In February, the White House, under Barak Obama’s new progressive leadership developed the Recovery.Gov website to much fanfare in the Open-Source Content Management System (CMS) community. Particularly happy were the developers that use Drupal as their Open-Source CMS was the one chosen to develop the site with.

As Nancy Sola points out in her article “Why the White House’s Embrace of Drupal Matters”:

I asked two CMS expert friends to help me understand the situation, and here are a few of the reasons they gave for why the White House’s embrace of Drupal is momentous:

First off is the very fact that with the move the White House is offering an alternative to DC’s long love-fest with proprietary technology. Drupal is free, and hey, the economy being what it is, there are tax-payer dollars to be saved on going open source.

Second, it shows that the White House isn’t putting much stock in the argument that collaboratively-built software isn’t stable or secure enough for government use. (Though one could make the argument that Recovery.gov isn’t exactly mission critical.)

Third, Drupal is, arguably, progressive. It has relatively deep roots in Democratic politics, first getting attention in the political space as the foundation under Dean Space. Whatever state Drupal is in today is a result of the community of developers who cared enough to nurture it — the underlying message, of which, of course, echoes Obama’s political narrative.

Embracing Open-Source development, which is part of the Web 2.0 world and the more progressive way to build modern websites is a true leap-of-faith from our government. The whole idea of Open-Source means that the government doesn’t have to pay for the basic technology development. That part is done and it is free to use. The customization of the Open-Source tool like Drupal is the part that would still cost money, but the government won’t have to live with custom coded products if they use Open-Source as the platform.

So, is Drupal the big winner in the Open-Source CMS game? Not likely. While today they can bask in the glow of the initial win from the government, there are a lot of Open-Source players that have their own unique method of development. Many argue that the only two players in the Open-Source CMS game are Drupal and Joomla, probably the two currently most popular CMS products.

But a quick look at one of my favorite sites, opensourceCMS.com tells the bigger story.

In the PHP type of Open-Source CMS products there are 193 different Website Development products, 91 Portal products, 19 Forum products, 14 Blog products, 11 Image Gallery products, 10 Learning Management products, 7 eCommerce products, and 5 Wiki products. That’s just as of today. More are in development to compete with these in the future as technology will surely advance.

So while Drupal might be the current flavor of choice, developers and I’m sure the federal government, will be keeping an eye on the future of Open-Source CMS. One thing might be certain though. The static HTML website of the past will be heading for extinction, which means that many of today’s static websites will need to be converted to something that incorporates Web 2.0. technologies and development and Open-Source technology with it’s nice price-tag (free) may just be the choice.

With the upcoming administration changes, it seems safe to predict that we will see a shift in the use of new Web 2.0 social media technologies by the U.S. Federal Government. Much like the Apple/PC commercials, if the Government doesn’t start to embrace, use, and empower their employees to get involved in the social network and media areas, they will start to look more and more like Mr. PC, instead of looking like the younger, hipper, and more knowledgeable Mr. Apple.

Dr. Mark Drapeau points this out very well in his article Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR on the PBS website. Dr. Drapeau explains the issue of the Federal Government embracing this change the following way:

…governments are very different from private corporations…Bureaucracy and entrenched special interests make collaboration between agencies difficult…Constant turnover of elected officials and political appointees as well as year-to-year budget concerns make long-range planning nearly a fantasy.

But the Government will have to change in order to keep up with the industry around it, which is the same industry that supports it. As industry embraces Web 2.0 and starts to encourage more communication to be passed through these technologies, the Government can’t afford to stay behind. Not everyone in Government is behind the Web 2.0 curve. The Coast Guard recently embraced using Facebook to communicate. Collen Graffy, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex) use Twitter to keep people up-to-date on what they are doing.

Dr. Drapeau points out that the Government can use these new social network tools for PR to:

(share information) between agencies; collaborate with outside partners like humanitarian workers; public outreach and crowdsourcing (def. the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call)…engage people in meaningful ways, understand public sentiment, recruit and retain employees, and harness…collective intelligence.

At a time when it is critical for information to flow quickly and for issues to be discussed in a timely manner, it is also time for the Federal Government to think in a new way about communication and to see that, while there may be risk in delivering information quickly over the Web 2.0 space, the positives surely outweigh the negatives when it comes to the results of playing in this brave new world.

“Can you put my PowerPoint presentation online?”

This is something I hear over and over from prospective clients. Seems like such a simple question. Based on what I see on  the internet, it seems many folks say “yes” and then take the client’s PowerPoint and put it up on the web. There it is, in all its glory for visitors to open and look at. It looks just like it did when it was created. No audio narration. Many times, no notes to give you an idea of what the speaker might say. Was  the client’s purpose met? What was the desired outcome?

So, back to the question: “Can you put my PowerPoint presentation online?” I believe I understand the motivation from the client. They probably spent many  hours creating this PowerPoint, or even paid  someone to create good content. They don’t want to see that content go away, just because their budget was cut and they can’t travel to present this information. For these and other great reasons they now want to use the Internet to deliver their message or training.

