tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62689582012-01-26T16:58:52.992-05:00Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.comBlogger1681100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-3012782252849032802008-09-05T05:29:00.007-04:002010-08-01T09:06:30.529-04:00

It's time for me to move on from Parkin's Lot, a blog I started way back when blogging was not yet a household term, and whose focus has been primarily on the fields of elearning and online informal networks. I'm going to leave Parkin's Lot up, because despite not having had much of an update in two years, some of its articles still get a lot of visitors. But I will not be blogging here in the

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1163685015215876972006-09-16T08:45:00.000-04:002006-11-16T09:48:25.590-05:00

I apologise for taking a few months’ hiatus at Parkin’s Lot without sticking a “Gone Fishing” sign on the blog.I’d like to thank all of those people who were concerned enough at my prolonged absence to e-mail me and ask if I was still breathing, and for all the kind comments from those who missed my posts.I’ve been busy road-showing the learning evaluation strategy approach and doing a lot of “

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1144164716694983132006-04-04T11:24:00.000-04:002006-04-04T11:31:56.700-04:00

In an interview this week with the UK's TrainingZONE, Martyn Sloman of the CIPD (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development) made the astonishing assertion that it is not necessary to evaluate training. His statement that “If you’re properly aligned to the business needs and the organization recognizes the value of the training and development there shouldn’t be any need to be obsessed

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1142371386506494662006-03-14T16:19:00.000-05:002006-03-14T16:23:06.523-05:00

Everything we do in business involves collaboration, problem solving and negotiation, and you can’t do any of those without understanding the perspective of your counterparts and helping them all to get on the same page. Establishing a common perception of and agreement to the needs, constraints and solutions is what vision building is all about. It is also a central skill in selling and in

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1134057679879405092005-12-08T10:53:00.000-05:002005-12-08T11:03:46.846-05:00

I recently let slip a comment to the effect that corporate trainers might be due for extinction within a decade, and, understandably, the assertion was instantly challenged. I know that I am sometimes guilty of being provocative in order to move an argument along, but usually there is some substance behind my comments. In this instance, I believe there is a lot of substance, and I am far from

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1134057053741241952005-12-08T10:47:00.000-05:002005-12-08T10:52:49.263-05:00

The recent discussion about professionalism in training has been interesting. I expected strongly held polarized views, but there actually seems to be a muddled sort of consensus that training is not a profession, nor does it really need to be, but it might benefit from having a body behind it with enough teeth to raise its profile and credibility. Perhaps the semi-consensus is because those

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1133444245823101962005-12-01T08:34:00.000-05:002005-12-01T08:39:42.890-05:00

Whenever I use the terms “training profession” or “training professionals” I do so apologetically. I use those labels as an expedient shortcut to describe those involved in facilitating corporate learning, be they trainers, managers, instructional designers, or consultants. But I am not comfortable with all of the implications of the word “professional.” The debate as to whether or not trainers

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1132068327622475132005-11-15T10:11:00.000-05:002005-11-15T10:25:27.656-05:00

I have recently been running a training evaluation project with a financial advice company in the midst of the global battle for share of the baby boomer bubble market. There have never been so many people on the cusp of retirement, and financial advisors are circling them like sharks around a sardine run. The normally staid and sensible financial advertising imagery is giving way to

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1132067046679578612005-11-15T05:47:00.000-05:002005-11-15T10:09:40.636-05:00

It seems to me that these days the hard-working trainer gets maligned by just about everyone, including fellow trainers, not for doing a bad job but for not attaining a Renaissance Person status to which few other corporate functions aspire.I may be more guilty than most of doling out the criticism. I constantly berate those in the training profession for not continuously evolving at the pace of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1130331869315237232005-10-26T08:45:00.000-04:002005-10-26T09:07:20.286-04:00

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I am becoming increasingly exasperated by the extent to which “fun” is specified as a requirement of learning design. In fact, it is frequently the only need that is clearly expressed. Now, I understand the general idea that if people don’t enjoy the training, they are less likely to give it high smile-sheet ratings, or recommend it to a colleague. But

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1129646156381707462005-10-18T10:27:00.000-04:002005-10-18T10:47:09.730-04:00

The US Departments of Commerce and Education recently commissioned a study of more than 160,000 school-goers from kindergarten to Grade 12 to explore their views on technology for learning. The report has just been released, and it makes compelling reading. Why do the views of these Newmils matter? They see the world, and interact with it, differently from earlier generations. Today’s US K-12

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1129208001948593642005-10-13T08:45:00.000-04:002005-10-13T09:07:35.890-04:00

So Blackboard is to acquire (sorry, merge with) WebCT. Does it mean anything, other than to all those folks who will soon be looking for jobs? What we are seeing is simply further implosion of the dedicated e-learning technology industry. The more oligopolistic this market becomes, the more generic it becomes, and the less able it is to sustain the pretense of any meaningful differential

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1128106398138081692005-09-30T15:46:00.000-04:002005-10-13T09:01:49.506-04:00

Small is the new big. Nanotechnology is the next big thing. Micro-payment transactions proliferate. From the business-card sized iPod Nano to the 100-minute bible, everything is being reduced to smaller or faster objects of consumption. This should be familiar to trainers who for years have been under pressure to reduce course length, cut times to competency, and walk on water. But some things

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1128101930765455682005-09-30T13:17:00.000-04:002005-09-30T13:50:40.023-04:00

Recently so many people have been asking me to review their questionnaires and surveys that I thought I’d update a document I first created several years ago which sets out some essential best practices for creating good questionnaires. While written for training evaluation, the guide is applicable to any surveys.1. Ask: “Why are we doing this?” What do we need to know? Why do we need to know it?

