CivieBlog

For the past 15 years, I've spent a lot of time working on start-ups both inside and outside the world of eLearning. As I mentioned in Blogger Outreach, I'm now getting quite a few emails that are announcements of new services, products, events, etc. One thing that really surprises me is the number of new products that constantly appear that leave me scratching my head. Why am I scratching my head? Because I'm not sure that they've really done any market research, competitor analysis and have come up with a unique value proposition.

In some cases, I'll connect back to the vendor to ask how it's different than some of the other products in the market. In most cases, they will mention some neat new feature that makes their product marginally better.

A marginally better new product is not going to do anything in the market.

You only need to read a few marketing books to understand why that is. You won't be able to get above the noise.

And this isn't just me. Stephen Downes – What Not to Build. Notice how a lot of the solutions he suggests not to build falls into the category of marginally better. The places he sees opportunity are significantly different. I don't necessarily agree with him on some of his suggestions – too bleeding edge. We'd need a lot more market research before I invested much time and money. But the point is to make sure you are not a "me too" solution.

What's going to make a new learning solution interesting?

Addresses Real Pain Point

Tell me the pain that customers are feeling that will make them pay for your eLearning Solutions – or adopt your free solution. Even if you are free, you still have to have enough pain with how they are doing things today to get them to adopt.

A corollary to this is to make sure you tell me who your customers are. It's surprising how many times I run into new products where it's not clear who they think will be using it.

Different Type of Solution

I'm going to be more interested when you tell me about a new solution that doesn't fit into the existing categorizations of tools. Actually, this is the same thing as differentiating a solution. For example, let's say that you are building a web conferencing solution that includes an easy to use 2.5D representation and avatars. You would categorize the space from faceless (WebEx) to 3D/complex (Second Life) and your solution is this new category of approachable 3D. You get the feeling of presence and personality, without the complexities of Second Life.

Integrates in Interesting Ways

Another way to get my attention and possibly get the market's attention is to have a solution that integrates with existing, already adopted solutions. For example, if you build something that integrates with Facebook, Twitter, etc. that can take advantage of an existing audience in order to help you solve particular issues. Or maybe it's a product that lives on top of SharePoint. Or integrates with all the major LMS products.

Islands have a hard time making it.

Interesting Market Entry

This somewhat relates to the integration issue. If you can integrate with Facebook, Twitter, or similar products and you have some kind of viral aspect, then that could make you more interesting. For example, create a business simulation that integrates with those products. Or a learning tool that leverages those products to help aggregate activity.

But interesting market entry can also be things like the strategy that Yammer took. They allow you to set up a corporate twitter that is based on your email domain without ever asking permission from IT. It's a similar idea to the original groups that Facebook had where you couldn't be part of it unless you had an email with the appropriate domain. Yammer thus provides a very interesting market entry model that can effectively beat out competitors who need to go through a full IT sales cycle.

An Example – New Survey Tool

What sparked this post was an email I received that was a new survey tool. I'm not going to mention the specific tool because they didn't provide any of the information I would need to assess whether it's an interesting offering or a me too.

On the surface, the tool looks very similar to many other survey tools on the market. Actually, in terms of reporting and some other aspects, other tools look like they are way ahead. This new survey tool appears to have additional multimedia question types, but I was not clear on why that's any better than providing some media or a small embedded captivate piece and having the question there.

Some thoughts and questions I would have for this company -

Customers? Pain Point?

Who do they perceive to be their customers? What is the pain point?

From my experience using survey products, there are definite pain points that are encountered in specific situations. You want to create a survey with a particular purpose, but the reporting doesn't seem to work out for you quite right. Or you want to create surveys that need to have reporting done in specific ways. Or maybe these surveys are aimed at employee satisfaction and the goal is to feed it back into the LMS? Maybe there's a unique roll-up of results? Or unique aspects of sending it out to the right people and tracking who's completed it?

Integration

Notice how several of the above pain points relate to integration. Quite often integration is the barrier to adoption of tools. If this survey creates something that can feed back into the LMS, then it might be able to get traction in the market.

Of course, most survey tools today really are aimed more at integrating with social platforms. If you could create a survey and have it work seamlessly with Twitter, as a widget on your blog, with Facebook, with your LinkedIn connections, etc., that represents a pretty interesting offering. Or maybe there's something about being able to report back out through these same tools?

