Matt Gilley speaks to Entrepreneurial Insights

A note from Matt:

I had the pleasure of participating in an internet radio show, Entrepreneurial Insights, on March 26, 2010, along with Pino Bacinello (President) of Pacific Mergers and Acquisitions and Leo McKernan (General Manager) of Online Training Technologies. We spent about an hour discussing current trends in the elearning industry, and it was interesting to hear Leo's opinions.

Online Training Technologies is a content partner of Intellum's, specializing in financial services education, and Leo's primary focus during the chat centered around his client's needs to customize OTT off-the-shelf content, e.g. Anti-Money Laundering. That is not a request many of our client's have, and actually, I see prospects and clients more often creating completely customized training from their own source material using a 3rd party course authoring tool. It's an interesting contrast in business models though. I spent a good bit of the segment explaining how, especially in the last 18 months, many companies (often brick and mortar consultancies or software providers) have begun leveraging the Rollbook Learning Management System to "sell" training, anything from certifications to software simulation. I believe ecommerce LMS implementations will continue to gather momentum, and we have actually created a specific LMS product to service this burgeoning market. Anyway, it's a fun conversation, and you can take a listen here.

Podcast Episode #7: Nancy Duarte

CEO and principal, Duarte Design

Nancy is a bestselling author and CEO of Duarte Design. Over the past twenty years, Nancy has worked with hundreds of prominent executives, companies, and organizations to craft presentations that have influenced perceptions and championed causes across the globe. In this episode, we will be discussing the magic of Duarte Design, touching on concepts from her book slide:ology, and getting a sneak peek into the subject matter of her soon to be released second work, resonate.

Visit Duarte's Blog

Announcing the Intellum Community

As many of you know, we have been using our blog solely as a way to organize and deliver our monthly interview podcast, which we started at the beginning of this year. That approach has always seemed like a waist of a perfectly good communications platform, but we didn't want to rush into a community strategy that didn't provide value to our readers. To be quite honest, a lot of corporate blogs we see seem more interested in self-promotion than the value of their content, and that is absolutely not the path we wanted to follow. We knew we had a good thing going with the interview podcast, for which we have to thank our wonderful list of participants and everyone that has emailed us with positive feedback, but we wondered how we could reproduce that same spirit in a different format with more frequent updates.

We believe we have finally figured out the correct balance. Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the new Intellum Community, which will serve as the central destination for our community activities:

1) The Podcast
The podcast has been a huge success, and we have a growing list of passionate, inspiring participants lined up for future episodes. I'm personally looking forward to hearing from these individuals, and think you will too.

2) The Blog
Okay, there's nothing new about a blog. It seems everyone starts one at some point, only to lose interest in it a few months later. Regardless, there are a number of good ones that I still enjoy reading through Google Reader (despite the fact that the feed is supposedly dead). We feel that the blog can serve two main roles for us: (1) as a place to share more in-depth articles about challenges our clients have overcome; and (2) as a way to aggregate updates about our other community activities.

3) Intellum TV
In talking to our clients and podcast participants like Sal Kahn and Steve Garfield, it has become apparent that obsessing about production quality can easily get in the way of creating something that people find valuable. With that lesson in mind, we have begun producing short, casual video clips that touch on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the work we do at Intellum. We hope that these videos serve as a helpful educational resource for those of you that want to learn more about e-learning, technology, or entrepreneurship.

4) Social Networks
We have created accounts on Facebook and Twitter to provide an easy and timely way for you to keep up with our community updates, which we hope will have the added benefit of fostering discussion and providing real-time feedback.

We are very excited about our plans for the Intellum Community, but we know, like anything else, it's all in the execution. We'll be working hard to add valuable resources for you, but we can't build a true community without your participation. If you have any ideas or feedback, please let us know.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Podcast Episode #6: Stephen Downes

Senior Researcher, National Research Council of Canada

Stephen is the author of the popular online learning newsletter OLDaily. In addition to his research and newsletter contributions, Stephen writes e-learning software and is a frequent featured speaker at industry events. In this episode, we will be discussing personal learning environments, quirks that stifle e-learning advancement, and free versus commercial learning content.

Visit Stephen's Website

Podcast Episode #5: Lance Dublin

Chief Solutions Architect, Dublin Consulting

Over the last 30 years, Lance has brought an innovative consulting approach to the fields of learning and change management. Having been dubbed a Creative Abrasionist, he has not only gained industry-wide respect for his approach, he has also become a recognized author and international speaker. In this episode, we discuss the meaning of creative abrasion, stagnation in the learning industry, the importance of the words you use, and choosing the right tool for your specific problem.

Visit Lance's Website

Podcast Episode #4: Steve Garfield

SteveGarfield.com

Widely considered one of the very first video bloggers, Steve is not only a web celebrity, but also an expert in all things Internet video. In this episode, we will be speaking to him about his start on the Internet, some of the tricks he's learned along the way, and his new book Get Seen.

Visit Steve's Website

Podcast Episode #3: Sal Khan

Founder of the Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere. It has grown from a humble set of tutorial videos recorded for a handful of Sal's family members to a robust curriculum that helps over 200,000 students around the world each month. In this episode, we'll be discussing how Sal has built his virtual academy, the lessons he's learned along the way, and what impact technology may have on the future of education.

Visit the Khan Academy