I thought it was such a wonderful idea, I have decided to do something similar in honour of Australia Day.

I hope you find the following Aussie-flavoured e-learning resources to be informative, fun and “bonza”…

Facts and figures

• Come To Australia. It’s nice here. You’ll like it.
• Where we live in Australia
• ABS Spotlight
• Australia, a nation transformed

Tourism

• There’s Nothing Like Australia in an App
• AusWiki

Photos and images

• Picture Australia

Great Australians

• Australian Dictionary of Biography
• Australia’s Nobel Laureates
• On the Money
• Heroes of the Air

Aboriginal culture

• A History of the World in 100 Objects: Australian bark shield
• Indigenous Language Map
• Mystery object: Torres Strait Islands
• Happytribe’s Aboriginal Dreamtime Stories
• Australian History by La Trobe University

European settlement

• Cook’s Endeavour Journal
• DigiMacq
• Gold rush
• Augmented Reality browsing of Powerhouse Museum around Sydney
• The Great Depression
• Australian History by La Trobe University

Military history

• Make your own conscription poster
• Gallipoli: The First Day
• The Story of the AE2
• The Bombing of Darwin
• The Petrov Affair Webquest

The Arts

• Design and Art Australia Online
• NationalGalleryAus
• Music Australia
• Australia Dancing
• Sydney Opera House: Education
• Sydney Symphony: Learn and Explore

Science and Technology

• Australia Innovates
• Australian Geographic
• CSIRO
• Science Image

Mobile and Social Media

• Statistics about mobile phone usage
• Asia-Pacific Social Media Statistics
• State of Australian Social Media 2011
• Social media use by Australians

Sport

• The first golden age of cricket
• AUS Olympic Champions

Language

• Aussie English for the Beginner
• World Nomads Australian Language Guide

I was very pleased to receive it, as I usually buy songs from iTunes with my credit card – and that can tick over in the blink of an eye.

Obviously I hadn’t handled an iTunes card in a while. Without much forethought, I peeled back the sticker covering the code, only to notice I had damaged two of the characters beyond recognition.

Naturally I tried to redeem the value in the iTunes Store with a few guesses, but to no avail. So I turned to my trusty adviser, Google, and found that I was not the only one with this problem. However, none of the suggestions helped me.

So I bit the bullet and clicked the iTunes link to “get help”. I filled out the form, including the card’s serial number, then clicked OK.

The next day I received an email from a guy from iTunes Store Customer Support. He wanted me to fax the following to him:

• A cover sheet including my name, email address, and my case ID;
• The sales receipt; and,
• Photocopies of the front and back of the card.

Yes, he said fax. Seriously, who faxes any more? Some Gen-Y’s don’t even know what a fax is.

Thankfully he provided an alternative: scan the receipt and the card, then attach them to a reply email.

However I had a second problem – because I didn’t buy the card myself, I didn’t have the receipt. Call me old fashioned, but I wasn’t keen on asking my friend if he still had it. So I replied to the support guy’s email with a cover message, attached scans of the front and back of the card, and explained my receipt predicament.

Eight days later – just as I’m starting to suspect Apple has ignored me – I receive an email from another support guy. He tells me he can’t find the serial number in his system. Now that’s a strange one, given it’s their number on their card. This guy also asks for the receipt again, so I embarrassingly asked my friend if he still had it. Of course he hadn’t. So I told the support guy that I was going to let it go. It was only $20 anyway. (That was a test: Did they really want to serve me or not?)

The next day I got an email from yet another support guy asking me to fax or email the sales receipt and scans of the front and back of the card! I informed this guy that I had already responded to that, so could he refer to the other guy.

Two days later I got an email from yet another support guy asking me to email the scans of the front and back of the card!! No mention of the receipt this time, so I’m unsure as to whether they’ve waived it or forgotten about it. Nonetheless I email back the scans again.

Another couple of days go by when thankfully, a support lady finally emails me the code – complete with the two mystery characters.

This isn’t the hip and cool Apple I’ve become accustomed to. I must stress that the support people were very polite (if scripted) and they persisted to the end, but their system let them down.

Sure, it was only $20, but I consider a brand’s response to a minor matter a predictor of their response to a major matter. (Besides if you don’t mind writing off $20, let me know and I’ll provide you with my postal address.)

Furthermore, it’s not just the systemic barriers and process inefficiencies that bug me. It’s the fact that the sticker is so damn hard to remove and the code so easy to damage, that you can only wonder whether Apple is doing it by design.

