103 - Anatomy of an On-Line Lecture

1. Anatomy of an On-Line Lecture: From New York to Singapore - Last evening at 10:45 pm, I found myself giving a speech in an empty office. I was delivering the keynote address to a conference of 500 senior military and government officials attending a conference on learning in Singapore. People have often asked about the logistics and planning process for a video-conference keynote, so I thought that I would share a few observations from this speech.

* Preparation: The level of preparation for a speech like this is a lot higher than most in-person sessions. First, one has to make sure that the technology will work. We used dial up Video-Conference, bonding 3 ISDN lines from Singapore to our lab in Saratoga Springs, New York. This gave us a very acceptable 30 frames per second connection. Even though we use video-conferencing several times a month for such events, there is always the fear that the network will not work. (A good fear, given some of the problems we have encountered over the years.) In fact, we made a 20 minute back-up videotape and sent it to our hosts, in case the lines could not connect. Ironically, the lines worked perfectly, but the courier service didn't deliver the emergency videotape.

* Briefing: Next, we had to deal with everyone's visualization of how things would work. There always seems to be more anxiety about these segments than a normal in-person speech. It was great working with our hosts in Singapore. And, we found ourselves having lots of email, phone and video rehearsals to get everything lined up and focused. As I was presenting to a different cultural group, our hosts did a great job of suggesting elements of my presentations that might work or not work outside of the United States. We had a great level of honesty with each other and were able to hone in the presentation to the needs and interests of the group. I had to remember that you never have enough time to cover EVERYTHING and deleted about 40% of my slides to make it more interesting and interactive.

* Getting Pumped: Normally, I get psyched up for a presentation when I start to see the audience come into the room. Here I had to handle the psyche up differently. I actually decided to load up my brain with the setting. Went to dinner at a local Asian restaurant, looked a collection of pictures from a previous visit to Singapore and even went on the internet and looked up the weather and local news from the destination city. Then, I saw a link to a Real Audio live feed from Singapore's radio stations and listened to the Mandarin Top 20 music countdown over the net.

* Instructional Design: I had done my scope and sequence of topics to discuss. Now, the really important aspect of instructional design - selecting the mix of learning activities and supporting technologies to make this a high energy vs.. boring lecture distance learning experience. My goal was to have a different visual every 3 minutes and to change the format of my presentation several times during the presentation. Here were some of the items we used during the speech:

- 5 PowerPoint Slides, each with only 2 sentences on each one. I try to DECREASE the amount of text to use the slides as a PROMPT rather than a content delivery tool.
- Two camera shots of myself. We get spoiled during professional sports, where the camera angle switches every few seconds. While I could not handle that level of diversity, I did set two pre-set camera zoom levels, to give the audience some diversity viewing.
- Three hand raising polls. I love to ask audiences to vote quickly, with their hands, on a number of topics. Since we were focusing on distance learning, I asked a question about how long they would stay on a web page that loaded slowly or was boring. As you might suspect, there was great agreement and laughter about how learners in the digital age are only one mouse click away from leaving.
- Two discussion moments. Twice, I asked the audience to turn to their neighbor and have a 30 second discussion. While most folks don't think this will work over video-conferencing, it has always given a great sense of energy to my keynotes delivered over a distance.
- Still Picture. I used a picture of General Colin Powell from our recent TechLearn Conference to help tell a story about his stint as a trainer in the military. It gave a 30 second view of another person and helped with the power of that story.
- Resources on Web. I built a specialized website for this speech, with hundreds of links and resources. This lets folks relax about the time limitation and even reduces their need to take notes. It allows the video portion to be more relaxed and serve to launch a larger set of learnings on-line.
- Web Content. I decided to play 30 seconds of the Singapore Radio Station that I had been listening to prior to the speech. When they heard the Mandarin announcer from 93.3 FM, the audience felt a connection and a lightness was added to the air.
- Questions. Our hosts did a great job of positioning microphones and camera angles to allow for audience questions. We reserved about 15 minutes after the speech for audience questions and it added a great deal to the sense of being able to "drill down" to the content that was hot for the learners.

* Decisions Made: Trainers are always making decisions. In this instance, decisions were made prior to the presentation and I made several adjustments right before my segment. My hosts in Singapore did a great job of letting me listen and watch 2 speakers before my keynote. I tied them into the presentation and even changed one of my slides at the last minute to not replicate a speaker that had done a great job of covering a topic I was planning to address. Cut! That gave more time for the remainder of the presentation. During the presentation, I looked at how the audience was responding and added a number of last minute points and even one activity, based on their positive response to the more interactive elements.

* Learnings: I am always struck by how much energy it takes to do a presentation over distance. You put out a large amount of energy to project your excitement about content. In addition, I was producing my own presentation, by selecting buttons and clicking the mouse on my laptop. This added another element of focus. Yet, it always pays off. I saved 28 hours of travel for a 40 minute speech, I saved our hosts a lot of money and it actually helped us to "walk the talk" about the power of technology assisted learning. If you are going to give a speech using these technologies remember that it will take lots of prep and keep your sense of humor about the process. We are all breaking new ground as we create a model of accessing expertise from afar....we better keep our humanity and lexibility in the process.

If you are interested in how they are using learning and technology, the URL for the Ministry of Defence, Singapore is http://www.mindef.gov.sg/ and their IT department is http://www.sco.mindef.gov.sg/

2. Impressions from the Training Marketplace: I just returned from the latest training trade show in Chicago and had a number of impressions of what's hot and what's emerging in the marketplace:

- Tools Galore: There were dozens of new tools for delivering on-line learning. These ranged from large scale enterprise wide systems to smaller training delivery packages. The blend of synchronous and asynchronous methods is seen emerging in the tool marketplace.
- Content Coming Slower: While there were a few new content companies on the trade show floor, there is still a gap between the buyer's demands for lots of off-the-shelf on-line learning training content and the size of the offerings. Only the IT space has emerging competition, while the other content silos are still pretty empty. Watch for more by time we get to TechLearn in late October.
- Strategic Relationships Everywhere: There were so many strategic relationships that it felt almost overwhelming to track. Everyone is working with everyone to show that they can do everything and anything. As we get more standards, the interoperability of content may be easier to track.
- Technology New to Training: It was a bit sad to see a number of technology groups that were coming into the training marketplace quite unprepared. I went to one new vendor and asked them about instructional design issues and they said they outsourced all of their design to leading edge programmers. The sales person didn't have a clue! Training is seen as a hot vertical market for technology players...but let's help them remember to do their homework about the art and science of learning.
- What's Missing?: I didn't see many exciting approaches to "Community Building". I know there are a number of projects in the pipeline, but there weren't any knock your socks off models of learner engagement. Also, didn't see many templates aimed at the high volume topics, such as Employee Orientation or Effective Selling. Templates will allow localization of 3rd party content.

If you are a supplier or developer in this marketplace, be sure to check out our upcoming Business of On-Line Learning Conference in Seattle in early March. Go to http://www.masie.com for details.

