Telling an Old Story in a New Way: Telling an Old Story in a New Way: Raid on Deerfield
A very nice description of the processes involved in creating this award-winning e-learning website. It would be best to go through Raid on Deerfield first before reading how it was done.Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Peter Drucker on Making Decisions
When leaders made effective decisions, they followed these 8 practices:- They asked, "What needs to be done?"
- They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?"
- They developed action plans.
- They took responsibility for decisions.
- They took responsibility for communicating.
- They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
- They ran productive meetings.
- They thought and said "we" rather than "I."
Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Storytelling for Leaders
Nice short piece on corporate storytelling by the author of Around the Corporate Campfire: "So smart leaders tell stories. They periodically gather thestorytelling Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Making Knowledge Management Work on your Intranet
An introductory look at how intranets can server as effective KM platforms. Here's a tip we can use: "Your intranet can be optimized to support knowledge management initiatives if you make changes to the existing content, publishing processes, and information architecture of the intranet."information architecture, knowledge management, intranets Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 22, 2004
User Experience Design
Peter Morville takes on the task of defining user experience design using his honeycomb diagram, which presents the various facets of experience design: Useful, Usable, Desirable, Findable, Accessible, Credible and Valuable.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The Conversing Company is the Hub for Innovation
This article on the importance of chatting or conversing is generating a lot of interest at KnowledgeBoard. There is even an online workshop dedicated to this subject. The conversing company is one in which all members "talk with other staff in a non-confronting, non-status, friendly and open way... When this culture of trust is in place, just one thing that happens is that new knowledge is created from questions that arise in conversation. And that is precisely the knowledge which companies need to sustain their business, keep flexible in the competitive world and be enjoyable organizations to 'work' for".innovation Add tag Permalink | Monday, June 21, 2004
Production for Use
A reflective look at the forces affecting design -- style vs. usability. Many designers have been exploring the balance of these forces -- some vouch for usability and others vouch for style, but there's magic when a balance of both fits the real purpose of design. And to really know the balance, designers have to be holistic. This holistic approach is now widely referred to as experience design. Jesse James Garrett's map (PDF file) is a good reference point to experience design and makes me wonder if there could be a similar map for the elements for learning experience design or LXD.Add tag Permalink | Monday, June 21, 2004
Ten Best Government Intranets
Interesting report from Jakob Nielsen on government intranets. He lists down the factors that separated the winners from the rest -- from managing content editors to workflow support.intranets Add tag Permalink | Monday, June 21, 2004
Q&A with Saul Carliner
Lisa Neal interviews Saul Carliner on e-learning trends and what they mean: 1) As a percentage of the total training portfolio (that is, the total amount of training that an organization provides), e-learning is still a relatively small part, 2) ThereAdd tag Permalink | Thursday, June 17, 2004
ManyWorlds blog
Naomi Moneypenny, executive editor of ManyWorlds, has a blog where she talks about the latest in management thinking, innovation and learning. Welcome to the blogosphere, Naomi.innovation Add tag Permalink | Thursday, June 17, 2004
90% of All Usability Testing is Useless
Good advice from Adaptive Path's Lane Becker on having the right usability testing mindset. Here are some points that he makes: 1) usability testing should focus more on the context and not on the metrics, 2) usability testing is not QA and 3) usability testing should be a core competence owned by the design team. Good stuff.usability Add tag Permalink | Thursday, June 17, 2004
BBC to Open Content Floodgates
Nice things are happening in the world: "The British Broadcasting Corporation's Creative Archive, one of the most ambitious free digital content projects to date, is set to launch this fall with thousands of three-minute clips of nature programming. The effort could goad other organizations to share their professionally produced content with Web users."Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Requirements Gathering: Lose Your Ego and Ask Away
Nice short article that looks into something called the 'Fate Chart'. This is a modification of the Johari Window that allows one to understand the limitations of one's own perceptions in the requirements gathering phase.Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Meet Joe Blog
Time magazine has an in-depth article on blogs going mainstream: "Over the past five years, blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence."Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 16, 2004
The seven-year-old bloggers
Children as young as seven in one British school are using weblogs as part of their normal routine, and are doing better than non-webloggers as a result, their teacher says.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 15, 2004
The making of a technical illustration
It's humbling to see this kind of talent and effort: Kevin Hulsey spent 720 hours to create this cruise ship line art.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Welcome to Planet Pixar
A very interesting read on how Pixar has out-Disneyed Disney.Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Pick and choose might be key
An important message lies in this Australian experiment -- mixing both information and instruction are essential for public use of e-learning material. I wrote about this strategy in 2001 under the title of Blending Information and Instruction. What I did then, and guess what is still relevant today, is to look at companies that were providing exemplar online support. I chose Macromedia, Adobe and Apple back then and analyzed their online support strategy. These companies offered both information in the form of knowledge bases and instruction in the form of small modules and full-blown courses. This is the same strategy the Austrade pilot has implemented with success.instructional design Add tag Permalink | Tuesday, June 15, 2004
How to get great content from people
Pertinent stuff from Gerry McGovern on creating valuable content: "If we connect the creator with the reader, we will be able to significantly reduce this wasted effort. If nobody is reading this content, it needs to be seriously questioned as to why it is being published. If, after people read content, most of them are confused, it needs to be rewritten. If, after people read content, most of them are more knowledgeable, creators need to be told that they are doing a good job."Add tag Permalink | Monday, June 14, 2004
Who Knows?
Jay Cross on the need to get social networks going: "Now that business organizations have been de-layered, downsized and re-engineered to the bone, how will they transfer their special ways of doing things to new employees? The answer lies in exploiting the savvy of seniors, the wise elders who have 'been there, done that' and can offer counsel and know-how to the newcomers. Old hands often make outstanding sales and service coaches, too."Add tag Permalink | Monday, June 14, 2004
The Ethnographic Observations Have Begun
Nice to see ethnographic studies being done for online learning projects. The practice-oriented methods of search-inquire-observe (from Garvin's Learning in Action) really do help in uncovering real world issues that are usually missed out in traditional forms of training needs analyses. It's just that the scope, budget, time and resource constraints don't always allow the use of these methods.Add tag Permalink | Thursday, June 10, 2004
Apples and Oranges
Nice article outlining the roles and responsibilities of user researchers and designers. Sometimes these roles and responsibilities overlap, causing much confusion and bitterness in the process. The solution lies not in listing down and enforcing who does what, but in building a shared understanding of each other's areas of expertise.Add tag Permalink | Thursday, June 10, 2004
Cool Interactive
D-Day: The Hard-Won Beaches of Normandy from Newseum showcases "front pages, memories and a radio report provide a brief look back, and a tribute, to those who fought and reported on D-Day."Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Cool Interactive
Plan Your Future Park from the Gotham Gazette is an interactive game that let's you "plan your own park, making choices that communities all over the city have been facing."Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, June 09, 2004