How many other customers out there have just given up and thrown their damaged cards away, never to redeem them? High fives all round at Cupertino, except it’s a high price to pay for losing a lifetime of future sales.

If I were lucky enough to own Apple shares, I’d sell them. I have seen the worm that can kill it from the inside.

If you’ll be in my corner of the globe over the next 12 months, may I draw your attention to the following…

Australian eLearning Congress
• Where: Sydney
• When: 7-9 February 2012
• Theme: eLearning business case studies
• More info: Ark Group

Learning Cafe Unconference
• Where: Sydney
• When: 16 February 2012
• Theme: Near future of learning in Australia
• More info: Learning Cafe

Australian Instructional Design Conference
• Where: Sydney
• When: 21 March 2012
• Theme: Designing instructionally sound and engaging learning
• More info: LearnX Foundation

Blended Learning Conference
• Where: Sydney
• When: 21-23 March 2012
• Theme: Engaging learners with innovative solutions
• More info: Liquid Learning

International Conference on Teaching with Technology
• Where: Singapore
• When: 27-30 March 2012
• Theme: Do IT! Transform learning, shape the future
• More info: ISTE

AITD National Conference
• Where: Sydney
• When: 18-19 April 2012
• Theme: Learning strategy, training techniques and technology
• More info: AITD

CeBIT Australia
• Where: Sydney
• When: 22-24 May 2012
• Theme: Stay ahead of the game
• More info: CeBIT

International Conference on Human Computer Interaction
• Where: Tokyo
• When: 29-30 May 2012
• Theme: HCI experiences, research, challenges and solutions
• More info: WASET

eLearning Forum Asia
• Where: Beijing
• When: 12-14 June 2012
• Theme: Engaging technology-driven learners
• More info: Peking University

International Conference on E-Learning
• Where: Hong Kong
• When: 21-22 June 2012
• Theme: Open educational resources
• More info: Academic Conferences International

PLE Conference
• Where: Melbourne
• When: 11-13 July 2012
• More info: PLE2012

LearnX Asia Pacific
• Where: Melbourne
• When: 29-30 August 2012
• Theme: Learning today for tomorrow’s success
• More info: LearnX

World Human Resources Congress
• Where: Melbourne
• When: 25-28 September 2012
• Theme: What does the future hold? How will business evolve?
• More info: HRIZON

ULearn12
• Where: Auckland
• When: 10-12 October 2012
• Theme: Collaborate, innovate, educate
• More info: CORE Education

Ascilite Annual Conference
• Where: Wellington
• When: 25-28 November 2012
• Theme: Future challenges and sustainable futures
• More info: Ascilite

This list is by no means exhaustive. If you are aware of other events in the Asia-Pacific region, please add a comment below…

Having said that, I think it all boils down to the novice-expert principle. As a novice, you don’t know what you don’t know. Thankfully, an expert (the teacher) can transmit the necessary knowledge to you quickly and efficiently. In eduspeak, you benefit from “scaffolding”.

Then, after you have acquired (yes – “acquired”) a foundational cognitive framework, I suggest a constructivist approach would be appropriate to expand and deepen your knowledge. In other words, now you know what you don’t know, you can do something about it.

My sector of practice is corporate rather than K-12, but I would assume that because the learners are children, their level of experience and prior knowledge is limited. Hence, having the basic concepts explained up front is a perfectly reasonable teaching strategy.

I wonder, though, whether conversation (online or otherwise) would indeed be a useful technique after the basics have been bedded down? Perhaps the last third or so of the class could be devoted to discourse facilitated by the teacher? Or assigned to participation in a district-wide online discussion forum? (Moderated, of course, by teachers and class nerds.)

Or – more likely – I’m exposing my ignorance of the logistics of managing a classroom.

My point is that constructivism can complement, rather than substitute, instructivism. This is something that I have argued for previously.

My secondary point is that I am quite getting over the Twitterati’s tendency to devalue the role of the expert in education. Not only is the expert aware of the important facts, but they can also impart their meaning and context.

Googling ability does not a scholar make.

My books are available on Amazon, and I have listed the year’s blog posts below for your convenience.

Thanks for reading!

Social media

• Social media extremism
• Smash your wall
• My Twitter hero
• Who owns the photocopiers?
• 20 hot resources for customer-facing social media
• LATI: A better way to measure influence on Twitter?
• A circular argument
• The big myth of social networking
• Foching up social media

Mobile learning

• The 4 S’s of mobile design
• Mobile learning – Push or pull?

