So, shameless self-endorsement over, let’s talk about gamification! In previous posts I have attempted to provide an overview of what the term means, but the problem is that gamification can actually be quite hard to define.  It doesn’t really have an OED-worthy succinct explanation, as it’s a constantly evolving collection of ideas and design theories rather than a concept with fixed parameters. But with gamification rapidly becoming a buzzword in e-learning, now seems a good time to go back to the basics and get to grips with how gamification applies to our industry. As the pro gamers preach to e-learning professionals to think more like game designers, exactly what inspiration should designers and developers be taking?

When you break it down, the structures of gamification rely on design techniques or “mechanics” taken from popular games, which have then been applied to other sectors such as social media, advertising and e-learning.  This doesn’t mean that we have to embrace a ‘shoot ‘em up’ style of systems training, but instead developers can use this collection of ideas to pick and choose the best mechanics to achieve their goals.

I am going to share with you some simple game mechanics and suggest how they might be applied to e-learning, or even to other business situations. Hopefully by the time you’ve finished reading you’ll be able to start implementing your own gamification experiments (it’s a lot easier than people think!)

Here are my 3 simple gaming mechanics:

The Appointment Dynamic

“Be at a certain place at a certain time and you will receive a certain result”

This may not sound very game-like at first, but in fact this simple concept is used almost constantly in games, and lots of other places too. When you think about it, our daily routines have conditioned us to expect certain things to happen at certain times, whether that’s our morning train pulling into the station or Eastenders coming on around teatime. Game developers have used this fundamental idea in hugely successful games such as Farmville where at regular intervals player need to complete activities in order to maintain the upkeep of their virtual farm (this game currently has over 70 million players). Another example some people may remember are the Tamagotchi toys a few years back which had people waking up at all hours of the day to pick up virtual dog…well you get the idea! It is this simple expectation of time managements that keeps people subconsciously coming back and developing regular behaviours.

Idea – When asking staff to do timesheets instead of allowing them to be filled in any time only open the programme in set windows during the day? Often the difficulty with enforcing an area like time sheet compliance is that people don’t condition it as part of their daily routine. Obviously there may be a period of pain with clashes when this gets introduced but over a few weeks habits and compliance will occur.

Achievement Badges

Games use a variety of achievement based rewards to keep users playing. This ranges from digital medals in ‘Call of Duty’ to exclusive character upgrades in ‘World of Warcraft’. This is one of the more widely recognised gamification mechanics and is used very effectively by services such as Foursquare to provide motivation for users to take desired actions. This technique works best when it’s overlaid onto a social platform, or an online game like Warcraft, as the main performance driver is not that the user can see their achievements, but that they know others will.

Idea: Why not reward positive behaviours on your company intranet by allowing employees to display achievement badges on their profiles?

In case you missed the seminar I also looked at how Accenture have been using this simple idea you can find the full story here.

Rate of variable reward

This is a concept that originated long before gamification was ever heard of. It’s also one of the most effective, as proved by its longevity. Research has shown that humans are susceptible to scenarios where there is a degree of the unknown: the best example of this is gambling and is the main reason why it can be so addictive. Some of the games that currently have the highest levels of user playtime and engagement are built around this idea . It is illustrated very well by titles such as Star Wars “ The Old Republic” which uses a sliding scale of probabilities to randomise rewards that players receive whilst playing the game and often carrying out highly repetitive tasks. So, for example, when you open a chest containing items there is a high likelihood you will receive an average one, but a slim chance you will receive something better than you expected and a minute chance that you get something amazing!

When combined with other mechanics such as progress bars this keeps players absolutely hooked, even when doing more mundane aspects of the game, because there is a chance that something extraordinary might happen. The other great thing about the game environment is that it provides developers with almost constant feedback on a mechanic like this as they can analyse the habits of players in this virtual setting, which they manage. This means they can estimate the best probabilities to keep people engaged to the highest level possible without devaluing their rewards.

Idea: If you are trying to increase participation in filling in timesheets when they are due; why not track completion rates within a certain time period (appointment dynamic) and offer a prize draw for those who have completed and passed within the window (variable reward). You could even go a step further and award each of the users who have made it into the draw a badge to display on their intranet profile…..All of sudden timesheets are the talk of the office!

So, gamification isn’t just about having fun, it’s a valuable way to engage users and achieve serious business or learning objectives. The mechanics that I have talked about here are just some of the more common techniques that those sneaky game designers use to keep people coming back time after time. There are many more elaborate ones but hopefully these are enough to get started!

