I have no idea whether this will work, but given the sorts of things that I write about here at Mission to Learn—including a recent posting on product promotion—I feel compelled to experiment from time to time to keep up with what is going on “out there.” So, you will see the occasional widget pop up here, and I continue to use things like Google ads and Amazon’s affiliate program, just to know how they work and to get a feel for the kind of results they are capable of producing (which so far are not likely to lead to retirement, of even a cup of coffee, anytime soon).

I suspect more than a few readers will recognize the title of this posting as a reference to the (appropriately) ubiquitous Seth Godin’s concept of the ideavirus.  Sneezers are typically people who take up your idea, product, etc and—because they feel strongly about it one way or another—spread it like an infection. Whatever its actual merits as a widget, this seems to be happening pretty well with BlogRush—many bloggers out there are telling other bloggers about it. If you are a blogger and in the mood for some experimentation, I encourage you to click through on one of the BlogRush links here (Mission to Learn gets some mysterious form of “credit” for this) and give it a try. I’ll keep you posted on the results I experience.

And whether or not you are a blogger, if you are finding any value in what you read here at Mission to Learn, please send a brief e-mail, an IM, a Skype message, or whatever to tell someone else about it. In other words, give it a sneeze, please.

JTC

First:

Blog Spottings and Other News
Chief Learning Officer magazine recently noted a report by Global Industry Analysts that suggests spending on e-learning is rising. Worldwide demand for online learning is expected to exceed $52.6 billion by 2010.

Another recent study by Synovate indicates that “8 out of 10 Americans know what a blog is and almost half have visited blogs.” The study also found that approximately eight percent of Americans currently have their own blog.

Now:

Promotion Potion
With online learning and blogging on the rise, one wonders when the two might blend into a perfect storm. I am no more eager to try to predict the time and place where that might occur than I am to forecast the real weather, but still there are plenty of signs to be read by those who are watching. My last posting on the Nonprofit Windfall at Work perhaps made me more alert to the use of blogs and other social media technologies as tools for promotion (as in one of the 4Ps of marketing) and thus caused me to tune in more acutely than I might have otherwise to what is currently under way on Karl Kapp’s blog (and, by extension, a significant group of other blogs).

I follow Karl’s writing on e-learning, and particularly his postings on Second Life as an online learning platform, with some regularity, and I had noticed that he had a new book coming out titled Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning. Last week I also noticed that he had a book tour beginning. Nothing unusual there: Authors routinely go on tour to promote their books. It wasn’t until yesterday that I paid enough attention to realize that this is not a traditional book tour—it is a blog book tour.

In other words, Karl is not going anywhere. His thoughts, ideas—and, of course, his book—are, however, popping up on 14 different blogs that have agreed to be “stops” on his blog book tour. Each of the blog stops will result in at least one posting and any number of comments. In fact, they have resulted in better than that, as Karl’s review of the first week of the tour makes clear. Technorati at the moment shows 24 postings that reference “Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning” and I suspect that number is low. I also suspect it is growing at a nice pace.

I am, of course, adding to Karl’s marketing mix with this very posting. I should stress that I do not know Karl—I’ve never met him, never talked to him on the phone or e-mailed with him, never seen him present or had a class with him. But I like what he writes about e-learning, and I like the fact that he has come up with a clever approach to marketing his book that would make Seth Godin proud. So, I am happy to play the game.

Karl is not alone, it is only fair to say, in calling my attention recently to ways in which blogging can contribute productively to the marketing mix. A few weeks ago I noted the launch of The Rapid E-Learning Blog by Tom Kuhlman at Articulate Global. I noticed a couple of days later that Brian Clark had posted How to Get 6,312 Subscribers to Your Business Blog in One Day on copyblogger. Turns out that Articulate is a client of Brian’s and he was the marketing mind behind the launch of the The Rapid E-Learning Blog. As much as the company may want to provide value to its customers and potential customers through the blog, it is ultimately concerned with selling software licenses just as Karl Kapp’s tour is concerned with selling books. Having watched the development of the blog over the past few weeks, I suspect that Articulate will ultimately be very pleased with the results it produces.

It is important to note for each of the examples above that neither is a case of pure promotion. Each promotional strategy generates value in its own right and each will be fully successful only to the extent that the underlying product to which it relates delivers a high quality customer experience. I am already learning from the various posts about Karl’s book, and while I have not yet read Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning (though plan to), I have no doubt from Karl’s previous work that I will learn a great deal from it. Similarly, even though The Rapid E-learning Blog has a profit-hungry corporation standing behind it (relatively inconspicuously), anyone who has spent time on it over the past few weeks knows that Tom Kuhlman is providing truly useful content to those who are interested in rapid online learning development. It provides a great complement to a suite of online learning software products with which, in my experience, customers are very pleased.