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1128099699395046422005-09-30T07:59:00.000-04:002005-09-30T13:15:46.396-04:00

I have always been convinced that one key to future success in web-based learning lies in the notion of the prosumer. Prosumers produce what they consume, and it seemed to me back in the mid 1990’s that creating their own content was something that people really enjoyed doing. I saw this in the fact that e-mail was the most-used application of the Internet. I saw it in the fact that AOL members

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1125059325896075382005-08-25T20:25:00.000-04:002005-08-26T08:31:21.566-04:00

The evaluation of training is too important to be left to trainers. Unless certification is involved, at the individual intervention level, at the strategic enterprise level, and at all points in between, the quality assurance processes applied to formal learning initiatives in most organizations are often rudimentary at best. That does not mean that the quality of training is poor, just that we

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1123762683945231072005-08-11T08:13:00.000-04:002005-08-11T08:18:03.953-04:00

Whenever I am involved in an evaluation project, I advocate getting rid of the smile sheet completely, and replacing that tortured questionnaire with one closed question, plus an open follow-up to encourage respondents to reveal what really matters to them: “Would you recommend this course to a friend or colleague? Why or why not?” The response tells you unambiguously about the level of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1122988172664206952005-08-02T08:59:00.000-04:002005-08-02T09:20:32.413-04:00

There is a common misconception in business that, because they work with them all the time, financial people understand numbers. They like to reduce everything to money – what did it cost or what did it make? They insist on dealing in certainties and absolutes, where every column balances to the penny. But the real world does not work like that. The real world is characterized by imperfections,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1122428430637994142005-07-26T21:40:00.000-04:002005-07-26T21:52:45.566-04:00

Parkin's Learning Object Paradox (PLOP) states that: "The more reusable a learning object becomes, the less useable it is." This is because the usability of a learning object varies in direct proportion to its size while its reusability varies in indirect proportion to its size.Think in terms of bricks, rooms, and houses. Bricks can be interchanged without affecting the harmony of a house design.

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1122427661859262502005-07-26T21:12:00.000-04:002005-07-26T21:53:23.713-04:00

Why do we spend so much money, and a substantial amount of time, on training? What is the point? Do we just do it because we have always done it, or because everyone else is doing it? Is it because we just like our people to be smarter? Or are we expecting that training will somehow help our company perform better? If it is the latter, how do we know what impact we are having? I always find it a

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1122427431774905452005-07-26T20:10:00.000-04:002005-07-26T21:54:43.880-04:00

Some years ago I spoke on the topic of managing privacy in e-learning at a large learning conference. Only three people showed up. Two of them were expecting a session on how to keep distractions away from employees trying to e-learn in a busy office environment. I’m not sure that the awareness or concern of trainers has been raised much since then, but it needs to be.The recent admission that 40

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1118844949506414062005-06-14T22:14:00.000-04:002005-06-15T10:20:58.143-04:00

I have just spent a couple of days at a small highly-focused symposium titled “Innovations in E-learning.” It was put together by the US Naval Education and Training Command and the Defence Acquisition University (DAU), who have among the best and brightest training minds that the American taxpayer’s money can buy. They are not short of budget, manpower, or technology, and they get to mess with

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1118683815698551642005-06-13T13:30:00.000-04:002005-06-13T13:30:15.703-04:00

In most Western countries, the baby boomer bubble is causing concern for those planning pension and social security services. It should also be worrying employers. A quarter of current American employees will be retiring within the next five years. If the outgoing masses know anything of value and it is not being passed down to others in their companies, those organisations face a brain drain

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1118683102741428192005-06-13T13:15:00.000-04:002005-06-13T13:18:22.773-04:00

In Kirkpatrick terms, most “learning professionals” don’t like looking beyond level two. Because it is generally considered too difficult to evaluate training once learners leave the classroom, they have a good excuse for setting themselves much more easily achieved objectives.A couple of weeks ago, in a reputable training forum, I heard a trainer proudly declaring that his learning objectives

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1118683638025758672005-06-12T07:23:00.000-04:002005-06-13T13:27:18.026-04:00

Recently the E-learning Guild released the results of its annual e-learning salary survey. Data was gathered in the first quarter of this year from people who work in the e-learning field.It’s amazing that they were able to find any participants for the survey, since, in the US at least, you hardly ever see a job advertised as an “e-learning” position any more. Two or three years ago, they were

