An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web (also called Webfolio). Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files, images, multimedia, blog entries, and hyperlinks.

E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user’s abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time.

An e-portfolio can be seen as a type of learning record that provides actual evidence of achievement.

What I’ve learned is that more and more the changes of software particularly browser technology can make these obsolete over time. It actually becomes easier to keep a checklist of change management. I have four samples up at any given time – some have been up since 2003.

Interesting note: I met a new neighbor last weekend who needs a Federal contract fulfilled with a relevant accounting training I touched on seven years ago.

Flash and PDF seem to be the containers of choice. They’re always displayable regardless of which browsing technology is used – they all support the industry standard.

Charles Jeter’s ePortfolio links:

Tutorial – Completing Government Cost Accounting System Employee Timesheets (Adobe / Macromedia / Captivate / eHelp RoboDemo 2003)

Help File – Codo Software’s Laser Squad:Nemesis Tactics Guide (RoboHelp X5 FlashHelp, 2002 – 2003)

Rapid eLearning – Collaborative Blogging Overview (Articulate Studio 2009 with elements designed using GlobFX Swiff Chart Pro and Adobe Captivate, 2008)

Effective Curriculum Development – Securing Our eCity (multiple technology for Instructor Led Training, 2009 – 2010, shows results)

Corporate Blogwriting – Blogging in April on the ESET Threatblog (Microsoft Windows Live Writer / WordPress, 2010)

Why eLearning should be your next skill set.

Just a few short months ago I had a podcast interview where I explained my interest in eLearning as a shift of my Technical Communication focus. Today I’ve been able to continue some of my research threads leading up to the Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) analysis, and it points towards further conclusive evidence that moving into Rapid eLearning was a well-timed and strategic move.

Having started years before with documentation and procedures in the military, I’m a firm believer in well structured TechComm. Working with the early RoboDemo / Captivate product team really showed me where instructional design and eLearning could go, and eLearning products now available like Articulate’s Studio 09 are one step beyond amazing.

I have felt for some time that continuing an eLearning track in my TechComm career would become more important in the years to come. Evidently Michael Hanley saw similar influences in the market when he wrote his post a few months ago: The Half-Life of the Knowledge Worker.

Michael defines a Knowledge Worker not as a TechComm, but rather…

…as anyone who works primarily with information or one who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace. (Michael sources this to Peter Drucker’s 1959 definition).

I strongly recommend checking out Michael Hanley’s seven part series on eLearning Adoption in Organizations for a clear view of how adoption of eLearning for Knowledge Workers may impact your personal TechComm.

Becoming familiar with user education aspects as well as the eLearning tools makes your technical writing more valuable. Knowing what message your content should take in a Help file or user manual in order to educate the reader is always a benefit. In the uncertain global economy these skills might just land you the next job, or allow a shifting role into user education.

Will eLearning Recession Proof Your Tech Comm Career?

In addition to his well-sourced Adoption series, further analysis and data supporting my parallel research and conclusions that eLearning is a recession proof industry:

By developing content with smaller, more flexible teams, the value proposition of e-learning has been enhanced, and the total cost of ownership has been significantly reduced.

Of particular interest to my XBox 360 eLearning research is his segment on the Playstation Generation where Michael draws similar conclusions:

This generation is in the workplace right now. It will expect to learn new skills as their careers develop using the tools that they have always learned on in the past: that is, by using e-learning.

In an update earlier this year on the subject, Michael states:

The prevailing feeling seems to be one of optimism, and that this is in fact a time of opportunity for the industry…

Yes, I’m adding another influence into my RSS Feeds.

In my previous post about LiveMesh and eLearning I continued a review that I had put on the back burner for nearly half a year. I stated that a push into the $58.5B LMS sector by Microsoft would be hard to beat at this stage. Michael’s post really crunches the data behind the HMH move.

I’m impressed with Irish lad Michael Hanley. He wraps up his yearlong investigation with a great post regarding Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s expansion plans validating his earlier hypotheses:

Based on the level of investment one e-learning enterprise has committed to developing the industry in the medium- to long term, the market in now in a place to support the proposition that the ROI on e-learning makes sense, and generates profit.

For now I echo Michael’s sentiment that nobody seems to be watching these groundbreaking industry moves. Read his stuff.

