Group items tagged

Blog post by Jeff Cobb, February 2010, Tagoras site, on pricing elearning. Explains price, cost, margin, value relationship. Excerpt: "What then are typical price points for e-learning in the association market? I am tempted not to cite any because the only other price points that should matter to an organization are potentially those of competitors. (And as Apple, for example, has demonstrated so well, even competitor pricing should be given only so much weight.) Additionally, our research suggests that only 20 percent of associations have any sort of formal process for setting price - which makes me wonder how much thought is being put into value, margins, and volume. Still, it can be helpful to have some sort of benchmark, however, general, against which to gauge your organization's pricing. We go into much more detail about pricing in our Association E-learning: State of the Sector report, but the average price per e-learning content hour in the association sector - based on our survey of nearly 500 organizations - is $56.79. Per credit hour the average is $73.97. So, for example, based on these figures, the average fee for a 90-minute Webinar that offers CE credit would be around $110. Conclusion I began this discussion by focusing on value, and it seems important to note as I conclude it that the price point is not only dependent upon perceived value, it helps drive perceived value. Part of what gives a Mercedes or a Louis Vuitton handbag its sheen of value is the high price point associated with each. To a certain extent, of course, the price is driven by underlying cost. But it is also true that these companies simply have the audacity - the organizational self-esteem, you might argue - to set a premium price. And people gladly pay it. Few associations, I find, are willing to take such an approach with pricing their e-learning, and perhaps few would succeed if they did. But my suspicion is that most organizations are pricing at a lower l

article in Academic Matters, the Journal of Higher Education, by Stephen Carson and Jan Philipp Schmidt, May 2012 issue. Excerpt: "Expertise will be earned and maintained through ongoing lifelong education, not conferred once and good for life. Open learning systems offer the possibility for the kind of continuous lifelong learning that will be necessary as the pace of technological and scientific knowledge development increases. Like athletes, learners will not just learn once, but will maintain a level of performance ability in their chosen field through ongoing study and participation in learning communities."

Facilitating life long learning should be the goal of every teacher. I think that sometimes it is so cumbersome - passing tests, etc., that the fun part of learning is lost.

Age of Networked Matter Incredible map and booklet exploring how we will be linked from the micro- to global level. By Institute for the Future, Technology Horizons Program.

excellent discussion of networks and social learning in organizations with references to Hart, Jennings, Cross, and Internet Time Alliance among others, 2010

Reflection blog post by Nancy White on 1.9.13 on her Project Community course that she co-taught at the Hague. Offers many insights including this jewel below on what the learning design must bring together: "The other aspect of the design was to bring three elements together: sense making discussions about the subject matter (synchronously in class and asynchronously on the class website), insights from weekly "guests" shared via 5-10 minute videos (to bring a variety of voices), and action learning through small group experiences and team projects. I know there are strong feelings about team projects, but building collaboration skills was part of the course learning objectives, so this was a "must do." And we spent time talking about the how - -and reflecting on what was and wasn't working as a vector for learning these skills."

Interesting blog post by Debra Donston-Miller on importance of social media metrics, April 4, 2012 1. Quality of fans/followers (organically targeting connections as followers react, reveal interests) 2. Social demographics (language, countries, age...) 3. Most popular pages, posts, and tweets 4. Page views and click-throughs (what gets read and shared) 5. Conversion (buy something, sign up for something, consume something

Fascinating article by Marina Gorbis on Fast Company site regarding how we must be able to learn online in micro-learning episodes that may last minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. far removed from schools, MOOCs, and other structured and semi-structured curricula. Excerpt: "We are moving away from the model in which learning is organized around stable, usually hierarchical institutions (schools, colleges, universities) that, for better and worse, have served as the main gateways to education and social mobility. Replacing that model is a new system in which learning is best conceived of as a flow, where learning resources are not scarce but widely available, opportunities for learning are abundant, and learners increasingly have the ability to autonomously dip into and out of continuous learning flows. Instead of worrying about how to distribute scarce educational resources, the challenge we need to start grappling with in the era of socialstructed learning is how to attract people to dip into the rapidly growing flow of learning resources and how to do this equitably, in order to create more opportunities for a better life for more people." In the comments, this summary: "It doesn't matter if you are a physicist, chemist, sociologist, welder, mathematician, teacher, economist, lawyer, restaurant owner, farmer, trucker, whatever, the information most relevant and valuable to your employment is up to you to find! The task requires you find and digest information, on your own. This task used to be a pain, but now we have near-instant access to the entirety of information across the planet. The author is talking about making this access actually instant, not near-instant. Its really just an inevitable thing. "

