Off Course-On Target

My LEGO™ Epiphany

In my posting Happy 50th birthday, LEGO blocks!, I mentioned that the genesis of my model of Learning Objects started with one of those wonderful epiphany moments—in this case, from watching my children play with LEGO blocks many years ago. With thanks to those of you who asked, here is the short version of that story.

As with children in most families, my son and daughter have very different needs and styles: one loves clear instructions, directions, and a pre-determined end state (in this case, it was a castle as I recall), and the other wants complete “artistic” freedom and creativity when constructing whatever he can imagine. 

One day, my son was busy creating yet another LEGO masterpiece, and he was having trouble creating just the right nose for his robot. Wandering into his sister's room, he found her busy playing with the LEGO castle she had just put together. She was enjoying rescuing the people in the castle who were under attack from the terrible dragon she’d also built. My son's eyes came to rest on the PERFECT nose for his robot—the LEGO blocks that made up the turret of his sister’s castle. I think you can figure out the rest of the story!  <g>

Once I'd settled the “block war”, it struck me how incredibly well LEGOs, these simple blocks of plastic, met each of their wonderfully different needs. Even better, these LEGOs included blocks that were from my childhood, when LEGOs first came out, and some were purchased literally days earlier. Some came from collections of just an assortment of different size “plain” blocks and others were from specialized kits made to create a specific scene, theme, or object. I began to get that feeling  when you know you’ve stumbled serendipitously upon something really significant, and you just need to figure out what it is.

Was there more to this?  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could apply this same basic model to other situations and things in our “adult world”?  And so I began a long and winding multi-year journey of refining this dream of a world where everything exists at just the right and in the lowest possible size, much like the individual blocks that make up LEGO systems. 

Some people may find the most value in taking a pre-assembled unit and putting it to direct use; others will want to assemble their own, possibly from scratch, but more likely from sub-assemblies. Some will want instructions and guidance on how to assemble the blocks, while others will want to determine their own results.

The empowerment of literally every individual by such a world full of metaphorical LEGO blocks (no matter how they may be applied) remains as staggering and as exciting to me as that epiphany moment when I watched the wonder of my two little "snowflakes" having their unique needs so wonderfully met by these simple yet powerful blocks.

I will post a more detailed explanation soon of the original model for Learning Objects and how this model can be applied to any type of content and really almost anything else. Stay tuned.

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO™ blocks!!

Those who know me, have heard me speak, or have read my writings know that one of my longtime favorite models and metaphors is that of LEGO blocks.

Actually, it was my children playing with them 20 years ago that caused one of my greater epiphanies and led me to develop the concept of Learning Objects back in 1992 and I plan to post this fun story on the origin of Learning Objects here on OCOT.

Although my LEGO block model is often criticized for being too simple, I still find it to be a powerful and profound one precisely because of its simplicity.

So how could I NOT mention this is the 50th anniversary of the ubiquitous blocks that were introduced in 1958? According to a January 28, 2008 article on Gearlog, "There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world's 6 billion inhabitants" and "7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world."

• Check out this fun timeline that Gizmodo put together on the illustrated history of LEGO.
• View this list from Jennifer DeLeo at PC Magazine of "The Ten Coolest LEGO Inspired Gadgets"?  The list includes everything from LEGO iPod Stereo Speakers, a homemade LEGO MP3 player, a hard drive, a watch and a USB charger. 

What fun!

I've also previously written about  "The LEGO of Gadgets" and the LEGO-like attributes of the fun electronic components from Bug Labs that you can literally snap together to create your own new devices. Check it out!

In the abstract and from my perspective, the LEGO block model:

• Makes infinite scalability a practical reality. It addresses what I've previously referred to as "Living in a World of Exponential Change" and "The Snowflake Effect" of mass personalization at a global scale by enabling you to create infinite new combinations or "assemblies" that are entirely (though not necessarily) created from pre-existing blocks.
• Is based on having a large collection of very, very small "blocks" that can be created in advance of a given need or use. This is a key part of enabling a strategy of "readiness for the unexpected" and dealing with exponential rates of change.
• Adds to the "pool" of blocks for future reuse and re-purposing, because in many cases the creation of new assemblies causes new blocks to be made.
• The "blocks" can come from any source at any time and with no need for any pre-agreements or design.
• Is based on a low-level and simple standard that enables each block to be "snapped" to any other block (size of "pins" in actual LEGO blocks is always the same)
• Each block is "just right" in terms of size—as small as possible, but not one bit smaller (to misquote Einstein)—when it meets two criteria:
  • It can stand by itself, ready for use.
  • It would almost never be used by itself, since it is too small to be of value on its own.
• It enables models that cover both ends of the spectrum, providing for maximum repurposing AND maximum relevance and personalization.

And just to be clear, these "blocks" and this LEGO block model can be applied to literally anything and is certainly not limited to content. For example, I've worked with others to develop applications of this same model for human competencies, software, music. You can also see examples of "hard" objects, such as those in the top ten list mentioned at the beginning.

What applications or ideas do YOU have for the application of this LEGO block model?

Happy 50th Birthday, LEGO!  I, for one, am planning on using you more than ever in the next 50 years AND I plan on being here to help celebrate your 100th anniversary! 

Sailing Into Uncharted Waters

There are a number of changes coming up for both myself and Off Course - On Target (OCOT), so this posting will be a bit different to provide you with a quick overview of what's coming your way.

Ship Shape

Through to the incredible support of my company, Autodesk Inc., and my boss (thanks Kelly!), I'm going to be off work through January 25th, 2008, and busy using up my large collection of years of accumulated vacation time. I'll be using this time to finish getting my sailboat, the good ship Learnativity, all ship shape and ready for some upcoming extended world cruising.  I'll start posting more details for you on my new adventures at sea in the new year and Elliott Masie and I are going to join forces in a larger context as he too sets out to live, learn, and explore this great planet of ours. We've dubbed our collective effort as the "Grand Learning Expedition" and will have a variety of ways for you to participate and learn along with us in the new year.

With all my time and attention devoted to this and all my online time spent learning more about all things nautical, including finding the best sources and prices for the seeming unending supply of equipment a seaworthy sailboat requires, my one regret is that I won't have any time to devote to Off Course - On Target until I return to work at the end of January. BUT, never fear, there are some very interesting alternatives and additions for you, and we'll continue to ensure that OCOT remains "serendipity central" and lives up to being the place "where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries."

New Perspectives, New IQ Points?

I've always been intrigued by and have often quoted Alan Kay's estimation that:

"A new perspective is worth 80 IQ points"

and this quote came to mind as I was pondering what to do with OCOT while I'm out. Of course, one perfectly fine option is to simply hang up a "Gone Sailing" sign and give you a rest and a chance to spend more time on the many other sites I'm sure you are trying to stay up with.

