A couple of weeks ago, Xyleme presented at Intelligent Content conference hosted by the Rockley Group. Intelligent Content isn’t a training event; rather it’s a small conference showcasing how leading edge companies are exploiting the value of content through XML, open formats, and standards. I think the Rockley Group’s definition hits the nail on the head:

Intelligent content is content which is not limited to one purpose, technology or output. It’s content that is structurally rich and semantically aware, and is therefore discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable. It is content that helps you and your customers get the job done. It’s content that is limited only by our imaginations.

With intelligent content you can:

• Automatically deliver to multiple channels
• Personalize content
• Enable customers to easily find the information they need no matter how complex their requirements
• Let your customers build their own unique information products
• Deepen your customer relationship
• Share content across organizational silos
• Manage content throughout its lifecycle
• Rapidly adapt information to changing needs

We love this conference because it stands for everything that Xyleme is trying, and succeeding to accomplish, in the training industry. That being said, training still lags pretty far behind other industries such as technical publications and product documentation when it comes to intelligent content.

So, Mark Hellinger, President and CEO of Xyleme, took the opportunity during the event’s panel discussion to provide his view on why this was the case, and how to effectively make the move from documentation to Learning & Development. Here are some of the highlights from his talk, ranked by the number of tweets on Mark’s discussion points:

Create new output models but retain ability to use existing materials

Despite the movement to e-learning and now mobile delivery, print-based materials are still critical. So, structure content components to allow for conversion to different formats and let audiences select appropriate delivery modes as their needs evolve.

#ic2010 68% training worldwide today is still not done online or as e-learning. Despite initiatives 10 years ago, progress = slow [Xyleme]

#ic2010 People in e-learning try to move to new online tools, but want to keep all the “old stuff” content. Often a mismatch. [Xyleme]

#ic2010 e-learning: challenge of training on-line, is that legacy content was created around classroom, paper-based model. [Xyleme]

#ic2010 PowerPoint is number one “e-learning” tool in the world. Also, the least structured authoring tool. Start from outside in [Xyleme]

Mark Hellinger, Xyleme: 68% of training world-wide is in person, instructor-led or virtual instructor led (not elearning) per ASTD #IC2010

68% of all training is instructor-led or virtually instructor-led. Mark Hellinger/Xyleme #IC2010

Mark Hellinger, Xyleme: Q: What’s the most commonly used training software in the world? A: PowerPoint. #IC2010

Learn that silos are the norm in L&D

Most global training & development groups are very decentralized, therefore effective collaboration is crucial. So, provide the right tools and processes for subject matter expert (SME) knowledge capture, review, and discussion for these dispersed teams.

#ic2010 “Silos are the norm in L&D” [Xyleme]

#ic2010 Tech Doc is often completely disconnected from training & development people. TD often part of HR; way down on food chain. [Xyleme]

Understand that single-source is a change management project not a technology implementation

A single-source L&D implementation is not a one-off project. It’s a paradigm shift for almost everyone involved. Nothing will bring a project crashing to the ground faster than not clearly setting expectations and properly managing the change management issues faced by each stakeholder.

#ic2010 Real challenge: how to you radically change the way that people are creating content and doing things. [Xyleme]

#ic2010 1: start with hi impact project 2: understand single-source is change mngmt project, not tech implement [Xyleme]

Recognize that content reuse and multi-channel publishing are only part of the success equation

Unlike traditional documentation, successful Learning & Development projects go far beyond content reuse and multi-modal delivery. They also find a way of efficiently integrating interactivity, tracking, and performance support into the content life cycle.

#ic2010 3: recognize that content reuse and multi-channel publishing are only PART of the success equation [Xyleme]

Support training industry standards – they especially matter for blended learning

In the training industry, multiple standards (e.g. SCORM, QTI, Common Cartridge) are designed to support different types of delivery platforms and may have little overlap. Blended learning (combined classroom, web-based, and on-demand) requires extraordinary content reuse across these widely accepted standards.

