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I wanted to follow-up 19 Tips for Effective Online Conferences with some additional resources that relate to this topic.  I primarily used the eLearning Learning and Communities and Networks sites and used Conference, Online Facilitation of Conferences, Online Interaction in Conferences, Moderating Online Interaction, and others.

 

1. 28 Web Conference Training Tips- eLearning Weekly, July 10, 2009

   Learning to use web conferencing technology is pretty easy, but there is a lot more to training via web conference than just putting on a headset, dialing up an audio-conferencing bridge, and logging onto the application. When developing PowerPoint slides to use in web conference training follow these guidelines: Simplify content.

2. How to plan and run a good web conference- Influence, May 7, 2009

   While the technology is getting better and better ( here's a good list of options ), putting on a good web conference still requires some preparation and practice. Encourage people to participate during the conference and identify the ways in which you want your meeting participants to engage with you. Below are some helpful tips.

3. Community Roles: Manager, Moderator, and Administrator, January 8, 2008

   was asked an interesting question last week about the best ways to divide the community manager role into separate manager, moderator, and administrator roles. In most cases, and in my case, the community manager also performs the moderation functions. Moderation would be a small part of several people’s jobs.

4. Moderation types- Made by Many, February 4, 2009

   Whenever companies want to publish user generated content (UGC) they need to look into moderation, which usually consists of the following three types: Pre-moderation: Some sites operate on the principle that every piece of UGC should be moderated before it’s displayed on the website.

5. Community Roles: Manager, Moderator, and Administrator, January 8, 2008

   was asked an interesting question last week about the best ways to divide the community manager role into separate manager, moderator, and administrator roles. In most cases, and in my case, the community manager also performs the moderation functions. Moderation would be a small part of several people’s jobs.

6. Moderating for development- I collaborate, e-collaborate, we collaborate, July 15, 2008

   It’s a process of several months which started in May and includes two live conferences (in a cinema, close to Ede), papers written by specialists on development issues and an online discussion via the website [link]. The names of these people came from the participants list of the conferences. It’s a guess why.

7. Ed Mitchell: What are facilitation and moderation, February 17, 2008

   What are facilitation and moderation February 15, 2008 – 1:55 pm A quick addendum about facilitation and moderation on online spaces before a longer post about strategy. Are they facilitating, moderating, re-purposing, or nothing at all? Moderation: Is the coalface end end of the model.

8. Gilbane Group Blog: More on "engage and collaborate" vs. "command and control"-  April 1, 2007

   Gilbane Group Blog Gilbane Group analysts, consultants and contributors on Content and Web technologies & trends Open to the community and moderated Home Archives XML Blog Search Blog Globalization Blog News Conferences gilbane.com Sign In Search More on "engage and collaborate" vs. research last week, Niall Cook comments: You ask: ".what

9. Backchannel Resources- Full Circle, September 11, 2009

   back channel facilitation in online groups where you make a decision to address issues privately and not “in front&# of the whole group. Conference Back Channel. Raising the bar at online events. Clay Shirkey on back channels at conferences. Jon Garfunkle on the backchannel at conferences (from a blog post comment).

10. Raising the Bar on Online Event Practices- Full Circle, August 11, 2009

    Alan Levine wrote a deliciously provocative post on last month that I’ve been meaning to comment upon, Five Ways to Run a Deadly Online Seminar. It has been a while since I wrote about synchronous online facilitation is a focused way.  inside the online meeting room). World Cafe’s online ? Spot on, CogDog!

11. Improving Conferences - Ideas & the Year Round Conference- Engaged Learning, February 6, 2009

    WH Says: “…Open up the pool of presenters beyond the same 10-20 names I see at every e-learning conference… More voices would be a good thing and shows strength (and depth) in our industry.&#. Maybe Brent Schlenker, Heidi Fisk, someone at ASTD or other conferences can tell us the # of RFPs vs. into the conference. 

12. Liveblogging an Online Conference- Experiencing eLearning, April 17, 2008

    Wendy Wickham asked a good question in the comments on TCC08: Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier: Christy - are you using 2 computers (one for blogging, one for the conference), or just one? How are you finding the experience of liveblogging an online conference? am using two computers. It does feel a little intense.

13. How to Run a Conference That Makes Us Say “WOW!”- Engaged Learning, June 22, 2010

    Attending conferences is always a mixed bag.  conference , my favorite part was talking to others about each others’ issues, concerns, questions.  conference Barcamp e2.0 conference keynote session  .  . Photo on Flickr by Lars Plougmann. We LOVE the other attendees and the idea we get from each other.  More of you.

14. Online Facilitation, Twitter, Backchannel and Keynotes- Full Circle, February 24, 2010

    The topic was “Online Facilitation: 14 years on. My topic was about my past experience with online facilitation and where I thought it was headed. The conference started with an amazing “Light Night Learning Live&# biting and sharp comedy set up by Jared Stein and Marc Hugentobler. First: Reflection. Perfect timing.

