Immerse yourself in learning at #DevLearn 2014

It's almost DevLearn season! A few weeks ago, I wrote a reflection on why I go to DevLearn each year that was posted by the eLearning Guild, "Something New."

DevLearn 2013

This will be my 7th DevLearn in a row. Wow. My first year, in 2008, my fledgling company Tandem Learning attended as a new vendor. The conference was in San Jose and we had a booth out in the hallway, showing off 3D immersive environments for learning and our demo of a Virtual Territory for pharma sales training. We also hosted a wine reception, and it was there that I met many of the people in the learning industry that I call friends today. 

Over the years, I ran ARGs at DevLearn, hosted the Emerging Tech stage for a couple years, did pre-conference sessions, concurrent sessions, and even did the closing Ignite! keynote wearing a fabulous fascinator (the conference had moved to Vegas by then and I wanted to channel my inner showgirl).

DevLearn 2009: Dr Strangelearn ARG

I'm particularly excited about DevLearn this year. While there are lots of reasons, not least of which are getting to see Neil Tyson Degrasse keynote and the new location at the Bellagio, the main reason I'm excited about DevLearn 2014 is because this is the first year I'll be attending as an author. It was a long road to publishing my first book, Immersive Learning, and I'm really proud and excited to share the key themes of the book at DevLearn this year. 

Ignite! Closing keynote 2011

There's a few ways you can join me in exploring immersive design at DevLearn this year. First I'm hosting a concurrent session on Thurs, Oct 30th at 10:30 am to share real-world examples of how organizations are using immersive learning to improve performance. If you're attending DevLearn, I hope to see you there!

If you REALLY want to immerse yourself in immersive learning, please join me on Tuesday, October 28th for a full-day pre-conference workshop. We'll spend the day digging in to the immersive design process and you'll leave with an actionable design document. You'll learn how to do a thorough analysis which is critical and serves as the basis for your design, we'll walk through how to make decisions on theme, character development, storyline structure, feedback and scoring. 

We'll explore all of the different technologies available to deliver your immersive training. I'm really excited about this session, and hope you'll join me!

Other places I'll be at DevLearn? Look for me signing books on Thursday after my concurrent session (time tentatively set for 12:30pm) and maybe even a Morning Buzz session? Otherwise, I'll be attending sessions and looking forward to opportunities to connect with all of the brilliant people congregating at DevLearn this year. 

Learning through "infuriating feedback"

One of the things that I'm most passionate about doing well when designing learning is providing feedback. In immersive design, practice without feedback is useless, and often can reinforce the wrong behaviors. For example, if you're trying to perfect your golf swing, heading to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls without the guidance of a golf pro to help critique your form may lead you to practicing a whole bucket full of bad swings. 

Yet very rarely do any of us perform a task in a vacuum; we're constantly bombarded with feedback, both subtle and obvious, that reinforces what we're doing well and discourages us from continuing less than stellar behaviors. We love hearing the good stuff, getting that positive reinforcement. In game design, quick victories are by design to make players feel good, feel confident, hoping to hook them in to continue playing even as game play becomes more difficult and complex, and victories and positive reinforcement are harder to come by. In "real life," the same dynamic exists. I love to hear the feedback of people after I speak, to hear how something I said struck a chord or helped them make a connection or see something in a different light. Even better, I love when people compliment my kiddos, as that provides me with some positive evidence from non-biased sources that I'm doing ok in the toughest job that I have.

Negative feedback, critique and even punishment surround us every day too. I am always amazed as a mom about how often I have to say, "chew with your mouth closed," or "put some clothes on," or "put your dirty laundry in your hamper, not just on the ground next to it." More subtle things, like a look from my boss or my husband, are enough to make me pause and consider what I just did to elicit that reaction. In game design, negative feedback design creates for interesting play dynamics; losing points, finding yourself in a death spiral that you just have to wait out, or an abrupt game over when you make a bad decision are all ways to provide critique to your play performance and prompt you to try again and do better.

This continuous flow of positive and negative feedback help us learn and shape our future behavior. Other factors contribute to our decision-making, but ultimately, it is the balance of potential risk and reward that are in constant competition to determine the decisions that we make, and we depend on this river of feedback to help us determine if we're on the right path.

Which leads me to the best boss I ever had. 

Imagine you're at work, managing a big project and people and faced with situations and decisions that are new to you. You have a one-on-one with your boss and you go in prepared to describe the situation and get insight and feedback on how to proceed. When you enter the office, your boss is nose to the laptop and barely acknowledges you're there. You know that you have limited time, so you ask if you should get started. "Yes, go ahead," your boss says, still not looking up from the laptop. 

You start describing the current status of and issues with the project. You describe what you've done so far to resolve issues as they've come up, and you end with the current dilemma and request advice on how to proceed. 

To which your boss replies, still not looking up, "what do you think you should do?"

Infuriating. If I knew what to do, I'd just do it! I want guidance, I want insight, I want feedback!

I had a couple of meetings that went exactly like this with my boss. Every time I left those meetings, I was pissed. How rude! What am I supposed to do? Why didn't my boss give me any advice?

And yet...

I was getting feedback. My boss was saying: "you don't need me. You actually know how to proceed. I trust you to figure this out. If you make a bad decision, that's ok, you'll come back to me and I'll repeat this again and you'll try something new, until you find the right answer."

It was these "non-feedback" meetings that gave me confidence to make decisions. They helped me learn to reflect, consider options and take my best guess. Sometimes I didn't make the best decision, but often I did. As I worked with my boss longer, our meetings became less about resolving issues and more about personal development and strategy. 

Coaches, mentors and managers can give helpful advice and guidance in some situations, but the best way they can be leveraged is to challenge you to do your own thinking and growing. When you're designing practice in immersive learning, consider designing with infuriating feedback: opportunities for reflection and safe failure. Not only will you build confidence in decision-making, but you'll be teaching leadership and reinforcing risk-taking and experimentation. 

Book release eve! Immersive Learning has left the building

Well, it's finally here. My book release.