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1118684070956815872005-06-10T13:11:00.000-04:002005-06-13T13:34:30.960-04:00

I have yet to meet anyone in the learning business who will question the value of a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). Indeed, there are many who will insist that a TNA is carried out before any work is done on defining or developing training of any kind. We all know, understand, and value the concept of a TNA, and believe that, in a perfect world, we’d invest time and resources in TNAs whenever we

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1116889218661480622005-05-23T18:52:00.000-04:002005-06-06T09:02:59.000-04:00

I suspect that, should humanity survive the next few hundred years, we’ll look back at the early decades of 21st Century and think of that time as the learning revolution, much as we now think of the turning decades of the 19th century as the industrial revolution.We’ll see the sacred cows of educational dogma being put out to pasture, and the previously ingrained best practices of adult learning

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1114876727841810882005-04-30T11:34:00.000-04:002005-04-30T11:58:47.856-04:00

For some years now, the notion of competency-based learning management (CBLM) has been viewed by training departments as the Holy Grail. But, like many things that make a lot of sense in theory, the practice is somehow unconvincing. In fact, the pursuit of CBLM, like the pursuit of e-learning, can cause us to lose sight of what is really important. Worse, it might do real damage to a company’s

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1114874530663098402005-04-30T11:01:00.000-04:002005-04-30T11:25:00.866-04:00

In working on learning strategies, I am sometimes asked to help a company decide which Learning Management System they should use. Here's the general approach that I recommend. This is to be read in conjunction with my frequent admonitions to not allow the LMS to define your learning processes, nor to make its selection the starting point of your strategy development, nor to assume that any LMS

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1113946948449592932005-04-10T17:37:00.000-04:002005-04-19T17:42:28.450-04:00

One of the so-far unfulfilled promises of e-learning is the proliferation of easily-created inexpensive simulations that help bring the application of learned skills into a realistic context. While there are plenty of low-end simulations in the field of software tools training, we are not seeing the same in soft skills training. Simulating the behaviour of a software application is relatively

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1112394876019816852005-03-31T17:34:00.000-05:002005-06-03T16:28:43.856-04:00

Saba has acquired THINQ. Time was when an acquisition at this level -- two major players in the LMS market -- would have tongues wagging for months. But this has happened with hardly anyone appearing to care. Sure, THINQ's customers are not going to be happy about being told to migrate to Saba's technology over time. But neither the training press nor the usual industry commentators seem to think

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1113946356788700862005-03-31T17:18:00.000-05:002005-04-19T17:36:35.180-04:00

I have many hidden talents that rarely get sold to my clients. I am a photographer, a cook, a writer, and a web coder. I can fell a tree, survive in the wilderness, speak German, and some Dutch and Swedish, and a little American. I am a persuasive salesman, and an effective diplomat. I can put together business plans and brand plans, raise venture capital, re-build a computer, interpret complex

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1111153766079137952005-03-18T08:47:00.000-05:002005-03-18T08:52:00.196-05:00

In recent posts I have talked about the power of informal learning, and wondered why learning professionals conspicuously ignore the potential for performance improvement that it offers. Now that the kind of human interactions that make informal learning so effective are being facilitated by the Internet, the relevance and impact of formal training may diminish even further. Do we as learning

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1111162299651667162005-03-18T08:40:00.001-05:002005-03-18T11:11:39.653-05:00

What's a Jeek? They inhabit the space at the intersection of the Jock and Geek markets. (OK, I just made that up). Once a thinly-populated niche, it has been growing rapidly as sporty types acquire camera-phones and iPods, and nerdy types start seeking a little more fresh air and fitness.It's a trans-age-group niche that buys a lot of stuff just because it's cool. And "cool" is often enhanced by

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1110291769360991562005-02-14T09:18:00.000-05:002005-03-08T09:27:38.450-05:00

Judging by the e-mails I received, my recent post about smile sheets clearly struck a chord -- and a few raw nerves. Most reactions seemed to agree with my basic contention that end-of-class happy-sheets are abused almost universally. They are often interpreted to mean what they could never have measured, and are at best useful for scoring the food and the venue – and as a resource for

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1107449043867880222005-01-31T05:40:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:56:07.103-05:00

There is an unhealthy tradition in training that every course must end with participants filling in a questionnaire in which they express their feelings about their learning experience. We ask people scurrying for the door to take time to check boxes on multiple Likert scales and to scribble a few comments. Then we gather up the questionnaires and flip through them hoping desperately for a few

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1107448445465802342005-01-30T11:29:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:56:29.543-05:00

PowerPoint is audience-abusive, presenter-addictive, and information-transfer sclerotic. But with a little determination, it is possible to stop it from calling the shots and take back control of your communication. There is no end to the supercilious put-downs of the tool that roll of the tongues of those who know better. “Death by PowerPoint” is no longer funny, but we all use it to show how

