According to this BNet article referencing a recent Bersin & Associates study, overall corporate spending on training products and services grew from $15.8B in 2006 to $16.38B in 2007. This is as the total market grew slightly from $55.8B to $58.5B

Let’s hear it for eLearning

eLearning’s growth is phenomenal with a 5% increase in one year for self-study / computer based training, attributed mainly to online training adoption by small organizations. All of this is in line with the top technologies I’ve been tracking.

* E-learning has grown dramatically. The use of self-study e-learning now accounts for 20% of student hours, up from last year’s figure of 15%.

This growth is driven largely by an increase in online training among small organizations (100-999 employees), which are acquiring the skills and technology to make online training a reality.

Web 2.0 - Creating conversations and pushing knowledge

Notice within the article about the study the Web 2.0 effect on learning:

* The younger generation of learners is driving changes in learning strategies. This year’s study shows a sharp increase in new web-based and collaborative learning resources, such as podcasts, communities of practice, blogs, and wikis.

Trend alert: More space for consultants, less offshore content developing

According to the article, outside consulting is growing along with content developed and tailored specifically for the company. 

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I recently was drawn to this video from a small Microsoft IM advertisement because - well, everyone wants to save time. Folding my own laundry is something that I (and most people do to save money and look neat.

Audience: Everyone

Folding a t-shirt faster simply helps everyone. This instructional video is being chosen by savvy web marketers as a way to draw people into their space, whether it’s for ordering t-shirts or printing on t-shirts, or… well you get the point. VideoJug uses this how-to instructional clip as a portal for driving people to their site. Microsoft promoted it and I tried it out.

Finding your audience is something that every Marketing person desires to do. Explaining a process so that an audience gets the point is what every Technical Communicator desires to do. With Microsoft’s Live platform they’ve integrated both of these within their Instant Messaging client.

Click beneath the fold for the instructional video of how to do the 2 second fold…

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This is important for all who are currently examining an LMS system or have one in place with an end-of-life plan.

In a nutshell, Blackboard was claiming Intellectual Property (IP) patented rights to the software user roles and responsibilities, much like the Microsoft NT Server technology assigns them, with an LMS layer of student / teacher responsibilities.

Keeping it brief:

Any Technical Communication software company who has the penetration into the existing e-Learning space has a potential to leverage those existing relationships and push out a Software as a Service (SaaS) demo for their users to try before they buy. Striking down the LMS patent claims held by Blackboard opens up the market along with insulating the existing LMS providers from further IP claims.

In short, my interpretation is that the court found that Blackboard’s claims were too broad. It also ‘Linuxizes’ much of the LMS market. Just what free enterprise needs in a $400 million market.

Of course, Blackboard will appeal the judgement. My perspective is that their model was based on fear and intimidation of the market without any real innovation after the initial development of the concept.

In my brief time away from my construction project in NorCal, I found this article at e-Literate about the Blackboard LMS patents being rejected:

On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims.

There are some other background blog articles that are fantastic at presenting the entire picture of what Blackboard’s patents were, how they were presented, and what this means.

Legal stuff? Make it easy please…

I’ve got a background in legal review, but it’s nice to see someone analyze the legal brief and outline it. One of the best and easily understood - A Description of the Blackboard Patent in Plain English sums up its analysis:

Once we cut through the pseudo-technical mumbo jumbo it’s apparent that there is no there there. If Blackboard gets away with this it will be one of the great hoaxes of this century.

I recommend reviewing that article because it’s the most concise and combines visual diagrams along with Michael Feldstein’s e-Literate text explaining the case.

Needless to say, the discussion on the topic at e-Literate is most telling. User opinion is very strong, and this is yet another case of Corporate Authenticity being tested.

Yeah, but what does this mean?

My analysis is that this is groundbreaking.

It means that without the patents, there is a lot less risk involved with getting into the very lucrative LMS game.

It also means that Microsoft and Adobe risk a lot less in pushing LMS boundaries - maybe in existing product lines they already have for Technical Communication.

Other LMS wanna-be’s who happen to have a strong Technical Communication software product offering (Adobe, MadCap, even Microsoft) can now look at SaaS as a model for penetrating the LMS market through their existing customer base.

I see the framework that MadCap has developed as being the strongest towards this area, seconded only by Adobe. With MadCap’s existing focus on Lingo and the Analyzer, they have the ability to 2.0 their existing software quickly and rip a new one in the LMS market. With their rabid and enthusiastic fan (customer) base they’ll lose no time in coming up with a killer application.

Adobe is no slouch to eLearning. They announced a $200 million commitment to developing in India, primarily for TechComm, Gaming, and eLearning over five years. That’s equivalent to $1.2 billion spent in the US. I’m sure they’re working on something in that space as well.

Microsoft has some well hidden LMS potential I won’t speculate too much about publicly.

Maybe someone will offer me some dollars for consulting to talk about it further, but the broad strokes are seen in my past articles.