Informal learning

• Viva la evolution
• Doctoring the Informal Learning Environment

Content development

• Toying with emotion
• 14 reasons why your multiple-choice quiz sucks
• 3 hot resources for best practice multiple-choice quizzing
• The 2 sources of freebies
• Australia’s Nobel Laureates
• On the Money

Books and e-books

• When is an e-book not a book?
• E-Learning Provocateur: Volume 1

Awards and events

• ElNet Workplace E-learning Congress 2011
• I’m a Best Australian Blogs nominee!
• When it rains it pours
• 8 interesting things at CeBIT
• Everything connects at Amplify
• Winners are grinners

Cartoons

• Selective democracy
• Where’s Waldo? – The Minimalist Edition
• Foolproof hiding spot for your key
• Recent changes patroller
• Respect for Klout

Other

• Top 5 things I hope not to hear in 2011
• Observations of a Critical Theory newbie
• The Parable of the Monkeys
• Ode to the naysayers
• The A to Z of learning
• Learning vs Development
• Eye of the tiger
• Does L&D belong in HR?
• When augmented reality isn’t
• Psst…! 15 inside tips for sales reps
• A question of leadership development
• The unscience of evaluation
• Clash of the titans

And who can blame us?

With ever increasing pressure bearing down on L&D professionals to put out the next big fire, it’s no wonder we don’t have time to scratch ourselves before shifting our attention to something new – let alone measure what has already been and gone.

Alas, today’s working environment favours activity over outcome.

Pseudo echo

I’m not suggesting that evaluation is never done. Obviously some organisations do it more often than others, even if they don’t do it often enough.

However, a secondary concern I have with evaluation goes beyond the question of quantity: it’s a matter of quality.

As a scientist – yes, it’s true! – I’ve seen some dodgy pseudo science in my time. From political gamesmanship to biased TV and clueless newspaper reports, our world is bombarded with insidious half-truths and false conclusions.

The trained eye recognises the flaws (sometimes) but of course, most people are not science grads. They can fall for the con surprisingly easily.

The workplace is no exception. However, I don’t see it as employees trying to fool their colleagues with creative number crunching, so much as those employees unwittingly fooling themselves.

If a tree falls in the forest

The big challenge I see with evaluating learning in the workplace is how to demonstrate causality – ie the link between cause and effect.

Suppose a special training program is implemented to improve an organisation’s flagging culture metric. When the employee engagement survey is run again later, the metric goes up.

Congratulations to the L&D team for a job well done, right?

Not quite.

What actually caused the metric to go up? Sure, it could have been the training, or it could have been something else. Perhaps a raft of unhappy campers left the organisation and were replaced by eager beavers. Perhaps the CEO approved a special bonus to all staff. Perhaps the company opened an onsite crèche. Or perhaps it was a combination of factors.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound? Well, if a few hundred employees undertake training, but no one measures its effect, did it make a difference?

Without a proper experimental design, the answer remains unclear.

Evaluation by design

To determine with some level of confidence whether a particular training activity was effective, the following eight factors must be considered…

1. Isolation - The effect of the training in a particular situation must be isolated from all other factors in that situation. Then, the metric attributed to the staff who undertook the training can be compared to the metric attributed to the staff who did not undertake the training.

In other words, everything except participation in the training program must be more-or-less the same between the two groups.

2. Placebo - It’s well known in the pharmaceutical industry that patients in a clinical trial who are given a sugar pill rather than the drug being tested sometimes get better. The power of the mind can be so strong that, despite the pill having no medicinal qualities whatsoever, the patient believes they are doing something effective and so their body responds in kind.

As far as I’m aware, this fact has never been applied to the evaluation of corporate training. If it were, the group of employees who were not undertaking the special training would still need to leave their desks and sit in the classroom for three 4-hour stints over three weeks.

Why?

Because it might not be the content that makes the difference! It could be escaping the emails and phone calls and constant interruptions. It could be the opportunity to network with colleagues and have a good ol’ chat. It might be seizing the moment to think and reflect. Or it could simply be an appreciation of being trained in something, anything.

3. Randomisation - Putting the actuaries through the training and then comparing their culture metric to everyone else’s sounds like a great idea, but it will skew the results. Sure, the stats will give you an insight into how the actuaries are feeling, but it won’t be representative of the whole organisation.

