In this issue:
1. Executive Summit to Focus on the Future of e-Learning
2. A Walk in Her Shoes: Meet Pat Brogan, Vice President of Learning, Macromedia
3. Engaging the Brain in e-Learning: An Interview with Judith Blair of Maresh Brainworks
4. e-Briefs
5. e-Learning Education: An Interview with Brandon Hall of Brandon-Hall.com
6. Call for Session Proposals for Upcoming Events - Strut Your Stuff!
7. The 2001 Learning Events Calendar
1. Executive Summit to Focus on the Future of e-Learning, by Marc Rosenberg, http://www.diamtech.com
Chief learning officers, training directors, and senior managers will be gathering for the WBT Executive Summit on April 18-19 in Anaheim to discuss the future of e-Learning in corporations. "The WBT Executive Summit, sponsored by Influent Technology Group, comes at a very important time," says Dr. Marc Rosenberg, conference program director. Rosenberg, a principal with consulting firm DiamondCluster International, has put together a program of renowned speakers who are shaping the future of the e-Learning field.
"With the downturn in the economy and the recent dot.com crash, some people are signaling a significant retrenchment for e-Learning, but nothing could be further from the truth," says Rosenberg. "More and more companies are building global intranets and using the Web to run their businesses. The relationships between companies and their employees, customers, partners, and suppliers are becoming inexorably linked through the Web."
Today, e-Learning is on the brink of major breakthroughs. Web technology is now sophisticated enough to allow more complex and engaging learning programs and simulations. In addition, every corporate intranet and every commercial Website can benefit from using e-Learning to deliver knowledge to employees and educate consumers. More companies are recognizing the benefits of e-Learning - lower delivery costs, high flexibility, global reach, and scalability, among others. They are also learning that Web technology alone cannot make a program successful if the culture, or the leadership of the organization, does not support it. At the Summit, leaders of corporate e-Learning programs will compare notes on how to build successful programs, but more importantly, how to make them endure.
The WBT Executive Summit is designed exclusively for senior learning executives, and will feature presentations on the expanding nature of e-Learning, from courseware to knowledge management, learning communities, and performance support, and will showcase a variety of e-Learning success stories. In addition, participants will get an up-to-the-minute briefing on the state of the e-Learning industry from the Wall Street perspective, and have an exclusive opportunity to meet with executives from the best e-Learning suppliers.
"The pressure for higher quality, more innovative e-Learning experiences will likely increase," says Dr. Marc Rosenberg, who is also the author of the new book 'eLearning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age' (McGraw-Hill, 2001). "e-Learning will become more integrated into mainstream business," Rosenberg states. "The question is, will we be ready?"
The WBT Executive Summit, two concentrated days focusing on helping e-Learning leaders answer this important question, is a good place to start.
For complete Summit information and convenient online registration visit http://www.influent.com/wbtes2001. The added value for you is that registration for WBT Executive Summit also provides admittance to the WBT Producer 2001 Conference & Expo. You have the experience of participating in two leading industry events for the price of one!
2. A Walk in Her Shoes: Meet Pat Brogan, Vice President of Learning, Macromedia, http://www.macromedia.com
Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be a Vice President of Learning? After all, you have toiled to pay your dues working the training career ladder as trainer, instructional designer, e-Learning Developer, Training Manager - next stop: Vice President of Learning. Influential Trends wanted to know what it takes to ascend to the VP spot, and what it's really like to bear the title. We had the wonderful opportunity to interview Pat Brogan, Vice President of Learning, Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com), on what it took to get to be a Vice President of Learning.
TRENDS: Did you know at the beginning of your career that you would become a VP of Learning?
BROGRAN: I had no idea. I thought I would be in advertising. I will point out that there is a distinction between a VP of Learning in an organization and one in a company such as Macromedia. Learning is market for us, for organizations learning is mission critical.
TRENDS: Describe the career steps you took to arrive at your current position.
BROGRAN: I started in sales at P&G (Proctor & Gamble) and was bored. I wanted a more "complex, challenging" job. I went to IBM, where I spent the next 18 months in technical training. That was horrible, too challenging. I went on to sell at IBM and then became a product manager for the original IBM PCs. I marketed software, and learned that computer usability was critical (and the state of that aspect of the industry was pathetic). I worked for Apple, and at Apple and IBM, education was a priority for us.
