The Mobile Wave

From a recent episode of Charlie Rose....

Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy on his book "The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything"

One of the most thought-provoking (and mind-rattling, if accurate) 19 mins I've spent in recent memory.  Stick with it through the slow opening to get to some boggling visions for what lies ahead in the not-so-distant future and the ramifications on life/business.

Reflect on how our grandparent's lives weren't so tremendously different from their parent's lives and then juxtapose that against how radically different things will evolve/change within the current generation's lifetime.  No more "when I was your age..." tales from the past being shared across generations - it'll be tales of "remember when..." stories within a generation.

Hang on tightly... it's going to be a bumpy ride!

The Narrative Spark: Stories in ID (ISPI '08/'09)

During a brief break in my regular schedule, I finally got around to addressing a request I've received several times over the last few years...

I was accepted to present a session at ISPI's 2008 conference on the power of story in instructional design. It went very well - so well, in fact, that they invited me (and a handful of others who received high eval ratings) to the 2009 show as an "encore" presenter. The 2009 session went even better than the first, and it was suggested several times that I figure out a way to post the session in an async fashion for others to reference and leverage. I thought it was a good idea, but I never had (or should I say, took) the time to assemble the media and deliver.

Until now!

I'm happy to share that I've managed to 'flatten' my PPT visuals (remove animations and builds) and sync them with an audio recording I made of the 2009 presentation "The Narrative Spark: Leveraging the Instructional Power of Story". Since it was a 90 min session, I decided to break it up into 4 pieces, each around 20 mins in length. The sections, organized by What, Why, and When/How, focus on how the proper use of Stories within instructional designs can help improve three of the key objectives of successful training - Comprehension, Retention, and Application.

All four segments are available on YouTube.

Part 1 of 4: The What of Story

Part 2 of 4: The Why of Story

Part 3 of 4: The When & How of Story (a)

Part 4 of 4: The When & How of Story (b)

And now back to your regular programming...

After a surprisingly long break, I hope to return to a more regular blogging schedule. The excuses are plentiful (economy tanking that lead to a laser focus on 'regular' work efforts to keep gainfully employed, being one...), but the bottom line is that I didn't make it a priority to post. I saw it, at the time, as an 'extra' in my life that could (and did) fall off the bottom of the to-do list when time was short. What I didn't realize was just how much staying engaged in the broader learning community was central to my intellectual stimulation and ability to innovate. It's amazing how much I feel like my brain has been in neutral in terms of growth because I let this part of my development go untended.

Well, after a brief detour, I am now poised to return to my professional roots in Business Simulation and Story-based Learning design/development with a great organization who shares my passion for the possibilities associated with eLearning that is grounded in 'doing', rather than 'telling'. I'll be busy, for sure, but I feel like it'll be an environment where I'll be encouraged (again) to keep a finger on the pulse of the learning community, which will naturally lead to more fuel for blog postings.

At least that's the plan... We'll see! :-)