But I thought of some other options as well.  For example, I've long been interested in having more diversity of content within the blog format, and I think we need to understand more about the boundaries of that format before we switch to another one, such as a wiki or newsletters or shared documents or e-mail threads. I've also been planning doing some interviews, and featuring new perspectives from others to add to my own. Now I have the luxury of expanding upon this. In keeping with our theme of experiential learning being such a great teacher, I've picked out a small group of people I know who come from extremely varied backgrounds, professions, locations, and interests, and of course, perspectives. I've asked them to consider sharing their thoughts and ideas with you here on OCOT in text, audio, or video. I've left it completely open to each individual to decide everything from topics to format to frequency, and have simply asked that they choose topics they have a passion for and ones they think would be of interest to you. I'm excited by the prospect of having OCOT be a forum for the range of ideas and points of view this eclectic group will undoubtedly come up with, and am very confident you'll really enjoy it immensely.

I'm also interested to see how this works for the invited guests.  I've purposely picked a very broad range of individuals, and some have their own blogs, so this is in part an experiment to see if it makes sense for them to use OCOT as an additional outlet or to speak through their own blogs and use OCOT for connections I might make, providing comments, etc. Other invitees don't have a blog, but may be considering starting one, so this is a chance for them to experiment. For others  who don't have the time or desire to commit to a regular flow of content that a blog requires, this opportunity provides an outlet for them whenever they would like to use it. You can come up with many other options I'm sure, and again, this will be a chance to experiment and discover some of these combinations, and learn more about the variety of presentation that works within blogs and what needs to go beyond these boundaries.

We'll keep this wide open and informal, so just how many of them can find the time to contribute and just how often they choose to do so remains to be seen. I see this in keeping with our focus on experimentation and discovery, rather than being very directly tied to my being out for awhile, and my hope is that we find this works out very well and we can continue to play with this additional type of content on OCOT long after I return. My goal is to bring you interesting people and perspectives, along with the extra IQ points you can gain from visiting OCOT! So be watching this space over the next few weeks for some additional new posts by these individuals, and let us know via your comments, how it works for you, your reactions to both this new type of content, as well as the topics themselves.

My thanks in advance to those guests who took me up on this offer, and have fun with the experiment.

OCOT 2.0?  Looking for a Few Brave Beta Testers

Finally for today, I'd like to talk about one last but very exciting bit of new experimental and experiential learning we are going to be starting. We're adding entirely new capabilities to OCOT. As per my previous comments about exploring the boundaries of blogs, I'm also anxious to learn "beyond the blog" and to join forces with you to try out new forms, formats, and features that continue to improve and grow our mutual communication, collaboration, and value. For example, I'd like to learn more about when a wiki type of format is more appropriate for  soliciting more direct and detailed input from the rest of you. I'd like to have us learn more about when the voice of a single author makes sense, and when the collective voice of a group of people creating, editing, and evolving content, conversations, and knowledge make more sense. I'd like to see how well we can blur the boundaries and barriers that formats sometimes put in our way. Is there a more transparent and blended way to have content be "just right" for us and matched to our constantly varying moods, context, and conditions?  As we have more and more options and ways to communicate, we will need to become better at choosing the right tool for the task at hand. 

To do all this, I've been working with a talented developer, Tony Freixas, to create a test site with a whole new look and feel and a mashup of many different features and capabilities that might make sense for the next iteration of OCOT.  At this point, we have the first prototype up and running as a temporary test site, and we're looking for a few brave and curious volunteers to take this prototype for a test run and get their feedback on the experience to help guide future directions and capabilities to bring to all of you out there in OCOT land.

If you have a few hours in the next 2 months and would be willing to try out this new OCOT experience and provide us with your reactions, experiences, and suggestions, please send a short e-mail to Tony and he will send you instructions on how to participate and contribute. My thanks in advance to those volunteers. We'll be back to the rest of you with results in the New Year.

Bon Voyage!

As we all begin to wrap up yet another year that seems to have flown by, and ramp up for the start of 2008, I want to thank each and every one of you for reading, listening, and watching OCOT. I take it as a great honor that you would choose to spend the most valuable currency there is—your time and attention—and I hope you continue to find it to be a good use of both (why else would you come?). I hope that OCOT continues to take you down some very unexpected pathways, which lead to even more unexpected and even greater discoveries. I'm about to head out on some grand new adventures, journeys, and discoveries of my own, and look forward to sharing and learning more with all of you next year. 

Thanks for helping to make 2007 such a truly great year, and here's to making 2008 even better!

w
a
yne
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Wayne Hodgins
Strategic Futurist
Autodesk Inc.
+1-707-803-3579

Moving aLOM

If you are a regular visitor here at Off Course - On Target, (OCOT) you know that metadata—characteristics that describe anything and everything—has been a major part of my life and a major focus for many years. If you'd like the full story of my initial recognition of metadata and its value, you can listen to or read my previous posting "Wayne's Wine Epiphany".

What is metadata?

Sometimes metadata is more commonly called "tags", such as the information you provide for things like photos that you upload or blog entries you create and search for. At a simple and personal level, metadata would include your name, phone number, address, family members, your likes and dislikes, skills, knowledge, etc. These are all of the literally millions of characteristics that describe, and to some extent, define you and the world around you.

Among many other benefits and uses, metadata is critical for improved "findabilty" and discovery, as opposed to searching. It is largely via metadata that we are able to find the "right"  people, places, and things (with "right" referring to our individual situations, context, and needs). This also works in reverse by enabling other people, places and things to find us, where appropriate and wanted.

What's been my involvement?

One of my more significant commitments to metadata started back in 1997 with the creation of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee or LTSC, and within this committee, the formation of the Learning Object Metadata Working Group or LOM. LTSC is a group of volunteers who are devoted to development and implementation of standards for interoperability for use within the worlds of Learning, Education and Training (LET). LOM is a set of standards focused on the metadata required for more effective learning and performance.

I've had the honor of being the Chair of the LOM Working Group for over ten years, and this has afforded me the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated people I know. They have worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, to produce several fully completed standards for metadata such as the IEEE 1484.12.1 standard for the LOM data model and the IEEE 1484.12.3 standard for the XML binding of LOM to enable the exchange of LOM instances (metadata records).

You may not understand or even be interested in these specifics, which is as it should be for most standards. How much do any of us care or know about such things as TCP/IP, HTTP, or the other standards which make the Internet possible? In a similar way, standards for metadata—of which LOM is but one—are part of what has enabled the improvement  of the creation and interoperability of metadata (though much is still needed).

To our surprise, LOM standards have been implemented broadly, both within the context of learning, education, and training, as well as within an eclectic and extensive list of other domains, including art, history, archives, and human relations. I know of no way to count the amount of such LOM-based metadata nor the number of implementations of LOM, but the numbers are globally dispersed and easily numbered in the millions and beyond.

What's Next?