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1106077158704713492005-01-17T19:35:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:23:20.536-05:00

In 2004 technology appeared to be coming out of the post-bubble-burst doldrums and into our lives as never before. The technology infrastructure that was laid down, and the tool chest that the training industry can now play with, is impressive. VoIP companies like Skype and Vonage started a quiet revolution in the telecom industry, making free (or absurdly cheap) phone calls easily available to

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1104959967228781882005-01-04T19:06:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:23:51.530-05:00

TrainingZONE Parkin Space column of 12/29/04: Last December I made a list of “professional resolutions” that would make me altogether a better person in 2004. Having conveniently misplaced that list, I am not able to tell how I did, though I am sure it was not an admirable performance. Now it’s time to put together a new list. So what do I need to achieve in 2005 to do a better job as both a

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1104959156513575262005-01-02T16:01:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:25:11.786-05:00

My LMS adventures piece a few weeks ago produced a torrent of email, most of it agreeing that today’s LMS has way too much say in our training decisions. The only vaguely defensive reactions were from LMS vendors, who typically said “Yes, but what else can we do?” Short of reinventing your systems completely, you can probably do nothing. Corporate learning used to be controlled and channelled,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1104958820818965282004-12-28T19:49:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:57:27.770-05:00

Why any of us get into this profession has always intrigued me. It’s certainly not for the money, or the glory. Trainers are appallingly underpaid for the contribution they make, the hours they put in, and the diligence with which they work. And it is not the most obvious route to take if you want to build an empire or change the world. When was the last time you saw a trainer on the cover of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100986871924122852004-11-20T16:40:00.000-05:002005-06-10T09:01:58.233-04:00

Podcasting, despite its geeky name, is simple and practical, and has a wide range of potential uses in education and training. Abbreviated from “broadcasting to an iPod”, podcasting is, at its most basic, the distribution of audio content via the internet to mobile audio players. The name is a red herring, because you don’t have to be a Mac user – you can podcast any audio format and play it back

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100702646226899472004-11-17T07:03:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:30:57.646-05:00

The phishing phenomenon is at epidemic levels, particularly among financial institutions. I like to think that I am acutely aware of dangers such as these (after all, I authored two e-learning courses on security and privacy), but even so I get agitated when I see an e-mail from my bank. I get half a dozen such e-mails a day urging me to click a link and update my account details. The problem is

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100707224634176332004-11-14T11:10:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:31:38.910-05:00

A trainer’s life is spent neck-deep in intellectual property. Everything we read, every process we teach, every concept we quote, every idea we apply, every training experience we design, every paper we write oozes with intellectual property. The laws which control what we can do with it have always been simple in concept but complex in the details. Unless you create the work for your employer

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100707164428141962004-11-14T10:58:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:59:32.866-05:00

To corporate decision-makers, the treasure map of e-learning has an island in the centre, seductively illuminated by those clever marketing folks of the learning software industry, with a big X over the Learning Management System (LMS) right in the middle. Outside of that island is blank space populated only by “here be dragons” warnings. Given the marketing muscle behind the major LMS

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100706814462232332004-11-14T10:49:00.000-05:002005-02-04T13:00:39.333-05:00

I had thought the term “blended learning” would die rapidly, not because the concept is not important, but because the expression itself is a misnomer, and the learning experiences so labelled are often a disgrace to the training profession. The theory is sound: by getting learners to grasp the basics pre-class, we get more time to have richer human interactions in the classroom. But the reality

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100291379747496812004-11-12T06:57:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:36:49.296-05:00

The International Automotive Advertising Awards (IAAA), modestly self-described as "advertising's most turbulent, creative, and challenging arena" is still accepting nominations for the 2004 awards. There are 118 categories, which pretty much guarantees that everyone's a winner. Sadly, my favorite TV ad for the Corvette got pulled because too many people thought it encouraged kids to joy-ride.

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100194034100853382004-11-11T19:27:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:38:20.986-05:00

If you are a search engine index, size matters. MSN and Google have each been positioning themselves as having the largest coverage of the web, but today's numbers announced in the Washington Post seem pretty conclusive. At least for today. MSN has a mere 5 billion web pages in its index. Google, more than 8 billion. Yahoo? Well, their position is probably that size is less important than

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1100196269530502022004-11-11T06:04:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:46:24.413-05:00

Information Week is previewing a report due to be released by IDC next week which forecasts an upturn in the fortunes of "the e-learning industry". Without seeing the actual study it's hard to judge the conclusions, but quoted remarks from the analyst concerned make me suspect it's going to be another one of those annoyingly superficial studies that have characterized e-learning since day one.

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1099928701736583042004-11-08T13:55:00.000-05:002005-02-04T12:47:16.670-05:00

The American Marketing Association has redefined "marketing", replacing an old definition that was all about the four P's with something that seems to parody the worst aspects of consultant-speak. Can this be a joke? Sadly, no it's not. Some consultants seem to love it's customer-relationship-centric implications. Real marketers must be cringing. The old definitionMarketing is the process of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1099939600533634402004-11-05T18:50:00.000-05:002004-11-08T14:09:59.050-05:00

How important currently is online advertising to marketers? I guess you have to look where the money goes to get a meaningful answer. Yesterday the American Advertising Federation released the results of a survey that showed that eight percent of adspend by the major marketers is going online. They project that the proportion will increase to 17 percent within three years.

