Latest interview on eLearning

I was just interviewed by Jim Blasingame on his radio show "The small business advocate". You can listen to this interview:

Follow up on iPod

As a follow up to my last blog post. Yes, I realize that Apple has also tracked the downward trajectory of the Walkman and realize that at some point the iPod will no longer be hip. That's one of many reasons they moved into phones and why they are integrating iPod features with their iPhone features. There is always the next hip thing. Companies that want to maintain their successful lead, need to be willing to cannibalized a current product along with it's revenue stream, so that they can maintain their competitive lead.

How long will iPods stick?

I have been thinking about new technologies, trends, what's cool, what works, what sticks, and what translates to business. One cool new (as in this century) technology is the iPod. What I wonder is how long iPods will stick. I look at it's predecessor, the Walkman. Walkman's hit the market at about the same time I graduated from collage. If I remember correctly it was as hot and hip as an iPod is now. I remember buying one, using it to to go jogging or to lay out in my back yard. I thought of myself as hip when I had my Walkman. Within a few years I stopped using it. It wasn't the lack of music or having to carry around tapes since I mostly listened to the radio. It was just no longer hip and I really no longer felt the need to have music with my all the time. According to a recent article in the Economist (12/20 pg 41) interest in music increases in your teens and peeks in your early 20's. This could also be why I lost interest in my Walkman. But it doesn't answer why everyone lost interest in their Walkman. You might say that iPods are more versatile since you can download songs and radio shows onto it; But back in the 80's we thought our Walkman was versatile. In 20 years the iPod may look simplistic for it's lack of versatility based on technology and trends we have not considered today. I wonder how many more years until iPod looses it's cool?

My take on analysts and their reports

What I have seen is that there are a few different categories of
analysts.  Keep in mind that they have businesses to run (and if they
can't keep their businesses operating, we don't get the benefits of
their work):

1. The analysts who reflect what the "big boys" are doing.  This group
is considered vendor neutral, except that they will tell you that the
most widely used tools are the best.  By doing this, they will not
offend any of their customers who bring them in to review their
approaches. Currently, they are showcasing Microsoft PowerPoint, because
that is what so many trainers are already using.  There is no discussion
of learner satisfaction (which is pretty poor when it comes to
asynchronously delivered presentations.)  They are promoting the status
quo, and driving the decision makers to follow the pack: "driving by
looking in the rear view mirror".  This approach is "safe" from a
business point of view. (They would have recommended horse-and-cart as
the best car in the 1900-1920 time period.)

2. The analysts who reflect what they are paid to.  This group masks
paid advertisements as "white papers" and "studies".  Our company has
been approached by some of these companies who are writing reports about
all the tools in the market.  We are told that if we don't purchase a
$20K "case study" from them about us, there is a chance that our tool
won't show up in their study.  They have followed through on their threat.

So, when people review analyst reports, it is important that they keep
this in mind.  Just because an analyst has written about a tool in their
report, does not mean that the tool is being unbiasedly endorsed as the
"best" approach or even as an "effective" approach.

The Brendon Hall authoring tools reflect what the vendors submit to them.  They
provide an excellent service as a collection of what is available (and
are worth the money), but should be considered in this light.  Many
vendors will market-spin when it comes to what they submit, e.g. they
will say they are completely ADA compliant when they produce a separate
single file that is the text from the entire course, but the course
really delivered is all chained graphics (not ADA compliant).  Similarly
they will say they are SCORM conformant, but they track no student
responses.

Regarding W3C standards, I am glad that finally people are asking about
building web courses that actually consider "web" design.  The W3C
standards really do lead to learner satisfaction and accessibility (e.g.
look at Google - does it use flying bullets?).  Learner satisfaction and
accessibility lead to return on investment and to lower
maintenance/support costs.

Why eBay is doing well and Yahoo is having problems

I had the opportunity to attend a conference in San Francisco on e-mail marketing. The most interesting aspect of this conference was the difference in attitude shared by two of the speakers. One speaker was from eBay, the other from Yahoo! Both speakers were involved with managing the huge volumes of e-mail that is generated or goes through their organization’s systems. The difference in attitude was striking. The eBay speaker was concerned and focused on the customer. They considered their customers to be anyone accessing their system who could send or receive an e-mail. All the programs the eBay speaker discussed were focused on providing the best experience for the customer while still maintaining eBay’s interest.

The Yahoo! speaker had a startling different attitude. They started off by pronouncing that they were the largest e-mail system in the world, then followed this up by making fun of businesses that are attempting to market to people who use Yahoo!’s mail system but are blocked out. The Yahoo! representative thought it was ridiculous the extent that these business people went to in order to get access to someone on his team so that they could send e-mail to people using Yahoo! mail. He called his groups lack of accessibility “raw meat”. It appears that business locked out of sending to Yahoo! mail recipients were sending his group Omaha Stakes and other food products in order to be heard above the noise and get a return call from members of his group. I saw these attempts to access someone in his group as a Perkins size red flag that his group is not responsive and that the group has series issues in providing support to businesses. In the past I have worked for or worked with groups that were the large or monopolistic player in a market. I have seen similar arrogant attitudes. The people who work in these groups become drunk on their little bit of power. They enjoy playing business gods by deciding who will get access and who will not get access to their technology. What I have seen in every situation is that this arrogance creates a limited vision. Every monopoly eventually ends. The lack of focus on customers or business relations eventually dooms the group or organization.

This presentation provided me with a very limited but a very telling view into the culture at Yahoo!. Is the lack of customer focus and complete arrogance systemic? Has Yahoo! completely forgotten that they are a service organization? That on the internet it is easy to move to a more responsive service? This group might not be receiving revenue from the business contacts, but this is a very short sighted view. Providing excellent support services to all stakeholders puts an organization in a good position to maintain their customer base and extend services to new and growing markets. Maybe this short sighted, arrogant view is what is dooming Yahoo!