A year of living (mostly) bloglessly

I started this blog to write about starting a company, everything I learned along the way. It's evolved over the years...at first I wrote a lot about starting Tandem Learning, then I wrote a lot about virtual worlds. Learning. Games. Gender issues. Taking risks. Occasionally, my kids. My goals. Music. I've written about so many things.

There's been a lot I haven't written about. I learned (the hard way) about what happens when you reveal too much about yourself out there to the world. It's still shocking to me that sometimes people read what I write. I had to learn to balance out the personal benefit I gain from writing my thoughts down in this blog, and the potential fallout for me when people read what I write. I have opinions, no doubt. I learned that sometimes I need to keep them to myself.

This year was a particularly tough juggling act, professionally and personally, in relationship to this blog and what I wanted to share publicly. Most of the time, I erred on the side of silence. My rationale was that this was a blog started to document my professional development and the stories of my personal growth and learning this year didn't really "fit."

So now it's December, and I look back at everything I didn't write about this year...I look at whole months where I stayed silent and didn't post the things I was learning. I look back on a year when I evolved more, learned more, and took more risks than I ever have. I didn't share most of it. I didn't document that evolution. And now, I kinda wish I would have.

Blogging is what you make of it, right? Maybe this is a professional blog, but it's a personal blog, too. Sometimes the personal is going to supersede the professional and sometimes it's gonna be all work, work, work. I made a resolution at the beginning of 2012 to apologize less. That hasn't gone so well...old habits die hard. For 2013, I'm just going to be me but I'm going to write about it here, because that's how I learn. So no apologies in advance for the posts about my upcoming wedding, my continued amazement at the beauty that surrounds me every day here in Santa Barbara county, my hilarious kids that push me to be better, and my partner, my love, who has made me reconsider my stance on fairy tales. 

I'm also about to write a post on why most assessment in learning is bullshit. Because, well, that's who I am, and what this blog is, too.

Better Than Wonder Woman

I read an article the other day (that I'm not going to link to) where a female executive gave advice to women starting out in their careers. Her advice? Pick what's most important to you (career or family) and focus on that. She said that its practically impossible for women to be successful both in the boardroom and raising a family, so you have to choose. 

What a crock of shit. 

When I was a little girl, I actually didn't know if I wanted to have children. I knew that I wanted to have a career, and I didn't have a lot of role models of women who were raising a family and were successful professionally. I was always a bit geeky and Wonder Woman was my idol. When I looked at her, I saw a very successful, strong woman. She was independent, but she was also alone. I did think I had to choose. 

The day I became a mom, I did choose. I knew that my career was an indispensable part of who I was and that I would not be happy filling my days solely with play dates and mom clubs. I knew that I wanted to be a role model for my son (and later my next son, and daughter), to show him that women are just as capable of pursuing professional success as men. I knew that's the kind of mom I was...not a cookie baker or exceptional homemaker, but an executive mom. 

I knew that there would be other women who made different choices and who would judge me for mine.  There are lots of times that I look at other women with envy, for their exceptional skills at home or at work. Then I remind myself: I want to have it all. That means its not going to be perfect; it means there will be successes and failures. I can see the argument on both sides: I'd be a better mom if I didn't work so hard, or I'd be more successful if I wasn't raising children. Maybe both of those statements are true. 

But maybe MY measure of success is pursuing my professional dreams, being happy and present for my children, living the example I want to set. I can't listen to what people tell me I can, or can't, have. Those naysayers may just have a different picture of what success looks like...and that's not my picture. While I still love Wonder Woman, she's no longer my role model. She may have been strong and independent, but I wonder if she was lonely. I know now, if I want to have it all, I have to be better than Wonder Woman.

The F word as a strategic advantage

I want to talk about the "F" word. The one that makes many learning professionals cringe, the one that risks you or your ideas being taken seriously, the one that people want to say but imagine that by using it they will risk credibility and perhaps even look foolish. Yes, I'm talking about FUN.

We all want to have fun...I'd venture to say we all want to have more fun than we're having now. We dream of our work being more fun, of having fun on vacation, even just infusing a little fun into everyday tasks. Its true that fun is subjective; what someone may consider a chore, others might get great joy from (for example, driving...I love it! other people, not so much...).

Fun is also an attitude. You know that expression "you make your own fun"? Truer words never spoken. Everyone knows someone who's a killjoy...as soon as he or she walks into a room, all the air is sucked out. We also all know someone who is like a ray of sunshine, who we love to be around because of the energy and attitude that the person infuses into even the most mundane tasks. I had a cousin who could make even standing in line at the bank fun. We gravitate towards those people because we want to have fun, be happy, and enjoy life.

