Judy and I talk about the hype around Storyline, the lack of a true “game-changing” application in the eLearning industry, and why courses suck as learning solutions most of the time. Oh, and we’re a little bitter about tools that lie about their publishing capabilities.

People, please don’t make teeny tiny courses for phones. Just don’t.

I drank Angry Goat.

J drank ChainBreaker.

#12: Go Be Awesome — Emergent Radio.

Via Devour

“But your knowledge has value. You’ve invested time and money into learning your craft and it’s not fair for people to expect you to give it away for free. Even friends need to understand there are boundaries.”

Adrienne Graham: “No, You Can’t Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much“

I typically offer free advice to a point. Especially with friends and family. But, I do ask for referrals in return, and I don’t extend the free service friends of friends. I want to make my passion my business and my livelihood.

I can’t do that if I let you access my brain for free.

“I see many professionals acting like they will be at their organizations forever…The impact is that they will neglect their network and/or design their careers solely based on the company organization chart.”

- Patti Johnson, quoted in “Independent Workers Are Here to Stay

Never stop networking. Never stop thinking for yourself. Always be creating, writing, designing for yourself.

(Via VitaminT)

“It’s your right to listen to your gut, it ain’t nobody’s right to say no after you earned the right to be what you wanna be and do what you wanna do.”

“Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you.”

- Rocky Balboa

I’ve been complaining too much. It’s time for me to earn the right to do what I want to do.

Hat tip to Kevin Thorn for this video, which references these quotes.

Here’s the first episode of 2012: The ToolBar #11: A Light Episode — Just Not a Bud Light Lime Episode.

We’re planning a great season, with some wonderful guests. Jason Early from Gruntmonkey will be on the show this week.

Also, I promise to have better beer selections.

I stocked up last week:

My Current Stock

“But when you’re in the midst of a suck-spiral (yeah, I just invented that) a multitude of missed opportunities, poor management decisions, and meat-grinder projects can leave you feeling hopelessly trapped. And when  you’re trapped, it’s really easy to externalize every problem AND every solution. Resist! You’re not a victim. You’re a capable, curious, intelligent ADULT with the power of choice.”

via Trina Rimmer » Stuck in a job that sucks? 4 Ways to Get Over the Suck in Stuck

Love.

“An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.”

via Seth’s Blog: If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got…

This can be a challenge, but it’s good advice I’m trying to follow.

For some reason instructional designers love building ADDIE into a goddess that orders them to build crappy learning platforms. For example, they pronounce that it only builds courses when the real fact is that it tells you to use a course only if a simpler method, such as a performance support tool or OJT, will not work.

Donald Clark – “ADDIE is the Scavenger of Instructional Design, Not the Bitch Goddess“

Excellent post from Donald. Don’t use models as a crutch to support your crappy design. It is up to you, the designer, to actually design something. Don’t blame ADDIE, or any other model, for your failures as a designer.

Aaron Silvers and Tim Martin were all over the place sharing information about Project Tin Can. I’m excited to see where this is headed, and I’m encouraged by the current pace of development. They want our input, so don’t be shy. If you want to see change, get involved.

My podcast buddy rocked a few stages and the Foundations Intensive. Judy‘s Rapid Power Tools chart was helpful to a lot of attendees. I like that she left the easy-to-difficult to use scale open, because you rod need to try them out for your project and apply your background and skills before you can determine its ease of use.

I met Connie (The eLearning Coach) in person, finally. Her session on developing a mobile app was excellent, especially for someone who has an idea for an app. I walked away with a process for working through a new app idea and mapping out requirements and specs. I look forward to having her as a guest on The ToolBar soon.

As usual, I felt like I was in the sessions with Sumeet Moghe, Cammy Bean, Clark Quinn and David Glow. And, of course, David Kelly has the best resource site out there, with over 100 links, articles and other goodies in his back channel posts.

After hours were never boring. A Medieval Times outing with a large group was quite an experience. I had epic bacon and Chimay Blue at Johnnie’s Hideaway, which is now an LS tradition. I finally made it to Havana Cafe, the best Cuban food I’ve ever had, and the best value in Orlando. We also held a game night Wednesday after the expo reception. I learned how to play Settlers of Catan. I think we’re going to make this a regular thing at conferences — it’s fun, it’s social and it’s learning.