Maybe the actuaries have a range of perks and a great boss; or conversely, maybe they’ve just gone through a restructure and a bunch of their mates were made redundant. To minimise these effects, staff from different teams in the organisation should be randomly assigned to the training program. That way, any localised factors will be evened out across the board.

4. Sample size – Several people (even if they’re randomised) can not be expected to represent an organisation of hundreds or thousands. So testing five or six employees is unlikely to produce useful results.

5. Validity - Calculating a few averages and generating a bar graph is a sure-fire way to go down the rabbit hole. When comparing numbers, statistically valid methods such as Analysis of Variance are required to get significant results.

6. Replication - Even if you were to demonstrate a significant effect of the training for one group, that doesn’t guarantee the same effect for the next group. You need to do the test more than once to establish a pattern and negate the suspicion of a one-off.

7. Subsets – Variations among subsets of the population may exist. For example, the parents of young children might feel aggrieved for some reason, or older employees might feel like they’re being ignored. So it’s important to analyse subsets to see if any clusters exist.

8. Time and space - Just because you demonstrated the positive effect of the training program on culture in the Sydney office, doesn’t mean it will have the same effect in New York or Tokyo. Nor does it mean it will have the same effect in Sydney next year.

Weird science

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting you need a PhD to evaluate your training activity. On the contrary, I believe that any evaluation – however informal – is better than none.

What I am saying, though, is for your results to be more meaningful, a little bit of know-how goes a long way.

For organisations that are serious about training outcomes, I go so far as to propose employing a Training Evaluation Officer – someone who is charged not only with getting evaluation done, but with getting it done right.

_______________

The book is entitled E-Learning Provocateur: Volume 1 and my intent is to provoke deeper thinking across a range of themes in the modern workplace, including:

•   social media
•   learning theory
•   pedagogy
•   instructional design
•   learning styles
•   blended learning
•   informal learning
•   mobile learning
•   augmented reality
•   virtual worlds
•   cloud computing
•   self publishing
•   employee engagement
•   corporate social responsibility
•   religion
•   the future of e-learning

The book is available now at Amazon.com.

Of course, this isn’t the only title that takes advantage of its medium. For example, Rob Brydon has added audio and video components to his autobiography Small Man in a Book, while the textbooks on the Inkling app include animations, quizzes and social study tools.

The marketing copy for The Fantastic Flying Books calls it “an interactive narrative experience” that “blurs the line between picture books and animated film”.

Inkling “turns paper-based textbooks into engaging, interactive learning experiences while staying compatible with the print book for classroom use”.

All this got me thinking: where do we draw the line?

When is an e-book not a book…?

The definition of a book

To me, a “book” is a collection of written words that together form a story. The text activates the mind and fires the imagination. The process is often assisted by illustrations.

Of course, the definition of a book can no longer be limited to sheets of paper bound together. The relentless march of technology has ushered the concept into an electronic format. Arguably, the introduction of multimedia elements is a continuation of that evolution.

At what point, however, does the nature of a book transform so much that it becomes something else?

Semantics, semantics

If we replace text with an image, we call it a picture.

If we replace it with illustrated motion, we call it an animation.

If we replace it with a recording, we call it audio or video.

If we combine all of the above, do we not call it an online course…?

When you think about it, a media rich e-book is what a pedagogically-sound online course ought to be:

• engaging
• interactive
• learner centered
• logically structured
• founded on storytelling

Sure, it’s linear, but so are many online courses! In fact, authoring tools like Lectora leverage the metaphor of a book – with terms like “pages” and “chapters” – to arrange the content. (Besides, I don’t think linearity is necessarily a bad thing, so long as the learner is empowered to navigate as they please.)

But it may just be semantics after all.

In this digital age, when convergence is inevitable, perhaps labels become inconsequential.

As Shakespeare’s Juliet observed, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.

Does the learning department spend disproportionate effort on leadership development?

To me, it makes good business sense to facilitate the development of effective leaders in the organisation. Leadership is a driver of culture, which in turn is a driver of engagement, which in turn is a driver of performance.

While I support the philosophy of leadership development, however, I have doubts over some of the interventions that are deployed under that banner. The eye-watering costs and time associated with formal leadership training should be carefully evaluated in terms of ROI.

So I don’t challenge whether substantial resources should be assigned to leadership development, but rather how they should be assigned. There is plenty of scope for informal learning solutions (for example) which are less time and money hungry – and arguably more effective!

