Objectives: 1. Are blogs being used as a knowledge management tool?
2. Can bloggers learn from each other?
3. Are bloggers following corporate blogging policies?
Unit: blog, paragraph, or sentence?
Sampled by: Contributor type (individual or collaborative), business domain, application (knowledge management, learning environment, project management, advertisement tool.
Themes Key Words Code Definition Example
Knowledge Transfer Learn Creativity Solves a problem in
creatively documenting
a new approach or idea
Think Reflecting Summarizes new idea Blogger summarizes
Realized and provides reflection new ideas posed by
other blogger and
adds his own insights.
Mentoring Blogger to blogee Blogger provides
training instruction or
response to another
blogger's question
Debate Different members of Bloggers express
the blog take opposing different opinions in a
positions and defend discussion of a topic
their point of view or solution of a
problem.
Story Telling Stories recorded in
print
Knowledge Management
Explain Explanation Uses pictures,
animation, examples to
explain a new
concept/procedure
Solution Problem-Solving Proposes step by step Blogger provides
instructions on how to instructions on how to
resolve a problem solve a problem.
Solved
Approach Knowledge Base A collection of facts,
rules, and procedures
organized into
schemas. The
assembly of all the
information and
knowledge of a specific
field of interest.
Feedback Advice Constructive Criticism Point out short Blogger points to
comings of other's idea short comings in
in positive manner another bloggers
posting but provides
suggestions for
improvement.
Negative Criticism Point out short Blogger comments on
comings of other's idea another student
in negative manner posting by providing a
negative comment
without providing any
useful information to
assist the other
blogger.
Legal Issues Legal Defaming the act of publishing Simonetti, a Delta Air
Suit content on a blog Lines flight attendant
Termination which causes injure or from Austin, Texas,
destroys someone‟s or “never named herself,
a company‟s reputation her employer, or the
city in which she
worked in her blog”
(Chow, 2005).
However, in October
2004, she was fired
for posting
“suggestive poses
while wearing the
company uniform”
(Chow, 2005).
Copyright/Trademark publishing content (i.e.
text, images, and
video) on a blog which
is originally owned by a
second source. Second
source information can
be defined as quotes
from another blog,
creative ideas from
someone else, or using
someone else‟s brand
names of a good or
service.
Trade Secret confidential corporate The algorithm used in
information a design. The recipe
for Anderson's split
pea soup.
Privacy publishing a third "A person‟s sexual
person‟s private orientation, a sex-
information on a blog. change operation, and
EFF defines private a private romantic
facts as “personal encounter could all be
details about someone private facts”
that have not been
disclosed to the public".
Policies Guidelines Guidelines A list of rules or
principles a person
should follow
Policy
Advertisment Advertising a public promotion of
some product or
service
Give Away When a company gives
a gift (monetary or non-
monetary) to a
customer or potential
customer.
Blog Name Company URL Contributor Type Blog Application
Support: Word of Mouth Articulate http://blog.articulate.com/wom/ Individual Learning Environment
Jonathan's Blog Sun Microsystems http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan - CEO
Individual Advertisement Tool
Learning Circuit's Blog Learning Circuit http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/
Collaborative Learning Environment
Blog: Word of Mouth: Articulate
URL: http://blog.articulate.com/wom/
Author: Gabe Anderson
Coding Frequencies KeyWord Count
Date Blog Entry Code
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Knowledge Base Learn Think Tip Note Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach Advice
1 Tuesday, TechLearn 2005 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
September 06,
2005, 04:53 PM For year number three, Articulate will be a sponsor at TechLearn. This year's event is Advertising
Eastern Time scheduled for September 25-28, 2005 at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. We'll be in
Booth #1303 and we hope to see you there!
We'd like to invite you to attend TechLearn as our guest. Just download and print this Motivator to
free guest pass (PDF file), which will get you into the exhibition hall free of charge. attend; praising
Stop by our booth to meet the team, see some demos, and maybe even qualify for a customers;
show special or two. Asking for a
response from
Let me know if you plan on attending, and I'll be sure to give the team a heads-up. I the reader
won't be there myself, but rest assured that my colleagues will take very good care of (attempt to
you. establish
Personal
We hope to see you in Vegas! And even if we're not lucky at the slots, we're lucky to connections)
have some of the greatest, most supportive customers around.
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/06/techlearn_2005/index.php)
1 Friday, Newsletter #2.2 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 summarizing content
0 0 0 0
September 09, The Fall issue of the Articulate Newsletter #2.2 hit inboxes around the world Advertising
2005, 03:45 PM yesterday. Did you get yours? (summary of
Eastern Time content; asking
The latest issue includes an overview of Josh Bersin's upcoming learning organization for
workshop, a tip on how to use slide-level view modes in Articulate Presenter, feedback/respon
accolades from Network World, an overview of upcoming industry conferences where se/input from the
we'll be, and, of course, newsletter-only special offers. reader)
I hope you're continuing to enjoy the Articulate Newsletter! Please let me know if you
have any feedback about how we can make the newsletter even better!
Newsletter archives:
Volume 1
Volume 2
1 Monday, DevLearn 2005 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
September 19, If you received our last newsletter, you already know that we'll be attending a handful Advertising;
2005, 05:30 PM of conferences this fall -- TechLearn, Training Fall, Learning 2005 (more details). informing;
Eastern Time Here's another one for the list: DevLearn 2005, November 16-18. explaining;
attempting to
"DevLearn 2005 is the most important event to attend this fall if you are looking for the establish
latest strategies and best-practices for creating stimulating and effective e-Learning professional
that improves knowledge and performance. It will offer you an opportunity to see connections
hundreds of examples of world class e-Learning programs as well as techniques and
practical approaches for solving your e-Learning development challenges."
From Las Vegas to Long Beach to Orlando -- and now DevLearn in San Francisco --
we'll be making the industry rounds on both sides of the country. So if we're in your
neck of the woods, please stop by. We'd love to meet you.
DevLearn 2005 Early Registration ends this Friday, September 23!
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/19/devlearn_2005/index.php)
1 Wednesday, PowerPoint to E-Learning asking for 0 1 1 3 1 1 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
September 21, The latest issue of the Brandon Hall newsletter focuses on using PowerPoint to create feedback/respon
2005, 11:22 AM e-learning tools. What company do you know that offers the best e-learning suite se/input from the
Eastern Time around? reader
explaining,
"Optimizing PowerPoint as a content authoring tool requires an understanding of both informing
the types of learning it works well for and the types of PowerPoint to e-learning tools
you can use to match your instructional and business needs. summarizing
"In this newsletter, we'll focus on how to use – and how not to use – PowerPoint as an
e-learning tool, and we'll introduce new research that will help you select the right
products to leverage PowerPoint to create learning content." real examples;
testimony
If you've come to Articulate, you've already found the right products. At least that's
what I hear from our customers. In fact, I spoke with one of our newest customers in Mentoring
England earlier today who said that he had reviewed seven tools and decided that Problem-Solving
Articulate Presenter was far and away the best PowerPoint to Flash tool on the market. justifying with
humor
Of course I'm biased, but I fully agree. And hopefully you do, too.
Advertising
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/21/powerpoint_to_elearning/index.php)
1 Friday, Playlists (Background Music) 0 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
September 23, So you want to jazz up your e-learning course or presentation. Literally. You like jazz Getting
2005, 08:30 AM music and you want it in the background of some or all slides of your content. Once attention;
Eastern Time upon a time, it required a Flash developer to hack your Articulate Presenter content to edutaining
achieve this goal. No more.
With the launch of Articulate Presenter 5, you can include one or more playlists -- jazz,
hip hop, rock, classical, polka -- that span any number of slides, and even support
looping should your slide duration surpass that of your playlists. Advertising
(informing)
Here's how to groove to the beat of your own drum:
Go to Articulate -> Library and Options -> Playlists. Giving guidance
Click New to create a new playlist.
Mentoring
Name your playlist and click OK to save it. Problem-Solving
Add one or many songs to your playlist.
Repeat for each playlist you'd like to add to your library.
Tip: Your playlists can be used in any e-learning course or presentation you create and Explain; offering 0 1 3 1 0 1 0 0
are not tied only to this file. Additionally, if you want to share your project files with a technical tips
colleague, your playlists will be included whenever you select Articulate -> Publish ->
Project Files. Asking questions
(technical;
OK, so you have your new tunes. How do you determine which slides should be application)
associated with your new playlist?
Mentoring
Go to Articulate -> Slide Properties Manager. Problem-Solving
Use the drop-down lists in the Audio Playlist column to select your playlist for any slide
where you would like the background music to play.
Click Save.
That's it! When you publish, you'll hear your new playlist music span across any slide
where you've selected it to play.
Note: You cannot use the Timeline Audio Editor to edit playlists; this tool can only be
used for imported audio or audio recorded via the Record Narration feature.
Lastly, remember that the more audio your content has, the larger the file will be and Mentoring
the more bandwidth it will require. Given that, I'd suggest only using this feature if the
majority of your users are on broadband connections. Just as your dial-up users
probably don't listen to streaming audio from Radio Paradise (my favorite online radio
station), they probably don't have the luxury of listening to background music in their Mentoring
online training.
1 Monday, Explanation Questions 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
September 26, It used to be that inserting some type of explanation or instructions in the middle of Reflecting
2005, 02:24 PM your Quizmaker quiz required leveraging the multiple-choice question and
Eastern Time remembering to factor in the point value for this "non-question." (If you're using
Quizmaker 1, here's how to do it.)
With Quizmaker 2, now you can easily insert mid-quiz instructions without impacting Problem-Solving
your overall quiz score. The secret? The Explanation survey question.
Here's what to do: Mentoring
Problem-Solving
Create your quiz.
Click on Add Survey Question and select Explanation.
Input your instructions.
Optionally, include an image and/or reference links and files.
Click OK to save your question.
That's it! The benefit is that you can now provide your users with intermediary
instructions or create a natural break between sections of your quiz. And you don't
have to worry about this survey question type counting toward your quiz point total.
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/26/explanation_questions/index.php)
1 Tuesday, Elearning! Magazine Best of 2005 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
September 27, Elearning! Magazine wants you! Well, it mostly wants your opinions on the Best of
2005, 09:47 AM 2005 e-learning solution providers. As a vendor with a slight bias, our vote doesn't
Eastern Time count, so we're looking to you to help us shine. The industry accolades and customer
feedback we receive are very important to us,
If you don't want to fill out the entire ballot, do me a favor, please, and jump directly to
this question:
#10 Best Presentation Tool
Heck, maybe even this one, too, depending on how you use Articulate Presenter:
#11 Best Web Authoring Tool
It will only take you a minute to cast your ballot, but the results will last an eternity...
OK, maybe not that long, but if enough of you vote for Articulate, you can have the
satisfaction of knowing you've given us bragging rights for at least a few years.
But seriously, we do appreciate your taking the time to do this. When the e-learning
community speaks, we listen.
Vote today!
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/27/elearning_magazine_best_of_2005/index.p
hp)
1 Wednesday, Articulate Wins TechLearn Best of Show Advertising 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
September 28, It is with great honor and enthusiasm that I announce Articulate's sweep in 2 of 2
2005, 11:29 AM categories in which we entered the 2005 TechLearn Best of Show Awards.
Eastern Time
Last October, we were the overall winner in the Brandon Hall Shootout, a competition
judged by you, our customers. And yesterday, our products were declared by a small Advertising
panel of industry experts the most innovative in the industry. So whether you're an
everyday user of our software or an expert with intimate knowledge of the e-learning
landscape, you all agree: Articulate products are best of breed.
Congratulations to the entire Articulate team! This is an honor of which we should all
be very proud.
TechLearn Announces 2005 Best of Show Awards:
"Questex Media Group, Inc. has announced today the recipients of its TechLearn 'Best
of Show' Awards, honoring exhibitors and products with the best potential to change
the future of the learning and training industry.
...
"The judges, all learning and training industry experts, presented awards to ten
TechLearn exhibitors in several categories. Exhibitors submitted product nominations
and the entries were judged on ease of integration, implementation, system quality,
customer service features and return on investment.
"'With the strength and quality of submissions for TechLearn‟s inaugural Best of Show
awards, the judges had a most difficult time determining this year‟s award winners,'
said Christina Condos, group show director of Questex Media. 'Through their hard
work, we are confident that the winning selections represent the most cutting-edge
solutions in the learning and training industry today.'"
Comments 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Congratulations on being "Leader of the Pack" ... enjoy the "Magic Carpet Ride" -
you've all earned it!
- Donna Long on September 29, 2005 11:06 AM GMT +5 (U.S. Eastern Time)
Would you consider hosting a netmeeting and/or blog to demonstrate some best
practices around creating learning through Articulate. Benefit to you would be even
more satisfied users.
- janet quinto on October 3, 2005 12:30 PM GMT +5 (U.S. Eastern Time)
Thanks for the feedback, Janet.
I'd suggest working with your account manager to discuss best practices and to Trade Secrets
explore your options. If you're unsure of who your account manager is, you can submit (kept)
your request at the below URL:
http://www.articulate.com/contact.html
- Gabe Anderson on October 3, 2005 12:35 PM GMT +5 (U.S. Eastern Time)
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/09/28/articulate_wins_techlearn_best_of_show/i
ndex.php)
1 Wednesday, Digital Inspiration Quizmaker Review 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 05, Yesterday Amit Agarwal posted this excellent review of Articulate Quizmaker for his Advertising
2005, 10:27 AM readers:
Eastern Time
Articulate Quizmaker - Create Quiz and Surveys: Mentoring
"Articulate Quizmaker is an impressive authoring tool for creating multi-lingual quizzes
and surveys which can be published to Macromedia Flash for delivery via the web or to Advertising
any SCORM or AICC compliant LMS. Users can email the results or print them for
review. QM requires no coding skills. It is so easy-to-use that I could publish my first
Quiz even without referring to the QM manual. Highly recommended."
Read the rest of the review here. And thank you, Amit, for recommending Quizmaker!
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/05/digital_inspiration_quizmaker_review/index
.php)
1 Tuesday, Dynamic Presenter Fields 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 11, In previous versions of Articulate Presenter, it was necessary to specify what presenter Mentoring
2005, 10:42 AM fields you wanted to display to your users. With Articulate Presenter 5, the software is Advertising
Eastern Time smarter and does this for you -- based on what field values you've populated in
Articulate -> Library and Options -> Presenters. This is powerful not just for a single
presenter, but when you have a single course or presentation with multiple presenters.
For example, here we see the email button for Julie Knight since we've provided an
email address for her: Explanation
By contrast, if I choose not to include my email address in my presenter setup, the
email button will be automatically suppressed from my presenter pane:
Julie and I can both present in the same presentation, and the Articulate Player will Explanation
automatically adjust to display only the presenter fields with data. Note the empty
email field in this example:
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/11/dynamic_presenter_fields/index.php)
1 Tuesday, Professional Voice: Tom O'Toole 0 0 1 0 4 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 18, The nature of working in this business is being exposed to a lot of e-learning courses
2005, 10:10 AM and presentations of varying quality. You've probably seen some of the best featured Advertising
Eastern Time here on Word of Mouth. Time and again, the one element of any Web-based course or
presentation that can make or break the whole thing is the audio. Adding a professional
voice to your content can go a very long way in improving not just the quality of your
presentation, but ensuring that you're capturing and holding your learners' attention. Mentoring
Tom O'Toole is a top industry voice talent, specializing in CD-ROM and e-learning
narrations. Tom has narrated hundreds of programs for companies like Siemens Advertising
Building Technologies, Underwriters Labs, US Gypsum, Simon & Schuster, Motorola,
Bridgestone Firestone, and Circuit City. (If you make it to any industry trade shows this
fall, you'll also hear Tom's voice on Articulate demo presentations.) You can check out
samples of Tom's work at www.tomotoole.com.