3. Asymetrix Releases New Tool. Last week I was briefed by the folks from Asymetrix on their new authoring tool, Toolbook II 7.0 This upgrade makes a shift to the use of DHTML (Dynamic HTML) and Javascript even for the non-programmer. There are new templates and instructional format assistance embedded in this tool. It is in beta now and will be released in the weeks ahead. Check it out at http://www.asymetrix.com

4. More Strategic Relationships in the Field. Talking of strategic relationships, two major partnerships were announced in the last 10 days by big players in the virtual classroom marketplace. Centra Software and PricewaterhouseCoopers announced a deployment alliance. ILINC and ExecuTrain announced a partnership to delivery IT training via on-line learning. Check out http://www.centra.com or http://www.ilinc.com for more details.

5. Skills for On-Line Trainers Class to Chicago in April. The MASIE Center is proud to announce that we are bringing our popular Skills for On-Line Trainers to the Chicago area on April 26 and 27, 1999. Check http://www.masie.com for details.

104 - Blackboard Offers Free On-Line Authoring and Hosting; Audiographic Briefing Reflections

1. Blackboard Offers Free On-Line Authoring and Hosting. One of the best ways of understanding the evolving world of on-line learning is to try your hand at authoring and teaching. Here is a cool way to get started. Blackboard, an on-line teaching systems group, is offering 120 days of free hosting of a class. They have a great set of tools that you can use to create content, design assessments and manage all learner activity. Go to http://classroom.blackboard.net to access this offer. I pointed a group of training managers to this site and they built prototype classes and then took each others. It was a wonderful way for them to taste a range of on-line classes. Boardwalk sells a server version at $5,000.

2. Audiographic Briefing Reflections. Two days ago, I presented a briefing for MCI-Worldcom on the Human Dimensions of Y2K. They had about 300 senior IT managers and Y2K coordinators sign up for this one hour session. We used Lotus/Databeam's Far Site tool to provide the participants with a view of our PowerPoint slides. This tool allows for one to many viewing of slides. Here were some of the observations of this model:

- One to Many Model: We were not attempting to have a virtual classroom, with lots of learner interactions. Rather our model was a virtual lecturehall. This was actually a strength. The learners received the audio portion over a telephone conference call to an audio bridge at MCI-Worldcom. They had the option of hitting a website and viewing a window displaying a single PowerPoint slide. This model allowed the learner to participate with a range of settings. There was no learning curve for the user, since they did not need to master a wide range of functions. In addition, there wasn't a chat session that could distract the learners from the presentation.

I believe that virtual classrooms are very powerful, but they don't scale to more than 30 or 40. As we move up the size chain, we need to drop the features and shift the metaphor more to a lecture mode. Lectures work... if you have relevant content, good design, shorter segments and opportunities for questions.

- Talk Show Format: MCI added a host for the event. Having a host changes the feel to more of a talk-show. The host welcomed the audience, went over the agenda, introduced myself and another subject matter expert and hosted questions from the field. The talk show model allows you to use experts, regardless of their background as trainers.

- Length: Once again, as we move towards distributed learning, duration has to be challenged. My presentation was 25 minutes and if I were to make the same presentation again, I would have dropped it to 20 minutes. This leaves more time for questions from the audience and interaction between guests.

- Overall Impressions: Based on the dozens of emails that I received after the session, the format worked. About 60% of the participants used the slide viewing option. Quite a few had more than one person listening in a conference room, with the slide show projected for all to see. This was an easy to arrange and highly enjoyable to present in format.

Watch for this type of presentation to become commonplace. As we see more audiographic tools, as Microsoft's NetMeeting is integrated in Office 2000 and as telecom companies bundle conferencing with one to many graphical broadcasting, this model will be a familiar mode of training and knowledge transfer.

3. Request from a Korean TRENDS Reader: We have received this email from Wonyong Cha from Korea. If you can assist please send email to the address below:

"I am a Managing Director of SK Telecom (provides wireless services, PCS, paging, etc), Korea. We would like to do benchmarking study visit to one of AT&T Wireless, AT&T School of Management, Sprint Wireless, Airtouch, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco, Sony in Japan, Singapore Airline, etc. Anyone who knows who is the right contact at those corporations, can you help me to do this visit one of them during 22nd Feb to 26 Feb 1999? The purpose of study visit would be to discuss and/or exchange the current or future training systems or training programs for internal staffs, sales staffs, and further for distributor's staffs or stakeholders staffs. Your help would be highly appreciated. Please contact wycha@nuri.net "

4. Pathlore Releases Phoenix Networks: Pathlore has just announced a new integrated training system, PHOENIX NetWorks, featuring "active content" and rapid team authoring functions. This new version of PHOENIX builds on database architecture, streamlines course development, opens door to new knowledge sources. Check it out at http://www.pathlore.com

5. Busine$$ of On-Line Learning Conference Forecasts Training Futures: It is difficult to close our eyes and visualize what on-line learning will look like three years from now. We will facilitate a unique Future Forecasting dialogue with the executives of the leading learning and technology companies at our upcoming Busine$$ of On-Line Learning Conference to be held in Seattle on March 3 and 4, 1999. Using a blend of audience response systems and dialogues amongst the key executives, we will gather a healthy compilation of possible futures. If you would like to participate in this unique conference, go to http://www.masie.com (there are only 25 seats left). We will publish an abstract of the findings in early April.

Upcoming MASIE Center Events:
- Free TechLearn LIVE! Broadcast - March 17th - www.masie.com/live/ for details
- Skills for On-Line Trainers - April 26 and 27, 1999 - Chicago www.masie.com for details
- TechLearn '99 (912 Registered Already!) October 31 to November 3, 1999 - Orlando - www.techlearn.com for details

105 - On-Line Surrounds for Instructor Led Classes & What Percentage of Learning is Paid vs. Free?

1. On-Line Surrounds for Instructor Led Classes: One of the hottest growth areas in on-line learning is the building of "surrounds" of instructor led classes. A large number of higher education institutions, as well as corporate training groups, are using on-line authoring and delivery systems to build an internet/intranet meeting place for their instructor led classes. These on-line classes are being used to provide community, communication and instructional supplemental material for the faculty run classes. Several universities are now making it a standard for every class to have its own web based content and collaboration equivalent.

There are great signs in this trend. It helps to build learner acceptance and familiarity with the interface of on-line learning. As people get comfortable with this delivery model as an adjunct to instructor led programs, they will also increase their willingness to take pure on-line delivery offerings. It is also a great way to introduce faculty to the process of using on-line authoring tools.

The range of functions include chat, threaded discussion, grade viewing, assignment dispensing, streamed multi-media, assessment tools and the full set of learning options used in other distance learning programs.

2. Learning Decisions '99: We are pleased to announce a brand new and very different event from The MASIE Center. On May 12 to 14th, 285 learning officers, training managers and key executives will gather in Las Vegas for Learning Decisions '99. We will address 3 key decisions facing every organization in their planning for learning and training. This is totally "commercial free zone", where peers will work with peers and leading experts. (e.g.. an afternoon with Secretary Robert Reich on the economics of learning). Attendees will be asked to fill out a short application to make sure the audience is comprised to key decision makers. If you would like to get an information packet and application go to http://www.masie.com/decisions/

3. What Percentage of Learning is Paid vs. Free?: This was one of those late night ponder questions I posed to myself earlier this week. As we change our language from training to learning, what is the implication on people's perception of price value? For the most part, people expect to pay, with hard or soft dollars, for training events. There is a recognition of costs involved in the development and delivery of a training event and it is universally accepted that there will be a charge involved.

