Week 10, August 21-26

I am writing the last two installments for this blog as I wing back to San Diego. I can't wait to go home, but I did fall in love with Boston. Not sure if I would feel the same if I were there in winter. I am also not sure yet I fell in love with the kind of work I did there, but I really enjoyed the experience. I felt I could survive and even thrive in a corporate setting and am now open to the possibility of leaving San Diego, at least for a little while, if the right opportunity presented itself. I was made to feel I have something to offer and that the skills I have learned through the EDTEC program are prized.

This week I finished all my assignments. Everything was wrapped up early Friday afternoon. I was taken to lunch twice by people who wanted to say goodbye and on Friday I had two end of experience wrap-ups. One with Kevin Thompson, who has one of those glass offices, and another final talk with my "mentor/supervisor" PeggyChopp.

Kevin was interested in my "Aha moments." I gave him three. What I related in my earlier posts about the "reaching out" culture, how they were sincerely trying to use the theories and language of EDTEC and lastly about Virtual Teaming. He didn't realize their reaching out culture was so special. However, he said when I explained it in terms of reaching out passes learning, and that it also creates connections that can help youadvance up the corporate ladder, he said he had never thought of it that way, and said it was an excellent observation. He was very pleased I felt they were sincere in their application of EdTec concepts. He said that it was a recent phenomina brought in by the professionalism of Peggy Chopp and Rick Valdez. He related that he recently cancelled a group's proposed training because they had not applied the "A" of the ADDIE model. They had not done enough analysis and planning. Lastly, he said that all the previous companies he had been with did not embrace Virtual Teaming like BAC . He said he didn't like it at first, but after about 45 days he became acclimated to doing business that way. Some days he has up to eight solid hours of phone meetings. On those days it doesn't make sense for him to come to the office, so he just stays home. He did emphasize that there are many things that still cannot be replaced by physical presence.

Later that afternoon, I had my wrap-up with Peggy. We went into one of those glass offices, closed the door and had a private conversation. I reiterated what I told Kevin and told her home much I enjoyed working with her and that I learned a lot from both her words and observing her in action.

She's a career woman in every sense of the word and knows how to survive in the corporate world. She gave me a two final pieces of advice. I mentioned to her that my last class would be one where we create portfolios and that I plan to test the waters, job-wise. She really encouraged me to do this and said one thing I needed to make sure I was able to do was master the interview. "You need to have down the elevator speech about Don Dean." The "elevator speech" corporate-speak for making a pitchabout something in the length of time of a typical elevator ride, about 3-5 minutes. "I'm the master of quickly telling others what PeggyChopp is. I got that way by interviewing a lot. You never turn down an interview. By doing them you not only develop your interviewing skills, you also find out what's out there and you can find out about the company that wants to hire you." (Referring to herself in the third person gave me the impression that she has a corporate persona and a non-corporate one.)

Through the interview you can find out a company's culture, if it's growing or not, etc. She recounted one company that really seemed like they wanted to hire her at first, but they kept interviewing her time after time in this department and that. She realized this was a company that had a hard time making a decision and she decided to not work there. She found out later her instincts were correct and that company is now floundering. She also said monster.com has excellent advice about how to interview. Even though her four year stint there was not a happy one, she did say their online advice is very solid and well-researched. She also saw the Website from the inside, the side only recruiters see. They use a list of questions with potential answers from job seekers. There's an A answer, B answer, C answer, etc. She knows what the A answers are supposed to be, in other words, what they are looking for. She now responds accordingly when interviewed. She said this was her greatest "take away" from that job.

I asked, "So you like to interview for sport?" She said, "Essentially, yes," because she learned to master and even enjoy the process, she's been able to stay employed, even during the down cycles that always come.

The second piece of advice was about age discrimination. I mentioned that I was concerned about my age. She agreed it could be a problem, but to always make sure my resume didn't make me look old. She said when they looked at my current resume they didn't think I could be over 35, but were surprised when I arrived. This was actually a good thing, because I got my foot in the door and they were very impressed with what I could do. She herself is not young, but she always tries to present herself as young as possible so she can get the chance to prove herself. Once you're in, you're in. Then it's a matter of working hard and staying current with the latest trends and technology.

Then she gave me a gift and a complement I'll always treasure. I'm a history buff, which is one of the things I love about Boston. She gave me a book of Boston photos that show what it used to look like and compared to what it looks like today. It was the perfect remembrance of my visit. Then she paid me the ultimate complement in the pantheon of Peggy compliments. She said, "Don, you worked your ass off." That made me grin from ear to ear.

Epilogue

On the flight home the woman sitting next to me is from Tijuana and speaks little English. She's on the flight with her husband and two small children. He's Bangladeshi and in the visitor industry. I was able to use my broken Spanish and carry on a conversation. Struggling with my Spanish and seeing them as a family gave me a warm, I'm-coming-home feeling. I miss San Diego. Most of all, I miss my family. However, I'm excited about what the future may hold.

Week 9, August 14-20



This week I kept working on the the two main assignments I had, cleaning up a previously created course and porting a class from being live to online. I also conducted a study meeting by phone for our team. They wanted me to give an overview of the latest advances in EdTec. Additionally, I made a new friend in the office. The enigmatic man in the corner office who never said hi.

The Assignments

There’s not much more to report about the assignments I was given. I tried to use the interactive features of Lectora and Captivate to emphasize certain information in the courses so the learners would be able to do more than simply read information or look at charts. It’s a baby step toward interactivity.

The Conference Call

On Thursday our team held it’s monthly study meeting. Usually I've been on the receiving end of a conference call. This time I was on the giving end. It's a mixed bag. Since you can’t see who you're talking to, and those attending use their mute buttons a lot, you can’t tell if they are really paying attention or even in the same room as the phone. It’s a little disconcerting and takes some getting used to. Despite the sense of speaking to an empty room, I plunged on.

Since they wanted me to give an overview of the latest developments in Educational Technology I decided to talk about what I had learned in some of my courses at SDSU and my experience teaching mulitmedia and video production in high school. First I talked about podcasting and pointed out that on the subway most people are listening to music using iPods or something similar. Since this is how people are starting to get their media now, this is a method they may have to use in the near future to do their training.

I then shared one of the videos my students made and had uploaded to the Web. They use a site called YouTube, a kind of video MySpace. People from all over the world see them and comment and my students comment back. I emphasized this is how the next generation of bank customers get their entertainment. I also did a search on YouTube for Bank of America. Most of the videos were of skateboarders. There seems to be a whole genre of skateboard videos involving doing tricks on the metal rails and steps in front of Bank of America branches. They had no idea. I also found a bank-produced video that showed how to do online banking (see above). This was an example of an educational video that can now be shown not only on the Web, but also on iPods and cell phones.

Additionally shared some things about GPS and Geotools. I had them do a Zee Map with me. In real time they could show on a map everywhere they were located in the US, or anywhere in the world. They could see a good application for this as an icebreaker when doing meetings. I told them they could also use things like this to show branch locations, ATM locations or whatever, and associate information or even Web sites with the locations. We also talked about the use of GPS with cell phones and how things like GoogleEarth and other Geotools have potential as instructional aids.

I ended with a discussion of gaming and showed them the role playing game that Wells Fargo had created to teach teens how to do banking and handle money. The fact that a competitor had already created something like that really caught their interest. Even though these things may not have an immediate application for Bank of America, they all agreed as the current “digital” generation ages and becomes employees and customers instructional design will need to start using these tools extensively.

The Mystery Man in the Corner Office

Across from my cube is a glass enclosed “private” office. To rate one of these spaces you need to be an upper manager; a manager of managers. For eight weeks the man who worked there never said a word to me. I figured he was really busy. The nights I worked late he worked late, too. Usually he was still there when I left. This week we were both there on Friday until after 8pm. I was trying to get my projects done before I left and was wondering if it were ok to come in over the weekend. Remembering the “Reach out” company mantra, I knocked on his door and asked. He was more than happy to answer. He asked what I do and said he was very impressed with the long hours I worked. He then talked to me for about an hour about what he does and what’s happening at BAC.

His job is compensation. He decides what to offer people to encourage them to join the company or to stay. He’s only been with BAC a few months. He worked long hours in part because his family is still in Virginia and he needs something to occupy his time. He also loves his work and new company. We commiserated about missing our families. He explained to me what the “organic” growth of the company really means. Essentially BAC has bought nearly all the major banking companies that it can in the US. Currently 1 out of every 3 people in North America has a relation with Bank of America, usually through a bank account or a loan. What they are focusing on now is hiring thousands of new employees who’s job will be to increase existing business. He said this will amount to what is essentially an acquisition without an acquisition (a stealth acquisition?). They are in the process of re-examining the traditional way the sales force has done business and are creating a new role that’s more service oriented, less commission driven.

