Success! Silver Winner in Articulate Guru Awards 2009

March 12, 2009

Sorry to all for my recent lack of writing. Aside from the ever-crazy “life in general,” I was scrambling to finish my submission for the Articulate Guru Awards 2009 – a project I put together in my so-called “spare time” (much to the dismay of my wife and children), independent of my employer. Sadly, there are only so many hours in the day. I need to overcome this pesky need for sleep. But I digress…

I was thrilled to see my work, a visual tour of Evernote desktop and iPhone software (which I love), honored with a Silver award!

In an industry that often seems obsessed with buzzwords du jour, abstract theory and academic gobbledygook, I often wonder if anyone else cares about what I care about: designing visually engaging eLearning that people actually want to pay attention to. This focus typically makes me feel like the odd man out among my peers.

So I was elated to be given some measure of vindication with the award. You can have a look at my entry, along with those of the other winners (to whom I offer my hearty congratulations), if you feel so inclined.

I was particularly surprised when the Articulate staff praised my narration work. Like any other normal human, I hate the sound of my own voice and often wonder how it is perceived by others. I’m a big fan of a casual narration style (save the drama for movie trailers and audiobooks, please) – hence my own guerilla narration work. If you want something done your way, do it yourself, right? The narration was done with a review unit of the Marshall MXL USB.009 microphone (a special thanks to Mike Descher of Marshall for that). I’ll post a detailed review of that microphone, and two other MXL mics, shortly, but the conclusion is obvious: the USB.009 is a great mic for eLearning narration work.

I’ll also be detailing some of the tricks I used to create my Evernote tour. Much to do, much to do! Hopefully we’ll get some new readers as well – the bigger the collaborative pool, the better.

My thanks go to Articulate for their fantastic products and their wonderful staff support.

Posted in Audio, eLearning Design, eLearning Development Tools, eLearning Hall of Fame