Theories about where MSFT wants to go? Check this out for a bit of convergence…

Could Microsoft out-Apple Adobe?

Let’s examine a few trends and remember that Apple beat its competitors in the education market twenty years ago by having a rabid fan base along with compelling intuitive software.  Microsoft Live’s community had 60 million users last time I checked. Working within the existing Live framework will be critical for any Learning Management Systems (LMS) play that Microsoft chooses to do in the future.

The eLearning potential with Microsoft’s (NASD: MSFT) current portfolio of hardware and software, part of which is the XBox brand, is gaining momentum. I’ve been discussing current instructional design trends with instructional designers, consumer media analysts, military training officers, and gamers. We’ve reached current consensus:

There are a lot of benefits to using the XBox 360 as a training / eLearning platform, primarily because of the XBox Live community.

Having solid revenue generating Intellectual Property (IP) in both hardware and software gives a strong advantage to MSFT in this space. Windows Live Mesh is self descriptive; it meshes all the services together.

How Does Live Mesh Work?

From Ten things to know about Microsoft’s Live Mesh | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Live Mesh builds on the cloud storage, management, service and provisioning and computational fabric that other Microsoft Live services use. On top of that, Live Mesh uses the same identity, synchronized storage and connectivity services that Microsoft uses for other Live offerings.

The “platform” services (a k a the “developer stack”) include the new Mesh Framework, as well as both a cloud and a client software run-time Mesh Operating Environment (MOE).

Live Mesh “experiences” from Microsoft and third-party providers will build on top of these layers.

Windows Live Mesh will make use of Silverlight as Michael Cote explained in People Over Process » Market Context for Silverlight – A Brief Q&A:

Q: What is your overall feeling about Silverlight at this time?

A: At the moment, Silverlight feels like it’s going to be on a full-on contender with Flash and Flex in a short time. Silverlight 2.0 is supposed to bring in the more “hard core” GUI programming features that Flex has.

Perhaps Microsoft’s Mesh project will address the offline synch tick-list of AIR. Then, the battle will be over ubiquity, developer hearts and minds, and control of the web.

Through the PC Silverlight allows some scary-good functionality.

Think about having Instructional Design teams building applications that can reach outside and into the web page itself: From More about Silverlight – Microsoft’s Flex / Flash Competitor

Further to that, Silverlight applications can access and manipulate the browser DOM (meaning they can reach outside and into the webpage itself) so once the Silverlight runtime is more common expect to see many developers of web applications tap into Silverlight for both a performance increase and for better visual enhancements and user experience.

This is important. We are now looking at two-way communication with Silverlight.

Available Silverlight eLearning Tools

I’ve seen a growing demand in Google hits on my site for how to take Captivate content and put it into Silverlight. People are asking about how to take the output from this market dominating tool and repurpose it into Silverlight and this is only the beginning.

Imagine having software tutorials buildable by instructional design staff that can be quickly hashed into something usable for the XBox 360, through XBox Live, or through Windows Live Mesh…

La Jolla-based MadCap Software’s Mimic (Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia competitor) outputs in Silverlight format. I haven’t heard whether TechSmith or Adobe are intending to put this into their products within the next release cycle.

Where is eLearning in all of this?

There are some other very significant benefits aside from Silverlight; meshing all of these services together adds Windows Live Writer and Instant Messaging in as well.

One benefit is in reaching people through advertising as well as explaining the process: Simple Instructions Work Best and Sell Products

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.

Regarding Windows Live Writer from Web 2.0 – Windows Live Writer reviewed for blogging:

Yet another entry from MSFT into the Web 2.0 space such as with the Silverlight framework which allows two-way communication from a website, and oh yes… this is for free. That’s pretty disruptive.

Adding to the chaos is the mash of what has occurred within the current eLearning space. Market analysis of eLearning from 2008 Corporate Learning Factbook Values U.S. Training Market at $58.5B:

* 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.

Analysis: Adobe Media Player, my @%$

The shaky economy plays into this. Re-education of adults is becoming a critical factor in economic restructuring. If industry is closing down, concessions from the unions force retraining. Cost efficient training is a growth industry.