What happens when we talk about learning? As I was pondering the issue of pricing of on-line learning content, I thought of my own pattern of using learning resources. During the previous week had I been involved in any learning activities? Sure, lots. Conversations with colleagues, time spent on the internet, reading and even participation in an multi-point collaboration telephone call. Most of the learning that one does during an average week does not have an overt charge. How do we differentiate where the line between on-line content and on-line learning is drawn? What percentage of our learning time will have a meter running? What will be the natural forces at work on pricing on-line training and learning programs? These are key issues. We would love to get your perspectives... Send an email to me at emasie@masie.com

4. 7th Level and Street Technologies Merge: Yesterday we received word of the merger of two players in the learning and technology field. 7th Level and Street Technologies have merged to form 7th STREET.COM

This merger brings together 7th Level's expertise with streamed animation over the internet with Street Technologies model of aggregating content and distributing via channels as broad as AOL, IBM, Gateway and others. The new company will chaired by Donald Schupak from 7th Level and it's president will be Stephen Gott of Street. Their new merged website is http://7thstreet.com and contains a streamed presentation explaining the merger.

5. Changing IT Training Channel Article. If you are interested in some of the changes that are happening in the IT and Computer Training industry and how the channel is changing, check out my recent article in Computer Reseller News at http://www.crn.com/sections/columnist/829/829masie.asp

6. Learning Quote: Yeats

"Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire."
--- WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Upcoming MASIE Center Events (www.masie.com)
- Business of On-Line Learning Conference
- Skills for On-Line Trainers
- TechLearn LIVE Satellite Broadcast
- Learning Decisions '99
- TechLearn '99

106 - IBM Learning Services Launched; Aligning Training with Business Goals

1. Marketplace Wishes Request: Next week, in Seattle, I will be leading a
gathering of 225 business leaders in the on-line learning marketplace. One
of the topics on the agenda is a Learning Marketplace Wish List. Please
expand our list by sending an email to us with your personal Learning
Marketplace Wish List. What learning tools, systems, content or services do
you wish were available on the marketplace? This is your chance to add your
input to the development of the on-line learning and training world. Just
send an email to wishes@masie.com Thanks!

2. IBM Learning Services Launched: IBM is reorganizing its learning and
training efforts into a new group, IBM Learning Services. The group will
offer the broadest range of services that help companies to grow information
technology (IT) skills, contain escalating training costs, and address the
need for rapid employee training to sustain competitive advantage. IBM
Learning Services, formerly IBM education and training, is aggressively
addressing new training requirements through four new strategic initiatives:
expanded curriculum of IT training using distributed learning; advanced
personal computer and server training to support company e-business and
Internet efforts; customized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) training
solutions; and an unparalleled range of services to satisfy workforce
training needs, from assessment to curriculum design and development, to
deployment and training management, all available on a global basis.

Part of this announcement is closer integration of key Lotus offerings by
IBM Learning Services. For example, the authorized curricula for training on
Lotus products, and the collaborative learning software, Lotus LearningSpace
become important elements in the solutions provided through IBM Learning
Services and its partners.

In addition, IBM said it will work with Lucent Technologies to explore ways
to combine their complementary strengths to deliver integrated learning
solutions for customers. For more information on this announcement go to:
http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/

3. Aligning Training with Business Goals: This is one of the hot topics
that keep coming up in conversations with training and learning managers.
The core of this concept is to use the stated business goals of the overall
enterprise or specific business unit as the structure for corporate learning
efforts. For example, as a change in business goals is announced, such as a
move toward greater globalization, the learning and training departments
would immediately move to align along global lines. It drives all the way
to the metrics of success. If the organization measures success by
marketshare of product, one of the metrics of the learning department would
be their contribution to the growth of marketshare. At a recent meeting of
our TechLearn Collaborative, the majority of training managers confirmed
that they were under pressure to carry out this alignment. We will be
addressing this trend in future newsletters.

4. Learning Decisions '99 Application Now On-Line: Our new event for
training and learning decision makers is now available for on-line
applications. Learning Decisions '99 will be held on May 12 to 14, 1999 in
Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference is restricted to training and learning
managers and executives. Each year Learning Decisions will focus on 3 key
questions facing learning departments. The 1999 topics are:

* How to Align Training with Business Objectives?
* What are Effective Economic and Business Models for Learning?
* Developing Corporate Wide Learning Technology Strategies!

The faculty for Learning Decisions '99 include: Secretary of Labor Robert
Reich; Peter Henschel (Institute for Research on Learning); Diane Hessan
(Training Guru and Co-Author of Customer Centered Growth); Becky Aiken (U.S.
Government); Brandon Hall (Training Industry Analyst) and twenty active
learning and training executives. To submit your application, just go to
http://www.masie.com The sessions are limited to 285 participants and we
have already received 120 applications

5. Laws and On-Line Learning? We received the following query from a
Trends Reader, Peter Clements, Informatics CTEC, Manchester - UK:

"In Europe we have noticed that there are some laws emerging which affect on
line training. For instance, in Germany, there is a law that if you do not
register your online training course you could be fined 10,210 euros,
regardless of which country and laws which govern your business. Are there
other such laws governing the deployment of distance learning courses?"

If you can add to this query, please send an email to trends@masie.com

107 - Colleges Tackle Future of On-Line Learning Head-On

1. Colleges Tackle Future of On-Line Learning Head-On: I have the honor
of spending today with the 500 faculty, staff and administrators of Fox
Valley Technical College in Wisconsin. They are an institution targeted
at the employability of the students in their region, offering technical
education programs in 60 topic areas. It is intriguing that they have
made their once-a-year in-service program totally focused on the issue of
using technology in learning. Here are their primary targets, based on
feedback from the faculty:

a) Building resource centers for the classroom based courses of their
students b) Expanding the reach of courses to learners that can't make it
to campus for classes c) Linking with other institutions offering parallel
classes

The faculty are moving as a group to stronger internet content, they have
almost 1,000 computers on the network in labs for students and faculty and
strong interest in deploying content. Today's effort is mainly aimed at
faculty development, to build stronger confidence and vision in the future
of learning with technology. It is great to see support from the words of
their President to Faculty to Staff on this issue. It may be hard to
move institutions into new models, but when groups like this tackle the
future head on, it is inspiring.

2. Learning Quotation: Sandy Koufax: From today's New York Times, thanks
to reader, Robert Gilvey:

"When Sandy Koufax was asked today about his budding relationship with the
Mets' left-hander Al Leiter, the Hall of Fame pitcher replied:'There's an
old saying in teaching:when the pupil is ready, the teacher will show up."

3. Learning Decisions '99 Adds Faculty: We are pleased to announce that
Mark Rosenberg, past president of ISPI and Wayne Hodgins, president of
CEdMA will be joining our Core Faculty at LEARNING DECISIONS '99, along
with Peter Jones from Chase Manhattan and Robert Reich, former Secretary
of Labor. The conference will be held in Las Vegas on May 12 to 14, 1999.