So, if you are in the process of launching a new online learning initiative or trying to get more traction for one you have already launched, I leave you to consider the examples above from the book and software promotion world. Consider if and where a blog strategy might fit into your marketing mix, and let me know if you manage to conjure the perfect storm.

JTC

"Gadgets, Games, and Gizmos for Learning"  "Rapid E-learning"

First:

Relevant to my main post today, I noticed on The Bamboo Project that Marketing Pilgrim has posted Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Tools You Must Have.

Also relevant to my post today, I learned at Associated Knowledge that Read/Write Web is running a series called Is the Web Still a Windfall for Nonprofits?. The title references a 2004 Wired article titled For Nonprofits, Web Is a Windfall.

Now:

If you are Mothers Against Drunk Driving or the American Red Cross (both referenced in the Wired article), you are the equivalent in the nonprofit world of a top 40 album or a New York Times best seller—products that get all the attention in the traditional bricks and mortar retail world. Attracting attention and support is, relatively speaking, no problem. If, on the other hand, you are a small nonprofit with a limited staff, you are probably trying to make things work out in the outer reaches of what Wired editor Chris Anderson has immortalized as the long tail. Organizations like these are arguably ones that benefit most from what Wired characterizes as a “windfall” (in spite of that story’s focus on name-brand nonprofits). What follows is brief look at an organization out on the long tail.

***

This past weekend I attended Spinning the Web: Politics in the Internet Age, a day-long educational program held by the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership (IOPL), of which I am a fellow. For a small, non-partisan organization dedicated to improving “the overall quality of political and governmental leadership in North Carolina” this was a significant, and relatively cutting edge event.

Like many so many smaller nonprofit organizations, IOPL exists to a large extent because of the hard work and dedication of a single individual, Walt DeVries—a name to which the adjective “legendary” is routinely attached in certain circles. Walt stepped down as executive director a few years back, and the organization has gone through some soul searching and even a brief hiatus from offering its program in the time since. This weekend’s event represented a re-birth of sorts.

And a noteworthy event it was. There were three panels—The New Online Campaign, Web Tools for Political Reporting, and Blogs and the Political Conversation—and these were populated not only by notable locals, but also by nationally-recognized figures like Zephyr Teachout (of Howard Dean campaign fame) and Mary Katherine Ham of Townhall.com. All and all, I walked away feeling a good bit more knowledgeable and quite impressed.

As I searched the Web this week for follow-up, it was good to see that this event, which offered quite a lot of educational value, was generating at least a bit of buzz to help extend that value, attract a bit of attention to the organization, and perhaps help boost future sponsorship of IOPL’s programs. Here is some of what I found:

• Searches on Google and Technorati revealed that the event had been picked up by a couple of blogs (EdCone.com, and BlueNC) before hand with much heated back and forth regarding it sponsorship—rightly so, in my opinion.
• It got picked up afterwards by at least three blogs, EdCone.com (again) , The Conservative Alternative, and Under the Dome.
• Snippets of video from the event have been parsed out and made available on The Locker Room blog as has access to the full video of event.

The New Online Campaign
Web Tools for Political Reporting
Blogs and the Political Conversation

This is all great, but it left me with few thoughts on the possibilities and perils of the Web for a small nonprofit hosting an event like this.

• First, while the blog coverage the event received is welcome, there could have been significantly more. At least six of the presenters at the event have blogs, but only two of them reference the event. A mention on Zephyr Teachout’s blog or Townhall.com would be a nice boost for IOPL, but at the very least, more could have been done to engage North Carolina bloggers before during and after the event. A list of bloggers to potentially notify of the event could easily have been generated with some searching on Technorati.
• IOPL could do more with its own Web site to promote the event and shape it as an ongoing resource. I know from experience that simple Web site management has traditionally been an issue for the typical small nonprofit, but given the numerous, inexpensive Software as a Service (SaaS) Web site packages now available, this is an issue that really should be behind us. Leaving aside more sophisticated approaches, simply making sure that the final agenda and speaker information for the event was posted before hand and that links to things like the videos were posted afterwards would be some very good simple moves to make.
• With respect to the perils of the “Web windfall” for an event like this, IOPL is perhaps in a trickier position than most nonprofits. The organization proclaims and, really, depends upon a non-partisan standing when soliciting donors. The underwriting of this particular event by one of North Carolina’s most conservative think tanks clearly poses the danger of compromising IOPL’s non-partisan positioning—as reflected in the heated comments at BlueNC, for those who take the time to read them. Again, engaging the bloggers before during and after—which, to be clear, does not mean attempting to influence or coerce them or, in general “spin” the message, as the unfortunate title of the event would suggest—could help significantly on this point, as could more focused and thorough attention to the event on the IOPL Web site.