I also worked at an academic software company, and learned about the real potential of what computers can do for learning, but it was perhaps my role as a mother of four kids, each of whom learns differently and is "wired" differently, that motivated me to focus more on the cognitive and affective factors of learning. Combining this with my knowledge of the potential for what technology can do is a passion. I still think we are underachieving on the overall linkage of computers for learning.
TRENDS: Tell us about a "day-in-the-life" of a VP of Learning.
BROGAN: I spend a lot of time talking to customers, speaking at events, and working internally with other groups and my own group at Macromedia. We work on curriculum programs, our Website, planning seminars and events, and working with the product teams.
TRENDS: What are the biggest challenges of your job?
BROGAN: The biggest challenges of my job are staying current in technology, being responsive to customer requests, email, etc., and just getting the list of tasks done.
TRENDS: What obstacles do you think exist in organizations for a VP of Learning?
BROGAN: Macromedia is shifting from a company that sold single products through resellers to developers. As we change our focus to be more solutions focused, it is hard to get the technology folks, who at MM (Macromedia) are brilliant, to relate to customers' needs, and to look at solutions that consist of several products. Learning has been so important for Macromedia for years, so bridging our technical talent with the needs of the learning community isn't always easy.
TRENDS: Do you think the position of VP of Learning is here to stay?
BROGAN: I would hope that companies do invest in this, since knowledge is the intellectual capital of a company, and learning is a critical component of the development of intellectual capital.
TRENDS: What is next for Pat Brogan?
BROGAN: I certainly hope to continue to influence what is possible using computers for learning. I think for the most part, we've done a better job in Corporations than we have in K-12 education.
Meet Pat Brogan in person at her session "Maximizing Your Investments in Standards: How to Design," co-presented with Dr. Margaret Driscoll, Mindspan/IBM, at the upcoming WBT Producer 2001 Conference & Expo, Anaheim, CA, USA. Look for other sessions presented by brilliant Macromedia representatives at this year's WBT Producer Conference. Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com) is proud sponsor of this year's event. Visit http://www.influent.com/wbt2001 for complete pre-conference workshop and conference information, and convenient online registration.
3. Engaging the Brain in e-Learning: An Interview with Judith Blair, Maresh Brainworks, http://www.mareshbrainworks.com
Nancy Maresh and Judith Blair, Maresh Brainworks and WBT 2001 faculty, want you to engage the whole brain in your e-Learning and WBT courses. Trends had the opportunity to interview Judith about the viability of instructional systems design at time when it seems that practically anyone with a computer can develop online learning.
TRENDS: With learning development tools for the Web as prevalent as desktop publishing tools of yesteryear, and lay people creating online courses, why do we need instructional design?
BLAIR: With the "democracy" of wide-spread access and empowerment of authoring courses comes an even greater need to understand how adults learn, and how to provide learning and activities that help people master and retain new knowledge. Many authoring tools rely on limited and even antiquated references for every creation step, if the tool utilizes Instructional Systems Design (ISD). What's worse is that authoring tools may assume the instructional designer knows more than might be the case. If the course building program starts with the questions "Do you want a pre-test?" and "What are the learning objectives?" the new instructional designer may not be able to get off to a roaring start.
We believe relying only on ISD will not give course designers (regardless of development tools used) the learning results they need. ISD was created many years ago to give validity to the field and structure to the process. Now however, with rapid turn-around times and applications the creators could never have anticipated, ISD seems clunky and restrictive.
We advocate using principles of accelerated, whole brain learning for creating highly effective Web-based learning. Further, we have created a design "template" to greatly expand the reach and impact of most authoring tools. Speeding learning time and deepening the learning process is possible, but new designers will need to educate themselves beyond how to use authoring programs.
TRENDS: Why is the issue of course completion so magnified? Isn't it considered good design for learners to pick and choose what they need to know?
BLAIR: Not all courses warrant completion by students. Many learners will want to pick and choose, browse or test out of courses, especially when they have access to dozens or hundreds of titles. That's OK. This scenario relies on the learner to self educate and direct one's own learning path. Some assessments are way too easy: you don't have to take any of the course to test out! For courses where certification, government contracts, job testing, ISO compliance, and other requirements necessitate, completion is a must. There's added motivation (or pressure) for the student, but we believe great design increases the chances that a student will finish and more importantly, be able to apply what they've learned. It's the transfer of knowledge from a course, applied to improve job performance that constitutes "where the rubber meets the road." Boring, repetitive, flat courses all too easily encourage browsing. Compelling, engaging design that creates personal meaning for each learner helps maintain interest and fosters completion.
