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.

Walking with a Purpose

On Tuesday night, I had the honor of being art.

My jacket: Data Mind, with the artist, Courtney Mazza

In April I had been invited by Regina Holliday to participate in The Walking Gallery and wear a mural on one of my jackets that represented a message related to patient rights. I was humbled to be invited, and maybe a little surprised. Although I have worked extensively in the pharma and healthcare industries, my career has focused on education and engagement of the providers in these industries...not as much on the patients.

I met Regina at the ePatient Connections conference in October 2010. We talked at the first evening's reception about kids, single mom travel issues, and we started following each other on Twitter. Regina was attending the conference to create paintings during the conference that were to be auctioned off on the last day. Just before the auction, Regina spoke.

Maybe you've met someone like Regina before. Someone who you meet casually and like immediately, without any idea who they are and what they are capable of. When Regina took the stage, I don't think most people knew what was about to hit them. She is a powerhouse, a force, and no one in that room was immune to the power of her message.

Regina's story is everyone's story as much as it is uniquely hers. Her husband hadn't been feeling well, was repeatedly misdiagnosed, and when it finally became clear what was wrong, there wasn't much time. He had Stage 4 kidney cancer. They had two young sons, the oldest of which is autistic. They were repeatedly treated as less than human by a healthcare system that is cumbersome, expensive, and doesn't put patients and families first. Regina's story of her husband's diagnosis, treatment, and death is sad, tragic and could have been much, much different.

She could have accepted what happened. She could have fallen apart. She could have become angry and bitter. She could have just moved on.

Instead, Regina has taken her story, her pain, and her outrage and used the gift of her art to inspire others to action. The truth? We don't have to accept the status quo. All of us are patients, caregivers, and people. We don't have to accept callous treatment from a system that perpetuates our depersonalization, our dehumanization. Yes, Regina is advocating for changes in the healthcare system, but her message isn't limited to patient rights. In education, in practically any government agency...we accept the limitations of the system. We live with red tape and outdated processes and cumbersome systems and we drudge through, thinking we have no right to better. We all deserve better.

Regina has a powerful voice and message, but she can't do it alone. She asked me, and many, many others, to help her communicate this message as part of The Walking Gallery. We are all patients. We are all caregivers. We are all people. We should not settle for being treated like insignificant cogs in a wheel, like numbers on a spreadsheet. Her story is all of our stories.

I wore my jacket proudly in The Walking Gallery. I'll wear it proudly at other conferences and events. I'll tell Regina's story, and my story too. I will tell you not to accept the status quo. And I'll ask you to pass that message on. One story, one jacket, one person can start a revolution. Thank you, Regina, for reminding all of us that we deserve better and for sharing your story and message. You have stood up in the face of adversity and inspired us to fight for change. I carry that responsibility with honor.

Sometimes its tough to blog

There are lines that become blurry when you blog about your business and you're an entrepreneur for whom business is personal. When I started this blog, I wrote about starting this company, the issues and challenges. Over the years, it became more difficult to be that open, not because I didn't want to share what I was learning or reflect on the process, but because that process involved other people. Writing is a deeply personal activity for me, a chance to reflect and synthesize and deconstruct. The point at which that thinking involves other people, however, becomes a decision point as to whether or not MY reflection and learning can negatively impact others. 

The act of writing, publishing, is an act of responsibility. There are times when I struggle with the balance of my own reasons for blogging and respecting the privacy of other people in my life. Sometimes that means that I'll just write about purely work or professional topics. Sometimes that means that I'll write personal stuff but try not to write about anyone else. 

Sometimes that means that I stop blogging for awhile. 

Today I wrote for hours, reflecting on the current state of my personal and professional lives. It has been weeks since I've posted something here and I had finally caught my breath and wrote it all down, how I was feeling, what I was thinking. It was awesome. But I couldn't hit publish. I sat and looked at what I had written and then I deleted it. I deleted it because sometimes you have to just write for you. Sometimes there isn't a good reason to let the world into your thought process. Sometimes its just vanity to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes you need to not just be a writer, but an editor too. 

I think there is a balance to strike between the personal and professional. I love to read a great professional reflective post, but I also love to read about someone's personal journey. It reminds me that we're all just figuring our way through this crazy maze. But these days, when everything you publish online is saved, cached, and accessible in the Library of Congress, I think privacy is sometimes overlooked. I value my privacy and I respect the privacy of others. So I hit delete, and I'm writing this post instead. 

Be kind to one another, everybody. These are exciting times and we're all in this together. 

Shared history

Today is my birthday, but it's also my sister Amie's birthday. In an unlikely twist of fate, she and I were born on the same day, exactly one year apart.

She was my first, and will always be my best, birthday present.