15. You do whaaat? A glimpse behind the scenes of technical moderation- eModeration, June 10, 2010

    For anyone who believes that a moderator spends his or her time deleting rude words from forums and hitting 'reject' on naughty video submissions (although we do this also), I wanted to give a quick glimpse into the nitty-gritty involved in eModeration's most complex project for a mobile phone provider client. Warning: this gets technical.

16. How to Develop Robust Moderation Methodology- Community Guy, March 23, 2010

    Moderation, at its core is about ensuring that published content on a particular site, typically submitted by the site’s users themselves, meets the terms of the site’s Terms of Service (ToS). The problem with approaching the moderation task as an analog, queue-clearing activity is that it simply doesn’t scale.

17. 4. Moderation and safety- FreshNetworks, June 6, 2009

    Why moderate? 8220;Why moderate?&# Moderators] help and assist new members by welcoming them into the community.&#. Moderation is essential to a clean, healthy, vibrant community. good moderator has a light touch, barely noticeable, and a well-moderated community is spam-free, troll-resilient and buzzing.

18. How to Moderate Teens and Tweens- eModeration, June 26, 2009

    We're really pleased to anounce that we've published a new whitepaper; the second in our series on Teens and Tweens, called 'How to Moderate Teens and Tweens'. Moderation has a role in helping to guide them as well as keeping them safe.”. Tags: teens child safety moderation In this latest publication.

19. References on Lurking | Full Circle Associates- Full Circle, March 28, 2010

    First, is an old discussion summary from the Online Facilitation list from 2003, compiled by Chris Lang which still has value to me. I’ve written about it here on the blog quite often over the years!) It is more generalized reciprocity. Download file. Finally, some fine blog posts on lurking by friends and colleagues. link]

20. Is your event worth the price of the ticket?- Social Reporter, March 15, 2009

    The other day I was discussing social reporting and other online activities for a £300-ticket, two-day event with the organiser, and he said: “Next year we are going to have to make it free&#. And in future they’ll have to blend online and offline activities. Limited interaction conference. Problems if not!

21. Conference Balance- eLearning Technology, June 6, 2008

    Just read a great post by Clive Shepherd - Cutting the Pie - where he discusses what the appropriate balance is at conferences. As you know creating Better Conferences is something that very much interests me. Check out that post, the poll results and the discussion for lots of ideas on how to make conferences better.

22. Rethinking the Conference Structure - Time to Step it UP- Engaged Learning, February 3, 2009

    Mark Oehlert attended TechKnowledge ‘09 and his thoughts were very similarly to mine: Conferences need to be updated. 8220;Social media should be the default and should kick in as soon as I register and continue past the conference.&#. I will be MUCH less likely to come to your conference.  Ohhhhhh yes.  Yes, Mark, it is.

23. Online Conference Formats- eLearning Technology, April 23, 2009

    Also, if you are interested in future conferences, please go sign up on the Learn Trends Ning Group. We've just seen an interesting experience with Jay Cross having pulled together a 24 hour, worldwide discussion on the future of learning at Learn Trends. You can find some of the recordings here. On Tuesday morning, we had 125 listening in.

24. Rethinking conferences- Informal Learning, February 17, 2009

    When I signed up for Spaces for Interaction: An Online Conversation about Improving the Traditional Conference , I didn’t appreciate how timely the topic would become. Conferences have traditionally provided foundation knowledge for instructional designers, trainers, CLOs, and others in the field. Is it a Conference?

25. Twitter Conference Ideas- eLearning Technology, January 30, 2009

    Twitter has become a pretty great tool to help with socializing at conferences. There is also an interesting effect that people who are not attending still hear quite a bit about the conference and have some level of tangential participation. We also encouraged everyone to put in the hashtag. What do I need to cover by what point.

26. Better Conferences- eLearning Technology, June 18, 2007

    believe we can build better conferences. And, I need you to help by doing one or more of the following: provide a response to the poll below (won't show in an RSS feed - sorry) provide suggestions for what you'd like to see in future conferences (add comment). because most conferences have these same problems. distributed.

27. Online Conferences and In-Person Conferences- eLearning Technology, October 28, 2008

    Lisa Neal asked a great question in a comment on Learn Trends 2008 - Free Online Conference : What do you see as the main differences between in person and online conferences? Now, don't get me wrong, I still very much like to do in-person conferences. It's hard to get all the way to an in-person conference.

28. Social Conference Tools - Expect Poor Results- eLearning Technology, April 23, 2008

    I saw a post by David Warlick - Reaching Out With Your Conference where he suggests that conference organizers should: Consider a social network for your conference. Although I remain skeptical about social networks, social networking is essential, and a few conferences have made brilliant use of them. It's rare.

29. What Exactly IS a Conference?- aLearning, March 2, 2010

    What’s the intention of having the conference? Jeff Hurt, over at Midcourse Corrections, has a great post about opening and keynote speakers, and it made me think about conferences in general… …and about my own situation. So what’s the purpose of the conference? Is it an educational event? Meeting?