Having said that, I think the effort assigned to developing leadership skills can be disproportionate in comparison to managerial skills. All too frequently, “leaders” are promoted due to their technical expertise, but they have never managed anyone in their life. Somehow we expect them to magically transform into Super Boss, but that’s not going to happen. What these people need is Management 101 – a no-nonsense explanation of their new responsibilities and accountabilities, and the corresponding skillset to fulfil them.

Do you agree with me? Review the opinions of other practitioners – and voice your own – at the Learning Cafe blog.

Aviation is a good sport, but for the army it is useless.

So declared General Ferdinand Foch in 1911, merely 3 years before the outbreak of World War I.

To be fair, we shouldn’t forget the context in which the statement was uttered. It wasn’t even a decade since Orville Wright managed to keep his engine-powered Wright Flyer in the air for 12 seconds.

By the end of the year, however, the Italians were already using aeroplanes for reconnaissance and bombing raids in their war against the Turks in Libya.

Aeroplanes were used extensively for reconnaissance by both sides in the early years of World War I, with opposing pilots even waving to each other in gentlemanly fashion.

Sure enough, this behaviour was soon replaced by the pilots throwing bricks and grenades at each other, then firing handguns, then operating mounted machine guns.

Today, of course, aeroplanes are a critical component of warfare. They are used for close air support, air interdiction, strategic bombing, interception, military escorts, transporting people and cargo, and even distributing propaganda.

Of course, I don’t accuse the good general of stupidity. He simply lacked imagination.

Foch struggled to make the mental leap from what contemporary aircraft was being used for, to what it could be used for – particularly in terms of advancing technology.

Are we any more imaginative today?

Unfortunately this kind of thinking has not been lost in annals of history. It’s alive and well in modern corporations, perhaps most conspicuously in relation to social media.

Many executives still don’t “get” social media. They see their daughters dilly dallying on Facebook; they hear their sons laughing at skateboard crashes on YouTube; they read about Charlie Sheen attracting 1 million followers on Twitter in a single day; and they learn about lonely hearts finding true love on Second Life – only to meet in real life and promptly break up.

No wonder they think it’s crap!

But don’t let them off the hook that easily. Help them make the mental leap from what social media is currently being used for (at least in their world) to what it could be used for – particularly in terms of customer service, sales, marketing, public relations, communication, engagement, collaboration and innovation.

It’s an arms race. If your business doesn’t start running, it’s foched.

This one’s called On the Money and it pays homage to the great people who feature on Australia’s currency:

On the Money

Launch the learning object

Download the files

This time I used Adobe Captivate 5.5. I’m still getting used to it, but I see the residual rollover effects have been fixed.

I also used audio this time to increase media richness.

If I were to create this learning object again, I would probably make better use of Captivate’s master slide functionality.

Despite a few controversial decisions over the years, the awards have retained their international prestige for well over a century.

In honour of the event, I have created a simple learning object that showcases the Nobel Laureates from my own country:

Australia’s Nobel Laureates

Launch the learning object

Download the files

This object was relatively easy to produce, and it surprises me that there isn’t more of this kind of thing in the education space.

To remedy the situation, I would like to share with you the 3 steps I took to create my learning object, and in doing so demonstrate the fact that just about anyone can do it.

My caveat is that I am neither a multimedia developer nor a graphic designer – though my role often involves wearing those hats. There are probably better of ways of doing this, but the following worked for me…

Step 1: Create a bunch of image files

My learning object accommodates 10 Nobel Laureates, so I created 10 images in PaintShop Pro, plus a landing image.

On each one I placed the title and subtitle, the mugshots, plus the content that was unique to each laureate (year, name, prize and motivation).

I’m a big fan of layers. You may have noticed I put a background image on the base layer, then overlayed that with a semi-transparent blue floodfill, over which I laid an image of the Nobel medal, over which I laid another a semi-transparent blue floodfill.

Of course you don’t need to go to all that trouble; you can use a plain background. However I think the layering effect adds an aesthetic richness.

Once I got the first image right, I copied it and edited the unique content for the next image. That way I didn’t have to re-do the titling and background.

Step 2: Import into Captivate

After I got all my images in order, I inserted each one onto its own slide in Adobe Captivate 3, ensuring the canvas size was exactly the same as the image dimensions (in this case, 1024 x 768).

Then I added a transparent button to each slide to execute a pause, inserted a click box over each mugshot, then pointed the click boxes to their respective target slides.