Stay tuned for more ideas around gamification and have a look at some in action from our latest show case at Learning Technologies "The Bribery Act Challenge"

The Bribery Act Challenge Login

Saffron Interactive is proud to once again be a main sponsor and exhibitor at the Learning and Technologies Conference, Europe’s leading showcase of technology-supported workplace learning. Visit us at Stand 33 to meet the team and try the Bribery Act Challenge! The exhibition is free to attend on January 25th and 26th  at Olympia 2, London, and there is still time to register for a ticket. Click here for more details.

We have exciting plans for this year’s event:

The Bribery Act Challenge Gamification – the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences – is set to be one of the fastest growing areas in L&D this year. We’ve created a mobile app that brings together our ideas on serious games, best practice in mobile learning and delivering effective assessment, using the Bribery Act for illustration. Use your own mobile device to connect to the wireless network on our stand or use our mobile devices to take the challenge. You can even follow the leader board to see if you have the highest score!

Conference special guest speaker Jonathan Garrett, Head of Sustainability at Balfour Beatty, will explain how the organisation’s sustainability programme changed hearts and minds. Saffron Interactive’s ground-breaking e-learning which aims to persuade over 50,000 learners globally, speaking a variety of languages and from a wide range of backgrounds, to commit to a more sustainable way of living and working. Conference delegates can hear the Balfour Beatty story on floor 2, 26th January at 2pm. 

Visit us on stand 33 to see how our innovative approaches can change behaviours and improve performance at your organisation.

Competition: Win a Sony S Android tablet! “A top-quality tablet, with a thoughtful design and a host of useful software and extras” says PC Pro magazine. We have one of these game-changing tablets to give away to the winner of our ‘Gamification Survey’. Conference delegates will receive their entry slip at the start of the day with their welcome pack from the show organisers.

To be in with a chance of winning please hand these in to us on Stand 33.

Free seminar : Game On or Game Over?

Waiting to be convinced that gamification is right for your company? Or maybe you just want to find out more about the possibilities of this exciting new trend? In two seminars Alex Webb and Nick Baum from Saffron will conduct a live and lively debate on the pros and cons of gamification for workplace learning. Whether you’re a gamification guru or a complete novice, this promises to be an informative and playful session!

Times:

25th January at 12.15pm, Theatre 8, Learning and Skills Exhibition (lower floor)

26th January at 2pm, Theatre 1, Learning Technologies Exhibition (upper floor)

 If you would like to arrange a chat with us over the course of the event please get in touch. We look forward to seeing you in Kensington Olympia next week!

 National Plain English Day, which took place at the tail end of last year, saw The Plain English Campaign’s ardent members shredding jargon-filled documents to mirror the event which took place on Parliament Green in Westminster in 1979, at its founding. 

Photo of original shredding, taken from www.plainenglish.co.uk

 But it wasn’t only the Plain English Campaign that stepped in to defend us from the gobbledygook clotted annals of the public information machine last year. Indeed, back in April, one of the Saffron IDs blogged about Orwell’s six rules of simple English, providing tips for how to improve the language used in e-learning courses. Another of my colleagues sent me an article on the topic by Dan Pallotta, from the Harvard Business Review. Through the link, you can cast your vote for your ‘all-time worst business buzzword’- at the moment, ‘thinking outside the box’ is winning and it’s due to the ubiquitous use of terms like these that Dan bemoans how he doesn’t ‘understand what anyone is saying anymore.’ He’s not alone. More and more bloggers, journalists and TV presenters are starting to talk about the terrible state of language in the workplace.

 Of course, this debate didn’t begin in 2011. The host of ‘tone of voice’ and writing consultancy firms that promise to banish jargon from your corporate culture for good haven’t popped up overnight. One Independent columnist wrote back in 2007: ‘I think my choice of word for banning would be "workshop."’ Other terms that get poo-pooed in the article are ‘elephant in the room’, ‘it’s not rocket science’, ‘push the needle’, ‘shoot the puppy’, ‘touch base’, ‘hit the ground running’, ‘mentoring’, ‘heads up’, ‘solutions’ and ‘get our ducks in a row.’ My favourite example of this trend towards jargon busting comes from a man quoted in a newspaper article on the topic, who shall remain un-named:

"Anyone who uses the word ‘workshop’ who isn’t connected with light engineering is a w***er."