30. I Have Seen the Future of Conferences...and it is 3D!- Kapp Notes, March 15, 2010

    Terrence Linden discussing the new Second Life browser at VWBPE conference. If you missed the Virtual Worlds' Best Practices in Education Conference , you missed not only a great conference with really good content and presentations, you missed a glimpse into the future of conferences. Check out her entire presentation.

31. Conference Networking Tools - Do They Work?- eLearning Technology, May 18, 2007

    You may have seen them before and will likely remember their scatter plot: There are other applications aimed at helping you to network at conferences: CMC Central - Tradeshow Appointments , Eveni Meeting Matching ExpoMATCH , eXtreme Networking , Introplus , Leverage Software , NetworkingMatch , and PowerMingle.com. Or maybe it's me.

32. Be an Insanely Great Professional Conference Attendee - eLearning Technology, September 14, 2006

    As way of introduction to this topic, let me start with a typical scenario that you will recognize if you've ever attended a professional conference. The conference organizer has put signs in the middle of each table with a topic. What are other activities at the conference where I can talk to people? So what LMS are you using?

33. Conference Preparation- eLearning Technology, March 14, 2007

    As I'm thinking about going to the eLearningGuild Annual Gathering in Boston next month and ASTD in Atlanta in June, I went back to look at some notes I had created before around getting ready for conferences. link] I also ran across this good post: Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker with some good suggestions

34. Conference Wiki Examples- eLearning Technology, November 25, 2008

    Someone asked me for an example of a conference using a Wiki both for organizers during planning, evaluating proposed sessions, etc. can say that this made pulling things together for the conference significantly easier. and for attendees with session pages, participant lists, that kind of stuff. It was more aimed at the attendee side.

35. Conference Session Breakout- eLearning Technology, December 18, 2007

    Uh oh, I just saw a post by Donald Clark slamming the use of small group breakouts during conference sessions. Update: 12/19/2007. There has been great discussion in the comments. wanted to provide a bit more context for this. The session will be workforce learning professionals (an ASTD audience). Original post. Uh oh. Now I'm worried.

36. Prepare for a Conference- eLearning Technology, January 12, 2009

    Heading into ASTD TechKnowledge , there's a particularly timely podcast that I just did for Tom Crawford of VizThink on the topic of: How to be an Insanely Great Conference Attendee If you follow the link you can get to the podcast. There will be more information coming around the use of Twitter at the conference.

37. The Rise of Webinars, Virtual Conferences, and Twitter Chats- Element K Blog, May 8, 2009

    Conferences are still being held in the Learning and Development industry as in past years, and generally they have the same level of quality presentations, hallway discussions, vendor demos, and much more. An example of the latter would be the “online forums” that the eLearning Guild does each month.

38. Online Communites are Changing my World- Daretoshare, June 26, 2010

    Here are four examples of how online communities have changed my world: I was organizing a conference in London UK for a client.  The first time we met in person was at the conference.  Should online communities have a better reputation?  Should Should you join and participate in one more online community? 

39. Twittering at Conferences- Learning with e's, May 7, 2009

    I really missed the Edumedia Conference in Salzburg this year. have pleasant memories of last year's conference and the beautiful city of Salzburg. Here's the conclusion in full: Microblogging at conferences seems to be an additional way of discussing presented topics and exchanging additional information. Ebner, M., Beham, G.

40. How to Get the Most Out of a Conference- eLearning Weekly, May 7, 2009

    Conferences have been on my mind quite a bit lately. So you can see why I was pleasantly surprised today when I ran across an excellent blog post on how to get the most out of a conference. Here’s a summary of his suggestions: Choose your conference wisely. Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker.

41. Layered communications will change online communities- FreshNetworks, April 14, 2009

    Time for a prediction: layered communications - a mixing of text, speech and video - will become a key issue for online communities in 2010 and beyond. . Two things this week got me thinking about the place for layered communications in online communities and social networks. 

I was recently asked me about my recommendations for conducting effective online conferences (virtual conference).  They had attended the LearnTrends free online conference.  This conference has been run for a few years now and is tentatively scheduled for November 15-17 this year.

This is my attempt to collect some of what we’ve learned over the years doing those conferences.  There’s some good information back in Online Conferences and In-Person Conferences, Be an Insanely Great Professional Conference Attendee, Online Conference Formats, and Conference Preparation.