Now it's time for both LOM and I to move on into our respective next stages and hence the title of this posting. As of January 1, 2008, I will be stepping down as Chair for the IEEE LOM Working Group, and I'm delighted to publicly congratulate Erik Duval for being appointed as the new Chair of LOM. I am about to make some significant changes in my roles and responsibilities, both personally and professionally (more on this in a future posting), and it is time for LOM and metadata overall to evolve to best fit the "Brave New World" we now live in. In spite of his relatively young age, Erik Duval has been one of the longest serving individual experts focused on metadata for learning, education, and training. Based on his work in metadata since the early 1990's, such as the creation of the ARIADNE project which is a large European based consortium focused on knowledge sharing and reuse, Erik was instrumental in the creation of the IEEE LOM WG from its very beginning.  Officially, Erik has served all this time as the Technical Editor of LOM and, along with Tom Wason, they created the initial kernel that grew into the full LOM standard. I could not be happier or more optimistic about the future of LOM and of the advancement of metadata than I am with turning over the leadership to such a capable individual and someone who has become one of my closest professional colleagues.

While those of us who first began to put this focus on metadata knew it was important for the future, I'm not sure that any of us could have imagined the degree to which this would be true or the scale of use and generation of metadata. To meet these new needs and scale will require both the evolution of metadata as we know it, as well as a complete rethinking. Some new leadership and energy will be of great assistance in making this happen. As such, the other main purpose for this posting is to bring your attention to some important and recent developments in the area of metadata; the first is a series of new activities within and related to the current LOM standards, and the second is addressing the longer term future of metadata developments—it's worth keeping your eyes on.

Where is LOM heading?

Here's a short overview of the new activities related to LOM:

• Reaffirmation of the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which is largely an administrative action required by IEEE for all active standards every five years.  As the name applies this is merely a check that an existing standard is still in active use and will continue to be so. As the millions implementing LOM can attest, this is very much the case.
• Corrigenda for the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which will provide a list of all the minor (but important) technical corrections and edits to the original LOM standard, which have been discovered by those previously implementing LOM.
• Two New Parts for LOM:  After several years of work led by Mikael Nillson, the Joint DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) / IEEE LTSC Taskforce has just initiated work on two new IEEE standards.  The previous link will provide you with access to all details of the work to date, previous meeting notes, and ways to contribute to these efforts.  As briefly and coherently as I can put it, these two standards are for:
  • Developing a Recommended Practice for Expressing IEEE Learning Object Metadata Instances Using the Dublin Core Abstract Model to meet the growing demand for interoperable definitions of Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) metadata terms and IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data elements, which allow these to be used together in metadata instances.
  • Developing a Standard for Resource Description Framework (RDF) Vocabulary for IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Data Elements. In simpler terms, this standard will  address the increasing demand for definitions of IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data element semantics, which allow the expression of IEEE LOM instances in applications using Semantic Web technologies such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF). For some data elements, this expression can be achieved using existing, stable RDF vocabularies. The purpose of this standard is to define the semantics of data elements not covered by such vocabularies. This standard forms an important basis for making IEEE LOM useful in this larger metadata context.
• LOM next:  Over the last year or so, we've discussed how we want to make LOM evolve over the longer term. The time has come to consolidate that discussion, gather requirements, and start thinking about how to meet those. Erik and the LOM Working Group have begun a series of open, regular, synchronous discussions in order to first bring everybody up-to-date on these activities, develop a plan of action, and then to begin the necessary new work.
  • These meetings are open to ALL and will be virtual meetings accessible both online and via phone.
  • If you are interested in participating, please either contact Erik Duval directly via e-mail (Erik.Duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be ) or subscribe to the LOM mail list on the LOM web site. 
  • While those with metadata expertise would be especially welcome, it is equally valuable to get input from a diverse range of others who want to use and benefit from significant improvements in metadata for LET in the future. Please consider adding your input to this important effort.

Trends in Metadata

Metadata is often unnecessarily limited by the popular "data about data" description, but it is so much more than this.  Metadata is perhaps most often applied to "nouns", and my simple minded recollection of the definition of a noun is a person, place, or thing. To date, most of the focus has been on metadata for content (which has been very beneficial and for which much more work is still needed), but the future will include much more attention on the other "nouns"—people, places and things. This post would go on for much too long were I to do justice to any one of these or countless other areas that would benefit enormously from improvements in their related metadata aspects, so I will only list a few areas and provide you with a glimpse of the future potential within. Watch for future developments in metadata for some of the following:

Metadata about PEOPLE

This kind of metadata, especially pertains to our skills, knowledge, abilities, experience, attitudes and competencies.

In one small example, the IEEE LTSC Working Group 20 recently completed a standard for "Reusable Competency Definitions" or RCD, and this Working Group is now looking at other aspects of competencies that would benefit from standards. 

Metadata about PLACES

For example, we are seeing the recent surge of metadata in the use of maps, and GPS metadata is being added to things like Google Earth", which will enable us to answer questions such as:

• "Where are you now?"
• "Where was this photo taken?" 
• "What does this location look like?" 
• "What happened here in 1782?"

Imagine the possibilities as more locations become "smart" with metadata about them and related to them. Photos and video might show what they look like now and in the past. Metadata will be increasingly available for every building, its contents, furniture, features, hazardous materials, fire extinguisher and escape information to name but a very few metadata elements.

Metadata about THINGS

Metadata about things provides the characteristics of all the physical objects in the world, such as machines, parts, equipment, food, furniture, music...well you get the idea. 

Add to this all the non-physical things, such as objects created in virtual worlds. Now imagine if all these "things" were connected and could start to share this information and "talk" to each other.

You are already familiar with bar codes, which contain the metadata for everyday things, as well as the more recent use of RFID tags to electronically capture and broadcast all of this metadata. This is sometimes referred to as "the Internet of things". See the 2005 executive summary of the Internet of Things for one perspective and more detail on this concept.

For example, imagine if all the ingredients in your kitchen made all their metadata available, such as how full or empty they are, when they are about to expire, which combinations might let you make a dinner along the lines of what you desire, and without a trip to the store.  It's all just metadata!

To learn more:

• Wikipedia provides this brief overview on the related topic of object hyperlinking.
• This short BBC article from 2005 discusses how the United Nations was predicting such a "network of everyday objects".

AUTOMATED metadata generation (AMG)

Once you start to consider the massive amount of metadata that is required and possible for each and every person, place, and thing, you quickly "do the math" and realize the overwhelming problem of "How will all this metadata ever be created?" Our initial tendency has been to assume that metadata is all human generated—literally "typed in" to forms. If this were true, there would not be much of a future for metadata, since there is most likely more metadata than data and certainly more metadata than there are people, places, or things! 

While human generated metadata, especially the more "subjective" metadata elements, will always play an ever more critical role in the future, it will become the minority of the overall volume of metadata. Increasingly, metadata will be generated automatically.

