Time to Performance

There have already been some great contributions to this month’s big question – Predictions and Plans for 2010.  I was reading Jay Cross’ response and one of his predictions:

Faster, faster, faster, real time. Time-to-performance becomes the new metric.

It’s funny to see that term again.  I thought that Time-to-performance was going to be the key metric back in 2002.  When I was working with various high tech, insurance and financial services companies – a key ingredient was how quickly people could effectively roll-out new products, policies, respond to competitive threats, etc.  It really was about how quickly you can become proficient on all the new stuff.  It was about Time to Performance.

Granted there are still core skills that will need to be developed in other ways (see Does Deliberative Practice Lead to Quick Proficiency for a bit of discussion around that).  Still a lot of what we talk about with informal learning, performance support, etc. is how we can make people perform quickly.  Or at least have the appearance of expertise (see  Expert Level Answers via Social Networks as one way to appear to be expert).

Still since the last time this term and related metrics never really took off, I’m curious what people think.

Is Time to Performance really going to get traction in 2010?

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Custom LMS Anymore?

Happy new year.  I took some time off from blogging over the holidays.  I’m just now getting back into the swing of things.  To help me get moving, I just posted Storyboard Templates and iPhones – Best of December 2009 over on eLearning Learning.  Some great content posted back in December that I need to go back and review.

I’m hoping that folks might be able to help someone who just sent me a question. 

This is a company that sells mostly compliance training to the healthcare market (Hospitals, healthcare practices, individual physicians etc…).  They have a licensed LMS, but want to move away from it and build a custom LMS that meets their specific needs.

Their questions:

1. What are some features that they might not be thinking about that people will be asking for in the near future?  In their words, “what is the need of the hour”?

2. Is it a good idea to start with an open source LMS?  Their team strength is principally .NET, ASP 2.0.  Are there  any open source LMS on those technologies?

And my question:

3. Does it make that much sense to build a custom LMS anymore?  I’ve seen it numerous times, but I feel like some of the low cost LMS or rapid LMS solutions would make more sense?

Appreciate any thoughts you have on this.

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Online Degrees Get No Respect

Saturday Night Live certainly doesn't think much of online degrees a subject that I was thinking was going away since I posted about it back in 2006 - Lower Value of Online Degree Programs?

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Prepare to Feel Old

Workplace Learning Today pointed me to a post Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History. I use similar kinds of examples in my presentations (and posts such as Work Skills Keeping Up?). I thought it might be fun for me to catalog some of the ones that I’ve used in my presentations and other places as well as have this ready for future presentations.

So here is a list of technologies that:

• Boomers – used
• Gen X – know what it is (probably)
• Millenial – never used / likely don’t know what it is

If you are a Boomer or an older Gen X, this list is sure to make you feel a bit old.

Pay Phones – Collect Calls

• Where’s the nearest pay phone?
• Call me collect?

Typewriter / Ribbon / Correcting Ribbon

"You need to mute your sound"

Records / Phonographs

• Sounds like a broken record
• Skipping
• Needle

Cassette Drive

Floppy Disk / Floppy Drive

• Dual floppy drive
• Word Star
• Word Perfect

Punch Card

Card Catalog

Microfiche Reader

Rabbit Ears

Overhead Projector

Rolodex

Inbox / Outbox

What we did before email …

“Pen Pals”

“Walkman”

“Carbon Copy” or even “BCC”

What did I miss?

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Twitter Captivate Integration

I mentioned in my post 2009 Predictions How Did I Do? that we are seeing more and more about Add-ins & Mashups as a means to build richer learning experiences.  I particularly cited a DevLearn demo of twitter being embedded inside Captivate as the basis of a social learning experience.

They’ve posted on the Adobe Captivate blog - Collaborative learning using Captivate and Twitter.  You can run a demo (18 mins) to see it in action.  The basic idea is that students will be able to have a social learning experience utilizing twitter as a messaging systems within a Captivate course.

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Learned about Learning in 2009

It’s always fun at the end of the year to go back and take a look at what you’ve been working on, what you’ve learned during the year.  I’ve been doing this the past few years.  And as part of this, I’ve been taking advantage of: 2009 Predictions How Did I Do?, 2009 Top Posts and Topics, Top 125 Workplace eLearning Posts of 2009 and just running through my blog posts for the year.

Knowledge Work Skills / Work Literacy

Having realized in 2007 that there's a very important Knowledge Worker Skill Gap, I felt the need in 2008 to find ways to help knowledge workers  and organizations build skills like Leveraging Networks, Network Feedback, Finding Expertise, Using Social Media to Find Answers to Questions, Learning through Conversation and searching, scanning, etc. In June 2008, Work Literacy Launched.

2009 has continued that effort.  I’m convinced that we are all struggling to have our Work Skills Keep Up.  And many of my 2009 Top Posts and Topics are related to exactly this.

• Tool Set 2009
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Top-Down Strategy
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
• Network Skills
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• Search
• Browser Short Cuts
• Work Literacy Workshop
• Collaboration Tools
• Remote Collaboration

Also, a lot of my presentations have been about exactly these things.

When I look at my particular skills, methods and tools for 2009 and compare them to 2008, I would say that it’s mostly a question of degree of use and certainly my use of Twitter has grown.  See also: Twitter Conference Ideas and Twitter and Webinars. I will say that adopting TweetDeck on both my desktop and my iPhone has made it a much better tool for me.

Online Sessions / Conferences / Discussions => Now Visible Networking

I’ve seen during 2009 a real growth in the ability to spark up interesting discussions as online sessions.  During the year, I’ve had fantastic conversations through LearnTrends around SharePoint, Examples and Tour of Different Kinds of eLearning, Social Learning, and the Business of Learning.  Each of these allowed me to fast forward my learning and share knowledge effectively.