1. Assign people into roles.  For us we have someone who is an overall producer (actually there are three of us, but we split it well), session moderator, recording engineer, speaker prep person. 
2. Technical Issues.  Prepare for technical issues and decide what you will do about them.  We’ve used Elluminate as our webinar system.  It has issues with firewalls.  So, we ask everyone to test until they find a location where they can connect.  This means that some people need to attend from home. 
3. Communicate all of the details in great detail.  No matter how much you feel its obvious what to do, there will be confusion.  This is especially true with information like testing the virtual meeting software, getting into sessions, protocols during sessions, time zones, etc.
4. Closely related to the above, make sure you have a well known way/place to submit questions and some assigned to answer these.
5. Make it obvious where to access to resources from speakers.  For us, we create a discussion topic associate with the session and attach files or content into that.
6. Session timing and design is difficult online.  Most presenters are not used to designing for online, so it’s important to help them plan their sessions to be effective.  You definitely need interaction and time for Q&A.  Some of the best sessions have very effective means of capturing the wisdom of the attendees.  Even the length of sessions is challenging.  Long sessions can try to get too much content in and often lose steam before Q&A.  Short sessions often means really superficial.  This is where a good prep person along with a good moderator can really help.
7. Open discussions have worked, but they are risky.  I often find they meander too much for me.  Of course, I generally am more comfortable with directed Learning Goals.  Certainly, if you are going to try it have a great moderator and interesting audience.
8. Getting participation outside of the sessions is challenging.  People don’t read things, or enter discussions ahead of the sessions.  No matter how hard we’ve tried, it’s VERY difficult to get an audience to do anything ahead of when the sessions start.  And it’s even difficult to get them to engage through discussion forums outside of the sessions.  It’s best to design things where the discussion forums are an added bonus and have some set questions to spark discussion.  But don’t count on that much participation.
9. Make sure you have breaks between blocks of sessions.  The conference staff needs it, but so do the attendees, even if you think they will pick and choose sessions.
10. For us, defining the times for sessions is difficult.  There’s no way to choose time slots where it’s not an ungodly hour in some part of the world.  Not sure we’ve ever figured out an answer.
11. Text Chat works great during sessions as a Back Channel.  Encourage it and make sure the moderator and/or presenter weave it into the session – see Presentation Backchannel Multitasking.  Also, make sure that the presenter is not distracted by chat.  I always encourage speakers to ignore it and I’ll (as the moderator) let them know when there’s something I’d like them to discuss.  And I’m not a big fan of using multiple back channel tools that effectively split the discussion.  Just keep it in the webinar tool.
12. Inject fun into the event. Nancy White jumped in to lead a round of Pecha Kucha using slides she had never seen before. The spontaneity and spirit of fun raised energy levels. Need fun stuff sprinkled throughout.  Moderators can help this greatly.

13. Speakers on a common topic should get to know one another and swap ideas on their approach in advance of the session.
14. Pictures of speakers make the event more real. Have pictures on session descriptions and on the first slide of each speaker.
15. Thanks to Scott Skibell, we recorded the sessions directly off the web, i.e., outside of Elluminate and he produced great recordings.  This helps a lot.
16. We’ve tried a few different ice breakers.  Interaction to learn the webinar tool is always a good idea.  Sometimes a kind of introduction to break the ice with audio can be good.  Especially if you want audio input.  Many people freely text chat, but don’t like to speak online.
17. Be careful with screen sharing and video.  They require so much bandwidth that they often make the presentation not work for lots of attendees.  Much better to use screen shots.
18. Some people take online commitments lightly. Several presenters never showed up. Some volunteer moderators disappeared when we tried to pin down times for them to cover.
19. Online conferences have the advantage of being able to have introductory and truly advanced topics that will appeal to a narrow audience.

I’ve discussed before about how it’s Hard to Evaluate the Performance of Knowledge Workers and now some additional backup from Dilbert:

Which goes along with:

But let’s be careful here because:

This is third post in a series on Text-to-Speech for eLearning written by Dr. Joel Harband and edited by me (which turns out to be a great way to learn).  In the first two posts, Text-to-Speech Overview and NLP Quality and Digital Signal Processor and Text-to-Speech, we introduced the text to speech voice and discussed issues of quality related to its components: the natural language processor (NLP) and the digital signal processor (DSP). In this post we will begin to address the practical side of the subject: How can e-learning developers use Text-to-Speech (TTS) voices to narrate their courses? What tools are immediately available?

Text-to-Speech (TTS) Tools for eLearning Applications

There are a number of possibilities available today for using TTS for eLearning; they fall into two categories or approaches:

1. TTS Stand-Alone. A general approach in which developers use any standard authoring tool such as Articulate or Lectora and use stand-alone TTS on-demand services/products to create audio files that are then linked or embedded in the presentation.
2. TTS Integrated. Products/services that have TTS voices bundled and integrated with an authoring solution, including Adobe Captivate and Tuval Software Industries’ Speech-Over Professional.

In this article, we are going to concentrate only on using TTS Stand-Alone tools to create audio files that are embedded into a course.

TTS Stand-Alone Web Services

TTS stand-alone products can be used by eLearning developers irrespective of the authoring tool they are used. Several of the voice vendors offer on-demand TTS voice web services which accept text and produce sound files.  Here are a few of the top web services for TTS:

Company	Web Service
Loquendo	Pronuncia
NeoSpeech	On Demand
Acapela-Group	Acapela-Box

These web services have the advantages:

• Choose any voice among a set of vendors voices
• Set pitch, speed volume of voice for the entire file
• Select type of sound file output (wav, mp3, etc)
• Preview function
• Pronunciation dictionary
• Pay as you go

Disadvantages

• Because they are web services, there’s no automatic connection with the desktop file system.  Most of the time you are creating audio files locally and thus having access to the file system means it will keep files up-to-date.  In some cases, this also applies to things like storing scripts and default settings.