TRENDS: In what ways can developers ensure their course content is retained and applied to the job, that both sides of the brain are engaged during an online course, reaches all learning styles?
BLAIR: These topics will be explored and demonstrated at the upcoming WBT Producer Conference, April 18-20, 2001, http://www.influent.com/wbt2001. Our sessions are:
* "9 Kinds of Smart," a Special Session, presented on both Tuesday April 18th from 4:45PM to 6:15 PM, and Thursday April 19th from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM.
* "How to Make the Learners and the Learning Stick: Designers Glue for Retention and Completion" on Thursday April 19th from 12:30 PM to1:40 PM.
4. e-Briefs
* Brandon Hall, Brandon-Hall.com and WBT Producer 2001 faculty, announces his newest e-Learning report which evaluates Learning Management Systems (LMS). LMS software automates the administration of training events, the foundation for most corporate e-Learning programs. Visit http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications.html for more details. To learn more from Brandon Hall on e-Learning see the interview below.
* Robert E. Horn, an Influent event faculty member and keynote speaker, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from ACM (Association of Computing Machinery), http://www.acm.org/sigdoc/awards.html. Horn has received the prestigious Diana award from the ACM's Special Interest Group on Computer Documentation. He is founder and chairman of Information Mapping, Inc., (http://www.informationmapping.com) and a visiting scholar at Stanford University. For an interview with Robert Horn, see Influent's Online Times e-newsletter, February 22nd issue (Volume 2, Issue #4) at http://www.influent.com. Click on Online Times button located within the e-newsletter section on the main menu.
* Michael Greer, an Influent event faculty member and preconference workshop presenter, publishes the second edition of his renowned book "The Project Manager's Partner" (http://www.michaelgreer.com/partner2.htm). The second edition provides specific how-to tips for achieving many of the project management practices. The Partner is organized around 20 key project manager actions and results; the lion's share of the book is devoted to providing new project managers with the tools to take any of these actions and get quality results. This edition also includes an entirely new discussion (with a samples and worksheets) on the distinction between estimating effort versus estimating durations for activities. See an article by Michael Greer published in Influent's Online Times e-newsletter, February 22nd issue (Volume 2, Issue #4) at http://www.influent.com. Click on Online Times button located within the e-newsletter section on the main menu.
If you have news to share with the community, please send an email to Rosie Smith at rsmith@influent.com.
5. e-Learning Education: An Interview with Brandon Hall of Brandon-Hall.com, http://www.brandon-hall.com
The WBT Producer 2001 Conference & Expo has added a special session featuring Brandon Hall of brandon-hall.com (http://www.brandon-hall.com). Hall will be presenting a uniquely formatted session of one-third presentation, two-thirds discussion on Thursday, April 19th at 4:30 PM. The topics for this special session include what's happening in terms of customer satisfaction with Learning Management Systems, implementation realities, and specifics on how to get started with e-Learning. Anticipating this exciting addition to the conference program, Trends caught up with Hall to for a quick look at the state of e-Learning.
TRENDS: Is e-Learning really working as anticipated?
HALL: Yes and no. Yes, in that it is providing great cost savings, great flexibility, and significant new, alternative learning options while taking advantage of Internet power. No, in that it is harder than expected, takes longer than thought, and the more sophisticated the software the trickier it is to get it working in all the ways you want it to.
TRENDS: What are the top three learner satisfiers of e-Learning?
HALL: I am much closer to developers and training professionals, so my information comes from them. They say the top three learner satisfiers are: flexibility (you would expect that), they have the ability to go directly to the instructional parts most important to them, and skip all the stuff not relevant. They don't miss the drive to the seminar and the down time pieces of traditional instruction.
The biggest dis-satisfier is: no doughnuts!
I will be researching learners and learner satisfiers later this year and will be publishing a complete report.
TRENDS: What is the average initial and ongoing maintenance cost of a course, and how does the e-Learning cost model differ for classroom learning?
HALL: One cost measure is the amount of dollars cited by external custom developers. They estimate $10,000-$135,000 per finished hour of instruction. A good average figure is $65,000 per finished hour. What this cost estimate includes is a full blown course development effort from needs analysis and content preparation to media development, etc.
If you do the development internally you spend less money, but you may not have as much experience to tap internally. You will need to choose an authoring tool, learn it, and overcome the barriers to internal development: cost of Web development tool, time to create the course, and time to develop good interactive instruction.