To learn more:

• See this article on AMG which comes from one of the many groups that Professor Erik Duval leads at KU Leuven, a prestigious Belgian university.

USER GENERATED metadata

Did you know that literally all the metadata for all the CD's and music you see displayed on your MP3 players, iPods and computers, artist name, title, album name, etc. is generated by other listeners, such as yourself and NOT by the record companies or publishers? What if we could tap into the metadata that each one of us (eventually all 6.6 billion of us) are probably generating every day, such as the tags and captions we add to photos, the PowerPoint slides we create, and search terms we use, to name but a few?  Such is the power of user generated metadata and there will be much work in the future to increase the generation of, capturing, and putting to effective use the flood of metadata that will result.

ATTENTION metadata

Attention metadata is a common term for all the metadata that captures your likes and dislikes, and which can help you find everything from great music to listen to, people to get together with, TV shows and video to watch, etc. We can think of it as the things we "pay attention to"...hence the name.

Attention metadata is what recommender systems are based on. One such effort to address some of the needs for better capturing and interoperability of this type of metadata is that of the attention.xml group. You can listen to this 2004 podcast with some of the originators of attention.xml and this podcast and blog from Alex Barnett discussing attention related topics.

Why would you need this? Consider shopping sites that track your buying patterns, and your opinions and preferences after such purchases, and use these to help you find additional items that you may want (if you let them). How does the system know if you are buying the item for yourself or as a gift for someone special? Currently they do not, and therefore the recommendations become less relevant and you likely stop using them. However as these issues begin to be addressed, there will be more and more "decision support" to help us deal with the growing problem of an economy of abundance and too much choice for those of us privileged enough to live in such situations.

Metadata UNIQUE and SPECIFIC to LET

While some of the metadata standards, such as LOM, are intended to cover the application to LET, most of the initial work to date has been much more general and largely applied to content. There is an enormous need for much greater focus on metadata that is unique and specific to learning, education, and training. This would include metadata to assist with evaluation and assessment—matching learning styles with teaching styles, and helping each of us as unique individuals to have LET options that are just right for us at just the right time and in just the right way.

And trust me, this is but a minor scratch on the vast surface of but one slice of metadata and its very exciting future! 

So LOM, for now....

I certainly have mixed emotions about reducing my direct involvement in LOM and the development of some of these future metadata related topics. However, I can't imagine leaving LOM in better hands than those of Erik Duval and the many, many other dedicated individuals, old and new, who have such dedication and passion for improving learning, education, training, and performance and indeed the world in general, through better use and generation of metadata.

Whether or not you consider taking an active role in this future development of LOM and metadata standards and specifications, I certainly encourage you to pay more attention to the role of metadata and how it serves as a fundamental principle in the future of your life, both personal and professional, and the future of the world around us.

Wayne

Adding Arrows to our Communications Quiver

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Well, seems that the Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-chak-cha) 20 x 20 format for slide-based presentations is really catching on! Pecha Kucha restricts you to exactly 20 graphic slides for exactly 20 seconds each, which amounts to a total of six minutes and 40 seconds.

I received a lot of responses from all over the world about my most recent posting on this topic "Power of 20/20 PowerPoint", and after my most recent PK presentation in Chicago, USA on Tuesday night.  I've also been contacted by an author in Japan who is putting together a book on Pecha Kucha, so stay tuned for more.

Interestingly, this topic exemplifies some of the other topics we've been discussing at Off Course - On Target, such as hype cycles and decision support. So in response to several of the questions I received and with some concern for other trends I'm seeing surrounding the adoption of this Pecha Kucha 20x20 model, I thought I'd provide the following additional thoughts and suggestions.

Life is a giant Boolean add function!

As with most formats, Pecha Kucha (PK) is best used as a new way to present ideas, assist with communication, etc. We need be aware of the hype aspect surrounding PK. I've found it quite common for people to fall in love with a new "thing" and start to insist that it be used in all circumstances. I've even seen whole companies or groups make it a policy that PK be the only format allowed! Of course, in due time, they will change back to a more balanced approach, following the natural flow of the "hype cycle" I described in an earlier post.

We humans seem to have this built-in tendency that whenever some new big thing comes along, we immediately react by focusing on all the "old" things that are now "dead", eliminating or subtracting them from our lives. Wasn't TV supposed to kill radio? Wasn't e-Learning going to "kill" the need for teachers, books, etc.? If we can learn from history though (let's hope!), we'll find that we rarely completely eliminate anything. Life is like a giant Boolean add function!

For me, PK is a fabulous new choice that we have in our arsenal of tools for expression. Just as we are beginning to learn (well some of us are) how to make a good decision about when to use e-mail, when to use a phone call, when to use Instant Message or Twitter, when to meet in person or send a handwritten note (remember those?), we need to be better at knowing WHEN PK is the best choice for a given situation and skilled at using the PK format well.

New and innovative ideas and technology are often very disruptive, so there is no question that they cause change and upheaval, but they rarely eliminate what has gone before. Television has certainly changed the role of radio, but when I checked as recently as this morning, radio was a VERY viable medium, and one that is in fact enjoying a great amount of innovation and growth. Consider, for example, HD radio, satellite radio such as XM radio and Sirius and Internet-based radio, such as Pandora, Last.FM, and Public Radio International (PRI).

Therefore, just as instant messaging (IM) didn't eliminate e-mail or phone calls, neither will PK eliminate more "traditional" forms of presentations. Instead, PK will help us improve one of the most powerful and requisite skills we have and need—the ability to communicate effectively, and to share our ideas. And if we can really learn from history, we will skip right over the early phases of the hype cycle and get right onto the "slope of enlightenment" and "plateau of productivity stages!

Getting Started with Pecha Kucha

I suggest following these guidelines for those getting started:

• Stick to the PK model of exactly 20 slides, automatically timed (not in control of presenter) for exactly 20 seconds each. PowerPoint has a built-in timer function that can manage this.
• Limit the preamble or explanation to an absolute minimum (30 seconds?) before the 20 second count begins and before the first slide comes up. If you need more than that, you've missed the point of the PK model!
• Only use great graphics for the slides. No bullet points, no text, no cheesy clip art. I recommend photographs that can either be created by the PK presenter or are increasingly easy to find on the web at photo services such as Flickr (mind the copyrights and licenses, please). Providing the assistance of people who have a good eye can be a big help.  As with many things, putting a PK presentation together is a big part of the fun and the challenge.
• Go after a range of presenters from those who are experts or at least prolific presenters to those who you never hear from or who dread having to give a presentation. My experience is that everyone benefits tremendously from tapping into the spectrum between these two extremes.
• Put as much thought as possible into creating a conducive environment for this style. While a standard audience/presenter format with stages, podiums, and seats can certainly still work, the nature of PK is that it is very mentally stimulating, so having a venue that puts people closer together and encourages discussions before, during, and after the individual presentations is very helpful. 
• Consider turning your PK gathering into a very social event such as with a club or pub type of atmosphere—casual chairs, floor seating, and drinks provided. At some of our Autodesk events, we even created a version of martinis we call "Pecha-katini" to help lubricate the conversation!  If you check out the PK web site you'll also see that this very social form of PK is happening in cities all over the world, and you may want to attend one.  Lots of variations possible, be creative!
• Use standard, though often ignored, good practices for writing or speaking. Talk about what you know. Even more so, talk about something you are passionate about. This can still include "serious" or business topics, but can also include more personal interests such as hobbies, life experiences, former careers, or things that drive you.

