e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Welcome to e-Clippings: The Prologue

This blog is primarily about how culture and technology come together over the space we call 'learning.' It covers a lot of ground but the overarching theme (at least in my mind if not always evident) is how these new technologies, methodologies and ideas can be used to create a richer world of learning. (for more, check the About page)

Enter your email to subscribe:

New Years Resolution? How about feeding someone?

So let's just skip the part where I haven't blogged for months ok?

I've been seeing innumerable and inevitable Top Ten Lists, Year-End reviews, Predictions, etc and I thought I wanted to do something different but I couldn't decide what. Yesterday though, I heard a prayer that put things in perspective for me. The line in the prayer that struck me was:

"Ask much of us, expect much from us, enable much by us and encourage many through us..."

I started thinking that I have seen some projects and some people this past year that have really done that and I wanted to talk about some of them here. I also want to make clear - these people are my heroes - they humble me - they put my problems in perspective - they remind me that we live in a larger world than the one we normally let ourselves see - they remind me that the problems we are dealing with (and by default, if you are reading this on a computer you own, in your own house or apartment where you enjoy reliable electricity and clean drinking water every time you turn on the tap, then you are living in the most privileged societies in the world) are largely of our making and that we have a ridiculous amount of power and agency in dealing with them. These folks are amazing (and they are in no particular order). 

•  Kids Are Heroes: Don't think kids can make a difference? Don't think you can? Check out the actions these kids have taken to help everything from other kids, to NGOs to pets to the environment. Its just amazing what a little organization and giving people the tools they need can do to help them really reach out to others in need. When is the last time you or I raised $2300 in six weeks and sponsored 7 children in Uganda? No, really...when was it? For me, never. That's humbling. I also love this project because it makes me hopeful what the world will or could be like when the kids involved with this project grow up and take this experience with them. 
• Greyt Expectations: Racing Greyhounds can be retired from racing from 18 months to 5 years old and they can live to be 15 years old. These are dogs born and bred to be athletes, to perform for our entertainment and this group of fine people work incredibly hard to find good homes for these amazing animals. The kicker is that these animals are bred to not only be fast and fit, without a lot of the hereditary health problems that other breeds have, but also to be well-behaved, quiet, calm and are used to being handled by a lot of different people. They make ideal pets. You should see the set-up at Greyt Expectations - they get dogs who have come off the track sometimes the night before - and they work tirelessly to find these amazing creatures good homes. 
• The USO: I really don't know what needs to be said here. Not trying to be US-centric here (but that's where I live so that usually happens) but if you do live in the US, then while you may not support all of the political policies that involve the use of military force, you should support the men and women who go in harm's way on a daily basis for us and for our country's sake. True, there are a number of wonderful organizations that support our troops but this one is the grand-daddy...I remember walking through airports when I was a kid and seeing the USO clubs there. Look through some of the programs on their site, they include care packages, language training and even MEGS (Mobile Entertainment Gaming System) - yep, they provide fully-contained systems of XBoxs, PS3, Wiis to our troops to give them a break. So while I like the yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbon - how about a donation to the USO to actually do that?
• Charity: Water: Thirsty? Turn on your tap. Grab your BPA-free water bottle. Take a sip. Good right? What if that took three hours for you to do, if you could? Imagine that in Africa, people spend about 40 BILLION HOURS A YEAR just walking for water. BILLION. About 30,000 people die EVERY WEEK from unsafe drinking water. EVERY WEEK. Not month. Not year. Guess what? 90% of those deaths each week are kids under 5. $20 can provide one person with clean drinking water. $5000 can provide a village with water. How much was my last laptop? Yours? How much did we spend on 'stocking stuffers' or coffee or magazines? How much would it mean to you if you had no clean water and someone did something that provided it to you? If you are human and live on this planet - this impacts you. Don't like kids? Hate dogs? Opposed to all things military (including the brave men and women protecting you?)? Fine. How about a little love for humans? Read the founder's story and keep a dry eye. I dare you. 
• free rice: OK....so times are tight. I hear that. You still want to help though? Awesome. How about improving your vocabulary while feeding people? What? Yep. Head to free rice and start playing. Every right answer donates 10 grains of rice. Every wrong answer does nothing but makes you smarter. No cost. You get smarter. You help feed people. Why are you NOT playing on this site? Organize a team. How much time have you spent doing fantasy football this season? How about let's carve 1/10 of that time off to play this game and help feed people. I think that every conference should set aside one keynote session during the conference where everyone will just play Free Rice for an hour. Imagine the food that could be donated!
• Nothing But Nets: Can I borrow $10? Of course, thanks. Can you take that $10 and donate it so that a kid can go to sleep tonight without worrying about getting malaria from an insect bite? Can you think of anything as scary as wondering every night that when you go to sleep, you make wake up with a disease that is one of the leading killers of children in Africa? $10. That's it. How many friends do you have on Facebook? How many $10s is that? How many nets? How many kids sleeping safely?

I want to say also that I love the work that LINGOs is doing and I applaud them for it and urge you to support them as well...I think its awesome to leverage the training industry's expertise to help the world. I'm not trying to start a competition either - except maybe for us to compete with ourselves - let's gamify our lives and see how many "Good Human" points we can ring up or how many "I provided clean water/food/nets/homes/support" badges that we can ring up. I know we have made some strides but these efforts and these people humble me. People are living and drinking water and eating because of their efforts - that is amazing, awesome and humbling. 

 So today, I'll play Free Rice and I'll help my son set up a team there for his middle school. I'll show him the Kids Are Heroes site too. I'll pet our greyhound. I'll look at the USO programs and charity:water and Nothing But Nets and see how I can leverage my social network to support those and other efforts. Those are my New Year's Resolutions. What are yours? I hope that a year from now, I can look back on 2012 and see how many malaria-fighting nets I've helped to donate or how many grains of rice I've won or much water I've helped to provide to people who are dying of thirst or how many of our brave, fighting men and women I've helped pass the time with MEGS (love the acronym :-)) - that would be an awesome - and humbling - 2012. 

This is gonna get me in trouble but...have you ever thought about underground homes?

So I heard this story on NPR this morning about how Joplin was dealing with the horrific toll from the tornado that destroyed 1/3 of the town and killed 162 people. I can't imagine what that must be like. The closest I get is 9/11. Horrible. Tragic.