Note: I tried incorporating rollovers, but residual effects were screwing it up. My friend and Captivate guru, Marnie Bristow, tells me this glitch has been fixed in the latest version of the software.

Step 3: Publish it

I could have done Step 2 in PowerPoint. If you prefer it and it works for your audience, go for it. However, there are some good reasons to shell out the extra cash and go with Captivate:

• You can publish in swf format, which is really small to download;
• You can add SCORM, if you are that way inclined; and
• You can also record system simulations, which is what it’s designed for!

When I published my learning object in Captivate, the software produced a swf file, an accompanying skin, an html host, and a javascript source. All four need to travel together, so I uploaded them to a folder in Dropbox, then linked to the html file.

You should be able to do something similar on your own web server, intranet, LMS or VLE.

By the way, I realised I stuffed up by making the learning object so big. While most monitors have a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or greater, I forgot about toolbars and the like that compete for real estate. Luckily I had a couple of “get out jail free” cards up my sleeve:

1. Resize the project in Captivate; or
2. Edit the dimensions of the object in the coding of the html file.

I decided to go with the latter because, if someone wants to use the bigger object, I might as well let them.

Done.

So there you have it: How to create an interactive learning object in 3 steps.

Hopefully you are brimming with ideas about your own learning objects that you will make.

And if an Australian wins a Nobel Prize next week, I won’t mind updating mine. In fact, I have my fingers crossed!

The argument is that workers these days are busy professionals with the attention span of a juvenile gnat, so anything longer than a few minutes won’t be effective.

I don’t buy it, but I am in the minority.

Nonetheless, I recognise the benefits of this approach. Shorter content is quicker to develop, and single files like MP4s are easy to produce.

Regular snippets are also useful for reinforcing key messages, assessment, post work, and bridging the knowing-doing gap.

However, I also think this approach is limited.

Although it leverages modern technology – namely, smartphones and tablets – this kind of m-learning remains traditional “push” training.

Of course push training has its place in the broader learning model, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In a true learning organisation, the vast majority of learning is pulled.

So I propose we turn the prevailing notion of m-learning on its head…

Let’s think less in terms of “training” and more in terms of “performance support”.

Create the content once in a central repository (such as a wiki or an intranet) where it can be searched, explored and discovered on-the-job, and just-in-time if need be.

This approach accommodates multiple devices (mobile or otherwise), without the need for multiple authoring tools or the production of multiple content packages.

It also facilitates a more constructivist mode of learning, which one may argue is the pedagogical foundation of the 70 in 70:20:10.

Of course the pull approach to m-learning relies heavily on standardisation. Wikis, intranets, VLEs, LMSs etc must be mobile friendly for the paradigm to work.

In other words, these repositories must be compliant with international mobile standards so that we can accommodate the myriad of devices, browsers and operating systems that m-learning entails.

And we can turn this on its head too. If we all build content on standards-compliant platforms, suddenly the onus is on all those devices, browsers and operating systems to accommodate us.

They flog rapid authoring tools, simulation software, learning management systems, mobile platforms, content libraries, courseware development, project management… the list goes on.

I’m not complaining. I appreciate everyone needs to put food on the table. And besides, many of my friends and family are (or have been) sales reps. I myself have been in a sales support role. It’s a tough gig and I know it.

That’s why I’m prepared to share with you some inside tips.

Please don’t think of this as me mocking you or having a dig. On the contrary, I hope it gives you valuable insight into your customer’s expectations – which of course you can use to your advantage.

Obviously I have my own reasons for doing this too, so let’s call it a “win-win” situation! :0)

1. I am busy – No, I’m not just saying that to sound important. I am seriously busy. The legacy of the GFC is less people in the company expected to do more than ever before. You want to meet me for an hour, but I can only really spare 20 minutes. So you need to get to the point.

2. We are not a giant ATM – Yes, I work for a big corporation, but one that strictly manages its costs. We have an internal chargeback model with budgets and cost centres. Other companies might splash their cash around like it’s lolly water. We don’t.

3. We already have preferred providers – We’ve been doing what we do for a long time without you. To be brutally honest, that means we don’t need you.

4. You don’t offer me anything different – You may think your products or services are special, and I’m not sure if you genuinely believe that or you’re just trying to pull the wool over my eyes, but I can rattle off a bunch of other providers who offer more-or-less the same thing. So you need to clarify your point of difference. By the way, everyone picks glorious customer service, so pick something else.

5. I don’t want to organise a litepro for you – If you need one, bring it yourself. In fact, why not just show me on your tablet.