Basic Benefits

Although all of us can appreciate the value that comes from reducing presentations from their typical 60 minutes or more down to six minutes and 40 seconds, I've found even greater value from the PK model in such things as:

• Essence. The PK style forces presenters to really put some deep thought into the absolute essential points they want to convey. With only 20 slides and only 20 seconds to spend on each one, you the presenter have to make what seems like difficult choices (every one of our ideas is great right?!). As a presenter, I find this reduction process very valuable because it tends to help me convert more of my tacit knowledge into explicit forms and helps me make tough but clarifying choices about what the true message really is. For audiences, this kind of critical thinking on the part of the presenter tends to produce much greater value, leaving only valuable "nuggets" of information. I've found, for example, that PK style presentations generate a LOT more discussion afterwards between the audience and the presenters. When used at conferences as an opening evening, PK presentations often become a constant follow-on reference for the remainder of the event... and long afterwards. 
• Graphic communications. Here is a phrase we all know, but seem to practice very little. Most slides have WAY too much text, too many bulleted points, and rarely use effective graphics. Perhaps the PK 20x20 format uses the old adage that  "a picture is worth a 1000 words" to pack so much into every 20 seconds?  Forcing the issue to the extreme by requiring presenters to only use graphics necessitates the thoughtful selection or creation of an image that that effectively captures each of their 20 points. It's not always easy to accomplish, but when done, it is definitely effective.
• Pursuit of passion. As I mentioned in my getting started list above, PK seems to work best and seems to lead presenters to find and speak on topics they really know and really care about.  Isn't that a common trait of just about every great presentation you've ever heard? Yet how often do we sit through presentations that are almost as uninspiring to the presenter as they are to the audience?  I'm not sure I understand just why, but the PK format seems to have a natural affinity that brings out the passion in presenters. It seems to be especially effective for those who rarely make presentations or speak up or who don't think they have much to contribute. PK helps them find their "voice" and acts as a vehicle for transporting their message to others. Powerful stuff!

Serious Play = Serious Fun => Serious Performance Improvement

How might we get even more power out of this fun new format?  Let's develop MANY more styles and formats for this very useful way of sharing and communicating using audio, graphics, slides, etc. 

The point of PK is effective communication, converting tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, as well as helping to transfer, share, and build upon our ideas and transforming them into reality. Don't we want and need as many choices as possible to accomplish this more effectively?  So let's experiment more with the PK 20x20 format.   

After some initial experience with the PK 20x20 format, start playing with the format. Try to find delightful deviations and innovative improvements—with the end goal of capturing, sharing and creating ideas faster and better. In addition to the obvious choices of trying even fewer slides or using less time per slide (2 slides 2 seconds anyone?), consider breaking outside our self-imposed cognitive boxes on presentations. 

• Who says that there has to be any talking at all? Music perhaps?
• How could you incorporate video into this type of format? 
• How about a "game" (serious fun) where 20 slides are chosen by the audience or someone other than the presenter who has to then say or do something in 20 seconds to add value to each slide?
• How about 20 people doing one PK presentation, where one person speaks per 20 second slide?  Now THAT would be an improvement on the snoozer "panel presentations" we've all been through, wouldn't it?!

We had a great example of just this kind of serious play and serious fun on Tuesday at the Autodesk Leadership Summit I mentioned earlier. Pete Kelsey **, a good colleague at Autodesk, along with fellow Autodesker Andy Ramm, did a great job of this kind of out-of-the box thinking and experimenting with PK. They created and delivered a PK on the history of blues music (one of my favorites!), which was a particularly fitting and relevant topic since we were doing this in the current home of the blues—Chicago.

But not only did they do their PK as a duo, Andy did all his "talking" via his guitar, as is typical in blues music, while Pete provided the spoken explanations. They still followed the same 20x20 format with some great images of major blues artists and evocative images of the life and times that produced this musical genesis of one of the most popular music styles today. But they also added the power of music, not only to demonstrate the topic (blues music), but to communicate their message to the audience. It was very effective and a great example of the type of experimentation that we need to do more of. 

I hope this posting encourages you to try out this format and have some serious fun playing with it. What ideas can you can come up with for ways to experiment, extend, and improve  on this fun and effective presentation format? Share them with the rest of us so they can become  arrows in our quiver of ideas that we can use to practice being on target, and help us make more  effective use of our collective intelligence!

 

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** Pete Kelsey has a blog that you should check out if you have any interest in civil engineering, roads, bridges, geography, mapping, etc.  His blog goes by the great title of "The Dirt: Map it, Move it, Manage it, Roll in it". In addition to his GIS topics and technology, you might also find it valuable for the experimenting that Pete does in this blog with things like self-created video. Pete is a fellow world traveler, spending most of his time on the road going to some truly interesting locations (Easter Island, Guam, and Seoul in the past few weeks, for example) and packing a really unique point of view wherever he goes. Definitely worth checking out.

Context, attention, vanity and other powerful drivers of the future

On June 23, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, I was honored to give the keynote presentation at the second annual Contextualized Attention Metadata Workshop (CAMA 2007). This event, part of the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2007), was very well organized by Erik Duval, Jehad Najjar, and Martin Wolpers,all from KU Leuven University in Belgium, and was additionally sponsored by the ARIADNE Foundation, ProLearn and MACE, each of which are worthwhile projects in the European Union. I recommend you check them out.

I suspect that Contextualized Attention Metadata may be a bit foreign to many of you and so taken straight from the workshop description, here is what it’s all about:

Contextualized attention metadata (CAM) captures the data on attention that a user spends on resources in a specific context. CAM enables us to better support the user in dealing with the information flood. Using CAM, filters can be devised that present new information only in the relevant context, for example by prioritizing incoming email based on the attention previously given to the topics of the email. Furthermore, CAM data can extend and amend user profiles thus enhances personalization in existing systems. CAM streams are collected from all applications that a user may interact with, including digital libraries, office suites, web browsers, multimedia players, computer-mediated communication and authoring tools, etc.

However you describe it, CAM is relevant for most of us in everyday situations, because CAM is one of the fundamental enablers for the Snowflake Effect of mass personalization that I’ve been championing for many years. CAM is at the heart of what will make it possible for...

just the right stuff (content, code, etc.)...

to reach just the right people...

at just the right time...

on just the right device/medium...

in just the right context...

in just the right way.