The story talked about all the increases in alcohol abuse, sexual trauma to children, increase in gambling, and so on. It also mentioned how kids will ask if the tornado is coming back when something innocent like the wind blowing storngly happens. The answer to the little girl's question is of course yes, the tornado is coming back. Every year. Count on it. Roll of the dice if it hits the town again. This is what gets me - if you live in the Southeast (where I grew up) or Tornado Alley - the tornados are coming. If you live on a beach, erosion will eventually take your land if a hurricane doesn't get to you first. Oh, also, if you live on a hill, you shold probabaly be aware of earthquakes, mud slides and for pete's sake, watch out for wildfires. I'm not an ad for anti-depressants - I'm just saying let's be realistic.

I'm fascinated by the way we anthropomorphize storms and nature in general. The cruel truth is that nature doesn't care about us. There are no "viscious" storms, or "cruel" winds...those are human judgements that we put on a non-human entity. (another pet peeve: reporting that someone lost their battle against cancer - they didn't lose - the cancer wasn't playing, it was just doing what it does - I hate the way that saying makes it seem like some people just didn't fight hard enough)

So what's my point? My point is that nature won't change...fires will burn, tornados will come, floods will happen...the key is that WE, the humans in the picture, CAN adapt...what's fascinating is when we don't. I rant about putting wires back on poles so they can be knocked down again instead of burying them...people rant back telling me about the cost but I ask (and never get an answer) how many times can you pay to put them back on poles before the cost levels out? ...but back to the tornados...

Humans have this remarkable ability to adapt. We walk upright. Have opposable thumbs. Binocular vision. We adapt. We change. We also have an amazing capacity to face tragedy and come back and I think what's happened is maybe the wires got crossed...did we confuse adapting with a lack of courage? So here's what I think...if you live in tornado alley, have you thought about an underground home? They can be beautiful, energy efficient and they could give a crap about high winds. If you live at the beach, poles. Hills prone to mudslides, earthquakes and/or wildfires? Get used to no insurance. 

I'm sorry but I'm just amazed that we who have descended from Australopithecus afarensis, have refused our heritage. have refused to adapt. So yes, to those folks in Joplin, to my families living in Kansas and Georgia, to dear friends living in California and Oregon and Washington, to more family lving in Florida - those tornados are coming back - they can't adapt - can we?

$70 for a book published after the author dies. WTF?

I found some great images on Flickr in the "Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory" group and one of them referenced the book "Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory" by Alfred Gell. 

Seems like an awesome book...the reviews all regard it well...so looking at Amazon...there it is for...WHOA! $70!? Are you kidding? Oh wait, its been used as a textbook - so that makes it ok. Now get this...this book was written in 1998 and was published posthumously...that's right...the author is dead so that means copyright will only apply to this work for like another 120 years. Reasonable right?

Judas, I mean really. We are so messed up as a society. I did find the book on Questia...great..except its also locked behind a paywall. So I hope Alfred Gell never wrote anything useful to a lot of people because they will never see it. Ever. Seriously you dopes, brokers from banks that had to use government money to bail themselves out are getting bonuses. BP has only disperesed about $4 billion of the $20 billion its dedicated to help the people in the Gulf. On and on. And we're gonna lock this work up behind some paywalls and here is the thing...if you charged ONE DOLLAR for this book, the publisher would make more money than the current price. Its just so damn stupid all the way around. No one is making money and nothing is getting read. Beautiful. 

More awards bullsh@%t!

So I wrote this little blog post last year about an email I got concerning an awards program. My problem was the cost associated with entering the contest and the utter lack of transparency and the fact that empty contests like this demean our industry and our efforts. Small problems right?

I was actually alerted to this contest by someone in my network but I also just got the email announcing it myself. 

Last year the cost to be in this fine "contest" (pls use airquotes when reading aloud), was over $800 - I guess the economic downturn has hit everyone  and the cost is now down to $575. 

Let me say again - this is the "Brandon Hall Excellence Awards". Now I should say, like I did last year, that I admire not only the some of the work that BHR does but a lot of the people that are analysts there. Really do....BUT....

...awards like these just cheapen and demean our industry. Any awards program that is administered and run by a for-profit company is suspect by nature. Why can't we forge some non-commercial group that will ajudicate an awards program - that would be cool and helpful. One that is not associated with any one conference, publication or company - what about an awards program that is associated with our industry?

Here is one truth - that won't happen on one level because awards programs like this are money makers. Pure and simple. I think another truth is that our industry is just too fractured. We have designers, developers, consultants, academics, 'legends', edupunks and more - how do we bring that group together?

So I'm sorry BHR, I won't be paying the $575 to "get the recognition I deserve"....I hope that will come from my peers, my clients and my stakeholders. 

"FOUO" ...Now this is interesting.

So "FOUO"  = "For Official Use Only". Here is a link to detailed explanation of the term, turns out its a document classification, not a security level. That link in part defines it as:

"This designation is used by Department of Defense and a number of other federal agencies to identify information or material which, although unclassified, may not be appropriate for public release."

The interesting part is the one where I see a story come across Twitter about something that is not only in my professional area but a personal one as well. I click on the link (no, I'm not providing it here) and I go to a story on the Website of a widely-known tech magazine. There on the story page is an image that clearly has "FOUO" stamped on it. 

I think that policy is pretty clear here. I don't think I can link to or use that image. We found out when Wikileaks hit, that just because something is now publically available, doesn't mean that its classification has changed - so this image is public but still FOUO. As a govt. employee, I think my options are clear - don't link to it or use it. I just find this really interesting - kinda doing some mental disection on what this feels like. 

What would you do if you saw come across Twitter that was really juicy but contained proprietary information about or from your company? Would you RT it?  

Read "Designing Social Interfaces" if you are involved with humans at all.

Do you work with humans? OK...then read this book. Clear? Awesome. 

You want people to use your systems? Your courses? Your learning experiences? Then read this book. This book won't do it all for you but it goes a long way. I think it also addresses user interaction in a way that we don't usually think of when designing courses. I'm just sitting here looking at the cover of this book and seeing that humans are pretty apparent in the title (hint: social means human)...then I think about something like "Instructional Systems Design" and it's a little less easy to see where humans fit in. 

When is the last time you thought about the flow that you create for students when they sign up for a course? Did you even think about it at all? These folks did. They worked for companies like Yahoo! where people would vote with their mouse button if the flow of an experience on a site wasn't compelling or welcoming. 