This can be a major disadvantage and cause significant extra steps.  Because of this, we are going to concentrate on a particular desktop stand-alone product to illustrate the eLearning production workflow.

Acapela Virtual Speaker – a Desktop Stand-Alone TTS Product

Acapela-Group offers a desktop stand-alone product, Acapela Virtual Speaker, that is better suited to eLearning production than most of the web services solutions listed above. 

As an example, let’s see how to work with Acapela Virtual Speaker. Virtual Speaker works with input text files (the narration scripts) and output sound files organized into directories.  Narration scripts (text files) are stored for easy updates and the system makes it easy to generate the associated sound files based on updates.  The sound files are generally easy to find and access from any authoring tool.

To create a sound file from narration text for an authoring tool using Virtual Speaker, you perform the following:

1. Define a file naming system to identify the text and sound files for the authoring tool
2. Set working folders for input text files and output sound files
3. Enter new narration scripts or open a stored narration script file from the text files working folder
4. Select the language and voice for this sound file
5. Select the volume, pitch, speed of the voice
6. Press the Play button to preview the voice reading the text
7. Make changes in text and voice settings as required
8. Name the text file according to the naming system (for new text) and save it in the working folder
9. Select the output format: wav, mp3, etc
10. Press the Record button, a sound file is created with the same name as the text file and stored in the working folder

To import the sounds files into the authoring tool use the File Import function of the tool to import the file from the working folder as required.

It sounds really easy and it is.  Stand-alone TTS tools are used to create sound files just as you would if you had a human recording audio for the course. These sound files then need to be associated with the content using the authoring tool.  In later posts, we’ll get into more specific comparisons of TTS vs. human narration.  In terms of taking the resulting audio files and using them via an authoring tool, the level of effort is similar.

Of course, both human narration and TTS tools that produce audio files means that it takes some work to get the audio files embedded in the authored course, including importing the files and in some cases synchronizing them with a time-line editor.  Tools that have embedded TTS, like Adobe Captivate, make this significantly easier. And if you make changes to the script, you will need to create new audio files and import them again. This is much easier than having to go through another round of narration. But it still takes work.

Personal TTS Readers Not Licensed for eLearning

Some readers may be wondering why we haven’t mentioned the TTS “personal reader” products such as: Natural Reader , TextAloud, Read the Words,  and Spoken Text as possibilities for eLearning tools. The reason is that sound files produced by personal readers are for personal use only and are not allowed, by license, to be distributed. This restriction means that these products cannot be used for eLearning, where sound files are distributed to learners. We’ll talk more about this important subject in a future post.

A colleague just asked me if I knew anyone who was using Augmented Reality for learning.  I’m not and I gave him the standard advice about looking through LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers, LinkedIn for Finding Expertise, and Searching for Expertise - LinkedIn Answers.  He did that, but didn’t find particular people.  Probably I need to update my posts because there have to be lots of people who would be involved in training and augmented reality found via LinkedIn.  I just tried a search for “augmented reality” as a keyword along with either title contains “training” or “learning” and found some interesting folks.

My next suggestion was to use eLearning Learning to search.  This gave rise to the additional of a new keyword Augmented Reality on eLearning Learning.  You may have wondered where the keywords come from. :)

Actually, this leads to quite a treasure trove of great posts:

1. Tools for Developing Augmented Reality Applications- Upside Learning Blog, April 30, 2010
2. Fighting Phobia's with Augmented Reality- Kapp Notes, July 6, 2010
3. Augmented Reality, Future for eLearning?- Designing Impact, June 8, 2010
4. Augmented Reality: does it have a place/future in education?- Dont Waste Your Time, February 23, 2010
5. More Augmented Reality Videos- Dont Waste Your Time, March 26, 2010
6. Mobile Augmented Reality Training, April 30, 2010
7. Augmented Reality To Help Military Mechanics Fix Vehicles, January 25, 2010
8. Augmented Reality and the Future of Learning & Work, September 22, 2009
9. Google Goggles will rock m-learning., December 7, 2009
10. Augmented Reality and The Coming Tsunami of Location Learning Apps- Electronic Papyrus, October 26, 2009
11. Layar the first mobile augmented reality application- Ignatia Webs, June 23, 2009
12. The two types of augmented reality- E-learning in the Corporate Sector, July 20, 2010
13. Advantages and Drawbacks of using Augmented Reality #AugmentedReality- Dont Waste Your Time, March 30, 2010
14. In 2015 augmented learning in a ubiquitous learning environment will be fact- Ignatia Webs, May 11, 2010
15. Augmented Reality in Learning- Upside Learning Blog, April 15, 2009
16. Learning - augmented- Lars is Learning, September 9, 2009
17. Augmented Reality – Now A Reality at Upside- Upside Learning Blog, March 2, 2010
18. Augmented Reality on campus- Dont Waste Your Time, July 7, 2010

And this naturally leads to both the people/companies in the various case studies as well as suggests some folks to contact such as Judy Brown, Karl Kapp, Lars Hyland, David Hopkins and more.  At least they’ll likely have a bit more clue as to who to talk to.