6. Pay for the coffee – Remember, you wanted to see me, not vice versa. To be fair, this one rarely happens, but it does happen. A sales rep who doesn’t pay for the coffee won’t hear from me ever again.

7. Answer the phone – It’s OK if you’re not available at the moment I call, but don’t ever let the phone run dead. Either have a secretary take a message or buy a machine. And return my call soon.

8. Put your contact details in your email signature – The number of sales reps who sign off emails with merely their first name astounds me. If you think I’m going to ferret through my burgeoning pile of business cards to find your phone number, you’re dreaming.

9. Flag your emails as urgent only when they are urgent – You might be bursting with excitement about what you’re sending me, but that doesn’t mean it’s urgent. Have you read Aesop’s fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf…? I know how to use mail rules in Outlook – don’t make me use them.

10. Ask me if I’m available – When you call me, odds are you’ll disturb me from something I was concentrating on. So from the get-go you’re not my favourite person right now. The least you can do is ask me if I have a few minutes to spare. You telling me that you’ll only be a few minutes doesn’t count.

11. I know the difference between mutton and lamb – When I am a current customer, don’t insult my intelligence by offering me quarterly “support” calls. You just want to make sure I keep pushing your product so that we don’t can it. You know it, I know it, so quit the charade.

12. Embrace CRM – If you’re going to cold call, keep track of who you’re doing it to. I kid you not, there is this one vendor who calls me every quarter without fail. It’s someone different every time, and it’s obvious they have no idea that numerous of their colleagues have been down this road before. I will never buy anything from these clowns.

13. My name is Ryan, not Tracey – And Tracey has an “e” in it. I usually don’t mind, but if you can’t get the little things right, how can I trust you with the big things?

14. If I decline to meet you, don’t take it personally – Maybe it’s not the right time, or we simply don’t need what you’re offering. That’s not your fault, it’s just the way it is. I’d rather you spend your time and effort on someone who is genuinely interested.

15. Sales is a long ball game – Sure, I know you have monthly sales targets and a manager breathing down your neck, but that won’t change anything at my end. If we don’t need what you’re offering right now, we’re not going to buy it. But if I like you and you’re professional, you never know… times change.

In a world in which everyone loves to bang on about emerging technology, relatively few ever do anything about it. The PhM, however, has the guts to give it a go.

So I was excited to stumble upon their Augmented Reality browsing of Powerhouse Museum around Sydney app for Apple and Android.

I love history, I love augmented reality, and I own an iPhone – so a combination of all three proved irresistible.

Unfortunately, though, I was a little bit disappointed.

Here’s why…

1. The title is meh

Exciting initiatives should have a catchy yet self-evident title to attract users like bears to a honey pot. However, Augmented Reality browsing of Powerhouse Museum around Sydney is boring and clunky.

I’d prefer something like Pocket Time Machine: An augmented reality tour of Old Sydney. A bit cheesy, I know, but a lot more interesting.

2. The app focuses on south CBD and the inner west

As the first European settlement on the continent – with a rich indigenous history – Sydney is teeming with sites of historical significance. However the app conspicuously misses the most obvious ones (eg Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House and the AMP Building).

Of course you have to start somewhere and the PhM website does promise a new version, but it refers to contemporary photography and gamification. I’d rather they expand their range into The Rocks and Circular Quay.

3. The app barely augments reality

Since the app is built on the Layar platform, it connects to Google Maps. Select the “i” icon at the relevant location and a photo pops up from the museum’s collection showing you what it looked like 100 years ago. This functionality is excellent, and frankly it could stand alone.

The augmented reality component comprises those floating “i” icons, which you’re supposed to select as you hold your device in front of you. Plainly speaking, they’re annoying:

There are too many of them – which is confusing;

They are difficult to select – which is frustrating; and,

They have a tendency to get in the way – which defeats the purpose!

In short, the augmented reality component is redundant.

All is not lost

Of course, there is an alternative to abandoning augmented reality.

I suggest PhM follows the lead of the Museum of London and leverages the technology more fully. How? By laying the old photos over the real background.

This is what edtech is all about: transforming the educational experience.

Put a map on a smartphone? A crumpled tourist map is just as good; Plug in some photos? Nice touch, but those can be printed too; Lay century-old photos over the modern world in real time? Now that’s novel.

Even better, why not complement the visual with narration to provide a richer multimedia experience?