Source: http://historytech.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/video-games-and-social-studies/

What bothers me most about the concept of fun is how it is handedly dismissed in many professional environments. For years, I couldn't talk about games for learning to potential clients, or at least I didn't call them games. Why? As soon as they heard the word "game," they dismissed anything else I had to say. Most companies wanted "serious" training and the idea of learning through a game, or for learners to be having fun...*gasp*! Well it was just never going to fly, because learning was already devalued in most organizations as a cost center, and then start calling it FUN?? Anyone who wanted to be taken seriously was not going to start throwing around the F word.

Within the last 9 months, I've seen a shift in the market. I get requests for proposals from companies who are specifically looking for games for learning. Many are still tentative, nervous; they've heard about badges and gamification but they aren't sure what that means for their training initiatives or how game dynamics might improve learner motivation and engagement. Most organizations approach games very seriously, sometimes to the point of taking all the potential for fun right out of them.

Fun can be serious and challenging and look an awful lot like work, just ask any athlete. The attitude, the expectation that even when we face our most difficult challenges and most serious subject matter, that human beings strive to be happier and have more fun...these ideas don't have to be in conflict. Nathan Verrill recently gave the keynote at LEEF titled "Work is not the enemy of fun." He talked about how immersive games can be designed to address even the most serious social and business issues while fostering opportunities for fun to get (and keep) people's attention. Jonathan Richman made one of the most resonating points about marketing in a presentation at ePatient Connections last fall: you aren't just competing for attention with your competitors...you're competing with LOLCats. These presentations reinforced my opinion that in a world where there are so many distractions, competing media streams, and ways that we can choose to entertain ourselves, our business goals, and for learning professionals, our learning goals, must be addressed with strategies that account for human motivational drivers and the environmental context that we're operating in.

My conclusion? Fun is the new strategic advantage.

Organizations should be embracing fun. Organizations who close their eyes to this necessity the will suffer for it because employees and even customers will seek out fun where it exists. You want to attract and retain the best talent? Create a workplace that they are happy to jump into every day. You want people to be engaged in learning activities? Design relevant training that people look forward to participating in. You want to attract and retain more customers? Create a company that's a pleasure to do business with.

After all, who doesn't want to have more fun?

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.

Why more women aren't using Quora

I'm about to make some broad, sweeping generalizations about behavior based on gender. Yes, I know that opens up a whole debate where people will point to specific examples that run counter to my argument, and yes, they exist, and no, I'm not saying that ALL women behave one way or that ALL men behave another. But there are some culturally defined and perhaps genetically determined differences in how the genders interact (lots and lots of books written about this...) and this post is focused on addressing how those differences affect design, specifically community and user interaction design in social media.

I read a story this morning that came through my Twitter stream: Is Quora a Sausage Fest? 

And it immediately clarified for me why I don't like Quora. Quora is actually designed for men.

Let's take a step back. Lots of business and political arenas were designed by men, for men...they focus on the ways that men interact with each other. Sorry, guys, but a lot of what you do is just professional chest-puffing, testosterone-rich, back-slapping pissing matches. Sure, it may look more civilized in some contexts, but I'd argue that on any given day, C-Span taps into the political version of a Gladiator ring with a bunch of guys trying to out-argue each other over issues that neither party is going to budge on.

Why aren't women's professional sports more popular? Why are first person shooter video game players predominantly male? Why aren't there more women politicians or CEOs?

When you design systems based on the way men interact and communicate, men will be more interested in participating in them and will be more successful in them.

So let's look at Quora...

Although some people might call it a social media tool, there's not a lot social about it. If you don't know what Quora is...the simplest explanation is that its a forum where people can post questions and people can post responses. That seems gender-neutral enough, right?

Except, its really not. Quora has one formula to participate: question and answer. If we think about this as a community where everyone has the opportunity to become an "expert" then all of a sudden, the dynamic becomes "who can post the best/smartest/most relevant answer." In essence, Quora becomes one big competition to be the most prolific, the most engaged, the most respected...by answering other people's questions "the best."

This isn't a format that lends itself to conversation or discussion. This is a format that is a bunch of people getting up on their pulpits and preaching. This is Senators presenting on the Senate floor, gladiators in the ring fighting for their lives, people climbing over each other to get themselves up the corporate ladder. This is a format designed for men.

If you look at the most successful social media tools, Twitter and Facebook, there's one overarching feature that makes them just as appealing to women as they are to men. Its the opportunity for people to engage and interact in different ways. These tools allow for people to create their own experiences. They allow flexibility in participation. They create lots of different opportunities for people to define their own "success" or value in using the tools. With Twitter and Facebook, what you get out of it is what you put in...you create your own experience.

Quora, on the other hand, is a defined experience and type of interaction. There are values already built into the design and dictated by the interaction style. And the interaction style is very masculine.

I talk a lot in my presentations on designing experiences to account for gender differences. There are some general guiding principles in immersive design you need to pay attention to: how you orient new users to the environment, how you reward behaviors, how well defined success is, etc. These gender differences impact how people perceive these environments, all the way from "is it useful?" to "is it fun?" and its important to understand how people engage with each other to design for different types of engagement.

