It may sound harsh to say that the best thing about X Factor is the ad breaks, but that’s the conclusion I’ve started to reach recently. To be fair, it hasn’t just been Jedward’s tuneless pogoing or the stress of Deadlock that has me urging on the commercials, but rather the innovative ‘brightdancing’ spots for TalkTalk which bookend the ad breaks.

If somehow you’ve avoided X Factor this year or to your dubious delight were gifted tickets to see X Factor live and haven’t seen these spots, they’re short, (mostly) viewer-made videos in which people make colourful neon shapes in the air by dancing around with their mobiles. You can see them here. All you need to make one of these videos is a PC with a webcam, a darkened room, and a small light source such as the screen of a mobile phone or a torch. When linked to the site, the webcam will record a video of you moving about with the light, and will add glowing neon trails to the path of the movement. This allows you to effectively use the light as a pen, tracing shapes that on the webcam video seem to magically hang in the air around you. When you’ve created a video you can upload it to the site, and wait with baited breath to see if it appears in the adverts next weekend!

This is a great advertising gimmick, and also highlights the power of user generated content. Apart from that, however, this promo also showcases a great new piece of technology that could have interesting implications for interactive design and maybe e-learning in particular. The brightdancing effect can be achieved using the latest versions of Flash and its 3D rendering add-on Papervision. Flash can now take a webcam feed and recognise specific shapes or colours within the image. It can then track those points as they move around. It’s clever stuff, and has at least two big areas of potential that I can see:

• Gestural control - Using webcams to pick up body movements could well be the next step in gestural control interfaces (http://www.saffroninteractive.com/2009/blog/show-your-mouse-the-finger/). This is the idea behind Microsoft’s ‘Project Natal’ - an extension of the Xbox which dispenses with controllers entirely.
• Augmented reality - While virtual reality sought to replace the real world with a fully immersive computer generated world, augmented reality seeks to enhance the real world by augmenting it with virtual elements. For example, imagine arriving at an unfamiliar street and holding up your camera phone as if to take a picture of it, with the phone’s screen acting as a viewfinder. Now imagine if that view of the street was overlaid with virtual markers and arrows showing you information about what’s on the street, such as the nearest cash machine or tube station, the bar where you’ve agreed to meet your friends, or shops that currently have sales on. Any virtual information that exists about a place can be melded with the real world space. This could apply to objects too: imagine being in a supermarket, pointing your phone at a box of cereal on the shelf and immediately seeing a warning that you’re allergic to one of its ingredients, that it can be bought 50p cheaper at the shop round the corner, or even that you already bought a box last week so you probably don’t need it.

From a training point of view this type of technology has enormous potential for on-the-spot learning. Let’s say you’re an engineer who services boilers. You get to a house one day to find a very old and unusual type of boiler that you don’t know much about. Instead of having to remember training you did 15 years ago, or calling back to the office for more information, imagine if you could hold up your mobile device to the boiler and instantly bring up its specification, a safety checklist to follow for that model, indicators showing which screws you need to loosen to get access, and which parts most commonly need replacing (along with their order number and stock availability). You could have the thing fixed before you’d even finished your first cup of tea!

At the moment these scenarios are all imagined, but the truth is it won’t be long before you start seeing this kind of thing for real. This technology may be in its infancy, but it does exist and it’s just waiting for developers to start finding uses for it. Those TalkTalk ads are just the glowing neon tip of the iceberg.

I encountered TED last year when my colleague Ali suggested: ‘Hey, check out how the octopus camouflages in this video on TED. Pretty cool!’ It was jaw-droppingly cool. In this video, David Gallo shows footage of sea creatures camouflaging themselves in spectacular ways, shifting colours and radiating neon lights in the blackest depths of the ocean. It was my first encounter with the marvellous source of knowledge and inspiration that goes under the name of TED. So, I thought it was worth sharing this discovery with those of you who are still not in love with it because, as the TED motto says, these are ‘ideas worth spreading.’

To give you a bit of background, TED (technology, entertainment, design) is a non-profit academic organisation that hosts an invitation-only conference once a year for four days, devoted to ‘leveraging the power of ideas to change the world.’ The lectures, originally based in Monterey, California, and known as ‘TED Talks’, focus on technology, entertainment, design, business and science. The speakers, who each have an 18 minute time slot, have included some of the world’s most inspired thinkers and doers such as the physicist Stephen Hawking, former vice president of the U.S. Al Gore, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, musician Peter Gabriel, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The list continues and there are more than 450 lectures available for free viewing on the TED website.