He said that nowdays fewer people are getting into the banking field and the competition for good employees between the major players is now fierce. He himself was lured to BAC from another firm. Now he helps lure others. He mentioned that the coming 5-10 years will be an exciting time for BAC and the need for trainers and instructional design for the new hires is going to be great. Just like financial service people the pool of qualified instructional designers is shrinking, which means they will be able to command higher compensation. Maybe this will be a new golden age for Educational Technologist?

He then gave me some great career advice about how to increase my chances for a job offer for any company I may want to be an employee. Since that conversation we now talk a lot. He’s been nothing but encouraging and very friendly. You never know what surprises await behind those glass walls.

Week 8, August 7 – 13

This week I kept working on the projects I was given, especially the Lectora created training for Portfolio Edge, a financial investment product. I had an interesting conversation with Mary di Mora about her background, the virtual office, and where I could fit in with BAC. I spoke with Greg Nicossi about his feelings toward the virtual office, too. I also heard about a new marketing trend – Virtual People on MySpace.

Mary Dimaria

Mary Dimaria  was not originally an Educational Technology professional. She entered the field through the banking industry, specifically stocks and bonds.

In college she got a bachelor’s in psychology and then an MBA. The MBA led her into working for an investment company. Initially she was assisting one of their top stockbrokers. Then the company had all the assistants for their top people obtain their own broker’s licenses so they could perform some of their more mundane work. While she was with this company they started to transition to online stockbroking. The old-line brokers were scared to death of the new technology. Mary embraced it and was soon tapped to start training the old pros. Eventually, doing this informal training turned to holding regular formal classes. Next, her company developed a business of training other companies in the new technology. Mary, who has a warm, open personality, combined with strong organizational skills, was a natural to create and conduct the courses.

Mary explained the financial industry is very cyclical. In boom times companies do a lot of hiring. When there’s downturns many of those employees become consultants. She said as long as you understand these cycles you can do well as a trainer in this industry.

I asked Mary how she handles being a mother of three and her work responsibilities. She said that one thing that really attracted her to work for BAC is their embrace of the virtual office. It allows her the flexibility to be both a mom and a professional. She emphasized that you actually end up working longer hours at home than at the office, but you can more easily take care of a family responsibility, such as participating in a carpool, when you need to.

In fact, the book her group has selected to use next for professional development is Virtual Teaming by Jude-York, Wise and Davis. She said it describes methods to help office workers in virtual teams interact better and become more productive. Especially important is being able to build comradery, trust and avoid miscommunication.

One thing Mary mentioned was the importance of phone communication as a substitute for face-to-face interaction. One technique the book mentions is to try to match the voice of the person you’re speaking with. If they are speaking fast, speed up your voice, if slow, reduce your speech rate. If the other person speaks in high tone, raise your tone a bit, too. According to the book it makes the other person feel more at ease and improves mutual understanding. Another interesting idea was to do things socially together by phone, such as eat lunch together and talk about personal things, not business. She said you do have to meet in person from time-to-time, though, to really get to know the other person. There is one person on her team that lives in Dallas. They had not met in person for two years. About a year ago they finally got their entire team together in person offsite and held some team-building activities. She said that made all the difference. Even though she hasn’t seen this other person since, their working relationship is vastly improved.

Another employee, Greg Nicossi, seconded what Mary told me. He works from home 2-3 days a week. His supervisor is in Charlotte, so I doesn’t matter to her where he works, as long as the work gets done. He's thrilled. His wife is about to have their first baby, so this flexibility is very welcome. He also said he actually works longer hours at home, too. When he comes into the office it’s a one hour commute each way, then he needs to spend time getting ready for work. When he’s home, he still takes a shower and brushes his teeth, but he doesn’t spend the time getting “suited up” and especially driving to the train station and riding on a crowded train. (In this office no one drives a car to work. If they drive, it's to a train station.)

However, the phenomena that I started to experience teaching online is that after a while you feel like you’re on call 24/7 and you’re never really off work. Students demand your attention on their schedule. In addition, there’s a real sense of disconnect after a while. I'm hoping to use some of the techniques I learned here when I teach online.

Virtual People

As an aside to Virtual Teaming I just heard of a new trend in marketing a couple days ago. They are now creating virtual people. This mostly revolves around MySpace.com, the personal Web page phenomena. For instance, movie promoters are creating mySpace pages for fictional characters and and pretending they are real people. For instance Ricky Bobby, aka Will Ferrell, of the movie "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and some of the Pirates in the “Pirates of the Carribean” movie have their own sites on MySpace where they give personal infomation and even respond to email. SecondLife is also a big venue for this, but there you interact with 3D avatars instead of Web sites.

The worlds depicted in “The Matrix” and “Minority Report” are getting closer to reality.

Week 7, July 31 - August 6

This week was somewhat calmer than the last two. My supervisor, Peggy went on vacation. Even though I was somewhat on my own, I was given several assignments that more than occupied my time. The highlights this week were a conversation with Rick Valdez, who's Peggy’s supervisor, my visit to Siggraph at the Boston Convention Center, and a visit to Maine to see my brother and his family. I also found out B of A is a not how employees are supposed to refer to the bank (and especially not bofa).

SIGGRAPH2006

SIGGRAPH2006 was the 31st International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. This year it was in Boston (next summer it will be in San Diego). It's put on by AMC SIGGRAPH, which stands for "The Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques." A real mouthful. I’m a card carrying member of AMC SIGGRAPH.

Holding the event in Boston allowed easier participation by Boston’s tech community, especially MIT’s renowned Media Lab. There were also more European companies in attendance than usual. This put the focus more on research and less on Hollywood.

I was able to attend Sunday afternoon and Monday after work. My general impression was what’s coming in media is much more intuitively interactive and able to mimic and alter reality at a high level. Also, everything is on a convergence course with things like cell phones, ipods, televisions, home appliances, cars, and even clothing. I also found out our EdTec program is keeping up with the cutting edge by teaching things as how to use ipods, gaming and GPS in education. SecondLife, a role-playing game platform we used in the gaming class, and GoogleEarth, use in the GPS/Geotools class, both had impressive booths. One of the keynote speeches was given by John Lassiter of Pixar/Disney – via ipod video.

Speaking of cloth, I saw a presentation by Autodesk, a company that creates 3D modeling and animation software, of an amazing breakthrough in how to digitally reproduce the effects of cloth. They were never been able to accurately reproduce this before. The writing of the algorhythms took years of research. They demonstrated it by showing how they could adjust the movements of a dress on a dancing model. When the 3D model stopped dancing the dress she wore kept moving due to their momentum just as it would in real life. By altering the properties of this digital cloth they were able to get even more unexpected effects. For instance the "cloth" could accurately reproduce ocean waves and incredibly realistic skin, complete with effects that mimic how skin can hang down a little and wobble as someone moves.

Another clothing related breakthrough was a fiber-optic thread that could be woven into cloth. They showed how this could be used to make clothes that became computer displays or even a kind of wearable computer. Talk about wearing your emoticons on your sleeve!

Much of what I saw was controlled interactively by touch. For instance there was a screen similar to the one used in the movie "Minority Report" that eliminated the need for typing. You simply touched and pointed to operate the computer.

What does this mean for Educational Technology? It’s hard to predict but certainly it provides exciting channels for learning and makes digital multimedia assessable practically anywhere at any time by ever smaller devices. A lot of people in EdTec are also hoping for the day they can get rid of their keyboards and use speech, touch, or even thought, to enter and manipulate information. It’s also a challenge for educators to stay abreast of the latest and greatest technology. If they don't they risk being irrelevant. This creates more work for instructional designers. The other challenge is to not be so wowed by the technology that well-thought-out courses take a back seat to doing cool stuff. The good news is that many of the advances make technology more user friendly than ever.

Conversation with Rick Valdez

Rick Valdez is from Utah. He did undergraduate work at BYU in psychology, but became interested in practical applications for the psych theories. He heard about the Instructional Technology program at Utah State headed by Dave Merrill and made the switch. He considered it to be applied psychology – a chance to apply cognitive and behavioral science to learning.

In graduate school he worked for a research group that created an early version of an online authoring system. This experience led to a job with a company that was making laser disk training for the Air Force, an early version of interactive e-learning.

