Harold Jarche

New Role for Instructional Designers?

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Elliott Masie in his latest Trends newsletter asks this question:

What is the next role for Instructional Design?

My experiences in instructional design over the past ten years is that it hasn’t changed too much. In the military I learned how to apply the systems approach to training as well as how to create computer-based training, instructor-led training, etc. My conversations with e-learning companies, instructional designers and academics shows that instructional design is still wedded to the course as the basic unit of instruction (I use instruction instead of learning because the former is usually the focus). I believe that there is still a huge gap that instructional design could fill, given the right tools and perspective.

Let me start by saying that my most memorable projects in the learning field have been those that created non-instructional solutions, specifically performance support. These have included online job aids and just-in-time tools to do some specific task. The tools are not that fancy but the analysis required to find the right tool for the context can be quite time-consuming. The cost savings are usually evident and rather significant.

However, you will be hard-pressed to find a program that focuses on ‘how-to’ develop performance support solutions, because developing courses is so much easier. Don Clark has a good graphic on Performance, Learning, Leadership & Knowledge. This is a good place to start to look at the non-instructional side of performance design. My own experience shows that non-instructional interventions (EPSS, KM, CoP) are very intensive at the front end (analysis) but require fewer resources in the middle (design).

In traditional instructional design you may spend up to 20% of your project costs on analysis, but for performance support this amount could go up to 80%. Once the solution is clearly specified, it doesn’t require a factory floor of instructional designers and can be developed by a small team of programmers, graphic artists, etc.

The next role for instructional design should be to get out of the course in a box metaphor. The web as a medium is better suited for non-linear, non-instructional learning programs than for ADDIE-developed courses. Just as the printed book changed academia, so too the web is changing training and education. Get used to it.

Industry Blogs

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In my continuing search for  examples of Small Business Blogs, I came across Industry Blogs, a listing of more serious, business-related blogs. I even got my own site registered. This aggregated site is still in its early stages but may grow. Many of the the sites are from the UK.
Once it fills up, this could be a good starting point for someone looking for examples on how to start blogging for business.

Comments back on

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Well it seems to be that my problems with the comment spammer are over for now – you can now make comments anonymously or as a registered user (though it’s aways nice to know who you are). I got a lot of helpful pointers from Boris Mann, Robert Douglass and James Farmer, but in the end I think that it was an incorrect setting on the server. That means that Drupal is spam-resistant if you set it up correctly. It also means that there is a great support community to help you out if you have any problems – thanks very much guys.

Commons-based Peer Production

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In my previous post on Obsolescing the Middle Men, I had referred to commons-based peer production. From  George Siemens I learned that Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP Technical Strategy & Innovation at IBM, takes this form of production very seriously. Wladawsky-Berger states that :

Clearly, despite having built a highly successful, profitable business on a proprietary model, IBM takes the open source movement in its many manifestations very seriously. Working in an open community is for us a no-nonsense business decision, made only after considerable analysis of the technology and market trends, and due diligence on the community, its licensing and governance, and the quality of its offerings.

I think that we are seeing the next phase of open source getting bigger and more serious. Even more traditional business publications, such as Knowledge@Wharton are discussing open source models. This is a practical and pragmatic way of doing business which can be profitable, but also idealistic in that it fosters the common good. This may be the new model that our antiquated managerial capitalist world needs.

Commons-based peer production is a BIG idea.

For the past several years I have participated in a number of regional economic and industry-focused development initiatives. They have focused on how a region can be more innovative, get more jobs, create wealth, etc. In all of these cases the status quo remains, in terms of power and wealth. I also don’t see much real innovation, especially the quantum type referred to by Franz Johansson.  The Commons could be the unifying idea that allows companies to make profits, individuals to opt-in on their own terms and non-profits to participate and benefit. However, to really make commons-based peer production work, the traditional power centres (corporations, executives, bureaucrats) will have to give up control, and that could prove to be  most difficult.

Perhaps it could start with the CBC?