Tom is offering a special "Articulate Introductory Narration Package" for first-time
customers. Rates start as low as $200 and first-time Articulate customers get a 20% Advertising
discount. (Be sure to mention Articulate and the Word of Mouth blog when you contact
Tom.)
Advertising
Articulate Presenter's Import Audio feature makes working with a professional like Tom
a snap. You give Tom the script; he records, edits, and masters the voice files; he
sends you the .WAV or .MP3 files; you import the audio via Articulate into your
PowerPoint file.
Add a professional voiceover to your content and you'll see immediate return on
1 Wednesday, investment when your users ask for more.
Articulate Awarded Brandon Hall Gold Medal 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 19, On the heels of last month's TechLearn Best of Show win in 2 of 2 categories, I'm Advertising
2005, 10:17 AM proud to announce that last night Articulate was awarded the Gold Medal in the
Eastern Time Innovative Technology Category at the 2005 Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning
Awards. I'm honored to be part of the team that has helped Articulate Presenter take
home yet another trophy for the collection -- three 1st place wins in less than a year,
starting with last October's PowerPoint to E-Learning Shootout victory.
"The purpose of the Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards is to showcase and
recognize the best and most innovative learning."
Congratulations once again to the Articulate team! It's another day to be excited and to
feel proud of this significant victory. And thank you, our customers, for your continued Advertising
support. By choosing Articulate products, you're choosing to work with the #1
company in the rapid e-learning industry.
Here's the official press release:
Articulate Presenter Wins the Gold for Innovative Technology At 2005 Brandon Hall
Learning in Excellence Awards Ceremony
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/19/articulate_awarded_brandon_hall_gold_m
edal/index.php)
1 Friday, October Pivotal Communications 0 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21, 2005, 01:35 Pivotal Communications is a marketing communications firm located in Kalamazoo,
PM Eastern Time Michigan. The company develops communications for business, industrial and non-
profit clients in a wide array of media including print, Web, video, interactive and live
events. Articulate Presenter is a key component of the work Pivotal has done for Four Advertising
Winns, a boat manufacturing company. Four Winns uses material created via
Articulate Presenter to train its sales team and educate it on new products.
View 318 Vista 2006 Model training Mentoring
"We find Articulate to be an exceptional tool for corporate training development and
other corporate messaging tasks," writes John Sadowski of Pivotal Communications. Advertising
"In developing this training series, our goal was to explore how to use PowerPoint for
non-traditional purposes. We wanted to break free of the bulleted point build slides so
common in PowerPoint presentations.
"We are impressed with the ease that Presenter handles a very wide range of Advertising
PowerPoint animation, a factor that is important to us. Equally important to us has
been the ability to output a printed copy of the presentation for edits and client review.
Integrating video is another important aspect to future development. The newest
version of Flash does an impressive job in terms of file size and video quality. We
foresee more video clip content integrated into the materials.
Explanation
"Again, Articulate Presenter makes this process quite simple. Lastly, we feel a real
commitment to the product and its users, by Articulate, the company, by virtue of an
active Web site and diligent application information."
These presentations illustrate an excellent use of text and graphical animation, video
integration, and use of Learning Games to engage the sales team learning the new
1 Friday, October material.
Newsletter #2.3 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21, 2005, 04:36 It's that time again! Articulate Newsletter #2.3 was sent to inboxes around the world
PM Eastern Time today. Miss your copy? Read it online now. Topics include our Brandon Hall Gold Advertising,
Medal, a tip on publishing your Quizmaker quiz directly to PowerPoint, details on our Mentoring,
phone support offering, monthly specials, and our fall conference schedule. Problem-Solving
Have feedback on the Articulate Newsletter? Drop me a line and let me know!
Newsletter archives:
Volume 1 Knowledge Base
Volume 2
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/21/newsletter_23/index.php)
1 Tuesday, On-site Training with LSI 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 8 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0
October 25, We design our software with ease of use in mind. We also do our best to provide you Advertising
2005, 01:43 PM with as many support resources and as much help documentation as possible. Even Knowledge Base
Eastern Time so, getting the most out of your Articulate products and designing effective e-learning
programs sometimes takes a little help from a friend -- or a training professional.
Enter Learning Solutions International (LSI), our new Articulate-certified training Advertising
partner. If you and your company are looking for best practice training on leveraging
your investment in Articulate tools -- and creating compelling e-learning content for
your users -- consider on-site training. Learn more in this PDF datasheet from LSI.
Articulate Partners with Learning Solutions International for Customized Workshop
Training: “We‟re finding that many of our customers want to take Articulate products to
the next level,” said Adam Schwartz, president of Articulate. “This training is for those
subject-matter experts who want to learn more about applying instructional design
principles to their presentations or for training professionals who want to learn the
advanced functionality of our products. The workshops will also help attendees
understand how to employ best practices in rapid e-learning for designing and
deploying time-critical training programs in virtually any subject area.”
Contact your account manager for more details and pricing info.
1 Wednesday, Learning 2005 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 26, If you read our newsletter last week -- you did read every word, right? there will be a Advertising
2005, 09:55 AM Quizmaker quiz later -- you no doubt saw details on the next three conferences we'll be
Eastern Time attending this busy fall season. I'd like to call your attention to the one that's next in
line: Learning 2005.
We're sponsoring this conference, but you won't find us -- or any other vendors -- in an
exhibit hall. This new conference from Elliott Masie puts you, the Articulate customer
and creator of learning content, in the driver's seat. You'll have a chance to learn from
each other and tell us, the vendor, what you need -- in an environment free of sales
pitches and full of good ideas.
A couple of unique features of Learning 2005 include the interactive conference
Backpack and the Learning Wiki, which makes the conference schedule available as
an interactive resource to which you can contribute.
I won't be attending this conference, but some of my colleagues will, so please let me
know if you'll be there and would like to meet up with an Articulate rep to give us
product input or simply get to know the team behind the software.
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/26/learning_2005/index.php)
1 Thursday, Customer Feedback #9 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
October 27, It was nearly a year-and-a-half ago when I posted the very first customer feedback
2005, 02:10 PM entry to this blog. Since then, it's become a tradition, sharing feedback with you
Eastern Time roughly once every couple months. After all, what good does all this great feedback do
if I can't share it with the world? We're very proud of the award-winning products we Advertising
create and the world-class support we provide our customers. And we apppreciate all
the kindness you send our way!
"LOVE the blog! I just found the XML so I've added it to my Bloglines feeds."
"Your product is an exquisite masterpiece with a comprehensive range of features.
Thank you for such a wonderful piece of art."
"Thanks for the tip and the excellent service! Always very much appreciated."
"Gabe, you are the best! This appears to be the problem."
"Thanks! That worked like a champ: launched in a new window and tracked properly. I
appreciate you helping me work through this. I must say that your Platinum Support
ROCKS! A very satisfied customer."
- Bryan Mason
Stiles Machinery, Inc.
"Gabe, it worked! You are the man!"
"My thanks for taking the time to respond; I have been extemely impressed with
Articulate's customer service."
"Once again Thank you for the tremendous support you all continue to provide to us at
ING."
"Wow - I thought I was the only person working late last night! Thank you for the rapid
reply and resetting the serial number."
1 Monday, October Articulate Live Conference 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0
31, 2005, 12:14 All Articulate customers get free, unlimited email technical support. But when email Advertising
PM Eastern Time just isn‟t enough, Articulate Live Conference gives you the ultimate in technical
support:
Live phone call -- talk directly with a Tier 3, Senior Customer Support Engineer
Real-time screen sharing -- we‟ll see what you see to help troubleshoot and resolve the
issue
Immediate Articulate Developer escalation -- if necessary, we‟ll bring an Articulate
Developer onto the call to help resolve the issue
Free follow-up resolution meeting -- if we don‟t resolve the issue for you in the first call,
we‟ll schedule a free follow-up call
Purchase Articulate Live Conference now for only $139 per incident. Platinum
Membership Plan customers can purchase for a reduced cost of just $99 (contact us
for your special Platinum purchase link).
(http://blog.articulate.com/wom/2005/10/31/articulate_live_conference/index.php)
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Knowledge Base Learn Think Tip Note Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach Advice
18 1 6 12 8 25 4 1 2 60 0 4 1 0 0 5 3 1 0
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Knowledge Base Learn Think Tip Note Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach Advice
0.75% 4.48% 8.96% 5.97% 18.66% 2.99% 0.75% 1.49% 1.77% 0.00% 0.12% 0.03% 0.00% 0.00% 0.15% 0.09% 0.03% 0.00%
Articulate Coding Frequencies Articulate Key Word Count
Number of Instances
30 70
25 60
20 50
15 40
10 30
5 20
0 10
0
Articulate Key Word Count
Articulate Coding Frequencies
Total Instances per Total Paragraph
Total Instances per Total Word
2.00%
1.80%
20.00% 1.60%
18.00% 1.40%
16.00% 1.20%
14.00% 1.00%
Count
0.80%
12.00% 0.60%
Count
10.00% 0.40%
8.00% 0.20%
0.00%
6.00%
4.00%
2.00%
0.00%
Coding Instance
Code Instance
ount # of Words in Blog # of Paragraph in # of questions asked that # of links in a
Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy Entry Blog Entry receive an answer (comments) blog
0 0 0 0 0 158 5 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 97 7 0 10
0 0 0 0 0 0 5
0 0 0 0 0 181 6 0 4
0 0 0 0 0 384 17 0 3
0 0 0 0 0 149 10 0 3
0 0 0 0 0 167 8 0 8
0 0 0 0 0 260 8 3 4
0 0 0 0 0 106 4 0 4
0 0 0 0 0 171 6 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 272 7 0 6
0 0 0 0 0 179 6 1 5
0 0 0 0 0 285 8 0 5
0 0 0 0 0 76 6 0 11
0 0 0 0 0 214 5 0 7
0 0 0 0 0 203 5 0 7
0 0 0 0 0 355 19 0 8
0 0 0 0 0 136 7 0 5
Total # of Words Total # of
Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy Paragraph
0 0 0 0 0 3393 134
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0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Blog:
URL:
Author:
Date
1 Saturday
September
10, 2005
1 Tuesday
September
13, 2005
1 Friday
September
16, 2005
1 Sunday
September
18, 2005
1 Thursday
September
22, 2005
1 Saturday
October 01,
2005
1 Wednesday
October 05,
2005
1 Monday
October 10,
2005
1 Thursday
October 20,
2005
1 Wednesday
October 26,
2005
Total
Number of
Blogs
10
Jonathan's Blog
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan
Jonathan Schwartz, President, Chief Operating Officer Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Blog Entry
Emergency Services, Web Services and Industry Standards
Did you know that any cell phone in the US, whether it's been "activated" or not with a calling plan, can make a 911 call. Know why? Because there is an
overriding public interest in the provisioning of emergency services - that supercedes the interest of any individual corporation. Personally, I appreciate the
availability of the service. I've never used it, but I'm glad it's there.
Now, there's been a ton of discussion recently around how that's going to be done in the world of internet telephony - if your phone is a Voice over IP
phone, how do you connect to 911 with the same service level guarantee as in the traditional telephony world (the FCC conveniently provides you with a
Microsoft Word document detailing their thoughts on the matter)?
But what's been happening around Hurricane Katrina makes it obvious there are far more profound issues lurking within that concept. The internet (and
some if its shining assets), played an integral role in co necting people - to one another, and to some of the government's emergency services (tragically,
you'll need Microsoft Internet Explorer). The internet is continuing to play a role in rescue operations. And there is no question the internet has firmly
established itself as a social utility. That's not an academic statement, it's a personal one - for those of us with friends and family in or near the disaster
area.
So at what point do we realize that critical information will come in all media types - telephonic, static (text message), or other time based content types (an
IP phone call, or streaming audio or video segment)? If you saw what happened with FEMA's preferential service to Microsoft customers, you know what
I'm referring to - if the internet is a social utility, surely we should guarantee access to emergency services of all forms, and not simply lowest common
denominator text messages. And surely the idea that one must have paid Microsoft - or Sun, Adobe or any other company - for the privilege of accessing
emergency services - runs counter to the objective of bridging the digital divide (David Kirkpatrick has some interesting thoughts on the matter, too)?
If you've been watching what's happening in Massachusetts, you begin to see the same issue playing out - as it has in Europe already. Should the
creation, publication or distribution of public service information require one company's technology? In my view, ABSOLUTELY NOT. Should we mandate
that only open source products be relied upon? No - to me, it's orthogonal to the discussion. Most folks have no clue how to build source code into
something useful (a point Steve Lohr of the New York Times made clear).
What should we mandate? That all public information, that is, all data and services provided by governments, from 'who to call' lists to video broadcasts of
critical information, leverage open, royalty free, freely sublicensable standards. The government should be silent, in my view, on the selection of
technologies - that's not their core competence or role. But they have a productive role to play in the standardization and provisioning of emergency
services, and the guarantees around service levels and availability. In my view, they have to date underleveraged that role in driving the productive
evolution of the network as a social utility.
In my view, Massachusetts is more than a little tussle - and FEMA's screw up is more than an indiscretion - they represent the beginnings of radical
"Slow, Hot and Huge"
Monday was another momentous day for Sun - we were in New York City's Hudson Theater to roll out some much anticipated innovation. We gave an
update on our Wall Street business, gave some insights into our (phenomenal) progress with Solaris 10, and rolled out our newest industry standard
servers (known as "Galaxy" systems) running Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux and Solaris.
Here's the video (Real Player format) - it's worth the watch, I promise. You can watch John Fowler and Andy Bechtolsheim (Sun's first employee)
disassemble the industry, and do a point by point comparison of our Galaxy products against the major competition (Dell, HP and IBM). They both talk
through the design motivations behind our entire lineup of Opteron based systems. The difference between our Galaxy platforms and the leading
competitive products is astounding. Here's a snapshot.
Against Dell's flagship enterprise server product, known as the 6850, Sun's x4100 offers:
50% more performance* - you'll need 1/3rd fewer servers
63% less electricity consumption
1/4 the physical size,
at 1/3 the price.
Allow me to repeat.
50% more performance
63% less electricity consumption
1/4 the physical size,
at 1/3 the price.
John was going to save Kevin and Michael the administrative hassle, and just announce the End of Life (EOL) of Dell's 6850 for them, but he lost his nerve
on stage. Slow, Hot and Huge. Not the attributes you want for your server line (although the initials, SHH, are fitting if you want to hide your flaws).
But as I mentioned in a prior note, the price of oil, of space, of administration and of money - suggests we're going to have a blockbuster set of products
against Dell, HP and IBM. Space and power matter, and we now lead the planet in responsible computing. Now the challenge is driving awareness, getting
the marketplace accustomed to acquiring industry standard servers from Sun. We're the #6 x86 vendor in the world - it's time to get to number 4, then 3,
then...
To build awareness, we started in Texas by flying a plane and a banner over Dell's headquarters. I believe every citizen of Texas, given the media
A Simple Request to Sun's Employees
To All Sun Employees,
The good news is the market is totally excited about our new lineup of products - Galaxy, Amazon+, Solaris 10, our new storage lineup. Customers and
journalists are pumped up, interested, and dying to get new information. Which means they're going to be pressing you for data about early customer
experiences, performance, shipdates, delivery plans, etc. It is, after all, their role in the world.