Why does non plain English usage generate such hostility? Is it because it makes people feel stupid? Or is it because it divides people into in-groups (those who know the jargon) and out-groups (those that don’t)? Language certainly can be divisive. It was one of the catalysts for the Protestant Reformation, has caused controversy in Irish courts when defendants have asked for the right to give evidence in Irish and creates a lamentable division along social lines (think of the ‘common flower girl’ who passes as a ‘Lady’ by changing her accent). Whatever the reasons, I’m not sure that I agree that all jargon is meaningless and am uncomfortable with the Plain English Campaign’s ‘purification’ tactics or the idea of ‘banning’ words from our language.

Dan Pallotta is surely right when he says that the over-use of jargon in the workplace means that he, and perhaps many others, don’t understand a lot of what’s being said anymore. But jargon is only jargon if you don’t know what it means. The feeling of bewilderment that Dan describes in his blog is usually caused when people use language without considering their audience, as the Plain English Campaign rightly acknowledges in its aim to rid all public communication of jargon. Whilst we might not thank our doctor for telling us that the pain in our chest is caused by aortic calcification we wouldn’t object if our doctor reported a diagnosis of aortic calcification on the prescription that you’ll hand to the pharmacist.

But perhaps this is an unfitting metaphor. After all, aortic calcification is a precise term that refers to an equally precise problem. Business-speak’s many detractors would say that terms like ‘joined up thinking’ and ‘moving forward’ are general terms used precisely when people don’t really know what they mean or what they want to say. But I might have to disagree, at least in part. As cringe inducing as terms like ‘joined up thinking’, ‘pushing the envelope’, ‘deep dive’ and ‘off the shelf’ are, they do seem to mean something to the community of people who uses them. In which case, as long as it’s kept within the office, business speak might aid as opposed to hinder understanding.

Plus, is business-speak any more cringe inducing than some of the plain English that seems to be replacing it? Take Innocent’s brand literature as a case in point. Their fruit smoothie bottles tell you to ‘shake it up baby’ before drinking and promises to always eat its greens. I don’t want my fruit smoothie to have a personality. We’re grown ups and it’s belittling. Pret’s ‘hello I’m your new toastie, please eat me’ packaging is even worse.

I don’t disagree with the Plain English Campaign’s original complaint, but it seems that we’ve gone from one extreme to another when it comes to the language used in public communication. I don’t want to be spoken to by HMRC’s disembodied cipher or a personified toastie. Here’s to hoping that 2012 brings a new, more moderate, use of the English language. 

The Spirit of Christmas Plagiarism

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little blog, to raise the Ghost of an Idea …*

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, 2012 is the year of Charles Dickens’ 200^th birthday. Part of his enduring celebrity is due to modern readers being able to relate to themes discussed almost two centuries ago. Tiny Tim going hungry at Christmas still tugs on the heartstrings, while Pip’s love/hate relationship with Estella wouldn’t seem out of place on Eastenders. One of the most recognisable parts of A Christmas Carol is Scrooge’s unwilling journey of self discovery by looking at his past, present and future – I think we can all gain some insight by taking a step back and examining where we’re going and where we came from.

So, with my nightcap firmly in place (and no sign of the Muppets), let me persuade you to take a well-earned break from your mince pies and I’ll take you on a journey through the spectres of e-learning past, present and future … 

 Self examination – is it always a jolly affair?

Chapter Two

Click to Continue’s ghost and the haunted present.

Looking back on some of the earliest e-learning courses, it’s hard not to laugh at the rudimentary ‘interactions’ and dull narration. We’ve come a long way from clicking to continue on every page, or from thinking that a clip art course guide is the best way to engage learners. 

But the scary part is that some of these elements haven’t yet been stamped out. In an age where nearly all of us use a computer, is it really necessary to have an instruction page detailing how to use an online course? I think most of us can work out that clicking the sound icon will turn the audio on, and that the home button will take us to the homepage – after all, these mirror the websites, games and applications that we use every day.

Another element that I feel is stuck in the past is the linear structure of a lot of e-learning courses. In our ‘on-demand’ society, we are used to being able to pick and choose the information that we need, whether that’s from YouTube tutorials or Wikipedia. So why do we ask learners to trawl through content that they may already be familiar with so that they can get to the part that interests them? Sometimes it’s because the project sponsor wants their employees to cover everything on a topic, but I still think there are better ways around this. Instead of having module one working through to module five, how about letting the learner choose what they do first? That way users can focus on their priorities, which is more efficient for the business as essential skills can be learnt more quickly, and learners are less likely to lose patience with the course. 