We already have 145 participants and the limit is 285 learning and
training decision makers. For complete information and on-line
applications, please go to http://www.masie.com

4. TechLearn Trends Now Available in Spanish: We are pleased to announce
that a Spanish edition of TechLearn Trends is now available, edited by
INFOTEC from Mexico. If you would like to subscribe to the Spanish
edition, please send an email to spanish@masie.com If you would like to
translate to an additional language, please send an email to
emasie@masie.com Mucho gracias, INFOTEC.

5. Keyboard Macro Program for Trainers: One of the challenges of a
high-volume of emails from learners is responding to email. We have been
using a cool program called Perfect Keyboard. It lets you set up
unlimited macros for use in email and other Windows applications. You
can download a demo at http://www.softwareutilities.com/

108 - MP3 Gadget Demonstrates New Economy of Content; Industry Map from On-Line Learning Business Dialogue

1. MP3 Gadget Demonstrates New Economy of Content: Even though we are
taking a short vacation in Arizona, the yearn for new technology does not
cease. On Sunday night, after reading an article in WIRED Magazine, I
decided I HAD to have a MP3 Player. This is a media format that is causing
big waves in the music industry and is an intriguing "proof of concept" for
an aspect of the On-Line Learning industry.

MP3 is a format for compressing music to be able to get a complete song to 1
Meg or less. I ordered (by overnight courier, of course) a RIO player.
This is a 3 ounce small device (about the size of a small portable AM
radio), that will hold in solid state memory up to a dozen songs and play
them back at CD quality. As soon as the RIO arrived, I moved 4 tracks from
2 of my favorite CD's and downloaded 2 songs from the Net, one for free and
one for a small fee. I transferred them to the RIO and now I had my own
playlist of favorite songs.

What is the impact of MP3? It is shaking up the the security of the
traditional music distribution industry. Bands can now offer one track of a
record for widespread public distribution using MP3 and sell the complete
album over the net. MP3 and the RIO (as well as other players hitting the
market), bring the publishing role to an infinite number of sources. Bands
become distributors and consumers get to buy at a much more granular level
of content.

If the business models of MP3, either as a promotional or actual revenue
generating distribution process, prove out, they bode well for the content
side of the On-Line Learning industry. Content providers want to be able to
sell at the micro-currency level as well as the collection level. Even
Audible.Com, a distributor of audio books over the net has adapted to MP3.
I will be going to their site in a few minutes to download a free sample of
lectures from top colleges as well as a chapter from Steven King's latest
novel. Check out these sites if you want more info:(MP3 Overview and
Information) www.mp3.com - (RIO Player) www.diamondmm.com - and
(Audible.Com) www.audible.com

One cool aspect about the RIO is that you can walk or jog with it and it
will never skip a beat, since all of the content is stored in Flash Memory.
Not bad on the treadmill!

2. Industry Map from On-Line Learning Business Dialogue: The On-Line
Learning industry is evolving at a rapid and explosive pace. Last week, we
had 225 of the business leaders from this segment at a dialogue in Seattle,
Washington. Here is one of the outcomes of the event. We put together a
"map" of the marketplace to show where the various products and services fit
together. To see this map, go to http://www.masie.com/map/ We will be
updating this map, with links to various players in the industry in the next
several months. The next gathering of the business leaders will be at a
one day pre-conference event @ TechLearn '99 (October 31 to November 3rd)

3. Learning Quotation: Kevin Kelly -

"To discover what is really happening in the Digital Economy, follow the
free. Follow the trends towards things that are approaching FREE in price.
Then, figure out what is essential and missing ... that will have the value.
In learning, content may approach FREE, but relationship and mentoring may
be highest priced and valued element."
Kevin Kelly (paraphrased) at Business of On-Line Learning Conference

4. Free Satellite and Internet Broadcast - March 17th - St. Patrick's Day.
Next week, over 18,000 learning and training professionals will be taking
part in our semi-annual free broadcast: TechLearn :LIVE! It will be
broadcast over several satellites and also available to be streamed via the
internet. There are regional meetings taking place around North America to
view this broadcast. The topics will be: Reinventing Training; Training
Careers in the Digital Age and Aligning Training and Business. I will be
providing a tips seminar on careers and will be joined in the broadcast by
Diane Hessan, Mike Parmentier and Wayne Hodgins. We will be fielding
questions and topics from the audience, via fax and email. The broadcast
will occur on Wednesday, March 17th between 1 and 3 PM Eastern Time. As
always, TechLearn LIVE! is a free service from The MASIE Center. Details at
http://www.masie.com/live/

5. The Role of Verbalization in Learning?: We are wondering what the role
of verbalization is in the learning process. David and Roger Johnson, from
the University of Minnesota, have done a great deal of research on the
importance of learners verbalizing newly gained information and content, as
part of the internalization process. We would love to hear from TechLearn
Readers about their views on this. If we are learning alone, is typing
enough? Do we need to verbalize? Send your thoughts, comments or even
rants to emasie@masie.com We will summarize them in a future Trends.
Thanks.

Upcoming MASIE Center Events:
Learning Decisions '99: An Executive Retreat for Training Executives - May
12 -14, 1999 (Las Vegas, Nevada) www.masie.com
TechLearn '99 (October 31 to November 3, 1999 - Orlando, Florida)
www.techlearn.com

109 - Microsoft Invests in audible.com; learnativity.com a Jewel of Resources

1. Reader Comments on Verbalization Pour In: Perhaps it was the topic,
but we have never had as large a response to an item in TechLearn Trends
as my recent blurb on verbalization. I am fascinated about the role of
talking in learning...and what it may mean to technology delivered
learning. We have had over 90 responses and more seem to be popping into
my mailbox. Thought we would share a few with you and we will build a
larger summary next week and post it on the web.

>From Beth Sweetlandbaily, Aetna
Hi Elliott! I'm part of a small project team of educators providing
leadership and brand awareness training to our financial services
employees.

Re the need to verbalize in learning... I think that this IS a critical
component of learning, particularly for extraverted work team members. By
extraverted I mean those individual who receive essential
stimulation/energy from others. Their introverted counterparts may not
always require the same level of interaction.

Several of my team members and I are Myers Briggs Type Indicator Qualified
Professionals. We find the personality preference theories, and
application critical to our job as training consultants.

Another reason why verbalization is a key component to effective learning
is that it forces individuals to test assumptions they are making. That
never hurts!

>From Paul Brown, IBM Learning Services
There is no question that at least for me, verbalization is a key part of
the internalization process. Just ask any of my co-workers. Whenever we
are in a learning situation together (either formal or informal (e.g. a
meeting)), I am known for fairly extended monologues, and your message in
TechLearn Trends explains it. That is exactly what I am doing - verbally
sifting and sorting what I've just heard, putting it into context with
what I already know, rephrasing what I've heard to confirm correct
understanding.

I find it an extremely powerful tool, but hadn't realized until now why I
do it. It's interesting, because many people consider me very quiet. But
with some people, you can't shut me up. The reason is simply that with
those people, I feel comfortable with exploring ideas and advancing those
ideas by bouncing new thoughts off of others.