While Adobe (NASD: ADBE)is repositioning itself and firing divisions, Microsoft has an advantage into the eLearning market and can leverage their existing Rich Internet Applications. If MSFT can duplicate what Apple did in the 1980s and entrench themselves into education, it will mean long term success in a disrupted market which has $58.5 billion in potential.

This model could effectively work even with a poor economy and would build an OS-free eLearning model built on IP within hardware and software which could be used globally.

Labor Day 2008 | About Randy Pausch

For over a month now I’ve been trying to figure out how to post about Randy Pausch’s death last month from pancreatic cancer. What his final lecture meant to a lot of people, what it meant to me wasn’t about cancer, it was about how you live.

My dad passed away last year from complications from a pancreatic tumor. According to wikipedia, Randy underwent the same drastic surgery as my father. That’s a 13 hour surgery. No walk in the park. Both Randy and my father, however, lived well past the estimates of medical science. They had their own positive mental attitude (PMA) which burned within them.

That similarity wasn’t why Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture was so profound for me. Positive Mental Attitude: Randy had it in spades. His lecture was so profound six million views and counting were seen on YouTube.

My Lesson: Sacrifice and Responsibility

You learn a lot about yourself being the person responsible for someone. Whether as a parent or in caretaking a parent, it changes us when we are forced to accept or reject life and death responsibility for another human being.

I learned a lot about myself in the past four years and my opinion is that most people don’t know what’s important in their lives until they are confronted with life and death decisions. It’s not something that can be adequately described. It’s a large part of why I posted my essays on Martin Luther King Day and Memorial Day on this blog.

Communication, Education and Teamwork Balanced

It’s amazing what priorities we will set, what sacrifice is defined by when everything else becomes placed into proper perspective. My personal experiences in the past four years make me realize several things.

Lifelong learning is important. Passing those skills along through education is important. Communication with others and the tone and impact of my voice is equally as important. Both for my family and for my community as a whole. Passing a desire to learn rather than simply driving content – that is a finesse that is reserved for the best of teachers.

Whether in a workplace or in a family, teamwork, communication, and education will make or break the team. Randy had it nailed, and I’m still working on it with mixed but mostly good results. 

Randy’s Lecture Defines What’s Important

In a showcase for how to change video into eLearning, Gabe’s Word of Mouth Blog features Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture in Presenter format. The lecture, a YouTube top favorite, has a learning centered focus and is now viewable in smaller chunks and retention is increased due to the formatting and sidenotes.

If you want to learn from Randy Pausch the first time around and in the best eLearning format possible watch this rather than just the YouTube video. You will love both the content and the container it comes in.

See it today.

Australia’s Learning Object Debate

Are flash based Learning Objects dead?  They sure are expensive – since 2001 the Teaching & Learning Federation (TLF) has used “AUD$123 million ….. divided by 6300 curriculum items.

That’s close to AUD$20,000 for each single (eg, Flash) TLF curriculum item,” observed Stephen Loosley

One of the comments had this to say in defense of the cost:

Using a purely economic argument in this discussion is flawed from the start because the real cost of the digital content produced by The Learning Federation is shared by the 3 million plus school children across Australia (using 2007 census data).

A $20,000 Learning Object if only ever used only once by one third of this population equates to a one-off cost of less than 2 cents per student. The reality is that the best of these objects will have a much greater rate of use and for some a longer shelf-life.

Sales of tools such as Adobe Captivate / eHelp RoboDemo brought the cost down for learning objects. Before that it was Flash programming for hours and hours. My question is one of usage. How would anyone know what the value of the content is if they can’t chart the usage statistics properly?

Sounds like a client for Articulate Online or some other LMS. What a case study. Actually, this might be a good time for the administrators to release some usage data justifying the cost of these presentations / learning objects.

In my five part segment last year I examined how well the XBox 360 might be combined into eLearning and also Technical Communication in general over this new settop box / gaming system. Now even more aspects are becoming compelling and pushing the advantages of the Microsoft XBox 360.

“Xbox LIVE is the world’s fastest-growing online social network on TV,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment LIVE, Software and Services Business at Microsoft. “We doubled our membership the past two years, growing from 3 million to 6 million, and then from 6 million to 12 million.

The Old Is The New

Understand that the ‘New XBox’ is the old XBox 360 with updates. As a matter of course, I believe it’s a short step away from using Silverlight content if it’s not already doing so in this update.