For the sake of your colleagues around Sun, please do not share Sun's confidential information. There have been a few instances in recent weeks where
crucial data and photos were leaked from Sun. It probably sounds counterintuitive, but this actually harms Sun's business.
The way news or media cycles work, if any information is 'leaked' to the marketplace, it radically reduces our ability to garner broad top shelf coverage -
most media outlets won't cover what's already been leaked. So leaks actually have the opposite effect of what you might think - they dampen coverage,
lessen interest, and complicate helping the field drive business. They also prompt customers to put decisions on hold, and put at risk the credibility of our
salesforce to be 'trusted advisors' to our most important partners and customers.
As you know, I'm a huge believer in 'opening' Sun to the world - that's what this blogs.sun.com infrastructure is all about - transparency is one our best
competitive weapons. But the unauthorized sharing of Sun confidential information is illegal, and against company policy.
So I would like your support and participation in talking to your staffs to ensure that employees understand the harm that can arise from intentional leaks.
I'm not asking anyone to be silent about our news, or to contain their enthusiasm (I certainly can't), just sensible when sharing unannounced company
information. Let's introduce ourselves to the world on our terms, not someone else's.
Thank you,
Jonathan
---------------
What a Proud Team Looks Like
If you want to know what a team fresh off a couple years of eating spinach, ready to take on the world looks like, it's this::
That's a photo taken at our launch event last week, with folks from across Sun (see if you can pick out a few faces) who joined in to launch our new Galaxy
systems with a bang - imitating Popeye (those are supposed to be muscles on our arms). Where's Bluto?
We also had an opportunity to stop by the NASDAQ to ring the closing bell (a hilarious concept, given that NASDAQ has no trading floor - it's a trading
network).
Once we were outside, the photographers asked if the team assembled would like to split into two, given that one team in attendance was from the
financial services sales team, and the other a west coast team that put on our NC launch event.
The team responded, "Nope, we're one team."
Exactly. One unstoppable global team.
The Longest Tail
Yesterday, I had a chance to meet with the United States Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. He's a very impressive individual, very up to speed on
the issues facing not only the American business community (which one would expect), but also the specific challenges we face in the technology
community (like the negative impact of our increasingly isolationist immigration policies).
My main motivation in attending the breakfast (which Intel kindly hosted, thanks Paul), was to discuss a topic I obviously care a lot about: the economic
and social advances available to the American/global economy through an open, toll-free internet.
I referenced what happened with Katrina - that the network is a profoundly crucial tool for business and government services alike. Despite FEMA's
accidental prioritization of relief to victims that use Microsoft products.
I briefly touched on what was going on in Massachusetts, which to me is simply the other side of the same coin. Nicholas Carr and David Berlind make the
point more eloquently than I. (Needless to say, I don't always agree with Nick - to me, asking Does IT Matter? at the onset of the Participation Age is like
asking if Electricity Mattered in the days following its introduction. But his points here are far better grounded.)
To mix a few metaphors, Bridging the Digital Divide is all about serving the longest tail - by driving down price, and driving up access and interoperability.
What is happening in Massachusetts is the beginning of a global realization that governments have a productive obligation to serve the longest tail - their
citizenry. By deploying open, accessible standards - not the technology of a single company.
Google clearly reaches a far broader audience than Windows Media Player. OpenOffice can reach a far broader audience than Microsoft Office.
But a well adopted open standard could, and should, trump us both.
From where I sit, that's exactly the opportunity, and the obligation.
The Value in Volume
How did you buy software a couple decades ago (for those old enough to remember)?
You went to your local retailer (or back then, they sent a sales rep), you bought a box, with a manual, 20 floppy disks, and a heavy carton. As a software
company, you had to pay for the distributor, pay for the cost of packaging, and you asked customers to pay for the products before they were used. The
companies that had the most power in the industry were those that owned the "distribution" networks (which back then were store retailers and direct
salesforces, if you can believe it).
The rise of PC software obviously changed that - the distribution network was no longer the physical distribution network, it was displaced by the logical
distribution called Microsoft Windows. You used what came bundled into Windows, and got a new slug of functionality each time you upgraded. It was a
good gig.
But now how do you "buy" software? You go to yahoo.com, or java.sun.com, or opentable.com, and you use what they offer - for free. Software as a
service has done more than introduce a technical revolution in the delivery of software (no more upgrades, just hit the reload button). It's fundamentally
changed the business model. (David Kirkpatrick has some good thoughts.)
The first thing the internet did was allow companies to bypass Microsoft's legendary distribution power. From eBay to Google to opentable.com, the rise of
industry standards allowed services to emerge on an open network platform. From community services to dinner reservations, no one can possibly doubt
the immense volume and value of innovation delivered through a browser. But the technology, frankly, was less valuable than the services themselves. I
did say was.
Frankly, all of these services are trying to outrun Windows Vista and Office 12 - with which Microsoft will once again attempt to recover the distribution
advantage, preloading Windows, Internet Explorer and Office with Microsoft content and services. They argue it's necessary to secure the platform, 3rd
parties and government officials argue it's anti-competitive. You pick.
But there are a couple of trends running counter to this looming force - especially among consumers. The trend is away from the upgrade cycle that
benefits this traditional notion of distribution. For example, when's the last time you upgraded your set top box? The answer's probably never, and
suggests that at a certain level, convenience has more value to consumers than the hassle of upgrading. Or ask a teenager which they'd rather have, a
new iPod Nano, or a new PC, I'll bet you money it's the former (underlying the global trend that suggests more of the world will experience the internet
through handsets than PC's).
Putting the Sun/Google Partnership in Context
Do you remember back to the clash in New York a few years ago - pitting a cable television network (Cablevision) against a powerful sports franchise (The
New York Yankees)? Cablevision deemed Yankees games "premium" content and priced them accordingly - the Yankees felt such a decision minimized
their audience and filed suit, claiming the operator was exercising monopoly control over price and distribution. The net result - given Cablevision's
extraordinary market reach - few New Yorkers could watch Yankees games while they worked out the kerfuffle. That's an example of a distributor having
(in the short run) more power than the owner of content (ironically known in the industry as "programming"). MLB.com came to everyone's rescue,
delivering an incredible breadth of major league baseball programming to anyone with an internet connection - the network is the ball game. (Go check out
MLB.com, it's one of the finest internet sites out there.)
All that said, there are few cable operators powerful enough to skip over the big franchise content brands, like HBO, or ESPN - if your consumer offering
lacks their programming, you're going to have a tough time selling service to consumers. Some folks get cable, after all, just for ESPN.
In the personal computer industry, such a conflict has existed for a long while - the distributor (Microsoft) has legendarily had the power over what
programming (software, in this case) is distributed with the underlying Windows platform. Implying non-Windows products and programming have a higher
hurdle to clear in earning a path to consumers - a barrier cleared only by value.
Two of the internet's most valuable brands have clearly achieved that status: Java and Google. Could you imagine a PC that couldn't access Java
So, what are we going to do together?
First things first, we're going to complement one another's volume distribution. Google's looking to reach consumers with their next generation search
client, as are we looking to reach more consumers, and simplify the user experience. By joining together, we can achieve far greater mutual reach for
Java, OpenOffice and Google. The two of us continue to define choice, value and freedom to an ever growing internet. The best way to get people to
participate on the web is give them the Tools of Participation. For free. And as more folks realize the deficiencies of a "submit button internet," Java's role
is only growing.
Second, we're going to drive platform innovations. Stay tuned for more on where this is headed, but notice the fact that Google is a member of the Java
Community Process, the collaborative effort that drives the Java platform. We're both big believers in client platform development, from AJAX to Java and
OpenSolaris, and the era of rich clients is on its way back (it actually never left, but that's another blog). If you've seen what you can do with Limewire or
Zimbra, you have to believe the demise of the Submit button may be upon us.
Where will our collaboration take us - great question. Stay tuned. (And please don't read in to my comments that I'm not convinced the world needs an
AJAX office suite (any more than we need an AJAX browser) as anything more than a perspective on today's reality.
Third, we're getting down to business - Google's acquiring a growing array of Sun products and technologies for their business. And we (like it seems most
of the planet) are continuing to be a loyal Google customer.
The net of all this (sorry for the pun)? If you have the time and wherewithal, I'd recommend you watch Eric's opening speech during yesterday morning's
festivities - in which he talks about Google being built atop an open, neutral, interoperable network. The growth of that network is of value to Sun, and to
Brands, Parody and Competitive Advantage
I had the pleasure of being interviewed, along with Mitchell Baker, by Tim O'Reilly at his Web2.0 conference last week. Notwithstanding my disagreement
with Tim over the dynamics of the software industry (which boils down to his belief that open source matters more than free software, my assertion that the
opposite is true - watch the first few minutes of the interview (still searching for a link), you'll see the sparring start), it was a good dialog. One of these
days, Tim, you and I should sit down in front of a podcast and hash it out.
What we didn't spend a lot of time talking about, given that the focus seemed to be more on source code than free software, is the value of brands.
Brands, and reputation, are everything in a community. (And that's not to dismiss the value of advertising, which some are quick to do, just to point out that
brands are more like billboards you can't buy, they run in people's heads.)
Brands are only increasing in value on the 'net - when price is no longer a differentiator (as most services will trend to free), only three things are going to
be relevant. Brands, communities and convenience.
To kick off that focus, I figured I'd share with you a video parody we did of the brand surrounding "good enough" computing. A concept that seems to be
losing its sheen, helped along by $70/barrel oil, high real estate prices and a few other realities.
Dell seems to be the company whose customers face most of those realities - at least that's what we consistently hear. So we're sending an open letter to
their customers tomorrow, first showing up in the Financial Times. Which really highlights Dell's focus and brand around selling things cheaply; and Sun's
focus on innovation - backed up with data for handy comparison. It's great to once again have the best servers in the market.
Interestingly, the New York Times refused to run the ad*. Reminding me once again, the best thing about the internet is it doesn't have an editorial policy.
So here's the ad/open letter. Click the image for the .pdf version. And of course, feel free to print and distribute freely :)
First, let me start by congratulating the global OpenOffice.org community for setting version 2.0 free to the world - you have my heartfelt congratulations
(but you were a day early for having a great birthday!). With 50,000,000 downloads and counting, we have all clearly established OpenOffice.org, and its
enterprise supported cousin StarOffice, as the most popular cross platform app suite the world's ever seen - for academics, individuals, developing
nations, and enterprises looking to save millions.
But Sun's announcement with Google seems to have fueled a ton of speculation about what happens next with OpenOffice - speculation that seems to
end in "now they can rewrite OpenOffice.org in AJAX." So I'd like to talk about why we're not driving the community to simply rewrite OpenOffice.org in
AJAX.
Before I receive 2,000 email critiques, you should know my roots are in desktop software. So lest you think I'm coming at this from the perspective of a
knuckle dragging big iron computer guy, that's not me.
As a software guy, here's a simple (though often irritating) rule behind user oriented software: The language in which a product is written has nothing to do
with the value it conveys. Coming from the company that produced Java technology, that probably sounds a little odd. But it's a simple truth, especially
when it comes to users: if the app's no good, it's no good, even if it's implemented in Java. Or PHP. Or Rails.
For whatever reason, the first internet boom led a very broad developer audience somewhat astray with opportunity - no end of new software products
were produced that were, in essence, simply old products either rewritten, or built to run through a browser. Granted, many succeeded. But at least as
many (actually, way more) failed. Why?
Because rewriting an app simply to use a new toolkit isn't creating value for consumers. Creating an application or service that delivers unique value is
what captures users. And the internet gave some developers a tremendous opportunity to deliver unique value - by radically simplifying basic networking,
enabling connectivity and community on a truly global scale.
So then, what's up with the future of OpenOffice.org? Or FlickR? Or Firefox? Or Google Earth? Or iTunes?
First, note that none of these apps are written as browser based applications - but all of them are focused on capturing users and delivering unique value
through the network. Could they be rewritten in AJAX? Sure. But why? They're all capturing users and delivering value today. (I included Firefox for a
reason - to point out that some things just wouldn't make sense rewritten in AJAX.) Could an AJAX interface be used to extend some portion of their
functionality? No question, yes - the diversity of requirements on the internet is giving services an opportunity to project multiple user experiences (thus,
the app to upload your photos is different than the service that let's you browse them).
IBM Adopts Solaris! - BladeCenter Gets a Leg Up
You've probably seen, the Solaris team just cleared the 3,000,000 licenses downloaded milestone today! OUTSTANDING WORK, folks! (And you're more
than a year ahead of schedule.)
We continue to see more and more software providers and customers joining up - even governments are looking to the open source license and
governance model we're using as a great foundation for local industrial and economic development. (In fact, I was with officials from the government of
Venezuela last week, and this was a hot topic of discussion - I was stunned to learn that despite being an OPEC nation, only 5% of Venezuela's population
has network access. You can count on free and open source software playing a prominent role in bringing the remainder on-line).
And if you ever wanted proof that volume drives value, I'm pleased to announce we've signed up our first tier 1 systems vendor as a Solaris supporter: it's
IBM, and their decision to provide comprehensive support for Solaris on Bladecenter definitely puts them ahead of the other blade vendors in offering a
truly OS neutral product.
As a result of our agreement, IBM will be adding value to BladeCenter, optimizing Solaris for IBM hardware offerings, adding volume to the Solaris
community, and proving that the best choice for customers is, in fact, real choice. It sends a clear message to IBM accounts that Solaris is now a top tier
option for BladeCenter deployments.
This first step in extending the IBM/Sun relationship we announced back in July, now drives a very interesting value proposition for IBM against HP and
Dell. Only Sun and IBM can say they support all the volume OS's on industry standard hardware - Solaris, Windows and Red Hat Linux. But HP and Dell
Coding Frequencies
Code
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling Advertising Asking for Response
2 0 1 0 0 0
Mentoring
Reflecting
Defaming
Reflecting
Constructive 1 0 0 0 1 0
Criticism
Reflective
Advertising
0 0 0 0 3 0
Advertising
Constructive
Criticism
Advertising
Negative Criticism
Defaming
Advertising
0 0 2 0 1 0
Guidelines
Advertising
Guidelines
0 0 0 0 1 0
Advertising
0 0 0 0 0 0
Defaming
Constructive
Criticism
3 0 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Reflecting
Reflecting
Explanation 0 0 0 2 1 0
Negative Criticism
Defaming
Explanation
Advertising
0 0 0 0 4 0
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
0 0 0 1 1 0
Advertising
Constructive
Criticism
Explanation
Defamation
Defamation
1 0 0 0 1 0
Advertising
Reflecting
0 0 0 0 4 0
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Negative Criticism
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling Advertising Asking for Response
7 0 3 3 0 17 0
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling Advertising Asking for Response
6.19% 0.00% 2.65% 2.65% 0.00% 15.04% 0.00%
Sun Microsystems Coding Frequencies
nces perTotal Paragraph Count
16.00%
14.00%
12.00%
10.00%
8.00%
Total Instances perTotal Paragraph C
8.00%
6.00%
4.00%
2.00%
0.00%
Code Instance
KeyWord Count
Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base Learn Think Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach
0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0
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Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base Learn Think Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach
0 6 7 0 1 3 1 0 0 0 0
Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base Learn Think Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach
0.00% 5.31% 6.19% 0.00% 0.02% 0.06% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Frequencies
Sun Microsystems Key Word Frequencies
otal Instances per Total Key
0.07%
0.06%
0.05%
Words Count
0.04%
0.03%
Total Instances per Total Key
Words Count
0.00%
0.01%
0.02%
0.03%
Code Instance
ount # of Words in Blog # of Paragraph in # of questions asked that
Advice Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy Entry Blog Entry receive an answer
0 0 0 0 0 0 771 11 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 570 15 0
0 1 0 0 0 1 324 10 0
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0 0 0 0 0 0 361 8 0
# of Paragraphs
# of Words Total
Advice Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy Total
0 1 2 0 0 2 5161 113
Advice Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy
0.00% 0.02% 0.04% 0.00% 0.00% 0.04%
equencies
# of links
in a blog
12
6
2
8
22
22
6
10
5
Blog: Learning Circuits Blog
URL: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/
Author:
Date Blog Entry
Thursday, Learner's rights?