The authors talk about social user experience patterns and describe a pattern here as:

"A pattern describes an optimal solution to a common problem within a specific context. A pattern is not a finished piece of code or design. Rather, it reflects the sum total of a community's knowledge and experience or expertise in a given domain."

Now social media and or social learning is all the rage but unless we want to turn this powerful moment into something approaching our grand e-learning design concepts like which corner do we put the Next button in, then we need to get smarter on design. Design that's like Soylent Green - about people. So read the book. Visit the Wiki. Let's figure out how to design systems for humans, not just systems that include humans. 

Sigh...will someone in Learning/Training Field Just Please Rip This Off?

OK so seriously. We've stopped using Learning Objects right? Cause they're about as real as mean unicorns. Good. Now, as an industry, let's get into some serious theft.  Saw this article in TechCrunch, about Google firing up chatbots again. 

This time the Google bot is named Google Guru and is available to any chat service linking to Google Talk. So think about Paving the Cowpaths (srsly click this link). Look to where your people are already using tools, maybe as pedestrian as IM. Now think about deploying a chatbot as a PERFORMANCE SUPPORT TOOL or an EPSS or some other name that just means getting info that people need to them, when and where they need it. #DuhWinning

A corporate chatbot, chiling as that may sound at first blush, could be a natural and non-threatening way for people to interact with a ton of information. Now tie that chatbot interaction back to the employee's profile in the LMS and...do I need to draw this out? OK....you've got a built-in, human-populated engine for the things they're looking to find out. Nice huh? I know. 

So maybe Google (#irony) for "chatbots" and see what turns up...and maybe think about a tool that already is in someone's workflow/ecosystem/learnscape. ;-)

Why can't we build something like this for "Objects Used for Learning"?

First place, please don't ever call anything a "learning object" in front of me. Not unless you're prepared to tell me what it is and how its different than any other digital object. So let's go with you just don't use it. Cool. 

Second place, have you used Slide Rocket? Did you know that when you use it, when you upload a PPT presentation to Slide Rocket it strips all the images out and adds them to an Asset Library? Did I mention its automatic? Hunh. Weird. Sounds useful. 

From the exfm page: 

"Exfm turns the entire web into your personal music library. As you browse, exfm runs in the background indexing every MP3 file you come across, building a music library for you. exfm will continue to check the sites you've visited, adding new music for you to listen to every day. 
New in Version 2.0:You can now Note songs you love and they will be publicly shared on your profile page at ex.fm/YourName. You can also connect your account to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to both share songs on those sites as well as pull in shared songs from people you follow on those sites. "

  So tell me campers, if somebody can do this for MP3s (WHOA! what if MP3s could be LEARNING OBJECTS? No way Mark, you're just talking crazy!) then why can't we create some mystical authoring tool (some would call it a Chrome extension), where you create a personalized authoring tool environment that grabs objects as you cruise around the Web and builds you a library on the fly? What if we could hook that tool to your Diigo RSS feed so we teach the Machine as we use it? Wow that would be cool and useful. But Mark, where would the Next Button go!?

Think you're the first one to think like this?

"It is an extraordinary era in which we live. It is altogether new. The world has seen nothing like it before. I will not pretend, no one can pretend, to discern then end; but every body knows that the age is remarkable for scientific research into the heavens, the earth, and what is beneath the earth; and perhaps more remarkable still for the application of this scientific research to the pursuits of life. The ancients saw nothing like it. The moderns have seen nothing like it till the present generation…

We see the ocean navigated and the solid land traversed by steam power, and intelligence communicated by electricity. Truly this is almost a miraculous era. What is before us, no one can say, what is upon us, no one can hardly realize. The progress of this age has almost outstripped human belief; the future is known only to Omniscisence."

Daniel Webster, 1847

A little rant on comic books.....

Believe it or not, I find that image over there to the left to be offensive, on several levels. First, as a long-time (since like I was 9) comic book reader, I'm offended because it seems like the artist just gave up and didn't even draw Emma Frost but instead drew some kind of hooker/stripper avatar. Nothing to do with the story. Nothing to do with the character. Brilliant.

Let me also tell you (entering second level of offended), I have an 11-year old son and I would love to get him reading comic books but I'm no about to hand him this issue of X-Men. So not only are they offending me, a current reader, they are losing out on a future potential reader.

So what does a good cover look like? How about the one over here to the right? I like this one. Tension.
Drama. Actually has something to do with the story. So please don't pander. It's not what got me reading comic books - its not what will bring the next generation to comic books. 

And another thing, adopt tighter story arcs. You know when you never end a story, you don't prevent people from jumping off; you keep people from jumping on. 

Oh and geez...enough with the one-shots - meaningless to the storyline. 

And Holy Title Confusion...wanna know a real problem? These are the X-Men related titles shipping in MARCH: X-Men Origins, X-Men Legacy, X-Men, X-Factor, Wolverine, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny X-Force....and I'm skipping around here. But you see what I mean? I mean which one do I get? Which ones are in the same continuity? 

So yeah, Marvel & DC (w a little Dark Horse thrown in) you can continue to make Spider-Man 8 or Iron Man 5 - but don't forget where these characters came from  - they came from the pages of comic books and that audience that lines up to see those films? A lot of those people came from reading the books. So do something that shows you can actually remove your head from you collective publishing ass and do something to make this a vibrant publishing medium. 

Thanks. Excelsior!

 

 

More on Questions - the Edge and Your Cognitive Toolkit

No, not the U2's Edge...the Edge is a group of free-range intellectuals - scientists, technologists, authors..and once a year - like American football Pro Bowl or maybe more like the Running of the Bulls, we get to watch these brain-powered jocks strut their stuff - returning mental kickoffs 102 yards and doing an end zone dance of Oppenheimer-like proportions. Its awesome stuff really - thought-provoking, challenging (sometimes just in terms of trying to master the vocabulary) but I like it because it forces us to push outside our normal bounds of how we think about things.

The occasion for all this is  the annual Question that the Edge asks its members to answer. Some of the past questions include "What was the most important invention in the past 2,000 years and why?" also "What now?" ....one of my favorites was "what is your law?"

The 2011 Questions is now out and its a good one: "WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?" Nice one right? I love this explanantion of a cognitive chunk:

"James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "SHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", "placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate."

Now look, there are a 164 responses to this question from some very impressive minds so don't rush over there thinking you're just going to gobble all this down. Take your time. Read one. Digest it. Roll it around in your head. Find your favorites. I like Don Tapscott's line about "Why don't schools and universities teach design thinking for thinking?" How about Roger Schank's admonition that "Some scientific concepts have been so ruined by our education system that it is necessary to explain about the ones that everyone thinks they know about when they really don't." 

