The e-Altruistic Resolve

As my eyes were ambling through an e issue of The Economic Times, something caught a second glance - Sudeshna Sen’s blog titled ` Philanthropy – Take It From Me’. (http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/LettersfromLondon/entry/philanthropy-take-it-from-me)

The question in the microscope was `"Why are Indians so bad at giving?". To quote her, “The need for financial security outweighs the need to feel charitable, except for religious or economic purposes. Besides, Indians have this insane need to 'provide' for the next generation that, in turn, generates those fabulous savings rates that are the envy of the developed world. If you had to pay inheritance tax, like in UK, you wouldn't be saving up as much as you do.”

Very true, I agreed. We so much hold back from giving. While the `mango man’ might be willing to dole out money for charring crackers to glory in a local temple festival, or save up all his whittles to gold-plate his daughter on her wedding, philanthropy has always been thought of as a reprehensible act, reserved only for the pompous and flamboyant filthy rich.

Forget the real world, let’s enter the e world, and I’m sure the phenomenon is more or less the same. We almost google for help as many times as we breath… but how many times have we bothered to respond to an online help query?

The thought did not rake my head until I once tumbled over Chris Grant’s blog on digital altruism (http://chrisgrant.wordpress.com/). He describes digital altruism as “a deep-seeded need to do good in the world and how, thanks to new technologies, we can be a part of something bigger than ourselves from anywhere in the world, transcending the market and our own self-interest.” Lo and behold, the whole world is at its altruistic best, and where am I?

So yes, I belong to the major chunk of Indians who are `digital-altruistically’ impaired. I shamelessly google for help, initiate discussions, accept helpful responses from people in some other continent. But never have I bothered to give my two cents (or even a quarter!).



Time for me to emulate my teammate Sayuj, who has resolved to do as many `digital altruistic’ acts as possible during free time.
Okay… so who’s hit the help button today?

Getting Social

What is social media?

Had this been my final year exam question, five years ago, I would have bluntly replied that any media which is not anti social in its intention is social media.

But today, as a netizen trapped in the web for most of the time, I should confess, I live, breath and eat social media. Did I leave out an important fact here? Yes. Not only do I live, breath and eat social media, I also make a living with social media.
Wikipedia defines Social media as `media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues’.



That means, while tweeting or re-tweeting, writing a blog, or setting a live status message, we are breathing social media.
This certainly marks a definite shift in mass communication. While my text books told me that mass communication is predominantly one-way in nature (like, you read the newspaper, listen to radio, or watch the television) the magic spell of the `social media’ phenomenon proves the definition otherwise.

Stark statistics blare out that the world today has over 60 million bloggers. Twitter is laden with 75 million accounts. Any news website has a zillion comments and replies.

So why are all these here in my blog space? Because its time I make my elearning stuff `social media compatible’. This means wading a sayonara to bookish stuff and ushering in content that is intuitive (or seemingly intuitive).



The above content could be better presented as this –



This makes the learning process more interesting, and the content is certainly more engaging.
Quiz is yet another area where the influence of social media is strongly felt. Gone is the age when it was enough to tell the people their net score and close the module. Today, quizzes need to `talk’ with participants, giving them enough reasons to tell them why a choice is right or wrong.



LMS platforms like Moodle take the concept even more further by providing chat windows for participants / teachers to communicate.



Reminds me of 007's lines - `The world is not enough...But is is such a perfect place to start, my love!'

Getting Back to Grass Roots

Come Vijaya Dashami, and it’s time for Vidyarambham. A time to re visit alphabets, numbers and the seven music notes.

As I was scribbling the invisible alphabets in the floor, I went down two decades in the memory lane – The `era’ of my life when I used to stutter and  ponder over every alphabet. Writing each letter seemed like a mountain of a job, and my dad would be crazed with the volley of questions that I throw on  - On why `I’ cannot be written in small letters, why `A’ sounds different when used in sentences. Some would be answered, and some stonewalled.