Support training industry standards – they especially matter for blended learning. Mark Hellinger/Xyleme #IC2010

Examine the best practices of online universities

Online universities (e.g. University of Phoenix) are becoming common ways to earn degrees – even top-tier schools are offering online programs. Recognize that educational content will need to be effectively reused and delivered to this critical channel or lose a valuable source of revenue.

#ic2010 Notice changing trend: online Universities like Phoenix are doing well; traditional institutions are struggling for funds [Xyleme]

Thanks to Ann Rockley for putting on a great event. Till next year.

This past week, I’ve been reading and referring to Jane Hart’s article The State of Social Learning Today and some Thoughts for the Future of L&D in 2010 quite a bit. As always, Jane combines a wealth of information with some remarkable insights on where organizational learning is (or should be) headed.

One thing that has always been of great interest to me is what I’ll refer to as the integration of social and formal learning content. So when I got to the part of Jane’s article that said it’s time to re-think the design and delivery of formal learning initiatives, I felt we were on to something. Jane nails it when she says:

“It is also not just about churning out content (however well instructionally designed) but also about the social aspects of learning. Individuals need to have the opportunity to discuss, collaborate and share their experiences – and thereby add to the body of knowledge around a topic. UGC (user generated content) should therefore be seen as a valuable aspect for formal learning context – as much as expert generated content. ”

The industry accepted statistic that social learning evangelists often refer to is that that formal structured learning (FSL) accounts for only 20% of an individual’s learning. This is true. However, it doesn’t mean that the development of formal expert generated content is going to go away. Rather, it’s the delivery of this formal content that will change – in the form of less courseware and more guided delivery at the point-of-performance, with social media platforms providing a critical publishing channel.

Moreover, it’s crucial that we focus on ways for UGC to make its way into formal content development processes and leverage this rich source of information to create better learning products, drive new instructional design models, and most importantly, increase the richness and instructional value of learning content.

How User Generated Content Can Make its Way into Formal Learning:

1. Integrate UGC into formal learning content management: Feedback from forums and content from blogs and/or wikis are examples of valuable information that can be pulled or linked into learning content repositories to provide a unified view of organizational and social content. This pool of connected assets gives authors and instructional designers a more powerful arsenal of resources for creating compelling learning (formal or not).
2. Create Subject Matter Networks (SMNs): Socialize formal content by creating communities around its subject matter to foster rich dialogue around topics and to leverage connections between content authors and their networks. In this way, formal content is now supported and supplemented by an ecosystem of experts and related information. For example, at Xyleme the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of our user guide comes primarily from our product SMN.
3. Make social media part of formal workflows: Allow social collaboration to be another step in the review process by publishing formal content to internal (or external) communities for peer review prior to its wide release. Capture this valuable user-generated feedback and route it into the formal review workflows.
4. Republish UGC with (as part of) formal learning products: Monitor your social learning networks and capture the relevant UGC identified to be of potential value to the organization’s learning products. Send this UGC through the formal editorial workflow to check for appropriateness and quality standards, and then re-publish this content – in the appropriate context – to formal training publications to supplement and enrich these products. For example, supplement your product training materials with instructional demos created by your users and posted on YouTube.

(Note on this post: “Subject matter network” is a term I picked up from Harold Jarche when I commented on his Social learning in the enterprise post; also, the points I make regarding SMN are based on quotes from leading Social Business Software vendor, Jive Software. )

Time to cast your vote for the 2009 Edublog Awards! Voting closes Tuesday, Dec 15 (tomorrow) at 8pm EST.

Congratulations to all of those nominated. It’s an impressive list of bloggers, Tweeters (is that a word?) and other social media leaders who I plan to now read regularly and follow if I’m not already.

This year, our educational podcast library Xyleme Voices was nominated and shortlisted in the category of Best Educational Use of Audio. I’m very honored and thrilled and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to give a shout-out to our spectacular team here at Xyleme. While I am the host of this library, there are a number of people in the background who put tremendous time, effort, and pride into researching, recruiting, and producing these terrific podcasts.

