118 - Bandwidth in My Hotel Room...YIPES!; First Graduate Course on the Business of Learning

1. Bandwidth in My Hotel Room... YIPES!: It had to happen. After writing
several items in Trends about the frustrations of logging in as a road
warrior, I finally got delighted to the max. I recently stayed at the
Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto, CA. As I checked in, the front desk asked
if I wanted to have a T1 connection in my room. I was shocked and awaited
the fee quotation. "It is free! Here is a PC Card and cord to connect to
the Ethernet port right in your room." After just a few minutes of set-up,
I was connected at full T1 speed. Great service, provided by the "Guest
Connect" service. How long until the service is available throughout the
country. Thumbs up to Garden Court Hotel!

2. First Graduate Course on the Business of Learning: Stanford Graduate
School of Business has stated a new on-campus course that reflects the
growth of the segment of learning. "New Business Opportunities in Education
and Training" is a semester long course aimed at helping MBA candidates
understand the economics of the exploding learning marketplace. Take a
look at the curriculum in this class at their web site:
http://www.stanford.edu/~swood/G345/outline.html

While on the subject, we are proud to announce the Business and Investing in
Learning & Training Symposium @ TechLearn '99. It will be led by myself and
Howard Block (Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst of Education
Services, NationsBanc Montgomery Securities) . We are very excited about
bringing together the key investors, business leaders and the learning
professionals in a frank dialogue about the investment opportunity in
learning. This topic is of interest to organizations making learning
technology decisions and needing to place the survival probabilities of
various companies into perspective. (Over 1,095 attendees registered -
Orlando - Oct 31 to Nov 3 - www.techlearn.com for details)

3. A Great Book: Leader to Leader: Here is a great book for anyone
interested in getting a broad set of perspectives on the changing roles of
leadership. "Leader to Leader" is edited by Frances Hesselbein and Paul
Cohen and published by the Drucker Foundation. I would head towards one of
the on-line book services (www.amazon.com or www.borders.com) and order a
copy ASAP. Mini-chapters from dozens of great thinkers in the business
world and lots of application to the training and learning profession.

4. Learning Quotation: Winston Churchill

"Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I don't always like being
taught."
- Winston Churchill

5. Levels of Difficulty: Language of Complexity. We know that one of the
criteria that learners use to consider various learning experiences is the
level of difficulty or challenge. We avoid learning experiences where we
think we might fail. Likewise, we don't want to have learning experiences
that may be too easy. While we know how to articulate the content or
experience pre-requisites, we lack a terminology to describe the level of
difficulty or intensity of challenge. We would be interested in hearing
from TechLearn Trends readers on this topic. How do you describe the varied
level of difficulty or challenge (or terms you think you would like to start
to use)? Send me a note to emasie@masie.com and we will post a summary in a
few weeks.

UPDATE on Learning Decisions '99: We are four weeks away from this new
retreat for learning officers and managers. We are pleased to announce that
we will feature two companies as "under the hood" case studies at Learning
Decisions '99. Chase Manhattan Bank and Anheuser-Busch are both doing
exciting projects that are Aligning Learning and Business. We will
interview learning leaders from these two companies to take an up-close look
at how they are coping with one of our key Learning Decisions. There are
only 65 seats left at Learning Decisions '99 - May 12 to 14 in Las Vegas.
Details at http://www.masie.com/decisions/