Given this mild dose of what I hope is constructive criticism, I should stress that I am thrilled to see that IOPL seems to be emerging into a second life of sorts. I hope that some of the points above will prove useful to smaller nonprofits hoping to generate additional value via the Web for their educational events. Even more could be done than is suggested here—blogging, for instance, is far from the only social media tool that could be applied—but I know that for IOPL and many other organizations, consistently executing on simpler steps is a more realistic starting point.

I welcome comments from users with other suggestions for IOPL or who can offer examples of other organizations that are using (or could be using) the Web to leverage their educational events. Also, my call for Purple Cows on nonprofit online learning continues. I know they are out there. Please read the Purple Cow posting and submit any examples you have.

JTC

First:

Blog Spottings and Other News

As I have mentioned before on Mission to Learn, how to market and sell e-learning is one of the main areas of concern for my clients. While not specific to online learning (or any other product or service, for that matter), what Seth Godin has to say about marketing in general is worth reading and applying to your e-learning marketing efforts. I’ve mentioned his Purple Cow concept elsewhere. More recently, Godin has jumped on the customer evangelism bandwagon and published a new e-book called Flipping the Funnel. I recommend this as well his recent posting on The Scarcity Shortage . Nonprofit readers may also appreciate the take on this concept at What is Scarce in Advocacy and Campaigns?

Speaking of Purple Cows. I’d like to renew my general call for Purple Cows of the nonprofit online learning world. See E-learning: Where are the Nonprofit Purple Cows, post your examples, and please spread the word.

Now:

Second Life Second Hand

I have been planning for some time now to explore and write about Second Life, but one thing or another has held me back. For those unfamiliar with it, Second Life is a 3D virtual world, or multi-user virtual environment (M.U.V.E) in which participants literally set up a “second life,” complete with a new, virtual identity, and interact with other users in many of the same ways that people interact in a real world, i.e., buying things, selling things, socializing, teach, learning, and so on (with “and so on” including some of the inevitable shadier sides of the Web).

Not the least of the factors holding me back from exploring Second Life has been the sheer amount of time and effort that doing so in any depth would seem to require. I have enough going on in my first life without trying to maintain a second one. Still, the enticement has been strong. When I noticed that Brandon Hall had set up a research office in Second Life I almost made the leap. And when I saw that Karl Kapp was conducting a summer class on Learning in 3D. I was once again almost lured into the light. But still I clung to this life.

Recently I began to think that perhaps my doubts have been justified. In August, Wired published an article portraying Second Life as a virtual wasteland –one that is “slurping up corporate dollars and delivering little in return.” To add insult to injury, Chris Anderson, who is both the acclaimed author of The Long Tail and the Wired editor who commissioned the article, roundly dissed Second Life in a recent posting on his blog and has closed down the magazine’s virtual office there. In the world of higher learning, the Chronicle of Education’s Wired Campus blog has picked up on the debate and is asking what value is being realized by the more than 100 colleges that have set up a presence in Second Life are realizing.

At this point, it might be wiser to join the doubters, spare myself the time and effort of a closer look at Second Life, and move on to other topics. The problem is that much of the debate sparked by Wired, Anderson, the Chronicle and others misses the mark. As some of the commentators on Anderson’s blog have noted (rightly, in my opinion) the Long Tail author himself discounts the potentially large long tail impact of Second Life. Perhaps more importantly from the perspective of education, however, Second Life at this point is primarily an event-driven medium. While it may aspire to being a culture and an economy (and with more than 9 million users, it may be making some progress), what appears to work best there right now is a virtualization of that classic human communication modality—the meeting. Corporations (the main stakeholders addressed in the Wired article) that are expecting big marketing returns and universities that are expecting to build a virtual campus life are almost certain to be disappointed in the short term.

This is not to say that Second Life does not resonate well beyond the virtual walls of a single event, particularly when other social media tools or Second Life-friendly techniques like machinima are used along with it. Indeed, at this point, it probably works best as an educational medium when blended with these other tools. In any case, given the amount of traffic I have seen on the education listserv for Second Life (up to volume 459 as of this posting), what appears to be solid interest in the education track at the Second Life annual conference (37 paper submissions), and a vibrant emerging discussion of the pedagogical value of the 3D medium (see more Karl Kapp, for instance, as well as a recent posting on Educause’s HiredEd blog there appears be ample interest in the potential value of Second Life for learning, if not for marketing.

