Is Bad Content Management White Collar Crime?

In the last few weeks, four different people have asked me about content or knowledge management systems. This made we wonder why all the interest in content or knowledge management system when they have been around for many years. I listened to the various stories and motivations to developing a better system. The reason ranged from:

• People leave the company and the next person is not able to find previously created work.
• There is a need to rapidly develop training and adapting already existing material is quicker if they could only find the material.
• People are trying to find the latest media (especially logos) created by various people and they are not sure where to locate them.
• Companies want to change something in one location and it be changed everywhere, but do not have the tools to accomplish this task.

These problems have always been around for lots of years. Back in 2001 when I first helped build a knowledge management system for a hosptial, we had to use folders and a SQL database, because we could not afford an enterprise content management system. In 2004 when work for an aviation company we purchased a LMS/LMCS that was cutting edge at the time, but is outdated now. Many companies did the same thing. Now those systems are outdated and new trends like social media, collaborative learning, and the cloud are making content or knowledge management more challenging. Now working for a Fortune 500 company the need is even greater. Let's explore what has have occurred in the last 10 years to make content management systems essential. Now there are:

• Fewer people doing the work and with layoffs poor content management makes locating material worst.
• Less people, doing the work which makes it more important to repurpose material when possible.
• Collaboration or social media is popular, but this can make locating content more difficult. 
• Storage space is cheap and companies want to go paperless, so people tend to keep everything digitally.
• When content management is poor people want to keep assets on their computer hard drives (so they can find them), which makes content management impossible.
• Companies have several content management systems, which do not talk to each other. For example some companies have:
• Content management systems for their websites (ex. WordPress)
• Documents management systems (ex SharePoint)
• Learning content management systems (ex. OnPoint)
• Enterprise content management systems (ex Alfresco)
• Training authoring systems (ex Lectora)

As I thought about  content managment I knew why people were struggling and thinking if I could help them find the right tool things would be great. I knew having a content management tools without the 3 P’s (people, procedures and process) does not work.

In Part 2 - we will talk about how to implement the 3 P’s (Processes, Procedures and People) to develop a content or knowledge management system that works.

Are Adobe, Apple and Microsoft Making all the Decisions for Us?

The Wall Street Journal reported on November 9^th that “Adobe is going to throwing in the towel when it comes to getting Flash to run on mobile devices, after a years-long battle with Apple over the validity of Flash versus HTML 5”. ComputerWorld talked about how Microsoft will not support Flash in their Windows 8 Metro style Internet Explorer 10 browser.

Where does that leave us who want to create interactive e-learning which uses Flash, especially since HTML5 standards are still changing? I want to make interactive learning and do more than play videos on Apple mobile devices with quizzes at the end.

I feel a sense of urgency, because I know tablets are being purchased more than laptops and I do not want to create the training twice. We need to start creating training using authoring tools that can publish in HTML5, especially since we have been given fair warning by Adobe, Apple and Microsoft. We want to create training in such a way that it can be updated and changed as the standards evolve.

Here are a couple of my thoughts on how to do that:

• Start by developing your storyboard in PowerPoint (PPT) as I talked about in earlier blog called PowerPoint Virtual Training Secret Weapon
• Choose an authoring tool that supports importing PPT slides, so you do not have to start all over if you:
• Change authoring tools as new ones are coming out regularly with new features
• Need or want to recreate the training since the standards are not completely established
• Only purchase one or two licenses of the authoring tool you think you are going to use until the standards for HTML5 are more established
• Our company could easily need 20 licenses in the future. If we purchase that many license now we are pretty much committed to staying with that authoring tool. It might be too early to make that type of commitment to one product.
• Purchase an authoring tool from a major vendor that has money to put money into R&D and will keep up with the changing standards. Possible vendors to look at are Clario by DominKnow, Lectora by Trivantis, or Intuition, which all have already released HTML5 tools. Adobe Edge (beta) and Articulate Storyline (releasing Dec. 2011 or Jan 2012) are also strong choices.
• I have tested each of these am leaning toward Storyline for the following reasons:
• Price being around $1,400 per license is nice, instead of approximately $2,500 for Clario or Lectora.
• I did like Clario feature of developing in the cloud, which allows for a content management of assets. If the price came down and it was not a yearly fee it would be a stronger contender.
• Lectora is a very nice tool and will is coming out with new enhancements all the time. You can bet that Lectora is going to keep coming out with cooler and cooler features. I will definitely keep reviewing Lectora with each new enhancement. I hear rumors that they have an on-line version that is less expensive. I am looking at that tool in the next few weeks.

What are you thinking about as it relates to build mobile courses and purchasing an authoring tool?