Happy New Year! Thanks to all of YOU for your inspiration and insights. It was an absolutely fantastic year! Designing Impact’s 2011 top 10 posts:

1. Augmented Reality, Future for eLearning?
2. Need an Online Portfolio Fast? Use a Blog Template. Really.
3. Top 10 eLearning Elements: Going from Good to Great Design
4. 7 Brilliant Story-based eLearning Examples: “e” is for emotional, experiential
5. Wait! Before Starting a New Learning Design Project, Answer These 5 Questions
6. Amazing “Virtual” eLearning: Learner Isn’t Told Story….They’re Part of It
7. Page-Turning eLearning: Call It An eBook And Move On
8. Want lively eLearning? Check For Tics First
9. Learning Strategy Buy-In: 5 Key To Do’s…That’s It!
10. Learning Strategy Demystified: How to Help People Do X

“When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.  Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”  It was their farewell message as they signed off.  Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.  And I have always wished that for myself.  And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.” – Steve Jobs

It happened again the other day. Someone trying to showcase an engaging self-paced elearning ”course” that used a page-turning, text-heavy, click-next approach.  As I readied to launch into  the definition of engagement and potential learning impact of a “click-through” approach, I paused. Lightening-quick memories of past design consulting challenges flashed through my head: Discussions of me with SMEs and leaders influencing the use of more engaging approaches etc. I thought about Al Gore’s new ebook, “Our Choice” or Flipboard on my ipad and I had a moment of clarity. I said: “What a great ebook.”

Al Gore’s Our Choice from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

If your client wants a flip-by-page, text-heavy, picture-spattered interface to convey information. So be it. Call it what it is. Explain it’s pro’s and con’s related to potential learning and performance impact, then move on. If you still feel strongly about it’s potential value, calling it an ebook will help you make a case for more engagement without having to go into any rant.

Full disclosure? I actually think flip-turning ebooks/digital communications have a value-added use within the wide array of possible corporate learning solutions. Particularly if the interface design allows for searching, note-taking and sharing, and graphics and content are compelling. Final thought. Depending on content and business goal, perhaps there’s an opportunity to suggest how the interface of your client’s ebook or digital communications can be enhanced vs. trying to rework the content itself?

What do you think?

So, you have a stellar learning designer, project manager, possibly a rock star developer on your elearning project team?  Everyone (even key leaders) is ready to create a compelling learning or performance solution that will change the world or at least some part of your organization.  Crowds will cheer!  Bands will play.  The world will move in slow motion as this brilliant content is catapulted into the wild.  Stop the music.  Before you start, answer these 5 questions:

1. What are the target audience members supposed to DO after they experience/complete the solution?
2. Does your internal project sponsor (AKA, person who is funding the project) clearly understand the anticipated impact of solution given the constraints?
3. Is there a clear, inspiring, purposeful, relevant call to action within the solution?
4. Is everyone (including the audience members) aware what the purpose of the solution is?  Is it a quick fix?  Band-aid?  Part of a long-term strategy?
5. How much of the intended audience is supposed to DO what the solution targets and how well are they supposed to do it?

Oh!  The project leader, stakeholder, senior executive doesn’t want to discuss, downplays or eludes to your incompetence?  Ok, you have LARGE red flag situation.  Be brave.  Beg to be heard.  Tie your answers to cost savings and projected cost of audience impact.  Use scenario-base comparisons to illustrate likely futures if no action is taken.  Example: This is what will likely happen if we continue to think of this as a long-term strategy vs. thinking of it as a band-aid approach. (Band-aid approaches are good and sometimes urgently needed!  They’re tons better if the least amount of budget is used to execute them.)

The answers and subsequent discussions these will illicit will hone the solution’s impact and design.  It will save thousands, likely millions long-term.  Best of all YOU will look stellar because….everyone else will look stellar AND the solution will be cost-effective, and have optimal measured impact.

What do you think?  What would you add?