Twellow DevLearn 09!

To make the technology-enabled social networking easier (i.e. Twitter), I created a “Hello my Name is” Twitter sticker for attendees to write their twitter user name on. This will hopefully make the Twitter business card exchange must faster.

My fantastic fellow T-Mobile co-worker Jeff Tillett and I will be printing them and handing them out at our presentation on how to develop low cost mobile learning solutions on Wednesday (114).

Feel free to download and print this 3”x5” Twitter sticker to write your Twitter user name.

I am looking forward to attending the many DevLearn inspirational presentations on innovative learning (gaming, mobile and social), as well as the usual informal conversation with (in my humble opinion) the best minds in the eLearning world.
See you there!

Real-time Collaboration * Google Wave

The geniuses behind Google Maps recently announced Google Wave, which they are calling a “personal communication and collaboration tool”. It is a browser application (HTML 5)  that brings the opportunity to “collate” and evolve emails and traditional documents into a real-time collaborative experience that will integrate instant messaging, wiki (read-write) and social networking components.  You can also easily embed these “wave” conversations on blogs to share the discussion…pretty cool!

BONUS points – Google Waves works on Android mobile devices. I repeat…Google Waves works on Android mobile devices. Check out the video below!!! I cannot wait to try out on my G1. Being a huge fan of Gmail and Google Documents, I just signed up for the alpha and am VERY, VERY interested in how a tool like this can be used to streamline business communication and collaboration. HEADS UP teammates and peers out there, get ready for the Mark Wave…coming soon!

They are not only calling it an application but also a platform and protocol. Being open source, Google is looking for the community to try out, see what works and extend it to make it better.

I like this quote about email-

“…email (aka snail mail), which was invented 40 years ago, is still today is the most popular communication tool….but lacks the experience of real-time SMS etc. ”

Question = Answer * ChaCha!

When you have a question about something what do you do?

A. Ask a friend?
B. Go to the library?
C. Google the answer?
D. Make up an answer? (No!)
E. None of the Above

What about using ChaCha?

Learning “on demand” is a hot topic and popular way for finding information today. A peer suggested ChaCha to me yesterday. When I tried it, an answer for  “death of Napoleon” came back in less than a minute…”gastric cancer” wow that was fast!

In January of 2008, ChaCha launched its mobile answers text service at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Since that day, hundreds of thousands of people have become ChaCha fans – of both the text AND mobile answers voice service – asking ChaCha millions and millions of questions every month.

On September 17th, 2008 ChaCha announced that it now has more than a million users and has answered more than 27 million queries since it launched its revolutionary mobile answers service in January. This, combined with its quarterly growth rate in Q2, makes ChaCha the fastest growing mobile search service, surpassing both Google and Yahoo in both WAP and text-based search growth rates (according to the latest data from Nielsen Mobile).

ChaCha was the fastest growing U.S. mobile text-based search service again for the 2nd quarter in a row surpassing Yahoo and on the heels of Google growing market share from seven percent to 28 percent in only 90 days, according to Nielsen Mobile.

Here is how it works:

Try it two ways:

Call 1.800.2ChaCha (1.800.224.2242)
Text 242242 (spells ChaCha)

1. Simply ask your question from your mobile phone as if you were talking to a smart friend.
2. We’ll instantly route your question to the most knowledgeable person on that topic in our Guide community.
3. Your answer is then returned to your phone as a text message within a few minutes.

Rate of Learning * Food of the Gods

As the saying goes, “the only thing that is constant is change.” While reading HG Wells Food of the Gods, about two scientists researching the growth process of living things, something occurred to me. The rate of human growth used in the book can be used as a reference for how people learn, process and adapt to new information. Stay with me for a moment…

Change is constant and learning is constant, right?

In Food of the Gods, two scientists theorize that the natural rate of growth is constant with periods of rest (Figure C.), which (applied to learning) is an ideal rate for Bloom’s Taxonomy right? We start with receiving information and progressively move to knowledge and then evaluation. That is great! Although, raise your hand out there if you feel like the rate of change and new information in your day to day life is a constant stream (Figure D.)? Everyday we can expect that things will change, new information will come in, new events will happen that impact our daily work and lives.

How do we manage this constant change? How can organizations manage this? Will sporadic growth and periods of rest continue to work for us? How many organizations have learning programs to accommodate Figure C. and D? To the contrary how many organizations have programs that resemble Figure A. and B? An initial information dump without reinforcement or no change at all.

What is the answer? Here are my thoughts:

• Create learning programs that resemble Figure C. and D.
• Provide tools to enable informal learning.
• Build communities to support social learning.
• Revisit topics of frequent change.
• Use refreshers consistently to reinforce.
• Turn learning into a constant stream.
• What are you thoughts?

In closing to paraphrase Tim O’Reilly,

“…it is easier to consume small bites of information over a long period of time than to consume large bites of information in short period of time”.

Rate of Learning

8 Social Media Case Studies

Found this via TopRank blog via @leeodden-

BlogWell will be showcasing a number of social media case studies from a variety of industries. Interesting to note that a number of big companies are leveraging Twitter for customer relationship building such as @mayoclinic, @hrblock, @allstate, @uscoastguard

BlogWell is the only conference devoted to learning how big businesses successfully participate in social media. You’ll learn directly from the executives at the largest corporations in the world who are engaging in this right now.

• The Home Depot
• Mayo Clinic
• H&R Block
• Sharpie
• US Coast Guard
• Allstate
• Walmart
• Procter & Gamble