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1099055175317319672004-11-01T07:06:00.000-05:002004-11-02T10:49:34.540-05:00

There is a must-read paper by David Thornburg at the International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, titled Campfires in Cyberspace. Thornburg talks about the importance of storytelling as an instructional medium, something which most instructional designers (or those who manage them) have yet to get their heads around. In a paper rich in metaphors, Thornburg describes

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1098715559985238272004-10-28T05:09:00.000-04:002004-11-02T10:47:42.983-05:00

On Slashdot there's a great interview with Neal Stephenson that I recommend to anyone fond of geek fiction. For those that don't know, Stephenson's brilliant novel "Snow Crash" was the primary inspiration for "The Matrix" movies. (Though William Gibson fans might contest that). I became a Stephenson fan when I was in the avatar business about ten years ago, and even had a brief but distant brush

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1098911845203975762004-10-27T17:17:00.001-04:002004-11-08T14:02:24.230-05:00

According to ClickZ's analysis of a new Jupiter report most search marketers are unsophisticated. The study says there are two kinds of search marketers, Sophisticates and Unsophisticates, and they each have characteristic approaches to their work. Only 25 percent of search marketers use sophisticated bid strategies and measurement techniques, and those who do are more likely to be old-timers,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1098798708818737422004-10-26T08:11:00.000-04:002004-10-28T17:43:00.203-04:00

Prompted by a scathing review of ACTeN’s most recent “E-content Report” by Heike Philp of Kolabora, I downloaded the report to see what the fuss was all about. I don’t find anything to support Heike’s conclusion that in ACTeN’s vision real human-being teachers and trainers in classrooms will effectively become redundant. But I have to agree that the report is woefully inadequate in a number of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1098715256976452732004-10-25T06:40:00.000-04:002004-10-28T18:31:05.246-04:00

Here are two sites worth wasting a bit of time on, each adopting interesting "plastic visualization" approaches to presenting complex data-rich interrelationships. Power: Who runs corporate America, and how are they interrelated? There is some fascinating content at They Rule. They Rule plots the boards of directors of American companies, and shows you which other companies those individuals

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097868564994712542004-10-19T18:29:00.000-04:002004-10-28T18:08:00.726-04:00

The cyborg era is drawing closer as scientists discover more and more about the electro-mechanics of our minds and bodies. Five years ago, we were able to "see" through the eyes of a cat. Then wireless chips were used to bypass damaged nerves and stimulate muscle movement in previously paralysed limbs. Now a quadriplegic has had a tiny chip implanted in his brain that allows him to control his

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097859739058694402004-10-15T07:14:00.000-04:002004-10-18T16:00:44.523-04:00

Yesterday Google released the beta version of its Google Desktop Search tool. It's available as a free download here. When you first install the tool, it sets about indexing every file on your system. In my case, that took nearly a day. Indexing takes place only while your computer is idle, and involves spidering the contents of each and every file it can get into -- including e-mails, documents,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097865292695734582004-10-15T07:02:00.000-04:002004-10-18T16:02:35.213-04:00

Lycos has released a beta of a consumer service that, at first glance, may be an excellent prototype for a corporate toolset that makes collaborative social networking among members of project teams (or within restricted communities of practice) easy and intuitive. Last year, social networking was the Big Buzz. Friendster, a peer-to-peer networking environment became instantly popular among

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097707718639821762004-10-14T19:48:00.000-04:002004-10-18T16:05:19.040-04:00

A little over a month ago I suggested that fast-food operators and coffee chains give their frequent customers a card with an imbedded RFID chip. Scanners at the door would recognize the customer and would transmit his/her most likely order to the kitchen well before the customer gets to order in person. Some interesting privacy issues there, but the fast-track VIP status would be rather

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097783944439013242004-10-14T15:49:00.000-04:002004-10-18T16:05:59.826-04:00

Claire Savage, the editor of the UK's TrainingZONE has asked me to write a weekly column for the forty thousand or so members of that online community, and the first Parkin Space piece went live last Friday. Sometimes controversial, sometimes combative but with a liberal dose of common sense, Godfrey Parkin's columns take a sideways glance at topical training issues.It's a challenge to remember

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1097783380122442452004-10-14T15:37:00.000-04:002004-10-18T21:24:03.013-04:00

I've had a number of e-mails asking if I'm still blogging or if I've abandoned the effort. Good to know there are actual readers out there, not just stats on the tracker! I just took a week off to get reorganized, and am back with some minor changes.. I have drafts of eight to twelve topics for every one that gets posted, partly because I have been reluctant to do the typical blogger thing of

