I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been pushing hard to get a new eLearning development team established within my recently-reorganized training department. Inexplicably, nothing was included in the new structure to specifically address eLearning development. In 2008. The 21st century. Yes, truly baffling.

Bygones.

The miles of red tape have nearly been traveled, and we’re on the cusp of becoming “official” again. But…what do we call ourselves?

The group (of which I was not a part) responsible for eLearning development under the previous organizational structure had one of those clumsy titles created only because it formed a catchy acronym (because it’s all about a catchy acronym, you know – ah, the joys of government thinking). It might make sense to retain that title, if not for the fact that the previous group was known for a lot of talk, but little action. A “Think Tank,” as my current director likes to derisively refer to them. They served mainly as liaisons to shamelessly overpriced vendors, who did most of the actual work. The other training folks were understandably suspicious (and resentful) of this mysterious group and the vaporous services they provided. I’m not saying they didn’t do anything, only that the others perceived them that way.

The new vision is to do a lot of that work ourselves, only relying on vendors to provide specialized services that we may not have the in-house expertise (or equipment) to provide. And because it is a new group, with a new vision and a new mandate, why carry the baggage of the old group? Why be saddled with their lousy reputation right out of the gate? I say it’s time for a fresh start! A rebirth. A new identity.

But what to call ourselves?

If you work in a corporate training shop, I’d love to hear what your eLearning development group is called. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Feel free to share in the comments section.

And if your organization’s name is as pointless as our previous one, well, we’ll just laugh about it together.

I don’t tend to deviate from the topic of eLearning on this blog, but I’ll make an exception today. I just returned from an internal training event, which featured the requisite (and often dreaded, at least for me) keynote speaker. Now, I’ve seen a lot of keynote speakers in my day, most of them ranging anywhere on the quality scale from bad to horrible. There have been a few shining stars. Erik Wahl was one of them.

Of course, every presenter hits every viewer differently. What is inspirational to me may be cheesy and contrived to you. And vice versa. Heck, your opinion of a keynote speaker may be based almost entirely on your particular mood that morning. The amount of sleep you got the night before. The unbearable temperature and humidity in the bleak “undesirable but affordable” outpost of a city you are staying in for your conference. So one’s evaluation of a keynote speaker is highly subjective.

That said, if you have any say in the choosing of keynote speakers for your organization’s training events, I highly recommend you take a look at Erik Wahl.

I was inspired. And I was entertained. Keynote speaker mission accomplished!

YMMV. But you could do far, far worse.

Do not miss 5 Secret Tips from an E-Learning Pioneer on Tom Kuhlmann’s (of Articulate) The Rapid E-Learning Blog.

You’ll LOL. You’ll cry. You’ll ROFL.

Sadly, this spoof is less ridiculous than much of the “serious” corporate training I’ve seen.

Happy April Fools’ Day to all.

WARNING: this post contains the use of the possibly-offensive and certainly-unprofessional words suck, sucky, and suckiness. If you feel a strong aversion to any of these words, please turn away now.

No? Onward then.

Several years ago, I was at a corporate Web communications conference in Chicago. While registering for the event, a man with wild, straggly gray hair wearing ratty sweatpants and an “I don’t care what you think of me” look on his face came sauntering in. I assumed he was a transient, wandering the hotel to bum change for “bus fare.” To my great surprise, he approached the conference registration desk and proceeded to register.

“Who is this clown,” I thought, “and who is the clown that employs him?”

I quickly finished the registration process and retreated to my room for the evening. Before the man could approach me asking for “bus fare.”

Imagine my shock the next day when, sitting in the ballroom awaiting one of the keynote presentations, I saw the shaggily-maned stranger take the platform and approach the podium!

At this point I suddenly feared the conference to be a very big mistake.

To my unexpected delight, however, the man turned out to be Vincent Flanders of Web Pages That Suck fame, and he proceeded to give us a wildly entertaining hour examining the dank bowels of horrific website design. And in those days, there was plenty of fuel to feed his flames. It was, frankly, the highlight of the conference for me.

The interesting thing about Vincent Flanders was that his own website completely sucked. And still does (hey, it was designed by Free CSS Templates. I’m not kidding.). Of course, this design suckiness was conveniently labeled as satire. After all, what better way to showcase sucky websites than via a sucky website of your own? Indeed.

Are you starting to see the beauty of the plan?

Per the site:

My method is to show you bad design techniques so you’ll realize what they are and not use them.

Uh huh. It all started to make sense now. Vincent had managed to pull off the ultimate feat of entrepreneurship – he made money skewering the work of others, while having no notable skills (or product) of his own.

Just like a movie critic. Or a politician.

Lest you believe I think unkindly of Mr. Flanders, know that I do not. His business is a perfect example of head-slapping “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” genius. My hat, if only I wore one, would be off to the man. Respect and admiration, sir. Seriously.

Now, the first path to a successful business, as I understand it, is to come up with a great “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” idea.

Lacking that, I must proceed on the second path to a successful business, which is to figure out how to rip off the guy who came up with the “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” idea.

This imagined scheme of quitting my day job and making sweet loads of cash by mocking sucky eLearning, however, comes with a couple of serious complications.

First (and this is the big one): 99% of sucky eLearning is safely hidden from public view behind corporate firewalls (carefully guarded by sadistic, lonely, and resentful IT Nazis); firewalls that do not allow us to gaze upon the vast suckiness lurking within. Alas, the lack of a victim hinders the potential victimization.

Second: sucky eLearning is so prevalent, so homogeneous, and so painfully personal (based on one’s own suffering of said sucky eLearning over countless corporate “training” hours), the joke just wouldn’t be funny for more than a couple of minutes. If that. And I don’t think I can bank enough cash for a house on the beach in that much time.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board…