Business Matchmaking: Chicago

I am very fortunate to be able to make a trip out to Chicago for the Mid Western regional SBA Business Matchmaking event. This is an amazing opportunity for buyers and sellers to interact on a one on one basis and I would HIGHLY recommend it to small business people. I went to an event in Ft. Lauderdale last year and we got a very nice contract out of it with the NFPA, as well as some great leads for future projects.

The format of the event is speed dating for business. The nice thing is that you are matched with buyers based on your product descriptions and their buying needs. I will let you know whether this event turns out to be as successful as the previous one.

No Big Question

For those of you who are wondering, there is no Big Question for August. I have been a little lax posting entries, but this is more a result of being busy rather than losing interest. Typically this time of the year is a little slower and then it really picks up again later in the year. Fortunately this is not the case this year, so I am a happy camper. We are also looking to branch out and develop some of our own products so this will be an exciting adventure that will seriously deplete my already scarce free time. As they say 'no rest for the wicked..'

Anyone have any interesting topics related to eLearning/distance learning? I am always open to new ideas. Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Interactive learning

Too often the term interactive learning is used in an abstract manner where its actual application or power is lost. Interactive learning is simple and you can contribute in an active way. Actually I want to thank all the contributors over the last couple of weeks. We all heard that Web 2.0 is different and powerful and that it will exponentially increase learning. Well in the case of blogging it has definitely done so for me. Blogging is powerful because not only is it easy for you to share your thoughts or nuggets of wisdom, but it is also easy for the reader to respond directly to you, sharing their thoughts are challenging your ideas.

Yes Web 2.0 has made publishing easy, but it is not a one way interaction it is truly interactive. Sadly many of you read the blog via a reader and as such you may miss out on the comments. This is very sad, because the true learning takes place at the level of interaction i.e the point where my rambling gets challenged by readers' comments.

Let's take one great example. Tim responded to my post on July's Big Question regarding Tool selection with the following comment: "Could you frame some of this rhetoric about e-learning 2.0 in the context of e-learning for large corporations like banks where there is no internet access (no access to blogs as a learning tool), the requirement for mandatory training for compliance purposes, and where standards (restrictions?) like AICC or SCORM are in place?".

Wow, this blew my socks off. What an excellent question. Initially I was a little stunned by the word rhetoric, but after some reflection I realized that to someone who is actually trying to implement eLearning 2.0 in a corporate setting, much of the discussion must appear to be at the level of rhetoric. The fact is that the corporate context does limit the implementation and therefore the implications of eLearning 2.0. Tim's response really got my brain thinking about eLearning 2.0 from a different perspective. My response to Tim then got another comment from an Organizational and Development student (Mary deVore) who thanked us for discussing this interesting topic.

My point is that blogging is a great interactive learning tool. The ease and level of interaction is fascinating and it really makes my juices flow. I would like to recommend that you comment on your favorite blogs and that you read other people's comments. This is really a great interactive learning tool. Please keep up the good work!