Justin Mass * T-shirt to Honor Tim Russert

An inspirational act at a sad time…

Justin Mass of Washington DC, is using the power of the (Facebook) network, grass roots effort and mad (t-shirt) design skills to raise money for a good cause in honor of Tim Russert. Besides being a new family man, an eLearning guru and a hip-hop evangelist, Justin is also quite the humanitarian. Go Justin go! // I met Justin last year at an eLearning Guild conference and have been keeping up with him ever since.

Read an excerpt from an article (below) and here are a few media bites: (Seattle) radio interview, (Seattle) news article, and DC news article

Justin Mass of Ashburn, like the rest of America, is mourning the passing of long-time “Meet the Press” host, Tim Russert.

“I always looked forward to his show,” said Mass, 31, who attended graduate school at University at Buffalo, in Russert’s hometown. “He’s one of those special guys who you really don’t appreciate until he’s gone.”

Mass, a huge hip-hop fan whose blog is called Daily Operation, decided to honor Russert in the way that the hip-hop community memorializes fallen musicians.

“When an artist passes prematurely in hip-hop, it’s usually just a few days before someone designs a tribute T-shirt,” he explained.

Mass had never designed a T-shirt before. By day, he works at a Reston law firm. But after hearing of Russert’s death and watching the news coverage until midnight on Friday, he felt inspired to honor the man.

The tribute Tees cost $20 each, and all profits will be donated in Russert’s memory to an organization that the broadcaster was actively involved with: The Boys and Girls Club of D.C.

Mass linked his T-shirt design on a Russert Facebook page yesterday, and by this morning, he said he had already received 20 orders.

“At first, I just told people to send me a check when ordering,” he said. “Today, I set up a Pay-Pal account to meet the demand.”

To order one, click here.

A mock-up of the Tim Russert tribute T-shirt (Design by Justin Mass)

Get O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D * Enterprise 2.0

Does your team and/or company need to get O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D?

Quote from Taxi Driver:

Travis Bickle: I should get one of those signs that says “One of these days I’m gonna get organezized”.
Betsy: You mean organized?
Travis Bickle: Organezized. Organezized. It’s a joke. O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D…
Betsy: Oh, you mean organezized. Like those little signs they have in offices that says, “Thimk”?

At this point most of us know about the damage of infomania and the value in peer collaboration and social media, so raise your hand if your team is using it? GOOD FOR YOU…hands down. Now raise your hand if you are begging IT and leadership to bring these tools within your firewall (a pilot at least) ?

With all of the grass roots web 2.0 things organically growing around the business world, the wise vendors are rushing to accommodate the need. Take DreamFactory for instance (thank you ReadWriteWeb).

In this first phase of the DreamTeam Suite, the software includes a Project Management module, a Time and Expense module, an integrated Document Manager, and a Team Calendar. Because it’s hosted in the cloud, there’s no need for implementation or provisioning, save for a one-time install of a browser plugin. There’s no need for any contracts, either: a Professional Edition starts at $12.95/month for unlimited projects and participants and the Enterprise version starts at $89.95/month.

A|G 2008 - Day 2 Highlights

Back in Seattle and synthesizing notes…here are my day 2 notes.

Breakfast Byte – Web 2.0 has value…now what?

Rise and shine with an awesome breakfast discussion using web 2.0 and social learning. It was awesome, with a lot of interesting ideas from many different perspectives. Bottom line: don’t focus on the tool, instead focus on what and how you are currently collaborating and communicating and figure out what your needs are from there.

There was an IT rep from Wrigley gum, which was there to collect information to help his organizational needs…very cool. They say make friends with IT, and this guy is already on your side. One person was using a meta-tagged phone directory, with embedded IM. Sounds very cool. Kevin Jones, who I met at an earlier discussion that he lead the day before was in the house, full of cool ideas, who has also started a ning social network around social learning, so check it out. I didn’t get a chance to catch him at Espresso Learning, but he seems to be one of the dudes to keep up with and he has even started a social learning social network.

Keynote #2 John Patrick

Bottom line: Future of the Internet…we are just in the beginning in the internet’s full potential (5%).

Here are other random notes:

The internet is about people, not just students, teachers, business. Transferred the power from institutions to people. Expectations rise by the day with information. Music industry should have listened to technology theorist along the way to see where it was going instead of waiting for Steve Jobs to lead the way.

Both global and local…convergence and divergence…one device that does everything. Pervasive internet…anything this electronic with a chip in, has a networking capability. Power of the click, not necessarily revolution (edit note from Mark – Tibet is using micro-blogging to push out critical and timely information). He calls the power End to End. ISPs have the lowest customer experience rating. He does not like his service provider….he showed a poor web usability example of his service provider not letting him put his security answer (leo, or blue) because it wasn’t enough characters. They are not empowering you, they are empowering themselves…whereas the web is for you (the customer). Availability is strong aspect.

Cultural studies, Phew family funds study. Showed teenages uers emails, texting, IM’ing The banking coming ING concentrates of the customer and uses the internet. Email is powerful and we have along way to go. He uses Span arrest. 82% of his email is spam. The real barriers are not tecnnical. Most of the issues are wit attitude.

Health care issues, which give lots of jobs and will potentially, bankrupt the country. No politician has a good solution. Medical error and care provider liability insurance drives the cost. Information technology (lack there of) adds to the problem

Kaiser Permanente, IBM, Siemens, Mayo clinic are doing stuff, but in the mainstream, not enough is not going. People do not do enough about their own health, nor demand for the information.

Health care is too reliant on paper and web-based EMR is what he wants and will likely reduce errors and security.

The government has not regulated it out of fear and ignorance, which has worked to our advantage. IRS had done a GOOD job with eFile.

