Reflections on DevLearn 09

So this was our sophomore showing at DevLearn. Very different from our first year, when we were pretty much those unknown punks in the hallway next to the mens' room listening in on Alicia Sanchez in the Serious Games Zone and the crazy crew who dared to host a wine tasting event the last night. This year, still in the hallway by the mens' room and still getting to listen to Dr. Sanchez, but anonymous no more. Just a few thoughts on Tandem's second year at DevLearn...

• Wow, it was cool to *see* everyone. I knew the live meetings with my Twitter network were going to be amazing, and I was right. People who I hadn't met in real life before that I finally got to meet abounded...I was particularly smitten when Nicole Fougere  (@schnicker) asked for a photo.
  
  
  
  DevLearn was a veritable "who's who" of learning professionals and being able to rub elbows with the likes of Neil Lasher, Janet Clarey, Cammy Bean (all who I hadn't met in person before) was more than well worth the price of admission. I can't even list all of the people who I got to meet...and who I got to meet up with again. Total shot of learning geekiness and boy, did it feel fine.
  
• The eLearning Guild puts on a fantastic conference. So, I go to a lot of conferences, and I'm under no illusion that they are easy to pull off, let alone to pull off a great conference when conferences are taking a hit. Brent Schlenker did an amazing job, and to all of the Guild (David, Heidi, Bill, Tim, Juli, and everyone else I'm missing...) thanks for the great work that you do. Congrats on the new LearningSolutions online magazine and looking forward to the Learning Solutions conference in 2010.
• Keynotes are people too. In particular, I loved chatting with Eric Zimmerman who was great and I'm hoping to figure out a crazy scheme to collaborate on in the future. And I may or may not still have his conference badge.
  

• Zombies be gone! I am still completely overwhelmed with the response to the Zombie Apocalypse ARG, and thank you, THANK YOU, to everyone who supported and participated. This is not the last I'll be writing on this, but this is my big thank you to the players. I'm looking forward to hearing more stories and collecting more feedback. And thanks to Philip Hutchison for the fab button!

• Mark Oehlert is my hero. Ok, so yes, we're friends, and we have a few things in the works. But OMG, Mark talked for 3 days straight on social media for learning, organizational issues, etc. (Tuesday pre-conference, Social Learning Camp Wed - Thurs and a bit on Friday). He didn't even get a break for lunch. If you missed sitting in on some of his session time--you missed a lot. Also love his most quotable phrase: We've moved from "subject matter experts" to "subject matter networks." Next time you see him, buy that guy a drink. And get him talking about social media :)
• Real life is distracting, even in the midst of awesomeness. So last year, we (Tandem) were solely focused on DevLearn. This year...projects, personal stuff...lots of distractions. For three weeks leading up to the conference, we had barely slept due to a project. I got to San Jose, and even with all the amazing conference stuff, the business could not be ignored. I was even too tired to karaoke...sad. Just sad.
• That's what friends are for. There were lots of familiar faces and friends at DevLearn. Just wanted to give a special thanks to Aaron Silvers and Bruce Joy from VastPark for helping support my pre-conference workshop on virtual worlds and for moral support throughout the week. Thanks to Kris Rockwell for just being my doppleganger and alterna-Tandem representation. And...thanks to Kristen Cromer and Jedd Gold, my Tandem partners in crime, for riding the crazy roller coaster with me and keeping me sane.

So that's a wrap! Looking forward to DevLearn10 already...

What I've learned from my Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Next week, you'll find me in San Jose at DevLearn 09. I'm doing a pre-conference session with David Anderson on virtual worlds, on Thursday one of my esteemed colleagues will be talking about games for learning and on Friday, we'll be debriefing the Zombie Apocalypse. Oh, and we'll have a little booth in the hallway to talk about what Tandem can do for you :).

As excited as I am about all of that, the thing I'm most excited about are seeing live and in person all of the folks who will be in attendance that have taught me, made me laugh, challenged me, and helped me grow as a learning professional over the last year. I tend to call them my Twitter friends, but they aren't confined to Twitter...now on Facebook, a fellow member of the Black Swan Society in grou.ps, riding Google Wave with me, a connection on LinkedIn, a fellow Skype-er, just someone who I'm IMing with in Gchat. I'm proud to say that over the course of the last year, I've had the privilege of meeting in person many of the people I've connected with through social media. But DevLearn 09 is where worlds will collide on an epic and awesome scale.

In preparation, I've been thinking about what I've learned this year through my personal learning network (PLN) and have compiled a few things here:

• Evidently I'm funnier in person
• Occasionally people do read my blog, so it matters what I write here
• I have a sixth sense for knowing when people are talking about virtual worlds so I can pipe in to the conversation
• Connections you make personally and professionally through social media technologies can be as and even more meaningful than ones you make face-to-face
• Some of my best friends I met online
• We is (usually) always smarter than me
• I enjoy the support of people who think like me and value the challenge of people who don't
• I love finding other women who are interested in technology, games, and learning...it feels like an elite sisterhood and I feel an instant connection and bond with those women
• Its amazing how willing to share my PLN is. I am constantly in awe
• Changing my hair color and updating my avatar picture cause a dramatic reaction in people who haven't even met me in person
  
• I like hearing about people's day to day trials and tribulations to help me get to know them as much as I like the value and knowledge they bring to intelligent discussions
• As much as I love hanging out with my friends virtually, I still love to get a drink with them in real life

So, if you'll be in San Jose at DevLearn next week, come find me.  I drink whiskey sours, lots of cherries.

