So I saw an exchange on Twitter between @hybridkris and mrch0mp3rs  concerning closed versus open formats for eBooks. They're a couple of smart guys and the discussion is important but it also got me thinking about the fact that maybe we to think a bit more about the "book" and its place in culture and history are and what the very real pros and cons of adding an "e" to that venerable medium may be. My interest in this dates back to at least 1999. I had recently left grad school and so things like the future of the academic monograph, libraries and academic journals were actually on my mind. Also on my mind was the struggle with what has to be left out when writing a book or paper and how what's left out so often forms a powerful context for not just the subject matter but for understanding the place and time that the author was occupying when they wrote the piece - critical information for being able to understand what their underlying viewpoint was. Robert Darnton (1,2)was always one of my favorite historians, so I read with interest his 1999 piece in the NY Times Review of Books, "The New Age of the Book." In that essay, Darnton makes a case for what I think is still one of the most compelling uses for e-books; academic publishing. He reports on the impact on library budgets of the ridiculous costs of academic journals and periodicals something that has corollary and deleterious on the amount of money that is available to spend on academic monographs - which, as anyone who has ever pursued tenure can tell you, are the lifeblood of that pursuit. Darnton also lays out how an e-book could be architected to provide the reader with a variety of layers of writing and knowledge that could be drilled down into at will. He sets the stage almost poetically:"In the case of history, a discipline where the crisis in scholarly publishing is particularly acute, the attraction of an e-book should be especially appealing. Any historian who has done long stints of research knows the frustration over his or her inability to communicate the fathomlessness of the archives and the bottomlessness of the past. If only my reader could have a look inside this box, you say to yourself, at all the letters in it, not just the lines from the letter I am quoting. If only Icould follow that trail in my text just as I pursued it through the dossiers, when I felt free to take detours leading away from my main subject. If only Icould show how themes crisscross outside my narrative and extend far beyond the boundaries of my book. Not that books should be exempt from the imperative of trimming a narrative down to a graceful shape. But instead of using an argument to close a case, they could open up new ways of making sense of the evidence, new possibilities of making available the raw material embedded in the story, a new consciousness of the complexities involved in construing the past." (1) Darnton has now essentially created a new academic sub-discipline; the history of the book. Acting now as the Director of Harvard's libraries (srsly, how cool is that?), Darnton has published The Case for Books; a defense of the form that has endured for so long. In an article from Publisher's Weekly, it's clear that Darnton still holds to this idea of creating a multi-layer book - I still think this is a really compelling idea and one that needs more discussion (I also think its ironic that his book is available on the Kindle). Darnton now though has extended his interest to Google and its massive efforts to digitize millions of books. Two articles (1,2) layout both his concerns and the potential promises of such efforts. In a similar vein, he has also written on the future of the library in the digital age.  As an aside, a fav paper of mine by William Powers, Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal, goes into even greater detail about not just the book but the physicality of the material itself. So what's my point in all this? Just that we leaped into "E-learning" without fully understanding or even trying to understand in many cases, what would, could or should be different about that experience than just "learning". Now we stand here, 10+ years down the road and we the "next" button and we have rapid templates and we have online, web-based smiley sheets for assessments that tell us as little about the learning experience as do their paper-based brethren. In short, we haven't come very far. Now, we are doing the same with e-books (and I fear, with virtual worlds but that's a different post). The book as both physical artifact and medium of knowledge has a rich and long history - that history and the affordances granted to us by its current incarnation should not be disregarded as we go forward with e-books but studied even more closely so that we can make informed decisions not just about format and construction but also about notions of authorship, the dynamics of note-taking (I LOVE his observation concerning the linkage of reading and writing), of sharing, of who should be legally able to digitize and distribute electronic books. All of these dynamics will shape the future of the book and it's "e" cousin. We need to be literate in all of them. Let's do some reading.   