The point is that you could spend days here and maybe we should. I look at something like the Edge's Annual Question not so much as a compendium of finished thoughts but as a rich storehouse of seeds for future thought..brilliantly constructed seeds maybe even genetically modified ones but seeds nonetheless that maybe we can bring back to our particular professional pastures, plant, care for and see what grows. Enjoy. 

Questions, Answers, Quora, Asymmetric Follow and does this make us Human?

 So Quora is blasting off right now. Some hyperbolic, breathless suggestions have it becoming bigger than Twitter. I don't know about that, I think that more people are interested in broadcasting than they are in participating in answering questions but I could be wrong. Regardless of where Quora ends up, either as the MySpace or the Facebook of the Q&A world, I think the rapid rise of this site and others, brings up a couple of powerful dynamics that largely go unnoticed...at least not so much noticed given their power (IMHO). 

The first difference I see between the dynamic of Twitter and the way something like Quora works is in the Asymmetric Follow.  

"Asymmetric Follow is a core pattern for Web 2.0, in which a social network user can have many people following them without a need for reciprocity. Assmmetric Follow is unlike email for example, which tends to be within small groups, with all users knowing each other (newsletters are a clear exception here). If you see a social network where someone has 5000 followers and only follows 150 back – that’s Asymmetric Follow." (James Governor, 2008)

That kind of dynamic is fine if it occurs within a network that accepts modes like broadcasting as well as lurking. I think though that the Q&A dynamic demands reciprocity and active engagement. I have been getting dozens of notices in my Inbox that more and more people are following me on Quora. First I have to wonder why - I assume that like me they are following me because they have seen the questions I follow and we're sort of organically building a community of interests. Secondly though, I began to wonder how many people I wanted to follow back. While I follow over 2,000 people on Twitter and would probably follow more if I just took the time to dig through the wealth of really smart people out there to follow, Quora feels different. 

I'm already feeling a limit to the number of people I want to follow...I think because I feel like that could be a lot of questions headed my way and people asking you questions feels like a more significant energy commitment than simply reading tweets and re-tweeting or even replying. So I wonder if Quora does become incredibly large, as an overall community, will it have people who operate at the same scale as Pete Cashmore and Robert Scoble or will it self-limit to smaller communities? ..but wait a sec, I'm just getting warmed up. 

I also started wondering about the 'question' dynamic in itself. I mean from a historical/sociological/psychological/anthropological view...what's the Question all about? Turns out that down one avenue, this quickly gets you into discussions of intonation, if questions can exist outside of syntactic structures which leads to Chomsky and discussions of generative grammar and whether or not asking questions is an activity the one cognitive activity that distinguishes human cognition from the smartest of the animal world.  Great. One can of intellectual worms opened. 

I'm not ready to put these particular worms back in the can yet though because I think this is important. So now I am looking for resources and I am asking questions:

• who is the leading writer/researcher/historian/anthropologist on questions?
• What are the cultural differences in how questions are regarded?
• What is the uptake of something like Quora in non-Western cultures?
• What drives humans to ask questions? Is there a Q&A-focused version of the Dunbar Number?
• Should we as people trying to architect moments of learning, be concerned about having a deeper understanding of this dynamic?
• How has asking questions as an activity changed over time?
• How do things like Mendeley and Zotero play in this space?
• What could we do with the data flowing into Quora et al if there was an open API like Twitter? Could design multiple apps for reaching into that data and displaying questions and answers in a huge variety of ways?

So far I've got:

• Q & A Sites (I know there are more, feel free to add in comments)
  •  Yahoo! Answers
  • Aardvark
  • LinkedIN Answers
  • Formspring
• Articles on Quora, Questions, etc (I know there are more of these too :-))
  • Who asked the first question?
  • Wikipedia entry on Question
  • TechCrunch FAQ on Quora
  • Quora Will Be Bigger Than Twitter
  • Quora: A Social Network Built for Learning
  • Generative Grammar
  • Syntactic Structures
  • My Quora Profile

Thinking about "Gamification" - the Game Layer - contexts...

 **Please use W-A-S-D keys to move through this post, mouse to look around, space bar to jump and left-click to fire. And be sure to check-in and maybe you can become Mayor of this post. (In the picture, they're mechanics, get it? Like game mechanics. You get it right?)**  **Update at end of post....

I have a problem with tabs. Seriously. Its an issue. I usually keep about 100 or so of them open at a time. I know. I see myself ending up on some browser-based version of Hoarders. There is a method to my madness here. I collect all these tabs and then start to sort them to see what shakes out - what is common and and what is different - kinda like panning for gold but without the backache.

So it turns out I've been looking a lot of sites and articles about using game dynamics outside the magic circle of games. Now I want to run down the tabs that I have open but I also wanted to say that there is something troubling to me about the use of game mechanics or this trend of gamificiation. I don't know exactly what it is but maybe it smells to me a bit like how "e" was gonna change everything in the learning/training field. Maybe its the idea that what I see is not only the use of game mechanics outside of games but outside of game design as well. That bothers me. Its like watching teenagers drive without the benefit of experience. They can go fast but the potential there for doing serious damage is great as well. Maybe its this leftover bitter taste I have in my mouth from last year's GDC in which it seemed every other presentation was how to 'Monetize User Behavior Through Game Mechanics' or any number of sessions that I remember as being titled 'How to be the Next Farmville in 3 Easy Steps.' 

There is a quote by Gary Gygax (and no, I'm not putting a link to his bio or anything. If you're interested in games or game mechanics and you don't know who he is - get thee to Google and hang your head as you do) at the start of one of the essays in Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen's amazing book, The Game Design Reader:

"Knowing the rules of a game is not nearly as simple as committing the relevant passages to memory, because memorization does not bring understanding. It is not only important to know what is written in the rules but also to perceive how the parts of the rules fit together and work in harmony with each other. The latter task is certainly achievable but it is not easy."

Maybe that's it. Its that even if you can separate out certain game mechanics from true games, you still need to know how they all work together to create a compelling user experience. Maybe I'm wrong. But first, to the tabs...

