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February 4-6, 2002, I joined 1,300 other people in Las Vegas for ASTD's TechKnowledge Conference. The theme was "Truth in eLearning." At first this struck me as hokey, but when I discovered that many of the attendees were ASTD members who were here to find out what eLearning was all about, I realized that "truth" was a comfort to them.
ASTD
had invited me to participate in a press panel on eLearning in an age of bio-terrorism.
My take is that the corporate world is swaying toward pragmatism and flexibility.
The pragmatic part is to do whatever works, overlooking the rough edges and
doctrinaire approaches. Flexibility means thinking about corporate communications
and eLearning at the same time, the eLearning center as newsroom. Here I am
on Centra, during the event.
The Expo was very low-key compared to the major conferences. Also, the major vendors were getting ready for Training 2002 in Atlanta, not stopping by a minor show in Vegas. No SmartForce, no Digital Think, no Saba, and no LCMS Council members.
Lance Dublin and
I had been unable to meet one another in the Bay Area, where we both live, so
we met every day in Las Vegas. We're writing the capstone volume of ASTD's eLearning
series. We made a number of conceptual breakthroughs and are on track for a
fall release. Everyone we talked with told us we were right on target.
Here's Tina Sung, ASTD president. Tina graduated from Princeton precisely one decade after I did. She's certainly more photogenic than I am.
Here's
something you don't find at the humongous expos, a company so young that they're
still authentic. enspire learning's Seth
Caplan stopped me in the aisle. His enthusiasm was contagious. Three guys who
had gone to the University of Texas together, working from a house in Austin,
churning out simulations on difficult topics, it's great, we're going to be
successful with this. CEO Bjorn Billhardt graduated from Harvard Business School
more than a quarter century after I did, and his very first simulation, on global
supply chain management, garnered rave reviews at HBS. If you're in the market
for a snappy simulation and can't afford Roger Shank, check these guys out.
Maybe Seth will buy me a beer next time I'm in Austin.
Measures
's Success
(and Its Own!)
Truth be told, this session by Cisco's Peg Maddocks and OutStart's Mike Buoy was the only presentation I attended from beginning to end.
Peg described the challenges of training account managers at Cisco. We're talking 10,000 employees and 40,000 channel partners, all of whom are skeptical of anything more than six weeks old! Peg's mandate was to replace ILT with six full-blown eLearning courses in four months.
Working with OutStart, a relationship both parties describe as challenging but productive, Cisco has put together a database-driven architecture that delivers Lessons made up of Reusable Learning Objects that are in turn made up of Reusable Information Objects. Throw all this in the OutStart blender and out come eLearning, sales scenarios, magazines, and audio talk shows that Account Managers devour in the evening or when prepping for a sales call.
This is slick. It reminds me of preparing my income taxes with TurboTax. I dump my content into the program, and it spits out my Federal and California returns. The system shields me from the minutia behind the scenes.
Peg described the challenges of getting authors to write for reusability instead of ILT. Everything must be self-contained. SMEs can provide content in MS Word or PowerPoint. One template is so simple, it's rumored that a dead SME could use it effectively.
Peg's advice to others is that 80% is good enough, adopt a try it-fix it-try it again mentality, leverage successes, and focus on pilot projects first. Cisco has used OutStart to produce 194 courses comprised of 2165 reusable learning objects. I was impressed.
At baggage
carousels at airports, I never pay attention to the signs that warn that "Many
suitcases look alike. Check your luggage tags..." My suitcase never looks
like others. I recently bought a new monster to cart my stuff around in. Sanjay
Dalal, who's putting WebEx on the eLearning map, helped me maintain my unique
look:
Las
Vegas wins the award for perpetual goofiness hands-down. Late Wednesday afternoon
I went to the Venetian to check out the Guggenheim show, The Art of the Motorcycle.
I ogled and drooled for an hour and a half. The show starts with a steam-powered
bicycle and Gottlieb Daimler's gasoline-powered bike, leads to the early Indians
and Harleys, evolves into streamlined Italian beauties, and then Nortons and
Vincents. 
The
bike that put BMW on the map and the BMW that won the Paris-Dakar race in '85.
Agustas and Moto Guzzis, Hondas and Yamahas, Suzukis, Ducatis, pant, pant, chrome,
and high-performance engines, and incredible beauty. 
Whew.
I staggered out and took the escalator up to the Grand Canal and on to the Piazza
San Marco for dinner while being serenaded by flute and lute, singing juggler,
and some operatic voices. After dinner I strolled along the length of the canal.
Dio mio! Did you catch the fact that this entire set-up, St. Mark's Square,
the canal, the shops -- all of this is on the second floor of the Venetian,
above the casino. I walked out onto the balcony of the Doges' Palace, took the
moving sideway across the Rialto Bridge, and went across the street to pray
at the Buddhist shrine nestled up against the facade of Caesar's.
The Las Vegas Hilton is retro. No Eiffel Tour, no Campanile, no Pyramid. Just a tarnished statue of Elvis in the lobby and a boatload of slot machines. My room had been refurbished the week before. Along the picture window was a granite shelf where I parked my laptop. The view was quite inspiring. In spite of its tackiness, I was having an enjoyable time in Vegas.
Of course, you do have to wonder why anyone would create an all-wood Ferrari.
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