Chapter Three

Look to the future, it’s only just begun?  

"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good … I am prepared to bear you company.”

Once again, A Christmas Carol hits the nail on the head. The future is frightening. How are we going to make use of all this new technology (which is constantly evolving) without looking gimmicky? How can we keep e-learning fresh and exciting? But the race to keep up with innovation is definitely a good thing for us – it pushes us to new limits of design and structure, and will lead to bigger and better e-learning.

One trend that is currently doing the rounds is ‘gamification’ (for more on this, see Alex’s earlier blog). Although some project sponsors may be sceptical of the educational value of game based learning, I think that we’re more than able to respond to a format that truly allows users to take control. If you consider how many button combinations and complicated tactics users of Skyrim learn during the course of a game, I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to imagine we can use that enjoyment driven learning in an online course. In fact, we’re currently working on a Bribery Act e-learning ‘game’ which will be showcased at this year’s LT Show, which uses branching scenarios to create a ‘choose your own adventure’ style progression. Bad choices have in-game consequences, which is much more enjoyable and therefore potentially more effective than the standard ‘That’s not quite right …’

So let’s learn from our past, keep an eye on what we can make use of in the present, and aim for a truly engaging e-learning future.

Merry Christmas to all! 

 Okay, maybe I lied about there being no Muppets in this blog …

 *All quotes in italics from A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. 

Some e-learning blogs include tips such as ‘use handwritten style fonts to make your e-learning engaging’ – but surely that’s like saying someone is interesting and likeable because they have a nice haircut? Effective graphic design and the overall presentation can make a course more user-friendly and visually exciting. However it’s a course’s voice and personality which can truly engage the learner.

Here are my five steps to engaging your learner by creating a distinct personality in an e-learning course.

1. Create a personality for the voice of the course at the beginning of the design process, rather than trying to ‘inject’ personality further down the line

If you’re at the stage where you’re adding in handwritten style fonts, it’s a bit late – the instructional design, graphic design and development need to work together to create a believable personality.

2. Set the right tone

The course speaks to your learner and aims to hold their attention for up to sixty minutes, so the tone of voice needs to be just right. Too patronising or ‘out there’ (picture someone who has drunk far too much at the office party) and your learner will cringe away. Too stuffy and formal and your learner will feel like they’re reading from a textbook, and who really remembers the order of the elements on the periodic table?

Write how you speak… It’s OK to begin sentences with ‘And’ and ‘But’.

3. Go beyond writing in the first or second person – create a person

Clark and Mayer’s theory states that personalisation ‘induces learners to engage with the computer as a social conversational partner’[1]. Would you listen to someone who comes across as arrogant, dull and perhaps even a bit thick? Probably not. Create a social conversational partner that will engage your learner – someone they wouldn’t mind sitting next to at the Christmas do!

4. Agree your style guidelines

Turn your course’s personality traits into some style rules. Imagine how your social conversational partner might speak, so instead of ‘Course objectives’ introductory screens could begin with ‘What’s coming up’. Instructional design and graphic design need to agree on these style points before you write the course, as the writing tone, images of the course guide and the overall design need to be consistent. And if your learning solution is a blend you’ll need the involvement of, say, the classroom trainer and the social media expert.

5. Avoid Bieber-esque slip-ups… check the details!

I’m sure Biebs’ PR team isn’t too happy about the allegations that a fan is pregnant with his child. This supposed dalliance just doesn’t fit his carefully constructed butter-wouldn’t-melt persona. Avoid pulling a Bieber and instead take inspiration from Innocent, the smoothie-maker and brand language God which carries its distinctive tone of voice through from website to ingredients lists on product labels.

Check your style is consistent at every level – don’t lose your learner by overlooking details such as the style of the audio voiceover and check the writing style right down to image captions and launch page text. After all, you wouldn’t want your Christmas party outfit to be let down by laddered tights.

As instructional designers, our primary responsibility is to bring about behavioural change, thereby, hopefully, also providing sufficient return on investment for our clients. At the same time, most of us are also looking to maximize our profits. So we need to strike a perfect balance between a good product that does not exceed budgets and a product that gets the job done: in short, the minimum we can do to get the maximum.