The first tab that I have open is a post from Gabe Zichermann and is entitled "Game Thinking is the Core of Gamification" (damn. looks like I took too long to write this post and I can't find that post any more, well we'll plunge ahead anyway)...sounds like a good start place right? Looks like Gabe has a vested interest in this dynamic (not that that's a bad thing, just is what it is). He also runs the Gamification blog (which looks like it used to be the funware blog), its associated GamificationCo and is producing the Gamification Summit (January 2011, in SFO, brrrrr). I note that Amy Jo Kim (you should watch this video of Amy Jo Kim - one of my favs) is now listed here as a "gamification guru" - I guess that's when you know you've arrived as a new niche - when you have your first gurus. Its also worth noting that Jane McGonigal is also keynoting at the Gamification Summit (you should probably watch this TED video of Jane talking about how Gaming Can Change the World and maybe even take a look at Urgent Evoke or World without Oil) - I think that while Amy Jo Kim may fit into the gamification dynamic, I think that Jane is talking about not severing individual dynamics of games but about stretching the magic circle of a game to cover not only new dynamics but new content material as well. 

There is also a TEDBoston presentation from Seth Priebatsch on the "game layer" or game dynamics that can be used in the 'real world.' Things like the Appointment Dynamic, The Influence and Status Dynamic, the Progression dynamic and the Communal Discovery Dynamic. Its a good talk and makes some interesting points. 

One tab was a blog post by Alex Manchester - that while I sense was written with good intentions, continues a common problem that I wanted to mention if only in an effort help clear it up. Game Theory - the subject of A Beautiful Mind and a discussion of which Alex includes at the start of his post - really has nothing to do with game design or game mechanics although it very well has something to do with behavioral economics (all of which was pointed out in a comment by Simon Bostock. If you are still interested in game theory though, you can actually take/audit/whatever you call it the course on this from Yale (its actually really good). Speaking of behavioral economics (don't hear that every day do ya?) - there is this very fine presentation (PDF) on the relationship between game mechanics and user behavior from Bunchball Nitro.  

Now there is this awesome post by Pascal Rettig (and I say awesome not just because my last name used to be Rettig) about the game mechanics hype cycle. I really wish that we had had more writing like this back in ye olde early days of e-learning. One of the great points that Pascal makes is that these elements really aren't game mechanics but are actually "meta-game mechanics" (which is also what I talk about below wrt Kongregate). His point being (I think) that we need to be careful to maintain the focus of these mechanics on the core behavior we're looking to drive and make sure that those mechanics don't become the entire reason for people to engage with whatever content we're focusing on...badges on foursquare are meta to the reason we "play" - finding other people and the location-based tips...let's keep an eye on the social and not just the media. 

Pascal points to a presentation by Sachin Agarwall that argues in part that we should look for "viral mechanics" as opposed to game mechanics. I think this is important if you're out there in the commercial sector trying to build to the next F'ville...but I wonder about its importance inside the enterprise..I think we really want to focus on dynamics that drive engagement with the content and not necessarily getting the content to go viral. 

Pascal also points (seriously, read Pascal's post, it's crazy loaded w good thoughts and resources) to "Game Mechanics - The New Black" by Jon Carder. Jon makes a nice point that really frequent flyer programs have been using game mechanics for years. He also argues that some of the most common elements in this category include:

Must Haves:

• Action
• Goal
• Scoreboard/Feedback
• Reward

Nice-to-Haves:

• Competition
• Countdown timer
• Social

Be sure to read his whole post on the topic for greater detail but I think its interesting to watch as people flesh out these dynamics (see earlier mention of Bunchball paper) and along those lines, there is a post by Shane Snow over at Mashable on HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power your Business. I think one of Shane's really important points is to start with your vision and work backwards through Behaviors and then through supporting mechanics. 

I guess one of the seminal pieces in this still forming cannon of gamification is Jesse Schell's DICE 2010 talk. Jesse does a great job at describing the "elastic velvet rope" - how WebKinz brought the magical creatures that live inside children's stuffed animals to life and made $12 = $20. One of the important kernels in Jesse's talk is that games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Club Penguin - are all intruding on our reality - using our real friends and our real money. Imagine linking training to reality - oh shush Mark - now you're just talking crazy. 

Now here is where the update comes in. I just spent almost a whole week at DevLearn 2010. In short, if you don't go to DevLearn, you should. Brent Schlenker (the Main Man of the Show), David Holcombe, Heidi Fisk and the rest of the eLearning Guild put on an amazing show. So I did a workshop on social learning and a little Social Learning Camp throughout the conference. The audience was awesome and stayed super-engaged the whole time. As part of that workshop and camp, I talked a lot about one of my fav web sites, Kongregate. If you've known me for longer than 5 minutes, I've probably brought this site up. I want to bring it up here too (shocker). 

I think the way Kongregate is architected, offers us a way to think about using game mechanics and a game layer to add some social context to existing content. I think this may be a way for us to get 'feet wet' in terms of gamification without taking a big chomp out of the hype cycle. Go to the site. Click on any game - doesn't matter. Now see where the game is? Imagine your content there. There's a profile w/ an avatar, points for non-game related behavior (think about the dynamics you want to drive in your users/learners), comments, ratings, suggestions for related content and so on. In short, there are a lot of options for us to just take existing content and place it into a social/gaming context. As we do this though, we need to keep Pascal's warning in mind that the layer around the game is a meta-game and maintaining that layer's focus on the behaviors that you wish to reinforce requires serious design thinking. 

What I really really hope is that this whole movement isn't born out of a lot of what I saw at last year's GDC - that was endless, repetitive sessions on how to be the next Farmville. Please. I don't care about your farm. 

***Double Update Alert: Look at the answers on Quora to the question: Why are so many game developers opposed to gamification?

Retirement and the thanks of a Grateful Nation

 So last week I had the honor of attending the retirement ceremony for combat veteran, Master Sergeant (MSG) Roy Stiles. At a time when I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to be when I grow up, Roy is finishing one career and starting another. There were speeches and awards and pictures taken. MSG Stiles (pictured here with some dopey civilian type), kept his game face on through most of the ceremony, right up until he had to thank his mom for her 'holding her breath' for about 20 years while her son went in harm's way. I think this was really powerful considering MSG Stiles' son has just completed Navy basic training and will soon be going in harm's way himself. 

Turns out too that MSG Stiles, now to be known as "Roy" - was an honor grad of just about every training school or class he attended. He did what I'm sure was a brutal tour in Hawaii and of course Germany and by his own choice - Afghanistan, where he served as a First Sergeant (1SG). He also volunteered twice to serve as a Casualty Notification officer.  Volunteered to go to Afghanistan. Volunteered to notify families that their loved ones had been lost in service to this nation. Humbling. 