2 Microsoft Invests in audible.com - Convergence of Devices Ahead:
Yesterday, Microsoft announced a major investment in audible.com. We
wrote about audible in the last Trends, focusing on their service of
selling audio objects of lectures, news and other information. Microsoft
is working with Audible to create the capacity to play audio content on
the Windows CE portable devices. Watch for the convergence of the hand
held computer (PIM), cell phone and audio content player. What a boom
for on-the-go learning (OTG). :)

3. learnativity.com a Jewel of Resources. A great source of resources on
the changing world of learning is a web site maintained by Wayne Hodgins
and Marcia Conner. Wayne is the leading figure in the world of learning
standards and works at AutoDesk. Marcia has been the force behind the
Training FAQ List and works at PeopleSoft. Bookmark this site, I visit it
every day or two: http://www.learnativity.com

4. Learning Decisions to Explore Chargeback Issues: The issue of charging
back to business units for learning and training activities is a key
topic. Are chargebacks actually a tax that lowers the incentive for
accessing learning services? How do organizations differ in their
approaches to allocating learning costs to business units or projects.
These will be tackled head on at Learning Decisions '99, our new Executive
Retreat for Training Executives to be held in Las Vegas, May 12 to 14,
1999.

We are honored to have accepted over 125 learning officers and directors
from companies including: Lucent, NCR, Sherwin Williams, Lockheed,
McDonalds, Anheuser-Busch, Intel, American Century, Chase Manhattan,
Compaq, The Limited and many more). Space is limited to 285 and
attendance is by application only. Full details at
http://www.masie.com/decisions/

110 - MyFamily.Com Creates Free Communities for Contact and Collaboration; Army Extends Computer Based Training Offerings to Force

1. MyFamily.Com Creates Free Communities for Contact and Collaboration:
Check out a new free site where families or other groups can create
communities of contact, collaboration and even learning. Go to
www.myfamily.com and you can create a private site for your extended family.
Give access to each member of the family and they can access a private site
with a shared family calendar, picture album, family tree, announcements,
private scheduled or impromptu chats and even a filtered search engine of
the net. There are connections to e-commerce site, which is their economic
model, but the links are mild and the features are great. You could also
use this for a study group or professional collaboration group. Check it
out!

2. Army Extends Computer Based Training Offerings to Force: Yesterday, I
was at FOSE, leading a key session for Federal Training Managers, with
representatives from the White House, Vice President Gore's NPR, ADL and
ALX. The group focused on the need to use the Federal Government as a
powerful customer to support innovations in the field of learning and
technology. We will have a special track at TechLearn '99
(www.techlearn.com) entitled Government & Military Learning @ TechLearn
'99/.

At FOSE, the Federal Government Computer show that sponsored this meeting, a
number of announcements were made in the training segment. CBT Systems
announced they were awarded a $1 Million dollar contract with the U.S. Army
that provides 500,000 Army personnel worldwide with just-in-time access to
CBT Systems' library of 750 titles using web access software.

3. Learning Quotation - Judy Finnel

"Let's not get caught up in on-line learning fever and forget that the
majority of training is still being done by dedicated trainers in classrooms
filled with learners. Position on-line learning as an extension of
classroom training, remembering to provide focus, support and recognition
for classroom trainers as we move into a new era. If we don't, we will
loose our best trainers!"
Judy Finnel, CFS, Inc - Training Manager

4. Las Vegas Trip Report - Learning Decisions: I spent a very busy 12 hours
in Las Vegas on Saturday, doing a field visit for our upcoming Learning
Decisions '99 retreat for training and learning executives. We are going to
be one of the first groups to use the brand new Venetian Hotel, an amazing
conference facility that is being built by the former owner of COMDEX. I
donned a hard hat and walked the property and checked out the final phases
of construction. With their background in technology, they are building a
very high tech hotel of conference attendees. A special laptop safe in
every room, a printer in every room and a third data line for access. And,
while there is a casino in the lobby, it is far from the focus of the
property. The theme is a reconstruction of Italy, along with a working
gondola canal and awesome art and sculpture.

We have 62% of the spaces filled at Learning Decisions '99. Learning
executives from Lucent, NCR, Wal-Mart, CIA, Chase Manhattan, Anheuser Busch,
Amazon.Com, US Air, Ernst & Young and more than 100 other leading
organizations. There is a limit of 285 attendees and it is limited to
internal training executives. Complete details are at
http://www.masie.com/decisions/ We are honored to add Marc Rosenberg and
David Vaughn to our faculty resources at Learning Decisions '99. (By the
way, it was the night of the so-called fight on pay TV. I never saw more
disappointed sports fans as I did when the fight was called a draw.)

5. On-Line Learning Business Trends Article: If you would like to check out
an article about current business trends in on-line learning industry, go to
the Computer Reseller News site and read my latest article on standards,
consolidation, content and new players:
http://www.crn.com/sections/columnist/833/833masie.asp

6. Ken Dychtwald - Learning Throughout Age Curve: There is all too much
focus on the younger generation of workers as forces of change. Let's not
forget that we have an enormous population of learners that are in the
forties, fifties and sixties. What about their needs and changing learning
profiles. Here is a provocative quote from Ken Dychtwald, the leading
thinker in the new conversation on the "Age Wave" (Ken will be a featured
Keynote Speaker at TechLearn '99):

"By 2020, the traditional 'linear life' paradigm in which people migrate
through education, then work, then leisure/retirement, will be replaced by a
new 'cyclic life' paradigm in which education, work and leisure are
interspersed repeatedly throughout the life span. It will become 'normal'
for 50-year-olds to go back to school and for 70-year-olds to start new
careers."

"Phased retirements, part-time and flex-time work and 'rehirements' will
become common options for mature men and women who either need or want to
keep working."

"In the years and decades to come, tens of millions of outspoken, long-lived
men and women will force a redefinition of the purpose and arrangement of
work in our lives. You can already see the tip of this iceberg with the
growing popularity of sabbaticals, phased retirement programs, flextime, job
banks, and career-transition retraining programs geared to older workers."

You will have a chance to dialogue with Ken about the needs of the older
workers in our workforce at TechLearn '99 http://www.masie.com

7. Reminder: FREE Internet and Satellite Broadcast Tomorrow: At 1 PM to 3
PM Eastern Time, we will be hosting the next free TechLearn LIVE Broadcast,
with almost 20,000 viewers scheduled. Guests, topics and viewing
instructions are at http://www.masie.com/live/ If you would like to submit
questions for the panel, please send them to me at live@techlearn.com Send
some early ones so that we can integrate them into the broadcast.

111 - TeckChek: Vendor Independent Proficiency Tests & AccessAmerica: Technology for Reinventing Government

1. TeckChek: Vendor Independent Proficiency Tests: Take a look at the new
offerings from TeckChek, a vendor independent supplier of proficiency and
skills testing in the IT field. TechCheck is a Knowledge Universe company
that has over 100 different tests focused on the key competencies that IT
professionals need to perform in a changing world. What is unique about
their approach is the format of a test question, that drills down to see how
deeply an employee or candidate understands a concept, not just if they pass
or fail an item. They have web delivered scoring of the exams with a depth
of skill analysis.