September 01,
2005 As usual, Ernest Adam's column in GamaSutra is spot on. In this case, it's about
Player's Rights. In the article, he lists characteristics of games.
Which, of course, made me think about Learner's Rights. Some students created such
a list in 1995. What would be the elearning version? I can think of several principles I'd
include (and I realize most are not exclusive to elearning):
To be respected for what they already know.
To know why the learning is important to them.
To have the most effective and efficient learning experience possible.
To be expected to be a partner in the learning.
To have information resources when useful.
To have an appropriate mix of media.
To have the complexity of real life reflected.
To be supported both cognitive and emotionally through the learning experience.
What do you think?
Saturday, Education's Collage of Subsidies
September 03,
2005 I was thinking about Clark's (the other Clark) post on learner rights, and then the
broader learner marketplace. One of the trickiest parts about development of formal
learning programs is that so often, the learner only has a passing relationship to the
cost of the program.
Enterprise Programs
Enterprise training programs are paid by the corporate, military, or government
sponsor.
Their goal is usually some form of increased productivity or compliance.
Any vendor has to care more about meeting the need of the training director, and the
training sponsor, than the end learner. Even the cost of the classroom environment is
often subsidized by the enterprise, penalizing e-learning, outside classes, or even
training outsourcing.
K-12
K-12 schools are paid by taxpayers, not the students of course, nor even the family
directly (even a family that goes on lavish vacations, for example, gets their education
subsidized (of course if they have big houses, they also big property taxes; and then
there is the private school whammy, where they are paying twice...).).
As we are also learning, some K-12 activity is subsidized by softdrink/juice/water
vendors, that come with strings attached.
There are grant based subsidies that push activities in one way or another.
And there are more subtle subsidies, making land cheaper than building supplies or
technology, relative to other building projects.
Of course, K-12 is required of students, which can be considered an anti-subsidy
College
In many college situation, parents significantly augment the students' ability pay at
least some of the tuition. Then there are scholarships for academic, sports, and music.
And scholarships, like other endowments, are subsidies by alums, meaning schools
have to do things specifically to keep alums happy (while students do certain things to
meet the criteria of the scholarship), not necessarily in the interest of the students.
Furthermore, the reason many students put up with schools is to get better jobs, which
means that while corporations might subsidize universities directly, they anti-subsidize
them indirectly. Any certification, in fact, is anti-subsidized by the organization that
values it
These are just a few examples from the K-12, Higher Ed, and enterprise world. But
every subsidy and anti-subsidy distorts the natural value proposition away from the
learner marketplace. Getting over all of these will be our challenge for the decade.
Note: This blog post has been subsidized by my most recent book, Learning By Doing.
New book review here.
Monday, CNN vs Education
September 05,
2005 I would not suggest that higher education institutions need to operate like CNN, but I
find it fascinating to read Elliot Masie's observations of how CNN dealt with the flow of
content and information in the wake of Hurrican Katrina. In CNN Newsroom in the
Midst of Katrina - "Rapid Development... Content Objects... Learning Implications":
There were some incredible learnings and observations as I quietly watched the news
gathering and assembly process and interviewed the Learning team at CNN. Many of
these items relate directly to how organizations will be assembling content in the near
future.
The question is, will educational institutions be one of these organizations? Below I
have take some of Maise's descriptions of CNN and put them besides a gross and
likely over generalized observation of higher education. Yes, there are numerous
exceptions and counter examples to every one of my points, but as a whole, when you
read how CNN operates and put it besides how your higher education institution
operates, the contrast should be rather vivid.
CNN: Content From Multiple and Unconventional Sources: The nature of content in
journalism is changing dramatically as media flows from non-traditional sources. CNN
calls an aspect of this "Citizen Journalism" as they receive pictures and video feeds
from digital cameras and even mobile phones.
CNN: Content To Multiple Formats: As content was created in the CNN newsroom, it
flowed to multiple formats. Content started as video feeds, became streamed video,
text on the website and even a mention for a scroll at the bottom of the screen. Each
piece of content was "tagged" as it came into the newsroom, timecoded, meta-tags
were added with context and it could be viewed by CNN staff around the world in low-
res format. The concept was to see each media object as being highly reusable and
redeployable.
Education: Content primarily text, email, PDFs to print, hand coded/Dreamweaver-ed
HTML, and.. PowerPoint. Media objects are un-reusable, un-findable, and in-
redeployable and would never be available in this kind of time frame.
CNN: Digital News Gathering: The footprint and format for news production is
changing radically as the size and mobility of equipment evolves radically. I watched
newsfeeds coming from CNN reporters using satellite phones (after the cell network
dropped). They were even feeding content that was edited on laptops in the field using
Final Cut Pro.
Education: Not much to compare except we do not think of educational content being
CNN: Content Repository: CNN operates a content and media repository that is quite
impressive. The content objects are viewable, editable and sharable. Key levels of
data is kept for how each object is being used and deployed. Digital Rights
Management is tracked, to honor the appropriate use of each media object. I was
struck by how easily every CNN staff person could access and work with this content
repository.
Education: This is still a dream, despite years of wrangling over "Learning Objects"
and the construction of numerous "repositories" few if any that have the features
described above AND as much content. Data on the use of objects is absent and
DRM is spotty.
CNN: Rapid Development: While CNN clearly has a breaking news model, it was
fascinating to watch this process in action, including use of templates, collaborative
and team-based editing and content refinement, focus on content ethics, standards
and legal/compliance issues. I witnessed a team of professionals, drawn from a wide
set of backgrounds, deeply focused on producing content that had value for viewers
and the hurricane's victims.
Education: The development cycle is measured in months, perhaps as summer
projects or long term grants, and is pretty much an individual cottage industry. Editing
Tuesday, ¿Su LMS habla español?
September 06, Why build a Spanish LMS?
2005
First, more and more of the schools with whom I've spoken this past year, individually
and at conferences and meetings, have told me they need one and need one now. So
I did some research and that brings us to the second point. The surprising facts:
Spanish is spoken by almost 400 million people worldwide. Even more compelling,
when you realize that about half of the population in the Western Hemisphere speaks
Spanish, it becomes the primary language for as many people as English in this region
of the world.
Within the United States, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language after
English, by a very wide margin, and the Spanish-speaking population within the U.S. is
growing as a percentage of the total U.S. population every year.
· According to the U.S. Census, the number of Hispanics in the U.S. grew by 57.9%
between 1990 and 2000 – from a total of 22.4 million people to a total of 35.3 million
people. This figure means the United States has the fifth largest Hispanic population
worldwide (trailing Mexico, Colombia, Spain and Argentina – just barely behind Spain
and Argentina).
· Of this group of over 35 million people, well over 3 out of 4 say that Spanish is their
primary language.
· Within the United States, a total of over 28 million people speak Spanish at some
degree of fluency. A few states have a large percentage of these Spanish speakers –
California has 5.5 million, Texas has 3.4 million, New York has 1.8 million, and Florida
has 1.5 million.
· In the U.S., the 28 million people who speak Spanish at home is well over half of the
approximately 47 million people who speak a language other than English at home.
That means that Spanish is spoken by more people than all other languages
combined within the U.S.
· The 35 million Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2000 was projected to be close to 40
million people as of 2003. Moreover, by 2050, the number of Hispanics in the U.S is
projected to grow exponentially to over 100 million people. At that point Hispanics will
be about one quarter of the total U.S. population. That‟s over triple the 2000 figure in a
50-year span.
· In the New York City area, the newscast on the Spanish-language Noticias 41 and
Noticiero Univision, often have higher ratings than „the big three‟ network news shows
on CBS, NBC and ABC.
· Approximately 5.8 percent of Internet users speak Spanish, making it the 4th most
common language among the Internet community, trailing only English (about 50%),
Japanese (about 8%), and German (about 6%).
· A recent study of 25 metro markets in the U.S. found that Spanish-language
programming was the sixth most popular format.
· It's increasingly difficult to ignore the spread of Spanish in the United States. Bank
ATMs offer instructions in Spanish. The Yellow Pages in many cities adds a Spanish-
language insert. And Spanish is working its way into everyday use. Is there an
American left who can't order fajitas with spicy jalapeños using the proper Spanish-
accented flair? (Say the J like an H: fah-hee-tas ...)
· Over the past decade, the demand for Spanish Language courses worldwide has just
about doubled, and the demand is almost as close in the U.S.
According to Paula Winke and Cathy Stafford of The Center for Applied Linguistics
rapid demographic changes and an increasing recognition of the critical need for
professionals who are proficient in languages other than English (Brecht & Rivers,
2000; Carreira & Armengol, 2001) have led to an interest in developing language
programs and classes for "heritage language learners". These are students who are
raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken and who speak or at least
understand that language (Valdés, 2001).
The fastest growing heritage language population in the United States is Hispanic
Americans (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001), and the number of Spanish speakers
studying Spanish is on the rise. As a result, language educators are developing
programs, classes, and instructional strategies to address the needs of these
students, which are different from those of native-English-speaking students studying
Spanish as a foreign language.
Appropriate instructional materials are essential for these classes, which are often
referred to as Spanish for Spanish speakers (SNS) classes. Although the
development of SNS materials has a 30-year history, and many new SNS textbooks
and materials continue to appear, developing a well-articulated sequence for SNS
instruction continues to be a challenge (Peyton, Lewelling, & Winke, 2001).
Saturday, Emotionally Evocative Design
September 17,
2005 For many an Instructional Designer, design follows analysis, with its main function
being to identify all the important things that need to go into a course. Its end product
is a curriculum, syllabus, or blue-print to build the learning module on.
Next comes development, which adds content so as to give depth to the end product
of design. This mainly consists of the adding of "information."
Context is also used to add a third dimension to the design puzzle -- layers of activity
so that the learners gain a variety of viewpoints, thus allowing them to gain experience
with the information in a relative safe manner.
This mix of design, development, and context should theoretically help the learners
build their knowledge and skill bases. Yet this combination often fails because it
leaves one important piece of the puzzle -- Emotionally Evocative Design.
While Instructional Designers normally are quite good at ensuring that the important
parts that build content, such as objectives and outcomes, are entered into the design
equation; the total design process needs a second layer that captures the emotions of
the learners so that they actually want to engage with or use the content.
Engagement does not have to be that complex as it is simply a means of inviting the
learners' emotions into the environment. Emotions are the reason that we do anything -
- without them we would simply be walking zombies. Emotions are what adds zest to
life...to include learning
For example, a good metaphor invites the user to reflect over the information by
asking her to relate the new information with a past experience. A good picture invites
two senses into the mix. A problem begs for closure. A critical piece of information
delivered "just-in-time" is utter relief.
What have you done lately to ensure that your designs are emotionally evocative?
Tuesday, The Lowly Binder
September 20,
2005 It is a symbol of "old school" training. It is a joke, a dinosaur, a deep sea anchor. It
wastes billions of dollars of office space in filing cabinets and cubicle shelving. It is
THE TRAINING BINDER.
We, the Learning Cognoscenti, "prove" our own credentials to the world by openly
disdaining them. '"What to do about the classroom binder?' you ask. 'How about dig a
deep hole and throw them all in!'" Then we chuckle and drink our cognac and tighten
our smoking jacket.
And yet...
And yet there are still a lot of them being produced. Almost every classroom
experience, and there are a lot of them, support the activity with binders. Conferences
do as well, I need hardly mention. I, as dutifully as the next speaker, turn in my
PowerPoint stack for inclusion in whatever event I am part. I also helped build a
workbook to support rolling out next-gen-sim Virtual Leader, which significantly
increased usage.
So it might be worth a few moments to, with appropriate humility and pragmastism,
reflect upon what are some of the tools available that can make for a good binder.
Removable overviews, often in the front sleeve, that provide context and a map to
what comes next, or a tip/cheat sheet to an application
PDFs of the entire thing, available for download and storage; perhaps zipped files as
well
Copies of slides, for people to take notes in real time
Color paper and/or tabs, to distinguish between sections and aid navigation ("Go to the
yellow section...")
Biographies, with face shots and contact information, of speakers and ideally
participants, at the back
Appendixes, with articles and links
CD-ROMS, with editable versions of slides and spreadsheets
Clear cover and spine, with subject and dates
Three-ring rather than bound, so that users can dynamically and deliberately add or
subtract what they want or don't want.
What are your thoughts? What should or should not be part of a well constructed
Tuesday, binder?
Small Pieces Loosely Joined
September 20,
2005 When talking about platforms, the opposite of a single monolothic approach (cough
Windows cough) is small pieces loosely joined.
We in the learning industries seem to be good at the
big pieces, tightly joined (degrees, curricula, certification)
small pieces, tightly joined (LMS delivered content)
small pieces, not at all joined (Google, mapquest, bubble help)
So what is it that can/does loosely join our small pieces of learning? Is it our PC?
Outlook? The database in Google Desktop Search? Our PDA? Is it our organization?
Our annual review? Our interests? Company? Career? Industry?
At the end of our day, it is probably summed up in our résumé, our sometimes forced,
often surprising organization of the things we have demonstratably done. But at the
heart, we are our own platform, constantly both writing to others and being written
upon, vastly ranging in productivity and capability.
I would say for the last few hundred years we have probably been Human 2.0. And we
are getting close, I think, to v3.
Sunday, The New Ways of Describing the Life of Content
September 25,
2005 I have been thinking a lot about life of content. A few different dichotimies seem to
frame conversations.
Staged vs. Organic: Staged events are one-shot. They need significant pre-
establisehd processes and project management. They use up a lot of advertising and
communication. Organic approaches are more incremental. They use small layers to
build up over time. Television shows are staged, but they can also evolve over many
episodes, as writers seize onto relationships, or the right directors are found. Organic
content lifecycles stress less perfection up front, and often more feedback.
Transient vs. Peristent : This refers to the size of the window of availability, and/or the
timeliness of the material. Even these can be fuzzy. DVDs should be totally persistant,
for example, but advertising and shelf-issues make them somewhat more transient.
Also, as with movies, there is a perceived success (being number one on the charts)
that drives more success, and more of a staged content approach. DVDs can also
make movies a bit more incremental, with multiple versions available. Computer
games can also have various versions, and can also be patched on the fly.
Controlled vs. Community: Is their one-voice shapping this or multiple? Mods for
computer games can subvert a very controlled piece of content. From a formal
learning perspective, I always ask, how can I get the training group out of the way?
How can the community generate the content, and how can the training group help
that?