In fact, his career has followed the arc of development in interactive technology. First it was slides stored in carosel viewing machines, then laser disks, CD Roms, and now the Web. In each case a technology with a high capacity was replaced by one with an initially lower capacity because the new method was more convenient and cost effective. However, the amount of information that the new technology could convey always soon exceeded the old technology.

Rick and Allison Rosset’s paths crossed when he used to work for Click to Learn. They met at a conference and he asked to come on campus to do some recruiting. He sat in on one of her classes and was very impressed with her and our program. He’d like to renew his connection with EdTech at SDSU. He feels it’s one of the top three programs in the country, especially now that Dave Merrill is no longer with Utah State.

Their first meeting was also a little embarassing for him. His company was demonstrating a new technology at the conference. An interactive computer character that could give verbal responses to scripted questions. At the conference there was a glitch and the computer character either gave the wrong response or didn't respond at all. Allison kept ribbing him about this when they ended up sitting next to each other at the conference.

Rick has developed a couple instructional design theories of his own. One he calls Reusable Learning Architecture, or RLA. His idea is that Reusable Learning Object work best if combined with RLAs. In other words RLOs, the Legos of learning, should be contained within a repeatable structure, meaning that courses will use a similar look and feel. This helps reduce development time dramatically, while providing the learner with a familiar learning environment that allows them to focus more on content and less on delivery method. We are instituting this at the bank by archiving our classes and creating a number of templates that can be adapted for nearly any use. He's also working on another theory. It is a learning approach that's a kind of corporate version of Project Based Learning, that takes a holistic approach to how people learn. He's published a white paper about it, but it's still a work in progress.

I told him I recently heard that the bank doesn't like to be referred to as B of A. BAC is preferred. He said he used to make the same mistake when he was with Click to Learn, but instead they were calling the bank bofa (pronounced bow-fah). He found out it was frown upon when his company helped produce some cutting edge training for BAC, that ended up being abandoned. He then told me the story and said it's a case study that illustrated the importance of not using technology for the sake of using technology and the importance of doing solid analysis before creating training.

One of the learning managers at the bank was given a blank check to create world-class training for bank tellers. She decided to create a virtual environment where the employees could see a 3D computer representation of a teller station and interact with it. Included was going to be special gloves the future tellers could wear to count virtual money. One of the things this project required was the purchase of very expensive computers that could only be used for the training. It cost $1 million for the computers alone and they would no other use. This set off alarm bells in Rick's mind. Another thing was the special gloves for counting virtual money. You never touched real money, and money counting requires physical touch, not simply counting techniques. Rick said, "You always train to the required skill." Why buy special computers when the tellers had to be able to count real money anyway? Wouldn't real cash or a facsimile be more effective and less costly? In the end the "black check" wasn't really a blank check and a bank official nixed everything.

The company that was making the virtual teller environment was located in Sweden. Rick got a nice trip to Stockholm an was able to learn a lot about virtual worlds, before the plug was pulled. Plus he had a good lesson in the importance of doing proper analysis before going on a spending spree creating an educational product.

Personal Notes

I had another wonderful weekend at the Kennebunkport home of my brother’s parents-in-law. This time I rode the train up. It was stress-free compared with fighting the weekend traffic. I wish trains were more convenient to use in San Diego.

We spent Sunday morning on a sailboat off the Maine coast. We saw Bush the Elder motor past in his high-powered cigarette boat, similar to the ones used in Miami Vice. His secret service detail could barley keep up. They even let me operate the tiller for a while.

My brother and I haven’t been very close over the years. This was a chance to renew our ties and become like brothers again. I applied the BAC spirit of reaching out to make the effort to contact and visit them. In a personal sense this is the most valuable thing I’ve learned this summer.

Week 6, July 24-30, 2006:

This was a light week at work. We made our deadline, then made some minor fixes to the published training. Team members were relieved and giddy. I was finally able to schedule a lunch meeting with my supervisor, Peggy. She also assigned me to another project. As a reward to myself I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" which was both scary and inspiring.

A Sense of Triumph

In the middle of last week there were a lot of worried executives. They thought we wouldn't make our deadline. At that time there were still a lot of things to correct and the simulations in a couple chapters had yet to be finished. On Friday the course was published on time. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Our team started getting email message from top executivcongratulationing us. My name was mentioned by the Vice President of Learning in an "all hands" meeting praising my contributions. A number of people came to my cubicle to personally congratulate me. Apparently, to be mentioned at this meeting is a real honor. Needless to say, I felt good.

There were others who worked much harder, especially Chris in San Francisco who pulled several all-nighters and worked the weekends to make the deadline. Being both a student and teacher, I'm used to working nights and weekends, so the extra work I did wasn't a stretch for me. Long hours do wear on you after a while. I hope for a more regular schedule, someday. But not because I'm out of work.

Meeting with Peggy

Peggy has been an Instruction Design professional for many years. Her career ranges from working for a defense contractor, a major manufacturer, dot com companies, and, now, the Bank of America. She's professional, hard-nosed, detail-oriented, passionate about training, very knowledgeable, and has some great war stories. She's also been more than kind toward me. She's been generous with her time and knowledge, given me a lot of encouragement, and fought to make sure I have what I need to do the work.

She began as a speech therapist, primarily for autistic children. She noticed a trend among her peers. They were dropping like flies. The work was burning most of them out within 2 to 5 years. She began looking for a new career.

Her parents, who lived in St. Louis at the time, invited her to stay there a while. Her father suggested she get a job with McDonald-Douglas. That's where she began her career in instructional design. The great thing about McDonald-Douglas, she observed, was that they are a defense contractor. This means that the model they used for instructional design comes straight from the military, the fountainhead of the field. She didn't like defence work that much, but she did discover she loved instructional design.

A year and a half later she moved back to Boston and got a Masters Degree in Instructional Design at Boston University. She also began working for the Gillette Company, which was headquartered in Boston. (They were recently purchased by Proctor & Gamble.) In fact, a few blocks from my office is where they make the razor blades. She really enjoyed working there. Her job was to help create the training for work procedures to manufacture some of their new products. This was a challenge because most workers did not speak English. This helped her learn the importance of knowing your audience.

The next most memorable times in her career, though not necessarily the best of times, was her stints with dot com startups. One dot com shall remain nameless and the other was monster.com. She didn't work long at either.

A friend, telling her about the millions of dollars employees were making through IPOs, lured her to work for the startup. She suggested Peggy work there a couple years, then cash out with a huge nestegg.

She recalls the first day she drove into the company parking lot in her sensible compact. Here was a Porsche, there was a Porsche, everywhere a Porsche. In fact there seemed to be nothing but Porsches, until she saw the Lamborghini. Later, she attended a company party. Everyone was dressed somewhat professionally, except for one guy in torn jeans, long hair and a t-shirt. She asked about him because he looked so out of place. He was the mail-room clerk -- and the owner of the Lamborghini.

The management was disorganized and money crazy. All they would talk about was their expensive cars and the latest homes they purchased. When they had meetings they would eventually devolve into shouting matches and nothing was decided.

Without doing any analysis they demanded training programs to teach the sales people how to increase sales. Soon Peggy realized no amount of training could help. The problem was one of motivation. When their company went public, before Peggy came onboard, all employees were given a large amount of stock that increased in value astronomically. However, they cannot sell that stock for at least a year after the IPO. She discovered the sales people didn't care about sales because they didn't have to work to make money. All they had to do was wait out that year making minimum effort. Then they could cash out, become millionaires, and retire.

She got out of there as soon as she could and is glad she did. It turns out their previous comptroller was backdating stock for people so they could take advantage of the IPO bonanza. This came to light when that comptroller left and was replaced by one who knew the law and was honest. When the new comptroller pointed out the illegality of backdating to management and refused to do it, she was fired for her troubles. She then reported them to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Not only is this company now bankrupt, the employees are being investigated for insider trading. Large fines and jail time for some are in the offing. I wonder what happened to the Lamborghini?

Monster.com, was more of the same, though not nearly to the same degree. There, too, some employees are now being investigated for insider trading. The major problem with monster.com, according to Peggy, is that they kept changing their marketing plan every month. They couldn't decide what they really wanted to be or do, besides offer job listings. This was an impossible situation for a trainer. She often felt like a Den Mother to a group of Cub Scouts. Gratefully, she was laid off. Luckily, the Bank of America position fell into her lap soon after.

In my first post I mentioned that everyone here seemed to be with the company a short while. It was a mystery at the time. Now I know why. It's because the company has changed direction from growing through acquisition to growing organically by increasing the business from the customers they have. The divisions we service, Global Wealth InvestmentPremiereent and Premeire Bank & Investment, are two new groups dedicated to organic growth.