And of course, what would our podcast series be without our outstanding participants who take the time not only to be interviewed, but always come incredibly prepared. They all understand the impact of these podcasts, and no one takes them lightly. And admittedly, even after more than a year of doing these interviews, I am still incredibly nervous before each podcast.

So, I’d like to close this post by saying a few words about my experience with each of our participants thus far:

Bryan Chapman: I never get tired of working with Bryan. In addition to being incredibly likable, he has this uncanny ability to take complex topics and present them in an understandable and enjoyable way.

Janet Clarey: Smart, insightful, and a great presenter with razor sharp wit. Janet is a true champion for others in the industry and someone I aspire to be more like.

Ruth Clark: Gracious and wonderful to work with. Never underestimate this legend’s power. Within an hour of posting her podcast, she had hundreds of downloads. Even after a year, it’s still being downloaded.

Jay Cross: Has a great perspective on all subjects learning and is a true champion of the training organization. Today, training is undervalued and Jay’s goal is to ensure CLO’s take their true spot in the C-suite – at the top.

Conrad Gottfredson: A great friend and performance support guru. With the emergence of social media, Conrad’s learning at the moment of need has never had greater significance.

Micheal Hanley: Wonderful advocate for open source technologies. He’s passionate about what he believes in and I had a great time engaging in more than one spirited discussion with him.

Lars Hyland: A great guy and incredibly personable. One of the few vendors who understands the importance of making valuable contributions to the learning community rather than just pushing a corporate message.

Harold Jarche: So intelligent, it’s almost intimidating. Harold is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and I still repeatedly refer to his ideas and concepts regarding learning networks.

Charles Jennings: What a thrill is was to interview this real-world CLO. His contributions to social learning in the workplace are second to none.

Ann Kwinn: Ann gave some great tips on the virtual classroom that I still use today.

Elliot Masie: A true showman and it comes through in his podcast. Deeply entrenched with learning executives, Elliot gave great insight into how training operates within blue chip companies.

Frank Nyugen: Let me just say this: there are not many people who can describe reusable learning objects with such clarity and make it so interesting.

Clark Quinn: Clark has a real gift for getting to the heart of the matter in a clear and succinct way and I’ve quoted him on numerous occasions. Also, he’s way too modest about the value he brings to training.

Allison Rossett: I think we can all agree that there is no one quite like Allison – smart, funny, and right on the money. I enjoyed our discussion – even when she let her cat join in on the conversation.

Clive Shepherd: One of my favorite podcasts because Clive makes you think hard about the things you take for granted and shows you that there is still massive room for improvement.

Ellen Wagner: Instructional designer extraordinaire! She gets it and taught me a lot about how to create an experience in learning. A great contact that I am grateful to have.

Thank you all and looking forward to another great year of podcasts at Xyleme Voices.

There is no question that the rise of social networks is creating a profound shift in the way training departments are delivering knowledge to their employees, partners, and customers. According to a McKinsey executive survey, a whopping 71% of enterprises are using Web 2.0 tools for training purposes and this figure is rising fast. While I could write an entire blog post on the reasons for this, I think Clark Quinn summarizes it quite nicely:

“As work becomes more complex and the level of information explodes, speed-to-competence will depend on an organizations ability to allow learners to support themselves by tapping into the knowledge of others.”

Social learning is all about providing more flexible and responsive ways for delivering this knowledge through user generated content, engagement, and feedback. The Web 2.0 revolution has brought learning networks front and center with “Connect and Communicate” becoming the new mantra for training organizations.

As with any revolution or uprising though, there is a natural tendency to take on the attitude that everything has changed and “all bets are off.” How many blog posts do we read these days whose title ends with the words “IS DEAD”?

Social learning is disruptive and training organizations need to evolve or die, there is no disputing this. However, let’s take a step and examine more closely some the most common current proclamations.

The 5 Myths of Social Learning:

Myth #1: User-generated content in social media platforms will replace formal content development processes.