Why do I bring all this up? Well first, cause I like to count Roy as a friend and a co-conspirator at work and I told him I'd make him a star. Second, because I know its all cool now to put the "Support the Troops" magnet on the back of the car or to talk about how we can disagree with the politics of whatever war but still support the troops (not insignificant lessons mind you, learned by this country largely on the backs of our Vietnam veterans) but I wanted to make the idea of who we are supporting and the kinds of jobs these people do, just a little more personal. 

I also wanted to talk about the qualities of the Non-Commissioned Officers. One speaker at Roy's ceremony described NCO's as "mission focused, smart and they do not whine." Having worked with more than a few NCO's, I can add my personal testimony to that description. Think about what would happen if you advertised those qualities for your next job opening. 

So I just really wanted to write this post to say thank you to MSG Stiles for his service and to also say thank you to the other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who continue to go in harm's way for us and for this country. 

OK...sheesh...yes, I still blog...

Yep. Still here. You people are just too smart for me to keep up sometimes. I've got hundreds of tabs open on three different browsers on at least 2 different computers. I'm synching bookmarks and open tabs, I'm sending myself text files with links in them that I haven't gotten to yet, I'm trying to get three different, very cool projects off the ground at work, I'm prepping for DevLearn 2010...phew...now I'm tired again.  

So all that is just preface to say that yes, still here and I really do have to get disciplined again about blogging. It really is a different dynamic than twitter and there is something much more cathartic and helpful at aligning the big thoughts in the action of blogging than the 140 character medium (funny - remember when blogging was criticized because it wasn't 'long form'?)

So enough whining - let's get back to some writing and deep diving.  

Social Media Dilbert (thx to @hjarche & @c4lpt)

Hooked on Birdbrain - and a new Twitter dynamic...

So I love this app from Birdbrain.  It provides me probably the most useful look at my Twitter network of any tool I've seen. 

One of the interesting things it does is look at my followers every time I start it and tells me, since the last time I checked, not just how many new followers have joined and who they are but who has also stopped following me since the last time I checked. That's not really a totally new feature I know but BirdBrain does it faster than any other tool I've seen and it has resulted in a new dynamic for me. 

I've become really interested in who stops following me. Some are really obvious, people who have different interests, bots, etc., but some are not so obvious and those are the ones that interest me. 

Like @socmedia12 - into social media marketing. Were my tweets just not on point enough? Let me be clear, I'm not hurt, I'm not taking any of this personally - I'm just trying to understand the dynamic of how people reach the point where they are sufficiently moved to take the action to unfollow someone. Maybe its just interesting to me since I really rarely unfollow people and I wonder how other people make that decision. 

I've also started following a larger % of people who unfollow me because as BirdBrain highlights them to me, I'll take a look and find someone with interests that I'd like to track. So I guess I'm increasing the asymetry in my network by following more and more people who aren't following me. 

So thanks Birdbrain for crafting a UX that has allowed me greater insight into my lil ole twitter network - you're helping me pull together a better, more interesting, richer network. Plus, I just love that lil twitter bird with the glasses and pencil! 

This "awards" stuff is straight-up bulls@#$

SO I got this email about participating in an awards program. The subject line of the email is "Get more visibility, vendors." That just screams impartial adjudication right off the bat doesn't it? It says, 'you can trust these awards to guide you toward really remarkable solutions' right? Of course it does. 

Now let's be clear, the email in question came from Brandon Hall Research and while I do think that BHR does some good work and has some really fine people working there (I think Gary Woodill is particularly smart), I couldn't hate this email any more. 

From the email: "If your commercially-available product "raises the bar" in any of seventeen categories, then we have an awards program for you"...ouch. So I'm going to self-nominate my own product as a bar-raiser...so what...am I actually supposed to sit down and compare my product honestly and objectively with other products in the field and determine that yes, indeed my product is better than everyone else's...I'll send in a nomination? Does anyone actually think any company out there might conduct such an investigation and conclude the opposite? "Darn, we were going to nominate Widget X, but turns out that its just crap compared to everyone else." Hmmmm.

Also from the email:

"We make it as easy as possible to enter. You can link whatever gives the judges the best look at your product: a trial version of the technology; a recorded demo; videos, Web pages, documents, or slides describing the technology; or whatever combination of descriptive information you choose."

Wow. That's great. So there won't be any kind of standardized submission...so if someone else does really great slides but I send in an actual product, they could beat me. That seems...odd. Kind of like the Oscars saying we're going to give prizes for really great films but if you have some stills you'd like us to look at or maybe just a script to read, we'll do that instead. If you are going to judge products, then judge PRODUCTS. Not marketing materials. Not slide decks. Products. Wanna know why? Because as a potential customer of said product, I could give a crap about the powerpoint behind it. Get it? "Wow, the product is money pit, but the slide deck was AWESOME - thanks BHR Awards!"

So I click over to the awards site and BANG <slaps hand to forehead>...it all makes sense now! From the site: "The entry fee is $795 US." Oh, and I thought you really liked my product. You do? You really like my product and think it would be great if everyone had one and it would make learning that much easier and it would end poverty and cure hunger? Awesome :-) What? You're still going to need $800 from me to get considered for an award? 

Well...um...that's awesome. So I have NO idea how the process works once I pay the $800. I don't know who will judge my product that I have self-nominated and paid to have judged. I also don't know from a consumer standpoint, how much I can trust these awards. You've limited them to self-nominations. You've established a paywall. Now do you really expect me to believe, ESPECIALLY given the subject line of the email, that this is ANYTHING other than another product line for you? Do you really expect me to give ANY credence whatsoever to these awards? I'll tell you this, if-as a potential client, you give me a presentation and tout in that presentation that you've won one of these awards, that might not kill it right there, but your credibility as a vendor just took a hit in my eyes. "wow you won an award that you nominated yourself for and you paid to have judged. Here's a contract." Not happening. 

Now look, you want to run an awards program because you want to highlight advances in the field? Unique contributions? Brilliant new products? That's terrific. You guys know a lot...have smart people working there...you could probably set up real, very strict criteria and do a real service to both companies and the marketplace by highlighting the superstars. You know what? You'd also generate a lot of good PR for your own firm. This though? This serves no one but you and the companies who "win" (what's the percentage of 'losers' by the way - and the percentage of those losers who pay for the privilege the next year?). So let's keep the awards and just do them in a way that makes then real, earned badges of honor and not literally, bought and paid for.  

