When you're ready to retire, ...

Will you be poor? Better start planning now. And don't forget to factor in inflation. We used to think that having a million dollars saved by age 65 would be enough, but it's not. Your best bet is to start your own business, and start it soon. [CNN}

7:01:16 PM    

South by Southwest Interactive 2004: Social Software Panel

See my note from Sunday on registration. Early bird price goes up next Friday, Jan. 16. -- BB

SXSW panel on REGF (or: Acronym Heaven). Sam Ruby writes that there's going to be a panel at the South by Southwest conference on ridiculously easy group-forming. Cool.

This panel offers perspectives on group forming and information sharing via the latest social software tools.  The panel will include Pete Kaminski, Jon Lebkowsky, Sam Ruby, David Sifry, and Adam Weinroth.

11:23:52 AM    

eLearning 2004: Some hopes and some predictions.

What I hope we start getting right in 2004 (because we sure have missed the boat so far):

1. Remembering that what we do is about people and solving their problems in order that they may make their lives better, not about technology and The Next Big Thing.

2. Using the Instructional Systems Design model as it was originally proposed by Roger Kaufman 35 years ago, and not as it has been perverted, misconstrued, or misapplied by so many people since.

3. Connecting people to successful strategies and practices for achieving their valued outcomes and business goals.

4. Using the research findings  that are readily available to us about learning, instead of continuing to apply the same old tired (and incorrect) theories.

What I fear we will continue to get wrong in 2004:

1. Deciding what our "blended" eLearning solution will look like before we have identified the problem we are trying to solve, before we have defined the outcome we want to achieve, before we have determined the monetary value of solving the problem or achieving the outcome, and before we have determined whether skill and knowledge deficiencies are the source of the problem.

2. Continuing to confuse teaching, telling, and technology with learning, and continuing to proceed without ever looking at new research findings.

3. Continuing to embed the same erroneous assumptions into our applications:

- Everybody has the same valued outcomes, and the value of each outcome is the same for everybody.

- Everybody needs the same information or skill in order to achieve the valued outcomes.

- Everybody learns the same way, at the same speed.

- If they "learn" how to do it, they will actually do it.

4. Continuing to walk into the trap of estimating development costs on the basis of the fictitious and nonsensical "hour of eLearning." 

10:44:08 AM