Special thanks to Trina, Stevie, Neil, Reuben, Matt, Ryan, Kevin, Mike Taylor, Mike Enders, Nicole, Alicia, Kris, Jane, Jeff, Janet and many others I’ve failed to mention here for the great conversations and opportunities to learn and share.

Until next time…

“Those rare moments in which our entertainment must come from within, not without.”

…

“The FAA’s rules may have little technological basis, but they serve a valuable higher purpose. And for that, they should be preserved.”

Peter Bright: “Shutting down your gadgets at takeoff and landing: not such a bad idea”

Right. When we have to turn off our devices, we all just sit there and reflect or entertain ourselves internally. We never read a book or browse through those crazy SkyMall products .

Ridiculous.

“Do you think they pay for servers, bandwidth, electricity and engineering staff with pixie dust and liquorice whips?”

Brett Kelly: “Regarding this Pinterest Affiliate Link Kerfuffle“

I’m presenting a field report on cloud technologies on Thursday.

I look forward to seeing many colleagues and friends, finding out what they’ve been up to and learning from them, both in sessions and extra-curricular activities.

I hope to spend a little more time in the expo chatting with vendors and asking them what’s next and what their plans are for pushing up this industry.

Last year’s Learning Solutions Conference was the launch point for several new ventures and collaborations. A little podcast called The ToolBar (and its network, Emergent Radio) was started to continue a conversation with Judy.

Keep an eye on Dave’s site for the latest, and there’s also the official hashcaster and, if you’re on Twitter, the #LSCon hash tag.

If you’re headed to Orlando this week, please look me up, ping me on Twitter or find me through the event app. I look forward to meeting new people and sharing stories and ideas.

Cheers!

“ Too often, we take our best coders and turn them into incompetent managers because it seems like a logical next step, and because we don’t pay adequate attention to what we really want from these critical executives. (Hint, this is about many fields, not merely software).”
- Seth Godin “The extraordinary software development manager”

Exactly. Why can’t we just reward our best coders, developers, designers without having to promote them into management positions in which they will suffer and perform poorly?

Michael Lopp has similar thoughts:

As I wrote about in Being Geek, the Curse of the Silicon Valley is that great engineers are often promoted to leadership for their hard work. While many succeed in this role, an equal part fails because the skills required to lead are vastly different than the ones required to be an engineer. The Curse is that we’re often placing our most valuable engineers in a role where they’re predisposed to fail.

Think of it like this: there’s a large population of immensely talented engineers that should not be leaders. There is no amount of training that would make up for the talent we’d extinguish by teaching them how to write annual reviews.

Stop the nonsense.

Also, read Being Geek.

“It’s hard to be any use to the crowd, until you’ve learned how to stand alone.”

- Hugh Macleod – “Avoid the Crowd“

“SINGING INTO A MICROPHONE AND LEARNING TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT…THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR PEOPLE TO DO… IT’S NOT ABOUT WHAT GOES ON IN A COMPUTER. IT’S ABOUT WHAT GOES ON IN HERE AND HERE (POINTS TO HEART AND HEAD.)”

- Dave Grohl on Fast CoCreate

An old-fashioned French online guide to proper comportment shoots down that very modern way of thinking, which many view as an encroaching threat in France as well: “Philosophers may say that politeness is the greatest form of hypocrisy,” it states. “But if saying hello, apologizing, thanking, helping those in need, being attentive to others, are signs of hypocrisy, then we accept that epithet, and can offer no defense.”

Judith Warner – “Why American Kids Are Brats”

“We keep bringing more magic into the world, but rising expectations mean that there’s more disappointment as well.

That’s part of the deal of being in the world.

The alternative, I’m afraid, isn’t to choose a path where we make everyone happy and always exceed their expectations. Nope. The alternative is to hide, to fail to engage and to produce nothing.

A pretty easy choice.”

Seth Godin – “You will be disappointed”

(via Koreen)

“Dealing with business challenges all starts with connecting the right people.”
- Oscar Berg: “Boosting productivity with workforce collaboration“

This is like new computers going to executives. The people that need it the least, but are higher up in the org chart, are the ones who receive new technology and the attention of consultants and vendors brought in to improve the organization. Instead, it should be the top performers at every level below the executives.

Get the right people in the room.

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

(via Seth)