My answer is that I can take your PowerPoint presentation and the content you have and repurpose  it so it is effective as an online product. Because presenting and learning online is different from presenting and learning in person, you have to consider what the return on investment should be when you put it online. Tom Kuhlmann, an online training expert, talks about this in his blog on measuring the ROI for online learning. He explains that you need to align the course or presentation outcome to measurable goals. I couldn’t agree more.

When you are standing in front of a group presenting a PowerPoint, you can measure success by gauging interest via audience body language, questions, and engagement, or by talking to them after the presentation. You are physically there as the expert and teacher, receiving audience feedback and adjusting your presentation on the fly (such as answering questions). But when you put your PowerPoint online, you need to consider how you will measure success in the absence of a live presenter. Tom suggests:

1. Finding a metric you can use and
2. Making sure the metric is meaningful

This requires that you know how to  measure online success, which is different from measuring classroom success. Sometimes success is measured simply by the number of  people who accessed  the content. Other  times success is measured by how many people successfully completed “check-on-learning” activities within the content, such as quizzes or interactive exercises requiring them to demonstrate learning. Reaching your desired outcome through these meaningful metrics is only possible when you follow best practices for online presentation and learning, like “chunking” information into smaller segments to get the audience to focus better.

So, the ultimate answer to the original question is that a client should consider what they are trying to accomplish by putting the PowerPoint online. Also that when you repurpose  PowerPoint content for the Web, you  should be prepared to modify it so it is effective as an online product. While  this may disappoint many who hoped to  just put  their PowerPoint  online as-is, I think most people understand that the Web is a different medium. Having something that effectively gets your message, brand, and intent to the right audience and inspires them to take the measurable action you wanted is worth the price of converting the PowerPoint to an online product.

We won’t gobble up too much real estate summarizing the article that appeared in this past Sunday’s WaPo, but we will brag a bit that it featured some expertise courtesy of M&M CEO and president Marilyn Finnemore.

The gist:

Know yourself; build your brand. Understand what unique value and persona you bring. Google yourself; it’s especially valuable to see the top 10 things that turn up, Bassik said. If you don’t like some of them, set them to private if they’re on a personal blog or profile.

With every blog post and every photo you upload, you are creating a picture of yourself. “You have to be aware of the image that you’re creating. You are in the process of branding yourself,” said Marilyn E. Finnemore, chief executive of Mind & Media in Alexandria, which works with government agencies and others on recruitment and public information campaigns.

She . . . suggest[s] starting a personal blog or contributing to others’ blogs, thus showing your talent and expertise. But write about solutions, and be positive and authoritative in what you write. “Be conscious and mindful what you put your name on,” said Finnemore. “The words you use are a reflection of your personality.”

On September 23^rd, the US. Coast Guard put onto “You Tube” an announcement from Admiral Thad Allen letting their force know that the Coast Guard is embracing social media and Web 2.0. This is big! Check out the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEAY1XLapQ]

What’s the big deal, you might ask? The big deal is that the government has been, until now, overall pretty hesitant to publicly embrace this change in how we are communicating through Web 2.0 and social network initiatives. I have actually sat in on meetings with government media and public affairs groups that have been trying for a while to have their “top brass” understand and embrace these changes and they have been met with hesitancy and fear of this change. Questions of control and policy continue to brew up and a general lack of understanding of the significance of this new communication seems prevelent.

As I had explained to one person I talked to, you have to change the perception. That person, who works for a government agency I won’t name, was explaining that their top folks are afraid that if they start a blog, negative posts will appear. My reply to that is that’s a good thing. Today, people go to the water cooler in his organization and complain there (it’s not like it’s not happening). By providing a social network medium like a blog, yes, you might get complaints. But unlike the water cooler where you can’t hear the complaint to solve it, the blog will allow the organization to respond directly and publicly, letting all know what can be done. It also allows for a community of others to respond to that complaint as well.

It seems the Coast Guard gets this and I think that will be a good thing in the long run. They have even started using “Facebook” to get the word out. Next time you are on Facebook, look up “Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen”. You can join the page and become a fan. Now, it wouldn’t be fair to say they are the only ones. I know that the Air Force has created a group on Facebook as well. But the Coast Guard leader presenting as strong a statement as in the above video shows that they are serious about implementing this communication solution. I applaud them for taking such a stance as an early adapter government agency.

A recent article in eLearn Magazine by Jane Hart, head of the Centre for Learning & Performance, delivers the results of a survey she conducted on the Top 100 Tools for Learning. I was pretty shocked at the results of this survey, to which 109 learning professionals replied. For some reason I wasn’t asked to be one of them (joke).

What shocked me? Out of the top 10 learning tools, none of them is an e-learning product! How can that be? We use several great tools to create a powerful e-learning experience, many of which earn us lots of client kudos.