The internet, which originated from education, provides a way for livelong learning.

A lot of people don’t know how to learn. We need to teach people to learn to learn.

Companies are face with do I empower people with the internet or just accommodate the internet.

He does not feel that a bubble is occurring again, because investors are smarter.

Whole Mind Design

Ann Herrmann Nehdi

This was an awesome session, where Ann used discussed how the there are four distrinct ways for processing information, and how we need to keep this in mind when we not only desing eLearning, but also how we collaborate with each other. She used fun props like color cards, balloons, hats and group exercises. I would like to see her perspective on immersive learning simulations.

Here are some other random notes:

• Brains kicking in…years of research, how do you leverage and take advantage.
• Are we learning as fast as the world is changing?
• Retention is critical
• Average peson speaks @125-175 words per min. and listens @450-600 wpm
• Book: The Right Mind
• Use context and emotion correctly, leverage engaging emotions
• Put learner at risk, with safety

Telling stories with pictures

This was a fun session, which discussed how when telling and story, with imagery or otherwise, we should ask three levels of interest or “why”? This will help strengthen your story.

Example: Picture of a girl putting money in a piggy bank;

What/Why is she doing? – Putting money in a piggy bank

Why is she doing it? – To save for something.

What is she saving for? – To buy a new toy.

A|G 2008 - ILS Symposium & Day 1 Highlights

The eLearning Guild 2008 Annual Gathering (Orlando) has been amazing with so many new ideas, fresh perspectives, amazing case studies, actionable approaches and social connections. I look forward to staying in connect with everyone I met to continue the conversation. I tried to take as many notes and plan to synthesize and post. Below is a collection for the a pre-conf symposium and Day 1. More to come…

Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS) Symposium

This was a very, very impressive session with ILS experts let by Mark Oehlert, which was an awesome blend of theory, group discussion and plenty of awesome examples. Life and learning looks different through the glasses of ILS. The coolest thing is that they started a wiki for continue the conversation.

Here are my random notes and examples.

Terminology

Simulation – model of reality (an engine that drives everthing)

Scenario – initial conditions, goal, story

Game – tuned (being in the zone, tuning the scenario) adding time, pressure

Frame game – uninteresting, content irrelevant, glorified quiz

• “Play in the beginning of knowledge” – baby animals, kids. Learn how the world works.
• People do things for two reasons (Have to, Want to)
• Congtive science research, learning should be “hard fun”…play is better learning
• “A good game is a series of interesting decisions” Sid Meier
• “People make mistakes in patterns” bring models in from their experience
• Every wrong answer should have a different set of feedback
• Mark asked a question about compliance training….Clark, ethics – have high stakes for story, law suit will shut company down. Mark O. said he does this, even with simple quiz, they are making results public to add competitive element.
• “Tuning is nine-tenths of the effort.” Will Wright
• Book: A Theory of Fun for Game Design
• Book: The Game Design Reader
• NY School The Game School – tell Cinnamon about this (public) Katie Salen
• Tip” Provide a social outlet with the release of a course/game (i.e. a wiki), even better is a built in comment, feedback mechanics into the training…unmoderated.
• Term: Adver-games
• Choosing the right metaphor for your game content
• (Mark C thought) – Are toys valuable in learning?

Day 1

Keynote: Keith Sawyer

To be successful we need to create a culture of collaboration and learning (environments).

How to learn to be creativity:

• Research says, build on learners knowledge
• Encourage reflection, meta-cognition
• Carefully scaffold authentic situated practice
• Combine inquire and project-based activities with information delivery
• Foster learning in collaboating group

Challenges for eLearning:

• Identifying a good problem or design challenge (ideally come from learners)
• Support active learning
• Fostering effective collaboration
• Supporting the creation os shared artifacts and effective critiques

Positioning Your Careers in Social Networking and Collaborative Learning

Ray E. Jimenez

Social networking jobs are increasing and will continue to a vital part of the learning ecosystem and job market. Some up and coming job titles are: social learning analyst, social networking analyst, toolkit guru, resident expert, gaps consultant.

This ain’t your Mama’s training. Implementing learning 2.0 at eBay

This was a most impressive example of how eBay has strategically incorporated collaborative web tools (blogs, wikis etc.) in their work environment. The heart of their presentation was using an organized matrix to look at what they are doing with information, where they are doing it and the flexibility and “able-ness” of the tool(s).

Here is a bunch of other random notes:

• Millenials are primary employee base
• 90% of people say carrot when asked to name vegetable.
• 3 weeks average time to develop a program
• Speed, lean teams, change, trends, location
• Survival forced eBay to think differently, are we relevant to the organizations
• Have you ever thought of declaring training bankruptcey, get rid of everything…give freedom.
• How we can deliver in a different way.
• Moving from called training professionals to learning professionals.
• Call themselves knowledge farmers
• eBay “assign learners to use a blog as a personal training journal” – great idea
• Turn learning objectives into “challenges” individual and teams
• Applied Learning 2.0 to formal first with success, than they tackled informal…they found other islands of employees already using informal learning 2.0
• Build “digital knowledge artifacts” feedable, searchable, taggable, linkable…

Twisted Media * Dailymonster.com

I found this write up in Wired, about Stephen G. Bucher’s Dailymonster, which includes a blog, a Flickr group, and now a book chock full of user participation. I find this blend of collaborative media very interesting, and can totally see it being used in other areas, especially education. Even though it combines print, it totally reminds me of an excellent “cross-platform” story telling presentation from Tejpaul Bhatia of Tej Media.

It’s a blot, it’s a blog, and now it’s a book. When Stefan G. Bucher transformed random inkblots into bug-eyed freaks and posted a new creation each day at dailymonster.com, visitors to the site began hallucinating — er, imagining — backstories for his drawings.