by Gary Woodill on July 28, 2010
Since the beginning of the year, there has been a shift in my practice as a consultant and analyst for emerging information technologies. The shift includes a move to independent status for me, with several interesting clients. My largest account is still Brandon Hall Research, where I continue to work as a senior analyst. But I have several other projects on the go, including:
Author - I’ve just completed my second book project in less than a year, both published by McGraw-Hill. The first book, Training and Collaboration with Virtual Worlds was co-authored with my friend Alex Heiphetz, who continues to develop virtual world sites for major corporate clients. My newest book, The Mobile Learning Edge, was mostly my writing, but colleagues David Fell and Sheryl Herle each contributed a chapter. It will be available in mid-September.
Researcher – I am currently working on a project on the world-wide treatment of depression, in order to map all the teams that are working on this important problem, and to categorize their approaches to treatment. Information and suggestions are welcome. I have also been using my web research skills to locate missing persons for others who are looking for long lost relatives. So far, I have found 3 people who have not been heard from since the 1960s.
Technology Futurist – I have just finished a major report on future trends in high definition videoconferencing for a Canadian client. I realized that the future of any technology has, in a sense, “already happened” in that it takes 5 to 10 years for a technology to go from invention to commercialization and widespread adoption. By digging deep, and understanding where to look for new innovations, one can discover technologies that exist today but are hidden, that may be prominent tomorrow. Having written many reports on emerging learning technologies for Brandon Hall Research, I am looking forward to more projects in this area.
I continue to monitor innovation in the learning and development industry, and post daily to the Workplace Learning Today blog. I will be updating my new site regularly, along with the support website for my mobile learning book. I hope to do a number of presentations at conferences and online in the coming year, and look forward to working with old friends and new clients.
Let’s continue the connection at www.garywoodill.com.
by Gary Woodill on November 30, 2009

My nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are:
Best individual blog – Jay Cross – Informal Learning Blog - Jay is always probing the leading edge of the learning and development field, and posts almost every day.
Best individual tweeter – Harold Jarche - I’ve been following fellow Canadian Harold Jarche since getting on Twitter, and he shows up in my Twitter stream with useful tweets more often than anyone else.
Best group blog – O’Reilly Radar - A smart group of people who produce lots of insights about the world of learning technologies.
Best new blog – Nick Jones - Nick start this blog just over a year ago. His posts are funny, insightful, and frequent. What more can you ask of a blogger?
Best resource sharing blog – Mashable - If you want to keep up with the latest in learning technologies, you need to check this blog every day.
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion – #lrnchat - Organized chaos on Thursday evenings from 8:30-10:00pm ET.
Best educational tech support blog – ReadWriteWeb - A must read for followers of educational technology and the Internet.
Best elearning / corporate education blog – Janet Clarey – OK, I know I work with her, but she’s still the best. Irreverent, funny and in your face makes for an unusual corporate blogger…Just sayin’.
Best educational wiki – Wikimopedia – This compliation of resources on mobile learning is very useful.
Best educational use of a social networking service – LearnTrends Ning site – the international, around the world events organized by LearnTrends will make you lose sleep.
Best educational use of a virtual world – School of Nursing, University of Kansas - a slick site for training nurses.
Lifetime achievement – Stephen Downes and OLDaily – the hardest working educational blogger out there. I know he’s cranky at times, but he cares passionately about what he is doing. He’s also been at it for a long long time – almost a lifetime.
There you have it. I look forward to the announcement of winners on Dec. 18.
by Gary Woodill on November 8, 2009
Nick Jones summarizes the differences between two conferences on mobile projects – one in Orlando and one in Cannes. His brief analysis of the attitudes of Europeans versus Americans in regards to innovation is fascinating. He says, “Europeans tend towards interminable analysis before action…Americans lean towards action before analysis.”
But this paragraph at the end caught my eye:
While I’m on the subject of undemonstrative Brits, Reuters reports a survey from T-Mobile showing the rise of the British metrotextual. Apparently 22 percent of British men are signing SMSs to male friends with a kiss (x). Some of my colleagues think this is positive indication that the Brits are getting in touch with their feminine side and maybe soon grown British men will actually embrace male friends in public as the French and Italians do. I think it’s a sign of serious degeneration of British moral fibre.
Greetings and endings in person or in e-mails are pretty interesting. In Canada, the habit in meeting others you know well is to kiss one cheek of the woman and shake hands with the man. For some gay men I know well, I kiss them on both cheeks on meeting, because that is what the local gay community does with each other, and I want to show solidarity. For friends from France I kiss on each cheek twice or three times, depending on what their local practice is. On email, I sometimes pause over whether I end with “Regards”, “Best Regards”, “Warm Regards” or nothing (for example, with close colleagues). (I expect that someone will write a doctoral disseration on this soon).
What do you do? (GW)
European Mobile Projects and British Metrotextuals | Gartner Blog Network | Nick Jones | 6 November 2009