Reality: User generated content will supplement the formal content development process and create efficiencies in Subject Matter Expert (SME) contribution, knowledge capture, and content review.

The obvious point here is that due to assessment, certification, and regulatory issues, training content will still require formal development processes. That’s true, but it goes much deeper than that. Social learning is bi-directional and user-generated content and feedback can be a valuable asset for instructional designers to develop more compelling and timely learning, whether that learning is published to a formal course, a non-formal podcast, or an informal blog. We are seeing this today. Leading social media vendors like Jive Software are integrating with the top ECM platforms to provide unified search, workflow, and storage of enterprise and social content, proving a cohesive environment where formal content is supported by an ecosystem of users that contribute expertise and relevant information.

Myth #2: Learning objects are dead.

Reality: Reusable content elements are even more critical for the deployment of content to social learning platforms to support incremental learning.

Charles Jennings of the Internet Time Alliance calls performance support the silver bullet for training, where learners are guided incrementally via relevant nuggets of information delivered at the point-of-performance. And as Charles demonstrated with the Thomson-Reuters Learning Exchange during his session at LearnTrends, social networks are becoming the de-facto performance support platform for SMEs to deliver targeted information. So, while many like to proclaim the death of learning objects, the fact is that social media applications, including mobile, are inherently designed to leverage small reusable content components and are more valuable tools to learners when they do so.

Myth #3: Training and development organizations will make stand-alone social media platform decisions.

Reality: Social media platforms have great organizational significance and will ultimately become part of the enterprise “fabric” just as we have seen with email, instant messaging, and other collaboration tools.

Although it starts as a groundswell, the fact is that if social learning is to be successful, it needs to go across the entire enterprise as a core infrastructure. McKinsey’s data supports this assertion: companies that reported the highest level of satisfaction with their social media deployments, more than half of all employees are using them. For all others, it’s about one in four.

Given the need for enterprise adoption, Forrester reports two key criteria that organizations need to look for in their community platform vendors:

1. Full solution services: In addition to the technology, they must bring experience branding in this new medium and deploying communities, strategy & education services, and community management services.
2. Integration with other enterprise systems: Organizations should seek vendors that understand how communities ties into other systems such as CRM, customer support, and marketing dashboards.

While many learning vendors have thrown their hat into the Web 2.0 ring, community needs to be a core competency, not simply an extension of an existing learning silo. Contrary to what we’d like to believe, social learning doesn’t always start at the training department and work its way up, quite the opposite. So while implementing social media tools provided by an LCMS or LMS vendor may ensure departmental adoption, experience and today’s market show us that enterprise adoption of these tools is not a likely reality.

Myth #4: Social media platforms can be implemented “organically” without any formal planning or oversight.

Reality: The vast majority of organizations will not deploy an enterprise social media strategy without governance policies for the use and oversight of these tools.

While one of the big benefits of social media platforms is the ability to create content quickly and eliminate rigid taxonomies for classifying content, policies will need to be put in place to ensure the integrity and proper use of this content. Many people feel that this is the antithesis of learning networks. But remember, even Wikipedia has formal processes for making sure user generated content is accurate – the organization has over 100 people worldwide dedicated solely to ensuring content integrity and penalizing those who attempt to use the platform for self promotion.

Myth #5: The LMS is dead.

Reality: No, it’s not.

This has been a topic discussed for ages (there is actually an absolutely excellent recent conversation on George Siemens’ blog with additional commentary by Jane Hart on her own blog as well as on the Learning Conversations blog) and I won’t spend much time on it except to say if you need tracking capabilities, an LMS is your only option. In order for social media platforms to totally eclipse the function an LMS plays, they would be forced to support interoperability standards like SCORM, AICC or Common Cartridge. Does it really make sense to build all of this functionality into social media platforms? The answer is probably no. This is why we are seeing LMS vendors merge social media tools into their platforms. So, the real discussion should be around the viability of an LMS as a social media platform. Will this strategy enhance the role of an LMS within an organization, or will their role continue to diminish as new network tools continue to arise?

