I was on Nigel Paine’s blog on Friday when I saw and commented on his post The Mash-up Begins. There have been countless blog posts about the theoretical potential of the iPad on mainstream media, most notably eBooks, so it was nice to see a real-world example of static content and video done in a way that equals, and even improves upon, the quality and design of the magazine layout.

Obviously, my mind shifted to learning as Nigel’s example got me immediately thinking about how we can apply these same mash-up concepts to traditional instructor-led training materials like study guides, manuals, and presentations. While training departments have been busy spending ridiculous amounts of time and money converting these training materials to e-Learning, Steve Jobs has (surprise!) changed the game by providing us with a new direct channel for ILT materials – the eBook. While eBooks of course aren’t new, the iPad now affords training departments the opportunity to add dynamic and interactive media to textbooks and other traditional learning media. In his insightful Influential Marketing blog post How The iPad Will Transform Mainstream Media (But NOT The Web), Rohit Bhargava provides a great description how the iPad will affect traditional textbooks:
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Technorati Tags: eBooks, elearning, ePub, ILT, iPad, learning content, Single Source

Dawn Single Source, Standards eBooks, elearning, ePub, ILT, iPad, learning content, Single Source

I recently read a terrific blog post by HBS Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter entitled “To Master Change, First Dread It.” In it, she argues:

“A counter-intuitive tip for mastering change is to start by wallowing in the feelings of dread it arouses. The sheer nail-biting horror of it all. Get in touch with every negative aspect, all the things that could go wrong. Then figure out a way to get that negative force on your side. In short, Dream your worst nightmare and invest in it.”

Nowhere in the learning industry today are stakeholders facing greater change than in the move towards single-source learning. The dream is grand one: content reusability, multi-modal delivery and real-time customization – all from a single source of enterprise content to meet the requirements of learners worldwide.
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Technorati Tags: content reusability, multi-modal learning, single-source content, training customization

Dawn Single Source content reusability, multi-modal learning, single-source content, training customization

A recently published report concluded that Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) implementations using reusable learning object (RLO) models typically result in a small return on investment. I am not surprised. For starters, I happen to know that none of our customers participated in the study
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Technorati Tags: LCMS, learning content management system, reusable content, reusable learning objects, RLO, single-source publishing, xml publishing

Mark Executive Perspective, Instructional Design, Single Source LCMS, learning content management system, reusable content, reusable learning objects, RLO, single-source publishing, xml publishing

I’ve been in the training and development business for nearly 20 years now. Things certainly have changed a lot in that time.

My first job out of graduate school was as an Interactive Designer for a small but growing multimedia development firm. I was hired to be part of a multi-million dollar project for a major automotive manufacturer. We were creating CD-ROM based training for service technicians. Each course cost over $1 million dollars! They were fantastic, cutting-edge, pushing the envelope in every way.
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Technorati Tags: blended learning, elearning, instructor-led training, single-source content development

Stuart Instructional Design, Single Source blended learning, elearning, instructor-led training, single-source content development

I remember the first time I went out on a sales call. I was a young engineer and I really didn’t know much about sales. After the call, the VP of Sales I was with gave me a book called “Prospecting Your Way to Sales Success”. It was a great story about the discipline sales professionals need to be successful. Contrary to what many people believe, the best sales professionals are not “the slick salesman” or the “tell them what they want to hear to get the deal” type. The best sales people have a methodology and rigorously follow it. The most successful sales people will tell you that sales is a hard profession, and the key is making the hard things easier to do.
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Technorati Tags: Instructional Design, Instructional design for single source, reusable content, single-source publishing, XML content

Mark Instructional Design, Single Source Instructional Design, Instructional design for single source, reusable content, single-source publishing, XML content

If the number of people in my recent conference sessions are any indication more and more organizations are seeing the promise of single-source learning content development. Everyone knows that the old way of doing things is just not working any more once you have any number of courses… doing your Instructor Guide and Student Guide in Word or FrameMaker, your Slides in PowerPoint or Keynote and your learning in Articulate or Lectora.

What happens every time something has to change? EEEKKKKK!
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Technorati Tags: Instructional Design, learning content development, Reusability 2.0, reusable content, single-source publishing

Stuart Instructional Design, Single Source Instructional Design, learning content development, Reusability 2.0, reusable content, single-source publishing

I frequently speak at training conferences. My latest talk is “Designing Content for Reusability Across Multiple Audiences and Contexts.” During the session I discuss the benefits of using XML and XML publishing techniques to separate your training content from its presentation format, allowing you to reuse content from course to course. More importantly you can also reuse content across different types of outputs (e-learning, classroom, performance support and even mobile).

Each time I’ve given this talk I get this question, “I can totally see the benefits of this approach, but I have lots of legacy content in Word. How do I get that into XML?”
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Technorati Tags: Reusability 2.0, reusable content, Word into XML, XML content, XML technology

Stuart Instructional Design, Single Source Reusability 2.0, reusable content, Word into XML, XML content, XML technology