We were also impressed with their ability to report results across a team.
You can view where the skill strength or skills gaps are for an entire team,
targeting the learning investments accordingly. The MASIE Center believes
that the TEAM as a unit of learning is at the core of new models of training
investments. You can check out the TeckChek site and view a sample test at
their site: http://www.teckchek.com

2. Global Broadcast: Learnings from a Busy Internet: We had over 20,000
people participating in our TechLearn LIVE internet and satellite broadcast
on March 17th. For the first time, an enormous number of people views (or
tried to view) the broadcast using their web browser.

We had some awesome results and failures during the widespread access to
this program. A good number of people were able to view the 2 hour
broadcast on their browsers with no problems. Some had a few glitches
along the way. Others were caught in net clog and it were unable to plug
in. Ironically, there was plenty of bandwidth at the broadcast side, which
was handled by Real Networks. But, the net is not fully ready for 100%
reliable video. Some ISP's clogged, one company had 40 people attempting to
view the broadcast at once and their server took a vacation. And, there was
a great deal of other net activity that competed for packet movement,
including the trailer for Star Wars.

Our learning....it keeps getting better but we are still working with an
emerging technology. The folks that used the more expensive satellite
reception had no problem and that worked for 15,000 or more people. For
anyone wanting to view the broadcast, we now have an archived version
available at http://www.masie.com/live/ You should be able to view this
now.

3. AccessAmerica: Technology for Reinventing Government: Vice President
Gore recently today a new online magazine featuring stories about a rapidly
growing electronic government. The new site, Access America Online Magazine,
is found at http://www.accessamerica.gov.

"I am proud of how federal workers are using information technology to put
American citizens in immediate touch with their government and its
services," Vice President Gore said. "Information technology enables us to
rethink and reinvent the way government works."

4. Another Voice on Verbalization: The notes about the topic of
verbalization's role in learning continue. Here is a comment from Lian
Bleckmann from Ottawa, Canada:

"I found that "talking in my head" helped considerably in validating not
just what I had learned, but THAT I had learned it. Because I did not
always have learning buddies with whom I could share discussions, I
would play both sides of a discussion through in my head, just to force
some new ideas. Often I resorted to discussions with my husband, even
though he was not following the program. He has been an adult learner
and was often quite capable of adding value to our discussions. So
yes....for me, .verbalization is important, both in shared learning
situations and in situations where you are learning alone."

5. Learning Decision '99 Question: We have had a number of TechLearn Trends
readers ask about the appropriate person to send to our upcoming Learning
Decisions '99 event in Las Vegas from May 12 to 14th. The simple answer is
the key learning leaders in your organization that are developing training
approaches for the future. We have accepted applications from Chief
Learning Officers, Training Managers and other key leaders in the
organization. We have rejected applications from trainers without
management roles, vendors/suppliers and individuals only focused on external
training. For complete information and an application, please go to
http://www.masie.com/decisions/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Your Calendar:
- Learning Decisions '99 - Las Vegas, NV - May 12 - 14, 1999
- TechLearn '99 - Orlando, FL - Oct 31 to Nov 3, 1999
Complete Information: http://www.masie.com

113 - Three Learning Decisions Organizations Face in 1999 - 2000

The MASIE Center http://www.masie.com Elliott Masie, Editor

Three Learning Decisions Organizations Face in 1999 - 2000
By Elliott Masie, President, The MASIE Center

In preparing for Learning Decisions '99, we did an extensive set of
interviews with Chief Learning Officers and Training Managers from major
organizations throughout North America. We asked a simple question:

"What are the core learning and training decisions that your organization
face in 1999 & 2000?"

I was amazed at the extent to which the answers converged on just three key
Learning Decisions. Here is the summary of the survey results:

Learning Decision 1: Aligning Training with Business Objectives:

How can training and learning departments and functions more closely align
themselves, in deed, with the stated goals and objectives of the overall
business?

It was clear from our interviews that training and learning departments face
an immediate challenge of how to align with business goals, objectives and
language. Learning officers are being asked to play a more core role in the
life of the business. Businesses are under pressure to increase
marketshare, cope with globalization and operate on shorter cycle times.
Learning departments are now under acute pressure to demonstrate how they
can contribute to each of these shifts:

* How can learning and training efforts increase the sales function and
result in increased marketshare?
* How can learning and training efforts support the shift to globalization?
* How can learning and training efforts reduce cycle time....the amount of
time between the conception of a change in process and the time it is
actually implemented!

Learning Officers were clear that they needed to shift their planning
process to involve business units more centrally in their positioning and
budgeting strategies. They are also under pressure to expand their focus to
include new metrics that can measure the effectiveness and impact of
learning efforts. They are being asked to express success in business
terminology.

Learning Decision 2: Developing a Corporate Wide Learning Technology
Strategy

How can learning and training decision makers create and implement an
organizational wide strategy for making appropriate use (or non-use) of
learning technology? How do we map a sane course through this maze of real
and hyped capabilities?

The interviews focused on the need for a STRATEGY! While a lot of our
conversations focus on the new tools and technologies that are being brought
into the marketplace, the training managers expressed a frustration with the
lack of an organizational strategy. Technology for learning that is just
air-dropped into an organization will not succeed, according to the
respondents. They feel a strong need to develop an organization wide
strategy that would accomplish several of these objectives:

* Provide a framework for when to USE or NOT TO USE technology as a
component of learning delivery?
* Provide a decision making structure for evaluating each new learning
technology as it is presented to the organization?
* Coordinate the efforts of various business units as they independently
consider learning technology.
* Support experimentation and piloting to test approaches prior to
organization-wide implementation.
* Develop a common language within the organization to describe and discuss
learning technology and technology assisted instructional approaches?
* Align learning technology with parallel efforts such as Knowledge
Management.
* Assist in setting realistic expectations for learning technology.
* Coordinate efforts with IT and other partners needed to implement a
learning architecture.

Learning Decision 3: Economic and Business Models for Learning:

What are new economic and business models we can use to structure and
predict the investment in learning within an organization?

How can organizations plan for appropriate investments in workforce
learning? How much should be spent on learning with what levels of
expectation for ROI? How should organizations approach the staffing issues
for training management and delivery (in-house vs. out-source)? How should
cost recovery be structured as learning moves towards informal and digital
delivery?

The senior learning professionals we interviewed for this survey were
universal in their need for new economic and business models for learning
investment. When asked by the CEO to predict the levels of investment
needed to achieve a targeted skill level, many felt they were at a loss to
express a confident prediction. The learning field has a unique opportunity
to start to build economic models for learning and development that can be
articulated to business decision makers. Here are some of the questions
that our respondents posed:

* What is an appropriate level of learning and training investment for a
worker at various stages of their employment (beginning, middle and near
retirement)?
* Do our systems of charging business units for training create an incentive
or discouragement to invest in learning?
* What are organizations doing to respond to the chant for ROI statistics?
* What is the impact of including informal learning in the budget analysis
of organizational learning efforts?

------

These three Learning Decisions will be the focus of The Masie Center's
efforts in the next several years. We will be dealing with them directly
at Learning Decisions '99, an executive retreat for training decision makers
to be held in Las Vegas on May 12 to 14, 1999. Complete information is
available at http://www.masie.com Learning Decisions '99 will provide deep
benchmarking amongst the 285 participants.