It's been 2 1/2 years and tomorrow, ASTD Publishing will officially announce the release of my first book, Immersive Learning. While I haven't seen the actual physical copy of the book yet, I hear that it is currently on it's way. Last week, in a book marketing call, I had this surreal moment of "OMG MY BOOK IS DONE." Which is true, and has been true for awhile, but there is something pretty amazing about knowing that all of the work that went into it is now, finally, realized in an actual book that you can buy on Amazon.

My kids also think that is pretty cool.

You're going to hear a lot about my book and about immersive learning this year. I'll be speaking and blogging and organizing book clubs and collecting case studies and in general, happily talking about how to design for practice. I am thrilled to have an actual artifact that encapsulates my research, experience and design practices. I'm excited to share it with you, to talk and discuss and debate and to learn.

I thought I would be terrified, putting something so personal out there for the world to critique. But as we're on the cusp of the book launch, all I feel is joy.

So, pick up a copy of my book if you're so inclined and join in the conversation this year about immersive learning. You can even get a free chapter to see what it's all about. Or just make a training resolution with me and commit to making this year a better year for design and learning (or both).

Happy 2014 everyone and thanks for your support!

Sincerely,
Koreen Pagano, Author :) 

DevLearn 2013 Lessons Learned

I'm a notoriously bad note-taker (I blame it on paying attention), but coming out of DevLearn this year, I had some big epiphanies that I wanted to get down in writing.

First, thank you, as always, to the e-Learning Guild for hosting a wonderful event. Every year I say I'm going to present less and attend more sessions, and every year my dance card fills up. David Holcombe, Heidi Fisk, David Kelly, Reuben Tozman - another inspiring year! And a special thanks to Juli Balding, who is the world's best herder of cats.

In no particular order, my thoughts and observations on DevLearn 2013:

1. People have a hard time breaking out of "conference mode" - I would have liked to see more people building Lego robots. Maybe next year I can convince them to have a "Battle Bot" competition during DemoFest and bring in a Battle Bot alumni to host (ironically, I know one...). In general, I like the hands on learning activities, but I think it's difficult to get people to transition from soaking it all in to trying something new. Still...I think this is worth broadening and refining - and could evolve into a real application at a conference of immersive learning.

2. I wanted more diversity in the keynotes.

3. I didn't have to explain what immersive learning was so much anymore. I had GREAT turn outs at my pre-con workshop and Morning Buzz sessions. I like seeing the shift from "ooh shiny" technology focus to "what can we really do with this," and not in a dismissive way.

4. The data sessions were packed, and it's clear that many people still don't know what or how to measure. What the LMSs typically measure and track aren't the metrics that executives care about and that is a serious gap we need to bridge. A few years ago, I did a panel with Cammy Bean and Ellen Wagner at Learning Solutions on speaking the language of the business. We need that BIG TIME in data analytics. I want to show more examples. I want to break down a PNL for training professionals to really get what we need to communicate. I already have ideas on how to refine my session. Maybe there's a book in there.

5. There seemed like a lot less higher ed and government attendees. I like seeing a good mix, but all of my sessions were heavy on the enterprise attendees. I'd love to see more diversity, not less!

6. I worry about the new tech hype. As the girl who touted virtual worlds a few years back, I am seeing parallels in some of the new technologies. Augmented reality hasn't found it's home yet. Mobile is still struggling with good design practices. Games are finally accepted as valuable, but still there are so few examples of organizations implementing them in deep ways...still a lot of pilot tests. And now we have AI and robots and Google Glass and sensors...and yet many are still struggling to show how training adds value (and is not just a cost center) to an organization. Which, of course, takes me back to analytics...we need to keep the horse in front of the cart, and while I'm a huge fan of new tech, I worry that we need to catch up to where tech was 3 years ago. (Am I getting old and jaded?)

7. I was thrilled to get to hear Ian Bogost's keynote and even more excited that he delineated games from gamification. It's a message that learning folks need to hear, and he really broke it down well. I hope it helped some of that "let's make this boring activity a game" syndrome. Plus, I fan-girled out a little that he recognized me.

8. I've been talking about ARGs for 5 years and people still don't really know what they are. Part of it lies in the confusion of games versus gamification, but I'd like to really push more examples and case studies. It's a low cost way to create immersive learning that is completely under-leveraged. It may be time to jump back in to that pool.

9. Don't get a tattoo in Vegas when you live an hour from LA. Especially if you already got a tattoo in Vegas last year.

10. People are sheep. NO ONE would enter the Silver Clouds exhibit at the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Bellagio, even after John and I stormed in. Why would you not experience the art? Jump into it, people. JUMP. IN.

11. Every conference I go to, I think about the difference in value of presentations versus conversations.  Presentations are valuable, but it's usually the conversations where we learn the most. What would it look like to structure sessions around conversations with the goal of an outcome. Something like, "I need help with..." and "I can help with...!" and pair people up? Maybe we need problem - solution speed dating?

12. I didn't get as much social time this year. I think that's ok, but I do like to stay for the whole conference, which I couldn't do this year. There's always next year, right?

13. Smart people I admire take lots of good conference notes, or compile peoples' tweets, etc. You should check out Cammy Bean's blog for notes on the sessions she attended (including one of mine, and Ian Bogost's previously mentioned keynote). And David Kelly's compilation of the conference back channel, of course.

14. People really do love lynda.com. I can't tell you how many people stopped me to tell me their personal stories, and thank me for what lynda.com has done for them. It really makes me proud to represent a company that people feel so passionately about.

A few more thought-provoking conversations will be covered in separate blog posts, but my key take-away from DevLearn 2013? It's still all about the design, and the data, not the tech. We just need to figure out design and data FOR the tech. 

Design lessons learned from Candy Crush

If you haven't been pulled in to the addictive mobile gaming wonder that is Candy Crush...I applaud and pity you. Congratulations on avoiding one of the most addictive gaming experiences I've had lately, and I'm sorry you haven't seen the brilliance and subtle evolution in its design.

I am here

Like any game that holds my interest for more than a couple days, I've taken some time to look at the elements of what makes me keep going back. We could all learn from the simple design strategies and application of cognitive science that makes Candy Crush a bar-setter for micro-transaction social games.