Instead of revamping the hardware within the box, MSFT poured resources into programming updated content and…

…leveraged the hot trends in internet connectivity and technology.

Hot Tech Trend: New Interface Methods – Xbox Style

I’ve been researching new interface methods as a hot tech trend for 2008 and I’m not disappointed with the new XBox . New interface methods are demo’ed in the Xbox 360′s “In The Movies”. Here’s a quick clip:

Now I don’t need cable at all…!

Get this – NetFlix is in agreement to stream over 10,000 movies across the XBox 360. Very cool. I have a strong feeling that DivX has a lot to do with this revolution.

So for consumers that don’t like to pay the extra $100 for the DVR / HD package, how about a $40 antenna for local HD signal, Netflix as a Starz / Encore movie replacement, and downloading the series you like when they’re online or on DVD from NetFlix.

XBox 360: Leveraging Family Time

Karaoke takes on a new aspect with Lips – yet another social interactive game for your online and in real life (IRL) friends. The last time I was over at a friend’s house with teenage kids, we all sat around and played a trivia game which was really cool. I think it’s a great way to do the family entertainment thing, rather than the old Milton-Bradley boardgames which I still enjoy but the kids want to pass up.

Xbox 360 LIVE Party – Cheap Online Collaboration?

While there aren’t many people who aren’t on Skype, a great concept copied from Sony’s Playstation is leveraging social networking across platforms for gaming.

I’ve seem some super collaboration se.tups from HP that this could compete with on a super low cost and low-tech level. This has a potential for eLearning and Blended Learning that is way beyond the pale.

Microsoft’s XBox 360 Experience notes this about LIVE Party:

Entertainment without limits. With LIVE Party, bring your favorite games, TV shows, movies and pictures to life by sharing those experiences with friends, wherever they are around the world.

Now if I could only get my XBox fixed since it’s been down with that hardware problem since April and I’ve been too busy to call their support system back (they were down the day I called) I’ll be testing all this content.

Props to Agent K

I just dropped Karsten Gerhardt off for his connecting rail to LAX. Karsten, one of the principals for 3si2 Corporation, is heading out on a client business tour of Europe. Back in the day, I called him K even before that Tommy Lee Jones character from Men In Black. K laughs a lot more than Jones’ character so it’s not exactly a fair comparison.

K reminded me that he’s never looked back at the salaried employee world or drawn a W2 since our launch back in 2001.

Memories of Startups

Karsten, Jim Nesbitt, and I started 3nW Corporation after NVTL’s dotbomb layoff cycle back seven years ago. The corporation’s founding date is April 20, a homage for Jim’s great Ultimate Frisbee counterculture sense of humor. You’d never think he used to work at the Pentagon for the Chief of Naval Operations.

K was the NVTL eCommerce guy, Jim was killer in NVTL’s Tech Support and pretty handy with HTML, and I came out of the NVTL Applications Engineering department. Also, I brought a deal with me and stepped up with the first potential field engineering contract. That didn’t take so we fell back to the wireless data consulting and positioned to market scientists and engineering skills to the open market. That was for CTIA 2001.

After our launch of 3nW Corporation as a wireless data consulting firm cratered because of very bad luck on 9/11, we were soon relying on individual fallback plans.

Exiled…

A few months later I went back to the trade of being a data plumber, as I called Technical Support, starting with eHelp in January 2002. No more globetrotting and stand-up training, no more great Vancouver BC seafood dinners with clients, nope, it was back to the trenches. 

Back in 2002 and 2003 while I worked at eHelp Corporation by day, and by night I was identifying the next Disruptive Technologies to work into our comeback strategy.

One we looked at was search engine technology. That one was Karsten’s contribution.

Search. I said it first…

Right before Google came up with their desktop search, we pitched it to them. Or at least, our sleazy sales guy pitched it to their lower tier less-than visionary acquisitions team. This was when their Google search appliance in a box style servers were selling for $25k a pop and flying out the doors.

While the desktop search was designed as a small demo, we also had a killer search server tool that did cartwheels with multiple byte character sets for languages.

Nobody understood the value proposition.

Karsten and Don Addiss, our former Vice President at Novatel Wireless, spun off into 3si2 and became a leading design firm with super tight coding while I kept on track with my other research.