Blog post by Jeff Cobb, the author of Ten Ways to be a Better Lifelong Learner and Mission to Learn blog, on EvoLLLution (illuminating the lifelong learning movement), 3.26.2012 See excerpt below for obstacles that keep people from lifelong learning: "AA: What are the major gaps keeping today's adults from effectively continuing their education? JC: There are two ways to come at that question, at least. It's high-level at first, to differentiate between education-which I consider to be primarily a formal, structured activity-and learning, the vast majority of which is informal and not necessarily structured. And learning encompasses education, but learning is just so much broader. When it comes to education, there can be any number of barriers that prevent an adult from continuing her education. Time and money tend to be two of the biggest. Those barriers can be overcome; like anything in life it's just often a matter of priorities and planning, both on the part of the individual and the society, but they do have to be overcome. On the other hand with learning, there's really nothing that can prevent an adult from continuing learning if they are in fact dedicated to doing that. We really can't help doing it; we're pretty much hard-wired to be continually learning. But we all know how overwhelming the flow of information can be around us these days; on the one hand it's this sense of being overwhelmed that can hold people back, I think another factor is that we simply don't look at a lot of the amazing new opportunities that we have, primarily through what the web now enables. … We don't necessarily look at these as learning tools and as things that can really help us to engage with and grow in life. Really, once you recognize that and once you start thinking in terms of effective strategies and effective approaches, the sky's the limit."

This framework reminds of what we need to use for our Story Booth-- Seth Godin's Icarus Sessions "The rules are simple The Icarus Sessions are a challenging new way to bring your art forward. Not to make a sales pitch, not to get customers or patrons, but to find the courage to stand up and say, "here, I made this." You can attend a session without presenting, of course. A presentation at an Icarus Session is 140 seconds long. You can go shorter, but not a second longer. You can use slides, or handouts, or even better, just bring your enthusiasm. The assignment: Tell the group about your art. What have you created? What frightened you? What matters? Not a pitch. An act of brave vulnerability. I made this. It scared me. This might not work. Here's how it changed me. What do you think?"

Experience Matters Arizona has interesting self discovery exercise and graphic to complete on Ideas, Motivations, Skills and Interests, Dreams, Financial Insights, and Values.

from Inc.com by Minda Zetlin. Here tips: figure out who matters most - id a critical few; pick your next tier of 50 - 100 contacts; find easy ways to engage everyone else; if you want to connect - find a way to help that person; be intriguing by arousing that person's curiosity with something unexpected; think people, not positions; give before you ask; be generous.

excellent interview with Liz Coleman, former president/reformer of Bennington College on action, engagement, learning, real-time issues, etc.

real measures of how online social activities yield offline results in who volunteers for you, how many volunteer who is donating and repeat donating, downloading your reports, attending events, more clients being served, comments on your work by people who matter to you, perceptions of greater support for org, etc.

Blog by Harold Jarche, April 30, 2012. This excerpt IMO justifies why women (and everyone else!) needs to know how to work in social networks to learn and to help others learn and apply their "capacity for action" in their workplaces and elsewhere. They can transform their workplaces through enriched learning practices. They may not have the HR title but they can still role model organizational learning on a small scale at least. Excerpt: "Individual learning in organizations is irrelevant, as work is almost never done by one person alone. Knowledge, Senge said, is the capacity for effective action (know how) and it is the only aspect of knowledge that really matters in business and life. Value is created by teams and mostly by networks of people. While learning may be generated in teams, this type of knowledge comes and goes. Learning really spreads through social networks." Excerpt: It shows that the company never gave any thought to organizational learning. ■Are employees narrating their work in a transparent environment? ■Does the daily routine support social learning? ■Is time made available for reflection and sharing stories? "Narrating their work in a transparent environment," "support social learning," and "reflection" are all linked to other resources.

How the Golden Years Disappeared by Marc Freedman, Salon, April 2, 2012. This is an excerpt from the Big Shift, a book written by Marc Freedman, the man who started Civic Ventures about 10 years ago. Perhaps the WLStudio takes on this social imperative and this is how we get funding? "The new migration is across time and the life course, as tens of millions (8,000 a day, one every ten seconds, are turning sixty) reach the spot where middle age used to end and old age once began, the new territory where a resurgent purpose gap, and gulf in identity, stands. Opportunity is there as well. The surge of people into this new stage of life is one of the most important social phenomena of the new century. Never before have so many people had so much experience and the time and the capacity to do something significant with it. That's the gift of longevity, the great potential payoff on all the progress we've made in extending lives. Realizing these possibilities will require the courage to break from old and familiar patterns that once were our friends but just don't work any longer. It means considering ideas like "gap years" for grown ups, new kinds of internships and fellowships for Americans moving beyond midlife, remodelling higher education to help retrain people who have been working for 40 or 50 years, even the creation of new kinds of investment accounts to help cover the costs of transitioning to new careers. What we're facing is not a solo matter; it's a social imperative, an urgent one that must be solved as the great midlife migration gathers scale and momentum."

