In today's climate, IDs who insist on crafting data as if they were chefs at Tavern on the Green will likely become dinosaurs.
Wake up...it's 2009. Times have changed. We have become a society of fast-food consumers of knowledge. In today's climate,we do not usually need our information "designed." Yet is it still possible to be proud of our craft--the artistry of content development--while our customers are demanding more...now...fast?! Of course, the answer is 'yes' but we must be willing and able to swallow some pride in the process.
Before the age of instant information and just-in-time content gratification, IDs were often able to distend their course development projects at will. They sailed the proverbial ship... and this ship was called the Titanic; slow to turn...slow to change course. Content development teams on which I participated had, at times, an almost snooty attitude: "The content will be ready when it's ready! You can't rush these things! Good content takes time!" During this Golden Age, if you were an instructional designer and a perfectionist, you were in good company. Now, I don't mean to imply that these designers never worked under deadlines; of course they did! However, I rarely had the experience where my design teams didn't use every last moment up until High Noon to poke, preen, prod and tweak their materials until they were 'just right'. Judges...the envelope, please! And the winner is....
Guess what, folks! There is no academy award for instructional content!
As admirable as it is to take pride in one's work--and we should--it is also important not to lose sight of our project objectives: To deliver an exceptional product on time at a reasonable cost. Let's not lose sight of that 'on time' part. In terms of the corporate lament: Time...Cost...Quality. Pick any two, IDs have an innate ability for selecting quality at the detriment of time. If you fall into this category, let me gently rub your back and say: "It's okay if the colors you used on slide 17 clash; I'm sure your audience will understand if the transition at 1:18 drags an extra second longer than you'd like. Your viewers will forgive you." With this in mind, let me deliver a philosophical statement pounded into my brain by an old boss and good friend who understood that the perfectionist lessons learned from my previous employer did not fit well in my new, fast-and-furious environment under his watchful eye:
'Good' is good enough!'
This, of course, was not a license to produce crappy content. It was, however, a demand that I demonstrate my expertise well enough to know when to dot the last 'i' or touch the brush to the canvas for the last time. Gone were the days of Alpha-Beta-Gold review cycles or bottom-up 360-degree quality management pre-pilot launch reviews. We simply didn't have time for that! Let me point out that during this period, I worked for a large consumer electronics retailer; our customers had neither the time nor the patience to wait until we developed perfect training courses for our sales staff. Had we attempted to create the 'Citizen Kane' of sales content, our competitors would've been laughing all the way to the bank while we were left behind in the dust.
Now, is this all to say that IDs should never devote the time, diligence and suffering required to make great content... or perhaps worse, to imply that all instructional content should be hammered out quickly, on-the-fly? Of course not! If your employer and/or customers give you one of life's rarest luxuries--time--and the expectation is that you'll use all of it in the pursuit towards content nirvana, then I'd say 'run with it!' Use your imagination and create some outstanding experiments in social constructivism or cognitive development if that's what it takes to make great content. However, with today's assortment of excellent and inexpensive rapid authoring tools (e.g., Articulate Presenter, Adobe Captivate, Camtasia Studio, among many others), IDs now have a choice. They have the ability to develop 'better,faster, cheaper' content or choose to create slow-brewed meticulously-crafted content, or any variation in between... but I would compel them to remember the most-valued lesson that 'good is good enough.'
When it comes to instructional content, I think most of us can agree that one size does not fit all. Thus, for the progressive instructional designer, a single content development strategy or style also does not fill all. If we are too humble to release our efforts before it's ready for recognition by the [fictitious] Academy Awards for E-Learning Content Committee, then we may well lose the opportunity to reach our consumers in the time they need our content most: Now!
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