If you have suggestions for my colleague, we are all ears.

I received a question this week related to Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank:

I successfully launched a discussion forum for a small group of lending assistants within my bank. That forum is still up and running. Since that time, I have attempted to introduce the discussion forum tool to two other work groups within the bank but I have not been very successful. I’ve used examples from the lending assistants as well as other benefits of the tool to demonstrate how its use would benefit the bank and these work groups. They see the benefit of the tool in a strict learning environment, but have difficulty seeing its use in an expanded role.

One of the things that this group has identified as one of their “problems” is that they receive too many emails. I presented the discussion forum as a solution to this problem, in that it would reduce the number of emails they receive because the information would not be in their in-box, and more importantly would allow discussion between the all the members (one to many) rather than one to one or one to a few. They pushed back because they felt that this was just one more place to go and one more thing to do. They were also concerned about the accuracy of the information that was published on the forum. I pointed out the benefit of correction of inaccurate information on a discussion forum is that it is visible and correctable - unlike information that is sent through email or other back channels of communication.  I could go on… but I’m sure you get the picture. 

I’m just having trouble getting traction and wondering what I can/should do better/different.

The one thing they were interested in finding out, is whether other financial institutions are using discussion forums and if so how. I was wondering you could help me find out if there are others, who they are and if they’d be willing to talk with me.

Great question.  Of course, there’s no easy answers here, but lots we can discuss and learn around this.

In terms of finding people with experience on this, my first suggestion was using LinkedIn and particularly looking through LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers, LinkedIn for Finding Expertise, and Searching for Expertise - LinkedIn Answers.  This is in process.  I’ll also reach out via twitter.  If you have other ideas or if you are at a financial institution and are willing to have a discussion with this person, please drop me a comment/email.

Of course, there’s a lot of great information out there on this via eLearning Learning under terms like Discussion Forum, Collaboration in Discussion Forums, Discussion Forum Adoption, Benefits of Discussion Forums, Discussion Forum Case Studies.  I also checked out Nancy White’s Communities and Networks site under Discussion Forums, Case Studies of Discussion Forums, and Community Building and Discussion Forums.

I found a lot of great stuff.  Let me start with some of the ones that are probably more relevant to this particular inquiry:

1. Examples of online communities in the financial services industry- FreshNetworks, March 17, 2009
2. 7 Creative Ways to Introduce Social Media to Your Team- Learning Putty, October 22, 2009
3. Using Online Forums in Social Learning- Learning Putty, October 19, 2009
4. Change agents, group forums and the one percent rule.- Business Casual, October 29, 2008
5. Making Intranet Discussion Groups Effective- eLearning Technology, June 15, 2006
6. Requirement to Social Learning Adoption #2 - Compatibility- Engaged Learning, February 24, 2009
7. The Holy Trinity: Leadership Framework, Learning 2.0 & Enterprise 2.0- trainingwreck, May 8, 2010
8. Ten tips for choosing & using social software- Learning Conversations, February 23, 2009
9. Promoting Social Learning- eLearning Blender, May 23, 2009
10. Get involved and make the most of your online community- FreshNetworks, June 3, 2009
11. Examples of online communities in healthcare- FreshNetworks, April 8, 2009
12. Blogger in Middle-earth: Working With Online Learning Communities- Blogger in Middle-earth, April 14, 2009
13. How To Kill A Community, February 12, 2009
14. Online Success - a recipe for learners and facilitators- Designed for Learning, February 14, 2010
15. eLearn: Best Practices - Discussion Management Tips for Online Educators, September 30, 2009
16. Franchisees Benefit from Learning 2.0 at Zaxby's - 1/15/2009 8:54:00 AM - Chain Leader, January 17, 2009
17. Facilitating online communities - WikiEducator, June 11, 2009
18. HOW TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics & Luddites - Tips, Resources & Advice - UPDATED, June 2, 2009
19. Intel Communities: IT@Intel Blog: Why Intel is investing in Social Computing, February 15, 2009
20. Community of Practice for Facilitators : pilot, adoption and participation- Library Clips, September 13, 2009
21. Team-based communities : Transparency and Crowdsourcing for a more cohesive workplace- Library Clips, March 9, 2009
22. BT Web 2.0 adoption case study " Inside out, February 20, 2009 
23. How to kick start a Community | Connie Bensen, May 20, 2008
24. Cisco on Collaboration: Know Your Enthusiasts & Laggards | Future Changes, October 2, 2009
25. Essential reading for online community managers- FreshNetworks, January 5, 2010
26. Insight from online communities: 2. Focused discussions- FreshNetworks, January 19, 2009
27. Is this the Future of Forums?- eModeration, May 4, 2009
28. The top-down and bottom-up creation of enterprise communities, and wikis- Library Clips, December 18, 2008
29. More thoughts on community structure and creation- Library Clips, January 11, 2009
30. Forums Are Everywhere and Here to Stay, So Skip the Tools Discussion and Focus on Your Objectives, March 25, 2010
31. Discussions Are Not Warfare; Forums Are Not a Battlefield, December 9, 2009
32. 5 Easy Ways to Find Stories, Topics and Discussions to Post on Your Online Community, February 24, 2009
33. Understanding the difference between Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks, February 10, 2008
34. How to Develop Robust Moderation Methodology- Community Guy, March 23, 2010
35. Back to Basics: Want to Know What Your Community Members Need? Just Ask., January 19, 2010
36. Creating Passionate Users: How to Build a User Community, Part 1, June 17, 2007
37. Why so many community initiatives fail to take flight…, January 17, 2009
38. Social Media and the insurance industry- FreshNetworks, February 18, 2010
39. Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at Booz Allen: The Series- Portals and KM, January 20, 2010