They still offer the search engine.

Along with a lot of other very cool services to clients like the LA Clippers and Boeing.

Back to the drawing board | Research

I know people say that Flare has a steep learning curve but those first ninety days using RoboHelp I needed something to make my passion.

I was focused on Energy, Internet Communication Technology (ICT), and beginning in 2004, Agriculture as emerging sectors. Hey, those sites are still up there on 3nW – not updated for years. Go check them out, use the Wayback Machine.

I prettied up a lot of different content I was researching from the NREL and the United Nations and got used to RoboHelp’s myriad uses so I could support them.

My time at eHelp opened my eyes to a lot of Market Disruption in how corporations could do on-demand training and save thousands. ICT was and still is hot. eLearning is the best thing that could have come out of the ICT focus, and distributing education (for free) across the planet – well, while being a bit anti-capitalist, it’s one of the greatest achievements I’ve ever heard of.

What’s in store? To be continued…

I came across a few letters authored in Word 2.0 from my final cruise in 1995 and it got me thinking about my roots in TechComm. Have you had any experiences which led you towards TechComm which stand out?

Yep… Everyone Has a Story…

The initial knowledge management / content wrangling that I learned prior to using specific software tools was through my time in the service in the 1990s. I would have loved tools that MadCap, Articulate and Adobe now make for that. This was even before Microsoft Word and PowerPoint were adopted!

When looking at the time spent in communication simply in my collateral, non-aircrew duties, it seems that my “part-time job” of about 40 hours a week was a Technical Communicator. Somehow I managed to fit flying into this, probably due to the seven day work week that we military folks enjoyed while being deployed.

Workflow of a Typical Aircrew Technical Communicator

While I was in the military, we didn’t have a job description of Technical Communicator however once I was out of training and ‘in the fleet’ we were required to:

Produce 1/2 hour to 1 hour of weekly training of a tactical nature. (7 hours per week content review, analysis, and writing).

Produce weekly training relevant to our collateral duties. One of my collateral duties was Safety, another 2 1/2 hour to 3 hours per week for a weekly 1/2 hour standup lecture (we called them briefs) and practical testing.

Write Naval Aviation Training & Operations Standards (NATOPS) corrections to publications and submit the same through our chain of command. Variable time spent on this, all depending on what needed addressing. Figure another 1/2 to 2 hours per week. Here’s a great example of an organic NATOPS test…

Plan and conduct daily flight crew briefings – again, daily 1/2 hour in length taking all relevant tactical threat, aircrew safety of flight, weather, operations area data, and other related data. You know, going over things that can get you killed when flying or just walking to the aircraft. (3.5 hours to 7 hours per week).

I also had the squadron Communications collateral duty. Before email – working under the Communications Officer (3 hours / day). 21 hours per week in arranging and maintaining the printed squadron communications log – message traffic in and out of the squadron that had to be signed off by all department heads and the executive team (XO and CO for those vets out there).

This was a pain but fun to laugh at now that it’s been replaced mostly by email. Imagine taking all the emails you get every day, printing them out at one end of the aircraft carrier on demand (typically updated three times a day including at midnight).

Then tediously hand filing them into a massive two hole punched clipboard, updating the cc: list and attn: list to make sure the department heads could read the handwritten notes of the Skipper and XO.

I took no end of abuse (mostly good natured) from the mistakes that my subordinate did.

Not to mention Public Affairs tasking such as presentations for schools, distinguished visitors, guiding tours, etc. Most of this was while we were in port somewhere like Singapore, Vancouver, Hong Kong, etc. and was great PR work for Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club.

So Others May Live…

Most of my friends that stayed in went SAR, similar to that movie The Guardian. I appropriate the motto of the SAR Rescue Swimmer because it was drilled into all of us Aircrew that if we documented our jobs well, ‘others may live’…

It shouldn’t be surprising that a few of my fellow aircrewmen have become Technical Communicators with government contractors. Just about everyone who stayed in for a second tour had an instructor tour, which was more formal training for three years in length.

Those who stayed in their entire careers ended up doing more than one instructor tour, not to mention all the time they spent collating the documentation and acting as a Docs Manager for all the output from the junior aircrew.

I’ll be doing a series on Government consulting and contracting for TechComm later this week, and I’m seriously considering leveraging my contacts for performing this in the near future.