I've never taken my sister for granted. Over the years, maybe because we were so close in age, we really were friends, not just sisters. She's absolutely the funniest person I know. She's also unfailingly kind, insightful, and giving. She's thoughtful. She's loyal and protective of the people she loves. And she's mine...my sister, who I am so lucky to have in my life.

Today as I was getting ready to make the annual call to sing her our song:

I got a little nostalgic about what this amazing woman has done for me over the years. Despite the fact that she was a relentless tease when we were little ;), she was always the outgoing one, introducing me to new kids on the playground or encouraging me to try something new with her. As we got older, we stuck together...lots of moving meant that we always had each other, even as we each made our own friends and pursued our own interests.

Amie painted this for me (that's me on a donkey)

In high school she ran like a deer (I ran more like a hedgehog) and crushed it on the golf team; I was more of the music and theater girl. But our differences made us closer in the important ways. We shared a room for most of high school and got so used to being together that when we moved into a house where we could have our own rooms, sometimes she'd come sleep on my floor just because she missed me. Amie is a phenomenal artist and one of the best writers I know...her Facebook posts are so funny that she has people who've friended her who she's never met, just because they want to read her hilarious updates. But its not just her writing...she's always funny. One night when I was in 6th grade, I was really sick and Amie decided to put on a show for me to make me feel better. She blared Bette Davis Eyes and did a dance that, to this day, made me laugh harder than I've ever laughed in my life (there were some hand/eye gestures that, if YouTube had been around back then, would have made her a viral video bazillionaire).

Although I am the older sister, Amie was always the scrappy one. When my on-again, off-again boyfriend in high school was suddenly "off" again, she waited for him to get out of work at his car with a baseball bat and informed him that if he ever messed with me again, she'd use it. When she finished Army boot camp and showed me the video of her in the gas chamber...I was in awe. That was my little sissy. I don't think she probably knows how proud of her I am, how proud I am that she is my sister. And how happy I am that she's stuck with me forever.

There are countless stories I could tell you about her, but she could tell those stories better herself, I'm sure. She's the family storyteller. There is something powerful about shared history, shared connections...family...that grounds you, supports you, makes you feel safe. Amie has listened to me, given me tough love, and made fun of me my whole life (minus that first year). She inspires me and I miss her desperately, especially today.

So happy birthday Amie...my sissy and my best friend. And yes, I know, I'll ALWAYS be older...I know you'd want me to add that in :)

False advertising

I've been amused to see the CFCC filing a complaint with the FCC against "Your Baby Can Read." Besides the issue of why you'd even want your baby to read, what amazes me is that people STILL set aside what they know to be true (eg, babies can't read) because they want to believe that they can make their lives better through a quick fix (eg, drinking Vitaminwater). It holds true that a fool and his money are easily parted.

People can claim anything. I run into this a lot in my business...I've been working in virtual worlds for three years now, and I can count on one hand the number of people I know who are both experts in adult learning, organizational change AND virtual worlds. There just aren't that many people who have that knowledge and depth of expertise.

I do, however, run into people all of the time who claim they design for virtual worlds or immersive environments. If you knew what you were looking for, or scratched beneath the surface even a little bit, you'd find they don't know what they are talking about. But people LOVE to hear the marketing messages and see the shiny packaging, even if it turns out to be a lot of hype with no substance.

Do yourself a favor. If you are going to pay money for something, do a little research to make sure you're not just buying the marketing message. There are experts out there who actually DO know what they are talking about, have experience doing it, and aren't just saying the buzzwords in an appealing arrangement.

Oh, and do us all a favor and don't call yourself a thought leader. 

Virtual worlds 2.0: don't call it a comeback

It's not just my gut that's been telling me that virtual worlds are emerging from the Trough of Disillusionment and moving into the Slope of Enlightenment on Gartner's Hype Cycle.

On the corporate front, I've just finished up Phase 1 of a consulting engagement focused on developing an organizational adoption plan for a large, global company that is utilizing a virtual world platform as an emerging tool for delivering immersive learning and fostering collaboration and idea sharing among employees spread around the world. It is extremely encouraging to see companies moving out of the "technology implementation" stage and into the "organizational implementation" stage; this signifies a movement of virtual worlds out of the IT departments and into human resources, training, and other departments focused on internal communication. Organizations who have been thinking about or starting to implement virtual worlds have spent a lot of time focused on getting the technology to work and integrate with their existing corporate systems for the past two years; we're moving out of that focus now and into questions of how virtual worlds can best be leveraged. That's an exciting trend for those of us who've been focused on immersive design and how virtual worlds can support different communication and collaboration dynamics.