More Resources on Discussion Forums, Communities:

1. Forums vs. Social Networks?- eLearning Technology, September 15, 2008
2. 5 Easy Tips for Teaching Online Courses- Learning Putty, January 18, 2010
3. Forums – Day 1 – What is it?- Engaged Learning, November 23, 2009
4. Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank- eLearning Technology, September 15, 2009
5. The new look Captivate forum- Adobe Captivate Blog, April 8, 2009
6. I want to facilitate online discussions but how do I choose the right platform?- Joitske Hulsebosch eLearning, November 14, 2009
7. Top 10 Ways Social Media Will Impact Employee Development and Training in 2010- Learning Putty, October 29, 2009
8. 22 Social Learning Strategy Questions to Answer Before Your Next Lesson- Learning Putty, July 1, 2010
9. From formal courses to social learning- Learning Conversations, November 26, 2009
10. Tips for facilitators in Ning- Joitske Hulsebosch eLearning, March 13, 2009
11. Making the case for social media- Good Practice, November 2, 2009
12. Social learning: all talk and no action?- Spicy Learning, February 5, 2010
13. Communities of practice- Learnforever, May 31, 2010
14. Make way for virtual learning communities- Electronic Papyrus, March 25, 2009
15. An Introduction to blogs, wikis, and RSS - New Technologies for e-Learning, September 20, 2007
16. ONLINE FORUM: Lights, Camera, Action - Using Media to Engage the Learner, June 2, 2009
17. Online social networks, learning and viral expansion loops- Sticky Learning, December 14, 2009
18. Community of Practice for Facilitators : pilot, adoption and participation, September 13, 2009
19. Distributed Network Learning FAQ - WikiEducator, December 20, 2008
20. Seed, feed, & weed- Learnlets, September 17, 2009
21. Online communication is not second best- Clive on Learning, October 11, 2007
22. The Power of Community | workforce.com, May 28, 2009
23. conversation matters: What Do We Get From Conversation That We Can't Get Any Other Way?, April 14, 2009
24. Case Study: Comics in Community Communication- Community Guy, August 10, 2009
25. Designing an online and face-to-face learning trajectory- Joitske Hulsebosch, July 15, 2009
26. Employee social networking case study : Sabre's cubeless product, September 1, 2008
27. Understanding the difference between Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks, February 10, 2008
28. I want to facilitate online discussions but how do I choose the right platform?- Joitske Hulsebosch, November 14, 2009
29. Should anonymous comments be allowed in an online community?- FreshNetworks, March 7, 2010
30. Oldie but goodie: "CompuServe's Intranet Forum"- Endless Knots, February 23, 2009
31. What’s the biggest mistake a community manager can make?- FreshNetworks, December 24, 2009
32. Are your community's lurkers healthy lurkers?- Joitske Hulsebosch, June 15, 2009
33. Preparing for community release- Library Clips, April 11, 2009
34. Community Netiquette: How to Avoid Stepping on Virtual Toes- Community Guy, August 4, 2009
35. Facilitating an online discussion to foster cooperation between two development organisations, December 27, 2006
36. Full Circle Online Interaction Blog: Updating my basic article on online facilitation, April 29, 2007

What other resources or case studies would you point to around this topic?

Any thoughts or advice?

Help would be sincerely appreciated!