Who dares wins

As you would have gathered earlier, it is not my intention to pick on PhM. On the contrary, I salute them for having a red-hot go at something new.

Having taken the first step, they have earned the right to sit back and evaluate their app, with a view to making it even better the next time around.

In short, my esteemed peers and I agreed on “yes”, but that’s not the end of the story. Allow me to explain…

According to one school of thought, L&D belongs in HR because that’s how you achieve scale. The fundamental learning and development needs in the organisation (eg leadership, culture and change) are enterprise-wide. So it makes sense to centralise their management.

According to another school of thought, however, the needs of the business are so diverse and unique that a central L&D team could never hope to keep abreast of them all – let alone address them effectively. So it makes sense to embed L&D professionals into the teams to manage the learning in its context.

Of course, both POVs are right. Whether L&D should be centralised in HR or distributed throughout the business is not a binary proposition. A true learning organisation needs both.

Having said that, how the organisation implements the two is important. There’s no point having an ivory tower bestowing empty training interventions upon the masses; and conversely, there’s no point having an army of hermits toiling away in isolation.

What’s required is a partnership: L&D people across the organisation consulting and collaborating with each other – and with the business – to generate the right solutions for everyone.

This got me thinking, are all these people really “connected”…?

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Six Degrees of Separation principle. It holds that on average, anyone is only 6 personal relationships away from anyone else. Whether Facebook adds anything to the equation is questionable.

Take Madonna for example.

Madonna has a Facebook page – well, I think it’s her. There’s a problem already. For the sake of this argument, let’s accept it’s her.

I can write a message on her wall and hope she replies, but that’s not really the point. I could also mail her a letter or press the buzzer at her Hollywood mansion.

The point is connectedness. For the theory to hold up, I must be only 6 Facebook users away from the Material Girl, and thereby be able to engineer a personal introduction.

Maybe in theory I can, but while I know who I’m connected to, I don’t really know who they’re connected to, let alone who they are connected to. And that’s only a few degrees in.

Sure, I could ask “Does anyone know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who knows Madonna?”, but that would be a tad silly. No one could possibly know.

Alternatively, I could say “I’m trying to meet Madonna – can you arrange an introduction? Pass it on…”

Again in theory, my message would reach someone who could indeed arrange an introduction, but the probability of that happening is ridiculously low. Human nature dictates that a rapidly diminishing number of people will pass it on, let alone to the extent required to get a hit.

So while 600 million people are technologically connected on Facebook, practically they aren’t because everyone’s effective network only stretches so far.

The best we can do is stretch it as far as possible.

It’s just that I’ve banged heads with a few of your pig-headed colleagues over the years, and I couldn’t resist…

We’ve all seen it with our own eyes: when a company hits hard times, its training budget is one of the first casualties.

Bob Spence rightly pointed out that the training function is often seen as a cost rather than an investment. To counter-act that perception, the L&D team must do a better job of demonstrating its worth to the business in terms of performance and, ultimately, profit.

We all nodded in agreement and a lively discussion ensued on how we should go about doing that.

However in the back of my mind I was empathising with the poor bunnies who are stuck now with slashed training budgets. What can they do about their current reality?

Of course the remedy is simple: spend less. The challenge is doing that without compromising value.

While there are many pieces to this puzzle, I think an oft-overlooked one is the exploitation of freebies. Freebies are everywhere, just waiting to be gobbled up. The trick is finding them.

There are 2 broad sources…

1. The external environment

Everyone knows there’s a wealth of free learning resources on the web, and many of them are relevant to the corporate sector.

I’m referring to things like:

• Blogs
• Slides
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Social networks
• E-Journals
• News articles

Why waste money reinventing the wheel?

Whatever topic you care to nominate, odds are some expert somewhere around the world has written about it, talked about it, filmed it, or presented a slideshow about it.

And published it to the web.

2. The internal environment

This one isn’t as obvious, but it’s arguably more important: every employee knows something worth sharing with their colleagues.

Furthermore, I contend they have an obligation to do so.

Our job as L&D professionals is to facilitate that collaboration. I’m referring to things like:

• Discussion forums
• Wikis
• Communities of practice
• User groups
• Brown bag sessions

Why pay for training when you have an army of SMEs at your disposal?

Whatever topic you care to nominate, odds are some expert somewhere in the organisation can write about it, talk about it, film it, or present a slideshow about it.

If that person does not exist, perhaps a number of employees can chip in their nuggets of knowledge and experience, and together make a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.