1. Don't introduce (or force) the social component until people are really invested. 
One of the things I hate about most social games is that they want you to get social right from the beginning. When I start a game, I don't know if I'm going to be playing it tomorrow, so what are the chances I want to invite my friends to a party I'm not sure I even want to be at yet? Candy Crush lets you keep playing and playing, and offering you to connect to Facebook, but waiting until late in the game to really push that incentive.

One of the things I don't like about the design is that after I did eventually connect to Facebook, my only options to move up a level were to ask my friends to help me or to pay $.99; I lost the option to play the mini-games gated every 24 hours to get to the next level. It pissed me off...and has resulted in my paying up. So maybe it's not a bad design decision after all...

2. Designing the social component around "help." 
One of the things that I find interesting about how Candy Crush pushes the social element is by framing social connection around helping other players. At each log in, the game recommends 5 of my Facebook friends who I can send a life to; more often than not, I say yes. I'm not giving up anything by sending friends lives, and it makes me feel good, like I'm helping someone out. It's also nice to see when people send you a life - like an unexpected pick-me-up to let me try to clear the jellies one more time.

To level up, you can also ask your friends for help. It doesn't cost them anything...they just have to send you a life. From a design standpoint, this giving and requesting doesn't impact your game play, but it DOES impact how often you log in. The more you log in, the more you play. The more you play, the more likely you are to get into a situation where you are compelled to make a microtransaction.

3. Leveling doesn't need to be a steady, consistent build.
I'm not going to lie, there have been some boards on Candy Crush that have taken me DAYS to pass. In the triumph of completing one of those boards, I have gone on the the next and beat it on the first try. My response? Hell yeah! I'm awesome! And then I realize that I'm falling right into the design strategy...Make me really work for some levels so that I feel like there is a big challenge I've overcome, then continue that "win high" with quick successive victories that eventually lead me to the next big challenge. When I'm stuck for days, it is the combination of those hard won victories and quick wins that keep me engaged and playing.

4. Social "shaming" can promote micro-transactions. 
One of the interesting design elements I mentioned previously is that once you connect to Facebook, you don't have the option to unlock the next episode through a 3-step game path that requires a 24 hour wait to start the next board once you've completed a board, in essence making you wait at least 48 hours to unlock the next episode. Instead you have the option of asking your Facebook friends for help in unlocking the next episode, or you can pay $.99.

When I first realized this, I was indignant and was NOT going to pay for the episode...I sent out a request to my friends. Shortly thereafter, I received from my friends the lives I needed to unlock the episode and on I played. Then I finished the next episode, and was faced with the same decision: ask friends or pay. I paid. Why? For one thing, it was quicker...paying immediately unlocks the next episode. For another, I really didn't want to be "that girl" asking my friends for help in unlocking episodes all of the time. It's one thing for me to send extra lives to my friends when I log in, but it's another to be begging for help. In the balance, $.99 seemed a small price to pay to leave my friends out of my game play.

5. Offer buy-outs at the highest point of need.
One of the common themes you'll hear from Candy Crush players is that when you get to the last move on a board that's particularly challenging or that you've been trying to beat for days, and you're one or two moves away from beating the board, you will pay the $.99 for 5 more moves. In that moment, you are weighing the dollar you could spend against the hours you've already invested, and the potential more hours that you might spend to get that close to winning again. Almost everyone I know has done it and when I've asked, the sentiment is consistent: it's worth it.

6. If the challenge seems surmountable, people will stay engaged.
Candy Crush is just a next gen Bejeweled, right? Let's be honest, we're just talking about matching candies on a board and trying to overcome each board's unique challenge. But, it's just a matching game. It's not rocket science, and it takes about 3 seconds to figure out the navigation and how to play. This is a game that is easy to start, easy to drop, can be played in small moments and that has established a well-balanced challenge-reward ratio. In other words, the challenge is not in figuring out how to play, it's in persistence and managing the time tension. These are attainable by everyone, making playing Candy Crush appealing to just keep on playing.

7. Use time as a tension point. 

The perceived value of time is important in promoting desired behaviors, like offering buy-outs at the time of need, described above. My time is valuable and I'm investing it in playing a game...how much is it worth it to me to pay for a next episode instead of waiting for my friends to help me out? How much is it worth it to pay for a few extra moves to beat a board versus playing that board over again, especially as you invest more and more time into beating a challenging board. The more you play a board, the more valuable that extra moves microtransaction becomes in saving you additional time to try again. The crying heart taunts you with the countdown clock of when a life has regenerated so that you can try again, creating another aspect of tension around time.

8. Make your success social. 

Candy Crush has a "Candyland" like progress map that shows you how far you've progressed along the path in comparison to your Facebook friends. I'm not going to lie, I look how far ahead of me some people are and strive to pass certain people (hey, I'm competitive! What can I say?). For each board, it shows you who has achieved the top 3 scores for that board from your friends as well. That helps benchmark what winning scores look like, as well as add in some competitive elements. When I see my sister on the top of a score board, I inevitably think, "Oh I can beat her!"  This one-two punch of a social progress bar, and a leaderboard for each game board keeps my competitive side active throughout the game, even though actual social interaction through the game is limited to providing help to others. It prompts both the "I'm going to beat you" and "here, let me help you" emotions that satisfy different types of game player motivations.

Every once in a while a game comes along that really hits the sweet spot (pun intended) of challenge and engagement that creates a pool of rabid fans. The design decisions implemented in Candy Crush should be a lesson for all designers who are seeking behavior-driving strategies in their designs. As with all design, it's important to know what behavior you want to elicit and design towards those metrics. From a product management perspective, I'd love to see the product plan for Candy Crush. From a learning designer perspective, it's important for me to identify what emotional responses simple design decisions in a matching game can elicit.

PS. I'm stuck on level 147. And that's my sister at the top of the leader board. Please send me an extra life, thanks.

Flip Your Training presentation at ASTD ICE 2013 #astd2013

Yesterday I presented at ASTD ICE on how to flip your training and design for practice in the classroom. It was a full house and I had so much fun presenting! For once, I took a picture from the stage...it might be too small, but if you look closely, you'll see people in the audience with their hands raised, indicating if there was an empty seat next to them. This pic was taken right before I got started, and I was amazed at the cooperation in the audience to make sure everyone who wanted to attend could find a seat. I found out later that they put up the "Full Capacity" sign after everyone in the audience actually made sure it was really full capacity...not an empty seat in the house. That's teamwork, people. It seriously warmed my heart. I truly had the best audience at the conference.