Women are more communal, collaborative, and like to talk things out. Men are more decisive, exploratory, and willing to take risks (trial and error). I could tap into all the research that shows how our language, behaviors, and decision-making differs along gender lines, and how that contributes not only to how we are perceived and valued in professional settings, but also how that reflects how we think about ourselves as women and men. There are powerful cultural forces that have gotten us to where we are today; many of those cultural beliefs are what perpetuate gender stereotypes and inequalities. The fact remains...there are differences between women and men. That's a good thing, when those differences are acknowledged and accounted for.

So back to Quora. Its designed to post up a question and open it up to answers. This isn't a format like "Ask the Expert" where credibility and respect have already been established as part of the interaction design. This is a free-for-all of throwing yourself out there and making yourself an authority. If you look at just the basic differences between women and men, it makes sense why more men are engaged in this format. You're rewarded for having the most decisive language, strongest opinions, and taking a risk by throwing your opinion out there. Most women take one look at that and think "not interested." Then I'm guessing they go ask their question on Twitter or Facebook.

Asking questions and seeking answers are human characteristics that have nothing to do with gender. How we ask questions, who we seek out for answers, and they types of answers we value can be extremely gender specific. As we continue to explore social media tools as opportunities to engage people in new ways, we need to make sure we are aware of the differences if we want design to engage BOTH genders in the conversations. Perhaps before designing a tool that's whole purpose is to provide opportunities for questions and answers and then wondering why women aren't participating, it would be important to look at how women are already asking and answering questions and building those types of interactions into your design.

Unless you want, in the immortal words of Flight of the Conchords, "Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor":

Too many men
Too many boys
Too many misters
Not enough sisters
Too much time on too many hands
Not enough ladies, too many mans

Admitting limits when you're a "no limits" kinda girl

Whether or not we like to admit it...there actually IS a limit to what we can accomplish in the little time we have. I'm not saying that our potential is limited...I'm saying that we have capacity issues. There are only 24 hours in a day. We actually need to sleep, eat...we can't just keep going full steam ahead, full out running, all of the time.

Oh, and then there's what other people bring into the equation. We can't control that either, and even the best laid plans sometimes get blown to bits because...well, we're social. We're complicated. We have all kinds of quirky relationship dynamics that guide our actions. And unless you lock yourself away to work away at your goals...sometimes life gets in the way.

So what happens when grand plans meet daily necessities and bump into unexpected events? Limitations.



And this is where dreams die.

The truth is, you can't do EVERYTHING. You need to prioritize. You need to figure out what's really important. And goals...dreams...visions of the future...they can easily get lost in this process. Try to do to much and chances are, nothing gets done. If you don't plan for your priorities, they get lost in the shuffle.

I've been working on admitting limits and setting priorities. Wow, its not easy. Its a process, for sure. I can easily convince myself to give up sleep. To work on vacation. To commit to doing more, to helping, to doing what it takes to get stuff done.

But then, of course, other things don't get done. And some of those things are really important to me. Frustration sets in. Less sleep. Distraction. And everything is affected.

How do you get past the limits?

1. Define your goals
You just aren't going to get there if you don't know where you're going. Write down your goals, make a plan to achieve them and be realistic about what its going to take (time, resources, etc.)

2. Enlist help
I'm horrible at this. You need people to not only to support you, but sometimes to actually help you achieve your goal. In fact, most things you CAN'T do alone. So ask and get people on your team.

3. Give up control
If I'm horrible at asking for help, I'm downright abysmal at giving up control. But once you get people to help, you have to let them help. So give it up. Seriously.

4. Prioritize (really, really)
This is the part of the process where you look around at what your doing and figure out if its getting you where you want to go. Are your actions supporting what you want to achieve? If not, change what you're doing.

5. Pace yourself
Be patient but not complacent. Don't confuse the two. Patience means understanding the realities of how much time things take. Complacent means letting things take too long...and then maybe them never happening at all. So be patient, realistic, and don't burn yourself out. Burn out is just as dangerous as complacency.

Sometimes you need to sprint, but sometimes you really are running a marathon. There are different limits to each and the winning runners acknowledge those limits and work within them effectively.

Your dreams shouldn't have limits, but all of us do. The only way we can reach our dreams is to be honest, strategic, and tenacious about who we are and what we want.

The bigger picture (and why I love Amanda Palmer)

About 2 1/2 years ago, I took a big risk and leap of faith and started Tandem Learning. And I have to admit, it was exhilarating. Starting a company? Building something new? Risking everything in order to achieve something you didn't know was even possible? Suddenly, I felt brave and powerful and capable in a way I never had.

That feeling doesn't last forever. I made mistakes, faced challenges, had to make big decisions. I didn't always know what I was doing or what to do next.