After her experience with the dotcoms she's glad to be somewhere that has a professional and careful approach to business. She said right now is a good time to be in training here because the bank is now very training-minded, and is very open to being much more innovative in how they conduct training. They are not just trying to be more innovative with training, they are also constantly innovating the way they do business, which creates a need for training.

Peggy also gave me some words of warning about this field. For any company, the training department is usually perennially under-funded and understaffed. This is good news and bad news. The good is you always have plenty to do. The bad is you can easily burn out if you don't pace yourself. Another negative to keep in mind is when there are layoffs, training is usually the first go and the last to be brought back.

When asked about the value of getting a PhD., she said at this level it wasn't necessary. However, if you wanted to work with leadership training and organization building a PhD. would be a real plus. She said organization building is less interesting than training, but the pay is higher.

Another place a PhD. would be needed is if you wanted to work in the educational technology department of some place like Harvard. Her dream is to be able to work there. She said it's nearly impossible to get in, but it's important to have a dream.

About My New Project

My new project is to take a current course that was last delivered live and convert it to one given online. In addition to the change from live to online, the product has been updated because of new regulations and some problems they had with it in the past. In my next post I'll write more about that experience.

Personal Notes:

An Inconvenient Truth

Last Tuesday I celebrated the completion of our project by treating myself to seeing, "An Inconvenient Truth." The global warming message was incredibly powerful and brought home by a brilliant series of computer generated graphics on PowerPoint type slides. The images of how many highly populated areas would be underwater if the seas only rose a few feet were especiasideffective. Putting asside the message of the movie, it was the way the information was presented that blew me away. They made a dull facts seem exciting and urgent.

This is my dream -- to combine my love of images, film, computers, animation and writing to create effective and compelling presentations that help teach others an important skill so they can advance in life -- or help give them the knowledge and wisdom needed to make this world a better place.

I told my roommate about this film. This morning, before I left for work, he showed me he bought Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth. He said I inspired him to get it. At this time he doesn't know much about the environmental problems, but he now wants to educate himself about it. He said perhaps it was good Al Gore didn't become president. He suggested he would be remembered in history for awakening humanity to this problem.

Since he's in the Korean Foreign Service, who knows how his decision to study environmental issues will affect his nation or the world in the future. Perhaps he will become a high official in his government or even the United Nations and help influence a change. Time will tell.

SIGGRAPH is Coming! SIGGRAPH is Coming!

Even without Paul Revere I found out SIGGRAPH is coming to Boston July 30 - August 3. This is the 33rd Annual International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. I bought a ticket to attend. More to come next post.

Week 5, July 18-23, 2006:

This week my family returned to San Diego and I started putting in 12-14 hour days so we could meet our Friday deadline. On Sunday I went to Harvard Square to have sushi with an adjunct professor who teaches at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. We had an interesting and wide-ranging conversation that among other things touched on the frustrations of being and adjunct and global warming.

Since we were scrambling to finish our project on time and error free the week is somewhat of a blur, however there were some things that stood out. One was how I saw the “reach out” B of A culture in action, another was how in the midst of the craziness they took time to still hold a monthly meeting where they study an instructional design together, and I developed a confusion about writing objectives I need to clear up.

Reaching Out in Action

One of the tasks they gave me was to create a graphic that illustrated a step in the sales process using the Client Connections Integrated Desktop. In order to match the typeface of the original graphic I had to obtain a font I didn’t have in my computer. I asked Peggy, my supervisor, what to do. She suggested I send and email to woman in the marketing department. I did and got a phone call back from her almost immediately. She said that font is not an approved B of A font, but understood when I said the art was created by an outside vendor. She then gave me someone else to email. He didn’t have the font, but knew where I could get it. He forwarded my request. By the next morning the font was in my email.

I don’t know who I was dealing with, where they were or anything. They didn’t know me either, or even what I was doing, exactly. However, because we were working on a project for the bank I got all their attention immediately and they quickly responded to my request. Reaching out really works.

Monthly Study

Even though they were working very hard to finish the CCID project they still took time to reflect and study for an hour on Thursday. Each month this team holds a semi-formal meeting where they discuss some general items, then study one or two chapters of a book together. They then discuss what they read in context of the work they are currently doing for the bank. After that they reassess their accomplishments the previous month and renew their determination to get closer to their department goal for next month.

The book they studied was Performance Consulting: Move Beyond Traning by Dana and Jim Robinson. The main point of discussion was to strive to get to the consultant level of performance analysis. In other words, those who are creating the training get to the point where they are consultants instead of order takers.

The difference is consultants are brought into the process at an early stage and help decide what kinds of training are needed and how to approach it. The current reality is still a top down approach. Management decides what needs to be done and somewhat directs how to do it. They discussed the need to "push back" a little more and insist on more analysis before a project is undertaken. They feel they’ve made progress in this area, but have a ways to go.

I was impressed by their spirit to never stop studying and to help each other deepen their understanding of the field. I guess you could also call this an Instructional Design Book Club.

Peggy asked me to deliver the training at their next meeting. She wants me to tell them what’s new and interesting in this field. Guess I better figure this out quickly.

Objectives

Writing objectives is a big deal here. It’s considered an essential step in all the training and built in to forms used for planning. However, I’m a little confused.

The way I learned about objective writing in EdTec 540 was similar to the ABCD method below:

• Audience – Who? Who are your learners?
• Behavior – What? What do you expect them to be able to do? This should be an overt, observable behavior, even if the actual behavior is covert or mental in nature. If you can't see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, you can't be sure your audience really learned it.
• Condition – How? Under what circumstances or context will the learning occur? What will the student be given or already be expected to know to accomplish the learning?
• Degree – How much? How much will be accomplished, how well will the behavior need to be performed, and to what level? Do you want total mastery (100%), do you want them to respond correctly 80% of the time, etc. A common (and totally non-scientific) setting is 80% of the time. http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/research/Write_Objectives.shtml

The thing that always seemed to be missing from the objectives written for our training at the bank is the condition. I seem to remember that you’re not supposed to say upon the completion of this training the learner will be able to do such and such. Instead, you’re supposed to be more specific with your conditions. However, all our objects start with upon completion of this chapter, or course, etc.

Then I was looking through the textbooks I use for the courses I teach. They each had the same thing for objectives – “Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to…” Is this a legitimate condition or not?

Conversation with J.T., Berklee Adjunct Professor of Music

An organization I’m a part of has a chapter in Boston. I went to one of their activities recently and met J.T., an adjunct professor at the world-renown Berklee College of Music in downtown Boston. We struck up a friendship and decided to go to Harvard Square for sushi. He knew a place that was cheap and good.

Before we went he gave me a demonstration of ProTools, a Mac-based system for music production and mixing. He’s an old-time jazz guitarist who stays on top of the latest technology. At my high school we’ve just obtained ProTools and I have yet to master using it, so I really appreciated the demo.

J.T. is an author of one or two books about guitar playing, a composer, and has played with many of the jazz greats all over the world over the years. The piece he played for me that he made using ProTools was a kind of experimental, smooth jazz. He personally played all the parts on the recording except drums and had recorded it in his apartment. The guitar was synthesized so it actually sounded like an organ. He's an incredible musician.

I asked him about his experience teaching at Berklee. He said teaching there was one of the major goals in his life. The place is music heaven, especially jazz music. A perfect place for someone like him. However, it’s become a little frustrating teaching there. He’s been there over 12 years, but they still keep him two hours a week below the level of a regular professor so they don’t have to pay benefits or let him accrue tenure. He laments the politics involved in faculty decisions. He’s planning on leaving Berklee in the near future if something doesn't change soon.

I fully understand his situation. I’ve been with one community college for going on 7 years. I’ve made three attempts to be hired full-time. The last time they wouldn’t even interview me. I originally entered the EdTec program to improve my chances for full-time employment at a college. I’ve all but abandoned that dream and am starting to seriously look at the corporate world. On the other hand I love what I’m doing at my high school, MVAS. I just wish they paid a wage that matches San Diego's cost of living.

The adjunct system is cruel. Once you enter it seems almost impossible to advance. I heard a commentator on NPR describe adjuncts as bottom feeders. She said once a school realizes you’re willing to work under those conditions they try to keep you there. For those who have another job and teach to simply pick up some extra money, it has advantages, but for those who desire to do it as a career it’s an unfair two-tier system. Especially galling is what I’ve read recently about the pay abuses in the UC system. Something needs to be done to make this situation more equitable.