Here are my slides, although the good stuff was in the presentation/conversation/discussion. Very excited to talk more on this topic; it's a great tie in to what I do at lynda.com and to my upcoming book, Immersive Learning. 

Flip Your Training from Koreen Olbrish

Thanks to all that attended and tweeted and waited to talk to me afterwards. Thanks especially to the gentleman who reminded me afterwards about the different rescue strategies for choking versus cardiac arrest (see? this is the guy I want in the room if I ever need rescuing!). 

I'll post more on this topic soon, as well as my reflections on ICE. Please drop me a note if you'd like more info on my presentation.

For those of you who requested: I realized I included my analysis interview questions in my book! In an effort not to cannibalize my own writing, I'll check to see if it's kosher to share it here or if it's a book "exclusive." Thanks for your interest, and patience! (this author thing is all new to me...)

Your success metrics aren't unique (or, why are we making analytics so hard?)

Last week I had the pleasure of attending TechKnowledge 2013, including giving a workshop on game design with Karl Kapp and presenting a concurrent session on immersive design. Two action-packed days in San Jose, for sure, and for once I got to see some of my esteemed colleagues' presentations as well.

I was most excited to see Ellen Wagner present on learning analytics and get a sneak peek into some of the work that she's been doing with the Gates Foundation. I was not disappointed; I loved hearing Ellen's practical advice to the packed room on how to approach analytics and not be intimidated by big data and the necessity of quantifying learning...or improvement, really...for our non-learning business colleagues. I appreciated her encouraging us to be able to frame the value that we bring to the organization in business terms without abandoning our expertise that qualifies us to take on an important organizational leadership role.

Watching Ellen's presentation left me thinking (which is normally a very good or very dangerous thing).

Every presentation that I've seen on analytics and big data end with the same call to action: "now, go back to your organization and figure out what you should be measuring."

Photo by WH "Snowflake" Bentley

Here's my challenge to you, my esteemed learning colleagues: shouldn't we all be measuring (basically) the same thing? We all suffer from the snowflake syndrome (I'm just like everyone else! I'm unique!), but to be fair, both statements are true. The real question is how much are we alike and how much are we different?

About ten years ago, I was working with a gentleman who had done an in-depth analysis across 15+ pharmaceutical companies, looking at what made their sales representatives successful. He found that 80% of the success indicators were exactly the same across all companies. The unique 20% related to the type of product, the therapeutic market the drug was being sold into, and the corporate culture differences among the companies.

Now, if you're a pharmaceutical company, where do you spend your analysis energy, knowing this? Right. Don't worry about identifying success markers for the 80%: use the identified metrics, provide training and support for those areas, and spend your analysis time identifying what the other 20% are that are unique to your company. EVERYONE should be measuring that 80%...that's baseline. Figuring out the 20% is what differentiates you from your competitors and supports your brand.

Could the same analysis be achieved for call center support? Project managers? Database engineers? Are there consistent success metrics that are common across industries?

If we could identify the success metrics across within or across industries, we wouldn't have to start from scratch to determine our analytics. We SHOULDN'T have to start from scratch. Don't we know what these things are? Can't we say, "Hey, you want to measure your organizations' success and performance improvement? Here is 80% of what you should be looking at, and what it means. Now, figuring out the 20% that's unique to your organization is up to you." (I'm not saying that it's literally 80% for every job function or every industry...but you get the idea.)

As learning professionals, we should know these benchmarks for our industries. If we don't, that is our very first starting point: find the "80%." What makes us the same? What makes us unique? Identify it, benchmark it, measure it. Then? Spend your time analyzing what makes you better than that 80%.

Your "assessment" is probably bullshit

Every year, the first morning of DevLearn, I usually wake up with some crazy epiphany about learning and training that sticks in my brain throughout the conference. This year the revelation was "assessment is meaningless." I decided to try to spend the conference (when I wasn't presenting or hosting the Emerging Tech stage) trying to find examples of meaningful assessment.

My mission was by and large futile.

Let me start by clarifying: for adult education and training, knowledge might be important for dinner party conversation, and it might even help you in a job interview, but more than likely what you know isn't a fair representation of what you can do. Learning objectives are very different than performance objectives.

Why are we still writing learning objectives and assessing for knowledge acquisition when the only thing the business cares about is what employees can do?

If you're an instructional designer and you're writing learning objectives, please stop. STOP. What you learned in your graduate program or by reading Dick & Carey is meaningless to business objectives and business leaders don't know what the hell ADDIE is. Executives don't care if employees passed all of their knowledge checks with 100%. The bottom line is not improved by multiple choice questions. WHAT YOU ARE MEASURING AS A BENCHMARK OF LEARNING IS MAKING INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN OBSOLETE. Stop stroking your own ego. Stop trying to justify your decision to make a click-through elearning module or to drag the salesforce out of the field for two days for training by showing they all passed a multiple choice test. NO ONE BELIEVES YOU and NO ONE CARES (yes, I'm yelling).

Businesses care about performance. What are employees doing, and what do they need to do better, to improve business function. Is what you're teaching employees helping the business make more money or saving the business money? SHOW THAT. Use those words. Measure performance. Make what you do meaningful to your organization by setting performance objectives and measuring against those.  Provide performance support. Stop making the easy decisions. Make meaningful and relevant design choices.

If you can't assess something meaningful, it might be better to not assess anything at all.

/drops mic. walks off stage./

You can't measure learning, but you can measure behavior

I'm overstating it a bit with the title of this post, because sure, you can measure knowledge acquisition by pre-testing and post-testing, or iterative assessment. I know, I know...we can measure how much someone knows because we have standardized tests! (I really hope the sarcasm is evident in text...)

I spent the last three days at the mHealth Summit in Washington, DC and 19 hours manning the Ayogo booth, talking to amazingly interesting people about the potential of games to improve health outcomes. What mattered to everyone? It wasn't what people know...amazingly, most everyone actually knows what they need to do to be healthier. The challenge is to get people to actually DO those healthy things that will help them better manage their diabetes, reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease, etc.

