about the social web. The immediacy. I lost the ability to learn, work, access, and retrieve in real-time. Clearly if the need for immediacy (without regard to time or place) is what you need, the social web is the way to go. Of course life is real-time but my social network is very small (fewer people and limited geographical reach) without the Web. I also missed getting answers. I realized I rely on search engines and my networks for answers to many questions. I ask a lot of questions. Without the web, I felt lost. Based on my very limited experiment, the social web is most valuable for me for the following: comparative analysis of digital content real-time communication in online networks time-sensitive digital tasks linkage between and among people greater reach (work with more people) collaboration development of relationships self-education I can’t imagine what work would be like without the social web. I wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading this. I wouldn’t know many people who work in the e-learning industry. I wouldn’t be as far ahead in my thinking. It’s like playing up a level in sports. Where else could you connect directly with great minds in the field? It would be hard to do that even at a conference. Being a virtual web worker, I’d  be pretty lonely and isolated too without the social web. My job wouldn’t be as fun and I’d be without some great relationships. Humorous, casual, frustrated, or even personal exchanges are the building blocks of relationships. One last thing: productivity. I realize I have to find bigger blocks of time where I’m not doing anything. At least a full day with no social web. I also have to find bigger blocks of time for reading books, articles, and papers. Basically, I have to manage my time differently which really isn’t a social web issue at all. I highly recommend trying this exercise or one like it. It’s been eye opening. It was also an epic fail.

The D.School (at Stanford) Bootcamp Bootleg free download is a curated collection of material developed by teaching teams throughout the design world over the last five years. Inspiring, motivational, and easy to apply to real-world ID. Enjoy! (hat tip Venessa Miemis). Download here.

Microlearning as a term reflects the emerging reality of the ever-increasing fragmentation [emphasis mine] of both information sources and information units used for learning, especially in fast-moving areas which see rapid development and a constantly high degree of change. (Langreiter & Bolka, 2006) I see the micro thing (small units of rapidly changing user-generated content, consumed by others in a short time period) becoming more fragmented especially within some of the sillier websites out there (one of which I’ll share in a moment). Lucky you! Maybe *you* already see it everywhere. It started coming together for me in early 2009 in the land of the bizarre thing we know as the Internet. When I contrast the "micro thing" with what we often do with e-learning - create and cover everything- I see a missed opportunity. I mean *really* if I had a nickel for every "intro" section I’ve seen in a course (some my own) I’d have a shitload of nickels. Let me try to put this "micro thing" together in a way that’s (hopefully) helpful to you but that won’t make me more than a #4 on your #1-10 insanity evaluation scale. Example: The People of Wal-Mart The People of Wal-Mart site started in August 2009 by "three friends and roommates after an inspirational trip to Wal-Mart." (Dude, we should start a website….dude, holy shit, CapitalOne and BlackBerry want to advertise here. Cool.). I’ve been "inspired" at Wal-Mart too, just not smart enough to turn that inspiration into gold. I was too busy writing and reading intro sections for e-learning courses. You know…pulling together everything someone must know and/or do for their job or a particular part of their job. The People of Wal-Mart site works like this: people take pictures of other people inside Wal-Mart and submit their "Wal-Creature." The site owners make funny headings and if you’ve got a really good photo, you can win a $100 gift card. To Wal-Mart. It’s a slice (or pile) of Americana. You either love it ("quite possibly THE BEST THING i’ve ever seen") or hate it ("the bigotry is astounding…"). So, it all started with this first post in August 2009…it’s mild compared to some others. and most recently this… then "vehicles" kept showing up…the cars in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. and so, it becomes a spin-off site…a micro aspect of the original. The new site is called You Drive What? Sears advertises there. You might just see this as a spin-off (The Colbert Report spinning off from The Daily Show) to make a new hit and/or money. But I’m seeing it as more than that. The People of Wal-Mart is for people. Not vehicles. And, it’d be hard to confirm that a vehicle was, in fact, parked at Wal-Mart. However, rather than ban cars from the site, the site owners see that pictures of wacky vehicles are something people want and they make it into something new. Still sounds like the typical spin-off. However, one of the differences is that the content is not produced. The People of Wal-Mart site owners don’t know what photo they’re going to get today. The first few vehicle pictures that were submitted probably made the site owners pause. This is what’s happening everywhere. For e-learning types, it’s a struggle. Where does it fit in the instructional design process (if at all)? The Digital Curation Center began the work of defining the concepts, goals, tasks and research needs associated with a challenging area ("maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use.") The term digital curation is used in this call for the actions needed to maintain digital research data and other digital materials over their entire life-cycle and over time for current and future generations of users. Implicit in this definition are the processes of digital archiving and preservation but it also includes all the processes needed for good data creation and management, and the capacity to add value to data to generate new sources of information and knowledge. [emphasis mine] Curation and long-term preservation of digital resources will be of increasing importance for a wide range of activities within research and education. Through sensors, experiments, digitisation and computer simulation, digital resources and data are growing in volume and complexity at a staggering rate. The cost of producing these resources is very high: satellites, particle accelerators, genome sequencing, and large scale digitisation and electronic publishing collectively represent a cumulative investment of billions of pounds in digital research and learning. Long-term curation and preservation of digital resources is seen as a challenge which is difficult if not impossible for individual institutions to resolve on their own due to the complexity and scale of the challenges involved. From the DCCs vision statement: Curation is the active management and appraisal of data [emphasis mine] over the life-cycle of scholarly and scientific interest; it is the key to reproducibility and re-use. This adds value through the provision of context and linkage: placing emphasis on ‘publishing’ data in ways that ease re-use, with implications for metadata and interoperability. Metadata for resource discovery and retrieval are also important, with mark-up on time/place referencing as well as subject description and linkage to discipline-based ontologies. Special emphasis is required on the descriptive information that allows effective re-analysis of datasets of scientific and scholarly significance, and re-use in new and unexpected contexts, e.g. e-Learning or science history. The demands for linkage to two further domains of scholarly communication and e-Learning must also be understood. [emphasis mine] Clearly The People of Wal-Mart and You Drive What? are not scholarly, "trusted," instructional, or scientific but the low-brow in me sees a new role for those in e-learning. I haven’t done any research here. I’m just thinking out loud. So don’t rely on what I say here - I may be misunderstanding digital curators. However, going back to the insurance industry I once worked in, what I do see is the "Insurance Policy" community website that focuses on discussions of policies which suddenly includes a lot of hypothetical questions from insurance agents that would work well for learning and the need to create a separate space for that community to flourish. And all the other stuff…easy, meta info, etc. So, rather than trying to figure out everything to include, try to figure out how to help people make sense of what is already there. In a manageable way that ultimately is targeted and less time  consuming. I dunno. What do you think? What can you add? What do you see?

