Virtual Worlds and Famine

In the years before WWII, Hitler repeatedly told the world he intended to have a war in the East for Lebensraum. There were quiet rumblings that didn't always make the headlines: the renouncement of the Treaty of Versailles, the build up of German forces, and the bold new attitude of Germany at the Olympics. (Did anyone notice that is where the torch relay began?)

Far more interesting were the many new technologies that emerged: the Zeppellin, radio broadcasts around the world. The world was exhausted from the Great Depression. Everyone looked to new ideas for hope.
And the "funny little man from Germany" sounded a lot like a few other fascist dicators, Mussolini and Franco. Who would take him seriously? He was just beating his chest to give his countrymen courage.

I've always looked at the news was more like a conversation between writers than separate factoids.

Famines and Civil War
From the back pages of the Herald Sun today:

UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf (of Haiti) yesterday warned of civil war in some countries because of global food shortages and called for a revamp of the international food system. ...

"Unfortunately, we always wait until there is a catastrophe in this world before we react," he said.

The price of rice, a staple for every country, has more than doubled in the last year. Some rice producing countries have banned exports to preserve the food supply for their own people.

Turn the Page
Turning a page, virtual worlds are seen as invaluable elearning tools. IBM has set up a website to manage its stake in the virtual world, and to protect its virtual property rights. A high level executive manager has been hired to oversee virtual operations.

Australian telecommunications incumbent Telstra last year launched what was said to be the country’s first major corporate presence in the online virtual world. Dubbed “the Pond”, Telstra’s Second Life islands aim to encourage customer interaction while creating new sales and marketing opportunities.

Clever Zebra has developed ready-made corporate complexes that it has made available under the Open Source GPL license. Telstra spent $20,000 to customize a corporate complex on Second Life.
In Melbourne, train conductors use tweetscan to announce late arrivals and canceled schedules. Dell uses the same service to keep its ear to the ground about product approval and marketing opportunities.
Even more startling, Calvin Klein has produced the world's first virtual perfume. -- And you thought scented business cards were a bit much? (Yes, there is a company in Sydney that makes scented business cards!)
Teachers in virtual classrooms use twitter and twitterscan to listen to their students' comments, and react to questions.

Technology
In my online resume, I state flatly that I believe technology can save the world. I believe deeply in the power of communication across national boundaries to prevent catastrophes and bring people together.
There must have been a few like me in 1936 or so, too. Radio was the big thing then. Communication with anywhere in the world at the speed of light. In the light of history though, the record doesn't look so good.

The Flat World is facing its first crises.
None of this stuff was unpredictable.
Overpopulation and food shortages have been discussed for decades. I remember long conversations in the 1970s about it. Food shortages and social changes were the subject of movies. The paintings were gut wrenching. Those paintings and movies are now called "vintage", and rarely available anywhere.
Food shortages cause civil wars and wars between nations. Governments are overturned violently by desperate crowds. How many times has this happened in a lifetime?
Global warming has been predicted by scientists since the middle of the last century. Researchers in the early 1970s found lead levels in the Greenland ice packs were toxic. The levels had been deposited in the ice since the turn of the century, when automobiles started using ethyl gasoline to power cars.

Have we turned to virtual worlds to avoid dealing with the realities of the problems facing us all?
That would be a cruel choice.
One researcher put it plainly: "We have the capacity to feed the world. We have the tools to deliver that food to everyone who needs it." No kidding. The central valley in California is fertile enough to feed the north American continent, with billions of tons of food left over to export. There are other fertile areas around the world which only need to be put into production. The nations of the world have more than enough transport available. The US can deliver rice from the Sacramento delta to anywhere in the world.
The facts are there. International leaders like Jaques Diouf are pointing out the need. What's stopping us?

I live and work in the virtual world. The Internet has been a passion for me since before its inception. Groups of programmers gathered to dream about it, and speak quietly about our experience with its military predecessors, for years before anyone heard of the "Internet."
We knew it could be done.
The virtual world has eclipsed television as an entertainment source in Australia.
The virtual world has proven its value as a business resource, an information resource, and in entertainment. The power of the Internet has opened up the world to all who access it.
It's time the Internet showed how it can help those who desperately need help. Those millions who are not looking for entertainment or money, but for the daily needs of living.
I know this is just one post in a massive blogosphere. I hope a few people see it. More than that, I hope many people act on the ideas I've put forth here. I will place a similar post on all my blogs.
It's time to show the real power of a dream.

Addendum: CNet to discontinue Online University

Image via WikipediaFound on the media bistro site:

...After the jump, a former CNET teacher offers his vision for why the company failed: "poor management of the product."

