This Week in MakingBetter: An Interview, ATD TechKnowledge & More

It’s a packed week this week. 🙂

ATD TechKnowledge

We’re pretty happy about getting back together with some of the gang this week at ATD TechKnowledge. We have two presentations this year, some panel sessions (“TK Chats”) and I’m sure there will be more than a few meetups.

• W304 – The Big Picture of Adaptive Learning (Wednesday, 2:45-3:45pm)
• TK Chat – Practical Uses of xAPI (Thursday, 9:15-10am)
• TK Chat – Content Strategy (Thursday, 12:15-1pm)
• TH304 – Content Wrangling: Applying Content Strategy and Information Architecture (Thursday, 2:45-3:45pm)

There are a few other sessions we’d check out:

• TKU 1 – TechKnowledge Unplugged – Fail Jam: Lessons Learned (Wednesday, 10:30-11:30am)
• W108 – Mobile Learning: YouTube Style (Wednesday, 10:30-11:45am)
• W200 – User Experience (UX) Design for Learning (Wednesday, 1-2pm)
• W207 – Mobile Learning: State of the Industry 2015 (Wednesday, 1-2pm)
• TK Chat – State of Mobile Learning (Wednesday, 3:00-3:45pm)
• W401 – If You Build It, Will They Come? How to Increase Learning Adoption (Wednesday, 4:15-5:15pm)
• TH104 – More Than Numbers: A Practical Guide to Designing for Data (Thursday, 10:30-11:45am)
• TH207 – A New Approach to Digital Learning Content (Thursday, 1:45-2:45pm)
• FR106 – Measure Outcomes With Tin Can: The Impact of Performance Observation (Friday, 8-9:15am)
• FR201 – Accountant, Strategist, or Sherlock? Using Data in Context (Friday, 9:30-10:45am)

Interview on E-Learning 24/7

Craig Weiss is an e-learning analyst who consults through his firm, E-Learning 24/7. His focus is on buyers and suppliers in the eLearning industry. We’ve bumped into each other over the past year at a few events, including Docebo’s dConf User Conference in 2013 and again at the Next Gen LMS conference last summer.

In December, Craig reached out to me with some questions about Learning Record Stores and how they relate to the xAPI specification. In answering them, Craig asked if I’d be interested in a more detailed interview. Over the holidays, Craig asked me some excellent questions about the history of xAPI, what’s the deal with its name, how does xAPI fare in terms of interoperability, security and privacy…

Craig asked straight-up questions and I gave him straight-up answers.

It’s long, but I think the interview turned out to be a good read. I hope the responses I gave are helpful. Truth is all in the telling, and I tried my best to tell it in a way people could follow — especially those who aren’t involved day-to-day with xAPI’s development.

Read here.

What We’re Reading…

• China Miéville’s Scar
• Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
• Sean Putman had a solid post last week on some of the challenges currently with moving data around via xAPI.
• As I consider donning a pompadour, this post on The Tokyo Subculture of 1950s Rockabilly Gangs has some incredible photos.

What We’re Listening To…

• Steve Portigal launched a new podcast, Dollars to Donuts, where he interviews people who lead user interviews in organizations (so meta). In his first episode, Steve interviews Gregg Bernstein who manages Customer Research at MailChimp. You can also subscribe via iTunes.
• Local Native’s first album, Gorilla Manor, has stayed on the record player this week, only to be interrupted by The Clash’s London Calling.