Just Can’t Get Enough Spam

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I’m still receiving about 5,000 spam pings per day on my website. Since trackbacks and comments are turned off, none are getting through. I also thought about re-activating my old Blogger site, but as soon as I made my first post I received 6 comment spams (not from my personal gambling spammer though) in the first 15 minutes.
My key difficulties seem to be:
1. Spammers can post to deleted nodes and I cannot stop them unless I do a global "no comments allowed".
2. I can’t block-delete a number of comments in Drupal, so I have to individually review each comment spam before deletion – and these can quickly get into the hundreds.
Yes, I have the spam module activated, but it doesn’t address the deleted node problem. Am I the only person who has ever deleted a blog post?
So my situation is that I want to keep the +500 posts that I have made on this site. I also like most of Drupal’s functions. However, I am seriously looking for alternatives. Perhaps archiving my Drupal blog and adding a link to a better blogging platform would be a solution. Unfortunately this would mean running two systems. Another option would be to try to transfer the database to another system. Has anyone ever transferred from Drupal to another system?
Comments to – hjarche(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Furl: Small Business Blogs

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I had previously asked if there were many blogs being used by more traditional small businesses. Since the anonymous comment function is temporarily turned off (until I get  an easier way to reject the comment spam), I didn’t get many responses. In the interim I have kept an eye out for small business blogs and have created this Furl Topic – Small Business Blogs.
To date I’ve found a coffee company, a mortagage specialist, a real estate agent and a health food company. I’ll keep adding to this site, as I think that this is the real growth area for business blogging, enabling small companies to have direct conversations with their customers and eliminating the marketing middle men.

“The Corporation”

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I finally sat down to watch The Corporation, as I could never convince the whole family to watch it with me. This is a great film, and unfortunately not much is surprising. We have arrived at a point in our history where the dominant power structure has outlived its usefulness to human kind. My most memorable line is from Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, who has seen the edge of the corporate/industrial cliff:

The first industrial revolution is flawed, it is not working, it is unsustainable, it is the mistake – and we must move on to another and better industrial revolution and get it right this time.

After the documentary was about 3/4 over, my boys came home from their pizza party and watched the rest with me. Now they want to see the whole thing :-)

Information on how to buy a personal copy of the film is available on the website.

Comments Disabled

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The comment spammer has temporarily won the battle for my website as I consult with greater technical minds than mine. This afternoon I was receiving so much comment and trackback spam that it crashed the server. If you have a Drupal ID you can login to post a comment or you can always e-mail me at hjarche(AT)gmail(DOT)com. [BTW, my gmail account has received over 100 spam mails so far this month. I use my gmail account as a spam catcher, and it seems to work OK.]
Update on 15 August – We’re still working on installing the Drupal Spam Module developed by Jeremy. It seems that my site had over 10 times its normal traffic last Friday – too bad it wasn’t all folks interested in my writing :-(
19 August – Comments back on :-)

Connecting to Online Communities

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If you’re not sure what participation in an online community can do for your business, then check out Lee’s post at Common Craft. Lee shows how online communities are separate from business operations, but that there are ways to connect without opening up the whole store. For instance, business goals can be shared with the online community.
Below are examples of the types of goals that can benefit from community participation:

  • Identifying solutions to common problems
  • Identifying innovative ideas
  • Reducing bugs in software or products
  • Counteracting negative or inaccurate PR
  • Reducing support costs
  • Increasing non-community participation in events

Lee cites a number of examples of community mobilization, such as the March of Dimes. This is a good summary for those not immersed in online communities but trying to figure out the business potential.

Obsolescing the Middle Men

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Ross Mayfield’s recent article on the rise of the Commons-based peer production business model came with a quote that about 50% of US GDP consists of transaction costs. These are the costs of getting a product or service from the seller to the purchaser. The contention is that the commons model, used by open source software developers as well as others, reduces these transaction costs.

There appears to be a huge opportunity for nimble small companies (without huge marketing & sales overhead) to significantly reduce transaction costs and pass these on to purchasers. This is what Mancomm Performance did on our last project by using open source software and underbidding a Fortune 500 company by ~$2M.

Looking at this situation through McLuhan’s tetrad for the laws of media, here is how this could be explained.

Commons-based peer production:

  • Extends each individual’s reach worldwide
  • Obsolesces the middle men (accountants, lawyers, traders, brokers)
  • Retrieves the barter system or the bazaar – (I can set my own rules for buying & selling)
  • and Flips, when extended to its limits, the Commons into a whuffie economy