I’m involved in several discussions around how to use Wikis as part of learning solutions.  I wanted to collect a few resources around this topic for use in these discussions.  So, of course, I went to eLearning Learning and I looked at Wiki, Collaborative Learning with Wikis, Wikis and eLearning 2.0, Wikis Corporate eLearning, Social Learning with Wikis, Wiki Security and a few others.  Here’s some of what I found:

1. Why a Wiki?- Experiencing eLearning, July 27, 2009
2. Wikis at Work- eLearning Technology, February 25, 2007
3. Control and Community: A Case Study of Enterprise Wiki Usage, May 4, 2009
4. Blog or Wiki?- Kapp Notes, January 20, 2009
5. Wiki activities 5 stage model, April 7, 2008
6. Control and Community: A Case Study of Enterprise Wiki Usage, May 4, 2009
7. Really Cool "3-Minute e-Learning" on Social Networking - Wiki, Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, RSS, October 10, 2007
8. Wiki working, June 19, 2009
9. Wiki: Intro to Emerging Tech, July 18, 2009
10. Could A Wiki Be Your Next Talent Management System?, October 23, 2008
11. Using Toolkits to Aggregate Learning Resources, February 6, 2009
12. Enterprise Wiki as Intranet - a success story, September 20, 2007
13. Lurking and loafing, March 9, 2010
14. Activities, Workflows and Structured Wikis (Augmented Social Cognition), February 9, 2009
15. Wikis for Improving Productivity- Experiencing eLearning, June 10, 2008
16. Wiki's For Professional Development- Learnadoodledastic, September 26, 2007
17. One more time: what's the difference between a blog and a wiki?- Clive on Learning, April 13, 2007
18. Wikis: Ways to use them for a more Collaboration and Interaction- Dont Waste Your Time, August 28, 2009
19. Do wikis work for any topic? How about math?- eLearning Acupuncture, March 25, 2009
20. eLearning Tools - Wikis, Blogs and More- eLearning Technology, April 2, 2007
21. Wiki – Day 2 – How Wikis are Used- Engaged Learning, December 1, 2009
22. Wikis – Day 3 – Privacy & Adoption- Engaged Learning, December 2, 2009
23. Wikis – Day 4 – Overcoming Bad Stigmas- Engaged Learning, December 3, 2009
24. Top 10 Ways Social Media Will Impact Employee Development and Training in 2010- Learning Putty, October 29, 2009
25. Conference Wiki Examples- eLearning Technology, November 25, 2008
26. Use of Wikis as Compared to Other Tools- eLearning Technology, February 23, 2007
27. 22 Social Learning Strategy Questions to Answer Before Your Next Lesson- Learning Putty, July 1, 2010
28. TCC09: Wikis that Work: Effective Wiki Practices for Virtual Learning Communities- Experiencing eLearning, April 15, 2009
29. Wiki as repository for a virtual community- Joitske Hulsebosch eLearning, January 21, 2009
30. How Wikipedia Works and Wikis in the Enterprise - HBS- eLearning Technology, July 23, 2007
31. Wikis - Public vs. Controlled - Why There's No eLearning Wiki- eLearning Technology, September 14, 2006
32. 10 Social Media Tools For Learning- The eLearning Coach, November 16, 2009
33. Collaborative Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools - A Summary- eLearning Technology, May 16, 2006
34. Benefits of Collaborative Learning- Dont Waste Your Time, July 8, 2010
35. Enterprise 2.0 - Community Spaces can lead to Walled Gardens- Free as in Freedom, March 27, 2010
36. Examples of eLearning 2.0- eLearning Technology, September 22, 2008
37. Collaborative Learning « Social Enterprise Blog, June 3, 2009
38. A Learning Paradigm Shift: Cybergogy, April 9, 2010
39. Learning space mashups, July 13, 2009
40. Case studies of corporate (social) learning, March 12, 2010
41. Using SharePoint- eLearning Technology, December 16, 2008
42. SharePoint 2010: The New Employee Gateway?- trainingwreck, January 23, 2010
43. Social Learning Strategies Checklist- Social Enterprise Blog, January 11, 2010
44. Extending elearning?- Learnlets, November 30, 2008
45. SharePoint Social Learning Experience- eLearning Technology, February 1, 2010
46. Time for “new” training approaches- Daretoshare, February 28, 2009
47. Checklist of Social Learning Strategies- Engaged Learning, January 12, 2010
48. The Future Of Learning Design- The eLearning Coach, November 23, 2009
49. Wiki Owner- eLearning Technology, March 19, 2009
50. Social Learning Tools Should Not be Separate from Enterprise 2.0- eLearning Technology, April 7, 2010
51. SharePoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise Social Tools :: Personal InfoCloud, March 16, 2009
52. Driving the Informal with the Formal, February 10, 2010
53. groundswell - confirming my e-Learning 2.0 ideas, August 27, 2008
54. TELUS Case Study - Using Sharepoint to embrace social computing and streamline formal learning , May 15, 2010
55. Driving Change: Selling SharePoint and Social Media Inside the Enterprise, January 30, 2009
56. How to Find the Right Wiki for Your Project or Organization, February 15, 2009
57. From formal courses to social learning- Learning Conversations, November 26, 2009
58. Requirement to Social Learning Adoption #1 - Relative Advantage- Engaged Learning, February 23, 2009
59. Characteristics of Emergent Communities- Social Enterprise Blog, April 14, 2009
60. Promoting Social Learning- eLearning Blender, May 23, 2009