When it comes to health, but really when it comes to ANYTHING, there is a knowing-doing gap. We all know this...so then why are we as a learning profession settling for assessing knowing? Knowing is not doing. The proof is in the behavior, and behavior can be easily measured.

We live in an age where everything we do is tracked. Do you carry a cell phone? Your wireless carrier knows where you take that phone all day, every day. Do you use a credit card or bank card? All of your purchases are tracked. Do you log onto the Internet? Every site that you visit is logged and recorded (yeah...I know...you delete the history. That just means your kids won't see those sites your visiting...but your Internet service provider still knows).

All of that data, and more...everything you post on Facebook, Twitter...everything you email...anything you do is trackable now. And more ways to track behavior are being created every day...sleep monitors, pedometers, glucose monitors...there is data EVERYWHERE and its all about you. And me. And the guy sitting in traffic next to you who's using his gps.

With all of this data, we can start making predictions about future outcomes. We can target specific communities or subsets of employees, populations, learners. We can provide information to the most relevant audiences in the most appropriate places.

As learning professionals, we should be thinking more closely about the implications of that data and what it means to know so much about a person's current status and the implications for her future status. Can we change the future? Why yes...yes we can. We can observe current behaviors, predict future outcomes, and use our expertise in learning and performance improvement to change behavior to improve those future outcomes.

We have access to so much behavioral data. How do we get people to change their behavior, when we know that people operate in a world of short-term benefit over long-term reward? We're not going to change those behaviors through knowledge training...we'll only change them through behaviorally-focused training. Games, simulations, contextualized practice...immersive learning environments are the bridge between having access to data and changing behavior for better results.

We can, and already do, measure behavior in almost every aspect of our lives. Learning professionals need to stop focusing on knowledge and start focusing on behavioral change as the basis of our design practice or risk obsolescence (see: Instructional Design is Dead). Our jobs aren't about making sure people know things...they are about making sure people can do things better. We can design those experiences and measure those outcomes. If we aren't doing that, we're not doing our jobs.

Gauntlet thrown. 

ARG Design: My session today at the Distance Teaching & Learning conference

I'm in BEAUTIFUL Madison, Wisconsin and getting ready to present this afternoon on alternate reality game (ARG) design. I'm particularly excited about today's half-day session because most of the participants are currently working in colleges and universities, and the prospect of incorporating gaming into academic curriculum is fantastic. Having spent the last two days onsite with a corporate client reviewing the design of an ARG to train their employees on the new functionality of their soon to be released ecommerce site, I'm coming into today with recent, relevant feedback and questions on how ARGs can support education and training.

While I don't think I'll be able to transfer everything I know today in the 3-hour time slot, I'm hoping to hit on some of the basics of learning game design: the issue to be addressed (learning or performance goal), storyline, character development, scoring, and user experience.

I'll be covering these topics in the course I'm teaching this fall at Harrisburg University in much more detail (and if you're interested in registering, its a mixed live/virtual class so come join us!). As I've been developing the curriculum for that course and for writing the immersive learning design book, I've been wondering...what would do learning professionals WANT to know about these topics? If you were taking a class, or reading a book, what would you want to walk away knowing and being able to do? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts...

Coming in 2012: Immersive Learning Design (my first book!)

It's official!

As I type this, my book contract with ASTD is in the post and I'm mentally preparing for the next few months of writing my first book to be published next year: Immersive Learning Design.

I've been blogging since starting Tandem Learning, I've written articles about the many shades of immersive learning (games, simulations, virtual worlds), and I've presented at more conferences than I could easily count. But a book is a different level of reflection for me and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to take on the challenge of documenting what I actually *do.*

The goal of the book is three-fold:

• define immersive learning as a category of design that incorporates elements of games, simulations, virtual worlds and other immersive technologies, 
• describe the design process for immersive learning experiences and differentiate immersive design from traditional instructional design, and
• detail examples of how organizations have been applying immersive learning design to address business issues and corporate learning needs.

I'm sure as I get deeper into the weeds of writing, I'll be posting more about the book, asking questions of others who specialize in immersive learning design, and recruiting organizations who are willing to share their stories of immersive learning design implementations. In the meantime, I'm gonna start limbering up my typing fingers!

Air guitar as experiential learning

This past Saturday I attended the Philadelphia regional Air Guitar competition, the winner of which will be performing in the finals in Chicago on July 23rd (Congrats to Windhammer!).

Windhammer shot courtesy of Ben Hider

This was my first time seeing an Air Guitar show and I'd love to explain the awesomeness, but I'm not sure it can be captured in a blog post. I will say that my sides hurt from laughing and cheering for 3 hours straight and I would HIGHLY recommend if you have an opportunity to see a competition for yourself, you should go. Just go.

Performances in the competition were scored (very loosely) on three criteria: technical merit, stage presence, and "airness." Technical merit is how well you played your air guitar (including remembering you've actually got an imaginary guitar in your hands, catching it if you throw it in the air, etc). Stage presence included use of the stage, showmanship, and performance aspects. "Airness," as it were, is that unexplainable quality that melts your face off as you watch a performance. Scoring was explained in figure skating terms, ranging from 4.0 - 6.0, although I think the lowest score actually given was a 5.0.

What struck me about the air guitar performances, which ranged from over the top, heavily costumed and prop-heavy to straight up rock 'n roll badassness, was how much playing air guitar actually reminded me of simulation and experiential learning design. Granted, none of the performers will likely ever go on to become rockstars playing actual guitars. But the air guitar competition gave them the opportunity to role play what it would be like to be on stage, rocking out a guitar solo. There were a couple performances during which I sometimes actually forgot that they weren't playing real guitars. That level of immersion, of getting learners into character and practicing a role, is exactly the goal of immersive learning design.

Immersive learning design requires technical merit and stage presence, but its the "airness" that is the key. Making the learners feel like they are actually performing and the "realness" of the learning experience is what we all should be striving to design.