I’m sure you can add a few other words after “just the right” to improve this even more, but you get the idea.

And this is NOT just a vision. Examples are already appearing, such as:

• Finding just the right music to listen to (Pandora, Last.FM, Musicovery, ZuKool, etc.)
• The latest dating technology, which is very good at helping you find just the right person and by changing the context of romance works equally as well for finding just the right person for any other purpose.

If you consider this capability from a broader perspective, you start to see how powerful “just the right” can be as we get better at having just the right:

• Things to read at just the right time
• People to call when you have a question
• Individuals for your project team

And I’m sure you can come up with many more examples.

This concept is easy to grasp, but turning it into reality is a healthy challenge. Figuring out what is “just right” for each of us at any given time and in any situation is no small task, and yet, progress is being made. Focusing on CAM will make it happen that much faster.
Below, you can view the slides I used to support some of my comments at the workshop and download them directly from my Slideshare site.

As you can see on slide 19, I emphasized some of the most predominant R&D efforts in this area, and noted my “wish list” of items that need more research, tools, utilities, and services for CAM:

• Pattern recognition capabilities
• Implicit and Inferred metadata capture
• Visualization to process CAM to expose patterns (to both humans and machines)
• Equivalent of the music genome project for content and context
• Context REMOVAL (from content)
• Synthesis and automation of “objectives”
• Metadata automation
• Online/offline solution for CAM (e.g. ability to track my actions, behaviors, and activities, whether off line or online, as much on the desktop as the browser
• Standards for interoperability and mashups of CAM
• Optimizing discovery

Fortunately, I was able to stay for the rest of the workshop as well and thereby benefit from the other speakers and papers that were presented. You’ll find a full list of all presenters and their papers as well as all the slides and mp3 files of the presentations on the CAMA 2007 site.  But let me highlight just two that I think you’ll find particularly interesting:

What I took away from Joe Pagano’s presentation, "Measuring audience attention across multiple channels for a new Web site" was their finding that every site is unique (the Snowflake Effect) in terms of how best to attract the most attention. In the example cited in the paper, they measured audience attention across multiple channels for a new web site Chronicling America, introduced in March 2007. Interestingly, for this site and audience, “online word of mouth”(OWOM) referrers were the most significant sources initially driving discovery of this site (see the following chart).

In particular, what they called  “genealogy sites” (e.g. obituaries) scored the highest, followed by blogs, referrals from the Library of Congress site, e-mail, and lastly, search. It is likely that over time, search will become more effective as the more links to the Chronicling America site help to increase the site’s ranking, and this pattern is already suggested in the chart.  However, as Joe concluded, it also shows how OWOM plays a critical role, especially in the initial phases of the introduction of a new site or new content.

Seth Goldstein, co-founder and chairman of Attentiontrust.org and one of the original investors of and advisor to del.icio.us, started the event with an interesting review of his observations of the CAM landscape from a more commercial perspective.  As Seth and the attentiontrust.org site put it so succinctly:

Seth stressed the importance of adopting and respecting the fundamental principles of attention: property, mobility, economy and transparency. He also made the interesting remark that “attention is now media”.  By this he means that streams of attention, where people choose to stream/broadcast/share their attention to things like music through Last.FM, to web sites through del.icio.us, and to photos through Flickr, are now growing exponentially.

You can see a tangible form of this “attention funnel” in Reblog, which is an “RSS aggregator for reading and republishing”. Reblog makes the process of filtering and republishing content from many RSS feeds easy and fast. Rebloggers subscribe to their favorite feeds, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software, creating an attention funnel. Seth posted an intriguing blog entry last year about how “APIs are the printing presses of social media”.

However, one of the more provocative observations that Seth made was his assertion that what drives online behavior is “vanity and popularity [which are] more powerful than things that help me” and that “publicity is trumping privacy.”  Attention is one of the scarcest of all resources and we all want more of it!

You can think of this as “attention in reverse.”  Most of the work on attention is based on YOUR attention, what are YOU interested in, paying attention to, etc. Seth was noting the inverse; in his opinion, an even more powerful force is our interest in “Who’s paying attention to ME?”  We see this with such things as the great importance given to knowing how many people are reading my blog, visiting my web site, watching my YouTube videos, who has the most online “friends”, etc. 

One recent example you might like to look at is atten.tv, which lets you either broadcast your clickstream to the world or watch what others are clicking on, all in real time. Seth sometimes refers to all this as the "Attentron”, which he describes as “watching people’s browsing patterns as entertainment.”  Seth has created his own version of this with Trakzor, which is a community driven MySpace tracker that lets you see who’s checking you out. This capability is also available on Facebook. And while it is all rather wild at this early stage of development, it is worth noting that Yahoo! purchased mybloglog.com, which lets you see who else has been looking at your blog.

While I agree that this “attention in reverse” is a version of the very real human traits of ego and vanity, I’m not yet convinced that these are more powerful forces than the value we place on people and other sources of assistance—things that help us. But I do believe that “enlightened self interest” is both a powerful and very positive driver. The capture and management of context and attention metadata is key to harnessing this power and getting us ever closer to the vision of “just the right” and the Snowflake Effect.

My recommendation is to keep your eye on developments in these areas of context, attention and automated metadata and to do as much “learning by doing” as you can so that you have experiences of your own to reflect upon as you try out whatever versions and applications of attention and context tracking you prefer.

And in the spirit of all of us liking more attention, send along your experiences and observations, as well as links to your blogs, articles, podcasts and videos. To paraphrase Andy Warhol, your 15 seconds/minutes of fame (attention) await you! <g>

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Andy Warhol, photographed by Helmut Newton

Dangerous Assumptions

My good friend and colleague, Erik Duval has a blog that I recommend you read regularly, as I do. Erik is a professor in the research unit of the Hypermedia and Databases Group, in the computer science department at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, located between Brussels and Antwerp. 

In his recent posting “Learning and Libraries”, Erik tells the story of the wonderful new library that has recently been built on his otherwise quite old (founded in 1425) campus, but notes that he and his students never use it!  As he puts it:

“I never go there. Neither do my colleagues. Nor my students. Why would we? All our material is available on-line. If it isn’t, it kind of doesn’t exist.”

He continues by asking why libraries don’t do some things that he would value highly, such as:

“Why don’t they inform me when someone is downloading my papers? Referring to my papers? Why don’t they alert me to papers I will probably want to know about?”

I could not agree more with Erik. Here is an important role that libraries lack. I suspect that their failure to take on this role comes, in part, from the fact that they have confused their value proposition—delivering the services that library users need—with what a library is and does on a day-to-day basis. Erik points out:

“This is an area that is very much in flux: the conservative reflex with many librarians is easy to understand but they really risk “perfecting the irrelevant”, as my friend Wayne Hodgins would say.”

