Ambient Connections via Ron Edwards

All Technology Was New at Some Point

Pornography! …is just one of the many uses of the internet….that’s how I introduced the Internet 10 years ago to 500 sales people who were wondering what possible business benefit it might have. Of course, if I were introducing the web now I’d probably have to say something like “role playing as a furry animal is just one of the many things you can do in cyberspace. I’ve been invited to share a few thoughts on technology for the next 15 minutes. I consider myself a journeyman, always learning what’s new and considering what’s next.

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? It wasn’t that long ago that we were first introducing the internet to our corporate colleagues, and before that it was personal computers themselves with Windows 3.1! Back then our training software ran in DOS. Just the way we liked it! Windows ushered in an age where workers started to think of their desktop tools differently, from mainframe thin client apps to input data to using new tools for word processing, number crunching, visualization and project management. Email went from zero to hero and I remember how funny we thought it was that people were sending emails across the office instead of walking over to talk to people. Now of course, email is so pervasive, it’s spawned a new device, one that delivers the email within 1 meter of your head 24/7. Yes, the crackberry.

Consumer led technologies keep creeping their way into our organisations, don’t they? Think about it. The personal computer – the first ones by IBM , Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, and Acorn. These were used in the 80s by us geeks in droves before the personal computer started to make inroads in to our organisations.

It wasn’t until 1992 that the large company I worked for started to bring in PCs for all workers. They started with the secretaries in the R&D group I worked in and I was in charge of their training. I started learning everything I could about training and software training in particular. I attended conferences, started a masters in training and development and found kindred minds and spirits (yes, in the bar), and through networking developed a few partnerships with training providers. We figured, when introducing new software, why not just show people how to get their jobs done using the new tools vs. showing what was behind each menu in case they might need it. We undertook a light task analysis to try to find what the high performing workers were doing that we could train the others in while looking for opportunities to further automate things. We called it Job Specific Training. I’ve never been very good at catchy names. While the name may not have caught on outside the US, we inspired quite a few people to take a look at how to better train people by sharing what was working at conferences. I think that this approach still holds value today, but jobs have become more complex requiring more tools and more multitasking – I think this is giving rise to something that’s been around for a long time but is finally becoming “hip” – and that is online performance support. This solves the problem of not being able to remember everything whether it’s a process or a few mouse clicks to get something done.

I’ve always dabbled in performance support as I’ve defined my role as enabling and developing performance, rather than delivering training. I started by simply putting sales materials on the new Intranet I lobbied for because I could see that if we could get people using the Intranet to get their day to day business information, it wouldn’t be long before we could use it to support and eventually deliver learning. This of course became known as eLearning. Who knew?

If we jump forward a few years to 2001 when I moved over here to lead eLearning for Unilever globally, one of my first tasks was to advise a group looking to train 28,000 people across Europe on SAP. I was encouraged that they had a well thought out plan that was focused on the change management needed to get people to work differently in new work processes, and that the software was actually just an enabler. They designed performance support into the application so you could always look up where you were in the process and how to compete the transaction. They used shortened classroom time to help people understand the change and to learn how to use the online help. This was an award winning project – DACG won the Gold award in 2002 for it, but to us, it just seemed like the only way to do it and I don’t think any of us went to the award banquet. In hindsight, maybe we should have. Champagne is a good thing. So is sharing what works.

These days, I’m doing what I can to keep up with the rapid technological change that we find ourselves in. I track what’s happening in the consumer worlds where all of us live and play because that’s where we find stuff that people want, that will help our organisations. How do you keep up with developments? I think that once you master the fundamentals of great training, training management and get the infrastructure right, to remain a master Jedi you’ve got to keep an eye on what’s next that will make a difference. Fortunately, nowadays many of the really innovative things don’t cost much.

A great example of this is last year’s hot topic – podcasting. For those of you that just arrived to this planet, Podcasting is simply distributing audio or video clips over the internet to people that choose to subscribe to them so they get constant updates for free. The Christmas gift to have in 2004 was an iPod. It still is because now they come with video. There are millions of these .mp3 players out there and now, not only can you play .mp3 on your phone like this one, but you can actually subscribe and get them on the run over wifi or phone network. So people have the devices and they’re listening to podcasts, some of which could even be educational I suppose, now we have companies saying, hey, the cost of these are less than the round trip taxi to the airport. I could put all of the lectures on them. And companies are starting to do this, with some even supplying thousands of them. I started listening to a few myself, and practiced making a few. I sucked. A few companies asked me to run workshops on how to create & implement them and I started to do public workshops which were fun – I was finally back in the classroom doing what I love – teaching technology. Now I think people are figuring it out on their own which is great. I’m on to the next big thing – or the next few big things.