It turned out J.T and I have a lot of mutual friends, so we reminisced about that, but at one point we started talking about global warming. We talked about the recent killer heat wave in Europe. He said he used to climb mountains there and that a friend recently sent him pictures of some of the glaciers. They have receded dramatically. For so many years people pooh-poohed this. Now there seems to be a sea change in attitude. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the near future.

Week 4, July 10-16, 2006:

This was another 4 day week. I took my second and last vacation day on Friday. We decided to go to New York for the weekend and visit my relative in Springfield, MA on the way. However, despite the short week, work was really starting to heat up. I put in long days, 10-12 hours. Our deadline for completion of the Client Connections Integrated Desktop is a week from this Friday. On Monday, July 17 over 1,000 associates were planning to start taking our course through ALP, Associate Learning Portal, through the company intranet.

I’ll be making observations about Virtual Teaming, becoming the “Lectora Guy,” the need for online courses, the process they use to create training, and our trip to Springfield and New York City.

Virtual Teaming and the Virtual Office

Initially I wondered why it seemed no one ever went to lunch in our work group. I found it wasn’t because they were anti-social; it was because they had a very tight deadline. For six weeks the team members on the East coast gave up their lunches to hold a daily one-hour phone conference to coordinate efforts and report on progress. Our team member on the West Coast was regularly working until 2 or 3am to get the job done. I didn’t know that until this week when it became necessary for me to attend the phone meetings because I had become the “Lectora Guy.” This made me feel a real part of things and I started to get very excited about the project.

This is my first experience with virtual teaming outside of taking or teaching classes online. That gave me a taste, but not at this level. Our project team consisted of six people I know of. Only two of us were in the same physical space, Peggy Chopp and me. The rest worked out of their homes or distant offices. One was near Charlotte, two in different parts of New England and the fourth in San Francisco. These daily conference calls were crucial in making things happen. Email has its limitations. These calls seemed nearly as good as in person meetings. I think the calls are even preferred because you can “multi-task” on your computer. Conference calling is now the norm in large businesses.

Nearly all employees in our department are now working out of their homes at least one or two days a week. On Fridays (and Mondays to a lesser extent) the office is a ghost town. Some now spend most of their work week at home, coming into a work center once a week or even once or twice a month. Peggy says on her Fridays at home she actually works more than she does in the office. Since she’s coordinating with people in California, she often works until 8 or 9 pm at home.

This is a leap forward, especially for employees who are also caregivers. These caregivers are usually female, but not always. One woman said because she could work at home she was able to help take care of her mother in New Jersey who had broken her leg. It gives people a lot of flexibility if it’s not abused.

I talked with our team member in the Charlotte area and asked how she liked working from home. She said it works out very well 4 out of 5 days. They have two small children. She works at home 3 days and two in the work center, and her husband, who’s in real estate, also works from home 3 days. Monday through Thursday they take turns being home, but on Fridays they are both home. She hates Fridays because it gets a little crowded with both of them trying to share the home office and equipment. I wonder how he feels.

I recently attended a dinner for all the interns in Boston. I’m the only one in the training department, but there are others in tech, real estate and other departments. At one point our conversation turned toward working at home. One person said he briefly worked where they now have completely virtual offices. When you need to physically come to work you reserve a desk and equipment for a day, week or two weeks. They are also temporarily assigned a phone.

One person did comment there were some negatives. For one thing he says he gets more done in the office because it’s often better and faster to see people in person in his field. He’s a techie. Another thing he mentioned is that some people tend to fake it at home. They’ll send a couple emails and perhaps join in to a conference call to make it seem like they are working, but they put in only about two hours.

Need for Online Courses

When I told them what I did, they said they were very happy they could take so many company courses online and advance in job-specific skills. The fact that they could take the classes at their convenience at the office or at home was a major plus. There are some courses that are still given live or on paper. They hope those are transferred online in the near future.

It seems many companies are now desperate for people who can help transfer these courses online. Perhaps we are entering a new golden age for EdTec.

The Birth of the “Lectora Guy”

Since this was the first time they were using Captivate for a project they initially had me help with some of simulations. However, they were also impressed with the fact that on my first day there I sought out online training in Lectora (provided by a Benedictine University) and was up to speed by the second day. In time our team member in San Francisco decided it worked out best if he gave up doing Lectora and just concentrated on Captivate. So he became the project’s “Captivate Guy” and I became the “Lectora Guy.” The arrangement seemed to work. I also became the emergency graphics guy, creating small items that were needed to dress things up. They use an outside vendor to do the major graphics work.

The other members of our team fed us dozens of PowerPoints and numerous emails with corrections and changes. For me, in most cases, these were errors or changes to existing modules. In some cases I was given storyboards and had to build the Lectora pages from them.

The Process

The process they went through to create the training was first a need was identified. In this case, based on a need to improve sale coordination, a new desktop application had been created. It helped sales people keep track of leads and sales, and interface with email and calendar functions in their own and their partner’s Outlook. (As an aside – I’ve been a snobby Mac person for many years, but I’ve now developed a tremendous respect for the power of Outlook to coordinate email, calendars and contact information. It’s become an indispensable tool. There is no real equivalent in Macintosh.)

Then a training document was generated. This document outlines the training rationale, objectives, the skills that would be taught, and proposals for how to teach those skills. It included a project timeline and list of team members and managers with their responsibilities.

The next step is the storyboarding process. Each page of training had a separate storyboard that showed what the page should like, say and, if interactive, what it should do. The storyboards were then subjected to a rigorous review process. They attempt to make most corrections at this level, but inevitably there were many more changes later.

Then comes the development stage. Here some outside vendors may be brought in who are development experts. The storyboard writers are often needed to start storyboarding another project and can’t be spared for development, or they are just not good at it. This is the point were the actual training modules are created.

Once developed the modules are subjected to a second rigorous review process both inside and outside the team. It’s very important to bring in people outside the team who have fresh eyes and no attachment to the work to give objective opinions. Everything is read, the visuals are scrutinized and interactivity tested. They try to make things break if they can. This was the point I came into the process for this project.

After that all errors and problems are fixed and with a blessing from top management, the training is published and promoted to the employees. Bank of America employees are a captive audience. Certain people are ordered to take the training and are paid for the time they spend doing it. Their jobs depend on it. When they take it they have to also provide immediate feedback about the training.

There are four levels of evaluation:

1. Trainee reaction to training initiative: Level One Evaluation Forms completed by participants for Web-Based component.
2. Trainee improvement during the training initiative: Learning Assessment questions completed by participants for Web-Based component
3. Trainee’s ability to take training back to the workplace: Surveys completed by Market Managers, Client Managers after completing training components
4. Business impact of the training initiative: Marketing to pull monthly usage stats and report out on RO utilization

These levels coincide with Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation: reactions, learning, transfer and results.

We were going to visit my 86 year old cousin in West Springfield in the afternoon

My cousin has a hair appointment every Friday from 10 - noon

My son is currently in a basketball league

For these reasons we decided to stop at the Basketball Hall of Fame Friday morning on our way to visit my cousin before we drove on to New York.

So let’s recap the steps – we have Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. Yup, what I learned on day one of my EdTec program is all there.

Personal Notes:

Visit to Basketball Hall of Fame

Initially I thought it would be hokey and uninteresting. I’m not a huge basketball fan, except the college playoffs. But I do have some connection with basketball hall-of-famers from the time I used to work at the San Diego Sports Arena.

While there I met Wilt Chamberlain, who was the owner/coach of the San Diego Conquistadors, and Bill Walton, Helix High Graduate, when he played for the San Diego Clippers. They were big men. Wilt Chamberlain, who is considered the best player of all time, had to duck to get through the doorways in our offices and when I had lunch with Bill Walton his knees stuck out above the table top. I was present for the final game of famous UCLA coach/philosopher, John Wooden. It was one of the most exciting playoff games of all time. UCLA was losing by a point in overtime after coming from behind in regular play, but a last second half-court shot, that was still sailing through the air while the buzzer blared, swished the basket and won the game making them the college champions that year. And I was there to see it.

I was also an emergency scorekeeper once at a Harlem Globetrotter’s when the regular scorekeeper didn’t show up. I was made part of the act when I inadvertently made an error. The Globetrotters temporarily replaced me with a black man saying the white man (me) was trying to favor the other team.

Visiting the hall of fame brought back all these memories, plus it’s a fantastic facility. I’m a history buff and teach multi-media, so what I enjoyed most was the multimedia exhibit that combined display cases with memorabilia along with a series of video screens. Each screen showed a separate video dedicated to a decade of history. The videos tied what was happening with society with that time in basketball history. The building, a huge silver dome with several levels, was filled with well-conceived multi-media displays. This is another field of EdTec, the creation of educational installations.