You need to be a little careful that you still find customers and pain points.

Market Entry

Survey tools can have a very nice viral aspect to them. You see someone use the tool and then you want to use it. It's a bit like hotmail in the early days. And if you are able to use it with twitter, Facebook, etc. it will be that much more viral.

Maybe this tool could be bundled with other authoring tools?

I just finished a great conversation with Pam Schmidt, the Executive Director of ISA.

I've been in the training industry since the early 90s and only recently ran into ISA. I'm curious if readers here already know about this organization?

They describe themselves as "the executive connection for training industry leaders." The membership seems to be a who's-who of training company CEOs.

Pam and ISA will be helping me to pull together the event that focuses on the issues raised in Business of Learning. ISA recently looked at some of these issues that were beautifully captured as Graphic Illustrations (PDF). I'm looking forward to more conversations with ISA members and in the conversation on July 23.

You can sign up for the online, free event through Learn Trends at: Future of the Business of Learning.

Welcome aboard Pam and ISA.

I recently had a great experience working with Abhijit Kadle one of the authors of the Upside Learning Blog (disclosure). As part of writing an eLearning Games White Paper he had collected a wonderful list of articles, posts, white papers, etc. as part of his research. We decided that it would make sense to bring those great resources into eLearning Learning and then use the automatic categorization, filtering and social signals capabilities of Browse My Stuff to have it surface some of the better content. As he describes it:

In putting this list together, I worked with Tony Karrer and his eLearning Learning site extensively to match links that are popular based on social signals, specifically in the Games and Simulation categories.

You can find the results in his really great post:

Top 100 Learning Game Resources

Abhijit also committed to continuing to add to his list and to continue to add links to eLearning Games & eLearning Simulations on the eLearning Learning site.

This is a great use of the capabilities of eLearning Learning and it will provide on-going value to the community. Thanks Abhijit!

eLearning Learning Hot List

June 12, 2009 to June 19, 2009

Top Posts

The following are the top posts from featured sources based on social signals.

1. Business of Learning- eLearning Technology, June 15, 2009
2. New online book on mobile learning -available for free download- Ignatia Webs, June 12, 2009
3. Phases of the 3PD Approach: Discovering Instructional Design 15- The E-Learning Curve, June 16, 2009
4. Google Wave as a Learning Tool- Learning and Technology, June 12, 2009
5. Student Guide: Introduction to ‘Wikis’ in Blackboard- Don't Waste Your Time, June 12, 2009
6. Captivate Widgets Tutorial: Create your first Widget- Adobe Captivate Blog, June 19, 2009
7. Discovering Instructional Design 14: the Three-Phase Design Model- The E-Learning Curve, June 15, 2009
8. How Big is Moodle?- MinuteBio, June 12, 2009
9. 3PD Approaches to Evaluation: Discovering Instructional Design 16- The E-Learning Curve, June 19, 2009
10. Nintendo’s Four I Standard- Upside Learning Blog, June 19, 2009
11. Call for Panelists - Future of Business of Learning- eLearning Technology, June 18, 2009
12. New Lynda.com tutorial on Captivate 4- Adobe Captivate Blog, June 18, 2009
13. Top 100 Educators to follow on Twitter- Don't Waste Your Time, June 18, 2009
14. New Networked Organisation- ThirdForce Blog, June 17, 2009 
15. The Tipping Point - Are You There Yet?- Engaged Learning, June 16, 2009
16. Opera Unite for Windows/Mac/Linux gives you immediate access to group or personal learning spaces- Ignatia Webs, June 16, 2009
17. #eden09: educational shift in Japan, using ubiquitous learning by Haruo Nishinosono- Ignatia Webs, June 15, 2009
18. Is it ever okay to have multiple tweeters for one twOrganization?- Business Casual, June 14, 2009
19. Brain rule #12- Clive on Learning, June 12, 2009

Top Other Items

The following are the top other items based on social signals.

1. Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked, June 17, 2009
2. Here’s Why You Need an E-Learning Portfolio, June 16, 2009
3. Game Studies 0102: Cultural framing of computer/video games. By Kurt Squire, June 17, 2009
4. Interesting Web Sites for Game-Based Training, e-Learning and Education:, June 17, 2009
5. 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 1), June 15, 2009
6. What is a Game? The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
7. The Top 5 Platforms for Creating Educational Video Games « Educational Games Research, June 17, 2009
8. Why Do People Play Games? - The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
9. Social Network Analysis: An introduction, June 12, 2009
10. Rapid (Collaborative) Authoring Tools for developers/SMEs in multiple locations, June 17, 2009
11. U.S. Spies Use Custom Videogames to Learn How to Think, June 17, 2009
12. Marc Prensky - Twitch Speed, June 17, 2009
13. Business Impact of Social and Informal Learning, June 12, 2009
14. Fourteen Forms of Fun, June 17, 2009
15. Gamasutra - Features - "Natural Funativity", June 17, 2009
16. Integrating Learning and Work, June 16, 2009
17. Why group norms kill creativity, June 14, 2009
18. The Ideal Computer for Camtasia Studio, June 17, 2009
19. Examples from TWITCHSPEED.COM Digital Game-Based Learning, June 17, 2009
20. Twitter Search in Plain English, June 17, 2009

Top Keywords

• Google Wave (4)
• Social Learning (25)
• Business (43)
• Adopt (7)
• Market (17)
• Performance Support (15)

I am pulling together an online only event for Learn Trends that will occur on July 23. I'm seeking several kinds of panelists who can contribute to the discussion. Please contact me via email: akarrer @ techempower.com if you are interested in being on one of the panels. Or if you know someone who I should recruit.

This event focuses on the issues raised in Business of Learning. The event is:

You can click the link for a bit more detail and to sign up to Learn Trends. The crux of the session is looking at:

CLOs /VPs Learning from inside medium to large corporations who will discuss:
* What new offerings are they selling or trying to sell to internal customers?
* What new offerings are they looking to buy to bring into their company?

Training CEOs who run companies that sell particular training offerings to corporations
* What new offerings are they selling or trying to sell?
* What are the key challenges they face in selling these?
* Are they moving beyond blended learning to social learning solutions?

Software/Services CxOs Vendors who provide other kinds of software or services to corporations
* What new offerings are they selling or trying to sell?
* What are the key challenges they face in selling these?

Industry Analysts and Others
* What do they see as being the new kinds of offerings that will get traction in the market?
* What should CLOs, training companies and Vendors do to create and sell these offerings?

This should be a lively conversation.

Roughly scheduled from:

9 AM - 1 PM Pacific Time / 4 PM - 8 PM GMT
July 23

This is somewhat last minute notice, but Learn Trends will be having a free online discussion tomorrow on the topic of:

Social learning and social networks continue to grow in prominence in corporations, organizations, and universities. The impact of networks, however, remains somewhat misunderstood. How should organizations “restructure” on network principles? How can ROI be calculated? Are networks a superior method of organization learning and development? How can professionals re-create wholeness of understanding in fragmentary conversations and information shared through social networks? What lessons can learning professionals apply from Facebook, Twitter, iPhone applications, and other software and technology trends?

Join LearnTrends on June 18th for presentation and discussion on the social, networked learning and organizations. Topics include: ROI of networks, Value Networks, fragmented conversations and sensemaking, and the next stages of social and learning networks in organizations.

All sessions will be held online and recordings will be made available after the event.

Moderators:

What is Social and Network Learning?
George Siemens and Tony Karrer - 9:30 AM Pacific

ROI and Social and Network Learning
Tony Karrer and Will Thalheimer - 10AM Pacific Time

Organizational Challenges of Social and Network Learning
Verna Allee - 11 AM Pacific Time

Dave Snowden - Noon Pacific Time

To attend the event or to be notified about future events, sign up to Learn Trends.

I've been getting more and more messages these days that are asking me to take a look at a particular product or service.  I wish I had time to look at all these great things, but I find that I have to be pretty selective about where I will spend my time.

I have a tendency to talk about things that are a little less bleeding edge than some other bloggers.  I want to see that they are proven in the market somewhere before I'm generally going to jump on them.  So, I may be a little harder to convince to review something – although I'm sure that most bloggers do very similar filtering.