So I'm sitting here look at this nicely done list of instructional design models; and I'm thinking this is why I am so wary of people or models promoting the "7" this or "9" that...I saw this panel at ISPI several years ago. It was supposed to be one of those "Myths, Fads, and Fallacies" of learning that are so much fun (so much fun in fact, we did a session of #lrnchat on it). One of the "gurus" on stage was Thiagi. Brilliant and humorous as ever; Thiagi looked up and down the table and said, in that accent, "It's clear to me that I am the only Indian at a table full of chiefs." The crowd cracked up, but then Thiagi proceeded to tell the audience that the idea of "systems" thinking about something as inherently messy as learning was (and I'm paraphrasing) a bit arrogant. He did this with great style and humor and the whole room was chuckling the whole time. The whole time though, I was looking around thinking "do you people hear what he is saying?" I think some of them didn't but some of them probably did and were laughing nervously. So when I look at this list and I think of Thiagi's talk, I'm reminded that what we may want to pursue is something more like a school of thought - with rooms for many models and many ways of thinking - but with an emphasis on the discipline, critical thinking skills, willingness to challenge accepted wisdom and intellectual curiosity and rigor that would serve all of us well. 

...now how would you design content to take advantage of this? If you say, "we could put a really cool 'Next' button in the corner" ..I'm coming after you!

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So one of the greats of design thinking, Don Norman (Design of Everyday Things, The Design of Future Things, etc) has really kicked over a design anthill. Last month (I think, the essay isn't dated) Norman published an essay entitled "Technology First, Needs Last." (image: Tim Brown)  Essentially Norman asserts that: "I've come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs. I reached this conclusion through examination of a range of product innovations, most especially looking at those major conceptual breakthroughs that have had huge impact upon society as well as the more common, mundane small, continual improvements. Call one conceptual breakthrough, the other incremental. Although we would prefer to believe that conceptual breakthroughs occur because of a detailed consideration of human needs, especially fundamental but unspoken hidden needs so beloved by the design research community, the fact is that it simply doesn't happen."Whoa. OK. Pause. Reflect. Bruce Nussbaum published a reply to this essay (so Norman's must've come out in December 09) - the response isn't I think very powerful but some of the comments are; including one by Norman himself. Norman makes some good points but in his comment on the Nussbaum piece, exposes an argument that I think I fundamentally disagree with. He (Norman) asserts that "People's needs come after the technologies exist. The need for cooking came after the taming of fire (animals don't cook their meals). The need for communication devices (telegraph, telephone, radio, cellphone, internet, postal mail, email) came after the technologies made them possible. People 1000 years ago did not have a need for email, or not even for the telephone: it took the existence of technologies to make these activities possible, which then slowly determined the need. (Remember, when the telephone was first introduced, few people could conceive of why they would want it. Hotels resisted it. Etc.)"Um, I don't think so. People had a need for cooked food prior to taming fire. Less disease, ability to store food, warmth, ability to dissuade predators, fear of the dark - these were all needs that pre-dated the technology-else why pursue the technology? We may not have been able to fully articulate what the needs were but we humans saw something in the fire-we had felt its warmth, seen its light, etc-that convinced us to tame it. We have also had a powerful, driving need to communicate with each other. Why else have humans been driven to crush berries and figure out which dyes would best stain a cave wall? Did we really have no need to share written information before the invention of the written language? So let's leave that aside for a minute (and because I think I'm right) and focus on the real question here: can thinking about design, absent any new technology, produce revolutionary, innovative leaps?  I don't know, would you consider Jules Verne to be a design thinker? Asimov? Heinlein? Arthur C. Clarke? They all envisioned radical, revolutionary leaps forward and did so in spectacular fashion w/out the technology existing that they envisioned. So maybe there is a dialectic here between design and invention. Some of the comments found in other articles detailing this battle (1, 2,) discuss the flow involved in bringing an invention to the fore and working it in such a way that it actually has impact - in essence move from invention to innovation. So for #lrnchat, what is the question(s) we could draw out of this for discussion?  What is the role of design thinking in designing instruction? What do we see as the interplay between technology and design? How do invention and innovation relate to/impact what we do? Can we envision a need for which a technology does not yet exist? Are we as dependent on the technologists, the engineers, the inventors as Norman suggests?

Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and CollaborationFirst an apology - I was supposed to write this review weeks ago and seriously dropped the ball. That in no way should take away from the fact that I think this is actually a very important book. I actually think it is important in a way that has very little to do with any underlying technology or set of technologies. So I should add that my undergrad degree was in management. That means that anytime someone quotes Peter Drucker, I have to sit up straighter and pay attention. So when Tony and Karl quote Drucker and the idea of "rountinization" - that new technologies are most often employed early on to do old tasks faster - I latched onto that one.   Don't believe it? Really? Think about e-learning for a minute. How long have we been doing that? 10 -15 years? How many times are we still confronted with that design choice of which corner to put the "next" button in? That's awesome design evolution isn't it? Why do we still have page-turners? Because we've just automated them. Tony and Karl assert: "Trainers appear to be wrapped up in some strange form of unconscious collusion wherein their dogged adherence to the classroom paradigm has rendered them oblivious to the incredible potential that the webvolution holds to revolutionize learning for both businesses and educational institutions." Man, you ain't kidding. Not just trainers. I don't want to cast too small a net here. Schools. Colleges. The classroom has trapped a lot of people. Gary Woodill has a great piece on the history of the classroom as instructional technology. So Karl and Tony might not want me to say this, but the virtual world stuff in their book is top notch - you should read it word by word, but its not the most important thing in the book. Passages like the one below are:"In short, just as business has had to change dramatically as a result of  dynamic market economics, so too must the learning function. Critical to successfully navigating this change is recognizing that the path to strategic leverage within the firm lies in cultivating a generative learning culture. Creating a true learning organization will require significant and systemic changes to the learning function practice, not merely the automation of training processes and the digitization of training content, but a wholesale redefinition of how learning adds value to organizations."So do yourself a favor and pick up this important book and read it. Then think about what you need to do as a learning/training professional with this amazingly rich set of tools and platforms called virtual worlds and consider the challenge that Tony and Karl have so powerfully laid out - don't use these tools to create the world's best 3D "next" button. Think past classrooms. If you don't then what a waste we'll be looking at in 10 years. 

So I just got back from GDC and before that it was Learning Technologies 2010, DevLearn before that and next it'll be Learning Solutions, IITSEC, LEEF (supposed to be REALLY good this year), maybe throw in some KMWorld, a little OGI and Gov2.0 and there you go. I could also include past years when I've gone to ISPI or ASTD and so on...but there are a lot of conferences in my past and in all probability, a lot more in my future. Now, don't get me wrong- I love a good conference. I love the interaction w/ the other attendees, maybe seeing a really smart/funny/inspirational speaker maybe meeting some cool new company with a really interesting new product. <insert other shoe dropping>...but it also gets old. I've been to a lot of shows, spoken at a lot of shows but at some point you find yourself (or at least I do) starting to skip some of the sessions and look for actual, authentic conversations. This happens more I find at conferences that I've been to multiple times. Then you start to question why you're there in the first place - think Up In The Air but for conferences. So I've started to really wonder, how can re-engineer conferences so that they stay relevant for people like myself (and the others like me - you know who you are - we can all make lovely quilts out of our name tags and badges). Then I read Jeff Hurt's really nice post on this topic and I liked it but I think its interesting that he and I are coming at the same problem from different angles (I think). I think that Jeff is focusing on fundamentally re-wiring the conference experience at a level that is probably much deeper than what I am thinking of but also maybe harder to get to - maybe I can offer a potential signpost to Jeff's ultimate destination. I am thinking about this kind of neo-nomadic conference crowd that moves from event to event. The ones who have been there before, who are speaking, who are considering just flying into town to give their session and then hopping right back out again. What are we Master Storytellers? Veterans of the Conference Wars? Whatever you call us (annoying know-it-alls?) we're out there and we're