Two things are true. I've always followed my heart and I never gave up. But yes...I've made mistakes.

On February 18th...on the actual 2 year anniversary of my first day as Tandem Learning...Amanda Palmer wrote a blog post, a portion of which I'm going to quote here now, in response to her releasing the "back story" of Evelyn Evelyn, her current project and tour. You can read her entire post here, but this is the part, this is the section, that inspires me and reminds me why I'm doing what I'm doing...that reminds me how to stay brave:

the bigger picture.

yesterday i found myself chewing all of this upsetness like a bone in my mind.
i’m also PMSing, and that made things even lovelier.

listen:
in my life and in my work, i’ve made a lot of people angry.

people love to judge.
too feminist. not feminist enough. too outspoken. not outspoken enough. too intellectual.
too dumb. too glam. too underdressed. too funny. not funny enough. too inappropriate. too safe.
wrong kind of funny. marrying my favorite author and now i fucking hate her. fat. irritating. loud.
blah blah blah blah, etc, ad infinitum.

this is something i’ve had to learn to live with.

to get clear, i always have to stop, dig deep within myself and ask:
were my intentions good? could i really stand behind them? was anybody really harmed?
if i’ve actually harmed someone (and the harm isn’t just a drama in their heads), have i owned my responsibility?

when i quiet myself down and find the answer within myself, that’s the most important one.
it speaks louder than the voices outside my head and the anonymous voices on the internet.

it is to this voice you must listen, or you’re FUCKED.

i know a lot of younger people read this blog and i have constant contact with teenagers who are always asking me:
“how do i get brave?”

a lot of that answer lies in situations like these.
when you are forced to sit down, reckon with a situation, listen to people screaming that they hate you, take stock of what you’ve done, look everyone in the eye, tell them what your intentions are, and know that they will either hear and understand you or they will walk away.

and then your job is to not run after them.
your job is to stay calm. your job is continue on with your work.
and the hardest thing, sometimes, is to continue on with your work in a spirit of love, without letting other people’s hate and anger getting the best of you, and turning you into bitter, angry and jaded fuck.

it’s so easy to be afraid. to do nothing. to not make your art, to not follow your calling, your passion, your impulses, to not take any risks for fear of people cutting you down and misunderstanding you.
most people are CONTROLLED by fear, because they’re convinced they’ll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, write the wrong thing, sing the wrong thing.
those fears are founded. you can see that, here, now.
shit happens, you can upset people.

and you need to do your work anyway, because the world needs you to.

that, i think, is how you get brave.

My life, my success (or not), my decisions...I've committed myself to not let fear control me. I see others who give in to their fear all of the time. Make excuses. Back away from scary decisions. Stay complacent and safe.

Those are not the people who do great things. Those are not the people who change the world. Those are not the people who I look up to.

If you want to see some of the people I look up to, you'll find them at Tandem Learning. (A belated anniversary to you, my friends. Thanks for trusting and forgiving and being brave with me.)

Or join me next Friday, when I'm going to see Evelyn Evelyn.

Throwing caution to the wind

I just read the post Writing cautiously blows by Janet Clarey and wow, its like she's in my head.

Oh yes...you know how much I get in trouble for calling it like I see it? A LOT. I've offended people, had to apologize, been accused of not being "political" enough and have even taken a blog post down.

I get the "cautious" writing, but it's just not me...I write like I think/talk and I don't mind at all if people disagree...in fact, I like to be challenged.

I think the thrill of writing, and of life, is throwing it all out there...if you don't take risks and welcome new challenges, it's impossible to grow, to be better. Caution leads to comfort, and comfort leads to death of your spirit :)

So let's get into trouble, Janet...I've got your back!

The only thing to fear

I'm not what some people would call "risk averse." No, I'm not a daredevil...in fact, growing up I wasn't athletic at all, and I was pretty shy. I was (still kinda am) scared of heights. I wouldn't go down escalators (up was ok, just not down).  I remember one trip to an amusement park where I must have stood in line for the roller coaster 10 times, only to walk through the car to the other side without riding it. My dad was totally annoyed; my sister was thrilled...she got to ride the roller coaster 10 times in a row.

But sometime in my late teens/early 20s, I got over it. I moved away to college when I was 17 and I never went back. I managed my own money, worked 3 jobs, graduated with my undergrad degree in 3 years. I started going down escalators when I spent the summer in London and had no choice for travel except the Tube.

That's not to say I don't still get scared. Its also not to say that I'm not still cautious. You can ask any of my friends--I still pause at the top of an escalator while my heart does a little flip before I'll take that step on. But I've learned that I gain so much more when I take risks and face my fears.

What has surprised me as I've gotten older is how many people allow fear to govern their decision-making. Don't take a new job, don't try a new technology, don't seize an opportunity...all because of the fear of the unknown.