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1096984294770820242004-10-05T09:02:00.000-04:002004-10-05T12:41:59.793-04:00

Juan Dürsteler at InfoVis suggests that The behavior of human beings when searching for information intensively resembles that of the hunter-gatherers of our past and that of the foraging of animals. The way we present information on the web should acknowledge and exploit what we know about this foraging methodology. In his article, he points out that biologists believe that animals go after a

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1096986471564995112004-10-05T07:27:00.000-04:002004-10-05T11:33:39.153-04:00

This has nothing to do with marketing, training, or the internet, but it's very cool. The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics is going to three Americans, David Gross, H. David Politzer, and Frank Wilczek for discovering that, in the tiniest of particles, gravity appears to go into reverse and act like a rubber band. The closer to each other that the quarks inside a proton and a neutron get, the weaker

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1096328524867817932004-09-28T18:12:00.000-04:002004-09-28T18:14:26.320-04:00

Instant Messaging (IM) allows people who are working to interrupt each other with quick questions, and equally quick responses, in a sort of short-hand socializing. IM is banned or simply not supported in most corporate environments -- only 18 percent of Fortune 500 companies allow IM in the workplace. That's a little like the internet a few years ago. Remember companies refusing to allow

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1096328808179084332004-09-27T19:46:00.000-04:002004-09-28T18:52:14.420-04:00

This article in Wired magazine shows what can be done for education in developing nations, with technology and a little imagination. An organization called Anywhere Books is providing free custom book-printing services out of a modified vehicle that visits Ugandan villages. In partnership with the Internet Archive, Anywhere Books can print from a catalog of public domain works. (These include

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1096418310294789372004-09-27T18:36:00.000-04:002004-09-28T20:38:30.293-04:00

For years, advertisers have been trying to get Nielsen to report on the audiences for commercial breaks, instead of just the audiences for television programs. Everybody knows that the audience shifts when commercials come on: some people go to the kitchen, some go to the bathroom, some surf the channels till their show returns. Advertisers want to know who is actually watching their ads,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1095786107648521392004-09-21T13:01:00.002-04:002004-09-21T16:22:32.926-04:00

Today, labor commissioners and officials from more than a dozen states and the federal government are meeting to talk about leveraging e-learning to teach job skills to low-income workers. They have evidence that online learning actually works. The AP is reporting that the New Jersey region of the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau has completed a truly successful pilot program in which it

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1095351235307900912004-09-20T21:49:00.000-04:002004-09-20T21:53:52.036-04:00

J. D. Powers has just released the results of a survey of more than 26,000 consumers who leased or bought a new vehicle in January or February 2004. Apparently nearly two thirds of all new car buyers in the US use the web as a resource, and half of all new car buyers use it to help them pick make and model, and find the right price to pay. As other industries are discovering, it is not just Gens

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1095351165451077562004-09-17T18:12:00.000-04:002004-09-20T14:34:53.910-04:00

This year's Web Marketing Association's WebAward winners were announced this week, and can be seen, if you have the patience, via a surprisingly user-unfriendly awards site. I've listed all the best-of-industry winners below. Overall winner was agency Arc Worldwide for their work on the potentially unglamorous Behr Paints, who now provide some really useful functionality on their site. Why would

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1095097697554658632004-09-15T18:48:00.000-04:002004-09-20T13:10:08.276-04:00

The Eyetrack III survey tracked the eyes of people as they looked at news web sites. There's a lot of interesting detail on their site that may give web designers and e-marketers some food for thought. The study focused on news-style web sites and aimed to see if there were different viewing and comprehension results for different styles of layout. But the insights go way beyond news site design

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094862340659412122004-09-13T08:25:00.000-04:002004-09-13T16:50:55.960-04:00

There was a time when viral marketing was what Hotmail did so successfully - attaching your pitch and contact link to someone else's messages in order to spread the word through a kind of endorsement-by-default. But as the internet population evolves into more sophisticated networked communication, including p2p communities, viral marketing is getting more subtle -- and more creative. The

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094749253673308082004-09-09T08:34:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:12:44.396-04:00

A while back on a discussion forum (I think it was trdev), I made the point that the US will only start taking China and India seriously as major economic threats when those countries stop sending their best and brightest to US schools for their education, and start favoring their own academic institutions. Well, it's happening. Applications to US graduate schools from people in China, India and

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094731922650964292004-09-09T08:12:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:11:21.736-04:00

"Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto. How did you like that three-pack of tank tops you bought last time you were in?" So says a smiling holographic Gap employee on a giant screen, greeting Tom Cruise as he enters the store. The movie Minority Report is set in 2054, but personalized marketing at store level is just around the corner. And fast-food chains are leading the way. The starting point is

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094217364725946842004-09-08T06:53:00.000-04:002004-09-08T17:15:53.836-04:00

Technology does not design learning experiences, educators do. If you don’t like the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, do you decry frescos and paintbrush manufacturers? Or do you take it up with Michelangelo and Pope Julius? If a project has no constraints, it can take forever, cost a fortune, look spectacular, and still not meet the expectations of its customer. If educators abdicate their