The online courses product's death should be more attributed to the poor management of the product and not an unfortunate casualty of CNET's downsizing.
In 2005, the service was offering courses that had very high participation levels, at least in the ones I was leading. Topics such as wireless troubleshooting, PC troubleshooting and anything relating to digital photos was a big draw.
Then for some inexplicable reason they decided to revamp the structure by instituting a "learning hub" model, which grouped similar topics into one hub. The idea seemed good in theory, but they made a critical error in not specifying class dates and times as before. Instead, users could visit a hub at their leisure, ask a question in of the "courses" and wait for a response from a class leader.
What they did by implementing that structure was to severely undervalue the importance of timely engagement with users who were mostly novice on the classes they were taking. It felt to me like I was throwing them a deflated life preserver two days after they had drowned.

It got to the point where some hubs were so seldom visited that they were being assigned to class leaders in bulk, like 15+ courses at one time — just something to keep an eye on in case someone asked a question.

As a result, I was a given a couple topics I really had no business giving "expertise" on. The community placed their trust in us to deliver advice and guidance, and in most cases we did that very well.

But the inability of the product managers to successfully identify and stay appraised of course leader's core expertise, and create a meaningful learning topics around that was probably the worst offense.

According to media bistro, only a few course finishing up will remain until May 11th. In a note received from CNet to registered students:

The other courses, tutorials, and hubs will be live until May, then will be archived. If you worked on any of the content and would like to retain copies, please grab screenshots before May. I can't guarantee that you will be able to access it afterwards.

I'm adding this information for completeness. It's important to find out what works and what doesn't on the Web. Either of CNet's approaches might have worked fine. In the final analysis, it was communication that was at fault - even ending of classes so abruptly reflects this failure.

CNet to discontinue Online University

Image via WikipediaCNet will discontinue the Online University
CNET, one of my favorite sources of free high-quality training, has announced that it will end its free online courses May 1, 2008. This is a real disappointment, since these courses have been a consistent source of well-designed and authoritative free training, particularly on computer and many other high-tech topics.
In their announcement today, CNET stated they will “discontinue online classes and focus on our extensive Tips database that holds more than 1,000 expert CNET tips… All class content (class lessons, posts, course completion certificates) will be removed from our site as of Wednesday, April 30, 2008.”

It's another lesson in the nature of the digital divide.

Not their core function
CNet began those courses as a response to About.com offering email and online courses on just about everything, especially websites and home/home business computing.

About did it by hiring mentors to compile the courses. For a while you could become an online course developer/mentor just by applying.

CNet thought they could offer better courses on more technical subjects. Their courses were professional quality, from beginner to college level.
CNet started the courses to draw traffic from About. About began in the late 90s. CNet established its online university in 2004.
For a while, it worked.

Online training was never CNet's primary function. CNet is a professional technical newsletter, download, and online reference. Although there's a lot on CNet for the beginner, its content is quickly seen as over the head of most users.
CNet dropped the online university because it was not making enough money for them. And one of the reasons was their courses were such high quality.

Only 30% finish online courses
What CNet and About found out has become a bylaw of online course delivery: only 30% of subscribers finish the courses.
One blogger compared the traits of those able to successfully complete online courses with adult educations students. The students have to be self motivated, and can't rely on the teacher or peer pressure to finish the course.

There are a number of problems, and they have to do with the digital divide.

1. Employers do not trust completion certificates from online courses. They are leery of people with 'paper skills' (digital skills??) and not real world experience.
2. The classes tended to follow the academic model for classrooms, even though there was no teacher present or peers.
3. The classes were broadly based, meaning they covered most of the topic, rather than focusing on the needs of the individual students in their work.

Here's one of the comments from an article written 4 Mar 2008:

(T)he students need to grasp that they will face social challenges, not just physical challenges, when seeking jobs as a distance educated job candidate.

This needs to translate into the student having a level of sincerity to be willing to gain experiences outside employers realms. This experience is needed so the student can tell the interviewer they can troubleshoot real designs, which is what the employer is manufacturing.

The social aspects are perception: the employer sees a paper smart person, needs to hear about real skills; the student has to graduate thinking they have some theoretical skills, but they may actually have no real skills.

AEmeritus failed
In 2004, I developed a business plan for a company called AEmeritus Relevant Training. The idea was ahead of its time in many ways. The most significant issue here in Australia was the lack of Internet access to many areas, and the overall lack of technical savvy.
The idea was to make the training relevant to the needs of the company and trainees in their work. I saw some of the issues that are now confronting all elearning operations back then just from my own experience taking an online course.

I got my Training and Assessment Cert IV online. I was shocked to see that no one had finished any module in the training on the first go. Every other student required at least 6 tries at the modules; on some modules, online students had taken 22 tries. I was the only trainee that only took one try to finish all the modules ( -- except one, because of a household emergency, I had to do one module twice.)

Some successful elearning operations have taken another tack to deal with the same issue, and CNet is doing the same: CNet will keep its extensive Tips and Tricks database. Instead of offering courses on a package, users can look up useful tips they can use.
Again, this means the students can look up what they need to know.

I think that is a broad hint for what needs to be available on the etraining site: many, many searchable tips. I've been preaching the same thing for years to web design clients as a means to keep visitors coming back to a site.