Mark Oehlert mentions fear, control, and trust in his presentations on organizational resistance to social media implementations. But think about how those same three factors effect our personal decision making...

Fear. Fear that you'll make a "wrong" decision or a "bad" decision. Fear that something bad will happen. Fear of what others will think of you. Fear that in some way, you won't be able to handle it if things go poorly, or more ironically, if things go well.

Control. If you feel like you have control of the situation you're in, if you're comfortable, then why take the risk of losing some control, losing some comfort? Taking a risk means surrendering some control. The familiar is comforting, predictable, and safe. Taking a risk means releasing that control in the hopes of gaining something new and better.

Trust. Do you trust yourself to make good decisions? Do you follow your gut, or fall back on feelings of fear and loss of control? Do you trust yourself to deal with the consequences of the decisions that you make? Do you trust yourself to be honest and open? Do you trust in your relationships to support you in whatever risks you take on?

So how do you get over your fears? Maybe you don't. Maybe you fall back to the safe position. Maybe you defend old decisions "because that's how we've always done things." Maybe you stay where you are and try to make the best of your situation, put a good spin on it.

But maybe you do. But facing your fears, giving up control, and trusting yourself takes practice. Its not easy to face your fears...if it was, fear would have no power. Every day, ask yourself who you want to be. Do you want to be safe and comfortable, or do you want to achieve great things? Settle for what you've always had even if its not what you dreamed of, or take a chance and reach for your dreams? Take opportunities or let them slip away?

Do you want to just stand in line for the roller coaster, or do you want to ride?

Instructional versus experiential design: do you have what it takes?

If your instructional design experience has focused on e-learning modules or workshop development or print instruction...you don't have the skill set to design experiential learning. At least, not yet.

Instructional design typically focuses on the systematic layout of content in a way that can be easily understood, and hopefully learned, by the intended audience. Classroom curriculum development, print, e-learning...typically they present the content, explain the concepts, and allow for some kind of practice before providing some way of assessing what you learned. Most instructional design degree programs focus on this pattern, and applying it to different content. Many instructional designers become experts at breaking content down into easy-to-understand, bite-sized pieces--making difficult concepts easy to understand.

This actually makes a lot of sense, right? If something is difficult to understand, its important to simplify it so that it is understandable. This type of instruction is important, and has its place. But its not the same as experiential design.

The truth is, life is complicated. Decisions are complicated. Many times, there isn't a right or wrong answer--there are better and worse answers. There are often hidden implications in addition to the obvious ones for any decision we make. There's a reason why its called complex decision-making. Its not easy. And you really can't simplify it so that its easier to understand. We can really only get better at dealing with the complexities of the real choices we are faced with every day by practicing making those tough decisions.

Enter experiential design. Where immersive and experiential learning succeeds is in replicating realistic environments and presenting complex problems that require deeper reflection and understanding than most content or concepts presented in traditional training. To design experientially, you have to design a mirror to reality. You wouldn't want a doctor to perform surgery on you who hadn't practiced numerous times and faced a multitude of different situations before. Nor would you want to fly on a plane with a pilot who had only flown a couple times before getting in the cockpit. Why would you want a company full of employees who weren't skilled in handling the complexities of business decisions that companies face every day? No, those decisions typically aren't life or death. But they could mean the life or death of your organization.

In real life, there are very seldom heroes who always make the right choice or villains that always make the wrong ones. Most of us struggle day to day with facing tough choices, weighing all of the options, and making the best decisions we can. The potential of experiential learning design is to be able to provide practice making those decisions and seeing the potential short-term and long-term implications and outcomes before we make the decisions in real life. Call it insight. Call it reflection. Experiential design allows us to help people overcome short-sighted or narrowly-focused decisions by providing the long-term and wide-reaching implications.

Isn't that the kind of thinking and understanding we'd like to see in all of our organizations? Isn't that what we'd like to see in ourselves?

I'm looking forward to talking about this topic more at Learning Solutions, March 24-26th in Orlando, in my session with Ellen Wagner and Cammy Bean titled New Skills for Instructional Designers. And I'm thrilled to be participating in Harrisburg University's LEEF conference June 17-18th where I'll be spending 2 days hearing amazing case study examples of experiential design in simulations, games, and virtual worlds for enterprise (& I hear I'll be presenting on alternate reality games as well...).

Its time that instructional designers more specifically define their skill sets and identify their expertise. Are you designing for simplicity or complexity? In either case, do you know what it takes?

What makes a great instructional designer?

Yes, I'm officially late to the party, but there's been a great discussion going on courtesy of an initial blog post by Cammy Bean, and great follow up discussion and posts by smart folks including Sahana Chattopadhyay, Brent Schlenker, and Karl Kapp.