Innovations in E-Learning 2011: Conference Reflections

I'm not the best conference attendee. I am really selective about which sessions I'll attend and I find that most of the most valuable conversations I have actually happen outside of the sessions. I actually only attended a couple sessions, missing several that I was interested in, so this is not a post that is going to provide you with an overview of the conference. If you'd like that, Wendy Wickham did a smashing job of that here (including her notes on my session on ARGs).

With that caveat, I had some observations on the Innovations in E-Learning symposium last week that I wanted to document as a starting point for my evolving thoughts around where the training industry is currently, and where it might go.

• People are still all wrapped up in "devices": There are altogether too many people who are still focused on the "cool" technology. To which I say, get over it. If ANY of these technologies are going to be useful for workplace learning, their creation and design should be guided by business needs. As far as I can tell, most of them are still being led by "wouldn't it be cool if?" thinking. 
• Invest in Windex: If many of the new technologies showcased really are the future of learning...be prepared for a lot of glass. ("What?" you say. "Glass??") Yes, glass. Evidently our future looks like big touchable screens all over the place. Its a germaphobe's worst nightmare. All joking aside...I don't buy it. From a purely practical standpoint, there's no way that I'm outfitting my house with "smart" technology that my 3 kiddos and adorable puppy are going to render useless with their grimy little paws. And I LOVE new technology. I love the futuristic thinking, but the practical realities of life may put the brakes on many of these ideas.
• Speaking of practical realities...: There was a session I attended during which I expressed my disbelief (on Twitter) that a systems model of learning, with interchangeable SCOs (shareable content objects), was being described as "the future of learning." I am admittedly completely biased on this subject: I do not believe that people learn through linear systems of interchangeable "chunks" of information that are linked together. Mainly, its because I believe that people learn through context, not content, and that the reason why we as a learning industry are moving towards immersive learning, games, social learning, etc. is because we have seen and realize the limitations of content delivery systems in changing people's behaviors. I do believe that there is a place for content delivery, but its a small, perhaps initial, part of the learning experience. I respected the obvious thought that went into developing a prototype of this SCO delivery system, what bothered me was the lack of explanation of how the system would work in context of broader learning goals and environments. Where's realistic practice? Where's coaching, mentoring, and communities of practice? There was talk of motivation, but the example shown looked like a scaffolded, incremental improvement model. At the risk of being the grumpy old lady shaking her fist and telling those darn kids to get off my lawn, we (the learning industry) tried to make purely SCO-based learning systems work in the late 90s, early 2000s. Its an appealing thought, for sure...developing a system that facilitates systematic learning for everyone. I just don't believe that's how we truly learn. 
• How can we better bridge academia and workplace learning?: No surprise that I was thrilled to see Chris Dede's keynote on immersive learning environments in virtual worlds; the work he's doing is amazing. Unfortunately, there's a big bridge to cross between the work being done in academia and the business problems that new learning technologies such as virtual worlds can help solve. There ARE organizations that are designing learning and collaborative experiences in virtual worlds that are addressing real organizational issues. I'd like to see more of those stories in conjunction with the academic exploration of these technologies to help close the gap of understanding how new technologies can help organizations today.
• What is the problem you're trying to solve?: Here is the crux of my observations at the conference: it was like seeing a bunch of solutions in search of a problem. I didn't hear a lot about the organizational issues to be addressed, but did hear a lot about what the "future" looks like...mobile, social, virtual, game-based, augmented...these are all the waters I swim in with my projects and clients every day. What I think everyone struggles with is how to justify the "new" and that's because there haven't been a lot of case studies, examples, business problems that these new technologies have effectively tackled.

My conclusions? Its time for case studies. Its time for strategies to address organizational issues. Its time to focus on the design elements that will make these new technologies successful. Let's accept the fact that the future is mobile, social, virtual, game-based and augmented, because...it is. I don't think the future is made of glass; I think the future is organizations implementing these new technologies to solve business issues in new and effective ways. Right now, I'm over "oooh shiny"--there's something new and shiny every day. Right now, I want real examples and real stories and yes, real data.

Show me THOSE innovations. If you can, I promise to pass them on.

QR codes: practical design considerations

There has been so much written and talked about lately regarding QR codes, but most of what I've read has focused on the basics of what they are, trends in their use, or their pros and cons. For anyone who is interested in QR codes, I've collected a few links and references that should help you get a crash course on what QR codes are, and catch you up on the basic opinions being bandied about on their usage (or not):

• What are QR Codes and Why Do You Need One? - Marc Lyne (an article from 2009, a great overview)
• OMG QR Code Madness - Phil Baumann (great, no-nonsense overview)
• Momentum is building for QR codes - Shel Holtz (recent prediction of trends, optimistic)
• 11 Reasons Why QR Codes Suck - David Wachs (Cons to QR codes)
• 11 Reasons Why QR Codes (Don't) Suck - Simbeck Hampson (Pros of QR codes, counterpoint to Wachs's article)

My LinkedIn QR Code

Where I'd like to focus my energy are on the actual design considerations for whether or not QR codes will help you solve a problem...or if they are an "ooooh shiny" technology innovation.

Let's start with what QR codes do: they are images that you can scan from a QR reader on your phone that launch a webpage that either provides you with information or prompts you to do something. For example, someone could use a QR code on their business card to launch their LinkedIn profile where  you could choose to add them as a contact. Cool, right?

But lets look at the bigger picture. Are the use of QR codes good design?

Audience analysis: you need to have a smartphone for QR codes to be useful. There is all sorts of data available on demographics of who owns smartphones, but let's make some sweeping generalizations that less represented populations of smartphone owners are the young, the old, people with low incomes, and several minority populations. Of those people using smartphones, your audience is further narrowed by those who would actually download a QR code reader app, or have purchased a phone with one already built in. And then finally, your audience would need to know what QR codes are and see the need for using them.

The audience analysis portion of QR codes is important, because many of the potential uses (that are NOT product marketing) I see for QR codes are actually most beneficial to the young, the old, and underserved populations.

Needs analysis: So, in what situations do we need to automatically launch a website?


Yeah, um...not many.