Another sign that virtual worlds are headed for mainstream adoption are emerging best practice examples of their use for training and learning. Just today, Proton Media announced a partnership with PPD to develop a Virtual Clinical Trial training solution. I've been working with clients recently on virtual preceptorships, virtual apprenticeships, and developing virtual sales territories. There are more and more conversations emerging of using these "mirror worlds" for realistic practice and this trend will continue.

Aaron Silvers blogged this week about his experience at GameTech 2011 where there was more talk about virtual worlds than games. In February, Aaron and I had talked about the current state of virtual worlds  at TechKnowledge 2011 (where I had presented two sessions on virtual worlds for learning). I had been arguing that they were re-emerging from a lag in interest and I think his observations on GameTech confirm that in the government, virtual worlds are certainly garnering renewed attention as a learning tool.


Earlier this week I did a quick search for "virtual worlds" on my blog and found that in the last three years, I've written 32 blog posts related to virtual world topics. I was pretty surprised. Although I've spent a lot of time thinking and speaking about immersive learning design since starting this blog, I don't think I realized how much I'd actually written down. In December 2009, I wrote a post titled "Virtual World 2.0...a few humble predictions" where I made some assumptions about the emerging characteristics of virtual worlds that would lead them to mainstream adoption. I did pretty good on my prediction scorecard:

• Browser-based: almost all virtual worlds are moving in this direction, with minimal plug-ins and more consistent web navigational standards
• Less user-generated content: the most successful serious virtual worlds have provided packaged experiences (eg. Protosphere, VenueGen, web.alive, VastPark)
• Open source: OpenSim continues to strengthen and expand its reach
• Integration with other tools (mobile, augmented reality, existing workplace systems like Sharepoint): this has happened on many levels and in different ways across platforms, but the system integration features may be the key to pushing virtual worlds to mainstream adoption
• More seamless user-experience and navigation: point-and-click navigation is practically standard in the most popular serious virtual worlds. Oh, and have you seen Kinect?

Virtual worlds have been moving through a natural evolution and are beginning to emerge as a valuable tool in corporate and government learning, communication, and collaboration. Our thinking now needs to evolve as well; its no longer a question of if, but when. For organizations who understand this, the real question is, "how can you prepare to successfully adopt and integrate immersive and experiential learning?" 

Learning, and the opportunity and risk of living publicly

We are in the age of living publicly.

Social media has enabled us to broadcast and publish our work, our thoughts, our pictures, and our "updates" not just to people we know, but to the entire world. This brings with it an enormous opportunity and also tremendous risk, sometimes at the same time.

Take, for example, Rebecca Black.

If you haven't yet seen the Friday video by Rebecca Black, or heard all of the news stories about her and the video, take a minute and watch it now.



Its not a good song or video (although I would bet you money you'll find yourself singing the catchy hook later today)...in fact, its pretty awful. BUT SHE'S 13. I never fancied myself a musician, but I did think I was a pretty fantastic writer when I was a teenager. When I look back on what I wrote? Wow, I was terrible. I'm thankful that all of my writing was confined to spiral notebooks and the broadest audience was my friends and family who encouraged me to keep writing, but never gave me false praise or soul-crushing criticism. I was allowed to practice and improve, and in some cases, realize that I wasn't all that good and I didn't have the passion to work harder to become good.

That's the beauty of learning. To really learn something, to become an expert, you have to practice. You have to have a safe place to try and experiment and fail and improve and stick with it and, eventually, get better. Becoming really good at something requires dedication and practice. Sure, some people start out with natural abilities or inclinations that might make learning something easier. But there are very few things that you can't learn and be really good at if you keep practicing.

Rebecca Black may have never become a great singer, songwriter, or musician. Maybe she would have (maybe she still will). But what impact has the public lambasting of her video had on her learning, her motivation, and her development?

Criticism is hard to hear. None of us really like to hear that we're bad at something...we thrive in environments where we get positive reinforcement. On the other hand, constructive feedback is necessary if we want to get better at something.

We live in an age that allows us to get instant, unfiltered feedback on anything that we do. It may be a realistic environment, but it can be hostile and often not constructive. Now, more than ever, we need the ability to practice, to find opportunities for constructive criticism in safe environments, and to refine and hone our skills before we put ourselves out in the public eye.

In learning terms, this means that coaching, mentoring, and communities of practice will play increasingly critical roles in our development. It means that immersive and experiential learning environments will become those safe havens where we can practice safely before we're ready for prime time. It means that we all need to develop the ability to manage our public versus private identities in ways that we haven't had to even think about in the past.

I hope Rebecca Black has a long, happy, and successful life in whatever she decides to pursue. At 13, she has learned, and illustrated to many, the power of social media. But with great power comes great responsibility...and we all need to be taking (and teaching) responsibility to ensure that the opportunities afforded by social media outweigh the risks.