Have you had any experiences which led you towards TechComm which stand out?

Here’s a small but simple tip to speed up your workflow for those who must capture custom window sizes without the browser address bar.

From Microsoft Windows | Customizing the Links bar

To enable the Links bar in Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista

Right-click on the Windows Taskbar. Click on Toolbars, and then click Links to select it (a checkmark will be displayed beside it)

You will now see “Links” added just to the left of the system tray on the taskbar.

My addition to this is to hyperlink all your working windows within this small box, then just page through them capturing the screens you need. I found it worked well when reviewing a process with the SME.

Hope this helps reduce some time readjusting windows and pasting addresses into screen capture target browser windows.

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. 

* Reliance on outsourcing continues to increase in two categories: the use of outside instructors and custom content development. Outsourcing of LMS administration showed a decline in 2007, as did use of offshore content developers.

Consulting Market Analysis: Focus on PnP

To me this shows a concentration on Policy and Procedure (PnP) along with the realization that corporate workflow is now able to be quickly corrected through on-demand training.

As far as the decline of outsourcing LMS administration I would have to read the study further, as well as to to analyze the decline of offshore content developers. As far as  whether this was limited to LMS content or across the board, I would offer that there has recently been an industry wide offshoring backlash.

Let’s talk about Learning Management

Along with the LMS Intellectual Property fight that Blackboard has (tentatively) lost, it appears that LMS usage is still prevalent and the new niche seems to be the mid-market buyer.

The article states:

* Today 38% of organizations are using a learning management system (LMS), with the highest growth in usage among mid-market buyers.

Trend alert: Blended Learning software tool sales are increasing

Now application simulation and rapid eLearning are normal along with cost effective. Tools such as Adobe Captivate, MadCap Mimic, and Camtasia gained a foothold in corporate learning over five years ago with a small market share. What was once only considered bleeding edge technology is quickly becoming the norm.

From the article:

Over half of all companies are using a virtual classroom tool, and between 20 to 30% are using application simulation and rapid e-learning tools.

Blended Learning methods such as virtual classrooms are becoming more available with technology. I’ve been checking some of the virtual classroom technology that’s now available and it has been pretty out of this world.

Educational content has a place in driving consumer sales…

I’ve revisited the HDTV content delivery methods in a recent article as well. I see a definite trend towards marketing through instruction, and with the digital TV deadline only a year away, there are competitive edges that broadcast TV will have against the pipelines such as cable and DSL.

FYI: If you’re in Florida…

A lot of you reading this may be in Florida for eLearning conferences this month. The 2008 Factbook findings are the foundation for benchmarking workshops held at Bersin & Associates’ upcoming research conference, IMPACT 2008: The Business of Talent, April 22-24, in St. Petersburg, FL. Here are a couple relevant books by Josh Bersin:

The Blended Learning Book: Best Practices, Proven Methodologies, and Lessons Learned by Josh Bersin Read more about this book…

The Training Measurement Book: Best Practices, Proven Methodologies, and Practical Approaches by Josh Bersin Read more about this book…

Related Articles:

• My favorite eLearning & Tech Comm Books
• Best Practices: DevBlogs and eLearning Content Development | eLearning under $1000
• In case you wondered… HDTV Over The Air
• eLearning, Gaming & Tech Comm are new Adobe focus
• Rich free resource of Tech Comm data

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…

That solution just is not geeky enough for me…

If you’re really wanting to engineer a t-shirt folding solution, here’s one: How To Make A T-Shirt Folding Machine:

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.

Back in 2003 I trained Dave Mozealous in RoboDemo, (now Captivate) but he might have known more than me from his coursework prior to joining eHelp… Welcome Dave.

From Dave Mozealous’ Interesting Yahoo eLearning article:

An MIT initiative called “OpenCourseWare” makes virtually all the school’s courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang’s Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.

Strang’s classroom is the world.

Learning as we have known it has been disrupted by technology…. There are a lot of ways to interpret this, but mainly… the cost of getting an education has been punctured by disruptive technology. The cost of a diploma, however… is still on the upswing. ;-(

PS: Articulate’s CTO Arlyn Asch used to be the Director of Engineering at eHelp. Small world for all of us old eHelp’ers.