Of course, whether Second Life itself will ultimately be the delivery medium in which new pedagogical approaches are realized is an open question. A recent posting at TeleRead asks “Could it be, as some have suggested, that you should consider Second Life to be just a set of training wheels for less proprietary alternatives?“ I won’t pretend to have an answer to that one yet, but I am convinced my original plan to explore Second Life first hand is still worth pursuing. As of this posting, I have created my virtual identity (to be revealed at a later time) and am in the process of tricking out my avatar. Stay tuned for dispatches from the virtual frontier soon.

JTC

Books mentioned in this posting:

First:

Blog Spottings and Other News

While it would have been a great item to work into my Connections and Comparisons post last week, I found out (via Lisa Junker at Acronym) about Jeff De Cagna’s tag cloud comparison a bit too late to work it in. On his Principled Innovation blog, De Cagna juxtaposes two tag clouds he generated that illustrate the difference between an article he authored on association “ungovernance” and the more traditional model espoused by John Carver, a leading governance theorist. The differences are striking. Back in the days when I taught Russian, we used to say (in Russian, of course) that “Repetition is the mother of learning.” Perhaps comparison is the father.

There is a free Chief Learning Officer Webinar coming up on September 6 at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern that may be of interest to some readers. The Webinar will address “the issues of the digital environment and the impact on the marketplace raised in Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail,” the discussion will focus on what you can do to keep your learning organization prepared in a world of constantly evolving information.”

Now:

Where are the Nonprofit Purple Cows?

Purple Cow. I have been familiar with this concept of marketing guru Seth Godin’s for some time, but only recently did I take the time to read the full text of his book Purple Cow. For those unfamiliar with it, Godin’s term was inspired by a family drive through France in which everyone was “enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing on picturesque pastures right next to the highway.” As captivating as the cows were at first, however, they soon became ordinary, boring. This leads Godin to muse about the possibility of a Purple Cow—now wouldn’t that be remarkable. Purple Cow is an argument for creating products that are not just good, or even very good, but remarkable.

It’s easy to argue that the Purple Cow concept is just a new take on the 4 Ps of marketing, rather than a new P, as Godin claims, or that it is just a revamp of the old idea of a unique selling proposition. But that would be missing the point (or perhaps it is the point). More than anything else, a book like this should cause you to stop and think about the state of products and services in your own field. What are the remarkable products and services, if any? Which organizations stand out as really doing something exceptional for their members, customers, or other stakeholders? How can your organization create a Purple Cow?

In the field in which I do much of my work—online learning for nonprofit organizations—visibility into the remarkable is remarkably limited. There are awards out there for online learning, of course. Brandon Hall Research, for instance, will soon be announcing recipients of its annual Excellence in Learning Award. Only rarely do nonprofits show up in these, however (a Bronze award to the National Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife University in 2004 is a notable exception), and I am not sure how many of the award winners truly represent what I would consider to be a Purple Cow anyway.

What I have in mind is not so much flashy e-learning that takes advantage of all of the latest media technologies or that maxes out the feature set of a learning management system or even that demonstrates all the best approaches to instructional design. No, what I am looking for is online learning that really aligns with an organization’s strategy, fits the target learner’s needs to a tee, delivers truly engaging and effective learning, and leaves the user wanting more and eager to tell others.

To be honest, I think a relatively modest initiative like GCF LearnFree, developed and managed by Goodwill Industries of Eastern North Carolina might fit the bill as well as much flashier initiatives. The site (which appropriately enough sports purple as its primary color) has attracted 285,458 members as of this posting. Remarkable! This may be because the tutorials it offers, while hardly flashy, are straightforward and effective, addressing areas of significance to the target audience, because it uses a variety of techniques to involve educators and establish a sense of community, or because it has taken the very practical step of securing IACET approval. It is no doubt because of all of these things and more.

There are others out there, grazing, mooing, standing out dramatically against the backdrop of ordinary e-learning offerings. I know some of them, and will mention them from time to time, but I know there are many I will never find. So, please consider this an official cattle call: If you know of a nonprofit online learning site you think is a Purple Cow, whether offered by a charitable organization, an association, a foundation, an advocacy group, a religious group, a political organization, or any other type of nonprofit, please post a comment with a link (if it can be accessed publicly) and any other information you can provide.

Many thanks.

JTC