taking time away from home, work, etc to be there and we'd probably like to get something out of it. I also realize that we are a small percentage compared to the rest of the conference so we can't expect everything to be catered toward us. That being said...what if anything can we propose to conference organizers to keep us interested, engaged and excited about their events?Do we create some kind of event-within-an-event that you have to be allowed into? A secret club of attendees and speakers who are weary to their souls about seeing another presentation of rapid-template-based development or another buzzword-turned-product vendor presentation. We want deeper thinking. Conversations. Community. I mean of course we want free WiFi and power strips at every table but who doesn't?Since I was just out at GDC, I was also hearing a lot about how to keep users coming back to social games - subscriptions, premium content - maybe there is something there that conference organizers can use. Some dynamic that can be drawn out from Farmville or Epic Pet Wars that can be used to keep us grizzled old veterans excited about next year's iteration of your conference. Unless of course you don't want us around. That's cool too. I said before, we're a small population, maybe it just makes economic sense for you to ignore us and just work for new, fresh attendees. Maybe though we're getting to be the ones approving peoples' travel to these events and we'd be more likely to approve things that we were going to or at least still interested in. Whichever way - I do understand that there is an ROI consideration to be done here. Let's talk about it though- I look forward to seeing what Jeff Hurt's ideas are on this and all of you. Thanks, now please remember your lunch tickets and move along to pick up your conference bag.....

I'm a historian. Servant of Clio. Got a Master's in it. Did Doctoral work in it (ABD all the way man!). I have actually read Washington's diaries, The Federalist Papers, Cato's Letter's, Royster, Wood, Bailyn, Maier, et al ad infinitum and I keep rewinding that scene from Good Will Hunting like a million times! I've actually also been paid to teach history to college students and even to conduct paid historical research. So yeah, I'm a historian. I actually regard that title with respect. Did you know that PhD in history is one of the toughest and longest PhDs to get? Try coming up with "an original contribution to the body of knowledge" when that body of knowledge has been around for a couple of thousand years. History as a discipline is also one tough taskmaster? Wanna talk reading loads? Writing loads? Please. Maybe, just maybe something like first-year law school may hold a candle but it'd be close (I'll probably hear from you Lit majors and that's cool too). Did you know we have a whole sub-field dedicated to attacking our own methods and conclusions? (its historiography but more on that in another post). What other field is crazy enough to do that? So I actually threw up a little bit in my mouth when I read all the articles about what the Texas School Board just did. (1,2,3,4) Actually I think I screamed and cursed a bunch too. Seriously. I swear sometimes I think that everyone who's had a history class or seen National Treasure thinks they are a historian. Drives me freakin crazy. You know what? Don't tell me what you know about 'the Founders' until you've spent time with them. I mean original sources. Because that's what historians do. We go to original sources and from there we build up. So when I see a bunch of partisan, amateur hacks tearing up the tracks of history for their own bullshit, political purposes it drives me mad. Have you dumbasses actually read Locke, Hume, Rousseau? I'm gonna bet not but yet you somehow feel qualified to make curriculum changes with regard to the Enlightenment. I've read 'em you Texas punks...you wanna go a couple of rounds? Why don't you show up and try to pass a doctoral comprehensive exam?The problem is that this disease will not stay in Texas by sheer dint of the size of the state, this will affect what textbooks will be offered all over the country. I shudder for the future of our children. Now as I'm writing this rant - I'm also wondering if people who actually have degrees in Instructional Design, or Curriculum Design, or Education feel the same way about some of us in the learning/training field? Now, I've taken grad classes in ISD (shout out to Boise State!) but I also never hold myself out to be an ISD. So now I wonder, history has a fairly well-developed sense of itself - our methodologies, our philosophies on how to "do" history (not to say that there isn't ongoing, heated debate but that is actually a good thing)...does the field of instructional design have a sufficiently coherent sense of 'self' to conjur up such a pure rage as I feel toward the TSBOE? If not, then what's the difference? Is it just a matter of time? Hmmm...I do sense another post coming....