Is there a "so what" for these lenses? I think so. One is to recognize our own biases,
and accept that these biases might be interfering with coversations with sponsors. The
other is to recognize the current trends that are pushing towards incremental,
persistant, and community, and selectively embrace some of this approach, and
Wednesday, Authoring Simulation Genres: Branching Stories
September 28,
2005 One well-understood simulation genre is branching stories.
In branching stories, students make multiple-choice decisions along an ongoing
sequence of events around what to say to another person in a given situation. The
decisions impact the evolution of the story, ultimately terminating in either successful
or unsuccessful outcomes.
Their ease of use, ease of deployment, and content style make them highly
appropriate for entry-level salespeople, call center representatives, freshmen,
customer-facing retail positions, and entry-level managers. Any high-turnover position
should be trained, although not exclusively, using branching stories. Companies like
WILL Interactive have advanced the genre to handle more moral and complex
situations, making them also appropriate for higher-level employees as well.
One tool kit is:
Scenariation
You can also use PowerPoint, although it is tricky.
Do people know of other branching story toolkits?
Wednesday, Authoring Simulation Genres: Interactive Spreadsheets
September 28,
2005 One well-understood simulation genre is interactive spreadsheets.
Interactive spreadsheets focus on abstract business school issues such as supply
chain management, product lifecycle, accounting, and general cross-functional
business acumen. Students allocate finite resources along competing categories at
successive turn-based fixed intervals, and each time they watch their results play out
on dense graphs and charts.
This is often done in a multi-player or team-based environment and often with
facilitators.
The subtlety, unpredictability, and variability make them appropriate for training b-
school students and high-potential supervisors through the direct reports to the CEO.
They are often the cornerstones of multi-day programs to align a fractured department
or organization by building shared knowledge and understanding.
One authoring tool is:
Forio Broadcast
Another is straight Excel.
Do people know of other great authoring tools?
Wednesday, Authoring Simulation Genres: Game based models
September 28,
2005 One well-understood simulation genre is game-based models.
With the goal of “making learning fun,” students engage familiar and entertaining
games such as Wheel of Fortune®, solitaire, or memory, with important pieces of
linear or task-based content replacing trivia or icons. More diagnostic than
instructional, game-based models nonetheless might be the technique of choice by
traditional educators and training groups looking to quickly goose their reputation,
student satisfaction, and even effectiveness. Game-based models also introduce, in
the purest possible way, game elements that all educational simulation designers will
need to understand in the near future.
Some authoring environments include:
• EGames Generator
• Games2Train
Do people know of other toolkits for game-based models?
Wednesday, Blogging by the Numbers
September 28,
2005 Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted.
- Albert Einstein
One of the projects in the revitalization of Learning Circuits Blog has been the
establishment of a data set for capture and resulting metrics. I thought it might be of
interest to share our work in this area.
The purpose for creating a trackable set of data and corresponding metrics is simply
so that we will have an idea as to whether or not we are succeeding at this blogging
venture. Simple purpose however, does not necessarily lead to simple
implementation. Two factors contributed to this being a rather extensive task. 1) We
had no data collection practice in place and 2) Blogger, for all it‟s great features, just
doesn‟t collect data for their free users.
A couple free stat counters (thanks SiteMeter and Bravenet) and several tracking
spreadsheets that border on frightening later, we have a solid set of raw data. The
data fall into two categories – "Activity" which I use to refer to the posting and
comments by the Blog Squad and guest and "Traffic" which refers to the comings and
goings of all of you good folks. The raw data we are capturing include:
ACTIVITY
TRAFFIC
Posts
Author
Date posted
Comments
Comment Author
Date Commented
Days with no Activity
Unique Visits
Page Views
First time visitors
Returning Visitors
Referring Page
Entry Page
Exit Page
From these raw data we can build metrics to determine in what direction, if any at all,
LCB is moving and why. There are all the ratio metrics (i.e., posts per day, comments
per post, zero activity days per month, etc.) and comparison metrics (i.e., August was
twice as active as July, or Clark leads all Blog Squad members in postings).
Some metrics which seem to be emerging as meaningful as everything settles in are:
Total Activity - Posts and Comments are weighted equally. It seems a better
representation of the work that is being done by the Blog Squad.
Unique Visitors vs. Returning Visitors - This metric seems to indicate that we are
drawing people in, but not doing enough to have them return in a timely fashion.
Total Activity vs. Page Views - this has been the real surprise thus far. The ratio of
page views per post or comment seems to have settled in at just aound 24-26 pages.
Including in August when Activity tripled and page view followed suit. It's too early to
know if this consistency is a coincidence or whether it will turn out to be a dynamic
predictive metric.
I have a couple of questions I'd love to get some response from the LCB community
on regarding metrics:
Are there metrics you see as key when looking at a blog?
Friday, Do you know of any benchmarking sourceshere.... metrics?
You want metrics data? I got yer data right for blog
September 30,
2005 Check out PubSub's new LinkRank Service, measuring inbound and outbound links to
any site! Check out Learning Circuit's LinkRank…
Tuesday, A Meta-Interview
October 04, 2005
Thiagi asked me to do a brief interview about games and simulations, which he
published here. Take a look at it, if you want, before you continue. I would like you to
consider it at two levels.
First, there are a few nuggets of interesting perspectives on simulation design.
But more importantly, there is a lot of space and energy, both on my part as the writer
and your part as the consumer, dedicated to humor. Think of your own experience as
a reader plowing through the material.
Some will find it engaging.
Some will find it lame.
Some will find it a waste of space (mostly the people who really care about the
material).
Some will read all of the material because of the humor, which lowers tension and
builds connectedness with the reader.
My meta-point to the interview was to let readers experience a game element
themselves (the humor), and come to their own opinions on the risks and benefits of
using game elements generally.
Who says learning by doing has to be complex?
Tuesday, A New Web Writing Tool
October 04, 2005
This post has been ported into LCB from a new collaborative writing tool that is
currently in beta called writely. Harold Jarche gave it a nice write up on his his blog
inspiring me to take a look at it. The functionality is very intuitive and seems to
combine the best of word processing and wiki technologies to create a collaborative
platform. Currently it struggles with some issues around formatting (trying to fix a table
that was messed up in the upload from Word was a real mess), but they do make it
clear that you're using a beta. The ability to collaborate with as many people as you
wish on a document by document basis is great. I see the following functions as real
positives:
That you can post out to most blogs
bring content to writely by email, upload, or original creation,
download into Word, HTML,
all with revision history and the ability to revert to previous versions at the click of a
button.
I agree with Harold, this is definitely the future for use today.
Tuesday, The Number 2
October 04, 2005 An Observation
I've been hearing a lot lately about "... learning from our mistakes". Natural disasters.
Personal mishaps. Problems at work. Issues at home. I keep hearing "We learn from
our mistakes." So I wondered if there is a new approach to learning we might call
"Mistake-Based Learning".
Then I was looking at a new piece of software that all together avoids the need to learn
anything at all and make any mistakes. It lets you know what you need to do, and
when, and it's all a click away. This already has several names in the hat - the one I
like the most is "Workflow Learning".
Sudden Idea: Only 2 Choices to Make
So suddenly I find myself simplifying the complex universe of learning into two groups:
- Mistake-Based Learning: Learning by making mistakes and learning from those
mistakes, and
- Workflow Learning: Not learning at all, just finding what you need to do, or know, and
doing it.
Choice 1: Mistake-Based Learning
Mistake-Based Learning is actually supported by the research into how we learn in the
workplace. It's the 75/25 Rule where 75% of workplace learning is done while you
work and only 25% (at best) is accomplished in a more formal setting. That 25%
includes everything from classes to online programs to simulations. It's been broken
down into
20% "I Know" and
5% "I Can Do".
Most training programs barely reach the "I Know" level. The best, using the latest
interactive learning technology like simulations, hit the 25% "I Can Do" mark.
The remaining 80% is the "I Adopt & Adapt" level. It's a good definition of being ready
to perform your job - the ability to adopt and adapt what you know and can do in
response to an everchanging set of circumstances.
I consider this real learning.
Choice 2: Workflow Learning
In The Future of eLearning, Jay Cross does a wonderful job of defining and covering
the ideas, concepts and case studies of workflow learning. He does a brilliant analysis
of the value of having immediate access to knowledge - what you need to know or do -
when and where you need it. In summary, it means you don't ever need to learn how
to do something, nor really know what to do, you just click a (fill in the blank
technology tool) and get the answer, follow the instructions and move on. Seems
mistake proof unless you misread the instructions.
I consider this rote learning.
Why This Matters
1. In companies and corporations all over the world, the attempt to recreate the
schoolplace in the workplace is most obvious where rote learning rules, and simply
testing is okay. Performance is not relevant or really demonstrable, and just knowing
the answer is everything. You do not have to really learn at all, just remember for
awhile. The model is not fundamentally wrong, just completely misapplied. It does not
go far enough to use the emerging technology that can replace the classroom, and it is
never in the right place at the right time. Sort of an 'out-of-the-workplace' learning
model. What is workplace, as is a true Workplace Learning program.
2. In the actual really needed opposed to the fictional schoolplace, where learning by
doing is what it's really all about, and test scores (or LMS completion rates) are
irrelevant, performance is key and know-how is everything. So we have learning by
your mistakes or Mistake-Based Learning, a new kind of program, of which
simulations are the tip of the iceberg, as you ascend up into the 80% level through "I
Know" and "I Can Do" towards adopting and adapting.
That means that in any given situation in which I am asked to help people learn
something, I can easily choose to create a Mistake-Based Learning program or a real
Workflow Learning program. Both of these choices involve new directions for people in
charge of the Corporate Brain. The majority of the thinking has been in the "Workflow
Learning" category. Again I refer you to my friend Jay Cross if you want more details.
What remains to be worked on are the Mistake-Based Programs. If we truly and really
learn by our mistakes, and experience is the best teacher, then what does Mistake-
Based Learning look like? When is Mistake-Based Learning a better choice than
Workflow Learning? Aside from simulations, are we creating these types of programs?
Will companies even allow the idea of "training" when it is a Mistake-Based Learning
program? Will they let us develop programs that set up employees to make mistakes-
try again-succeed-and really learn? Or will the schoolplace model, an artifact of the
Wednesday, Games and simulations as social research environments
October 05, 2005
We often talk about designing games and simulations for instruction, but NPR had an
interesting story today on doing social research within a multiplayer game. A bug in
World of Warcraft unleashed a deadly virtual "plague", and epidimologists and
sociologists noted how game-player's reactions closely mimiced reactions to real-
world disasters.
There may be a planned illness outbreak in World of Warcraft so that sociologists can
study and document player's reactions from the start. This is the converse of how we
often use games and simulations: instead of creating an environment to evoke a
specific response, it's creating an environment and documenting participants'
emergent behaviors.
Friday, October Lab Rats
07, 2005
This is a follow-on to a previous post "The Number 2". It was triggered by a comment
that Jay Cross made:
"In 1920, Bluma Zaigarnik notices that waiters in coffeehouses memorize remarkably
complex orders and then flush them from memory once the transaction is complete.
There's more at work here than short-term vs. long-term memory. In 1927, Bluma's
research found that people retain about twice as much of a subject if they don't reach
closure. When you put down a book, do it in mid-chapter. If you're leading a seminar,
don't finish before the bell rings. Not closing out the topic creates tension in the brain
that fades when the thing is finished."
Ultimately Zeigarnik proved that people remembered unfinished tasks about twice as
well as completed ones.Thus, if an instructor wants students to remember a
presentation, she will end the class in mid-sentence, before drawing a final conclusion.
Direct marketers use the Zeigarnik effect to whet their readers‟ interest. To remember
the book you‟re reading, take a break in mid-chapter, not at a more natural stopping
point. If you want to keep something actively in mind, don‟t close it out. Let it hang.
Theres more on Internet Time if your curious.
Simple idea. It sounds like it works. So why don't more people do it?
There's all this fantastic research out there about How We Learn. We've read and
talked a lot about it here and elsewhere. Talk is cheap ...
Without turning people into lab rats WHY aren't more of us who are responsible for
learning creating controlled experiments in learning? Tackle the same training problem
in several different ways and see what works, what the resource costs are, what was
the ROI? I think it would be enlightening to see the same training problem 'solved' in a
number of ways:
Using an intructor-based classroom format one with a grand finale, one using the 'end
the session in mid-sentence' ambiguity model
Developed and a workflow/EPSS program - no 'learning' involved
Done as a good online program delivered via LMS
Developed and delivered in a mistake-based/ambiguity-based/ mode,
and as a perhaps even designed as a simple simulation.
You (our blog readers) might even be interested in taking pieces of the puzzle. We
could start with a finshed program from the above list that has been shown to get good
results from the students, and use it to develop the other models for testing. We could
publish the results here. The focus could be corporate workplace learning.
We have this dinosaur of a model, that we hide behind the jargon of pedagogy, that
we cling to like drowning sailors ... almost like trying to take your vinyl long-playing
records and diode turntable and stereo speakers on an airplance to listen to music.
We all know and talk about the ways that research and technology are changing the
ways we live and work.
What about the ways we learn? And I'm not just talking about 'a classroom online'. To
me, that is an oxymoron akin to jumbo shrimp. As the lyrics to one of my favorite tunes
tells me, "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slippin' into the future." Time, perhaps, to
try something new and interesting?
Friday, October Intelligent Design....of Learning
07, 2005
Learning 2.0 || Web 2.0
Maybe this is a thought crime, but the meme that's propagating in my head this
morning is that instructional design will once again mimic software design. (Where do
you think those human performance flowcharts came from anyway?) Read this article
about lightweight software development and the surge toward Web 2.0.
Now, let me indulge in some cut-and-paste thinking. Modify the article by substituting
instructional or instruction for software, and Cross for Fried. Here's what you get.
Traditional instructional development is expensive, resource-intensive, and born of a
Cold War mentality, Cross said. His advice is to "think about one-downing, instead of
one-upping, and underdoing-competitors" –beating them with less.
According to Cross, in the era of lightweight apps and simple products you need less
money, people, time, abstractions and instruction.
Cross believes that money mostly buys salaries and you only need three people–a
designer, programmer and utility player, which he calls a "sweeper." The feature set
should be scaled for the headcount. Having less time is also an advantage. "You
spend time in unproductive meetings and overanalyzing the product. Less time forces
yousuggested 30 hourson better things," Cross said. "forces you into building better
He to spend less time per week per person, which
products and being creative with your time." And, if you have less time, you have less
time to think about abstractions, such as functional specification documents, which
Cross characterized as a waste of time. "Instead, build the product and start from the
user interface customer experience first; then wrap with the technology," Cross said.
"The interface screens are the functional specification."
Finally, building less instruction means fewer features, less documentation, minimal
support and less confusion in selling the product. "Less instruction is key to building
very specific tools. There are a million simple problems to solve with less. Competitors
solving complicated ones are most likely to fail," Cross said. "For Web-based
instruction there are plenty of simple problems to pick from and you can nail."
The more I dig into how people learn, the more convinced I become that we've been
trying to do things the hard way. We used to think our job was designing instructional
systems. I'm beginning to think we're nurturing the evolution of learning experiences.
Instructional design tries to fix things that are broken. It begins with assessing what's
wrong, "gaps," and leads to developing grandiose, cure-all solutions. Learning
evolution begins with what you've got and nurtures incremental improvement.
We see the same sort of issue on the front page of our newspapers. One the one
hand, some people believe a master designer released Earth 1.0 about six thousand
years ago. Others folks believe Earth beta has been evolving for billions of years; it's a
web without a weaver.
Do you believe in the intelligent design of instruction or the evolution of species of
learning?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next up: Instead of "the network is the computer," think "the network is the brain."
