In my elearning strategy approach, I have a step called “greater integration”. While it encompasses several steps, at core it’s about consolidating your content development and knowledge management. And the key is single-sourcing, coupled with semantics, writing once to populate multiple outputs, with structure and tags indicating what the content is in multiple ways. It’s become a theme in the content community, and is beginning to be explored in elearning as well.

The benefits are that you write less, and you get more flexibility, such as auto-populating your help systems, customer and employee training, and manuals. You also can deliver web, print, and mobile. The costs are up-front analysis and content management, which should be done anyway, and tighter constraints around elements, which requires more discipline.

XML of course helps here, and SCORM does too, but there’s another layer which adds meaning on top of the content: DITA. This allows you to define what things are and are about, which isn’t intrinsic to SCORM, and provides an elegant structure on top of XML. I’ve recognized the potential from work on Intellectricity, an adaptive learning system we built from ’99 to ’01, on a subsequent performance support system that we populated from the same content that was going into the print manual, and most recently on a project moving an organization from content development to online experience. What I didn’t have was any real evidence of it being applied to elearning content, though I know it should.

Reuben Tozman from edCetra Training spoke on the use of DITA at the DevLearn conference last month. I didn’t get to attend his session (too many interesting things at once), but I followed up with him and had a great conversation. His firm did early work on structuring content into models using DITA that got picked up on in several places and got him invited to join the OASIS DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization SC. This is a group working on developing DITA standards for elearning. He was kind enough to help clarify my understanding of DITA’s role vs SCORM (semantics vs packaging), and to mention several examples. Not surprisingly, IBM is working here, but apparently Sun is also.

What with flexible components of software systems being coupled by web services, similarly flexible content components (including media and interactivity, we’re not talking static here) can be coupled by tags and business rules to create custom/personalized/optimized content for individuals based upon roles, tasks, context, etc (see Delivering the Dream white paper, PDF). Even without the customization, however, we can stop the redundant development of content that means that sales training, customer training, and support systems are rewriting the same marketing and engineering material.

The benefits start with efficiency, but the flexibility is the real win. It requires breaking down some organizational silos, but that’s something that should be happening anyway.

I suggest we’ll see more of this in the future. I was touting games a number of years ago, and finally saw it cross the chasm into the mainstream. I’m thinking mobile’s there now. I predict that smart content will be there in maybe a year or two. Who’s ready for the future?

Tony Karrer picked up on the Knowledge Planet + Shared Insights = Mzinga (means ‘beehive’ in Swahili) merger, and said “points to another direction – combination of LMS capability + community / social networking. I’m not sure I quite get what that means yet”. He got an explanation he liked from Dave Wilkins (KP, now Mzinga), but I have what I think is a somewhat different one.

To me, courses are at the bottom of Tony O’Driscoll’s map of the transition from novice to expertise. Communities are at the top. What I haven’t previously seen is an elegant transition between the two. I’ve argued that you really should wrap community around the courses at the bottom to support the transition from learner to participant/practitioner to expert/innovator. There are nuances about how it should be done, of course, like so much of what we do. Whether that’s in Mzinga’s direction is an open question.

Tony mentions Q2 Learning as someone else working in the space of learning and community, though while their one product meets the need of learning wrapped with community it’s not clear how that segues from there to their community product. And he cites Wilkin’s pointer to Gartner’s guess that “Enterprise social software will be the biggest new workplace technology success story of this decade.” Which resonates with my previous post about knowledge management.

I really believe that eCommunity and eLearning need to be integrated (it’s part of my eLearning strategy, after all), and I’m pleased to see some initial steps in this space, but as usual I have some specific ideas about how that should happen and I’ll be on the fence until it looks like someone’s really ‘getting’ it. Same with elearning and performance support & portals. LearningGuide seems to be doing it, but is it enough?   Eventually, you want courses, performance support, and community working together, and any two is only a partial step.

The opportunity to elegantly integrate the necessary components is sweet, but maybe loosely coupled components through web services (ala Jay Cross) will ultimately make more sense than a monolithic system. More flexibility, the ability to elegantly do each component rather than try to have a Swiss Army knife…

I briefly mentioned Dave Snowden’s thoughts as part of a very quick DevLearn coredump. In catching up on my blogroll, I see Tony O’Driscoll’s posted an interesting thought piece that starts with what’s wrong with competency models and ends up with recommendations for actions that more clearly resonate with Snowden-style thinking.