Permission is granted to duplicate and circulate the above article. I would
love to hear your comments by email at emasie@masie.com

114 - Knowledge Tax and Depreciation Formula Proposed in Congress; Windows 98 Sued for Non-Y2K Compliant Title; On-Line Kindergarten

1. Knowledge Tax and Depreciation Formula Proposed in Congress: With the
U.S. Presidential election nearing, both political parties are looking for
issues that will capture the imagination of the electorate. Recently,
TechLearn Trends was briefed by two political advisers in Washington about
an intriguing proposal. In order to raise revenue in alignment with the
digital age, there is a new tax plan calling for a Knowledge Tax and
Depreciation Deduction.

This concept would tax individuals and organizations for their acquisition
of Knowledge. And, as the knowledge they possessed became old, an
offsetting deduction would be allowed on the tax form. "This tax reflects
the core idea that Knowledge is the Currency of the New Age", said one of
the authors of this revolutionary proposal. "During your "get smart" years,
you would contribute more tax. As you got stale, you would be able to
increase your deductions. Likewise, the smartest companies would pay the
most tax and the dumbest would get rebates". When asked if this might
actually create an incentive for ignorance, the politicians said that in the
age of the internet that could NEVER happen.

2. Dunkin Donuts Plans for Digital Doughnuts: A recent study by The MASIE
Center indicated that one of the biggest incentives for attending corporate
training was the quality of the food served. Great doughnuts had the
highest impact on increased attendance and positive class evaluations.
This is what Kirkpatrick calls: Tenth Level Evaluation.

Dunkin Donuts, the largest seller of delicious round pastry devices, sees
this as an enormous business opportunity. "We want to continue to play a
learning support role in the exploding on-line learning field", said Dunkin
Doughnuts VP for Corporate Development. "In 2000 we will be launching our
Digital Doughnuts product. As learners accomplish the specified objectives
of an on-line course, they will be awarded points. When they achieve target
point levels, they can print out a coupon for free doughnuts at any of our
stores. If they are taking an Executive MBA program on-line, the doughnuts
will actually be delivered to their homes, hotels or airport lounges."
While they would not discuss actual financial targets, they believe the
expenditures for on-line learning food might actually surpass revenues for
instructional content. "The way to the heart and mind of an on-line
learner is through their stomachs."

3. Windows 98 Sued for Non-Y2K Compliant Title: The litigation goes on.
Four state attorney generals have announced they will be adding additional
legal suits against Microsoft for their failure to name their current
operating system in a Y2K compliant fashion. "The correct title for Y2K
compliance would be Windows 1998. By using the non-Y2K compliant title
Windows '98, millions of corporate users are being exposed to the wrong use
of dates. This could cause zillions of dollars of damage, which is what we
hope to recoup from Gates for this horrible deed."

The MASIE Center was shocked by this legal suit, realizing that our
TechLearn '99 and Learning Decisions '99 conferences were also vulnerable
for litigation. We are therefore renaming our events TechLearn 1999 and
Decisions 1999 to placate the attorney generals. Wheww.

4. On-Line Kindergarten: Time Shifting for Busy Children: As we have
reported in earlier Trends, the demand for on-line learning is
driven more by time shifting than by the desire to learn at a distance. A
recent announcement from AOL supports this model. They are entering the
on-line kindergarten marketplace in several months. The on-line resource
reports that today's busy children are often unable to attend traditional
kindergarten classed due to their schedules.

"Between soccer classes, dance classes, reading enrichment programs and
other obligations, a good number of children ages 4 to 5 are unable to make
it to a half-day residential kindergarten. Event if they can make it to
school, many are distracted by other activities coming up later in the day.
Kindergarten On-Line (KOL) will provide a wonderful opportunity for them to take
their kindergarten learning experience later at night or earlier in the
morning," reported AOL's President Steve Case. "The digital kids are
demanding more learner choice in their ability to take learning anytime,
anyplace and anywhere. In addition, on-line classes will provide more
interaction than the traditional sit in your seat kindergarten lecture."

5. Learning Quotation: Plato

"Someday, in the distance future, our grandchildren's grandchildren will
develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours
in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the
difference between light and knowledge"

--- Plato: Discourse on Future Learning

115 - On-Line Jones University Sparks Protests from Faculty Organization; Embedded Web Servers - Small Devices Deliver Content

1. On-Line Jones University Sparks Protests from Faculty Organization: In a
unique action, the nation's leading organization of college professors
formally protested the recent accreditation of Jones International
University, the first (but not the last) on-line only education venture to
receive formal approval from a major accrediting association. the North
Central Association. The American Association of University Professors
(AAUP), a national group of 45,000 faculty, sent a sharp protest on three
grounds:

a) One problem was that instructors at Jones teach courses prepared by
others, which means they have little say over how material is presented.
This, in the professors' view, violates the instructors' academic freedom.
b) Another issue was that the school has many part-time instructors, but
only two full-time faculty members.
c) A third was that, unlike conventional universities, Jones puts little
emphasis on faculty research or scholarship.

The AAUP did say that their members supported an exploration of the role of
internet delivered learning, but had serious troubles with the economic and
academic model of this business. Watch this fight as an early indicator of
the struggle between diverse models and images of the organization and
delivery models of higher education learning.

2. Embedded Web Servers - Small Devices Deliver Content: Check out a web
server on a chip, developed by Phar Lab as a prototype of allowing devices
that ability to directly serve content and information over the web. This
chip is a 486-based Single Board Computer (PC/104) which is only 3.8 by 3.6
inches in size. The server and application software use Phar Lap's Realtime
ETS Kernel, a realtime operating system for X86-based computers. This
particular demonstration is a Web server that provides realtime weather data
from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The demonstration illustrates how the Web can
be used to access and control small, low-cost embedded systems. Go to
http://www.pharlap.com/

Imagine similar devices on a range of equipment and structures. Check out
your furnace and fuel tank with web pages that show current status.

3. Learning Quotation: Pete Tressler

One of our TechLearn TRENDS Readers submitted his favorite saying:

"I believe it to be the inherent responsibility of every manager, regardless
of level, to accomplish 3 tasks every time they are with a direct report.
The 3 tasks are summed up in a quote I use often: EDUCATE, MOTIVATE and
TRAIN YOUR REPLACEMENT!"
- Pete Tressler, IT&S Strategy and Planning

4. Rotating Training Staff: A Learning Decision: As we prepare for our
upcoming conference, I have been interviewing Learning Officers about their
greatest hurdle in Aligning Training and Business Goals. The concept of
"fresh blood" has come up several more times than I would have predicted. A
desire to have the training or learning function be a career stop rather
than a career for a large percentage of the staff was raised by a number of
learning officers and training managers. One participant, responsible for
learning activities of 72,000 employees worldwide summarized her hope and
goal:

"I want to rotate the best performers in our organization for a short stint
in the training and learning department. Give us a year or two of your
career, contribute a powerful perspective, develop your own skills and then
go back out into the business units. These rotational members of our staff
would add an incredible point of view and credibility to our efforts. And,
they would be lifelong "agents" of ours in the business units. My challenge
is to lower the permanent head count of our training department and to add
glamour to the prospect of spending a rotation in our shop. If I can pull
this off, it will go a long way to making the Alignment Issue a reality."