Ultimately, this is one more example of something that started in Massachusetts that has influenced the world. A tradition that continues today.

Apparently the visit also had the desired effect on our son. He was inspired by what he saw there. When he returned to San Diego he helped his team win all the rest of their summer league games. Before his visit they had lost all their games.

Cousin (It’s the global warming.)

My elderly cousin has a lovely home in West Springfield. She’s actually my mother’s cousin and my second cousin. She’s independently wealthy – a result of her husband’s decision to own the first McDonald’s restaurant in Massachusetts. Nowadays you can’t own a McDonald’s outright, just a franchise. McDonald’s now pays a hefty rent to my cousin each month and operates the business. Ironically she can’t stand McDonald’s food. She prefers Wendy’s.

When I had called to arrange our visit we talked about the unusual weather. Just before my call two tornadoes had touched down in Massachusetts and we had a tropical storm. Matter-of-factly she said, “It’s the global warming.” In addition to our discussion of family things, this ended up being one of our main topics. She and her daughter, who lives with her, are convinced the end is near due to global warming, unless we change our ways. I don’t think it’s that dire yet, but there has been a dramatic shift in climate in this area making winters milder and summers hotter, more humid and rainy. I wanted to see Guggenheim’s documentary about Al Gore’s environmental lecture, “An Inconvenient Truth,” for some time. After this visit I resolved to see it after my family leaves next week.

Giving our Regards to Broadway

On our way to New York we were trapped for hours in a traffic jam in Connecticut caused by an 8 car pileup. We finally made it to our hotel in Manhattan about 2am. The next morning, exhausted, but excited we started visiting as much of New York as we could.

I really wanted to finally see New York because it’s the place I was born. The other thing I really wanted to do here was got to a Broadway play that is actually on Broadway.

I was born in Queens and lived in Brooklyn until I was one-year-old. We moved to the Washington, D.C. area, then Norfolk, Virginia and finally San Diego, when I was in 7th grade. I never had the chance to come back and really see New York.

That day we rode the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and the skyline. Of course we’ve all seen thousands of images of the Statue of Liberty, but seeing it in person, bouncing on the water, with the wind in your face is very different. It really stirs up emotions and thoughts about history, immigration, the purpose and promise of our nation, and ultimately, because of what’s now missing from the New York skyline, 9-11.

On the way to the ferry we stopped at the half-price ticket booth near Wall Street to get play tickets. Our original intention was to see Spamalot http://www.montypythonsspamalot.com/, but the prices gave us second thoughts. $600 for a two-hour play just didn’t seem to make sense for us financially. We settled for Hairspray and were not disappointed.

We were so happy to finally see a Broadway play on Broadway. A real plus was underlying all the singing and dancing was a pointed message about acceptance. In addition clever staging, one thing that distinguishes a play from a movie is the energy of being live. Each show is slightly different from the others because there’s a give and take with the audience. For instance there was one scene in Hairspray between the father and mother, who’s a man in drag, that got a big audience reaction because of the tongue-and-cheek innuendo. They in turn reacted to the audience and we reacted to their reaction. We all felt part of the joke.

I also reflected on the difference between live classes and online classes. Despite their convenience, I enjoy both teaching and taking classes in person more than online. The instant give and take between teacher and student cannot be replaced. That, and the joy of seeing a light go on in your student’s eyes when they get it.

After the play we had dinner at a wonderful outdoor French restaurant and did a walking tour of Rockefeller Center. It’s one of the most beautiful man-made places in the world. The unified art deco design and décor and sculptures along with how well-maintained it is gives you hope that cities can be inspiring places. Plus, it’s a living place, not a museum. At midnight they were busy getting ready for the next-day’s today show in front of the famous sunken plaza where they ice skate in winter. Nearby is also where they do Saturday Night Live each week. It’s also filled with chic stores and restaurants.

On our way back to our hotel, which was across from Madison Square Garden, we walked through Times Square I had been to New York for two brief visits in the past, but on neither occasion had the time to sight see. I do remember walking through this area once and being scarred and repulsed. Other than the lights it was dirty and shabby. Homeless, hookers, pimps and peepshows were everywhere. Now it’s relatively clean and feels safe. Funny, even the police station there has big neon lights that flash.

I heard that it was Giuliani that really helped clean things up through strict enforcement and by bringing in the Disney Company to help manage the area. This was at the time Lion King was a huge Broadway hit and began bringing families back to the area. This is literally Disneyization.

When we returned to our hotel about 2am we understood why they call New York the city that never sleeps. Especially around Times Square there were people everywhere. They showed no signs of going home any time soon.

Our hotel was also filled with people wearing white Indian style clothing. While waiting for the elevator I asked one about their group. They are American followers of Amma, the hugging saint. This world can use a lot more hugging and a lot less fear, hatred and prejudice.

The next day we visited the Empire State Building, Wall Street, Ellis Island, saw the play, Chicago, and lastly made a stop at Trump Tower. For us the highlights were listening to a historical narrative at the top of the Empire State building and our visit to Ellis Island.

In this now Disneyized New York, the Empire State Building has become another ride in the theme park and there’s actually a ride within the ride. It costs $11 each to ride to the top. For “only” $15 extra dollars you can also ride a virtual roller coaster through New York, similar to the Star Tours at Disneyland. Instead we opted to spend an extra $15 for the three of us to share a taped commentary, by Tony the Taxi Driver. He pointed out the sights and gave a brief history. We could have pointed out most sights for ourselves, but his commentary was really well-written and we learned a lot we didn’t know about New York.

One of the things he said was New York is now a place that mostly provides services and welcomes tourists. It’s no longer a manufacturing center. Another fact is New York was dedicated to business from the start. The early Dutch settlers came to trade, not escape religious persecution like the settlers in New England. Business is its purpose today. He said this created a city of extremes. Extreme poor and rich. Extreme good and bad. Sublime art and crass commercialism.

He also mentioned New York is the most energy efficient city in the US. It’s the only place a minority of people own cars because it’s easier to use public transit.

From that perch another thing that struck me was how small the famous places are that are the subject of so many books and movies. Greenwich Village, Soho, Wall Street, Little Italy, Chinatown, Times Square, the Theater district, Rockefeller Center – they are all just a few blocks in size. Each of those famous locations can be walked through in about 15-20 minutes. They are all just one or two subway stops. New York is a vertical not horizon place.

Ellis Island reconfirmed the strength of our country comes from tolerance and making room for others at the table. One fact I didn’t know was why we have public education. The real motivation was because of the sweat shops that used child labor near the turn of the last century. More than the desire to educate children and end the horrible conditions in the factories, was the desire to end children competing for jobs with adults, lowering wages and to create more jobs for teachers.

Chicago, the play, had amazing Fosse -inspired choreography, but its vision was very dark and actually cruel. It’s a kind of American version of Cabaret. We enjoyed Hairspray more, though Chicago will probably be remembered as a greater achievement.

Lastly we went to Trump Tower, because my wife and son had gotten addicted to the first season of the Apprentice and that's where they shot much of it. My son, who’s named Donald, said he wanted to be and entrepreneur like Donald Trump. We took a picture of him in front with a sign that said, “Hired.” Then we went home. I barely made it back in time to get ready for work that morning.

Whew!!

Week 3, July 3-9, 2006:

This week was short since we had the 4th of July off and I took Friday off to be with my family. They surprised me July 1 with the happy announcement of a two-week visit. More later.

This week I also became an integral member of the team creating the training for the rollout of the Client Connections Integrated Desktop, a new application to help our division’s sales force. I started off as a debugger. Then I was given the task of creating a short Captivate movie to explain how to use Captivate.

This is the first time the bank has used Captivate simulations in its training. I eventually became the “Lectora Guy,” the person who made all the final adjustments using the course authoring software called Lectora (very similar to Authorware). Apparently these are common applications used to create online learning in corporate settings. I wasn’t exposed to either at SDSU so perhaps they should be considered for inclusion in the EdTec mix.

In this segment I want to discuss the case for internships and the art of debugging, plus report on the Boston Pops 4th of July concert and our weekend trip to Cape Cod and Maine.

The Case for Internships

Initially, I was a little miffed we didn’t get both Monday and Tuesday off for the 4th of July. However, they generously give me two days off of my choice WITH pay during my 2.5 month stay, so I have nothing to complain about. In fact, as internships go this is an extremely generous one, especially when you compare it to the one my roommate, Jonghyup Lee, had last summer.