Where does that leave quality? Out in the open, in some cases, I’m afraid. If the client is happy, and we get our money, we seem to think of it as a job well done. Now, here comes the middle-path bit (let it not be said I didn’t warn you!)… that’s not enough! As conscientious professionals, it is our responsibility to ensure that we provide a learning experience that the learner can enjoy.

Top Tips:

• Quality is not about quantity: more interactions do not make for better quality
• Visually stimulating products need to be backed up by well-thought out content chunks

A patient walks into the doctor’s chamber and advises the doctor on what line of treatment he would prefer. Alternatively, if you prefer scenario two, the farm owner walks into the office of the investment banker and advises him where he should invest the firm’s money.

If you think both are perfectly normal, then you may as well stop reading here – I’ve failed to make a point and there’s nothing more in this blog for you. However, if these two instances do strike you as a tad out of the ordinary, then I have a question for you: When it comes to instructional design, why is it that the clients often decide on what’s best?

Some instructional designers are quite happy to let a course go the way it is provided the client is happy. What’s wrong with that? Well, I’ve seen screens with visuals that make no sense, interactive screens with over 50 clicks that do not make one iota of difference to the outcome of the course, screens with amounts of text that would make even the great Leo Tolstoy cringe, and sentences that are longer and even more convoluted than this one!

Why we should treasure it:

• It’s fast. Articulate isn’t part of the ‘rapid authoring tool’ family for nothing.

• Unlike Adobe Flash, output in Articulate interactions have Flash content, and launch in Flash player, but this Flash content is self contained, and ‘invisible’ to the user. All you need to remember is that Flash player must be installed when running the course. Simple as.

• It’s familiar. Remember when Microsoft Office first erupted onto the scene, and we all had to learn how to incorporate PowerPoint into our business meetings? The part of us that wilted as we realised that the childish fun flipchart doodles provided was no more? Now PowerPoint has come of age, and we bow our heads in respect, at this simple but mighty tool proudly presents itself as the plug-in template for Articulate presenter. Operating in the exact same way as PPT, changing text, player templates and colour schemes couldn’t be easier.

• It’s straightforward. Building basic interactions in Articulate’s Engage and Quizmaker applications is really simple. Forget about HTML programming, because with Articulate non-developers can literally select which interactions they want to integrate from drag and drop, to multi-choice questions and just type or copy in whatever questions, options or feedback they want. The ‘more complicated’ stuff, like importing audio is really just as easy.  You import audio’ in almost the same way as you would upload a file or image in PPT. It looks professional – complex even – and it takes just minutes to build.

Why we should banish it:

• It’s tedious. If you need to make a change to interactions in the course, such as the amount of attempts users are allowed when answering questions, you can’t make a universal change – the developer must go through each slide and check that elements are checked/unchecked in the toolbar or change menu. An ‘apply to all’ function would really help here, and quicken the pace, too.
• ‘Hidden’ applications are also common. There have been times where I have selected “3 points” to reward correct responses in interactions, only to find that I have to select this application somewhere else as well, in order for the change to take effect. Having to trawl through different menus to check this adds time to development, and is rather frustrating, when one check-box enabling or disabling a function would be adequate.

• It’s so elusive! We have experienced issues with projects that we’ve developed in Articulate. Audio transcripts will disappear from some notes tabs when published and transcripts appear in other slides where there is no audio.

However, the difficult, and most time consuming aspect of these issues, is that they surface on some computers, and not others. Even after checking browser and Flash player settings and versions, these issues can dodge diagnostics by picking and choosing when they will replicate on other stations. It has been a notorious issue, one which we have solved by calling in the big dogs: the Articulate engineers themselves. Interestingly, the engineer told me that the issue I was facing is a known (and underpublicized) fault with the software which Articulate has so far been unable to fix. After a great deal of searching, I found the work-around for this issue on the Articulate website but alas, it didn’t work! 110 dollars later, the engineer was more than happy to talk me through an improved version of the work-around. All this extra work wreaks havoc on project budgets and can test even the best client relationships. My only question now is, will Articulate’s solution (when it arrives) be available as a free update or will we all have to purchase a new and improved version of the software? Fortunately, you can get around some of these bugs by developing your own player template in Flash, rather than using Articulate’s default template. We’ve used our own customised player template with much success – it looksand works better. And if you build your quiz and interaction screens in Flash too then you can avoid some of the other problems that I’ve outlined above. But then one gets to wondering: if most of the course is built in Flash, then why bother with Articulate at all? From our client’s perspectives, one of Articulate’s key virtues is that it allows them to easily edit the course in-house. But the more Flash based content you use, the less editable the course becomes. So there it is – the good and the bad. Articulate can be a great tool when you’ve got the time, budget and patience. Otherwise it might leave you feeling as if you’ve bitten into a poisoned apple – more than you could chew. Of course, in real life, it’s not as simple as ‘banishing’ a programme, or an important piece of software, no matter how much we sometimes might want to. And there are some extremely useful and detailed user manuals out there which can help non-developers through the vast majority of issues, step by step. But for now I’ll retire to my mystical world, a lost heroine dreaming for a hundred years, about Articulate…or maybe just until Monday.