However, during 2009, I had a bit of an aha moment.  It came during a presentation when I said:

It's a much better use of my time to use LinkedIn to spark a conversation than it is to go to networking events.

I realized that a lot of the networking that I had done in person in the past could move online and actually be a much more effective use of time.  And a lot of that networking could be public.  So, why not look to make this more explicit and effective?

I started calling this Visible Networking.  This is still relatively new as a name, but it’s something that I’ve been doing for a few years now.  Naming it allows me to better understand it and move it forward.

If you think about it, Twitter, Blog Comments, etc. are all forms of visible networking.  Instead of networking in private, make it a visible conversation online so that everyone can benefit.  And it can turn into great things like: Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank.

eLearning 2.0 Morphing Into Social Learning and Informal Learning

In the post, Hot Topics in eLearning for 2009, the top two hottest topics across all the eLearning Learning blogs were Twitter and various forms of social/informal learning, especially as it relates to the use of technology to support this.  eLearning 2.0 was considered a hot term in 2007 and 2008, but not in 2009.  For me, it was still one of my top terms, but I’ve found myself discussing things in other ways as well.  I think as we’ve moved past the idea that this stuff has impact, we’ve begun to discuss it in a different way.

I don’t actually think using the terms “social learning” or “informal learning” is the right way to go about selling this stuff either. 

Instead, during 2009, I’ve decided to always be a “Jack” … if you don’t know what that means or what it means about selling social learning then you should look at: Selling Learning Communities – Not Everyone Will or Wants a Group Hug.

It’s something I’ve said in a lot of presentations – you pick a specific, smart target and it’s a “no duh” decision.  Now I have a better way to say it.  Thanks Jack!

Using Topic Hubs to Speed My Learning

In 2008, I launched eLearning Learning. It basically takes what people in the world of eLearning are already doing and turns it into a resource that helps surface the best stuff.  It was great to help me better keep track of what was going on in a world that I know pretty well.

In 2009, I realized that this same approach is even more valuable for areas where I want to learn more as I described in Learning, Extended Brain and Topic Hubs.  So, I have been heavily leveraging the system and working with partners who are gurus in a space to fast forward my learning on diverse topics such as: Community and Networks, Mobile Learning, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofit Technology, HR Technology, B2B Marketing, and Professional Speaking.

There’s something really interesting going on here that I’ve not quite figured out.  It’s very powerful stuff and an important extension to my PWLE.

I’m a little surprised that I didn’t get more response to Curator Editor Research Opportunities on eLearning Learning but it may be that other people learn in a very different way.

Slow Dramatic Shifts in the Business of Learning

I really think we are going through some pretty dramatic shifts as described in the Business of Learning and covered more in posts such as Update on Future of Business of Learning, New Learning Solutions, Marginalized, and Free.

There’s always going to be a need for certain kinds of training and traditional learning.  But the economic realities and environment suggests a pretty dramatic shift going on here.

It’s going to cause us to think about models in very different ways such as how Intuit has Outsourced Training to Customers.

Learning Event?  Work Event?

There was a really great case study by HP during one of the Learn Trends sessions that described how they took marketing professionals from across the organization, taught them some basics about Web 2.0 tools, and then helped them engage in conversation around what it means to HP.  This was hosted by the learning organization, but it looked more like a research, innovation project than a learning event.  The outcomes really weren’t known at the start.  The goal was to actually define some meaningful results for the business.

Grow My Virtual Meeting, Collaboration Skills

I was reminded during 2009, that I need to be in a continuous learning mode around building my skills for effective virtual meetings, collaboration, presentations, etc.  Several of my posts during the year were around this such as Learning from Others in the Room, Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations, Presentation Backchannel Multitasking, Twitter Conference Ideas.

Final Aha Moments

Need for more eLearning Portal Integration.

There’s bias around Profile Photos and an Email Address Bias.

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eLearning Technology and LearnTrends Nominated

The EduBlog Awards are happening again this year.  I’m happy to say there were several nominations for this blog and for LearnTrends.  There are a lot of great nominees in all of the categories.

If you’ve found value from this blog and/or LearnTrends, please click on the links below and vote for them in their categories.  It’s a nice way to support the sources you use.

eLearning Technology was nominated in two categories:

• Best eLearning / Corporate Education Blog 2009
• Best Resource Sharing Blog 2009

 

LearnTrends was nominated for:

• Best Educational Use of Audio
• Best Educational Use of a Social Networking Service

 

I also appreciated that several people nominated eLearning Learning for various categories.  It didn’t get put on the short list in any of the categories, but I do want to thank people who nominated it.

Ajaan Rob

Best educational use of a social networking service http://www.elearninglearning.com

Nicole Fougere

Best group blog: eLearning Learning

Gina Minks

Best group blog

eLearning Learning aggregates several different education blogs, and provides a way to navigate by blog or keyword. It also shows whats popular in the eLearning community at any given time. (Full disclosure: this blog is aggregated there)

Renee Robbins

Best resource sharing blog: eLearning Learning (another brainchild of Tony Karrer and just a wealth of information)

Shelly Terrell

Best elearning blog- Elearning Learning has each of my favorite elearning blogs in one spot.

And if you are in the mood for lots of great blogs and blog posts:

• Top 99 Workplace eLearning Blogs
• 15 More Workplace eLearning Blogs
• Top 125 Workplace eLearning Posts of 2009
• Hot Topics in eLearning for 2009

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