Sunday, October What would I see if I rode on a beam of light?
09, 2005 Before Einstein, scientists would observe and record something, and then find the
right mathematics to explain the results. Einstein comes along and reverses the
process by finding a beautiful piece of mathematics based on some very deep insights
into the way the universe works and then makes predictions about what ought to
happen in the world.
Behold the power of human creativity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote that the creative process normally takes five steps
(Creativity, 1996, p. 79):
1. Preparation: becoming immersed in problematic issues that are interesting and
arouses curiosity.
2. Incubation: ideas churn around below the threshold of consciousness.
3. Insight: the "Aha!" moment when the puzzle starts to fall together.
4. Evaluation: deciding if the insight is valuable and worth pursuing.
5. Elaboration: translating the insight into its final work (Creativity is 99% perspiration
and 1% inspiration - Edison).
The physicist Freeman Dyson wrote two papers that were published in Physical
Review that brought together Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger's theories of
quantum mechanics. After Dyson's papers, Feynman and Schwinger's ideas became
understandable and thus led to the two being awarded the Noble prize in physics.
There is no doubt in most minds that the two would never have been awarded the
prize if it was not for Dyson being able to explain and connect their ideas.
Dyson's story is interesting as it fits the five steps of creativity:
1. Preparation: He goes to Princeton to study under the greats. He gets personally
acquainted with the two central figures, recognizes the two theories are connected,
and then goes through a six month period of directed preparation.
2. Incubation: He spends two weeks relaxing
3. Insight: and is hit with the "Aha!" of how to explain and connect the two.
4. Evaluation: He then spends another six months creating, evaluating,
5. Elaboration: and elaborating two papers that are accepted by the editors of Physical
Review.
Fred Stratton (CEO of Briggs & Stratton) once said that genius lay in the ability to see
how two things that nobody else sees as related are indeed related. This ability to
recognize distant analogies unlocks a world of potential -- Edison recognized that
space and time are not absolute; while Dyson recognized a connection between
Feynman and Schwinger's two theories when no one else could.
The Learning Process in the Knowledge Economy
Skills needed in this so called "knowledge economy" go beyond rote memory to the
next level -- the ability to think both critically and creatively.
Yet traditional learning systems have typically been centralized and operate on the
principle that learners are unable to decide what they need to learn, thus the system
does it for them, which in turn creates a vicious cycle -- put the learners in a system
that does very little to encourage critical thinking, formal reasoning, or meta-learning;
then tell them they are unable to decide what they need to learn, thus others will have
do it for them. And this carries on from schools to the business world.
This central control is stifling...it is closed to the possibility that people need to have a
say in what they learn. It is closed to the next step in the learning process -- building a
variety of experiences in order to build a strong knowledge base; which then creates
the possibility for building a context or connection that no one else has created before.
This is how problems are solved and novel ideas are created.
Learning needs to follow a similar process as Csikszentmihalyi's Five Steps of
Creativity:
1. Preparation: A two step process:
a. Rote learning in order to create the building block of logic -- the means to use
rules to make inferences, choose courses of action and answer questions.
b. The collecting of information (called ontologies) -- In philosophy, an ontology is a
theory about the nature of existence, of what types of things exist; ontology as a
discipline studies such theories. The most typical kind of ontology has a taxonomy and
a set of inference rules.
2. Incubation: A period to reflect and interact with others.
3. Insight: Making new connections.
4. Evaluation: Metacognition - planning, setting time lines, and allocating resources
(Schank & Abelson, 1977) for new "connections." It also designs strategies for
accomplishing goals once they have been set.
5. Elaboration: Turning the idea into reality.
Our learning systems have performed a good job with the first step of "Preparation",
yet it seems quite hesitate to go beyond this by riding the beam of light rather than just
observing it.
This Tuesday (October 11, 2005) on PBS -- Einstein's big idea: The Legacy of E =
mc2
Tuesday, October Stepping Out: The Application Becomes the Platform
11, 2005
AJAX. Heard of it? You will. You've already seen it in action on the Web somewhere.
How about Widgets? No, not for Mac (although that's where they come from) - for
Windows. I actually made on the other day. Heard about Google's API's being open?
How about the Google sidebar? MSN revealing its APIs? America's Army (the free
game) now has a site touting its availability (the game's) as a platform. How about the
fact that the highly anticipated release of Civilization 4, the latest installment in one of
the most profitable game franchises ever (and one frequently cited as educational), is
being built from the ground up in way that will empower people to change the game in
more ways than have ever been possible before?
What is all this pointing to? Simply my new mantra - the application is becoming the
platform. Wikis, blogs, podcasting - all part of the same dynamic. Call it what you will
but things that we used to think of as "applications" - discrete programs used for
specific purposes, a search engine, a game, are becoming platforms for development.
The first browser was an application unti people started developing for the Web
instead of the Net. eBay was an application, an auction site, until people started
developing programs that were based on eBay - like automated auction programs.
This isn't exactly breakthrough thinking here but my question is really...where is this
dynamic happening in the learning world? This is as much me actually asking the
question and looking for answers as it is a rhetorical device. I want to know. Who are
the folks creating "learning platforms" on which future learning applications will be able
to be developed? If the answer here is silence or even a muted reply, then the next
question must be why? Why, in the face of such staggering successes in other fields
(computer gaming really took off with the release of the first DOOM in 1993 and that
was largely due to two factors - they gave away the first three levels for free and it
So one final time and then I'll be quiet - who is developing learning products which can
both serve a primary function as a learning product but are also designed to act as
development platforms - at little or no additional cost?
Tuesday, October Is Attention Important in Learning?
11, 2005
A recent CNET article noted that the typical office worker is interrupted every three
minutes by an e-mail, IM, phone call, etc. If you are working on something creative, it
takes about 8 minutes for our brains to get into that state. With all these distractions
how is anyone able to get anything done?
The result, says Carl Honore, journalist and author of "In Praise of Slowness," is a
situation where the digital communications that were supposed to make working lives
run more smoothly are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks
accomplished.
Chris Caposella a VP in the Microsoft Information Worker Business Unit says that
"People are ultra connected. And you know what? Now they are starting to realize,
'Wow, I want to actually stop getting interrupted.'" Dan Russell, a researcher at IBM's
Almaden Research Center, turns off the instant notification of e-mail and only looks at
e-mail 2X a day and has cut the time he spends with e-mail in half. Other
organizations, like Veritas Software have implemented "no e-mail Fridays." Employees
can't e-mail one another on Friday, but they are allowed to e-mail customers or other
parts of the storage company if they have to. The result? Workers spend more time
A study by Hewlett-Packard earlier this year found that 62 percent of British adults are
addicted to their e-mail--checking messages during meetings, after working hours and
on vacation. Half of workers felt a need to respond to e-mails immediately or within an
hour, and one in five people reported being "happy" to interrupt a business or social
gathering to respond to an e-mail or phone message.
Even airlines are starting to offer broadband Internet access. So how will we be able to
deal with this tidal wave of communications?
"With Office 12, we will do things to make it a lot easier for people to be more effective
in the way they manage all of these communication mechanisms," Capossela said.
IBM also is looking at solutions to manage scheduling for the next version of Lotus
Workplace, part of IBM's collection of software that rivals Office.
But technology may not be the solution. Like many issues in collaboration it is the
"people and process issues" that are the crux of the problem.
"The problem, Russell said, is that there are only certain types of tasks that humans
are good at doing simultaneously. Cooking and talking on the phone go together fine,
as does walking and chewing gum (for most people). But try and do three math
problems at once, and you are sure to end up in frustration."
Attention Management
I have written a lot about what I call "attention management" and what everyone else
calls "Continuous Partial Attention (term coined by Linda Stone)." Stowe has been
blogging about this for months, and he and I have had a few discussions on the
subject.
Basically, he believes that your social networks are your filter for information overload.
If A likes it and I like and trust A, then I should like it. I agree with Stowe to a point, in
that social networks only deal with part of the problem. I do not believe that you will be
able to filter enough through these networks to stop the overwhelming of your
bandwidth for both information and attention.
I believe that the problem needs to be attached also from the other direction. That is to
augment a person's ability to "attend" to content and events. In my view of the future
there are a variety of technology solutions that might help. But I don't think the
scheduling tools that Microsoft and Lotus are building are it. I believe that you will need
to multiply your bandwidth and attention by multiplying your self.
Some type of virtual agent that not only knows where you are, what you are doing and
what collaboration programs or devices you have, but it also has a subset of your
personality and is assigned to deal with specific types of tasks demanding your
attention. For example, this virtual agent or avatar can deal with lower-level requests
for attention and decisions around what to pick up at the grocery store. It knows your
likes and dislikes, what is in the refrigerator and what is not, and you have empowered
it to make those shopping decisions, and have the groceries delivered to your house
at 6:00 pm (it knows your schedule and that you are due to have dinner with your
family by 7:00 pm).
This leaves you free to deal with critical requests for your attention from your family,
your boss, negotiating with a client, dealing with a crisis, etc. Since many fewer items
fall into these "critical" categories your bandwidth and attention are on overwhelmed,
and yet all of these other demands on your attention are also being satisfied.
Blue Sky or Tomorrows Solution?
Tuesday, OnLine Gaming As A Learning Tool
October 11, 2005
Fist, I want to reveal my bias in this area. I believe the gaming world is way ahead of
the corporate world in all aspects of collaboration, social, behavioral, technical, etc. So
I am looking to see what is transferable from the gaming environment to the corporate
environment in terms of collaboration and learning. In addition, I am an old gamer, and
in my 30's spent a number of years playing D&D (Dungeons & Dragons).
A few months ago I saw a presentation by Byron Reeves of Stanford who is doing
some really interesting research using an FMRI ( like a CAT scan) to look at areas of
brain activation when game players are faced with certain tasks and situations. He
found that:
- People were more excited when they got to pick their own avatars rather then getting
assigned one
- People were more excited in a rich media environment
- The story for the game had a big effect on excitement
What he found from his research that can be applied to work situations is:
- Don't underestimate the value of fun!
- Reinforcement in multiple time domains is important
- Many of the game social and management skills learned are transferable to work
situations
My Experince in Applying Gaming Principles
I am wondering if some of the results of this type of research apply to learning. In my
own experience I have found that to teach about collaboration and collaboration
technologies, talking about it (lecture) was not adequate, and that I had to create the
BTG (business transformation game), which was a hands-on, scenario-based, role-
playing game that helped people learn about collaboration technologies as well as
their behavioral interactions by actually using a variety of technologies in a scenario we
created. I have done this for a number of clients and have found that the level of
learning from those that play the BTG is much higher then those that just recieve a
lecture.
More About Games
Today there are 60 million active gamers in the U.S. today. Although most of them are
males 14-34, that population has been rapidly shifting both towards women and older
populations.
There are real benefits that gamers can get from playing games. For instance,
increasing their ability to deal with spatial rotation, or people with Asberger's syndrome
getting better in social interactions.
From my point of view an even larger and more tangible benefit comes from the fact
that these online games provide a variety of people the chance to try on and work in
roles that they might not normally get until many years later in their career. In a game
your group or team can deal with lots of different challenges and those on that team
get experience in dealing with a situation that they probably would not experience.
However, if this unlikley situation does come up in the real world , then they are more
prepared to deal with it. Much like a simulation, some of these games may really be
some type of immunization against the future!
There are all types of learners; auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc. I believe games
engage all types of learners and provide them with not only new information but a
"practice area" to try on new roles and behaviors before they have to use them in a
critical situation in real life!
What do you think?
Wednesday, Working for a Strong Brand
October 12, 2005
I have noticed a pattern that I would like to share, even though it is somewhat
tangential to the theme of this blog. I just saw it again yesterday.
There are "Strong Brand" organizations: Microsoft, Google, Harvard University, IBM,
Accenture. Even actors in a high-profile television series.
New employees are excited to get in. The parents are thrilled. Friends are jealous.
The new employees struggle, learn the culture, learn the rules, gain a lot of interesting
perspectives and SOPs. Their prestige in the outside world climbs as a result of their
new home.
To the outside world, these people have it made. They are part of a superb
organization. They have access to resources. But to the no-longer new employee, they
start getting restless. At some point, they realize that they are supporting the brand,
not necessarily helping themselves. Their own professional identity risks becoming too
associated with the Strong Brand. They do not have as much control as they would
like. To some degree, the view of outsiders towards them becomes increasingly at
odds with the internal organization's.
Unless they are fast-tracked, they grow resentful, ultimately either leaving, or sticking
around but detached.
I don't know what the solution is. But everyone I know who is in that cycle feels unique,
so I thought I would share this.
Wednesday, Confessions of an e-learning dropout
October 12, 2005
Six months or so of focusing on a real (rather than a virtual) theme -- in this case,
intercultural communication -- led me far away from the specific “culture of e-learning”
shared by the participants of this blog, although my intercultural work inevitably
involves online deployment. Coming back into the fold by posting a message on this
blog is in itself an interesting cultural experience, a kind of re-entry shock.
Having spent so much time with a broadly international crowd of people who spend
very little, if any, of theirs speculating about the future of technology for training has
allowed me to take some distance and possibly see a few things with more focus. One
of the things that strikes me is how linked e-learning culture is to certain trends in the
U.S. economy, even though the implications are necessarily global. And if I mention “e-
learning culture” it means that I can identify a group of people who share that culture
(namely, us) in contrast to all the other groups of people that don‟t share it. Which
introduces the somewhat embarrassing question of whether e-learning culture is really
compatible with other cultures.
Listening to Eliot Masie correctly telling me (through an audio feed) that memory sticks
will allow all sorts of things that no one could have imagined made me realize why I
seriously doubt that any of what he describes will ever make an impact on learning. I
feel exactly the same way about games, simulations and all kinds of “ideal” and
idealized content (and I‟ve spent twenty years of my life designing, producing and
publishing the stuff). It all makes sense… but, when all is said and done, it just doesn‟t
seem to take off, even though we can usually get it to work (and even prove that it can
produce results).
One of the major reasons for failure is culture specific: Eliot‟s idea – and many others
born out of technological innovation -- supposes learners are social monads, the
thought of which is relatively easy to entertain in an individualist culture such as that of
the U.S. but unimaginable elsewhere. And even in the U.S. it‟s easier to imagine than
achieve, because even though our culture teaches us to think of ourselves as monads
and our pragmatic sense tells us to try out any promising solution, we actually aren‟t
monads: we are heavily linked to others through visible and invisible social networks
Looking back at fifty years of technological innovation, what do I see? The only true
revolutionary breakthrough in training technology is… the flipchart! It changed things
much more than we think (PowerPoint did as well, but in a totally different – and I
would say regressive - direction). CBT/multimedia/eLearning has produced a niche
market for products and services but bears less resemblance to a revolutionary
development in training than it does to the hula-hoop (a great concept, a new and
intriguing object, fun to have a go at, a winning topic of conversation, mildly frustrating
to start using, possibly addictive in the short term but destined to have a short lifetime).
What‟s great about the flipchart is that nobody noticed it or talked about it. It arrived
stealthily and did its job, allowing us to create, store, distribute and display flexible
information in original ways. It also provided a fascinating link to group dynamics,
giving trainers a tool to change learners‟ perception of the learning environment and
the goals associated with it (e.g. by having groups work in parallel and post their
results on the wall). It was (and is) absolutely wonderful technology. And using it
So my suggestion is to do something similar with all our electronic technologies. Adopt
and use them because we need them for storage and communication (independently
of training) and then just have them around to help those who have something to
teach others (formally or informally) get their messages across. Let‟s stop building,
advertising and selling systems and technologies that will provide the solution. Where
Plato banned poets from the Republic, I would ban the vendors. People will end up
providing the solution if you let them just use the technology they spontaneously
accept for other purposes. Down with the constraints of training-specific technology.