So I thought it would be worthwhile to post on how I evaluate whether I'm going to spend time on a request to look at a particular product or service offering.  I have a tendency to get a bit of push-back on these types of posts: Profile Photos, Profile Photo, Questions Before You Ask.  Yes, I'm exposing bias here.  Yes I'm making a snap judgment about how much time I'm going to spend.  You have to do this in life.

The amount of time I will spend relates to a variety of factors …

What's your position/role?

I generally will spend a lot more time with people at the top of this list than people at the bottom of the list.

• Possible Client
• Entrepreneur / CEO
• Chief Marketing Officer / VP Marketing / Product Management
• Business Development / Sales
• PR Person at Company
• PR Person at PR Firm

Of course I'm going to spend time with someone who I believe is legitimately a potential client.  I'm also more willing to spend time talking to key players in a company.  Once you get to someone who likely is motivated and compensated for purely getting the word out through any and all means, it becomes more of a one-way relationship.  That doesn't mean I won't engage with a PR person, but I'm much more likely to ignore a classic PR-driven request.

Corollary:

PR Firms have a lower probability of success in blogger outreach.

Are you engaged in social media?

I'm not sure when this started happening to me, but I look at things like:

• Do you have a blog?  Is it a marketing only blog?  Or an interesting blog?  Are you a thoughtful person with some interesting discussions on your blog?
• Do you have a LinkedIn profile?  What's your background?

I get so much value from my blog relationships and social network relationships.  If it appears you are going to be a good blog connection or LinkedIn Connection, I'm naturally going to be more interested in engaging in a conversation with you.

Corollaries:

Blog before you do blogger outreach.

Engage with social media before you do social media outreach.

Interesting Product / Service

Let's assume that you are a person in a PR firm representing a client with no blog and you don't have a LinkedIn profile (not sure why you wouldn't).  Is there a chance that I will spend time looking at your product / service?   Yes, but you are going to need to spend some time to be in position to get me to spend time.

• You have spent time figuring out how this product / service is different / interesting in the market place.  Your message to me should indicate some real thought.  You know that there are five types of competitors in the market and here's where this product fits into that.  Add value with your research.  Take a look at Questions Before You Ask.  The percentage of PR people who really do this is very small because they don't really understand the domain and thus can't really engage in a more interesting conversation with a blogger.
• You've looked at my blog and know who I am and some things I've written about before that relate to your product.  I likely have talked about stuff in your domain.  Otherwise, it may not make sense for me to blog about your product / service.  So, how about reminding me of that, but adding some thoughtful information about how the product / service is interesting.

Corollary:

Do your homework.

Nothing New Here

The reality is that this really is nothing new.  Using the Browse My Stuff site B2B Marketing Zone, I found some interesting articles on Blogger Outreach:

PR and Blogging Outreach: Practical Tips

8 Tips about Blogging Outreach:

1. Bloggers are not journalists

2. Read the blog first

3. Develop a relationship

Don't pitch, get "coverage" and then leave. It's like getting ready for a hot first date and being taken to a McDonald's for dinner. When you start corresponding with the blogger, maintain the relationship.

4. Be Transparent

5. Customize your emails

6. Grammar and spelling do count

7. Don't disregard the smaller bloggers

8. Read Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. At least read the the section about "Blogging Wrong & Right."

My Top 5 Blogging Outreach Mistakes

Number 5: Oops – I thought that was MISS Blogger, not MISTER Blogger

Number 4: Spellcheck is a wonderful technology…when you USE it

Number 3: I’m not stalking you honestly. Could you just puhleeze respond to me?

Number 2: Sorry – didn’t realize you just wrote about this… yesterday!

And the number 1 mistake that I’ve made pitching a blogger:

Who cares about YOUR interests, it’s all about ME

Blogger Outreach for PR - Worst Practices

1. Just send a press release.
2. Act like you expect coverage.
3. Send exactly the same message two (or more) times.
4. Promise something you can't deliver.
5. Don't acknowledge return correspondence.
6. Don't acknowledge coverage.

If you want more you can go to:

• Pitching Bloggers

• Blogger Outreach for PR: The Importance of Follow-Up

• How Not to Pitch a Blog