I like the LinkedIn example I mentioned above, because I think it would be more convenient to share contact info digitally than through paper business cards. I also like some healthcare related examples, like having a QR code on prescription bottles that provides all the prescribing information. It would be helpful for food labeling to start including QR codes for nutritional information. I'd love if things that required instructions (IKEA furniture, programming a universal remote, changing the fluids on my car) could launch from my phone whenever I needed them. A lot of this is "just in time" type of information and instruction that would be really beneficial to have at the ready and using a QR code to launch that type of content could be extremely useful. In essence, I'm thinking of QR codes as "job aid launchers" and I think looking at them in that capacity could be a viable and appropriate use.

I also see the opportunity to use QR codes for game design, specifically in the design of alternate reality games (ARGs) and scavenger hunt games. Again, though, the audience analysis is key...people can't play the game if they don't have the technology they need to play.

Unfortunately, what I've been seeing is mostly QR codes being used as promotional content launch points. There's two reasons why I don't think this makes sense...

1. when you scan a QR code and it launches a website, especially for promotion, the likelihood that you are in a position to actually review the content on the website is pretty small. Let's say I'm at a conference...let's say SXSW. And there are QR codes everywhere. Am I going to be walking around with my phone, scanning QR codes and standing there reading about your site? Is that information being saved anywhere for me to review later?(answer = probably not) Wouldn't my time be better spent actually talking to people and looking at the technology? And if I'm passing out QR codes, why not just pass out marketing materials that have the website address on it so that I can take it with me and review it on my computer instead of my phone?

And 2. most QR codes aren't reinforcing your brand. I've seen some customized QR codes, but for the most part, QR codes are black and white 8-bit looking boxes that do nothing to promote your brand or your messaging. If anything, they strip the messaging away, or add an additional step for your potential customers to learn more about you. Why make your customers work harder to learn about what you can do for them?

From a designer's perspective, you want to minimize the work you make people do to get to the content that is most important to them. When you're thinking about QR codes, think about your audience, think about what you're trying to accomplish, think about the actual logistics of how they are used,  and then ask yourself...are QR codes the best solution for the need I'm trying to address or the problem I'm trying to solve?

Augmented Reality Games, Alternate Reality Games, and the Future of Learning

Watch live video from RELATE Live! on Justin.tv

Thank you to Rick Zanotti and Terrence Wing for inviting me to speak today on #elearnchat. You can check out the video here...including our "prep" session at the beginning! 

What IBM Watson means for learning, education, and instructional design

During the NFL Playoffs, I started to see IBM's commercial for Watson. I was interested for two reasons...first, it didn't seem like appropriate placement for the commercial (my sister used to be a media buyer so I peripherally know too much about commercial placement) and secondly, I was having a hard time caring if a computer could answer trivia questions faster than a human.

OF COURSE we've gotten to the point that a computer can beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. Isn't that what we've been working towards, since the beginning of computers? Haven't we been trying to get computers to handle sifting through large amounts of data and finding the correct answers at a much faster speed that we humans could do? Haven't we been trying to alleviate our burden of determining complex logic algorithms that lead to a "correct" answer? For questions that have a correct, single solution or, even for questions that clearly have a best answer, we have finally developed a computer that can more quickly and accurately come to that answer than most, if not all, of our brains can handle.

Yay us!

Now what?

The irony in IBM Watson being such a revelation is the juxtaposition with educational trends, specifically an increased emphasis on standardized assessment and testing. Just today in my Twitter stream, I'm seeing tweet after tweet about the US government's multi-billion dollar funding of "Race to the Top" and the emphasis on making our educational system more competitive with other countries on standardized tests. Guess what, everyone? We have actually built computers to do the work that standardized tests test for, better than we are able to do it.

So, what do we value? Do we want to continue to beat our heads against our own technological innovations and try in vain to measure ourselves against systems that will always be more efficient at performing the tasks that they are designed specifically to do? Or should we be thinking about what we, human beings, can do that no computer can? What makes us human? What makes us different from a machine?

We are emotional, creative, intuitive...we can solve complex problems with no clear right answer. We are social and thoughtful and we strive to create meaning where it doesn't currently exist. We are complex and complicated and messy and funny. Yes, we can be logical and systematic and we can memorize and recall our address where we lived in when we were 6 years old (6521 Ralston Rd, btw), but we can't always remember where we put our car keys.

I hope we never create technology that is so perfect in its humanity that we lose our own. For now, we've developed a technology that does something important: answers certain types of questions, faster and more reliably than we can. So let's stop focusing on trying to train our brains to work like IBM's Watson and instead focus on training our brains to handle the types of thinking and work that Watson can't. Let's stop focusing on standardized testing as the measure of educational success and let's focus on how we can get students to solve complex problems. Let's make sure they understand history...not so they can recall dates and names on demand, but so they can understand how the decisions of the past have led us to where we are and we can learn from the lessons of our collective history.

Let's reward risk-taking and innovation and bravery and determination. Let's instill lessons of compassion and responsibility and community and resilience. Let's facilitate communication and empathy and love. Yes, I said it: love. Let's start educating people, young and old, as people...not training them like computers or like cogs in the system. Let's think about education as a way of making us more human, not more like computers.

That, in the end, is what will save us in the Robot Revolution. In the meantime, I call Watson for my team in Trivial Pursuit.

Design considerations for conference alternate reality games

If you've been following along, you've probably heard that Tandem Learning is running an alternate reality game (ARG) at DevLearn 10. Dr. Strangelearn is our sophomore ARG at DevLearn, and we're excited to get everyone involved and playing. (If you're going to DevLearn, you really should sign up now. Really. Do it now. I'll wait...)


As I've been writing about ARGs for learning, I hoped to make some correlations between our conference ARGs and the ARGs that we've designed as learning experiences. But there are distinct design differences between the two types of ARGs because of the different play contexts, and for people investigating the use of ARGs for learning, its important to understand these differences.

In no particular order:

• At conference ARGs, the ARG is not the main attraction. Unless the event is designed around the ARG, the game is likely to be a supplement to the conference. In these cases, people are there for some other reason...and typically, the reason is to interact with the other people at the event. Because of this, its important to design conference ARGs to supplement, not take away from, the main event. If you don't, people will abandon the game play to focus on the main attraction.

• When designing ARGs for learning, presenting complex problems to be solved is part of the learning. For conference ARGs, complex problems seem like work. Designing for simplicity of play at events is critical...if the game is too complicated or the puzzles/challenges are too difficult, players at an conference are more likely to give up or stop playing.