To sum up in my own words, there's not one flavor of "instructional designer" and most of us who call ourselves by that title have ended up here through a mix of accident and intention. Some of us come from business backgrounds, technology backgrounds, some of us from education and teaching. Some IDs were subject matter experts who were tapped to train others in their organizations. Very few, if any of us, went off to college saying "I want to be an instructional designer!" And likely as a result of the long and winding road to becoming IDs, we all have interesting and varied backgrounds that inform how we practice instructional design.

Sure there are some commonalities...we all know what ADDIE is and we're all familiar with Bloom's taxonomy. But our process, our day to day responsibilities, and certainly our perspectives, are very, very different.

I've been so bold as to claim "instructional design is dead" and I've tried to explain my perspective on why. But as much as there is variation and possibly role confusion to our collective detriment in our profession, there are brilliant people who I meet every day who exemplify the best of instructional design. Here's a few of the characteristics I look for whenever I go a-lookin' for a great instructional designer...

• Ability to conduct complex situational analyses in relationship to learning: if nothing else, IDs should be able to walk into a situation, assess if there is a learning need, what it is, analyze the intended audience, the resources available, and figure out what exactly needs to learned to address the existing knowledge or skill gap. No, its not easy. But if you can't do that, you're probably not an instructional designer by my definition - you're probably a writer or a developer. 
  

• Technology-savvy: this one might draw some debate, but I would argue that in the current business environment, any good instructional designer should able to make technology recommendations to support learning and justify the need and cost to the organization
  

• Talks business and doesn't throw around ID "lingo": this ties into Cammy's assertion that maybe instructional design might be better delivered through a business school. Business executives don't care about ADDIE or instructional models or even adult learning principles. They care about their business issues and how training initiatives will help address them. Good instructional designers don't talk about the theory much--its ingrained in their process.
  

• Understands the difference between practice and assessment: I can't tell you how many conversations I have with clients where I say something like "you COULD measure that, but then it would be assessment and not practice. What is the goal of the learning experience?" Its basic but telling...I've met way too many instructional designers that agree to measure everything at the expense of the actual intent of the training.
  

• Measures success by performance improvement: so, we all know there are things like SCORM and knowledge assessments aren't going away any time soon. But whenever possible, good IDs fight to measure how learners' behavior changes as a result of a learning experience. Its a really telling interview question, to ask a prospective ID how they prefer to assess the success of their learning programs.
  

• Passionate: Its not much of a surprise that I'm a learning geek, and I think other learning geeks are pretty cool. In any profession, passion for what you do usually makes you a little bit better at it, because you care more. Don't let this be confused with ID snobs...the main difference between snobs and geeks? Geeks always want to learn more about what they are interested in...snobs already think they know everything. Guess who makes a better instructional designer?
  

• Fights for a place at the table: You know what's the most annoying phrase I hear from instructional designers? "I can't." MAYBE that's true. But more often, these instructional designers aren't fighting to be heard, aren't positioning themselves as essential leaders in their organizations, or simply haven't tried to make the business case to implement innovative, large-scale solutions that they have identified as solutions to their organizations' problems. Any time I hear "I can't," all I see are red flags.
  

• Has a little "sales lizard": its a special set of skills to be able to see the right design and the right tools to address a learning need. It takes another whole set of skills to be able to sell the right solution to stakeholders and business execs.
  

• Sees the forest and the trees: Some instructional designers are really great at designing a specific solution for a specific problem, but have a hard time looking at the big picture to see if the specific solution is the right solution. 
  

• Knows when to hold 'em: look, we all have to eat. And sometimes, you have to know when to just shut up, put your head down and give 'em what they ask for. Good instructional designers know when all of their knowledge, expertise, selling ability, data, evidence, etc., is just falling on deaf ears. No, we should never settle for designing ineffective or crappy solutions, but neither should we be expected to bang our heads against brick walls. Business savvy, I believe is what the kids are calling it...

So, do I think you need a degree in Instructional Design to be a good ID? No. Do I think some formal training helps? Yes. I like Cammy's suggestion that ID programs might be better delivered with a business degree. But ultimately, its not the degree that makes the ID...its the vision, the leadership, the creativity, the flexibility, and the ability to apply all of their "formal" knowledge about learning in varied and ever-changing business contexts. 

What if everyone thought like a leader?

The last few weeks have been full of discussions of leadership training. Virtual worlds can provide some excellent opportunities for leadership development and I love talking about the possibilities.

What bothers me about leadership development training is that it shouldn't be for just a select few--its how EVERY employee should be trained. Don't we want everyone to think more critically about how to do their jobs? Don't we want to have organizations full of insight, team building, mentoring, and feedback-sharing?

I remember my frustration with gifted education when I was teaching. Not that there was anything wrong with the gifted education programs--on the contrary. Every student deserves to be treated like they are gifted. All of the research showed that if you taught to the highest common denominator instead of the lowest, ALL students improved. Why shouldn't we be creating individual education plans for all students? Why wouldn't we set high expectations for everyone? Why shouldn't we be pushing everyone to reach their highest potential?