The website itself is pure and intelligent visual beauty to my designer eyes. The information and content are impeccably organised, and accessible through a clean and rational navigation. The video previews on the home page are arranged in a hierarchal way, enabling the user to filter them by category. Everything on TED seems to be put together with the aim of increasing the viewer’s comfort so that they can fully enjoy the fascinating content. I believe that its accessibility and ease of use is most attractive aspect of this website and I’m not the only one who’s impressed: these videos have recently led the TED website to win the Webby Award for Best Use of Video or Moving Image.

I’m convinced you’ll share my view after watching Ken Robinson speaking about how schools kill creativity and explaining why we desperately need an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. You might also be inspired by listening to Elizabeth Gilbert talk about nurturing creativity. Recently, I found myself captivated by the distinctive and personal way Jill Bolte Taylor talks about the human brain and perception in ‘Stroke of insight’. So, no matter what you’re into or your level of education, TED reaches and connects people, enabling us all to enjoy and share knowledge.

TED people ‘believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world; building a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration.’ I think there’s a good moral here which we can adopt – our society has been too focused on retaining and withholding knowledge in the past for personal and selfish uses. It’s now time to change to a more open and constructive approach. We’ve achieved a lot during the last century but have also compromised much with our selfishness and narrow-mindedness. From my point of view, spreading knowledge and working together is worthwhile, especially in these difficult days of economic recovery and the global challenges we all face. So, if you aren’t one of the 15 million people who have already viewed and enjoyed TED, I recommend that you give it a go and if you have any ideas to share, don’t forget that here at the Spicy Learning Blog we want to hear from you!

Effective project management is often the deciding factor when it comes to e-learning project success. Here are our top ten tips for making sure that you always deliver!

1. Have a formal project kick off
Before you start the project, make sure you understand the learning objectives, the client’s expectations, the timelines and the risks. Also make sure that the client understands the approach that you are going to take.

2. Start with the end in mind
Define the end goal and end date first and then plan backwards from this point. If you have to deliver a working course by 20 March, when do you need the pilot? If the pilot is needed by 12 February, when do you need the first build?

3. Keep it simple
Your instinct may be to use a Microsoft project plan – resist this at all costs. Create a simple table of deliverables and feedback dates – something that is easy to maintain and easy to understand. 

4. Take an ‘it’s either done or it’s not done’ approach
Track your project using milestones – tangible deliverables which are either done or not done. Avoid using percentage complete. Ask yourself what 80% complete means, when the other 20% will be done and how much effort it will take.

5. Manage risks
The key to risk management is to ask: what could go (horribly) wrong? Once you have a list, don’t leave it in your desk draw. Actively manage it and try to mitigate the risk.

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate!
The biggest reason for project failure is lack of communication. Often people on projects just don’t talk enough, becoming overly reliant on emails, plans and reports. As a minimum, arrange weekly team conference calls or meetings. 

7. Manage the subject matter experts
Subject matter experts, who are balancing their role with their day jobs, can cause delays to your project and need to be managed. Communicate the process to them and make your expectations clear. Put your project dates in their diaries.

8. Don’t forget prototypes and pilots
Your stakeholders will really understand what you are proposing when they see it. This is a good thing and helps to narrow requirements. Therefore you should build prototypes and you should always have a pilot.

9. Don’t be shackled by the plan
Project management is a people business. Don’t spend all your time updating the plan and documenting the process. Spend your time working with your team, understanding their issues and managing the risks

10. Watch your optimism
It’s natural to be optimistic and to believe that everything will go right. Try to keep a lid on this and keep asking yourself, what could go horribly wrong and how will I manage the situation if this happens?

Download our top ten tips for managing an e-learning project

Volkswagen recently launched a website, www.thefuntheory.com, built around the idea that by adding fun into the equation it’s easier to change people’s behaviour for the better. In their own words…

“This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.”

To back up this idea, VW decided to re-think three everyday tasks and inject their own brand of fun into the situation to see if they could achieve a positive change. The projects they decided to undertake were to change a bottle bank into an arcade machine, a subway staircase into a musical instrument and a public bin into “the world’s deepest bin”. The results of each project have been documented on video and can been seen on the Fun Theory website. Having seen the videos and knowing how the projects turned out for VW it’s clear to see that an element of fun really can help achieve a change in behaviour. (Although I think that the novelty of the musical staircase would probably be outweighed by the rise in complaints about the noise and injuries cased during rush hour!)