As his example so clearly illustrates, many libraries seem to believe that they are there to be a physical repository for very physical objects, such as books, journals, and periodicals, and to provide a great place to read, study, find books and other materials—all of which, of course, still has some value.

However, as Erik so rightly points out, their real value proposition is the SERVICE they can and sometimes do provide. Most of us have had a least one experience with a great librarian who was able to help us find just what we needed—to help us solve a problem, to research an assignment, or write a paper. This service is an invaluable asset—one that I desperately need many times every day!

Erik’s questions highlight several other good examples of the kinds of services that would endear a library to most of us, yet are ones that very few seem to be considering. Hopefully his post and others will stimulate more awareness of this situation and we’ll see more librarians addressing these issues and offering these services.

My other concern is the prevailing assumption that Erik mentions at the opening of his posting about information and materials: “If it isn’t [online], it doesn't exist.“ Although I very much want this to be true, and believe that we are on a path toward this end, I also believe that we are far from attaining it.  For example, although I don't have the exact statistics, I believe the vast majority of the world's books, and even their metadata, is not online. So those who assume that an online search will find "everything" that exists on a topic are probably missing out on a lot, perhaps even the majority of relevant resources.

Less than 10% of the world’s population has access to the web. Therefore, the majority of the world’s population, as well as their content, books, customs, etc., are missing. You quickly can see that what we can currently find on the web is a very small percentage of who and what we can discover by other means and benefit from.

I agree that this situation is improving and that the more interactive and social nature of networks forming on the web help to resolve some of this. For example, another person can point you towards something you formerly missed.  But it is dangerous for us to assume that when we search, we have the majority of resources available to us.

I touched on this topic in a previous Off Course – On Target posting called “Books – the NEW old medium” To some extent, this is a known problem and  enormous efforts are being made to remedy it. Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” project, Google Book Search and Microsoft’s “book search” project, to name but a few, are scanning and digitizing more of the world’s books and printed content to make it available online to all.

More projects are being added all the time. Techshout.com just announced that around 800,000 books and manuscripts from Mysore University in Karnataka, India will soon be digitized by Google.

However, for the foreseeable future, I hope that we remain very aware of just how limited online searching is and that we continue to check our assumptions that “everyone and everything is available online, otherwise they don’t exist. “ Let’s work on this as a goal and understand that until we get much closer to realizing this, we will need to supplement our online searching with more finding through other means.

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This is GREAT Learning Design, is it “Knot”?

One of my passions is sailing, and recently I’ve been preparing my steel mono hull sailboat for some long-term offshore sailing and discovery. I named the boat Learnativity, because one of my motivations is to experience some serious learning as I prepare for and embark upon this new adventure. To date, the boat is certainly living up to it's name!.

Sailboats require lots of ropes, so knots become a very important and significant part of your life aboard. I was a boy scout once (actually a Queen Scout, as they are called in Canada) and so I used to know how to tie lots of knots, but I’ve certainly forgotten most of them. This is the forgetting part, not the UNLearning part!  So I was delighted to find some assistance with learning and practicing various knots in the form of a web site called Animated Knots created by Alan Grogono who is known as “Grog”.

Whether you care about knots or not (sorry, couldn’t resist), I would STRONGLY encourage you to check out this site, because it is a fantastic form of great content design and design for learning. As with many powerful designs, this one is elegantly simple and is something that can be easily implemented and used for a wide variety of skills and applications.

Alan has provided a simple way for the learner (in this case, someone who ties knots) to see very clearly how the knot is tied. He breaks up the process into individual steps that he has photographed, but instead of laying these out as static graphics with supporting text (as I suspect most learning resources would do), he came up with a very smart and simple layout and method that shows each step AND lets the you see each step in sequence or as a fluid animation. 

He does this with a series of step-by-step photos, displayed in a single window. A set of numbered boxes is displayed below the window.  Rolling over a box brings up the photo for each step one by one.  By running the cursor over the series of numbers, you can tie and untie the knot at any speed you like, focus on just one or two steps of the process, and pause anywhere along the line.  You can also choose from a fast and slow automated animation that is a repeating loop of each step.  Smart, simple and it works!

As usual, pictures are much better than words for both tying knots and understanding this model, so check out this example of how to tie a bowline, a very handy knot for creating a secure loop at the end of a rope, or on any point along a rope or line. And for all you overachievers, check out how to tie a bowline with one hand!

I imagine that we can all benefit from knowing a few knots. The site has knots for boating, climbing, fishing, scouting, search and rescue, household, and decorative applications.

It’s VERY much worth checking out. You’ll “knot’ only learn how to tie some knots, but you’ll see a very effective way of designing content to help people understand and learn. What other applications can you imagine for this great design? 

As always, be sure to send me your comments, reactions and experiences.

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Jumbled Joomla: there is no "B" in Joomla!

In my previous post (April 26) "Wassup with Web 2.0?" I noted two new tools, Joomla! and Zude that I believe to be of significant importance and very much worth having your checking out. Unfortunately, I spelled Joomla! wrong and thus put in the wrong link and directed you to a related but incorrect web site. Mea culpa and my apologies for any confusion.

Joomla! does NOT have a "B" in their name as I had mistyped, so please note that the correct URL is www.joomla.com and name is Joomla!   I've fixed the link now in the blog posting (one of the many benefits of dynamic publishing!) and wanted to alert those of you who may have already tried it and were confused.

I've already had many of you express an interest in both Joomla! and Zude and as I noted in my earlier keynote posting:

"This is NOT an endorsement of either of these applications, but rather to provide you with what I believe to be GREAT examples of the tipping point that is developing around my theme of “MC2(squared): Mass Customization x Mass Contribution”.  Have some “serious fun” spending some time to “play” with both of these and I’m convinced you will start to see how these enable and encourage almost anyone from your grandmother to your 4 year old nephew to be able to be both a content producer and consumer and do it all THEIR way.  I am particularly intrigued by the combination of both these types of “applications” with something like Joomla!! providing the functionality for content management however formal or informal, and something like Zude providing the functionality for assembling just the right stuff, just the right way, just for me.  Keep your eye on these types of functionality and I’ll be reporting more as I do so as well."