So what are the next big things? We’re in the midst of a revolution on the web (and on mobiles but we’ll get to that tomorrow). This revolution has a name, Web 2.0, and it is the transition from a read only web where you just access information to a read-write web where we can all contribute whether for personal interests, learning or work. These tools are talked about a lot now, especially in context for how they support informal learning. Tools like blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, and social bookmarking and news sites. As Technorati, the epicenter of the Blogosphere says, there are 60 million blogs, some of them must be good. Blogging is good for you. It help keep you on your toes for what’s happening and looking to blog it which I think helps clarify your thinking. Commenting on other’s blogs builds community and can help you find people that are smarter than you are. Or at least more knowledgeable.

Social networking sites such as Facebook are hotter than ever right now. It’s as if the UK has taken over Facebook in terms of buzz. I created an account in both Facebook and Myspace – each of these has 25 and 100 million users respectively. A few people I didn’t know in the far east asked to be my friends in Myspace just after I registered. I felt bad for saying no. But seeing that they had hundreds of friends already, I didn’t worry too much. Meanwhile, one business contact and friend after another keeps adding me as a friend in Facebook and I’m finding it kind of fun. I was doing a piece of research on social media for a client and came across a quote from a marketing director about my age, from his daughter who was 15. she says “All of my friends but 2 are on Facebook and I have 100’s of friends. I only use email to communicate with old people, like you.” For those of you that have kids, you probably notice that they are constantly using Instant Message and now social networking sites to communicate with each other. It isn’t just the teens though. I met some friends a few days ago for dinner, one of the three was a passionate Facebook user who says all of her friends but one (and she’s working on that one) are on facebook and that she only uses email for the few people she interacts with not on it. She’s 26. The business colleagues I’m networked with are older. There’s something to this – a new way of communicating that I think we can tap into. I’m just not sure how yet. There is a growing chorus of “what are we going to do when the youth of today who are used to interacting and learning in entirely new ways come into the workplace? Well, they’re here. And they are going to stay where they feel like they can contribute and work at a pace they’re used to.

I think the other frontier is tapping into games, game technologies and virtual worlds as the immersion is incredible and is providing new opportunities. When was the last time you felt an emotion when doing online learning? Ok, maybe anger, frustration, boredom to take a few cheap shots. But what about laughing out loud? Feeling nervous, on the edge, exploring, not knowing what would happen next? Virtual worlds are so immersive you find yourself transported to another place and you’re very focused on your experience vs the distractions around you.

I first heard about 3d virtual worlds in 2002 from Elliott Masie who reported on them from the big consumer electronics show and suggested they might have some learning potential. I tried to sign up for the beta, but they would never give me a password. I really wanted to try it though. I remembered seeing news articles saying they were hoping to attract women online because if they are there in the online community, then men will follow. The reverse is of course not necessarily true. So, I signed up as Ron-da and got an account immediately. As I signed on I had to choose, be a woman avatar or a man. I was worried that if I selected man they might be on to me, but I didn’t think I could be a woman forever either. So, I chose dude, and I’ve had the account every since. My first experience was intense. I was transported to a cartoonish tropical place and somebody that looked very young and fit walked up to me and introduced herself. I didn’t realise I was wearing ‘nube’ gear – white t-shirt and khaki pants. She taught me how to change my clothes and answered my questions about how to get one of those cool hoverboards. She loaned me hers, I thought that was pretty cool. We joked around a bit and added each other as friends to find each other again. In those few minutes I felt nervous, excited, glad, happy, and a sense of accomplishment once I mastered the hoverboard. I’ll talk more about some of the applications of virtual worlds beyond hoverboards tomorrow.

On the gaming front, how many of you consider yourselves gamers? How many think video games have some potential for corporate training? Well, a lot of people do, too. It’s one thing to read about why people play games and increasingly choose do so over tv, and a lot of other activities including for me, sleep. It’s quite another to actually find a game that you can’t put down and experience it for yourself.

I had heard about Half Life, one of the top selling, most award winning games for some time before finally buying it to try it for myself. Then of course, I had to play Half Life 2, the sequel, which rocked. The game play is that you’re Gordon, there’s been a catastrophic accident that threatens earth and you guessed it, it’s up to you to save everybody. You have to blast your way through tunnels and buildings and you find yourself facing scary zombies in the dark which munch your brain with this horrible crunch crunch sound. It’s awful! I couldn’t put it down. Why?? The theorists will say it’s a concept called flow – when you feel like you’re succeeding just past your capabilities. How do we tap into that, without the zombies??

We have a lot to learn. You’re in the right place. You have some world class speakers here, great sessions and each other to learn from. Of course, the learning doesn’t stop here, and while it doesn’t have to include zombies, I encourage you to try a few new things to find what will add value for you and your organisations.

Thank you for listening.