The top tool, according to Ms. Hart, is (drum roll, please) the web browser Firefox (now imagine the sound of cymbals crashing to the floor). The rest of the top ten list included del.icio.us, Skype, Google Search, PowerPoint, Wordpress, Gmail, Google Reader, Blogger, and Word. Word? Really? PowerPoint I understand and could defend, but Word? Skype? I’m certainly a little confused here. We were talking about top tools for learning, right?

How does Ms. Hart defend these survey results? She says:

“Most of the tools are not dedicated learning tools, but rather ones that are being commonly used by people in their daily lives, which suggests to me that learning, working, and living are actually becoming one and the same thing. I believe that therein lies the enormous power of these tools for learning.”

Okay, I’ll buy that, but think there may be another answer as well. If you are developing e-learning, users really don’t need to know what tool was used to develop it. They just want something that works, that is effective.

Ms. Hart does mention many products that first came to my mind: Captivate, Articulate, Dreamweaver, and SnagIt. This is still just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Nowhere in the article does Flash come up, which is certainly one of the most important e-learning products to come along in quite a while.

So why was Firefox number one on the list? In trying to rationalize the thinking here, I could only come up with one good reason: Firefox is a more reliable browser to play back e-learning products developed in the programs that show up later in her list.

I can’t argue how important playback is for the user experience. As developers, we want to ensure a flawless user experience, and Firefox is just plain more reliable as a playback system. That I can’t and won’t argue. But I think we have to start recognizing the technology behind the mere means of delivery. There are so many great ways that e-learning is developed that maybe the next survey can be broken into development tools and playback tools.

Actually, l think I might develop that survey myself.

I recently found this question on Linkedin:

Right now social networks and blogs dominate the web landscape. What do you think people will be utilizing online 8–10 years from now? Are there advancements in software or web development that you think will become as pervasive as social networks/blogs/etc.?

 

I took a stab at answering, but soon realized what a truly difficult question this was—and how lame my response really was (something about real-time virtual reality and that we’ll all be immersed in virtual worlds, but that technology is already here).

The truth is, who knows what the Web will look like in 8 or 10 years? A decade ago we were excited by email. AOL had the only visual Web interface and tons of people were using it. HTML was the language of the Web, and video had to be small to be seen well.

I did appreciate the creative analogy in this response:

I don’t see this Internet thing keeping people’s attention that much longer. Remember Beanie Babies? Oh, the Internet will be around but it won’t be top-of-mind. People will be used to just like they are use to TV, Radio, and the Telephone. I mean, do you really get excited to watch TV or talk on the telephone? And who even owns a working radio these days. The online world will go the way of the automobile. A necessary evil. Of course, the automobile will be online in a decade or so, which means there won’t be any need to step into the offline. I just hope virtual scent will be created by then because I’d really miss the smell of gasoline when I filled my tank.

I’m not sure I agree, but I sure hadn’t thought of that.

Ten years ago, we had maybe an inkling of how the use of applications would evolve. While the technology itself has remained pretty steady, how we’ve used it has expanded exponentially. What was once a home for static websites is now an infinite realm for interactive social networks, blogs, and wikis. Who would have guessed?

So, how will the Internet landscape look in 2017? Your guess is certainly as good as mine. Take a crack at answering. I’m interested to see what you think the Web will be.

Sony has recently announced that they plan to sell the first OLED TV during the holiday shopping period this year. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. That’s right, I said organic! This new technology uses a film of organic compounds that emit colors. The new technology doesn’t require back-lit LED and uses way less power.

Will Wheaten, my buddy from Star Trek: TNG (although I liked him better in Stand By Me), explains it better than I can:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ufs9Wx0VXQ]

It’s not all sunshine, though. OLEDs have limited lifetimes and are easily damaged by water. But maybe the coolest thing about OLED TV is you can bend it like Beckham! Get ready to trade in that old plasma screen. That’s already old school compared to the emerging OLED world.

It looks like the major networks have bought in to the web video phenomenon, at least until the next ratings book comes out. Witness the new ABC show i-CAUGHT, which I did in fact catch the other night. The concept is to highlight what is most popular on the web. We’ll see how long it takes for the network to make money from these clip-sharing folks (or maybe they already are).

I’m interested to see if this marriage between Internet video and broadcast TV will last. It looks like it has potential. One of the more interesting viral segments asks people to submit videos for inclusion in the show. The concept is to put in three words how your week has gone. The first round got my attention.

I enjoyed this idea so much I had to submit my own. Here’s hoping I make the cut next week!

A few months ago, I mentioned an article by Tom Kuhlmann called “5 Myths About Rapid E-Learning.” It seems I wasn’t alone in being impressed by Tom’s take on the subject because now he has launched a whole blog on the subject.

Tom’s blog offers tips, tricks, and information about the world of rapid e-learning, a world that most of us are involved in as either developers or students taking e-learning courses. I am looking forward to Tom’s insights.