And down with instructional design (yeah, Jay, I‟m with you as usual).
Wednesday, consolidation continues - BlackBoard + WebCT & more ...
October 12, 2005
Wow, consolidation is running rampart in the eLearning space as everyone continues
to merge or acquire. Look to your left and look to your right; easily one of those will not
be around in six months. Today BlackBoard announced plans to merge with WebCT;
the two leading providers in the higher education eLearning space (BlackBoard alone
forecasts US$150M+ for their fiscal year).
Now having gone through a "merger" myself (SkillSoft and SmartForce) it sounds like
BlackBoard is really acquiring WebCT and it doesn't bode well for WebCT given that
there is a tremendous amount of product overlap between the two companies (a
similar comparision would be if SkillSoft and NETg, the leading providers in the
corporate education space, merged). It also doesn't bode well for WebCT's willingness
to play with open source (sorry Harold!) If you are a WebCT employee you may want
to dust off your resume with comments like this:
The combined company expects to realize significant efficiencies by leveraging shared
development infrastructure, and mitigating duplicative marketing initiatives and
administrative expenditures.
This announcement comes on the heels of Saba acquiring Centra. Now this deal
makes more sense as Saba continues evolve beyond its Learning Management
Software (LMS) roots (Saba recently bought THINQ) by rounding out its services
offering. Personally I like its focus on 'on-demand learning' and its Services Oriented
Architecture as I think generic content is a tough business to be in. Plus Saba +
Centra creates a US$100M revenue company which is not too shabby!
And of course back in August we had WebEx buying Intranets.com and SumTotal
(created out of Docent + Click2Learn) buying PathLore as I discussed in this post.
Clark - you need to update your Chart of Consolidations!
The Resulting Big Five: (forecasted annual revenue)
SkillSoft $200M+
NETg $150M-200M?
BlackBoard $150M+
Saba $100M+
SumTotal $100M
* strangely none of the investors like any of these deals as the stocks of the related
companies have all dropped when they have announced their news.
So whom do you think will be doing a merger or acquisition next?
What do you think of these recent ones?
Saturday, Curious about the future of history based simulations?
October 15, 2005
As I have said before, I hate it when e-learning hacks make superficial, overly-broad
analogies to hot trends. "E-learning should be like hybrid cars; Training should be like
Ipod Nanos; Lessons learned from FEMA."
Having said that, I love a real analogy. For example, six years ago, I found it very
useful to apply experiences with ERPs and CRMs to the then emerging area of LMSs.
It did provide real glimpses into the future. As a rule, cold trends actually provide more
insight than hot trends.
So with all of that as a caveat, I would like to present up an analogy that I hope is an
example of the second, not first, category.
If you want to see how educational simulations will be created to teach history to the K-
12 and undergraduate environment, look at the various Star Trek computer games.
Here's why.
Star Trek is a series of many, many (far too many?) stories, that cover a coherent
timeline, with consistant cultures and technologies. Furthermore, Star Trek events,
despite the single brand, have been created by many, many individuals and teams.
There are missing links; there are contradictions. This background material is a fairly
good analogy of history source material.
Game developers have tried to capture the essence of the story in game forms. Star
Trek games have more often than not used existing genres (First Person Shooter,
Real Time Strategy, now MMORPG). They have often had to go deep (space ship
battles in general) over broad (from beginning to end of Wrath of Kahn). Some new
genres have been created (Bridge Commander, Starfleet Command). Some games
have been created by modding other games (Star Trek mod for Half-Life 2). Some are
very complex, developing deep expertise; some could not be more simple. Some just
use the high level theme over an existing game (Star Trek pinball or Star Trek trivia
game). This maps fairly well to the effort that different developers will probabbly go
through to create historical educational sims.
Star Trek fans are very engaged in the process. Every new Star Trek game brings
heaps of criticism, people trashing the experience as being not accurate enough
(What about episode 212 when Captain Yeri fired six photon blasts in less than five
seconds), or fun enough, or broad/comprehensive enough. They then mod the
experience, in some cases fixing inaccuracies, in some cases making something less
accurate but more fun. This maps fairly well to the role of other historians/instructors
looking at the experience.
Some Lessons learned:
No one sim will capture the entire experience. Sims will often go deep, not broad.
The more accurate the sim, the more frustrating it will be to play the first time.
The less accurate the sim, the easier it is to game it, but all sims, no matter how
accurate, can be gamed at some point. Multi-player games creates environments
I think the real power of educational simulations in K-12 and higher-ed will come when
we rethink our curriculum all together. But for those intent on history based
educational simulations (and my hat goes off to everyone of you - let me know how I
can help!), I think the analogy is a good one.
Wednesday, I see a pattern here...
October 19, 2005
In this year's Brandon Hall awards, all of the winning simulations were sales
simulations.
Discuss.
Thursday, If it ain't fixed, should we break it?
October 20, 2005
I hope I didn't sound too much like a Luddite when I wrote " Let‟s stop building,
advertising and selling systems and technologies that will provide the solution. " My
intention isn't to impede progress and continued experimentation. I do believe that the
various technologies many of us have been developing for years render vital services
and that their impact will grow. I also believe that growth will only become significant
when a few cultural changes take place within the world of learning. On the other
hand, I don‟t believe current conditions are yet favorable for that moment of quantum
leap.
My major beef is with the hyper-commercialisation, the “advertising and selling” part
rather than the “building” part. Elliot asked some years ago “if we build it, will they
come?”. Given the number of items that have been built and delivered, it‟s probably
safe today to say that the answer is “no” (thanks, Anonymous, for summary of the
HCE study). Before we build, however, we need to design. And before we design we
need to have an idea of why we are designing (other than the hope of eventually
I believe – as many do -- that more will come out of the Open Source movement than
from vendors of systems (who are becoming fewer and fewer, as Ben Watson
reminds us). My healthy doubts about what Open Source will ultimately deliver hover
around how non-commercial creativity can fare in a vehemently and violently
commercial world. But that‟s a philosophical and sociological problem, not an
educational problem.
Flipcharts actually have evolved in various ways, but the ways of using them by
creative trainers have evolved much more than the technology itself. With electronic
gadgets, it‟s the opposite. The people responsible for making learning happen are
deprived of the means of doing anything about it. Moore‟s law has taught us that every
18 months someone‟s going to deliver to our doorstep (COD, of course) everything we
need to solve the problems we are too backward, poor, unorganized or handicapped
(in terms of technological savvy) to solve ourselves. If we don‟t pay, we‟re excluded
from the community of “best practice”, which might more accurately be called “best
purchase”. The laws of the production/consumer society trump all others. The race for
innovation, which should be about creativity and solving realstudy reveals – feel not so
It‟s no wonder then that trainers and learners – as the CHE learning problems, is
much alienated as simply excluded. Still the technology is there to be used and in fact
is being used, but with little sense of purpose and, I would submit, a great deal of
waste. I guess that‟s the price of hype.
Sunday, October From Illiteracy to Technological Literacy
23, 2005
Despite the heavy investments societies have invested in literacy over the past couple
of hundred years, it is no longer pursued by some as a desired educational goal. Mihai
Nadin, the author of The Civilization of Illiteracy, writes how the pursuit of it has taken
four main branches:
Those:
for whom literacy is a skill.
using it as a means for studying values based on literacy.
functioning in a world of prepackaged artifacts.
active beyond the limitations of literacy, such as stretching cognitive boundaries or
defining new means and methods of communication and interaction.
Writers, editors, and some educators see it as a skill in which they make a living by
knowing and applying rules of correct language usage.
Others gain value by exploring the great wealth of writings, poetry, history, and
philosophy.
The majority, which is estimated at about 75 percent of the population, view it as an
artifact or service, such as the mathematics in a calculator, the writing on a greeting
card, or the spelling and writing routines incorporated into word processors.
And finally, groups, such as artists and designers, who actively attempt to push it
beyond its limits.
For instructional designers, these four branches of literacy are quite useful in that they
help us to identify the type of media preferred by our target audience. In addition, they
show the branch that teachers, trainers, educators, instructional designers, etc. must
join if they desire to help others learn -- the artists and designers who actively attempt
to push it beyond its limits. For it is only by pushing literacy to its limits that we will be
able to reach the broadest group of learners possible.
While some may bemoan the decline of literacy, others look forward to the
instruments that are slowly, but surely, replacing it, such as audio, visual media, and
text messages. While this last medium does sound quite literate at first, it manages to
break almost every rule in order to obtain velocity:
Grade schoolers are starting to get laptops and of course literacy skills, such as
handwriting and spelling, start to suffer. Yet, there was life before literacy, and there
will be life when it declines. Thus, maybe it is better to not look at it as "declining," but
rather as being...well...replaced.
Literacy presupposes the existence of a shared symbol system that mediates
information between the individual's mind and external events (see Technological
Literacy Reconsidered). Thus, just as mathematicians from all over the world can
share and understand formulas; savvy cellphone uses can understand the above text
message.
The literacy that is shaping the netcitizens of today is technological literacy --
knowledge about what technology is, how it works, what purposes it can serve, and
how it can be used efficiently and effectively to achieve specific goals. It encodes and
decodes messages via three dimensions:
These three dimensions closely relate to Dyrenfurth's (1991) three dimensions:
"Technological literacy is a multidimensional term that necessarily includes the ability
to use technology (practical dimension = knowledge), the ability to understand the
issues raised by our use of technology (civic dimension = capabilities), and the
appreciation for the significance of technology (cultural dimension = thinking &
acting)." For more on these dimensions, see the Quicktime movie.
Knowledge acquisition took place at a slow place during the age of literacy. With the
advancement of technology, we are no longer at the mercy of language (and the
literacies associated with it) as the exchange of complex data via graphics,
multimedia. etc., are more appropriate to our faster paced society. Our present
knowledge economy is not driven by faster computers, but rather by human cognition
embodied in experiences that support further diversification of experiences. And the
more means we find to diversify our experiences, then the faster our knowledge
acquisition will be.
NOTES
You can find the The Civilization of Illiteracy in three types of formats:
Book
text file
PDF file
Dyrenfurth, M. (1991). Technological literacy synthesized. In M. J. Dyrenfurth & M. R.
Kozak (Eds.), Technological literacy (40th Yearbook of the Council on Technology
Teacher Education, pp. 138 183). Peoria, IL: Macmillan, McGraw-Hill.
Tags
[Illiteracy]
[technological literacy]
Monday, October Living off the Land: Capturing The Voice of Experts
24, 2005
In one project on which I am working, I have been asked for a strategy to quickly
capture a lot of presentations from a lot of people to share with others.
My first thought was using Centra, but the client always uses the telephone for voice,
and I am not sure if they have save capability.
A second option is to use the record voice option in PowerPoint.
A third is to use a tool like Audacity to record an MP3, and then have some one else
align that with slides.
Does anyone know of either a great approach, or even great instructions that
someone else has prepared to take individuals through this process?
Tuesday, Dead Elephants in the E-Learning Room
October 25, 2005
As I work with organizations in developing e-learning, I am increasingly aware of dead
elephants in the room, large reference points that we have to avoid because we can't
wrap our minds around them. Here are some:
- When you talk about development time, the context is downloadable flash based
mini-games. Flash based mini-games, like this one, can be developed in just a few
weeks. And yet they still have critical messages, and higher interactivity.
- When you talk about manuals and online references, even FAQ's, the dead elephant
in the room is Wiki's. Fluid, up to date, organic, they grow faster and are more
accurate than most published documents. Wikipedia outgrew the Encylopedia
Britannica.
- When you talk about knowledge management, the hidden context is blogs and
podcasts.
- When you talk about interactivity in e-learning, the spector is of computer games.
Clicking a few buttons now and then can just never compare with the total
engagement of Halo 2.
What are some other dead elephants?
Thursday, Wait a minute, let me Google it ...
October 27, 2005
Google has become a digital extension of my memory. The older I get the more I use
it. If I forget how to do something, or cannot remember a fact or name or place, I
Google around for a bit and find it.
For example, this morning I was on the phone talking with a client. We started talking
about a film and neither one of us could remember the name, only that Al Pacino was
in it. So I Googled "Al Pacino Filmography", and two clicks later, I 'knew' the name of
the movie. Earlier in the week, I had moved all the livingroom furniture and, in the
process, unhooked the VCR, DVD, and TV. When I went to plug in this Medusa's
Head of wires, I could not for the life of me remember how the VCR fit back into the
scheme of things.
Right. I Googled "Mitsubishi DVD VCR Connections" and three clicks later had the
operating manual that was lost in the same place that socks go to in the washing
machine.
What does this have to do with learning? Everything. It points to the fact that I do not
need to know something, or know how to do something, and I can still know it and do
it. My performance is acceptable. It's my memory that sucks. Google is my brain
plugged into the internet, the largest repository of information ever created since they
set fire to the the Library of Alexandria. Wait a minute, who was it who set that fire ...
hold on a sec ... okay it was either
Julius Caesar or Caliph Omar . Yep, Googled.
So why are we spending untold amounts of time and money on learning programs that
are not necessary? They could be effectively replaced by a computer on a fast WIFI
connection to a knowledge repository. Does anyone assess what needs 'real learning'
versus what only needs to be searched for, used, and then forgotten? This is one
place where some technology, beyond the flipchart, can come to the rescue and save
us from needless "training". And it would be just in time ...
Tony Carlson tells us that "We process more information in a 24-hour period, than the
average person 500 years ago would come in contact with in a lifetime..." Are we part
of the problem, or the solution?
Maybe I'll ask Google ... .
Friday, October Virtual Classrooms and Virtually No Data
28, 2005
Face it, you generally can't see participants' faces in a virtual classroom. How do we
know they are getting it? Are they sorting spam in Outlook or checking sports scores
on ESPN.com?
I remember quite a few high school & university classes where class participation
counted as a relatively significant part of your grade. With most integrations between
virtual classrooms and LMS products it seems like launching the classroom URL is
about all that is tracked.
This strikes me as the equivalent of getting credit for class participation by walking in
the door. At least some of the better integrations check to see that you didn't walk out
(leave the meeting URL) before the end of class, or they have a "completion"
threshold of some sort (percentage of meeting actual duration or, minimum time spent
in the session).
A good virtual classroom facilitator or instructor draws the participants into the content
with chat, pools, simulations and all sorts of interactions. But how is that tracked or
managed? I might remember the names of a few active participants, but then again
eyewitness reports aren't always accurate. Allowing the instructor or leader to enter a
value or description for participation after the fact is a start, but how about automating
this too.
Could we have integrations that reported back individual's quiz scores from virtual
classes, a participation status indicated by upstream VoIP, frequencies or length of
chat entries, questions asked?
Saturday, Googlizing Learning
October 29, 2005
I'm not sure if Googlizing is a word but the way this steam engine is rolling I'm sure it
will be soon.
David Grebow's recent post (Wait a minute, let me Google it ...) really got me thinking
and since I hate the fact that comments do not get seen by those receving RSS feeds
of this blog I decided to do a follow-on post rather than a comment.
--
Breaking News! Google is doing all kinds of interesting stuff, much of which will have
an impact on learning. One of their latest endeavors is Google Base:
Google Base is Google‟s database into which you can add all types of content. We‟ll
host your content and make it searchable online for free.
