ASTD-Cascadia and the CPLP

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In March, both ASTD-Cascadia and PSU (Portland’s provider of CPLP study courses) announced that they are suspending support of the CPLP program.

Regrettably, I haven’t even been involved enough lately to know that this was under discussion until after it was announced, but I am proud of my chapter for this decision. Their concerns, which I share, seem to focus mainly on the work product process; I have additional issues with the content of the knowledge exam (which, for the record, I passed easily last year).

ASTD-Cascadia President Pam Moore reports in her most recent leadership message that “the decision has been met with overwhelmingly positive support from our membership, and from our large chapter peers around the country.” That certainly has been borne out in my private discussions with L&D professionals; however, I’ve seen very little public discussion, and to a certain extent, that’s why I’m writing about it now. Because even if I didn’t agree with Cascadia’s decision — which I do — I applaud its willingness to publicly express concerns and take action. Frankly, we see way too little of that in our field.

Minutes from the chapter’s February and March board meetings have further details.

May 20, 2013

Is training really the answer? Ask Cathy Moore’s flowchart.

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Cathy Moore is one of my heroes in the L&D world because she releases a lot really helpful stuff for designers. I’ve written some here about how her Action Mapping method often plays a part in my process, and her Elearning samples collection is the most comprehensive answer to What does good look like? in our field.

Today she released another gem — a flowchart to help L&D professionals determine whether training is really the answer to any particular problem.

A couple of the really great things about this:

1) Often, L&D professionals who are aware that training won’t solve all problems tend to limit the domain of training to knowledge and skills. I concur with the inclusion of “lack of motivation” as something that the right training may be able to address.

2) The accompanying video focuses on how to use this in a consultation — “helping the client discover” an appropriate solution instead of just pushing back.

She’s asking for feedback, as well — please check it out and contribute.

May 7, 2013

Crowdsourcing Concrete-ization

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Earlier this week, I was putting together a slideshow, and it involved taking some abstract ideas and putting an image that represented each one onscreen. Concrete-ization, because I can’t think of a better name. Simple. Something we do all the time in creating presentations and web content.

But I wanted the effect to be more surprising, more unexpected, more stylized than most of the images I found. Stock sites are good at tagging photos by concept, but the results can be rather generic; searching for Creative Commons-licensed content on Flickr turned up more realistic, often more interesting photos, but they don’t tend to be tagged by concept and therefore were more difficult to find. (Searching for “status” yields bands called Status Quo.)

Feeling uninspired, I asked friends and colleagues on Facebook and Twitter to come up with the nouns that came to mind when they saw these words. My purpose wasn’t to find the most common responses, necessarily, but to find something evocative in each word that I hadn’t considered yet.

Since several of you asked, here are their responses.

status

busy President Skills symbol person me Married symbol Quo facebook Mansion president position Relationship Rank President Condition Car alive facebook big timelime tall achiever Description Objective dating Facebook cat Wife Mr. Spock Project car (but not in a good way) position Trophy Gauge Scott Disick, Rolex, Bentley Money wealth Meeting mountain power

challenge

ladder Puzzle Managers overcome good Fun Hard Olympics difficult Mountain task Mountain Kelley marriage Overcome “Opportunity” (note the quotes) Course Trial Mountain Climbing goals climbing more Marathon game race risk, work, fun Bottleneck Accepted response Work Race mountain Workplace Sword high jump, puzzle Game task Contest Lawyer, mt Everest, marathon mountain Marathon Life goal dance ropes

self-expression

smile Writing Creativity confidence love Me laughter Artist art Appearance art photography Dancing artists singing Art creativity Painting Art Clothing denied paint painting Art art art face, art, movement, freedom Rarity. hairdye Tattoo Painter wall Painting Hands emotion art Enthusiasm Artist, protester, art cars Talking artist Art art outdoors tattoos

feedback

letter Comments Growth reflection yes Information verbal Customer results Comment discussion survey, helpful Conference teacher input Green check Letter Brainstorming Critique Noise good critique help Bullhorn complaint pain conversation Contrived design Support Survey smile Meeting Amp computer response, chopped down tree Words learn Survey monkey, sound system Information guitar Performance Review change jimi hendrix noise

humor

laugh Joke book Friends laugh nice Laugh joke Comedian jokes Comedian laugh sarcasm Dennis Leary My husband laughing Happiness Laughter, Necessity Show Fun Comedians necessary Laugh joke Comic laugh fun laughter, smile Desperation fuckballs Friend Comedian puppy Joke Cheese somebody laughing Laughter laugh Bill Cosby, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Laughter comedian Comedy Club life clown bridge

mimicry

rude Baby Office copy Duplication ape Body language child Bird flattery comedians. or children. Will Ferrell toddler toddlers Karaoke Parrot Aping, Copying, Patterning Myna bird darwin I know you are but what am I? joke copier ridicule learning strategy baby Parrot mockingbird Parrot people imitating statues Snark copy SNL, TMZ, “reality tv” Imitation mockingbird Parrot same intersection mockingbird

surprise

party The scream Happy startled Astonishment birthday Birthday party party Party gift birthdays. a gift. Expression artists party Birthday Party Party! Unfolding, Anticipation Startle no AHHH! gift joy party party novelty awe Gift gnat Paper Cake shiny money on the ground Shock Party, terrorists party Delight party party Birthday glance jack in the box

I’m not finished with my slide show yet, but seeing the wide variety of responses (and, sometimes, the lack of variety) has been very helpful. Thanks to everyone who took a few minutes to weigh in, and if you still want to contribute, click here.
May 7, 2013

Style Tiles

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Here’s a new (to me) resource: Style Tiles, a template that helps communicate the look and feel of a web design project.

styletilesI prototype interactions completely without graphic treatment, so doing something like this separately shows stakeholders that I also have the visual aspect of the experience in mind and allows us to discuss those components separately.

As useful as the template, though, is the collection of design resources on the website: See “Step 1: Listen” in particular. Good design advice.

The template is a PSD offered under a CC 3.0 license, but there’s nothing about it that requires Photoshop, so I’ve adapted it to PowerPoint and Keynote.

As the original template encourages, “Be creative, [sic] don’t just use this template as-is!”

Thanks to my coworker, , for sharing.

May 4, 2013

Startups, This Is How Design Works

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startupsdesignA few weeks ago, a number of friends and colleagues shared Startups, This Is How Design Works, a primer on design for entrepreneurs. It’s no less relevant for instructional designers and in particular, those who design online experiences; we often work as single-person “teams”, the lone individual responsible for “starting elearning” at our organizations.

What I love about this more than anything is the separation of design as the discipline of solving problems from graphic design. I’ve often seen that as an effective starting point for showing design is and isn’t, because it’s a common misconception, even among designers.

He also shares some excellent resources on design — a few of which I’ve shared here before, such as Objectified and Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Design – and breaks down some different disciplines of design. Which one comes closest to what you do?

April 27, 2013