Previous CharlesJeter.com articles relating to LMS:

• My LMS / eLearning Disruptive Technology Concept
• Halo 3, XBox and Technical Communication? (Part 5)
• eLearning, Gaming & Tech Comm are new Adobe focus | Adobe to invest $200m in five years

In the interest of repurposing TechComm content into ‘Distance Learning’ I’m posting this

eLearning and Blended Learning Business Development Tip - sound smart to the big office crowd

This content allows broadcast television stations in local markets to compete with the 500 channel special content cable providers have enjoyed for years.

That means that educational content has much more of a market in the broadcast media. As you’ll note from the picture below, the ‘Education’ category has three times the access shown.

What does all of this mean?!?

After all, the multicast capability allows much more content during non-prime time hours.

So I’m looking at how to not pay $100 a month for my HDTV signal and found some good resources about the impending over the air broadcast due by 2009. Guess what? In San Diego, we already have some Digital Television broadcasts (DTV) in the area.

I checked out my lat/long on this site and narrowed down the options to the DTV currently broadcasting. It also works for your street address.

Personally it means I’m not a slave to the satellite reseller who struck a deal with the devil (my apartment management company) and cut all the competing cable provider access, forcing a monopoly.

Thought that the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890 took care of forced markets, obviously I was wrong… My only protest until now was in refusing to buy into the whole deal, and my life hasn’t suffered for lack of television. That’s what Netflix is for.

Salvation, salvation, salvaaaation… (that 1990s song)

So now I find the time to check into things and lo and behold! Digital TV (DTV) is supposedly broadcast in San Diego already! DTV is best defined from this information on MyFreeHDTV.org:

DTV brings viewers three (3) video formats, each different in picture quality…

SDTV: Better Than Regular TV

With DTV, SDTV (Standard Definition TV) picture resolution is better than today’s analog (640 x 480 min. vs. 440 x 480 max.)-a noticeable improvement. The audio is digital, too, so the sound is of higher quality than on analog TV (like a CD compared to FM radio) and may even feature multiple channels of surround sound.

EDTV: Really getting good

With DTV, the next level of digital television is EDTV (Enhanced Definition TV). EDTV features a minimum of 480p scanning lines, for a more detailed picture than SDTV. You can see the difference. EDTV also can reproduce Dolby® Digital audio. EDTV provides DVD quality pictures and sound!

HDTV: the best you can get

HDTV has all the benefits of EDTV, but goes far beyond it in picture resolution and audio features. The HDTV specification requires a minimum of 1080i or 720p scanning lines, far higher than EDTV and about five times the resolution of analog TV! It’s a level of detail that you’ve never seen before. The added benefit is 5.1 channel Dolby® Digital sound (movie theater quality sound), at home!

I’m going to say that the coolest thing I’ve seen is the ability to multicast on this signal. This means a lot for the non-CSI or non-Law & Order prime time programming.

Picture’s worth 1000 words… or worth 1080i resolution

Here’s a graphic, from MyFreeHDTV.org that explains the potential:

So what’s this mean again - to me?

You’re looking at the potential to push out corporate communication through local access programming. Marketing can repurpose some media content, training videos, etc. in order to gain brand name recognition. Technical Communication, in its blending and fusion, will end up touching into this market in one or another way.

Technical Communication has gained a new (old) market.

Technorati Tags: minority report interface,mobile display,wiimote,wii,sony sixaxis,xbox 360,gaming,interactive whiteboard,mulitpoint interface,blended learning,elearning,disruptive technology,mocap

Note: I held positions in 3M for some time, I can’t recall if I still have it in my stock portfolio.

From 3M Press Room

3M Revolutionizes Mobile Displays

Miniature Projection Technology Available Now

2008 International CES

ST. PAUL, Minn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–3M is now providing consumer electronics manufacturers with a revolutionary advancement in the emerging field of miniature projection technology. 3M scientists developed a breakthrough ultra-compact, LED-illuminated projection engine designed for integration into virtually any personal electronic device. Roughly the size of a wireless earpiece and less than half an inch thick, the 3M mobile projection engine delivers brilliant VGA resolution images and is available today.

This would be perfectly paired with the Minority Report Interface or the Multipoint Interface that I blogged about last week since the killer app would be your laptop becoming an interactive whiteboard / 3D modeling multipoint interface.

What’s currently done with a hacked Wii remote will quickly jump forward.

Forget the Sony sixaxis or the Wii: Disruption within Gaming Controllers Predicted

This could also completely revolutionize gaming since a simple USB plugin could allow the same reflective tape motion capture (MOCAP) that works with a larger projection engine without the form factor issues.

Rekall, Rekall, Rekall: Blast from the past

Remember that old movie Total Recall, yet another Philip K. Dick short story I might add?

Where Sharon Stone’s character was playing tennis with her virtual reality tennis pro in her shared apartment with Arnie at the beginning of the movie?

Casual Gaming Revolution: Even Tetris could take on a whole new life with this type of interaction.