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094568695357063002004-09-06T14:21:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:13:27.446-04:00

Getting e-learning and e-commerce to people in developing nations is problematic if their annual income is only a few hundred dollars --- or less. Even if the internet is available, how do people afford a computer to access it? This sub $250 PCtvt device being developed by Carnegie Mellon may help. Smart WiFi phones are more portable, and may soon cost a lot less, but the PCtvt shows what is

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1094064041217149652004-09-01T13:20:00.000-04:002004-09-01T15:16:32.926-04:00

The city of Philadelphia is planning to make high-speed wireless access free to anyone in the city by turning 135 square miles into a gigantic hotspot. This is a great example of enlightened leadership acknowledging the importance of universal access to everything the web has to offer. And the remarkable thing is the price tag -- using new wireless mesh technologies, they believe they can get it

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093967215583432262004-08-31T08:23:00.000-04:002004-08-31T13:20:12.803-04:00

With all of the current buzz in the media about outsourcing and offshoring, I was reminded of a paper on outsourcing that I presented at an e-learning conference in Paris early in 2001. I dug it out of my archives and discovered that the content of "Successful E-Learning Outsourcing" is still as relevant today as it was then. My focus at the time was not on offshoring, though it gets a couple

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093955961106683742004-08-31T07:18:00.000-04:002004-08-31T08:41:57.973-04:00

I have recently become a coordinator of the trdev listserv. Trdev is the oldest and largest online discussion forum dedicated to training and development issues. It has more than 3,000 members from around the world, and it is moderated by a small group of coordinators to ensure it stays on topic, free of commercial hype and spam, and relatively congenial. If you are not a member I urge you to

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093474577318447922004-08-26T06:50:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:07:40.270-04:00

The term blended learning has been used to describe any learning design that uses both online and classroom activities to achieve its objectives. Like “e-learning” in the late 1990’s, “blended learning” acquired a sort of cachet, a fashionable edge that we all wanted to be associated with. But just as the term e-learning is applied to a vast array of activities, many of them dire, blended

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093445302036545302004-08-25T07:46:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:08:54.836-04:00

I have often bemoaned the fact that training people do not look to what their colleagues in other departments are doing for examples of how technology can be applied to learning initiatives. There’s a bigger picture out there, yet “learning professionals” often get so precious about their perceived uniqueness that they can’t see the valuable lessons in e-business. The truth is that there is

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093282170516962162004-08-23T19:29:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:14:24.873-04:00

Big corporations are still not up to date with what real people are doing with technology. And the freedom of the internet is increasingly coming under attack from corporate interests. It was music and movies that started it. Now it is international sport. First, the IOC tried, rather successfully, to get those organizations streaming live web video of Olympic events to block access to anyone

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1093005499196662272004-08-20T08:08:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:10:45.946-04:00

Amazon.com, one of the pioneer powerhouses of e-commerce, has joined the rush to gain a foothold in the booming China market. Amazon has bought China's Joyo.com, China's largest online seller of books, movies, music, and toys, for a mere $75 million. The Chinese online population is growing at an astonishing rate. Already at 80 million, it's expected to hit 100 million active at-home users by

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092921123547505162004-08-20T07:22:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:11:29.526-04:00

Wired magazine has been tracking the innovative uses that various religious groups are finding for cell phones. If you are a Muslim, your phone can point you to Mecca. Catholics can get daily SMS text messages from the Vatican (just send the text message POPE ON to 24444 if you are a US subscriber of AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless or Cingular -- but it costs a significant 30c per day). For $3.25

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092914339774801072004-08-19T07:18:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:12:30.046-04:00

In an upcoming press release on their Q2 2004 E-Commerce Site Trend Report, DoubleClick is reporting an increase in online purchasing behavior. DoubleClick is the dominant player in online ad-serving -- when you see an ad on your screen, chances are it's been put there by a DoubleClick server, often in response to a cookie that they put on your system earlier. While not advertisers themselves, or

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092837563342832502004-08-18T07:59:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:13:29.376-04:00

Offshoring accelerates Time was when going off-shore was what companies did to avoid taxes. Now everyone is doing it to cut labor costs, improve customer service, and speed time to market. The need for English-fluent skilled IT workers in the 1980s led US companies to recruit from India. But that was fraught with complications. The H1B visa system that allows an annual quota of tech-workers

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092667330733511152004-08-17T07:42:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:14:54.566-04:00

Wired Magazine, the real journal of the e- generation, has formally downgraded (or promoted) the Internet to the internet. This is major news. In the past I have been an annoying stickler for correcting the spelling of anyone who slipped and used a lower-case "i" in Internet or a lower-case "w" in Web. These are, after all, formally defined terms. An internet is any collection of networks that

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092264407536395562004-08-12T07:38:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:15:23.060-04:00