I was happy to be asked to participate in a Blog Book Tour for the newly released book Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration by Karl M. Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll. The idea of a book tour is to build a discussion around the concepts in a book and to bring thinking about 3D virtual worlds for learning and collaboration into the forefront of discussions in the e-learning space. This is stop #14 on the tour. When it comes to virtual worlds for learning, I’m most frequently asked, "who’s doing it?" and "is it working?" Corporations are slow to put resources in areas that are new and, although we’ve been talking about virtual worlds for awhile, they still are new in the world of corporate training. On that point, the authors note that the virtual learning marketplace is just now beginning an accelerated growth path. I don’t have to look much further than our (Brandon Hall Research’s) Excellence in Learning Awards to see that. We didn’t even have a category for virtual worlds in prior to 2008 and that first year, had just two entries. For the most recent awards program, in 2009, we had 6 entries. Our members also started showing an interest in research about virtual worlds and in 2007 and 2008 we released several reports around the subject. Chapter 6 in Learning in 3D highlights ten case studies from Microsoft/Sodexo, Cisco, Ernst & Young, U.S. Holocaust Museum, Catt Laboratory, Loyalist College, Ball State University, Penn State University, BP, and IBM. When it comes to the question "who’s doing it?", you’ll find some great examples. I’ll add another, silver award winner, Vestas Organization and their "Vesta World," focusing on effectiveness, i.e. "is it working?" On the 5 different programs Vestas launched by the end of 2008 the pre-test showed an average knowledge and skills level of 37% (where the percentage equals the proportion of correct answers). The post-test showed an average knowledge and skills level of 83%. The average calculated increase in knowledge and skills was therefore 45% points and the average Total Learning achieved was 73%, where the "Total Learning" refers to how much of the gap was filled between what was known by the learners before the training and a perfect score of 100% after the training. The average Total Learning for all measured classroom training in Vestas in 2008 was 59%. E-learning Program Manager Peter Christensen said, "We set a very ambitious Total Learning target for e-learning programs in Vestas World. The target was 60 % which is higher than the standard target for effective classroom training. Reaching 73% is a real victory and it proves that we made the right choices in our implementation of the concept." What’s exciting about Vestas is that they embraced the uniqueness a virtual world offers and left behind the classic top-down learning style. They said this led to more effective learning. The business needs and issues were met by building a unique Virtual World that introduced a visual style that all employees can relate to as a global, unified Vestas style. In addition to this a completely new tone of voice and learning style in Vestas World was introduced. This tone of voice was peer-to-peer based and meant that Vestas World set a very high quality standard for the e-learning programs to live up to. The effect of this quality level has been that it shows the learners that Vestas put great emphasis on learning which has also had a positive effect on learning effectiveness. The learners have basically been more motivated. Here’s a trailer for Vestas World. I hope it will inspire you to explore virtual worlds.