I’m going to gloat a little bit. Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with training industry luminaries Jay Cross, Charles Jennings, Harold Jarche, and Clark Quinn of the Internet Time Alliance or ITA (formerly known as TogetherLearn) to record a podcast on collaborative and social learning in the workplace (if you would like to listen to the podcast, here it is in its 5 parts: part I – managing collaboration, part II – CLO’s and the needs of business, part III – collaborative learning in a corporate setting, part IV – social media in corporations, and part V – integrating learning in the enterprise).

A little background: We’ve been working on the Xyleme Voices podcast library for over a year and a half now. We consider it a contribution to the learning community so it’s something we take very seriously and dedicate a lot of resources to. To get not one, but four of the industry’s most notable experts together for a discussion as important as the future of CLO’s and their training organizations told me we were doing something right and I eagerly (and anxiously) awaited our discussion.

I’ll be understated here : these guys are good! During our discussion, Clark Quinn called the Internet Time Alliance a dream team and it quickly became obvious why this is indeed the case. While geographically dispersed across three countries and multiple time zones, they are nonetheless a cohesive unit and they truly build upon and leverage each other’s experience and perspectives. It’s obvious they practice what they preach regarding collaborative learning and social networks.

In addition to the obvious hands-on expertise these seasoned professionals provided throughout the 5 parts of their podcast, training executives can also glean some relevant insights on how to work with and get the best out of a top-notch team. Simply listen closely to how Harold, Clark, Charles and Jay worked so respectfully with each other in order to provide a discussion on social learning whose value is much greater than the sum of the points made by the individual participants.

OK, enough about how great they are, let’s get to the discussion. There were three common themes that ran through the entire panel discussion:

1. The ITA feels it critical to challenge conventional thinking.
2. The ITA is not afraid to call out the short comings of CLO’s and their learning organizations.
3. The ITA is bold enough to believe that CLO’s can become major C-suite players.

These gentlemen had some pretty provocative statements to make. So much so, that I’ll be blogging about the topics discussed for the next several posts, but let me round up some of my favorite points made from each participant for you:

We’re not seeing the end of the training department, but the end of the training dept as we know it in the 20th century. As work becomes more complex, it becomes less about developing content and more about developing networks. Connect and communicating – adapting to the networked business model is what the training department will be all about. -Harold Jarche

I disagree that CLO will have equal footing. I think that the CLO should be more important than the others because human capital is the core competence of corporations, so I see the CLO going up and beyond where other C-levels have presided. Their role will be that of the super CLO. –Jay Cross

We cannot isolate learning in one business unit because that is not how you leverage knowledge for competitive advantage. Collaborative networked learning has to go across the entire organization organically as core infrastructure. Jay calls this learnscape, I call it the performance ecosystem. Regardless of what you call it, it has to be like air and water – it has to be everywhere. -Clark Quinn

There is a real discomfort of doing things differently when adopting social media. It’s a real barrier and an interesting one because at this moment in time there is a real pressure to innovate. You can’t innovate without doing things differently, so there is a real paradox here. When we step out of our comfort zones, we throw up barriers: i.e. we can’t measure it so we can’t act on it. But you can measure it, you just need different approaches. –Charles Jennings

And my personal favorite:

Compliance is the enemy of the networked business model. -???

Check out my next blog post to find out who made this bold declaration.

Harold Jarche is blogging about the future of the training department, briefly looking back at the pre-training age and then at how training has evolved after its invention in the 20th century. He explains how today’s complex environments demand emergent practices and why a new training model and a new form of workplace have to be adopted to ensure the survival of the training department.

Learning technologies are not adopted similarly by all types of people. Karl Kapp is grouping technology adopters in five different types: Technology enthusiasts or Techies, Visionaries, Pragmatists, Conservatives, and Skeptics. In another related posting, Karl goes on to explain how learning technologies should be sold to each one of the groups listed.

According to Jesse Erwin’s review in the Association for Psychological Sciences, “social cognition can be boiled down into judgments of two key elements: warmth and competence.” Will Thalheimer is digging deeper into how this can affect learning and e-learning and what trainers should do to achieve higher learning engagement.