Of this counter...Gary Hayes (the creator) states: "More about the Count - I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites at the end of Sept 2009. The design will be finessed and I will be adding extra functionality (such as week, month & year lookahead/backs plus dynamic data input)."

[Bear with me - long setup to the payoff] So I may have mentioned this a few thousand times but I am actually not an instructional designer. I don't play one on TV. That being said, I have taught classes, built curriculum, and so on but as an anthropologist and a historian. I have also been ranting a bit about conferences of late. Then I went to the eLearning Guild's excellent, Learning Solutions conference and saw a couple of things - the 1st was Ellen Wagner's highly illegal and excellent presentation on the Secret Handshake of Instructional Designers and the second was Heidi Fisk's (co-founder of the Guild) willingness to engage in discussions about what could be done differently at conferences to create richer, more compelling experiences. Then the whole PECHA KUCHA mess got going when I read this post from Lorenz Khazaleh on "Beware: No Pecha Kucha allowed without consent from Tokyo" and wow, that kind of got some attention. That post led me to a couple of great posts by Greg Downey on "Thoughts on Conference Organizing" and "Why Do Speed Presentations?" These in turn led me back to "What's the point of anthropology conferences?" by Lorenz. Phew.I guess the whole point of all of this is that I have been thinking a lot about conferences and its interesting to me to read conference experiences from the other half of my life (the academic side) because although I do have degrees in anthropology and history - I actually only ever attended 1 academic conference (A military history one co-hosted by the CIA and my fav memory is of the luminaries of my profession, lined up 8 deep in front of the counter at the CIA gift store). A couple of the highlights leapt out at me from these posts:(Greg) - Keynote speakers matter a lot. Oh yeah. Not just should the speakers align with the focus of the conference, I think one great idea would be to have a session with the keynoter after the big speech. Clearly, if the keynoter is super popular, this could present some logistical problems but the chance to have a real talk w these people would be very cool. (Greg) - Sweat the details - especially the conference program and handouts. Terrific. Now look, I understand that the program is a source of revenue for the conference organizers but give the planet a break. The Guild did a GREAT job with the iPhone app version of the guide. (Greg) - Food, food, food.Amen brother. Listen, I know - food costs and hotels are incredibly brazen at what they'll charge for food - but I think for too long we've missed the social opportunity that food offers. I mean, we all finish sessions and then head to the winds for dinner or worse...breakfast...please...no more "breakfasts" with no protein at all. I know, protein costs but c'mon, we have to be able to do something. Greg Downey even says "food pulled the conference together, creating opportunities to talk, meet people, lightening the mood, reinvigorating the audience, and generally serving as a social lubricant and psycostimulant." (Lorenz) - Don't neglect the social.I know - I just kind of touched on this above but its important. We all know we don't really go back to conferences for the sessions but for the people (SHOCKER right?). So why not pay more attention to that important aspect? Now academic conferences are different - I know that AERA sessions go late and Lorenz, in talking about one anthropology conference, says "the lectures actually lasted until 11 o'clock at night! I especially enjoyed these less formal after-dinner lectures." Go check out that post and scroll down to the picture of the guys sitting around with beers having a debate on shrines and tolerances - I don't want to really geek out here but c'mon that kind of interaction is really attractive especially compared to more 'sit in chair, face forward' sessions. To sum up then....lessen the carbon footprint, increase the food and the chances for social interaction and try to set up something so that people can interact in smaller venues with the headlining keynoters. Let's also think about ways to maybe stretch the day...maybe move the program forward but do it in a different way...maybe some activity (a little music?) to help loosen things up and move across a liminal space to a different kind of social interaction...if the conversations are important...do more to support that. 

Still noddling my way around this one but wanted to pass it along.  What Is Communilytics? : A community analytics funnel in practiceView more presentations from Alistair Croll and Sean Power .

