Xyleme Learning Blog

If more than one person is involved in a project, politics happens. It’s inevitable. But for all that calling something ‘political’ is supposed to be derogatory, there’s no need to dread it.

Bryan Chapman addressed this issue in a webinar discussion on reusability 2.0, where the topic centered around the getting learning content management and enterprise content management working together. One of the audience members wanted ideas on how to handle the political aspects of unifying people, processes and systems to get everyone working together. From Chapman’s response:

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eLearning Technology: Brain 2.0.

In the Middle of the Curve: Please, stop throwing stuff at me. (via)

Campus Technology: Web 2.0 and secondary orality.

Clive on Learning: What exactly is blended learning, anyway?

Janet Clarey: Stealth learning, for when you’re trapped with nothing else to do.

Karl Kapp: Learning to surf.

You’ve heard the old engineering joke, right?

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines.

They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who has solved so many of their problems in the past.

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Blog talk never stops …

Janet Clarey: Balancing innovation and execution.

Seth Godin: Three laws of great graphs. (via)

Connectivism: Patience and elearning in Africa.

Smashing Magazine: From the wayback, but raising usability concerns about web applications is always in order.

Weblogg-ed: A little bit of considered Twitter hate centered on good questions about whether it’s actually helping drive conversation and learning or just managing to be a distraction.

eLearning Slam: Two thought-provoking posts, one on cost justifying an LMS and another on rapid course content creation.

So … you’re implementing a learning content management system? Not the easiest of projects these days.

In most organizations, the embryonic stage of learning content management implementation is bound to face the usual host of change management issues. From reusable learning object skeptics to sophisticated learning producers used to a different design and development mode, here are a few characteristics you’ll want to look for in your core implementation team members. Encouraging these traits can overcome obstacles before they do you in:

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Your choices in social and CRM technology are important, as Jay Deragon notes, because customers’ expectations are increasingly set by the social media paradigm. How will you make them?

There’s a definite ‘feel’ that social media and web 2.0 relations tend to have, so it’s important that the implementation team have people on board who understand the communication culture that customers are increasingly insisting on.

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Weblogg-Ed: A nice summer reading list.

Dave’s Whiteboard: The more senses you activate, the better it is for getting learning and memory happen.

The Relationship Economy …: Which mole are you whacking through your business practices? Jay Deragon has an interesting riff off of Seth Godin’s observations about improving your business model via the low-hanging fruit.

Janet Clarey: If you can’t beat social media, maybe you can just join it.

Avant Game: Why alternate reality games don’t work.

The Associated Press recently decided that they were going to refuse to be quoted on blogs anymore, insisting that even some 35 word or less quotes were copyright violations. It’s wrong and illegal, they say, to quote them directly without paying them $2.50 per word.

As conversations about current events move online, what the AP seems likely to have done is to just cut themselves out of the link economy. Jeff Jarvis suggests that this could be the end of them.

It’s easy to say that they have every right to control their content as strictly as they want to, fair use be hanged. Though in this information age, that might not be the most ultimately self-interested way to look at the question. Consider the Recording Industry Association of America, the RIAA.

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Lots of good conversations going on out there …

Janet Clarey: Even learning professionals sometimes get a little weary during the learning process.

eLearning Technology: The search for quick wins is likely to continue to define early adoption of performance support tools like wikis.

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When I was a kid, Mom explained to me that Elvis’ music and dance moves had once been considered scandalous.

Elvis!? Elvis impersonators officiate weddings. His music has joined that category of cultural artifact that’s now considered suitable for all ages. If he were performing on American Idol today, he would offend exactly none of the show’s faithful audience. For mainstream America, Elvis is establishment now.

Which is exactly how it should be in a culture that’s responsive to change.

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