The short answer is to start doing things looser and more flexibly, empowering people and getting them to share in understanding the more ‘network’ nature of things versus hierarchies. Or “Tap into that wisdom, aggregate it and use it”, as Tony puts it. This hasn’t quite yet baked into my bones, but in my head and gut it’s quite right.

Can we take the time to try to make knowledge formal, or do we empower people to learn on their own. I think the latter may take some formality, but maybe in an informal, social type way. Facilitation, not indoctrination. Inspiration, not just motivation. Let’s learn together.

My wife always insists that fall is my busy time, and I never get it. This year I am so getting it. In addition to speaking all over the place next month (and the attendant house-keeping details like actually creating the presentations!), people have been asking for assistance with grant applications & proposals, the list goes on.

The good thing is I can’t complain about being bored. The bad thing is that attempting to keep up with the surge in workload means I find it harder to blog. Not just to find time, but it’s hard to be reflective when you’re in active cognition mode. AKA “when you’re up to your a** in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp”.

So for one thing it’s an apology, but it’s also a recognition that this curse is hurting organizations. Several years ago, when Jay Cross and I were pushing the notion of ‘learning to learn‘ (still one of the best cost/benefit values I can think of), people would say “we don’t have time to reflect”. And I can see it is still true.

Yet, it’s not wise. You need to take time to reflect, and companies that have built it into their DNA are reaping the benefits (Google being the poster-child). Yes, there’s increasing competition, and pressure, but the way you succeed is by out-thinking, not outworking. Are you freeing up your innovators and problem-solvers to think ahead, as opposed to addressing other people’s concerns? Are they in tune with the organization’s mission and thinking how to take it to the next level?

Sow what do you do? I think you go beyond the Theory of Constraints type of management and create a learning culture, inspire people, and them empower them with a performance ecosystem. Are you taking the time you need now to get the advantage you’ll need tomorrow? Yes, it’s an investment, but one I think you can’t afford to miss if you want to still be here the day after…

…which is when I head off to a board meeting, so I better get back to work (he says, bringing the conversation full circle).

I’ve mentioned before that I think there’s a strategic framework behind elearning implementation, and have been talking about it a bit here and there. Of course, the real test is if anyone says “hey, that’s me”. I’m not seeing it, and I’m curious why, as I believe I see it all over the place.

I got into the space through a partner organization, where their clients who’d been doing tactical stuff started asking for assistance with the longer-term picture. It became obvious there is a higher level, and an emergent way to look at it. I increasingly see organizations who’d benefit, but getting to the right person, and getting them to see the need, and of course most importantly getting them to actually buy into trying a solution has been difficult. An earlier post talked about someone who needed it, but was looking for free assistance. Probably worth every cent it cost.

I’m actually wondering if this is an unseen need. That is, organizations need it and don’t realize it. I’ll be talking about it in various ways at several upcoming events, , but I’d welcome your feedback on whether it’s too early, too obvious, too obtuse, or what.

George Siemens is organizing a free event: Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations – Nov. 15 – 20, 2007. I’m one of the speakers, others include:

• David Snowden
• Jay Cross
• Rebecca Stromeyer
• Richard Straub
• Donald H. Taylor
• Janet Clarey
• David Wilson
• Bill Bruck
• George Siemens
• Tony Karrer

I don’t know all of them, but I know enough to know that this should be really good. Moreover, they’re using a wiki to start discussion beforehand and continue afterwards, and other innovative things.

And, while you have to register, the conference is free. Sounds worthwhile; I hope we can cross virtual paths through the conference!

It continues to amaze me how new eLearning can be to some folks. In June I spoke on behalf of a colleague to a group of HR managers, introducing eLearning. I also was interviewed on elearning for a small business magazine in New York in July. Now I’m opening the eLearning Guild’s September Online Forum Introduction to eLearning.

I’ll try to put eLearning into perspective, about how technology gives us new affordances to meet organizational needs, dispel some elearning myths, and of course talk about eLearning strategy. Of course I’ll briefly cover games as part of taking instructional design beyond content-and-quiz or classroom online, and mobile as part of increasing reach.

It’s sometimes hard to realize, when you’ve been using technology to support learning for 30 years, that some people are just coming up to scratch, but that’s the reality, and I do try to live in reality (guided by concept, of course ;). That’s OK, I’m certainly happy to share lessons learned rather than have folks keep making the same mistakes. Maybe we can save them some money now, so they have more for some of the fun stuff that’s just waiting to be done!

If you’re just getting up to speed, I suspect that the Online Forum will be a great way to do it. Hope to see you there!