  So I was reading about new developments on the browser front, Firefox 4 is under heavy development, Opera 10.63 is out, I just found ExtensionFM which is a Chrome extension that builds a library of links to every free MP3 that you run across-in essence building a nice little instant MP3 library. We also now have syncing in Chrome and Firefox. Now I know that #e20 and #mlearncon both just finished up (BTW, I think I just want to start referring to confernces by their Twitter hashtags, deal with it) and watching those associated tweet streams, I was really impressed by what I saw coming out of both conferences. Again though I'm struck by how we sometimes seem to running to the next thing without really looking at what we currently have and what can done with it or even if we need to keep it. I know, this is a weird dynamic for me, I'm usually the kid who comes running in yelling 'this is cool..look at this' and then someone asks (they always ask) 'how will it help us?' and I say 'I don't know...but its COOL.' So I'm taking a bit of a step back here but not really. I think we already have several things in our environments, things that we use every day, that if we used them smarter, thought about them more, we could actually make some pretty serious productivity gains. First up is the browser. The browser. Possibly the most ubiquitous piece of technology any of us online use.  I may be dating myself here but I used to be really familiar with that screenshot over there. Ah, Mosaic. Back in the days of WinSock, Telnet and PINE, Mosaic was my browser of choice (more accurately, the only browser I could get). You know, put in a URL and the go get coffee. That's also back in the day when the most important stuff we did on computers we did using stand-alone, installed apps. Now I would really like someone to name me a mission-critical piece of software I have to use as an installed application whose functionality is not replicated or surpassed by some Web-based client or service. My point (and a super-obvious one) is that not only does the browser now offer us an unprecedented level of functionality...between the services/sites we can get to all the way but they offer us an unprecedented level of customization and the various extensions and widgets provide entirely new layers of capabilities. So how much are we studying this incredibly extensible, customizable, powerful environment? Where are the comparisons across browsers of the various configurations/extensions/widgets/add-ons that could be created to support learning, performance support and collaboration? (Firefox Add-Ons, Chrome Extensions, Opera Widgets) This is not a rant against IE either but where is the questioning about why in so many instances, IE is just the default browser? (Mush like someone somewhere started the myth that the classroom is the gold standard for training/education...that's a whole other post though) Are we really satisfied with IT just handing us something that we'll use every day and not knowing if its the best we can get? I personally have IE, FF, Chrome and Opera installed and am constantly checking out new features...shouldn't we continue to look at this technology with a critical eye? What the heck...let's take a crack at email."Reply All"? What idiot thought of that? I think more damage has been done to corporate productivity by   that little button then by all the games of Tetris combined (Check out how Zappos handles it). If we're not in the browser, we're probably in Outlook. So alright, how many of use have had ANY training at all regarding email? Yeah, I know that the COO of Facebook has said that email is going away and I think this may be the ultimate instance of closing the barn door after the horse has run out (run out, found a new place to live, settled down, and grown old frankly) but I think this is symptomatic of a deeper issue. We use and abuse this particular technology with absolute abandon. We've even created "email bankruptcy"...does that seem healthy? But its this tool we have that because it seems simple, we all think we know what to do with it and how to best use it like that knowledge comes to us genetically or something. So how do we know if we are using this tool to the best of our ability? To the best of its capabilities? How do we even know if we need to be using email at all? Are we searching for alternatives? If we implement social media tools w/in the enterprise, are we doing the necessary change management to get people off the email addiction? What the heck...let's take one last swing...hey! PowerPoint c'mere...  The story of this slide from the Afghan War has already become legendary. That however is soooo the tip of the iceberg. How much time has gone down this particular rabbit hole? Why do exceptional presentations standout so clearly? I think its because we've seen so many bad ones. Thank goodness for conferences like TED that have been raising the bar on presentations to a level that we can all aspire to. Thanks to to books like Slide:ology and Presentation Zen and Edward Tufte who have been helping us make visual sense of information. I'd just like to ask, how many of our organizations offer training in constructing visual stories, storytelling in general or how to think about presenting information in a compelling, understandable manner? What productivity gains could we get if we invested in some training from some folks like VizThink? We even have multiple tools for converting PowerPoint into training, thus extending the potential for good or ill. So the browser, email and PowerPoint. How much time do you think those tools take up in our daily work lives? How much thought have we, as organizations, put into the optimal use of these items?I think there are gains to be made and innovation to be had and solutions to be found. Maybe we need to develop some more 'field independent' thinking...maybe we just might need to look more closely. 