I'm particularly looking forward to the official release of Zude tomorrow (May 1st)  If you didn't catch it in the previous post, rather than try to explain Zude I recommend that you check out the ZDNet posting, "Zude’s drag-n-drop Web authoring/remixing make it the Switzerland of the social Web" that this posting with a video interview with Zude founders and a product demo.  AND for those of you who would like to do some experiential learning or "serious play" then be sure to get over to the www.zude.com, have some serious fun with it, and report back with your reactions and responses.
UPDATE:  Can't wait till tomorrow to get started?  Good news, David Berlind over at ZDNet just posted the code (9833) to let you in to the Zude site as an "early adopter" so you can get started RIGHT NOW! David also put up some of his initial reactions and comments which completely match my experience to date and I'd recommend that you read his posting; "Zude offers ZDNet readers early preview code in advance of May 1 beta launch"

In the hope that it will stimulate more of you to share your experiences, here are some of my very brief and very early reactions and thoughts so far:

Joomla!!
• Is intriguing as a powerful, open source “content management system” for the rest of us
• Completely separates content from the “presentation layer”
• Seems to be tremendously flexible in the way almost anyone (low skills like me) can create any form of content and have it show up however you like it
• Works on a “repository” type of model where all of the “articles” (content) and the applets, widgets, etc. are available for you to call up, display, layout or interact with
• enables “rules” to be easily created such as interactions between the individual objects and enable the site to dynamically determine how and what content is displayed for example

Part of my interest in Joomla! is that in the past month, several of my “trusted advisers” have independently decided to start using Joomla!!  Believing in synchronicity and serendipity rather than coincidence, I take great note of this “pattern” as being significant. Having said that, I am also hearing and reading good things about another open source CMS called Drupal and there are many more available as well. I’ve heard from some that Drupal creates much better code and was designed more bottom up as an application, whereas Joomla! is developed more “top down”, meaning that functionality is where they started (doing stuff with content) and then kept building up code by adding features over time.

Zude:
• Is a very new and very different way of working with content. (goes live as of May 1, 2007)
• I’m intrigued by its potential to be a truly universal content aggregator that let’s anyone and everyone have it “just right” and just their way.
• Zude appears to be COMPLETELY independent of the operating system or browser
• AND completely independent of the source of the content that you drag and drop onto your “pages”—anything from content that is from your local hard drive to server based content to web-based content
• Best explanation is probably in this short video and demo

I've always had huge respect and admiration for Alvin Toffler, one of the true futurists of our time and author of prescient books, such as Future Shock and The Third Wave. Toffler coined a great term "ProSumer" to indicate a future he predicted back in the 1960's where we would be both Producers and Consumers at the same time, and I see this coming true here and now. I’m specifically interested in how these two technologies (Zude and Joomla!) might work well together with Joomla! being the choice when we are in “Producer mode” serving as a central CMS for everyone from average individuals up through huge organizations, and then Zude being the tool for “Consumer mode” when I or anyone else is wanting to have more control over the content they are consuming and sharing. All of this enabling what I've been referring to as "The Snowflake Effect" of just the right content at just the right time in just the right way, etc. etc.

What I’m interested in getting from any of you (in all your spare time!) is some initial reactions, technical evaluation and your overall rating of where you would rate each of these relative to their importance for the future and worthiness of more of my and perhaps your time and attention?? Are these important new tools and methods of working with content or nothing new? Will this type of capability be a catalyst for massive change along the lines of how blogs have changed behavior and content? Will this catch on with "the rest of us" from grandparents to grandchildren" or it is just for geeks and the technically proficient?

IF you get any time to have some “serious fun” playing with these I’d be MOST appreciative of your thoughts and reactions. More to follow here on Off Course - On Target as we all get some time to do more of this critical kind of serious play.  See you in the sandbox of life and learning!

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High Resolution Imagery = High Definition Learning?

I am a HUGE fan of public radio, and I listen to it whenever I can. In the US, public radio comes in the form of National Public Radio (NPR) and most countries have a similar form, as well as access to Public Radio International (PRI). Typically these stations are broadcast just about everywhere, so as you’re driving, you can usually pick them up better than most other stations. I find their content to be one of the last sources of balanced and informative broadcasting.

The other day when I was driving in the US, I caught a news story on NPR about a fascinating new joint venture between Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) called “Crisis in Darfur”. NPR is very good about posting their content, so you can read more about it and also listen to the original broadcast called “Google Sets Out to Map the Crisis in Darfur”.

If you are a regular reader here at Off Course – On Target, you will recall some previous posts, such as “Mashed up Maps for the Masses” and “Snowflakes Galore at TechFest 2007”, where we looked at ways that maps are benefiting from new technology and techniques that make them highly customized and extremely rich with information. This new initiative between Google and USHMM adds another dimension and is a provocative application of mapping and high-resolution photographic imagery.

Reuters covered this story at “Google to Map Atrocities in Darfur”. As Holocaust Museum director Sara Bloomfield put it:

"The 'Crisis in Darfur' is the first of the museum's 'Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative' that is aimed at providing information on potential genocides early on in the hope that governments and others can act quickly to prevent them.”

I am interested in this not only for this specific situation but also as a chance to see if this form of “high definition learning” will be able to make more of a difference in moving people to action than previous efforts. Unfortunately, history has shown that simply making people aware of such atrocities has had almost no effect on stopping such acts.

This project will assemble photographs, high resolution satellite imagery, data, and eye witness testimony, and use Google Earth technology to make this accessible to over 200 million people around the world who have downloaded the Google Earth software*. They will be able to zoom in on high-resolution imagery to see the destroyed villages and other evidence of the destruction that, to date, the Sudanese government has denied exists.

* If you have not tried Google Earth or Microsoft’s Live Search (an implementation of their Virtual Earth technology) PLEASE do yourself and others around you a favor by trying it NOW! Google Earth does require a download, but this is truly one of those things you have to see and experience in order to believe and understand. Almost everyone I know who has done so has been completely amazed by its capabilities. And if it has been a while since you used it, you should try it as well, since new capabilities and more imagery and resolution is being added daily.

To check out the Darfur imagery, you just need to “fly” and “zoom” your way over to this region (a good lesson in itself for the many who never knew Darfur existed or where it was on the map). You’ll see how the project has put a colored border around the region to catch your attention. Zooming in from there and exploring the area is what this project is all about, so give it a try.

After these initial experiences, consider the profound impact that this readily available technology will have. We can expect to see a multiplier effect and an exponential increase in the volume of photographic data being produced by literally billions of lenses being aimed 24x7 at almost every place on earth.

Keep in mind that this mapping technology not only includes the photographic images steadily streaming out of orbiting satellites, but also the billions of photographs that individuals like you and me are taking. All of us can contribute images from our digital cameras via web galleries from the likes of Flickr, Google’s Picasa, Kodak EasyShare, SmugMug and hundreds of others. Putting this in the context of maps and using location as an underlying interface and structure is proving to be a VERY powerful way of connecting information and intellect— truly creating new knowledge and learning.

Of course, any powerful capability can be used for both good and bad purposes. However the point for us to remember is that the technology is “stupid” and can only be put to the uses and purposes that WE design and develop. So once again, we are both the problem and the solution. I am both hoping and asking that we make the right choice and take the action to ensure that this power is utilized and leveraged for very positive forward progress and benefits.

It remains to be seen if the “Crisis in Darfur” project and this new combination of content and technology will produce new levels of deep and behavior changing learning. But in my opinion, it is a great form of leadership by example. Let’s learn from this example and begin to design and develop other ways of putting this technology to use for increased effectiveness of learning and performance.

What other applications and projects can YOU think of for using this technology?

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