“E-learning in the workplace used to be the preserve of the large corporate or public body”. Clive Shepherd is blogging on how this has changed in 2009. “But this year we have seen a major shift. I personally have been working with a wide range of smaller companies and training providers who want to establish an e-learning delivery capability. Many of my colleagues are doing the same.”

Talk has been heating up lately regarding the use of open source versus proprietary systems for learning. For example, if you check out Michael Hanley’s blog, you’ll see that he’s dedicated most of his recent posts to this subject. Sophia Peters provides another interesting post entitled Deciding Between Open Source and Proprietary Software? In her article, she makes the following assertions:

• Open source software has grown to include […] an adherence to established standards, which is a high priority for open source software development.

• Proprietary software has closed standards that hinder further development.

The debate regarding open source versus proprietary is one that will rage on for a long time and it is not really black or white. However, I think there is one thing that most people can agree upon:

A solution based on standards is the best way to lower costs and protect the return on investment for learning projects in the long run (and, yes, there is an investment whether you use proprietary or open source software).

Having said this, the assertions stated above would lead us to believe that open source is the answer to all of our issues with standards in e-learning. Brent Schlenker, commenting on Michael Hanley’s blog, says: “. . . once people get past their initial fears and the stigma, the Open Source learning development community will grow exponentially.” While I admire the enthusiasm, experience in other application areas has shown us that this is not always the case. (Does your company use an open source ERP system, or perhaps SAP or Oracle? Does your company use an open source Enterprise Content Management Solution, or perhaps Sharepoint or Documentum?)

Let me make what at first blush may seem like a preposterous argument:

Open source has failed to reach critical mass in a number of technology sectors, and may also fail to do so in learning for the foreseeable future. One reason is clearly a lack of robust adherence to standards that negatively impacts functionality and limits a developer’s ability to create sophisticated solutions.

I know, how can I say such a thing? I didn’t believe it myself, so I did the following Google search: “Moodle and standards.” On the first page I ran into the following post entitled On Open Source, Open Standards, and Lock-in. Here’s the salient bit:

Moodle happily ingests those formats, acting to absorb content into what then becomes an inescapable pit of quicksand. It’s a one-way trip. Content can check in, but it can never leave.

If Blackboard did that, there would be villagers marching in the streets with torches in hand. The Blackboard SCORM import/export stuff might not be perfect, but at least they try to let people move content out.

With Moodle, it’s currently a vendor lock-in proposition. The only saving grace is that the vendor just happens to be an open source project. But it’s still lock-in.

So, open source Moodle does not export to SCORM, the most prevalent e-learning standard?

The post is dated March 2008. Its 18 months old, so I did a quick search of the Moodle forums to see what the status of the SCORM export feature is today. It’s marked as major and it seems to still be open. You can read the comments yourself but here is one that caught my attention:

There are people that use the fact that moodle is “scorm compliant” as one of its many virtues. Now I’m realizing that it is NOT scorm compliant – moodle can import courses but not export them in scorm.

This is a big priority for any software that wants to call itself a viable competitor in this field.

Well, according to these posts, at least Moodle can import SCORM – or can it?

Perusing Moodle.org a bit further, I came across the following:

SCORM 2004 is not completely supported in Moodle at this stage. Parts of the API have been implemented, but others such as Navigation and Sequencing have not yet been implemented.

So, open source Moodle sort of imports SCORM 2004, the most prevalent e-learning standard?

I’ll stop here because the point of this post it certainly not to crack on Moodle or say that open source is a bad investment. I don’t believe either. I think open source software can be a great viable solution for many organizations. In fact, we use open source here for our web content management.

The point that I am trying to make is that standards and breadth of functionality are hugely important and to make the assumption that the term ‘open source’ automatically translates into these can lead to uninformed decision-making and projects that don’t reach their expected ROI. Or to put it more simply:

Open source or proprietary? You’re asking the wrong question.