I understand that leaders need people to lead. But the truth is, good leaders DO have high expectations, DO push us to be better, DO encourage us to think critically and take on responsibility.

How different would your organization be if you trained everyone to think like a leader?

Meeting your idols

Just finished up my post on the Innovations in E-Learning Symposium, but I had a few observations outside of the play-by-play.



I introduced myself to Will Wright. I got to hear Vint Cerf speak. I told Robert Scoble he didn't do a very good job targeting his audience in his workshop. I hung out in a bar with Brenda Brathwaite. Even one of those experiences would have been blog worthy...and I did all of them in one day. I am not easily impressed. I think people should be embarrassed to go "star spotting." At the end of the day, we're all just people...yes, some people have cooler jobs, or have more motivation, or think differently, or sleep less...but it takes a lot for me to be overwhelmed with excitement or nervousness about meeting someone. After all, don't we all have the opportunity to do great things? Its just a matter of hard work, persistence, focus, resilience...but anyone can choose to think differently, to take risks, to try to change the world.

What that day did to me at the conference was strengthen my resolve. The people I look up to are the people who DO things. People who accomplish crazy goals. People who choose to forge their own paths and not be complacent with the status quo. None of these people were satisfied with working within the system...they chose to create their own systems and challenged the way we think about games, communication, technology, learning.

Lots of systems are broken. You can choose to work within a broken system, or you can choose to create something better. I'm shooting for better.

Mojo

Two of my favorite people, the Hedgehogs Without Borders, bought me a gift during their travels around the world...my lucky cat, Mojo. Supposedly, my lucky Asian kitty will bring me luck and fulfill my wishes through the back and forth waving of his squeaky left paw. 

I'm not ashamed to admit, I am totally superstitious. Mojo kitty did a great job of wish fulfillment in his first year--everything I wrote down and put under his lustrous gold exterior DID actually come true. He didn't always work for other people, but he worked for me. Then I left my old job, and Mojo got packed away in my office knicknacks. Since his triumphant return out of storage, I haven't been wishing too much. The one wish I did have (of course a SMART objective) he did not see fit to grant, at least not in the specified timeframe. And I haven't been providing him with the typical incentivizing cat food...in fact, his squeaky arm stopped waving a few weeks ago and I've not yet rejuvinated him with a new AA battery. 

What happened to my Mojo?

You can't neglect your dreams. Writing them down, in an of itself a form of actualization, does give them power. Nurturing your crazy ambitions does help to make you realize them. I'm not so superstitious that I think Mojo can make things happen all on his own--he is a symbol of my goals. I think I'm going to bring him some catnip tomorrow morning.

Hard work, optimism, and not counting chickens

The last few weeks have been a blur of work; almost every day I actually get confused what day of the week it is. The good news is, the hard work seems to be starting to pay off. Notice the words "seems to be"? Yeah, Little Miss Optimism is definitely once bitten, twice shy. 

Somewhere along the way last year, I was reminded of a very valuable lesson. Words tend to be pretty cheap. People are much better at stroking your ego then just telling you the reality of complex situations, and they are loathe to talk about the internal politics of their organizations, especially when they don't have control. Organizations as a whole are a bit commitment phobic, and the current economy has only made this worse. 

So we're continuing to work hard, I'll keep having to ask what day it is, and hopefully my tempered optimism will be end up being a little less tempered.

The day after

If you celebrate it, I hope you had a Merry Christmas. If you don't, I hope that you and the people you love spent time together this week, celebrating Hannukah, Kwaanza, Festivus, or just hanging out together.

Today, December 26th, is for me, the day after. Christmas is the big day, everything building up to it for months. Planning, preparation, excitement, anticipation...all leading up to one big event. December 26th is the day after, the day where you evaluate the spoils of Christmas.

I think the day after Christmas is really the most important time: evaluation and reflection. The inevitable relief that comes after a major event sinks in and you have time to think about what just happened.

This year, in the craziness and overwhelming amount of stress and work that has come with starting Tandem, Christmas (like so many other things have) took a back seat. We're running lean, and this is the first year that we implemented the "no presents for adults policy" in my family. Even my husband and I didn't exchange gifts; we agreed to make each other something instead.

You know what? This was the best Christmas I've had in a really long time. It wasn't about presents. It wasn't about how much money I spent. It was about being together, playing with the new toys Santa brought, and remembering that the people who you love are the most important thing in life.

Geography and logistics make it impossible for me to be with everyone who I love all at one time. One thing that I realized today in my day-after reflection is that I need to make sure that I take advantage of any opportunity to let the people who I love know how much I appreciate them. So, to my family and my friends who mean so much to me, I'm going to try to spread a little Christmas cheer throughout the year.