MOCAP Developer requirements are critical

Drivers to be written for existing game titles and all new motion capture potential to be realized by developers. Standardizing the motion capture would be smart. I’m sure there will be a rush towards an IP approach to the MOCAP not seen since the 1990s with the dotcoms and their technology booms. Coding in development games with sockets / hooks for this type of interface to be written later would be a very wise decision.

eLearning and Blended Learning Killer Applications

Any training or arts which would reinforce muscle memory (dance, for one, or karate, or Tai Chi) will logically follow.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve already been looking into this market for some time. I’m excited about what this could offer, particularly after attending the 2007 GDC last year.

By the way, hat tip to iconnectdots.com for the news about this.

Three things I’ll closely watch in 2008:

1. Multipoint User Interfaces
2. Workflow Collaboration
3. Software as a Service (SaaS)

New User Experience Challenge: Multipoint User Interfaces

In my previous Gaming to Boardroom post I mentioned the cost-busting hack of a new type of interface - the multipoint interactive user interface - was starting to gain momentum. This would make much better use of those large wall-mounted LCDs and projectors.

The disruptive technology hack was sourced to the Nintendo Wii remote, a cheap off the shelf component mass produced, a Bluetooth interface, and any PC.

With reflective tape on his fingers, Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute easily reproduces Tom Cruise’s motions within the groundbreaking Minority Report, a Philip K. Dick short story adapted by Steven Spielberg in 2002.

As I researched further I found out that SpaWar and indeed other military centers have indeed been closely examining this type of interface for their command and control centers.

Here is a quote from one of PC Magazine’s sources confirming that same trend in User Experience (UX) driven hardware interfaces.

From EDS’ Next Big Thing Blog: Predictions for 2008:

This will be the year when we see real deliverables for new user interfaces, moving beyond the mouse. Just like the Wii used a new interface to take some old technology and make it new again, we’ll see similar advances on the PC interface. Gestures, voice, displays… it’s time.

If this is as simple to create as Johnny Lee’s project, we’ll be seeing this on the market in 2008. The key will be what applications will be written to support this new interface, and that may end up being UX’s long term challenge for months or years.

Workflow Collaboration

The author also adds some information about workflow. It’s interesting to me that this validates quite a bit of the same mobile and technical communication markets I’ve been researching for the past ten years.

From EDS’ Next Big Thing Blog: Predictions for 2008:

I’ve been mentioning workflow for a number of years and we’re beginning to see it move from the desktop into mobile devices and that will be common place by the end of 2008 as various COTS applications incorporate mobile interfaces. Collaboration on mobile devices will also take off as part of Enterprise 2.0 activities.

I doubt that we’ll see widespread use of electronic paper techniques in business even though there are some quite interesting capabilities out there now and those devices will drop significantly in price by the end of 2008.

SaaS-y Applications

And of course, here’s a bit about Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, one such I’ve reviewed with the MadCap Feedback Service.

From EDS’ Next Big Thing Blog: Predictions for 2008:

Broad acceptance of SaaS and web based applications will take place but probably not in ways that we may think. A wider range of businesses will use service based approaches to enable their activities and it will be as controversial as offshoring has been.

Summary:

So what will we end up doing with Workflow Collaboration, SaaS, and Multipoint User Interfaces in 2008? 

SaaS is a cheaper way to do business, and can easily amortize the high cost of server technology. Its adoption is just good business sense since it can be cut loose quickly if something better comes along.

Workflow Collaboration will disrupt the current status quo, if it hasn’t already, particularly in the global knowledge management space. This saves time and money, allowing smaller stateside corporations to gain the same benefits as traditional outsourced models.

I see Gaming technology jumping full fledged into the Multipoint Interface market along with some specialized applications for design. I also see this immediately involved in eLearning and more importantly, blended learning environments.

This technology is really in its infancy but with the LCD market so commoditized and screen real estate not being trapped in low resolution with HD content everywhere, it’s a necessary step in our human interaction with our systems.

This is pure disruptive technology at its finest. If you haven’t priced a multipoint interactive whiteboard lately, just trust me in that it’s not cheap. Dell has them on sale listed in Google.

But I’m seeing a definite market developing for this user interface, particularly in eLearning and Blended Learning not to mention all sorts of uses for my buddies over at SpaWar here in San Diego.

Multi-touch sensors as far they’ve been touted as a high-res, low cost, scalable method to interact with your system. Not to get too Bleeding Edge, but this is like having a six foot iPhone interface.

The possibilities are amazing, particularly for someone with carpal tunnel syndrome like me. Software design does have to keep up though.

Multipoint Interactive Whiteboard: Blended Learning’s Holy Grail

Check out what Johnny Chung Lee, a Carnegie Mellon HCI Researcher hacked together with a Bic pen, LED light, some custom software and the Nintendo Wii remote (Wiimote)

Minority Report Interface: Reality and Yesterday’s News

If you’re a Phillip K. Dick or Steven Spielberg fan, you might recall the Minority Report UI that Tom Cruise used (at top of article).

Johnny came up with a wicked method to do the same thing.

So the end result is that this is Bleeding Edge technology, and finding uses for it falls into the Applications Engineering field.