 So my office is in the midst of packing up again. No, we're not moving this time, just packing. Don't ask. Anyway, in the midst of this I got an email that sparked this post and I wanted to tie it together with an article from Harvard Business Review that I had been pimping for a few days on Twitter.  The article is titled "No, Management is NOT a Profession" and yes, it is locked behind a paywall but I read it in the print issue and I do think it hold some worthwhile ideas and HBR isn't trying to hide the fact that its a money-making publication behind some bullsh*t "academic journal facade while just using the "publish or perish" pressure that academics who are seeking tenure face to generate free content for their OUTRAGEOUSLY priced walled gardens of content...the creation of which had already been paid for by a school...but I digress. The point is, pick up the magazine in print or buy a copy of the article. I think that the way the article lays out the defining characteristics of a "profession"...eg LAW and MEDICINE...can really inform the discussions that we regularly seem to have about "what makes one an ISD" and so on. I'm also sitting here thinking that one of the main problems might be the messy humans in the equation. I mean let's be honest...law and medicine INVOLVE humans but they are not ABOUT humans. Law is about, well, the law. That is a definable body of content, the mastery of said content can reasonably be judged across populations. Medicine LOOKS like its about humans but its not...its about their bodies and their bodily processes...by definition, a discrete set of knowledge. Management though, and full disclosure-I have a degree in this topic, LOOKS like its about things like accounting and finance and marketing and HR but really its about leading humans and human efforts. So maybe learning/training falls into the same space...it looks like its about ADDIE (drink) or models and theories but what's its really about is learning...something so indescribably human and messy and individually constructed..that it could be the poster child for uniquely human endeavors. Maybe that's why our field will never be viewed as a "profession"...the body of knowledge required to operate in this domain is simply to varied to ever be judged as "complete" and so by definition, is really hard to define when it is "incomplete." If a doctor fails chemistry, they can not practice medicine. If a lawyer fails contract law, he or she can not practice law. What piece or pieces of knowledge MUST an ISD master...without which they would not be able to function in this field? So maybe we quit worrying about being a "profession" since to qualify for that appellation, it seems that one must work in a fairly limited intellectual landscape. I prefer my messy, human, learning world where we can act professionally but celebrate all the while, that our particular domain of knowledge is far too broad and deep to be considered something as prescribed and constrained as a "profession."  

