My work on a book chapter this morning led me to put together the following brief list on some major technologies that have popped up in the past decade:

• Google – and the revolution in search technologies that it brought with it – just barely existed ten years ago, and was nowhere near the phenomenon that it has since become.
• iTunes (launched in 2001) and YouTube (launched in 2005), along with a wide range of other tools for easily creating and distributing audio and video files had yet to make their splash.
• Social networks like Facebook  (opened to the public in 2006) and Twitter (launched in 2006) simply did not exist.
• Cell phones were still primarily used for making calls, not for surfing the Web, playing games, and myriad other activities.

There is always a lot of buzz and gnashing of teeth about change, but sometimes it does help to stop for a moment, clearly note major changes, and consider what they represent. While some of the names above may change or disappear over time, I don’t think the fundamental shift that they represent will. People can now search – and find – content in many forms about nearly anything. They can easily contribute to the huge mass of findable content. They can connect and communicate with other people pretty much anywhere. They can do all of this while not tied to any particular place.

None of this is going away, and there is just no way it doesn’t have a major impact on how you or I do business.

One of the things I am always struck by when I think about this wave of change is how well the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto – which as written in 1999 – had it pegged in advance, starting (literally) with “Markets are conversations.”

I’m also amazed that when I speak to audiences of business people and ask how many people have heard of – much less read – The Cluetrain Manifesto, only a few hands go up.

If you haven’t already, read it. As I have noted in earlier posts, the entire Cluetrain Manifesto text is available for free.

On top of that, I highly recommend a recent interview that Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation did with Dave Weinberger, one of the Manifesto’s authors: The Cluetrain Manifesto at 10 Years+. The conversation between Joel and Weinberger provides some great insights into where we have been and where we are going. The train rolls on.

Enjoy,

Jeff

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Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again.
And don’t speak to soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no telling who it is naming.
For the loser now will be later to win,
And the times, they are a changin’

The times have been changin’ for a while now. We went from a mass media newspaper-radio-TV world to a Web world that, at first, promised more of the same. More of the same didn’t happen because of one powerful word – and  that word is not Facebook, or Twitter, or even “blogging.” Those are all symptoms of a more fundamental shift.

No, the word is “access.”

If there is one fundamental message I could offer to business leaders as we approach the new year it would be this: “Recognize that access to your market, your customers, your members, your employees is now perpetually up for grabs, and act accordingly.”

That’s what “Web 2.0″ has done. It has made it possible for nearly anyone with the right combination of expertise, creativity, drive, and time to make a go of it. Not that getting the mix right is easy. Easy is the new hard in many ways – but that logic applies to newcomers and incumbents alike.

Given the Dylan quote above, I should add that these are not prophesies I am peddling. I am looking at history, not the future. The times have already changed.

The one prediction I will venture is that 2010 is the year when those who are still mired in the mechanics of the tools and tactics – or worse yet, haven’t even gotten to that stage yet – will start falling behind.

There was a time when simply having a blog, or a Twitter account, or a Facebook page might offer an early adopter advantage. Those times are gone.  Specific Web 2.0 technologies no longer “matter,” to borrow a bit of Nick Carr’s thinking. What matters is understanding the new environment they have wrought, and adapting accordingly.

***

The above is straight from the most recent edition of my Hedgehog & Fox newsletter. I rarely put newsletter content onto the blog, or vice-versa, but I thought I would post this short piece because (a) it reflects some of my views on the year ahead, and (b) I’d like to make a bit of a pitch for the newsletter. Open rates on the newsletter are usually north of 100% – suggesting that readers are finding quite a bit of value in it -  and the following are a couple of actual comments from actual readers on the last newsletter:

Just got the Hedgehog & Fox newsletter. Great SoMe [Social Media] stuff! Check out the website http://www.jeffthomascobb.com/ or follow @jtcobb

Wonderful ideas! Thank you!

What have you got to lose? Subscribe and you will automatically get the last edition. If you don’t like it, just click “unsubscribe” and you’re done. Give it a whirl, eh?

Jeff

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The ASAE online e-learning conference is underway and Elliot Masie, among others, is offering up his thoughts on e-learning trends as part of the content. I have not yet viewed Masie’s presentation, but thought I throw in my own two cents before doing so. I’m calling these projections rather than predictions or trends because they project my own biases and beliefs as much as anything else.

1. Forward thinking associations will discover the open educational resource (OER) movement and engage. I’ve written about it briefly here and will write more soon. Associations generally represent large communities of subject matter experts in a given field. It seems inevitable that members will generate content that is valuable for sharing for educational purposes. Associations need to facilitate this process.
2. Which leads to the second point, forward thinking associations will start acting more like networks than groups in how they think about education (and, for that matter, other services).  This is a reference to Stephen Downes’ views on how groups think (unity, coherence, focus of voice) as opposed to how networks think (diversity, openness, interaction). (See, for instance, Downes’ E-learning 2.0 in Development presentation or the brief exchange here). It also brings to mind Fisher’s conception of teacher as network administrator and Siemens idea of teacher as curator.
3. All of which suggests that the role of the learner is also changing and the importance of personal learning environments (PLE) will increase. I see a significant number of health and medical-oriented associations (with Medbiquitous in a leadership role) focused on personal portfolio management. This is a natural in the association world, and it will significantly impact the role of traditional learning management systems (LMS).
4. Also related to the move to (OER) and network thinking, the role of collaboration in association educational initiatives will increase (though I certainly don’t expect this to happen overnight). A while back Dave Sabol pointed out the RxWiki initiative that grew out of a collaboration among the National Community Pharmacists Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations. Take a look. There are intimations of the future here.
5. Aside from demonstrating collaboration, the RxWiki initiative also offers an example of associations leveraging their expertise—and more specifically, their members’ expertise to educate the broader public. Call it public education, consumer education, or whatever you like, but I think more of this is coming. I offer this last one as a “half” projection however, as I realize that this sort of broader educational focus may not be a fit for all types of associations.