Now, let's get ready for New Year's!

New

One of the hardest things for me over the last year has been venturing out into new areas...new markets, new clients, new technologies, new conferences, new, new, new. My natural instinct is to stick to what I know, what's comfortable, and what I know that I'm good at. Its difficult to know every day that you're probably doing something you haven't done before. For someone as competitive as I am, its almost crippling to not know if I'm going to be successful in the new things I do that day.

I hope in another year's time, everything won't be so new. And I hope that there are still lots of new things to challenge me. New is not intrinsically good, nor is it necessarily bad. Its just new, and has to be sorted out. Its the unknown of the new that makes it so nerve-wracking. New things open you up to make mistakes. But they also make you think, re-evaluate, and sometimes improve.

Although all of the new things at once has been a huge challenge this year, its been much better than the same ol', same ol'.

DevLearn 08 debrief

Today was our first day back from DevLearn 08 and like good learning professionals, we conducted a debrief. Although we've been attending several conferences this year, this was our first conference where we were exhibiting. We made a lot of assumptions and we took a few leaps of faith.

Here's an overview of some of our major decisions:
-We were late in registering, so ended up with a lounge in one of the hallways instead of a booth in the Expo Hall.
-We spent a lot of time creating marketing materials to represent what we're doing.
-We planned a wine tasting event one evening to bring additional people over to talk to us in a more social environment.
-We did a Master Class where we were able to talk specifically about our Virtual Immersion methodology, and the Virtual Territory specifically.



At the show, it was clear that some of our decisions were good ones. Although we didn't intend to get a lounge, our location by the bathrooms, in a corner of the hallway by the Serious Games Zone and on the way to the lunch and keynote area, was ideal. And we had the opportunity to set up tables so that we could actually sit down with people and give demos. There were several other vendors that complained that we were given preferential treatment in our location--ha! I have to say, it was really much better not being clumped in the Expo Hall. We were complained about to the conference management. We were complimented on our display. We met some really interesting people throughout the show and at our wine tasting. Overall a fantastic coming out party, and sure to be the standard by which all future conferences where we exhibit are measured.



Here were the notes from our debrief today:
What went well:
• Having seating area to conduct demos and have more private, detailed conversations
• Crib notes for our talking points
• Having a large monitor to display our work
• Wine event
• Made noise and got people's attention
• Showed our expertise in the application of virtual worlds to learning
• Good coming out party
• Showed the ability to tailor our messages to different audiences

What we should do differently next time:
• New demo reel
• Maybe audio on the demo reel?
• Attend more sessions
• Always go to lunch with the attendees
• Practice the short and detailed pitches
• Prep more data

How much does it cost?

We're deep in proposal writing mode on multiple projects and about to talk to countless people at DevLearn 08 this week about the work that we do. No matter how fantastically appropriate, effective, and downright awesome your solutions are to your clients problems, eventually, you need to tell them how much its going to cost to implement your brilliant ideas.

I propose a challenge to all of us out there on the "vendor side"--don't just tell them how much it will cost. Tell them how much money they'll make.

Not a completely radical idea, but how many of us include this in our conversations and proposals? I'm not simply talking about saying "cost saving" or "improved processes"--everyone says that. I mean, give them some numbers or percentages. "Your sales are likely to increase between 5 and 20%." "You'll save an average of $300 per year per employee on travel expenses by making one meeting virtual."

Great idea, I'm sure you're thinking, but how do I get that data? Ha! Yes, well, here's my other challenge to you--don't end your projects with the delivery of your "final" product. All of us should be sticking around a bit longer and collecting data on the effectiveness of our projects, products and services. You remember those learning objectives? Performance objectives? Sales objectives? Time to start establishing baselines and then actually measuring results. And Voila! Data for you to share.

We all talk about developing effective learning solutions. Do you have the data to back up your claims? If not, you better start thinking about how you'll be gathering that data. I'm much more interested in saying "It'll cost you X but save you/make you Y" than just "it'll cost you X." Aren't you?

Celebrating

This week has been full of celebrations, in Philadelphia (Go Phils!) and because of Halloween. It dawned on me that we haven't been celebrating enough around here at Tandem lately. So, to rally the troops, and remind myself how much progress we've made, here's some cool things that have happened over the last month...

• We debuted our Virtual TerritoryTM in London
• We passed our half million dollar mark in revenue recognized
• We decided on our second logo
• We created new marketing materials 
• We developed a new website
• We still haven't taken on any additional investors (despite the economy...)
• We've met with 5-7 new potential clients, both in the US and internationally
• We've talked to 3-5 people who are interested in selling our services both in the US and overseas markets
• We've developed a sales and marketing strategy for 2009
• We prepared for our first conference booth

And this is just in the last month...

There's something to be said for celebrating. Don't forget to appreciate and recognize your victories, big and small.