Clark Quinn is brainstorming around how we really learn – versus how we are instructed. In his blog posting “Facilitating Learning”, he is explaining why the new role in the organization will be for ‘learning facilitation’ and not for ‘instruction’ or ‘training’. As Clark writes, “knowledge is not what’s going to be useful going forward, but skills in applying that knowledge.”

Interesting “Thoughts on New Learning” posting by George Siemens. George refers to Eric Kalvert’s blog post pointing out that “humans have an innate motivation to participate in shared knowledge and that it is this motivation that makes writing for ‘real’ audiences more rewarding for students than writing for an individual ‘teacher’.”

Tom Kuhlman is blogging about how to empower learners by involving them in the teaching process. In his blog posting “3 Creative Ways to Empower Your Learners”, he also shares some examples of how leveraging rapid e-learning tools and their ability to create multimedia content can help achieve higher levels of learners’ engagement.

Mark Berthelemy gives his own definition of Blended Learning in his latest blog post. “It could be argued that all learning is blended, but some teaching is not blended. All good teaching is blended” – a great line in the posting that I would like to highlight.

I had the honor of interviewing Clive Shepherd a couple of weeks ago for a podcast on the subject of using synchronous online communications for learning or, in more friendly terms, live online learning.

It was a fascinating discussion because it made me realize that we tend to take things like web conferencing for granted and probably don’t dedicate the resources we should to optimize this communication channel.

Clive argues that despite the fact that web conferencing has been around for over 10 years, companies are still in the early stages of effectively utilizing this medium – essentially trying to copy what is done in the real classroom and make it as similar as possible in the virtual classroom. What happens over time Clive states is that we begin to appreciate the unique benefits of the new medium and try to capitalize on them. He gives webinars as an example using the analogy of a conference presentation. During webinars, text chat now becomes a back channel where people discuss, interact and exchange views, contacts and links in a way not possible in a face-to-face event. As a result, we now start to use web conferencing by preference, not just due to economic reasons.

Clive and I ended our discussion with what it takes to facilitate a successful online event and while he gave tremendous advice, one thing struck a real chord with me:

“Accept the fact that it’s likely that your audience will be distracted and work on other tasks if you are not fully engaging them, so you have to work doubly hard to make sure what you present, what you say and the interactions you use make an impact and earn you the audience’s engagement.”

As someone who puts on a fair number of webinars, I am painfully aware of the multi-tasking audience and their tendency for distraction. Over the past couple years we have tried a number of things to create engaging, interactive events for our audience, some more successful than others. Based on this experience, here are some things we tend to keep in mind when preparing our online events.

Think hard about poll questions: Polls are just terrific little tools because good questions keep viewers engaged and can provide some really good, albeit informal, industry statistics that your audience will appreciate and value. A mistake that I feel is made repeatedly is that people are putting poll questions in as an after-thought instead of thinking hard about what value the information resulting from these polls can provide to the audience. Furthermore, often presenters are not willing to go off-script and discuss poll results and their potential implication in real-time, and therefore miss a key opportunity for discussion.

Consider Q&A anytime: A couple of times we have just answered questions as they arise instead of waiting until the end of the presentation because it keeps the discussion more interactive and more free-moving. This may not seem very revolutionary, but it takes some real coordination and the ability to make lightening fast decisions. Unlike face-to-face, you generally have a bigger audience online and therefore more questions and comments flowing in – both positive and negative. So you have to know when to stop your cut into the presentation and which questions to address so as to provide the most value to the audience. Also, you run the risk of getting off topic quickly and not being able to get back on track.

Open mic night anyone? Last year, we held a webinar that consisted of a 15 minute conversation starter followed by opening the audio for people to speak freely and make comments or ask our facilitator any question they wanted. The point was to make the next 45 minutes a free-flowing discussion capable of going in any direction the audience desired. While we had a lot of comments and questions, sadly, almost none came via audio but instead were typed into the chat box and had to be read out loud. Admittedly, I am still trying to figure out how to encourage people to talk because I really believe that an audio (coupled with text) discussion can be significantly more engaging than using chat alone. Perhaps it is like Clive says and that it just takes time for people to get comfortable with and capitalize on the uniqueness of new channels of communication.

