Technology

information & communication technology

Learning Outsourcing

by

I mentioned in my last post that I had been working on an article on collaboration in the New Brunswick learning industry. As anyone here knows, almost all of our work is export focused, as the local economy is quite small. Another theme that is getting more press in the last year is learning outsourcing. Jay Cross thinks it may be the "next big thing", pointing to recent initiatives by Intrepid Learning Solutions and Knowledge Pool. In Atlantic Canada, many companies are already providing some kind of outsourcing services, be it custom development, hosted services, consulting, etc.

Jay is offering his services to help organisations examine the intricacies of outsourcing. Jay links to a recent report by SRI Business Consulting’s Learning on Demand service, entitled Learning Outsourcing: Strategic Opportunity. The report is authored by Eilif Trondsen and Hal Richman. Hal is my business partner, and resides in Nova Scotia. Given that Atlantic Canada has a number of learning-oriented companies, with a variety of skills and expertise, I think that we are well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. We just have to get the word out.

Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business

by

Last week I worked on a co-authored paper describing the value of collaboration in the learning industry in New Brunswick. After completing my draft of the paper, I came across this comprehensive paper by the Institute for the Future. I found it through a reference via Jon Husband that led to this post and reference on The Happy Tutor. The latter is not quite what some people would consider family reading.

The paper, from June 2004 (852 kb PDF), is entitled Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business. It’s a deep link that you cannot find from the main website, and I’m not sure if this was intended or not. The authors are Andrea Saveri, Howard Rheingold, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, and Kathi Vian. The questions posed are:

  • How can new insights about the dynamics of cooperation help us identify new and lucrative models for organizing production and wealth creation that leverage win-win dynamics?
  • How can organizations enhance their creativity and grow potential innovation with cooperation-based strategic models?

The paper then goes on to discuss seven lenses, from diverse fields such as mathematics, biology, sociology, technology, law and economics, psychology, and political science, through which to view cooperation and collective behaviour. The seven lenses are: synchrony, symbiosis, group selection, catalysis, commons, collective action, and collective intelligence.

This paper does not claim to be a definitive work but it is a neat synthesis of work in many fields that may lead us to a better understanding of how cooperation may be the best strategy for economic growth and prosperity. It also puts many other ideas into perspective – such as Reed’s Law which I’ve previously discussed (see the map on page 5).

There is a lot to review, or read for the first time. The last section is probably the most interesting for those trying to develop a new business strategy.

When we look across these opportunities and think of some of the fundamental dilemmas that businesses face, we find five key areas of potential innovation and disruption to business as usual.

Knowledge-generating collectives

Adaptive resource management

Collective readiness and response

Sustainable business organisms

Peer-to-peer politics

The authors then go on to describe the implications of recent innovations in each of these areas.

Overall, this is a great read.

Advertising on Blogs

by

Google owns Blogger, and has recently removed advertising on its blogs. It has instead started a program called AdSense which allows bloggers to opt into targeted advertising. This got me thinking that maybe ads would generate some (probably not much) cash for this site.

What do you think? Would ads make any difference to you? Are they a pain, or do you just ignore them? Do you actually read and perhaps click on them?

Please make your opinions known on my poll.

Corporate Blog Manifesto

by

Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, has published The Corporate Weblog Manifesto on ChangeThis. Here are some of Scoble’s twenty points:

  • Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.
  • Use a human voice.
  • Make sure you support the latest software/web/human standards.
  • If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast.
  • Under promise and over deliver.
  • Never change the URL of your weblog.
  • If you don’t have the answers, say so.
    Never lie.
    Never hide information.

I agree with all the points of the manifesto, but I think that #19 – BOGU [look it up] could have been rephrased as “be kind to everyone”. I guess that’s just my Canadian perspective. As a smart-looking PDF this is the kind of document that you can print in colour for your CEO or CIO. Many of these points have been discussed by others, particularly Lilia Efimova, but it can’t hurt having a “manifesto”.

eLearning Market Peaked in 2001

by

Stephen Downes reports today that:

The e-learning field is changing in front of our eyes, and
yet people are not seeing it. Content is flat, services are
the future.

Stephen’s comment stems from The Workflow Institute’s press release yesterday:

The corporate eLearning Market in the US peaked in late-2001 at about $6.5 billion and has seen 15-20% negative growth in both 2002 and 2003. In 2004, the market leveled off and has remained flat. As of mid-2004, the market for conventional eLearning is $4.5 billion with content accounting for half of the revenues. The technology segment accounts for $1.1 billion, and the robust services sector accounts for $1.2 billion. By 2008, at least 60% of eLearning revenue will derive from services.

While developing strategic plans for elearning ventures over the past two years, I have been telling my clients the same thing – focus on services. Now I have some more data to back it up. Thanks Jay.

Decentralization

by

Both Jon Husband and Rob Paterson have referred to Terry Heaton’s post, “Decentralized Power is THE Issue of the Millenium”. For instance, the success of e-Bay is based on the fact that individuals now have the power to manage their sales on an international level, with minimal hassle and cost. e-Bay has removed the middle-man, charges a nomimal fee per user – and makes a lot of money. This is the real “disintermediation” that was discussed thoughout the 1990’s. The media industries (music, news, movies, etc) are fighting a rearguard action against decentralization (AKA fragmentation), but unless someone shuts down the internet, decentralization will continue.