Inspired or insane? Let me know your thoughts. Now I’ll go see what Elliot Masie has to say.

JTC

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In May, GuideStar, one of the best resources around for data about the nonprofit sector, asked its audience "Have you ever participated in on-line learning offered by a nonprofit?" More than half (53 percent), said they had not, while 44 percent said they had. Cost effectiveness and convenience were cited among the other reasons that the respondents chose to participate in e-learning. You can read more findings from the report on the GuideStar Web site.

While the GuideStar survey focuses on use of online learning by individuals, a report released by Isoph and N-TEN concentrates on organizational use of e-learning. (Disclaimer: I was responsible conducting this survey and generating the related report. JTC).  Some of the main findings from the 2006 Nonprofit and Association E-learning Survey, released in a report earlier this year, are as follows:

CONTINUED GROWTH GENERALLY AND IN MAJOR SEGMENTS
Responses from 2004 through 2006 indicate a general upward trend in online learning adoption across all nonprofit organizations and particularly among organizations that identify themselves as 501(c)(3) nonprofits, membership associations, or educational institutions. (Note: Respondents may choose one or all of these categories in indicating the type of organization with which they are affiliated.) From 2004 to 2006, the percentage of all survey respondents indicating current usage of online learning grew from 40 to 53 percent. Among 501(c)(3) organizations, the percentage grew from 36 to 51 percent; among membership associations, from 40 to 55 percent; and among educational institutions, from 49 to 58 percent. Among other segments tracked in the survey, management and technical services organizations show a decline in usage after a growth spurt last year, but nonetheless show overall growth in usage from 33 to 45 percent between 2004 and 2006.

GREATER RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR EDUCATION
Slightly more than 56 percent of survey respondents indicated their organization’s general budget for training and education will increase in the coming year—nearly a 12 percent jump over 2005. Approximately 4 percent of respondents indicated an increase in spending specific to e-learning in the coming year.

FOCUS ON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AFFILIATE TRAINING, REVENUE
In 2004, when asked about the purpose of e-learning in their organizations, nearly 70 percent of respondents indicated that online learning would be used for staff training. That percentage has trended downward, reaching 56 percent in 2006. At the same time, the number of respondents indicating that online learning would be used for professional development for clients or members has risen from 52 to approximately 68 percent, and those indicating that online learning would be used for affiliate or chapter training has risen from 34 to 41 percent. With respect to financial goals, an increasing percentage of respondents indicate that e-learning must be self-sustaining and profitable. In 2004, 21 percent of respondents indicated this requirement. By 2006, the number had grown to approximately 32 percent. At the same time, the percentage of respondents indicating that e-learning must save their organizations money declined from approximately 46 percent to 38 percent.

It is important to note that the trends with respect to purpose and financial goals are probably not unrelated. Organizations that focus on training clients and members tend to be more concerned with revenue generation, while those focused on training staff tend to be focused on cost savings. The significant rise in participation by membership organizations—which tend to focus on providing revenue-generating education and training for members—in the survey since 2004 has most likely contributed to the changes in percentages in these areas.

POTENTIAL GROWTH IN FACILITATED, BLENDED FORMATS
While use or planned use of the most popular e-learning format, self-paced e-learning, continued to grow in 2006, survey responses also indicate rising interest in asynchronous facilitated, live facilitated, and blended (a combination of classroom and online formats) e-learning approaches. The number of respondents indicating they are using or plan to use asynchronous facilitated or live facilitated online learning rose approximately 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from 2005. Those indicating they are using or planning to use a blended learning approach rose approximately 17 percent. It is worth noting, however, that among organizations that have an active online learning program in place, the percentage of respondents indicating use of facilitated asynchronous and live formats actually declined while those reporting usage of blended approaches rose only 2 percent.

GROWTH IN IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Based on what appeared to be a growing awareness of learning management systems (LMS) as well as a general increase in plans to adopt an LMS, we suggested in our 2005 survey report that the importance of learning management systems as a part of nonprofit e-learning initiatives might be on the rise. Responses to the 2006 survey support this suggestion. The percentage of respondents indicating usage of an LMS more than doubled from 2005, and the percentage of respondents indicating that they do not know what an LMS is dropped by nearly 20 percent. Additionally, the number of respondents who indicated that integration between an LMS and other popular types of nonprofit-oriented software would be either highly or somewhat valuable rose from approximately 53 to 67 percent.

POTENTIAL GROWTH AMONG SMALLER AND LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
We indicated in 2005 that large organizations continued to be the ones most likely to use e-learning. While that continues to be true, 2006 survey responses indicate a rise in online learning usage of approximately 17 percent among organizations with budgets from $500,000 to $2 million. Additionally, among respondents that identified their organization’s geographical focus as local, the percentage using e-learning also jumped 17 percent. It is too early to tell if these trends will hold, but it may be that the increasing ease of implementation and decreasing costs associated with e-learning are opening the doors to adoption by a broader group of organizations.

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