Should we let them Tweet? Using the Twitter hashtag, we always encourage the use of Twitter as a informational and conversational channel pre- and post-event. Tony Karrer has an interesting blog post called Twitter and Webinars that has some insights on this subject and his views on coupling social media with web conferencing technology. While I really like this post and think it provides some excellent insights, I am on the fence with his assertion that “The use of Twitter as a true chat channel is a bit annoying.” Yes, he’s correct when he says Twitter chat can turn into noise, but in my personal opinion, there is no better compliment to your webinar than your audience wanting not only discuss what is being learned, but also sharing that info with their followers, many of whom may not have previously been aware of you and your event. Don’t forget that it also can get you new and relevant followers.

Incorporate other new technologies: After the success of incorporating Twitter into our webinars, we are always on the lookout for new technologies to incorporate as well. My newest fascination after reading Jane Hart’s pick of the day is AllPlayWeb. This looks wildly interesting and I am curious to know if anyone has any experience with it and what the results were for them.

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts spurred on by my discussion with Clive and his posts from his terrific new Onlignment blog.

I recently read a terrific blog post by HBS Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter entitled “To Master Change, First Dread It.” In it, she argues:

“A counter-intuitive tip for mastering change is to start by wallowing in the feelings of dread it arouses. The sheer nail-biting horror of it all. Get in touch with every negative aspect, all the things that could go wrong. Then figure out a way to get that negative force on your side. In short, Dream your worst nightmare and invest in it.”

Nowhere in the learning industry today are stakeholders facing greater change than in the move towards single-source learning. The dream is grand one: content reusability, multi-modal delivery and real-time customization – all from a single source of enterprise content to meet the requirements of learners worldwide.

But what we often tend to overlook when launching these projects is that single-source is a paradigm shift for almost everyone involved, affecting directly and indirectly all aspects of learning production. Content authors, subject matter experts, instructional designers, management, and various stakeholders will all witness major changes one way or another. If we don’t invest in our stakeholder’s nightmare, we breed fear, the kind of fear that can bring any single-source initiative to its knees.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with some project leaders across industries that are in various stages of their single-source learning initiatives: I was interested in the change management issues they faced and what steps they took to effectively manage and overcome these potential obstacles. While you can read the entire conversation here, I’ve condensed this into sort of a job aid for single-source change management.

The Top Ten List for Investing in Your Single-Source Nightmare:

1. Clearly set expectations that things are going to change: While the richness of the content will not change, its format, wording and structure will. Therefore, it’s crucial to communicate what changes to expect and the benefits of doing things in this new fashion.
2. Educate your stakeholders: Each stakeholder needs to understand how these changes will affect them directly so they can effectively plan for addressing and controlling that change.
3. Set aside pre-conceptions: Single-source is an evolutionary step for content development but will not be effective unless a shift in mindset takes place up-front. So be open-minded to the process.
4. Invest more early on: Focus initial resources on planning content strategy, content design and content management practices within a single-source environment so that changes do not have an unexpected and negative impact.
5. Give your content design breathing room: Designers need to go through transient stage when learning how to separate content from presentation, so provide the extra time they require up-front.
6. Plan for content reuse: For content design, don’t think solely in terms of sentences and paragraphs but also in terms of “once it is written, how I am going to use for different outputs?”
7. Identify shared content: Separate audience-specific content from content that can be shared throughout the enterprise, then make shared content context-neutral.
8. Make content searchable: Speed to market will depend on the ability to quickly find topics for updates, course assembly and rendering to different outputs.
9. Start with a high impact project: Make sure project provides many opportunities for content reuse and touches many deliverables so everyone can see the value.
10. Market the advantages: For those people that will not experience the changes directly, make sure you market the benefits gained to them.

Are there any other best practices that can be added to the list?