When zombies attack

We're a month out from DevLearn 09 and the battle preparations must be made...this video has been posted to explain some of what's going on. Join the resistance at za.hybrid-dev.com

We're hiring!

I've heard there's a recession going on, but wow, are we suddenly busy. Its time for us to start thinking about how we can grow Tandem in a way that builds long-term value. Its true, there is a balance between hiring freelancers to support our projects and figuring out the right time to hire. We have been very conservative over the past 8 months in an effort to weather through the unpredictable economy and keep our finances and overhead costs in check. We've developed great partnerships with other small companies and we have an extremely talented pool of people that we contract with on an as-needed basis.

But at some point, we have to start thinking about adding value to our company through strategic hires.

If you read my blog, you probably get that we're not a "normal" company. We like to think that we're a little unusual in that we like to stay out ahead of the crowd. I also think we have exceptionally high quality standards, as our reputation is only is good as our body of work, but specifically our last project. We're fiercely independent, protective of our brand and reward creativity and initiative. We're highly opinionated and not afraid to speak our minds, nor are we afraid of a little calculated risk. We're competitive and loyal and treat each other like family.

And now we're hiring. We'll be posting specific job descriptions on our website, but we're always looking to work with people who can add value to our company so don't let the job descriptions prevent you from dropping me a line if you're interested.

iFest 09...what I might have forgotten to mention

Sometimes I get passionate about opportunities for change. So much so that I forget to notice (or in this case, mention) all the good things already going on. Here's the other side of the Joint ADL Co-Lab Implementation Fest 2009 that I didn't highlight in my last post:

*Its awesome that there's even such a thing as iFest. Its great to see ADL bringing people together, talking about new technologies and what people are utilizing them for. ImplementationFest was an opportunity to hear from people who are testing the waters and pushing new boundaries. It signals a willingness to look to the future and a desire to figure out the best path forward. I might get frustrated by lack of focus on design, but I'm encouraged by having an opportunity and a venue to even raise the issue.

*Wow, look at all the women in leadership positions. I was beyond thrilled that two of the most powerful and interesting keynotes at iFest were delivered by women. It says a lot that in the military and government culture, which I traditionally think of as male dominated, that these women were invited share their experiences and perspectives.

*Focus on the future. It seems that there's a lot of change coming to ADL. New leadership, new organizational structure, new plans for the future. There was much discussion about the future of SCORM, about how ADL can support the Dept. of Defense in new ways. There was even a session that focused on collecting success stories from the participants (I mean, wow! Data collection at a conference?). My last post focused a lot on the changes I'd like to see in government and military training/learning initiatives, based on my observations. What's encouraging is that ADL seems like its stepping up to the plate to lead some of these changes.

*Everyone's talking about change. I spent a lot of my time talking to other iFest attendees. What seems to be universal is the acknowledgment that change is coming. Sure, people disagree on where we should end up, and people certainly disagree on the path to get there. But everyone is talking about change. And that's exciting.

ADL did a great job with iFest 09, bringing people together to talk about current challenges and thinking about how to address them while highlighting success stories. All signs point to it being a year of transition. It will be really interesting to see how far things have progressed at iFest 10.

Rethinking curriculum

I used to teach secondary English and the term "curriculum" usually signifies K12 or post-secondary education to me. It represents what kids should know after each grade level, and cumulatively what they should know at the completion of their education. Its not really different for instructional designers...we just wrap different terms around things for corporate education.

What is also consistent is that "someone" has to decide what should be known, or what is important to be known. This is always where the problems start. Who decides? How is the decision made? And the bigger question, what are we really trying to teach?

In his blog post, First, We Kill the Curriculum, Harold Jarche discusses how the exponentially growing amount of information available to "know" calls into question whether we need traditional curriculum or not. I agree with Harold in his assertion that no, we need to think differently about curriculum.

Here's my suggestion:
* Change K12 curriculum to focus on literacy, math, and critical thinking skills. Frame that in the context of science, history, art, etc. Worry less about the content and much more about teaching students how to analyze, synthesize, critique, and question. Foster curiosity and complex decision-making.
* Change post-secondary ed to focus on problem-solving in particular subject areas. Skill practice, practical application of skills, continued focus on complex interpretations and investigations.

Now you've got a critically-thinking generation entering the workforce...what are you going to do with them? Make them sit in a classroom and go through PowerPoint training? Keep clicking the Next button on an e-learning module? Ha. Good luck.

You see, these things can't happen in isolation. You can't change K12 education and not think about the effects on post-secondary or corporate learning. You CAN change corporate learning, but there's going to be more resistance if the way wasn't paved by K12 and post-secondary ed.

Let's think about this holistically. We need to rethink all education because technology and innovation aren't isolated, they are pervasive. Its time that K12 teachers, post-secondary educators, and instructional designers stop looking at their differences and start recognizing their similar challenges. We need each other for our efforts to be successful. We need to change the cultural mindset of what learning looks like. We need to change how people think about education.

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?