So I sit down at my desk this morning, opened up Gmail as I always do and noticed Google Buzz. I read like 61 trillion tweets about  Google Buzz over the past few days so, of course, I was fatigued with it to begin with. Tweets, blog posts, RSS feed just loaded with it. I was expecting someone to say at breakfast,  "hey, did you try Google Buzz…what’s that about?" (no one would ever say that to me at breakfast though…make me eggs! is usually about the best I get for breakfast conversation.) So my point is, I was not enthusiastic. However, being a student of the social web, I jumped right in. My first thought was HEY wait just a minute there Google, didn’t I just jump into Google Wave in the fall? How is this different? (I dunno because I’ve already forgotten Google Wave.) If a tool or technology can’t capture my attention within the first few hours of trying it, I abandon it and forget it. I posted my first Buzz message "test." Outstanding I know. I imagine a bunch of people followed my great content at that point…nearly as good as my "start" status on Twitter. I posted no link, no video, no photo but did do an integration with Twitter, Google Reader, Picasa, and Google chat. I didn’t email my test post, I didn’t "like" anyone else’s stuff, and I didn’t comment on anything. My answer to Google’s question "Share what you’re thinking. Post a picture, video, or other link here" was test. That’s what I was thinking. Another freakin’ test. I’ve spent about 30 minutes with Buzz so far. I updated my profile. Looks like you can almost make it your one-stop for all things social media. I don’t have much more to report after just 30 minutes. On the down side, I don’t see how it can support multiple accounts. Right now I can’t open two gmail accounts at the same time. This has always been a problem for me. Sign in, Sign out, Sign in, Sign out. Second, it seems like it will clog up my email (sorry thats "G"mail). I think we should be getting away from email. And, it seems like Buzz is making a bunch of decisions for me. I can’t properly explain that but Buzz kind of felt like there was going to be some guy around the next corner when I was walking home in the dark. Boo! Oh, it’s just you….my suggested friends. Boo! Oh, it’s just you Pete Cashmore from Mashable and while you’re here Pete, how did you get 12K followers already? (probably with better content than "test.") So I’ve hit a wall of sorts. I’m going to go cold turkey for the next week and stay away from all my various social web activities. Instead, I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and take out a pencil and paper (old school) and document how the lack of social media is impacting my work, learning, and productivity. I’m actually going to disconnect. It’s appropriate, I think, that Google Buzz is the catalyst because the social web is a bit like addictive drugs but without the craving of munchies. I’ll report back next Friday the 19th.

In 2009, I did not have to search for food, go to war, or otherwise suffer or sacrifice as so many did. I did not have to look for work and I’m feeling pretty lucky to have a good job right now with great co-workers and thousands of connections with some of the best minds in the business. So, my "problems" are way, way insignificant but, they provide opportunities for making things even  better in 2010. Suffice to say that looking back on 2009, I’m not chomping at the bit to re-live it.  It was much too chaotic for me and I’m not really the type that has to have everything in place. So it was big time CHAOTIC for a person OK with moderate chaos. Everything in moderation…chaos included. The ASTD Big Question this month offers a nice opportunity to reflect, plan and predict. Responses are to be made around three questions: What are your biggest challenges for this upcoming year? What are your major plans for the year? What predictions do you have for the year? I’ll get the prediction out of the way first. Here’s the one I wrote for the popular eLearn annual prediction article. I was limited to 100 words. In a word: complexity. We will see more "platform as a service" (PaaS) solutions with further computing enhancements to support the "micro" movement. Aggregators, mobile support, and real-time collaboration will bring a new level of complexity to the increasingly distributed, knowledge-driven workplace. As we process more fragmented information and sources, content curators will be needed to support transfer of learning. Tight budgets and renewed fear of travel will bring more innovative blended learning solutions that include online presence support, 3-D immersive environments, and gaming solutions. "Rogue" will give way to acceptance as companies reconcile the privacy and productivity concerns associated with social media. As a result, we’ll see the formation of richer online networks and communities. On the horizon…augmented reality. Now for the other two questions… Biggest challenges for this upcoming year: Balance Control Discipline Major plans for the year: Speak at some conferences Separate social media marketing stuff and the e-learning stuff Take two courses Take two family vacations Get digital assistant Embrace chaos, kick CHAOS in the shin Now I need to put this into action.