Maintenance is an issue because content changes. People should plan a course lifecycle with an expected ending point. This could be six months or two years. It is essential that you define a lifecycle for your courses.
As far as a cost model, the starting costs can be lower with e-Learning. You don't have to do the media burning and distribution associated with earlier CD-rom-based courses. On the other hand, the organizations I work with often, look at e-Learning as a full initiative. The costs can be substantial, including components such as learning management systems, authoring tools, training for course developers, and staff time to build business cases. The financial outlay is in terms of fees or internal staff time. e-Learning should be treated as a major new technology initiative if you want to do it in a full-featured way. Once you have capability in place, the marginal costs for additional courses are quite low.
The most important thing is to get something going and to do more. The race is on for organizations to benefit from the competitive advantage and cost savings with e-Learning.
TRENDS: What are some tips for those of us having to present and sell a business case for e-Learning in our organizations?
HALL: Build your business case by approaching it in a serious manner. Start with a white paper to educate the decision makers in your organization, follow that with discussion, then create a proposal by showing what the organization's business competitors are doing, including what the most respected organizations in your industry are doing. Most organizations of substance are doing things like e-Learning to keep pace within their industry.
Write and present your business proposal, not in "trainer's speak" but in "C-speak" (CEO, CKO, CLO). The C-speak vernacular in which you write the proposal depends on the C's function, and it must be written in their language.
Visit http://www.brandon-hall.net/newitems/index.htm to learn more about the components of a business case in the Executive Summary of Building an e-Learning Business Case.
TRENDS: Where are the "gotchas" in implementing e-Learning?
HALL: It's the old thing - it took longer and cost more than expected. Plus, no matter how hard you try, people focus on the negative and will tell you what they don't like about it.
There is still a wakening required of what you thought you were going to get when you purchased or created the course, and what you actually got.
6. Call for Session Proposals for Upcoming Events - Strut Your Stuff!
Influent Technology Group is now accepting proposals to speak at two of its exciting events, InfoStrategies Management Conference and Computer Training World Conference & Expo. Presenting at events is a great professional growth opportunity and a good way to show your expertise. We encourage you to submit your ideas for presentations.
The InfoStrategies Management Conference will take place on June 27-29, 2001 in Washington, D.C. Full-day workshops will be held on Tuesday, June 26, 2001.
InfoStrategies is a new event designed for Managers, Senior Managers, Executives, VPs, CKOs, CLOs, and others who are responsible for the strategic implementation of online information and documentation in their organization. This information can include online documentation, knowledge databases, single-sourced information, media-based learning, etc., and is not limited to text only. Media-rich information is also part of the online info world. Topics can range between any subject matter or audience that you support. Information about the event and how to submit sessions can be found at http://www.influent.com/infostrategies2001.
If you are interested in presenting at this event, please contact Vivian Hisey, Program Manager, as soon as possible at: vivian.hisey@sympatico.ca or call 1.905.502.0705.
Computer Training World Conference & Expo will be held on August 8-10 in Chicago, Illinois. Pre-conference workshops are scheduled for August 7th.
The third year for this premier event, CTW targets professionals responsible for management and implementation of IT Training in their organization. The event is also for those who provide technology training on large systems and desktop systems, and those who provide training on any subject using technology. Additional information about the event and how to submit speaker proposals can be found at http://www.influent.com/ctw2001.
7. The 2001 Learning Events Calendar
Here is your Professional Education and Learning Events schedule for the first half of 2001. There's something for every IT professional!
Studio 2001
The Conference on Designing the User Experience
March 6-8, 2001
Seattle, WA
Register online now at http://www.influent.com/studio2001.
WBT Producer 2001: Driving the Power of e-Learning
The power of e-Learning is within your grasp! Get your hands on the solutions at the premier event for managers, designers, and developers of online instructional information!
April 18-20, 2001
Anaheim, CA
Register online now at http://www.influent.com/wbt2001.
WBT Executive Summit
A focused forum for VPs and Directors of Training, Chief Learning Officers, Chief Knowledge Officers, and those responsible for the strategic implementation of e-Learning in their organizations.
April 18-19, 2001
Anaheim, CA
Register online now at http://www.influent.com/wbtes2001.
InForum: The Source for Service & Support Technologies
May 23-25, 2001
Chicago, IL
Register online now at http://www.influent.com/inforum2001.
InfoStrategies
June 27-29, 2001
Washington, DC
http://www.influent.com/infostrategies2001