• Learning-focused ARGs can challenge the players to follow a path, or to find hidden information. For conference ARGs, give players LOTS of opportunities to play and join in on the fun. If the path to play or win is too linear, players are less likely to join an conference ARG if they feel they joined too late or can't keep up.

• For conference ARGs, keep the content light, with opportunities to take-away content from the game to review after the event. Although there may be learning opportunities during the event embedded in the game, sparking a learner's interest and providing great content that can be explored after the conference is a more successful strategy than trying to actually train people at the event. For learning ARGs, the training is an important part of the design and the expectation is that players will have much more time and attention to focus on the content as they play through the game experience.

There are lots of other subtle design considerations that make conference ARGs different from ARGs for learning. The main focus of ANY serious ARG design should be the basic question: what do you want people to learn by engaging in the experience? After that, understanding your audience, the context of the game play, and the resources you and the players have available are the parameters within which you design. 

What can alternate reality games do for you?

I've written a lot in the past about design considerations (here and here) and lessons learned (here) for alternate reality games (ARGs) for learning, but another important question to address is: what are ARGs good at teaching?

This is a multi-layered question, as ARGs are complex learning experiences and most are not designed as a simple linear process like you would see in a typical e-learning module. Because ARGs are storyline driven and depend on learners to engage with the content to complete the game tasks and/or inform their game decisions, it is important to consider two key questions when determining whether an ARG is an appropriate learning activity.

1. Does learner interaction with the content positively impact the learning goals?

This is a basic, but important question. Sometimes you just want people to know something, or do something differently. Company policies, learning a new process...these are training initiatives that are important, but they don't necessarily require learner interaction nor are they subject to interpretation. There are a lot of topics, however, where learners actively engaging with the content is critical to learning it. Think about topics like leadership development, project management and team communication, sales strategy, or quality assurance review. In all of these training areas, learners get better by practicing and engaging with the content. Designing an ARG that encourages critical thinking and learning by doing is a great application of an ARG.

2. Is it difficult to get learners to engage with the content effectively in other formats?

Sometimes its difficult to motivate learners to engage with content. Most training professionals don't like to admit this, but we all know its true. Training exercises can feel forced, and often it depends on each learner's personal motivation to get something out of the training. One reason for this may be that the delivery mechanism of the training isn't appropriate or creates barriers to learning. For example, can you develop a sales strategy for your customers after watching a PowerPoint presentation on developing a sales strategy? Can you lead a team after an e-learning module on leadership skills? Will you know who to contact or where to find the information critical to your job after sitting through your HR orientation? Probably not. And that's because the format of the training doesn't provide you with the proper opportunities to practice or the motivation to engage with the tasks. ARGs can be designed to address almost any topic or content in a way that allows for more interaction and with an overlying competitive element that provides additional motivation to learn and engage. 

ARGs allow for flexible design that can encourage problem-solving, communication skills, leadership skills, information gathering and critical thinking skills. Do you have a need within your organization to help learners practice these things? An ARG can help.

The Obvious Ninja: a key to successful alternate reality games

I was recently at a conference and noticed the conference photographer. Yes, already you may see the problem. Photographers are supposed to blend into the scene. They document an occasion but aren't supposed to be the attraction themselves. Well, not this photographer.

Its not that she was trying to draw attention to herself. In fact, what I noticed about her was that she was trying SO hard to be sneaky that you couldn't help but notice her. Exaggerated sneaky walking. Sudden ducking and swinging the camera around. Watching her during one session caused us to break out into a fit of giggles.

That's when I named her "The Obvious Ninja."

Ironically, this concept is important for serious alternate reality game (ARG) design. Traditionally, entertainment ARGs have been very subversive, attracting a small group of players that invest significant time into figuring out the puzzles of the game in order to win. There are two problems with this type of design: "small group of players" and "invest significant time."

One of the most basic things we know about learning game design is the need to reduce the cognitive overhead and barriers of entry to play. At first glance, this seems counter-intuitive given that most ARGs are puzzle-based. But good ARG design relies on balancing making the game obvious and easy to use and keeping it challenging (because if there's no challenge, there's not much fun).

So if you're planning an ARG and are aiming to involve a broad audience, think "obvious ninja." And tip your hat to my favorite conference photographer.

SIEGE ARG Post-game debrief

Back from Atlanta, I barely had time to catch my breath before jumping into the next project, but wanted to share out some of our lessons learned from the latest alternate reality game (ARG) that we ran at SIEGE!

First, a HUGE thanks to Silly Monkey, Getting Girls in the Game, and Design Marbles for inviting us along for the ride. Not only was the ARG fun to put together, but it was a pleasure to work with such talented folks and I can't wait until our next adventure!

A few notes on ARG design coming out of the conference:

• The augmented reality (AR) features in this game were new, and really got people involved in game play in a different way. We had QR codes that served as many of the clues and it was great to see how people were interacting with them. One important note for AR though--make sure your audience members have the technical capabilities to access the clues! I was surprised at the limited number of smart phones on site, but it was awesome to see people working together (and finding people with smart phones!) to access the clues. 
• Just because they're gamers doesn't mean they'll play your game! Think about it...gamers don't want to waste their time on a game unless its fun and engaging--just like anyone else. Its absolutely essential that you design your game for engagement, understanding your audience, and providing ample information to get people involved in the game early. Subversive game play, even for gamers, seems like work when you're in the middle of a conference. Keeping game elements obvious and instructions simple goes a long way.
• Get some celebrity endorsements. We were fortunate to be able to post our clues on the keynote podium, and Nolan Bushnell even wore a clue on his back one night! It always helps to get some prominent players involved to peak interest and get people playing.
• Design as you go. I can't emphasize enough the importance of the puppetmaster in ARGs. As you see how people are engaging in your game, its critical that you are thinking of how to make dynamic adjustments to tweak and improve the game play experience. ARGs are not a static experience, and their execution should be as fluid and intentional as the nature of playing them. 

For more information about the SIEGE ARG, there was a really nice write up by Nettrice Gaskins for the National Alliance for Media Art +Culture (NAMAC).