Mr. Lee, works for the Korean Foreign Service. The Korean government is supporting him while he gets his masters at the Fletcher School of International Relations at Tufts University, which is a short distance from our apartment. The Fletcher School is one of the top three schools in the nation for the training of diplomats. He’s finished his coursework and just has his dissertation to do.

I was envious of his internship with the United Nations in New Yourd last summer, until I found out he wasn’t paid a cent and had to beg the university to help him with living expenses. However, he does have an autographed picture of himself with Kofi Annan. More than that, he found out how the UN really works while making very important contacts with people who he will be dealing with throughout his career.

Internships, even unpaid ones, are the most valuable learning experiences of all since they bring into focus what we learn in class in the real-world. They help students make the leap from theory to practice and, especially, from paying to learn, to being paid for what they learned.

The Art of Debugging

Debugging. It sounds like a form a pest control. In a way it is. It’s the elimination pesky errors. Since I started my internship, I spent much of my time “debugging” training modules.

Basically it’s editing, but editing more than just spelling and grammar. We also check for errors in graphics, hyperlinks, and now, with Captivate, segment timing, transitions and interactivity. It’s tedious, but crucial work.

I learned a new efficient technique to document and communicate errors to those who do the fixing. It combines screen captures with PowerPoint. When we encounter an error we push the PrintScreen button, or use a screen capture application to copy the screen image. We then paste into PowerPoint and use it’s graphics and text functions to highlight the error and explain the fix.

By the time we finished the project I had scores of these PowerPoints. They also serve as documentation for the process used in creating the training. This is probably an old technique, but it's new to me.

What is most impressive is the amount of effort put into making everything right. There was round after round of corrections. Every word, image and action of the training was gone over with a fine-tooth-comb, not just by one person. Usually three to five people, team members and non-team members looked at things. Then there were also the separate departments that checked the material and had to approve it, most prominently the Compliance and Marketing Departments.

Compliance checks that all material complies with the dizzying myriad of banking laws, especially insider trading, money laundering (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002) and The Patriot Act. Not only do they need to check Federal laws they also need to know the rules of various countries, and individual states. California is the main state that is dealt with separately in the training because its rules are often more stringant than federal ones.

Without realizing it those who create the banking products, and consequently instructional designers who create the training, can include things that run afoul of these regulations. For instance, in the case of our training in was discovered late in the process that there was a problem with something called “attachments.” We had to go back and eliminate all reference to attachments in over 100 pages of training that had been created and all the Captivate simulations.

Marketing makes sure the training includes approved language and graphics that coincide with the bank’s branding and marketing campaigns. For instance they had to make sure it was OK to include an ampersand in the name of division of the bank. Memos were flying about the ampersand.

They had us eliminate some of our graphics because the bank’s flag logo could only be used in certain ways. They made sure we always used the approved colors and type styles. They were also concerned about a photo of a top executive that showed him in a shirt and tie instead of a coat and tie.

It can all seem very nit-picky, but there’s a lot at stake. I was recently speaking with some employees at lunch. One said I wouldn’t believe the amount of money the company has had to pay in fines because a client was laundering money and the Financial Advisor (sales rep) didn’t catch it. Another co-worker who used to work for Suisse Bank recounted a $40 million fine for something that was essentially not wrongdoing by the bank but by their customer. However, the government expects the bank to be vigilant. Ignorance is no defense. I had no idea.

As learning professionals their challenge is to protect the bank by creating training that helps the sales people understand this. They also strive to create systems of learning that instill the desire to not cut corners for the quick buck. Their goal it to create a culture of compliance with the law, not just teach employees how to use a new application or sell a new product.

The task is daunting. The Financial Advisors’ income is based on commission. It’s understandable they could be so anxious to make a sale that not that every t is crossed or i dotted. Plus, we all hate paperwork.

Personal Notes

4th of July Concert

My wife, Patty, and 13 year-old-son, Donald decided to visit in time to see the Boston Pops perform their annual 4th of July concert and fireworks display on the Esplanade next to the Charles River. Their flight arrived at 6am and I got to the Esplanade about 6:30 am to save us place in line. The concert started at 8:30 pm.

The scene was a much tamer version of the rock concerts I attended as a younger man. Envision a family-oriented, well-mannered, patriotic Woodstock, without mind-altering substances and with hot dog stands.

This illustrates how things were different from my rock concert days. While eating a sandwich I got a mustard stain on my shirt. This wonderful lady behind us just happened to have one of those individually wrapped Shout wet-towel stain removers. She saw what happened and gave it to me to clean my shirt. It worked! Can you imagine at a rock concert saying, "Hey, pass me that Shout, I have a stain?" We were passing other things then. But the spirit of being kind to your neighbor hasn't changed.

We had some rock and roll, too. The big guest stars this time were the two main members of Boston’s own Arrowsmith. It's the first time they appeared at the Pops. Arrowsmith songs sounded great with the orchestral back-up. I didn’t think the Pops could play “Walk This Way”, but they had fun with it. The real draw was, of course, the 1812 Overture performed with real cannons, the patriotic pieces and the spectacular fireworks. We had long, but fantastic day!

Visit to Cape Cod, Salem and Maine

I took one of my two vacation days on Friday and we drove to Provincetown on Cape Cod. Since I was a Visual Arts major in college I was aware of some of the art history of New England, but I never realized what a major role Provincetown (called P-Town by locals) played. Everyone from Winslow Homer to Hans Hoffman and John Singer Sargeant to Robert Motherwell have been here and created, primarily in the summer. We toured the many art galleries and I talked to some of the artists. One recommended I go to the Painting Summer exhibition in Salem to see some of the greatest examples of art produced in P-Town and to learn about the special place summer has in the hearts of New Englanders.

One of the things you see everywhere in P-Town are rainbows. The rainbow flags of the gay movement, that is. This place has always been a refuge for artists and eccentrics who lived beside the tolerant Yankee and Potuguese fishermen, but now it’s also predominantly gay -- at least during the summer when the population grows from 3,000 to 30,000. My son wants one of those flags.

One negative thing that’s starting to happen in Provincetown is reverse discrimination. In Massachusettes, the only state that’s legalized gay marriage, many are trying to get a referendum on the ballot take away those marriage rights. An article I recently read in a local paper said the names of people who signed that petition were published on a gay rights Web site. A few signers were from the straight minority in P-Town. Some have started harassing these people and doing nasty things like yelling at them in public restaurants or littering their yards with dog feces.

If this is true it seems the old pattern of the oppressed becoming the oppressors when they are in a position of power and feel threatened is being repeated again. The Puritan settlers left England because they were oppressed. When they came here they in turn became oppressors. The witch trials of Salem are a sad reminder. Then, there's the fallout from 9-11, such as the secret prisons, torture, domestic spying, and the Patriot Act, which has made many things, including banking regulations, more onerous.

Preciousness of Summer

The next day we took the artist’s advice and drove to Salem on the way to visit my brother’s Parent-in-law who live in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Peabody-Essex Museum housing the collection of New England summer paintings is a brand-new huge structure, a work of art itself.

One of the things that struck me while viewing the exhibition was how much of it was painted on Cape Cod in general and specifically in or near Provincetown. Even Mojo’s, the fast-food fish stand we ate at the day before in P-Town, was featured in a painting showing how it looked in the 1970’s. It didn’t look much different than today. Later I found out the painting was by Scott Prior, a famous contemporary realist who's Kurt Vonnegut's son-in-law. I had visited his wife's art gallery the day before. She's a painter, too. Kurt Vonnegut, himself, a former Cape Cod resident, has also turned from writing to art.

The other thing that struck me is how the paintings express the deep love New Englanders have for summer. The bleak harshness of their winters make them long for this time of year. When I arrived in Boston several co-workers told me the first day, “You are lucky, you’ve come here at the best time of year.” I can’t fully appreciate this, since I come from the land of endless summer. But it did make me appreciate living in San Diego more. Many who live here would like to move there.

The city of Salem has embraced its witch trial heritage and become a kind of Wicca Theme Park. Everywhere you go in the main part of town are places that feature Witch-inspired souvenirs, toys and t-shirts. Signs advertising Palm reading and all things “new age” are on every corner.

Hidden behind this cheerful exterior is the intolerance and ignorance that resulted in the wrongful torture and death of innocents. To its credit, after the trial and execution the people of Salem did a lot of soul-searching and realized what they did was wrong. This haunting sense of guilt was the basis for Hawthorn’s ghost story, The House of the Seven Gables. His childhood home in Salem that was the inspiration for the house in the book, is now also a tourist attraction.