Yay!!! We are NOT a "Profession"!! Now, let's move on..

 So my office is in the midst of packing up again. No, we're not moving this time, just packing. Don't ask. Anyway, in the midst of this I got an email that sparked this post and I wanted to tie it together with an article from Harvard Business Review that I had been pimping for a few days on Twitter.  

The article is titled "No, Management is NOT a Profession" and yes, it is locked behind a paywall but I read it in the print issue and I do think it hold some worthwhile ideas and HBR isn't trying to hide the fact that its a money-making publication behind some bullsh*t "academic journal facade while just using the "publish or perish" pressure that academics who are seeking tenure face to generate free content for their OUTRAGEOUSLY priced walled gardens of content...the creation of which had already been paid for by a school...but I digress. The point is, pick up the magazine in print or buy a copy of the article. I think that the way the article lays out the defining characteristics of a "profession"...eg LAW and MEDICINE...can really inform the discussions that we regularly seem to have about "what makes one an ISD" and so on. I'm also sitting here thinking that one of the main problems might be the messy humans in the equation. 

I mean let's be honest...law and medicine INVOLVE humans but they are not ABOUT humans. Law is about, well, the law. That is a definable body of content, the mastery of said content can reasonably be judged across populations. Medicine LOOKS like its about humans but its not...its about their bodies and their bodily processes...by definition, a discrete set of knowledge. Management though, and full disclosure-I have a degree in this topic, LOOKS like its about things like accounting and finance and marketing and HR but really its about leading humans and human efforts. So maybe learning/training falls into the same space...it looks like its about ADDIE (drink) or models and theories but what's its really about is learning...something so indescribably human and messy and individually constructed..that it could be the poster child for uniquely human endeavors. Maybe that's why our field will never be viewed as a "profession"...the body of knowledge required to operate in this domain is simply to varied to ever be judged as "complete" and so by definition, is really hard to define when it is "incomplete." 

If a doctor fails chemistry, they can not practice medicine. If a lawyer fails contract law, he or she can not practice law. What piece or pieces of knowledge MUST an ISD master...without which they would not be able to function in this field? So maybe we quit worrying about being a "profession" since to qualify for that appellation, it seems that one must work in a fairly limited intellectual landscape. I prefer my messy, human, learning world where we can act professionally but celebrate all the while, that our particular domain of knowledge is far too broad and deep to be considered something as prescribed and constrained as a "profession."  

The Morning Motivational: Good Will Hunting

Where It All Begins: Our Educational Headwaters

 One of the things I am is a historian. Done the time in the library. Read the original materials. Got the degree. So I tend to take a longer term view of things that people who haven't spent years studying events from hundreds or thousands of years ago do. I also have this tendency to ask annoying questions, like 'where did that come from?' 'when did we start doing that?' 'why did we start doing that?' It bothers me when people don't ask those questions. (Points to whoever tells me who said "A beginning is a very delicate time")

One of the things that also really bothers me (cause I know you were wondering) is when people think they're historians too just because they have the history channel or because they had a history class in college. That's why this kind of crap from the Texas School Board seriously pisses me off no end.  All that is a disclaimer of sorts. I'm no teacher, although I have taught. So I'm kind of going to ignore my own warnings here and just present some ideas on the topic of education. 

There are two things that are spurring me on here (three really). The first is that I currently am a paying customer of the U.S. K-12 system (I have a kid in the 5th grade). Why this spurs me on should be obvious. My son is going into the 5th grade next year and I've already seen his curriculum grind to halt to make sure that everyone had time to study for the MSAs. He also sits in a classroom at a desk but more about that in the next paragraph. ;-)

 The second thing is a presentation that Gary Woodill (@gwoodill) from Brandon Hall Research did titled   "The History of Classrooms as Learning Technology" back in August of 2009. I know Gary was nice enough to share those slides with me from that webinar, I don't know if he has them available elsewhere online but they're excellent and I hope he can make them available. 

Now books like "Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920" are great at looking at the history of technology (radio, TV, etc) in the classroom but fail to appreciate the classroom itself as a piece of technology, as a tool, as a tool designed to accomplish a purpose. Remember that old joke about the little kid being shown around somewhere like Colonial Williamsburg? Her parents have to explain what everything is, the blacksmith, a loom, etc, until they come to the classroom. There the girl feels right at home...because nothing has changed. 

When we look at a hammer, we see pretty clearly what it's purpose is. The beauty of Gary's presentation is that it forces us to look at the classroom as a tool. As a tool designed to accomplish a purpose. Failing to look at the classroom itself as a tool and to consider for what purpose that tool was created is a failing of perspective we can't afford. Why? Because we're starting to do things like create virtual worlds with virtual classrooms in them. Why? Why are teaching adults in classrooms? 

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 1

We should ask what hand created technology like the classroom. What eye framed its "fearful symmetry" (see picture above for fearful symmetry)? Why? Because the classroom has become such a dominant metaphor not only in K-12 education but in Higher Ed and even in our adult training...even in our virtual worlds. In one sense (please see sign at the top of this post), the classroom represents the headwaters of our experience with education and training. The even deeper tragedy is that its not just the classroom we're blindly propagating...its other ideas which are being seriously challenged like No Child Left Behind and its offspring 'teaching to the test.'

If our sons and daughters are struggling with "No Child Left Behind" then imagine their surprise when they get into the corporate world and find our main operating principle with regard to training could be "No Adult Left Behind." Boy, we have got teaching to the test down to a science don't we? So if classrooms are harbingers because they are where we start our experiences, then look at how some of these systems are doing. You have Bill Gates talking to the National Governors Association in 2005 and saying:

"America’s high schools are obsolete.   By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded – though a case could be made for every one of those points.   By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they’re working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today. Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It’s the wrong tool for the times."(1,2)

Ironically enough, one of the most powerful recent voices to critique the current system and the associated reform attempts has been Diane Ravitch in "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education." The Gates Foundation itself isn't spared either. (1) Her message of the failing of testing and of sacred cows like charter schools has been resonant. Her book is in its 7th printing in 3 months. (1,2,3,4) This critique of the current system is that 3rd thing that has been bothering me. I think I also really like Ravitch because she is a historian of educational policy. 