Four minute video by Michael Wesch in St. George, KS, an assistant professor of anthropology. His video chronicles the evolution of the technical internet through html, XML phases and how the current use of code enables us to share our ideas at an unprecedented rate because anyone can click to write and publish to the world with the simplicity of an off/on TV control. We are (re)creating something new every second and can build relationships with people we never knew existed before. It's now one degree of separation between internet residents even though people may be miles apart in location, employment, lifestyle, temperament, etc. We can choose to collaborate with anyone who agrees to work with us. In fact, we can learn from afar from anyone without affiliating with them or they with us if they have some presence on the internet. We must figure out how to organize the things that matter to us that we harvest from across the internet. Tagging helps us do this. The web 2.0 transition has already had and will have impacts on copyright laws and practices, self-identity in different contexts, privacy, relationships, etc. Are you ready? Am I ready?

Blog post by Euan Semple, December 30, 2013, curated by Harold Jarche. Excerpt: "It's not about marketing, or SEO, or "going viral". It is not about internal "enterprise social" or external "social media" It is not even about the platforms or tools on which you choose to write. It is much simpler and much more powerful. It is about developing our awareness, our communication skills, and our collective intelligence. It is about thinking harder and writing better. Blogging is a means by which to rediscover your voice, to learn to share your thoughts with others, and by doing so to help us all get smarter faster. "

"A comment on Joho's (Dave Weinberger) blog post--a memoir of blogging--bySuw Charman-Anderson, January 9, 2014. Excerpt: " I wonder too if my lack of blog writing is related to a lack of blog reading. My RSS reader became so clogged that I feared it, wouldn't open it, and ultimately, abandoned it. And then Twitter and now Zite arrived to provide me with random rewards for clicking and swiping, showing me stuff that I had no idea I wanted to read. Instead of following the writings of a small cadre of smart, lovely people whom I am proud to call my friends, I read random crap off the internet that some algorithm thinks I might be interested in, or that is recommended by the people I follow on Twitter. That may or may not be a good thing. We were all aware of the problems of homophily, and the random clickage does help combat that. But the problem with not following people's blogs closely is that there's no conversation anymore. My blogs used to host great conversations, and I would happily engage in fascinating discussions on other people's sites. You can't do that so easily with Twitter, and Facebook. Indeed, most of my interactions on Facebook, which are scarce as I loathe it, end up being pointless arguments with friends-of-friends who turn out to be idiots. I'd love to see a resurgence in blogging. I think, personally, I need to delete Zite from my ipad and find a good RSS reader so I can follow the blogs of those people that I really care about. Not the worthy blogs I ought to read, but the works of people who matter to me. And then I need to get back to commenting, like this, because there's nothing more encouraging than finding out that people care about what you write, that people appreciate it. And David, I really do appreciate your writing - you're as inspiring and fascinating now as you were back in 2001! "

Maria Popova, a curator's code for showing how you obtained your mindblowing ideas. Two unicode symbols and a bookmarklet that you download allows you to show how others have assisted you. "The Curator's Code is an effort to keep this whimsical rabbit hole open by honoring discovery through an actionable code of ethics - first, understanding why attribution matters, and then, implementing it across the web in a codified common standard, doing for attribution of discovery what Creative Commons has done for image attribution. It's a suggested system for honoring the creative and intellectual labor of information discovery by making attribution consistent and codified, celebrating authors and creators, and also respecting those who discover and amplify their work."

by Seth Kahan, April 12, 2013, Fast company 1. fundamental model of membership is in question ...What is membership turning into? Too early to tell. Engaged action is one candidate. This is the anticipated, intentional, collective behavior of a group. 2. Adoption of private sector business practices ...Pursuing the bottomline in tough market conditions seems like a no-brainer, but the overall impact is not necessarily what is desired for a mission driven organization, shifting priorities away from impact and member value. 3. Talent ...continuous, aggressive professional development is an organizational asset only in some associations. This is changing. It means less certainty for employees while it opens up new territory for innovation and expansion of the organization. 4. Competitive intelligence ...many associations are doing negligible work on behalf of their mission. Prices for gathering intelligence are plummeting. Often it is only the CEO who actively searches for new information and connects the dots for organizational strategy. Expect this to change 5. Disruption of members' business Savvy associations leaders are looking around the curve, putting the puzzle together for members. This means going beyond providing information and ata. Instead it means compiling, analyzing, distilling and communicating useful knowledge that impacts members' lives. ???It is not uncommon to see associations beefing up their subject matter experts these days because members need it in a disruptive economy. 6. Driving uptake in a competitive world ...each association owned a small monopoly, providing the single best resource to everyone in their field. No more. With the advent of 24/7 interconnectivity, anyone can set up shop and begin serving your members.