This sanitizing of the past to create tourist attractions seems to be a trend not just here, but everywhere in the US. Our country is transitioning from a manufacturing economy to a service-based and tourism economy. It’s part of what Alan Bryman calls the Disneyization and McDonalization of America. I also saw this trend in New York city when we visited the following weekend. This is something that has a direct effect on the need for instructional designers and the kinds of training they create.

Kennebunkport

To get to my brother’s parents-in-law’s home in Kennebunkport, Maine we had to drive by the Bush Compound. The coast of Maine is gorgeous in general and this collection of the Bush family homes overlooking the ocean is beautiful. The Bushes have been a part of Kennebunkport for over 100 years. They also claim to have one foot in Texas, but that’s another story.

I went to high school with the daughters of family we visited and my brother married one of them. They used to live in Coronado and own a home there still. Their youngest daughter who lives south of Boston, near Plymouth, was also visiting with her family. Her husband, who is a corporate headhunter in Boston, asked me where the office I work is located. It turns out he works in the building next to mine. As they say in Disneyland, “It’s a small world after all.”

On Sunday we were able to spend time paddling a canoe in the beautiful tidal marsh islands of Kennebunkport and of course had a Lobster dinner. On the way home we took the scenic costal route through New Hamshire. We enjoyed a couple of lovely, lazy New England summer days.

Next installment: Birth of the “Lectora Guy” and Giving Regards to Broadway

Week 2, June 26 – July 2, 2006:

It took me a while to write this next entry because my family unexpectedly came to visit me and we were busy seeing the sights and visiting relatives. I’ll write about that in my next posts.

This week I kept improving my Captivate and Lectora skills and started mastering Fireworks (similar to Photoshop, but more Web and Flash oriented). I had an interesting conversation with Kevin Thompson, Vice President for Learning, and attended a more than 3-hour orientation meeting with the other interns in Charlotte – by phone. Lastly, I actually started working on the Client Connections Integrated Desktop course, one of the major projects I’ll help produce over the summer.

The Case for Templates

In my last report I wrote how templates seem to suck the creative life out of everything, unless you are the template creator, that is. However, I do understand the need for them.

The Bank of America is now a multinational company and the largest nationwide bank in terms of customers. One in three people in the US have an account with B of A. Their customers can travel nearly anywhere in the nation and use an ATM at no charge or step into a bank to talk to a teller. It’s important that someone in San Diego, Boston, Charlotte or St. Louis all think they are dealing with the same bank.

The same is true of the learning materials we produce. Until recently different learning production teams were producing materials in different ways. These are trainings with assessments that the employees must pass to obtain certificates that allow them to sell certain financial products. They need to have the certificates to advance in position and pay. If someone fails a test because its look and feel is different it would be a shame.

The creativity of our assignments is expressed in how we work within the constrictions to produce training that’s useful, compelling and achieves its objectives. The famous New England poet, Robert Frost, said he still preferred meter and rhyme because to not use them is like playing tennis without a net. Templates can be the meter and rhyme that gives our educational creations a creative structure. I'm glad I was exposed to using them in a professional manner in some of my EdTech courses, such as 561 and 541.

A Conversation with Kevin Thompson

Kevin Thompson is the Vice-President for Learning of our division, Wealth & Investment Management (WIM). His original goal was to become a president of a company that specialized in Mergers and Acquisitions. He eventually became the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of a company like that, but when he saw what presidents do he decided he would rather work in the area of corporate learning. His current goal is to become a CLO (Chief Learning Officer), an interesting title – and nice goal for EdTec graduates.

When asked about opportunities in the field of corporate training he said they were unlimited, especially for those who understand the importance of showing the value of the training. He explained that every department of a company now comes under close scrutiny. They need to show their value with numbers. That is, every department except learning. It’s always been difficult to come up with ways to measure how learning improves the bottom line. Now learning is starting to come under the same spotlight. Those who embrace this and can show how learning creates real value are the ones who now have unlimited futures.

Wisdom from a conference call

On June 30 I participated in a long conference call. It was a meeting of all summer interns. Apparently there’s 13 of us, 11 in Charlotte, 1 in New York City doing research at home and myself in Boston. They had distributed a Power Point in advance that I could use to follow along with the presentations. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time hearing what they were saying since many of the participants were not close to the microphone. Remembering the Breeze sessions we’ve had at SDSU using video cameras, I felt that was a more engaging way to conduct these kinds of meetings.

They basically went over the corporate structure and talked about the opportunities within B of A. They did emphasize that pay is based on your value to the company and not limited by strict guidelines like we are at city schools. They seemed to suggest there is a high earning potential without any specifics. They also mentioned the tremendous recent growth of the company through aggressive acquisition. Since 1990 there has been a 4490% increase in revenues. Bank of America was the first truly national bank in the US and now has offices in 35 countries and 176,638 employees. Their goal is “To become the most admired company in the world.”

One thing they are concerned about is maintaining their competitive edge. It’s not enough to simply be big. They are striving to be a Universal Bank by growing organically through increasing the business they do with the customers they now have. The era of growth through acquisition is nearly at an end. They are also worried about WalMart’s recent announcement that they plan to offer banking services, too.

The other thing was staying on top of banking regulations. Recently other companies have been assessed multimillion dollar fines and had officers sent to jail. They don’t want that to happen. The strategy is not only to keep up with legislation, but to also do their best to influence it, not just in the U.S., but internationally.

Another concern is that America is losing its edge in the area of education. In low wage countries there were 33 million college graduates last year, but only 7.7 million in the U.S.

A bit of wisdom came from one of the panelists who was discussing about how precious our time in school is. He said this is only moment in our lives where we can spend a lot of time just thinking about things and reading about them. Once we begin our careers it’s more a matter of applying what we learned. Our time to ponder or read at length becomes very limited.

He also mentioned the importance of accumulating knowledge and wisdom by not zoning out at meetings. He said he learned this from one of the top executives at Bank of America who seems to have unlimited knowledge on most any topic. This top executive said no matter how boring a meeting is he stays engaged by note taking. If there was something he didn’t understand he would ask questions during the meeting. After the meeting he would talk to people individually about the things he still didn’t fully grasp. In this manner he not only deepened his understanding he was able to create a network of people he could call upon whenever he had questions about anything. Later many of these people really helped him advance his career.

Feeling Dilbertized

This week I started feeling a bit like a character in Dilbert. This is the first time I've ever worked in cubicles, affectionally called "cubes." Our office is a sea of cubes broken up by glass-enclosed executive suites. The other day I took a wrong turn and was completely disoriented. It was like one of those dreams where you are trapped in an Escher-like maze. It looked just like my office, but it wasn’t my office. Everything looked the same, but the people were different and, horror of horrors, the coffee pot wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

In the cubes there is nearly no privacy. Anyone can look in to see what others are doing. You can hear what anyone says in the nearby cubes. After a while people forget or simply don’t care that they can be overheard. The man kitty-corner from me has phones conversations with relatives where personal problems are discussed. I’ve had a couple personal conversations as well and wonder what those who overheard think.

In my team everyone seems to brown-bag lunch and no one seems gets together after work. This could be because I’ve only been there a short time or because everyone takes public transit. Not having this kind of social interaction naturally leads to a sense of isolation.

This really hit home when I attended the phone conference on Friday with the other 11 interns in Charlotte. There, before the orientation, all the interns were treated to breakfast and in the course of the meeting executives there repeated invited them to stop by their office to talk, or have lunch or meet for drinks after work. Initially I felt a little left out.

Reaching out

However, I do need to make more effort to reach out to others. Whenever I have, people have been more than nice. They want to have a happy workplace and make new friends, too. For those who have trouble reaching out to others there must be a crushing sense of loneliness even when surrounded by others.

In fact, “reach out” is a major buzzword in the B of A culture. Employees are encouraged to reach out to fellow employees constantly, or to whoever can help them with their task. Their slogan is “reaching out passes learning.” I know we are also encouraged to do this at SDSU. There were a few times I wish I had reached out to my fellow students and instructors for help, but instead suffered alone. Nearly every time I made the effort to ask for help I got a more than positive response. In some cases I even made a new friend. It seems we all fight the phantom – fear of rejection. Plus, I'm a bit lonely being away from my family.

I’m not being left out of the actual work, though. I’m starting to be an integral part of our team and feel as if I’m actually contributing. This is a great source of satisfaction. I now have my own name plaque for my cube and an official name badge to wear when I go to meetings. My official employee badge is coming soon.