Today, I just rush through the alphabets. No questions asked. Two decades, and am I done with the 26 alphabets? An emphatic No. Just that my curiosity to know more has acceded itself a dirty sense of complacency.



So how does this translate to my work? A conclusion is an inevitable part of an e learning course. But do we make an effort to emphasize what we told the learner a moment back? From the piles of information that we scattered, did we tell him what was really important and to be remembered?

On to a long term plan. Do we have a `semi-induction’ kit , or rather, a `reinforcement kit’ for employees?  For instance, take my own case. I work in a connector manufacturing company. I had taken lessons on the basics of connector manufacturing in my first month here.  Crossing three years, if you ask me what a terminal means, I would probably point to a bus depot. So the point is, we must re-enforce the key points on a periodic basis. As with the Vidhyarambham principle, with every year, the angle at which we look at the basics change, and therefore, will open up new insights.

BULLETED DOWN AND POINTED AT?

  My 8 month old son refuses to pick up a toy if I give it straight away. Instead, any object is sure to gain his attention if it is just kept nearby.        

 Lesson for his instructional designer mom – Never  compel your learner to READ at something. A subtle message or an indicator would do the trick.  How many times have we thrust upon the key points to the learners by those killer bullets?   

 Yes, we have been taught in schools to summarize points into neat bullets, and I still have all my nods for it. BUT, a lot of  bullets in an e learning course might just make your e learning module more effective than a sleeping pill. .    

  There could be more creative ways of nailing your learner to the e learning course than those sharp bullets.  

 RULE No. 1 – Never explain the obvious   

Our learners are not morons. They are here in the work place after completing a decent level of education. Most of them are also familiar with a PC. This means they need not be explained what a play button or volume control stands for.  Of course, we cannot over look the fact that some learners need some sort of guidance in terms of navigation. So the best option would be to make this optional.    

EXPLICIT NAVIGATION HELP = BORING        

HELP IF REQUIRED = INTERESTING        

Rule No 2 - Remember the Short Skirt 

A good speech, it’s said, should be like a short skirt – Long enough to cover the essentials and short enough to be interesting. It’s the same with e learning too. Time the course to be just long enough to cover the key learning points, and yet short enough to be sustain interest.     

  RULE No. 3 – Know When to Load Your Gun 

With our systems fully loaded with bullets, I know it’s quite tempting to just organize the content into some quick bullets and dump it into the course. Instead, do every bit to help your learner retain the lessons learnt. Go visual wherever possible.

Using bullets to organize information is a great way, but, know WHEN to load your gun!

Error Messages – The Paradigm Shift

I was once surfing through Orkut, just curious to check out a friend’s photo album. The mouse did not seem to obey my command, and I was not taken anywhere, bringing a slight fret on my face and a twist on my brow. Soon, a message pops up on my screen, and my brows had a different reason to be twisted –



`Bad bad server, no donut for you’ it read. It did take me a few moments to realize that it was actually an error message.

Well, that one just earned my passing gaze, but this one really had me roaring with laughter –



An error message in youtube, consoling me that a team of highly qualified monkeys have been dispatched to deal with the situation.

As a casual browser, I could afford to amuse myself by reading these error messages, but as a technical author, it did really rake my grey cells – What a change in writing style! If I was to write an error message, this is how it would read –

`Sorry for the inconvenience caused, we are facing a technical error in accessing the page. Please check your browser settings or refer to our help …Blah blah blah… Snorr….’ Oops, sorry, I could almost hear my reader snore away to glory.

Thanks to our Indian psyche thickly wax coated with the formal Britain English, it is simply impossible for us to cocktail humor and matter. Traveling and writing light is simply unthinkable… and wit? No way in an official document!

Wondering if I should include humor and light language in my Technical writer’s quality checklist. Otherwise, no donuts for myself!

BTW, did you notice my heading? Now what did I say?