SO I got this email about participating in an awards program. The subject line of the email is "Get more visibility, vendors." That just screams impartial adjudication right off the bat doesn't it? It says, 'you can trust these awards to guide you toward really remarkable solutions' right? Of course it does. Now let's be clear, the email in question came from Brandon Hall Research and while I do think that BHR does some good work and has some really fine people working there (I think Gary Woodill is particularly smart), I couldn't hate this email any more. From the email: "If your commercially-available product "raises the bar" in any of seventeen categories, then we have an awards program for you"...ouch. So I'm going to self-nominate my own product as a bar-raiser...so what...am I actually supposed to sit down and compare my product honestly and objectively with other products in the field and determine that yes, indeed my product is better than everyone else's...I'll send in a nomination? Does anyone actually think any company out there might conduct such an investigation and conclude the opposite? "Darn, we were going to nominate Widget X, but turns out that its just crap compared to everyone else." Hmmmm.Also from the email:"We make it as easy as possible to enter. You can link whatever gives the judges the best look at your product: a trial version of the technology; a recorded demo; videos, Web pages, documents, or slides describing the technology; or whatever combination of descriptive information you choose."Wow. That's great. So there won't be any kind of standardized submission...so if someone else does really great slides but I send in an actual product, they could beat me. That seems...odd. Kind of like the Oscars saying we're going to give prizes for really great films but if you have some stills you'd like us to look at or maybe just a script to read, we'll do that instead. If you are going to judge products, then judge PRODUCTS. Not marketing materials. Not slide decks. Products. Wanna know why? Because as a potential customer of said product, I could give a crap about the powerpoint behind it. Get it? "Wow, the product is money pit, but the slide deck was AWESOME - thanks BHR Awards!"So I click over to the awards site and BANG <slaps hand to forehead>...it all makes sense now! From the site: "The entry fee is $795 US." Oh, and I thought you really liked my product. You do? You really like my product and think it would be great if everyone had one and it would make learning that much easier and it would end poverty and cure hunger? Awesome :-) What? You're still going to need $800 from me to get considered for an award? Well...um...that's awesome. So I have NO idea how the process works once I pay the $800. I don't know who will judge my product that I have self-nominated and paid to have judged. I also don't know from a consumer standpoint, how much I can trust these awards. You've limited them to self-nominations. You've established a paywall. Now do you really expect me to believe, ESPECIALLY given the subject line of the email, that this is ANYTHING other than another product line for you? Do you really expect me to give ANY credence whatsoever to these awards? I'll tell you this, if-as a potential client, you give me a presentation and tout in that presentation that you've won one of these awards, that might not kill it right there, but your credibility as a vendor just took a hit in my eyes. "wow you won an award that you nominated yourself for and you paid to have judged. Here's a contract." Not happening. Now look, you want to run an awards program because you want to highlight advances in the field? Unique contributions? Brilliant new products? That's terrific. You guys know a lot...have smart people working there...you could probably set up real, very strict criteria and do a real service to both companies and the marketplace by highlighting the superstars. You know what? You'd also generate a lot of good PR for your own firm. This though? This serves no one but you and the companies who "win" (what's the percentage of 'losers' by the way - and the percentage of those losers who pay for the privilege the next year?). So let's keep the awards and just do them in a way that makes then real, earned badges of honor and not literally, bought and paid for.  

 So last week I had the honor of attending the retirement ceremony for combat veteran, Master Sergeant (MSG) Roy Stiles. At a time when I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to be when I grow up, Roy is finishing one career and starting another. There were speeches and awards and pictures taken. MSG Stiles (pictured here with some dopey civilian type), kept his game face on through most of the ceremony, right up until he had to thank his mom for her 'holding her breath' for about 20 years while her son went in harm's way. I think this was really powerful considering MSG Stiles' son has just completed Navy basic training and will soon be going in harm's way himself. Turns out too that MSG Stiles, now to be known as "Roy" - was an honor grad of just about every training school or class he attended. He did what I'm sure was a brutal tour in Hawaii and of course Germany and by his own choice - Afghanistan, where he served as a First Sergeant (1SG). He also volunteered twice to serve as a Casualty Notification officer.  Volunteered to go to Afghanistan. Volunteered to notify families that their loved ones had been lost in service to this nation. Humbling. Why do I bring all this up? Well first, cause I like to count Roy as a friend and a co-conspirator at work and I told him I'd make him a star. Second, because I know its all cool now to put the "Support the Troops" magnet on the back of the car or to talk about how we can disagree with the politics of whatever war but still support the troops (not insignificant lessons mind you, learned by this country largely on the backs of our Vietnam veterans) but I wanted to make the idea of who we are supporting and the kinds of jobs these people do, just a little more personal. I also wanted to talk about the qualities of the Non-Commissioned Officers. One speaker at Roy's ceremony described NCO's as "mission focused, smart and they do not whine." Having worked with more than a few NCO's, I can add my personal testimony to that description. Think about what would happen if you advertised those qualities for your next job opening. So I just really wanted to write this post to say thank you to MSG Stiles for his service and to also say thank you to the other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who continue to go in harm's way for us and for this country.