So what do I want right? I want us and by us I mean the people who frequent ASTD, ISPI, and the  eLearning Guild events, the people who populate #lrnchat, and the people who are charged with using emerging technologies to teach and train..I want us to consider the tools we are propagating. The systems we are perpetuating. The theories and paradigms we use to bolster our plans. These tools, these ideas, these systems, become embedded in our world view since we are indoctrinated in them since childhood. What's the joke about 'who invented water?' 'I don't know but I bet it wasn't fish.' Too true. 

We need to critically examine all of this. We need to understand that there is no such thing as a neutral tool. That the creation of every tool is embedded in a cultural context, a milieu of meaning that we must consider when we consider its use. We must learn to not think outside the box but think outside the system. Kill the next button. Kill the idea that no one can fail compliance training but we don't really give a damn if it actually changes behavior or performance by one iota. Kill the idea that taking a course all the way through once and passing produces some sort of meaningful pattern of memory. What would you do if you had a blank slate? 

 ....course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. (apologies to Dennis Miller)

Why Do We Ignore the Most Important Tools We Use?

  So I was reading about new developments on the browser front, Firefox 4 is under heavy development, Opera 10.63 is out, I just found ExtensionFM which is a Chrome extension that builds a library of links to every free MP3 that you run across-in essence building a nice little instant MP3 library. We also now have syncing in Chrome and Firefox. 

Now I know that #e20 and #mlearncon both just finished up (BTW, I think I just want to start referring to confernces by their Twitter hashtags, deal with it) and watching those associated tweet streams, I was really impressed by what I saw coming out of both conferences. Again though I'm struck by how we sometimes seem to running to the next thing without really looking at what we currently have and what can done with it or even if we need to keep it. I know, this is a weird dynamic for me, I'm usually the kid who comes running in yelling 'this is cool..look at this' and then someone asks (they always ask) 'how will it help us?' and I say 'I don't know...but its COOL.' So I'm taking a bit of a step back here but not really. I think we already have several things in our environments, things that we use every day, that if we used them smarter, thought about them more, we could actually make some pretty serious productivity gains. First up is the browser. 

The browser. Possibly the most ubiquitous piece of technology any of us online use.  I may be dating myself here but I used to be really familiar with that screenshot over there. Ah, Mosaic. Back in the days of WinSock, Telnet and PINE, Mosaic was my browser of choice (more accurately, the only browser I could get). You know, put in a URL and the go get coffee. That's also back in the day when the most important stuff we did on computers we did using stand-alone, installed apps. Now I would really like someone to name me a mission-critical piece of software I have to use as an installed application whose functionality is not replicated or surpassed by some Web-based client or service. My point (and a super-obvious one) is that not only does the browser now offer us an unprecedented level of functionality...between the services/sites we can get to all the way but they offer us an unprecedented level of customization and the various extensions and widgets provide entirely new layers of capabilities. So how much are we studying this incredibly extensible, customizable, powerful environment? Where are the comparisons across browsers of the various configurations/extensions/widgets/add-ons that could be created to support learning, performance support and collaboration? (Firefox Add-Ons, Chrome Extensions, Opera Widgets) This is not a rant against IE either but where is the questioning about why in so many instances, IE is just the default browser? (Mush like someone somewhere started the myth that the classroom is the gold standard for training/education...that's a whole other post though) Are we really satisfied with IT just handing us something that we'll use every day and not knowing if its the best we can get? I personally have IE, FF, Chrome and Opera installed and am constantly checking out new features...shouldn't we continue to look at this technology with a critical eye? What the heck...let's take a crack at email.

"Reply All"? What idiot thought of that? I think more damage has been done to corporate productivity by   that little button then by all the games of Tetris combined (Check out how Zappos handles it). If we're not in the browser, we're probably in Outlook. So alright, how many of use have had ANY training at all regarding email? Yeah, I know that the COO of Facebook has said that email is going away and I think this may be the ultimate instance of closing the barn door after the horse has run out (run out, found a new place to live, settled down, and grown old frankly) but I think this is symptomatic of a deeper issue. We use and abuse this particular technology with absolute abandon. We've even created "email bankruptcy"...does that seem healthy? But its this tool we have that because it seems simple, we all think we know what to do with it and how to best use it like that knowledge comes to us genetically or something. So how do we know if we are using this tool to the best of our ability? To the best of its capabilities? How do we even know if we need to be using email at all? Are we searching for alternatives? If we implement social media tools w/in the enterprise, are we doing the necessary change management to get people off the email addiction? What the heck...let's take one last swing...hey! PowerPoint c'mere...

 The story of this slide from the Afghan War has already become legendary. That however is soooo the tip of the iceberg. How much time has gone down this particular rabbit hole? Why do exceptional presentations standout so clearly? I think its because we've seen so many bad ones. Thank goodness for conferences like TED that have been raising the bar on presentations to a level that we can all aspire to. Thanks to to books like Slide:ology and Presentation Zen and Edward Tufte who have been helping us make visual sense of information. I'd just like to ask, how many of our organizations offer training in constructing visual stories, storytelling in general or how to think about presenting information in a compelling, understandable manner? What productivity gains could we get if we invested in some training from some folks like VizThink? We even have multiple tools for converting PowerPoint into training, thus extending the potential for good or ill. 

So the browser, email and PowerPoint. How much time do you think those tools take up in our daily work lives? How much thought have we, as organizations, put into the optimal use of these items?I think there are gains to be made and innovation to be had and solutions to be found. Maybe we need to develop some more 'field independent' thinking...maybe we just might need to look more closely. 

"Communilytics"...Analytics on Capturing Communities

Still noddling my way around this one but wanted to pass it along. 

What Is Communilytics? : A community analytics funnel in practice

View more presentations from Alistair Croll and Sean Power .

Check out this incredibly rich UI

  So check this out. This is a game called Caesary and is found on Kongregate here. I re-tweeted an item from earlier today that talked about the interface being part of the game design. Then I see this.

Just look at the amount of information available to you there. It's staggering on one level. Let's forget about the actual game play going on....I'm looking at synchronous chat, feedback (both to me and from me), available resources, profile, achievements and more. Oh, and its all done in Flash.

See this kind of interface keeps me engaged. I'm getting a lot of information but its all useful and I'm using it to make lots of decisions. There is NO NEXT BUTTON. I don't feel like I'm getting spoon fed data at someone else's pace. I can even speed this up if I want. I'm getting corrective feedback at almost every step. Did I mention its multiplayer?

All politics aside, I love videotape.