Decentralization is a real opportunity for small, flexible, creative businesses. Unfortunately there is no sure-fire way to capitalize on this situation. The best advice that I’ve found comes from Dave Pollard’s Natural Enterprise articles. I’m working with clients and partners to take advantage of the situation as Jon Husband describes:

We are beginning to loosen and cast off the shackles of outmoded structures, and more often than not are struggling mightily with the opportunities and responsibilities this new set of conditions offers us.

I am seeing a greater willingness of small companies to network and conduct projects based on individual trust. Several times this year I have done work on only a handshake. Some of my partners have worked in large corporations and are not willing, or able, to go back. We are trying to create more sustainable decentralized business models and stay firmly rooted in our own communities. It is getting easier to do this. Small businesses have the means to compete with multinationals, but we haven’t figured out all of the details – yet.

With this opportunity we have responsibilities as well. Jon, Rob and Dave are using their blogs to inform the rest of us, for free – thank you. Let’s continue the conversation. If you are a small company, interested in a new way of doing business, then join in the conversations. You don’t have to blog, but you could add your comments.

Off-the-Shelf Content

by

A few years back, the saying in the elearning world was that "content is king". Now you can purchase access to a suite of 10 elearning courses from ITdatacorp for one year for $(US)109.00, and for an additional $30 you get online mentoring (this adds some context to the learning process).

The low cost of content sure makes the value proposition for off-the-shelf learning content quite difficult for a business or an investor. Even adding mentoring won’t generate much more revenue, unless you have a huge customer base. This means the big players will continue to lower their prices in order to get more market share. I see this as one more reason to stay out of the commoditized learning/training business unless you have deep pockets and great distribution channels. The price keeps dropping.

There are still many ways to make a good living around the proposition of improving learning or work performance. It’s by solving business problems, one situation and one client at a time.

Via Jane Knight.

Innovation

by

We have a local company, Genieo, a spin-off from the University of Moncton, that has developed some interesting products over the past decade or so. Their business model has evolved over time, but the organization has had to rely partially on government financial subsidization. One of the services that the company offers is rapid prototyping of machined parts using an expensive 3D modelling tool.

Rapid Prototyping is a multi-faceted 3-D fabrication process that enables the creation of a limited quantity of functional prototypes resembling production units. This show of quality, joined by a quick turnaround provides an effective springboard to kick-start your marketing and sales initiatives long before production ramp.

As I said, the company has had some challenges becoming profitable in the long term, in spite of some satisfied clients and a strong team of scientists and engineers. Now, along comes some innovation south of the border, that extends Genieo’s model just a little bit, and takes advantage of the internet. It’s called eMachine Shop.

eMachineShop is the remarkable new way to get the custom parts you need – the first true online machine shop. Download our free software, draw your part, and click to order – it’s that easy! Your part will be machined and delivered. Even better, your cost is low due to the Internet, software, and automated machines.

Given that Genieo is co-located with the National Research Council’s Institute for Information Technology (IIT), why didn’t a similar idea come from Canada? Some of the IIT’s stated core competencies are in 3D digitizing & visualization and e-business. In hindsight it sure looks logical to combine the access that the internet provides with the capability for 3-D modelling that Genieo has. Maybe it’s not too late.

Try Out OpenSource CMS

by

OpenSource CMS has completely revamped its site and now includes easy access to dozens of PHP/MySQL-based Content Management Systems. Now you can try before you install.

The administrator username and password is given for every system and each system is deleted and re-installed every two hours. This allows you to to add and delete content, change the way things look, basically be the admin of any system here without fear of breaking anything.

The list includes Drupal, which this site runs on, and two others that I have used, Tikiwiki and Mambo. There are also some elearning CMS, like ATutor (which I have used) and Moodle (which I will soon be using). This is one big virtual sandbox for you to play in.

Open Source Conference Proceedings

by

Last May 2004, the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto webcast their conference on Open Source and Free Software: Concepts, Controversies, and Solutions. It was webcast using the KMDI ePresence system, soon to be released as open source. The archived sessions include my own area of interest, "Open Source Business Models". Here is a summary from a small piece of Matt Asay’s (Novell) presentation:

There are essentially three OSS business models:

  1. Product Proprietary or Commodity Model
  2. Commodity (Brand & Servicing) Model, e.g. Red Hat: make money from your services
  3. Transitional (Pragmatic) Model. The transitional model is focused on solving problems (e.g. MySQL and JBoss) and is open source in the sense that code is open, but may be closed in terms of controlling the development process and the developers.

Asay says that open source is continously commoditizing software, forcing proprietary vendors to enhance and innovate their products, or "drive it up the stack" as he says. Here’s one more item to think about:

Q: What is the main reason that people develop open source software?
A: Because it is intellectually stimulating.

Sessions are available as QuickTime, Windows Media, or Real. Sit back and enjoy these highly interesting sessions. Thanks to William Langley of the NRC for pointing this out.