We have heard similar views from quite a few training managers coming to
Learning Decisions '99. They clearly want to have some staff that have a
strong grounding in training and learning skills, but are eyeing a shift to
a rotational basis for a good chunk of their team. If you have some
thoughts on this issue please send me an email to emasie@masie.com After
Learning Decisions '99, we will post a summary of the dialogue on this
issue.

Upcoming MASIE Center Events: info at www.masie.com
Learning Decisions '99 (May 12 to 14 - Las Vegas) - Only 73 Seats Left!
TechLearn '99 (Oct 31 to Nov 3 - Orlando) - Over 1,053 Registered Already!

(Thanks to all of our readers for your good humor about our last edition,
The April Fools Trends. We had hundreds of emails from you and even a few
that are starting on a business plan for Digital Doughnuts. If you get them
available, let me know and we will post the info. Remember: Laughter is an
important reminder that you are alive!)

116 - Editing a Movie at The Office; More Trouble with Higher Education

1. Editing a Movie at The Office: High Powered Editing Options at the
Desktop: I spent a good part of Sunday as a digital editor on my desktop.
Our new speaking bureau has requested that I submit a clip tape of
presentations that I have given on various topics, so I thought that it
would be a good moment to try my hand at desktop video editing. We
purchased Avid Cinema for $259, which includes a high powered video card and
multiple input/output switching devices.

I was amazed at how quickly I got into the project, assembling two to five
minute clips from 8 different videos. The program allowed me to add music,
compile special effects and provide the subtitling that my speaking agent
requested. I was able to import from our VCR, shoot one clip live from our
Video Conferencing machine, include music from a royalty free collection we
already owned and even do some graphics in PowerPoint and import as a JPG
file.

We did need a lot of memory and storage. My machine is a high end IBM
ThinkPad that is augmented by a docking station to handle the video card and
a 9 G Hard Drive. But, it worked like a charm. In less than 4 hours, I
had edited a fairly smooth video that can be exported to video tape, CD-ROM
or formats for streaming. The longest wait is for the various effects to
actually be compiled, which it is doing as I write this TRENDS at home.
But, the ability to do this level of video editing at my office was
astounding. Check out this genre of software, starting in the $100 range
(without the video card). Avid is at http://www.avid.com
It was cool, helpful and saved us hundreds of dollars for an editing suite.
While not professional quality, it sure got the job done here.

2. More Trouble with Higher Education: California Virtual University Hits
Pause: There is more trouble on the higher education front for on-line
learning. The latest story is about the fate of the California Virtual
University. CVU was to have been the digital center of the universe for
higher education in California. Now, the staff has been cut, the plans cut
back and the mission under re-consideration. There is a detailed article in
the Los Angeles Times on this latest development:
http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/CUTTING/OTHTECH/t000031667.html

3. Learning Decisions: Submit Key Issues for Robert Reich We are honored
to have Robert Reich as the keynote speaker at our upcoming retreat for
training managers and officers (Learning Decisions - May 12 to 17th - Las
Vegas). I have been asked to put together a set of key issues facing the
learning and training field for Secretary Reich to use as he builds his 1/2
day presentation: The Economics of Learning. If you would like to submit a
short note with your views of the key issues we face in the training and
learning world, I will forward these on to Secretary Reich. We will also
include a summary of his comments after Learning Decisions '99. Send your
comments to reich@masie.com (There are only about 65 spaces available
left for the retreat.... info at http://www.masie.com/decisions/

4. Knowledge Management Pushes Forward as Theme and Process: In the past
eight weeks the heat has been turned up on the Knowledge Management (KM)
burner. We have been tracking the use of the Knowledge Management term and
it seems to be appearing in more articles, press releases and business
plans. We have seen about a 20% increase in the use of the Knowledge
Management phrase in our scans. This reflects a good number of large scale
consulting efforts that have been funded in the past few months in the KM
field. Each of the major business consulting groups, as well as large scale
technology companies, are organizing service offerings under the Knowledge
Management banner. We are also seeing the rise of Knowledge Departments in
larger organizations and a few CKO (Chief Knowledge Officers).

5. Dorothy Masie, Web User, Hits 89! I have written about my mom, Dorothy
Masie, in previous TRENDS. This weekend she turned 89. Mom has become
quite the emailer, with turn around times of only a few hours for messages
we send her. If you are so inclined, send her a birthday greeting at
mother@masie.com (Please, no virus messages, as I have to do her Technical
Support.) Thanks!

117 - Component On-Line Learning Technologies from Australia

1. Component On-Line Learning Technologies from Australia: One of our
predictions for the development of learning technologies has been the
introduction of component tools. While a large amount of on-line learning
will be developed with authoring systems and delivered in training
management systems, there is a natural demand for the ability to integrate
learning tools on a component level. For example, a manager might want to
post a new policy on a corporate intranet and embed a few learning
activities into the page (chat, assignments, tests for comprehension).
Well, we just got a first glance of these tools in a press release from
Australia. The company is called Janison Solutions and they have put
together a component model that you can check out at :
http://www.jansol.com.au

Watch for many of these component technologies to emerge in the marketplace
over the next 18 months!

2. Defense Acquisition University Visit: We just finished presenting a
briefing in On-Line Trainer Skills to a great team of faculty and managers
at the Defense Acquisition University in Washington. This is one of the
educational arms of the Pentagon and they are doing a great job of pushing
the envelope of large scale on-line delivery. The faculty are building
content intensive courses that thousands of DOD employees are taking from
bases and offices around the world. They are a dedicated group that raised
all the "right" issues of how we balance the scalability of courses with our
natural instinct to deliver high impact faculty - student interactions.
Hats off to DAU for your leadership work!

3. Learning Quotation:

"In the end we can never be given knowledge by others; we can only be
stimulated. We must develop our own knowledge."
- Charles T. Tart

4. Working from Home: Training Teleworkers - One of the strategy issues
that has been raised for our upcoming Learning Decisions '99 retreat focuses
on expenditures for training aimed at teleworkers. Several of the training
officers have raised the issue of how organizations are allocating training
resources for teleworkers. Here are some of the questions posed:

* Are organizations allocating more, less or the same amount of training
resources for teleworking or mobile workers? Do they get less learning
resources than their colleagues who are present and visible at the office?
* What are some strategies that organizations are using to deliver learning
to this workforce? These could include technology delivery or in-person
training meetings. What seems to be working?

If you can contribute to this dialogue, would you please send us a note to
emasie@masie.com. I will post a summary on the website and also post the
results of the discussion at Learning Decisions. If you are a learning or
training officer or manager and would like to join the 212 folks registered
for Learning Decisions '99 to be held in Las Vegas on May 12 to 14, please
go to http://www.masie.com/decisions/

5. Thanks! Thanks a million to the 350 people who sent my mom a digital
birthday note. She said that she had the best birthday of her 89 year long
life. My warmest thanks! Let me know when your parent's birthday is and I
will send them a digital cake.

Upcoming MASIE Center Events: http://www.masie.com
* Learning Decisions '99 - Retreat for Training Decisions Makers - May 12 to
14 - Las Vegas
* TechLearn '99 - Reinventing Training - Oct 31 to Nov 3 - Orlando

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/