Sounds like a potential learning object repository to me. Read more about it. Couple
this with their free Google Desktop (to index and search your computer and intranet
files) and you may have a pretty decent knowledge management solution.
--
No doubt about it, Google is great especially when it comes to connectng people to
content. However, as a learning resource, it falls quite short. Fundamentally the quality
of the content is often suspect for just because something appears on a web page
does not mean that it is correct. And ironically today's search engines are almost too
good - there is simply too much content available now.
To me learning is always made up of content AND collaboration. I learn more from
reading a book and discussing it than just simply reading it.
Content + Collaboration = Learning
(see my post on Search sucks - where's the context?)
So you can see where I'm going to go with this ... Google needs to add a way to
explicitly rate the content (Google's PageRank implicitly ranks the popularity of a web
page) and Google needs to add a way for people to add comments to the web page
links that result from a search query.
"Who creates it? Who maintains it?"
Easy. Those who use Google. They have the option to rate the pages and the option
to leave a comment. Google has a large enough (massive) user base to make this
work. Think of this as a 'people filter'.
This ability to connect people to people through content I think is critical. I often go to
Amazon.com and read the book reviews for I what to know what actual people think of
the content. Those that have validated identities I trust more than those that don't. A
search is not always going to give me the answer I am looking for - this approach
gives me the option to tap into the collective knowledge of other users.
Content is so Web 1.0; People is Web 2.0. (grin) Google has the opportunity to start
connecting people to people - let's see if they will take advantage of it.
Is this the poor man's version of Jay Cross' workflow learning? What do you think - is
Sunday, October Navigating the Lag of Death
30, 2005
Technology is always, at best, two steps forward, one step back. But the more
comfortable you are with the technology, the more you can take advantage of the good
and mitigate the bad (although too much comfort can blind you to the bad, but that's
another point).
One of the trickiest parts of producing a learning program is to navigate what I will call
the lag of death. This is the difference (or delta, if I am feeling insecure) between the
comfort level of learning program sponsors and learning program users.
Typically, the less mature technology people have a greater comfort in short term
predictability, command and control, processes, certification, ease of use, eveness of
distribution, and risk mitigation. The more mature technology people have a greater
belief in communities, engagement, richness of experience, and short term chaos
leading to long term order, uneven distribution, and person responsibility.
Navigating this lag of death is tricky, high stakes, and critical. But it increasingly has to
be done if we are to thrive.
* note: this chart is a back-of-the-napkin sketch, more thematic than specific. I look
forward to enriching it based on the comments of others.
Coding Frequencies
Code
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling
2 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
Reflecting
Reflecting
Asking question
1 0 2 0 0
Reflecting
Mentoring
Examples
Mentoring
Examples
1 0 1 0 0
Mentoring/Reflec
ting/Examples
Advertising
2 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Example
Reflecting
Example 2 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Example
Reflecting
Example 2 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Example
Reflecting
0 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
0 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
0 0 3 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
Constructive
Criticism
Mentoring
0 0 0 0 0
Example
1 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Reflecting 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
Defaming
Reflecting
1 0 2 0 0
Reflecting
Mentoring
Mentoring
Mentoring 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
Example
0 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
Examples
Question to
reader
0 0 1 0 0
Examples
Mentoring
Examples
0 0 3 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
Mentoring
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
0 0 1 0 0
Advertising
Mentoring by
providing link;
invitation;
adding context:
persuation
asks reader to
reflect on their
experiences
opinion
asks for a
response from
the reader
1 0 0 0 0
Advertising;
working
example;
influenced by
another blog
which blogger
reads;
Constructive
Criticism
Opinion
Reflecting
2 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Definition
Reflecting
Definition
Definition
Research 0 0 0 0 0
Statistics
Opinion
Advertising 1 0 1 0 0
Opinion
Reflecting
Mentoring
Mentoring 0 0 2 0 0
Advertising
Mentoring
Soliciting
Feedback
0 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Research
Example
Mentoring
Example
1 0 1 0 0
Context
Reflecting
Research
Example
Attention
Grabber
Research
Examples
Research
Mentoring
0 0 0 0 0
Question
Collaboration
with reader
Recruiting
0 0 0 0 0
Analogy/example
Analogy
8 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Reflecting
Opinion
Opinion
Opinion
Reflecting
Reflecting
Opinion
0 0 0 0 0
Question
0 1 1 0 0
Attention
Grabber
Mentoring
Research
Problem-Solving
Research 0 1 1 0 0
Mentoring
Application of
Problem Solving
Example
Examples 0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring 0 1 1 0 0
Application of
Problem Solving
Definition
0 0 0 0 0
Opinion
0 0 0 0 0
Asking the
reader
Attention
Grabber
Mentoring 1 0 1 0 0
Far Transfer
Reflecting
Asking reader 0 0 0 0 0
question
0 0 0 0 0
Example
Advertising
Research 0 0 0 0 0
Example
Example
0 0 1 0 0
Defamation
Mentoring
Opinion
Idea 1 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Example
Asking the
reader
2 0 1 0 0
Opinion
Reflecting Far
Transfer
Presenting
Research
Mentoring
Far Transfer
0 0 1 0 0
Opinion
Research
Mentoring
Statistic
Example
Opinion 2 0 0 0 0
Opinion
Asking the
reader
1 0 1 0 0
Reflecting
Mentoring
1 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Definition
Negative 1 0 1 0 0
Criticism
Refelcting
Mentoring
Reflecting 1 0 0 0 0
Analogy
Opinion 2 0 0 0 0
Opinion
0 0 0 0 0
Advertising
Defaming
0 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
Statistic
Question to 0 0 0 0 0
reader
1 0 0 0 0
Examples
Example
Analogy
Reflecting
1 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
Reflecting
Opinion 2 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
2 0 0 1 0
Clarification
Opinion
Reflecting
Opinion 1 0 0 0 0
Mentoring 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 1 0
Context
Advertising
Mentoring
Statistics
Examples
1 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Mentoring
Example
Reflecting
Mentoring 0 0 2 0 0
Mentoring
Research
Reflecting 1 0 1 0 0
Mentoring
0 1 0 1 0
Context
Problem Solving
Question to
audience
1 1 0 0 0
Problem
Reflecting
Examples
Question to
audience
0 0 0 0 0
Personal Fact
Example
Example
Example
Question to 0 0 0 0 0
audience
Reflecting
Example
Question to
audience
Reflecting
Quote
Question to
audience
Philosophical
2 0 1 0 0
Reflecting
Personal
Example
Analogy
Mentoring
Ask question
Reflecting
Asking the
reader
2 0 2 1 0
Opinion
Reflecting
Talks about short
coming of tool
Advertising
Definition
Mentoring
Advertising
Constructive
Criticism
Opinion 6 0 0 0 0
Reflecting
Idea
Reflecting
Opinion
Idea
Asking reader
0 0 3 0 0
Advice
Mentoring
Mentoring
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling
59 5 57 4 0
Reflecting Problem-Solving Mentoring Explanation Story Telling
19.16% 1.62% 18.51% 1.30% 0.00%
Learning Circuits Co
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
Coding Frequencies
Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 2 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 2 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 2 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 3 0 0 0 0
0 2 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base
10 54 0 3 4 0
Advertising Asking for Response Trade Secret Defaming Criticism Knowledge Base
3.25% 17.53% 0.00% 0.97% 1.30% 0.00%
Learning Circuits Coding Frequencies
KeyWord Cou
Examples Definition Research Learn Think Tip Note Realize Explain
8 3 0 0 1 0
2 10 0 0 1 0 0
1
1 42 0 0 0 0
2
2
0 20 0 0 1 0
0
0
0
0 60 0 0 0 0
1
0 10 1 0 0 0
0
0 20 0 0 0 0
0 12 0 0 0 0
0
1 00 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 00 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 10 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 11 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 00 0 0 0 0
0 3 0 40 0 1 0 0 0
0 0 2
0 0 0
0 0 0
2 0 1 00 0 1 0 0
2 0 3 60 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
2 0 0
0 0 0 60 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 1 12 0 0 0 0 3
1 0 1
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 50 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
1 0 0 20 0 0 2 0
2 0 1
0 0 0
1 0 0
0 0 1 80 0 0 0 0
1 0 2
0 0 0
0 0 0 20 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 10 0 0 0 1 0
0 0 0
1 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 50 0 0 1 0
0 0 1
0 0 0
3 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
00 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
1 0 1 20 0 1 0 0
1 0 0
0 0 1
0 0 0
0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 30 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 30 0 0 0 0
1 0 0
2 0 0 00 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 90 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 30 0 1 0 0
Examples Definition Research Learn Think Tip Note Realize Explain
40 5 15 158 8 2 4 7 3
Examples Definition Research
12.99% 1.62% 4.87%
Learning Circu
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
KeyWord Count
Solution Solve Approach Advice Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Solution Solve Approach Advice Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy
13 5 7 1 1 1 0 0 0
Learning Circuit's Key Word Frequencies
# of Words in Blog # of Paragraph in # of questions asked that # of links in a
Entry Blog Entry receive an answer (comments) blog
148 11 5 2
427 9 0 1
744 14 11 1
810 17 18 0
309 8 3 0
338 15 2 1
174 8 5 0
307 5 2 0
138 5 0 1
135 4 1 1
118 3 0 1
511 28 10 0
32 2 2 2
182 5 0 1
187 7 3 2
821 14 5 3
111 2 1 2
542 8 4 1
497 7 1 1
787 24 1 2
422 4 4 8
911 14 0 0
591 11 1 0
224 7 0 0
796 6 6 0
360 6 8 4
668 6 0 1
20 2 0 0
484 5 2 0
700 14 0 15
123 5 6 0
173 6 10 2
409 6 3 2
270 6 2 0
508 10 8 6
200 4 10 0
14177 308 134 60
Blog:
URL:
Author:
Author # of questions asked that
Week Day Time Date Entrees/ Day
receive an answer
1 Thursday Afternoon 1:16 PM 1-Sep-05 1 Clark Quinn 5
2 Saturday Morning 8:12 AM 3-Sep-05 1 Clark Aldrich 0
3 Monday Morning 7:36 AM 5-Sep-05 1 Alan 11
4 Tuesday Evening 7:22 PM 6-Sep-05 1 David Grebow 18
5 Saturday Afternoon 4:05 PM 17-Sep-05 1 Donald Clark 3
6 Tuesday Early Morning 5:43 AM 20-Sep-05 2 Clark Aldrich 2
7 Tuesday Afternoon 12:09 PM Clark Aldrich 5
8 Sunday Morning 9:22 AM 25-Sep-05 1 Clark Aldrich 2
9 Wednesday Early Morning 5:08 AM 28-Sep-05 4 Clark Aldrich 0
10 Wednesday Early Morning 5:17 AM Clark Aldrich 1
11 Wednesday Early Morning 5:19 AM Clark Aldrich 0
12 Wednesday Morning 9:42 AM Dave Lee 10
13 Friday Afternoon 2:24 PM 30-Sep-05 1 Alan 2
14 Tuesday Afternoon 1:16 PM 4-Oct-05 3 Clark Aldrich 0
15 Tuesday Afternoon 2:20 PM Dave Lee 3
4-Oct-05 3
16 Tuesday Afternoon 5:16 PM David Grebow 5
17 Wednesday Evening 9:56 PM 5-Oct-05 1 Richard 1
18 Friday Morning 8:32 AM 7-Oct-05 2 David Grebow 4
19 Friday Afternoon 4:36 PM Jay 1
20 Sunday Afternoon 12:09 PM 9-Oct-05 1 Donald Clark 1
21 Tuesday Early Morning 5:40 AM 11-Oct-05 3 Mark 4
22 Tuesday Afternoon 12:29 PM David Coleman 0
23 Tuesday Afternoon 2:48 PM David Coleman 1
24 Wednesday Early Morning 5:25 AM 12-Oct-05 3 Clark Aldrich 0
25 Wednesday Afternoon 2:22 PM Ben Watson 6
26 Wednesday Afternoon 2:22 PM Ben Watson 8
27 Saturday Morning 8:46 AM 15-Oct-05 1 Clark Aldrich 0
28 Wednesday Evening 7:52 PM 19-Oct-05 1 Richard 0
29 Thursday Early Morning 2:59 AM 20-Oct-05 1 Peter Isackson 2
30 Sunday Evening 8:24 PM 23-Oct-05 1 Donald Clark 0
31 Monday Early Morning 5:06 AM 24-Oct-05 1 Clark Aldrich 6
32 Tuesday Early Morning 6:44 AM 25-Oct-05 1 Clark Aldrich 10
33 Thursday Evening 5:49 PM 27-Oct-05 1 David Grebow 3
34 Friday Afternoon 3:40 PM 28-Oct-05 1 Tom 2
35 Saturday Morning 7:02 AM 29-Oct-05 1 Ben Watson 8
36 Sunday Early Morning 5:30 AM 30-Oct-05 1 Clark Aldrich 10
Average Entrees Clark Aldrich 13
Monday 2 September: 13 1.44 Early Morning (> 7 am) 10 27.78% David Grebow 4
entrees
Tuesday 10 October: 23 Morning (7 -12 pm) 7 19.44% Donald Clark 3
entrees
Wednesday 9 Afternoon (12 - 6 pm) 14 38.89% Ben Watson 3
Thursday 3 Total: 36 Evening (6-12 am) 5 13.89% David Coleman 2
Friday 4 Alan 2
Saturday 4 Dave Lee 2
Sunday 4 Richard 2
Jay 1
Mark 1
Entries Per Week Day Entries per Time of Day Peter Isackson 1
Tom 1
Number of Entries
Number of Entries
15 Clark Quinn 1
12
10
8 10
6
4 Entries Per Author (Sept. + Oct.)
2 5
0
0
Early Morning Morning (7 -12 Afternoon (12 - 6 Evening (6-12 14
(> 7 am) pm) pm) am)
12
Number of Entrees
10
Entries per Date
8
Number of Entries
5
6
4
3
2 4
1
0
2
0
Per Author (Sept. + Oct.)
Problem- Asking for Trade
Reflecting Solving Mentoring Explanation Advertising Response Secret
Articulate 0.75% 4.48% 8.96% 5.97% 18.66% 2.99% 0.75%
Sun Microsystems 6.19% 0.00% 2.65% 2.65% 15.04% 0.00% 0.00%
Learning Circuits 19.16% 1.62% 18.51% 1.30% 3.25% 17.53% 0%
Articulate vs. Sun Coding Frequencies
20.00%
18.00%
16.00%
14.00%
12.00% Articulate
10.00%
8.00% Sun Microsystems
6.00%
4.00%
2.00% Knowledge…
Problem-…
Asking for…
0.00%
Defaming
Reflecting
Explanation
Advertising
Criticism
Mentoring
Story Telling
Trade Secret
Knowledge Story
Base Telling Defaming Criticism Example Definitions Research Learn
1.49% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.77%
0.00% 0.00% 5.31% 6.19% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.02%
0% 0% 0.97% 1.30% 12.99% 1.62% 4.87%
Think Tip Note Realize Explain Solution Solve Approach Advice
0.00% 0.12% 0.03% 0.00% 0.00% 0.15% 0.09% 0.03% 0.00%
0.06% 0.00% 0.00% 0.02% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Articulate vs Sun vs Learning Circuit
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
Legal Suit Termination Guidelines Policy
0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
0.02% 0.04% 0.00% 0.00% 0.04%
Learning Circuits
Articulate
Sun Microsystems
Learning Circuits