Current vacancies

Office Administrator This role is responsible for dealing with all HR and accounts administration, working closely with the wider office team and providing office management for the whole company.The successful candidate will be focused, driven, have great attention to detail and be able to deal with competing priorities in a calm way. In return you can look forward to being an important part of a vibrant team in an exciting, dynamic environment.  Click here to download the full job profile with details of responsibilities and required skills, competencies and experience. To apply please send a copy of your CV and a cover letter to recruitment@saffroninteractive.com.

Instructional designer This is a unique and highly challenging role that is integral to the successful delivery of projects. It combines project management and client liaison responsibilities with creative and quality assurance responsibilities. You will lead the development and delivery of training courses and business communications, acting as a content consultant for clients by analysing their requirements and authoring the solutions. Click here to download the full job profile with details of responsibilities and required skills, competencies and experience. To apply please send a copy of your CV and a cover letter to recruitment@saffroninteractive.com.

Team leader and instructional designer This exciting, challenging role involves leading a team in the development and delivery of training courses and business communications. You will be involved in resource planning, process improvement and the development of junior team members, in addition to managing and authoring your own client projects. You’ll be working on multiple projects across a variety of subjects and sectors, whilst also forging a strong team environment and giving and receiving regular constructive feedback. Click here to download the full job profile with details of responsibilities and required skills, competencies and experience. To apply please send a copy of your CV and a cover letter torecruitment@saffroninteractive.com. 

Here are my top tips!

• Don’t be put off: Everyone has their own way of learning – don’t take people’s engagement with these devices as a sign of not listening to what you’re saying.
• Recognise and embrace the existence of these tools: Even if you would rather that people didn’t tweet during your talk, the chances are that they will! Rather than seeing this as an inconvenience, use it to get an idea of how your content was received and how you could improve in the future. Providing an official #hashtag will allow you to keep track of what was said. Have you ever wished that there were more questions at the end of your talk? Why not use your #hashtag to respond to comments and queries?

• Make your information available: Many people take lots of notes and don’t participate in discussions during talks because they are afraid of missing things. If you can direct people to an area where they can download hard copies of slides and case studies you remove this concern, leaving them free to participate.
• Structure your talks with these devices in mind: Nobody has really been trained yet in how to deal with the inclusion of these devices in their talks, so innovate! If you feel there is a 5 or 10 minute period where you need 100% attention, try saying something like “For the next 10 minutes we need devices down”. However, you should use this sparingly and explain why it’s necessary. 

• Be as engaging as possible: I admit, I’ve fiddled with my iPhone in some talks not to collate information, but simply because I found the speaker boring! The art of being a good presenter could fill a whole new article, but I will share one great technique I was taught at Reuters; ask one question to the audience for every 3 bullet points on your slide. This stops their attention slipping and can take the presentation in interesting new directions. If you keep your listeners on their toes they are less likely to become immersed in Twitter and more likely to be engaged in what you want to talk about.

Interestingly the future might have presenters using features like Siri (a new set of voice activated functions on iPhone 4s) to give "shout outs" from the speaker. A certain word or phrase could trigger a response from the device instructing it to interact with other devices in the room without the presenter having to do anything other than carry on talking.  I would add as I have been working rather than queuing to get the new iPhone (as well as being stuck on a 2 year contract) this is pure speculation but I think it illustrates the point that that there is a lot of scope to further innovate in this area. QR codes also have great potential to encourage participation in talks via mobile devices. For example the polltogo tool uses QR codes to let presenters ask a question and poll their audience for answers, ratings and comments further enhancing engagement and giving valuable feedback.

If you have any tips or examples on clever ways to incorporate mobile devices and resources like Twitter into presentations I would be interested in hearing about them – please use the comment feature below this blog to share your thoughts so that we can also get input from the community at large. In the meantime, I’m off to play angry birds and check out the app store …