For VW, the Fun Theory website acts as a positive influence on their brand name even though it doesn’t have any real relevance to the world of automobiles or their day-to-day business. This is not always the case when you are trying to change behaviours in other lines of business, but that is not to say that it cannot be achieved! The same technique can be seen in many other businesses. For instance lots of energy companies are now trying to push the use of real-time energy monitors to help their customers see how much energy they use. This type of interaction allows the customer to see the impact they can have by making small adjustments, turning the whole process of reducing their consumption into a challenge that the customer can track and monitor.

Another example of introducing fun can be seen in www.smart.fm, which claims to take the hard work out of learning. The service aims keep people motivated to hit their goals by creating personalised learning programmes for them. The programmes are designed to harness the powers of a learning technique called graduated interval recall, guiding the learner to revisit their learning at key points to aid the retention of the knowledge. The fun factor in this service is that you are able to monitor your progress in a variety of formats, from tracking personal goals to testing long-term retention or item memory strength, and many other formats. The whole service is also available on the move via the iPhone which again buys into the fun factor of making the service available without the need to be in front of a PC.

There are probably many other engaging examples of fun being used to change behaviours and this seems like an opportunity that’s too good for the e-learning industry to miss.

One of the biggest challenges with any project is sticking to the original plan. There’s often so much to do, often within tight timescales, and no project runs exactly as planned. There are always unexpected events that occur and throw things a little off course, which can cause delay to your project.

It can take a long time to figure out your project plan, and you’ll inevitably be keen to hit all the milestones you’ve so carefully put in place. Project managers know as well as anyone that missing deadlines - and consequently not meeting those milestones - means additional work. You may often hear “…well, we missed the sign-off by a week so we’ll just push everything else out by a week.” This is an easy conclusion to come to but actually you should first consider all possible impacts wisely before making such assumptions.

You see, missing a deadline doesn’t mean that all other milestones will automatically move out by the same amount of time. For example, say that I.T. development or a video shoot is the next milestone in your project: if your resources are ‘booked’ for a particular time period, you may well find that they can’t commit a week later due to other work. The next available slot for a video shoot with your required actors may not be possible for a while - in effect, you’ve missed your timeslot. This is why project success is quite often simply down to good planning. You must be aware of the dependencies affecting your project.

So, missing a deadline can mean a great deal more work for you as a project manager. You’ll need to review and update your project plan, request more resources, re-assess risks and issues (no doubt raising more!) and communicate the change and impact to all of the project’s stakeholders. All these tasks will be multiplied if you are juggling several projects at once, and they’ll have a definite impact on your time and project costs!

Quite often, making the project team, sponsors and stakeholders aware of the risks and consequences of missing deadlines will encourage them all to stay on track - they don’t want to delay the project any more than you do and they certainly won’t want to incur additional costs!

Part of the secret behind Saffron’s success is that we go beyond simple client and supplier relationships and instead build lasting partnerships. Here are our top ten tips for building relationships that last.

1. Be prepared
Before the project initiation meeting, find out all there is to know about the client and why they want to use e-learning. Familiarise yourself with any material provided, prepare some key questions and greet the client with a smile!

2. Listen and learn
Whilst you may have some great ideas, take the time to listen to what your client wants. By really understanding why they think a particular solution will benefit their company, you’ll be showing them that you’re someone they can trust.

3. Remember, it’s good to talk
Frequent communication is the key to a strong client relationship. Hold weekly calls to catch up on the project’s progress and try to meet face to face as often as possible - we’ve found it’s invaluable in forging trust and confidence.

4. Don’t forget - your clients have day jobs too!
It’s easy to forget that your client may not be focused on your project nine ‘til five, five days a week. Bear this in mind when planning timelines, and work with the stakeholders to build in realistic review times that work for them.

5. Blitz the jargon
A confused client is a concerned client. Always explain terms and concepts associated with e-learning and make sure that the client fully understands the processes you will be using throughout the project’s lifespan.

6. Go back to basics
Your client may never have seen a storyboard before and may have no idea how a static PowerPoint slide or Word document translates into interactive material. Explain everything and guide them through your vision of the course.

7. Provide iterative releases
An interim storyboard or Flash release of one unit not only helps the client to see how the content is being brought to life at an early stage but also offers them the chance to make changes without causing delays to the overall project.

8. Involve the right people at the right time
The technology behind an e-learning course can seem daunting for non technical people. Contact the LMS team directly to arrange early testing and try to resolve any technical issues without involving the entire client team.

9. Be close at hand
One of the most frustrating things about project management is not having contact details at your finger tips. Help your clients out by always including yours in your email signature - not only is it useful but it looks professional too.

10. Look to the future
The client relationship shouldn’t end when the project is completed. By keeping in touch to monitor how the course performs you’re also keeping the door open for any future opportunities to work together again.

Download our top ten tips for building lasting client relationships