E-commerce has been here for a whole ten years, according to this article on CNET. A classmate of the founder of NetMarket purchased a CD online on August 11 1994, using a secure commercial transaction system for the first time, and kicked off a change in the way the world does business. This year, according to Forrester Research, online retailers in the US alone will take in $144 billion, making

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092140719624768642004-08-11T22:48:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:16:13.093-04:00

Forbes is pioneering something quite out of character. Old-school conservative journalism is not supposed to meddle with leading edge thinking. But Forbes.com has taken a look at how much money Google makes out of selling keywords to trigger ads in its search engine and is going one better: advertisers can now buy in-context in-editorial keywords in Forbes articles that pop up small ads when

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1092231189062505692004-08-11T07:02:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:16:48.806-04:00

At a recent conference I heard somebody say, without even a hint of irony, “Change management is like so twenty minutes ago.” One of the essential big-picture issues that T&D has to deal with, now and increasingly so in the next few years, is managing change and its repercussions – for the organization and for training itself. It’s oxymoronic, and dangerous, that change has become a cliché. The

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1091716734574273812004-08-09T07:38:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:15:21.543-04:00

Digital Media Europe is reporting that the city of Preston in the UK has gone wireless. And Nantucket Island is giving one megabit-per-second WiFi access to residents and visitors over an area of 800 acres. These hot-zones are just the latest in a growing tidal wave of wireless-ness that started in the US with a few hot-desk offices and a few wireless home networks. Then a couple of far-thinking

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1091623379784607322004-08-05T08:12:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:18:33.173-04:00

A recent study. by ChoiceStream shows that most Internet users (81% of them) want some kind of personalization when online, and they are willing to sacrifice some privacy to get it. As the volume of information and complexity of services on the Web keeps expanding, personalization is one way to shut out much of the clutter. If a site you are visiting recognizes you, it can steer you to those

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1091220283099439902004-08-05T06:48:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:19:07.750-04:00

One of the key factors in deciding where to place advertising is the size of the audience. You would expect a medium's share of ad spend to match its share of audience, more or less. But despite the Internet's being a mainstream medium these days, and despite its ability to host increasingly sophisticated creative product, it is still not attracting as much advertising spend as its traffic

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1091628516987038342004-08-04T19:02:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:19:50.476-04:00

This Computer Weekly news item says that IBM is using its operation in South Africa as a place to outsource to as a back-up to India. The skill sets and native English are every bit as good as in India, and the cost of that skilled labor is currently comparable. The added advantage is that it is in the same time zone (more or less) as Europe, so communication is easier. (At least in theory --

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1091628801727198382004-08-04T18:34:00.000-04:002004-09-13T17:15:57.236-04:00

There is more data being produced today than anyone can get a useful handle on (more information has been produced in the past five years than in the total of all of previous human history). Hence the growing interest in new ways to search it and understand it, and the emergence of increasingly sophisticated data mining tools. If the Google IPO is any indicator, bringing clarity into info-chaos

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1090969449179476772004-07-27T18:37:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:21:20.150-04:00

Two pieces of déjà vu hit me today, reminding me how ideas get constantly recycled, and how long it can take for some technologies to find a viable application. (Remember "push" technology of ten years ago? Now it's back as RSS).  First, out of the US election hullabaloo came JibJab media’s Bush-Kerry cartoon, taking the Internet by storm, and racking up 2.5 million hits a day. It’s silly,

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1090965485537553632004-07-27T17:54:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:22:05.800-04:00

The Google IPO continues to make headlines. At the anticipated top price of $135 per share (to be determined by an auction), Google will be the most expensive IPO ever, possibly opening at a value of $36 billion. That will make it about the same value as Yahoo and nearly twice as big as Amazon. But when you look at “traditional” corporations, you realize the scale of this event: Google’s market

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1090859616196345472004-07-26T07:47:00.000-04:002004-08-30T09:23:02.316-04:00

Today's newsletter from the UK's TrainingZone featured an article by Amy Finn of Centra, talking about trends in e-learning. I agree completely with much of what she says, but disagree strongly on parts of it. Such is e-learning.. The industry latched onto “e-learning” as a term a few years ago. But I think it needs to go back to something like “technology-enhanced learning” because

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1090626175570284132004-07-23T19:37:00.000-04:002004-07-23T20:39:56.176-04:00

In the E-literate blog, Michael Feldstein has recently had a couple of jabs at the burgeoning interest in emergent learning, as enthusiastically promoted by Jay Cross and others. I suspect that he’s overthinking it and just doesn't get it. He says “When people talk about “emergent learning” these days, this is not generally what they mean. What they generally mean is some form of rapid

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268958.post-1090332520393091562004-07-20T09:05:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:08:58.746-04:00

This article from Information Week reports a Stanford study that claims virtual workers fear they may be making themselves redundant. First, they fear that by giving away all their hard-won knowledge and insights they diminish their personal worth. Second, they fear that being virtual reduces their ability to learn from their peers.   Both notions are false, being based on false presumptions

Godfrey Parkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06709971051738379823noreply@blogger.com0