Here’s an update from  from the stimulating European SharePoint Conference in Berlin. There are 800 attendees, a lot of vendors (3 exhibit halls) and many interesting people to talk to. The Estrel Hotel and Conference Center is a good venue, very comfortable and although huge also human. Here are the sessions I attended today: Keynote – Bjørn Olstad – Overview from Microsoft. Bjorn is the erstwhile CTO of FAST, the Enterprise search company bought by Microsoft and integrated into SharePoint. Measuring Social Learning in SharePoint with Assessments – John Kleeman ( @johnkleeman ). MORE >>

I attended the CLO Symposium with my ITA colleagues Jay Cross and Jane Hart. It was an interesting event, with a theme of “ Game-Changing Learning: Development for the New Normal “, held at a classy venue on the beach, and was well-organized. You can see Jay’s writeup here.) And the keynotes that I saw were in synch: Stephen Covey talked about the need for trust and Jon Katzenbach on how to build culture were both excellent, as was Dan Pontefract’s story on making collaboration intrinsic to Telus. At a lower level, however, the conference felt mired in the past. MORE >>

“The first step in redesign often entailed the externalisation of pedagogic principles which had previously been tacit." This quote is from report on the PREEL (From Pedagogical Research to Embedded E-learning) project which ran at the Institute of Education a few years ago. It was one of those initiative which tried to help educators with their e-learning design. Interestingly, there were deliberate attempts to link research and practice through the promotion and incorporation of IOE's own e-learning research output. In articulating this out loud it helps clarify for themselves how they teach. MORE >>

Tweet Even five years ago it was not the norm to work at a distance. Employers wanted to keep workers on-site, when it made no sense, as this post from 2005 noted: virtual work, but we need you onsite. Virtual work is no longer limited to mostly free-agents, as many salaried employees today work at least part-time off-site. It’s becoming the norm and bringing change with it, even though that change may not be visible. When people work at a distance, an implicit shift occurs. They have to be trusted to get the work done. Management also shifts from measuring time to measuring results. MORE >>

With Ben’s expertise in simulations and games, I thought it might be worth mentioning that Military Training Technology (MT2) magazine recently announced its listing of the 2011 Top Simulation & Training Companies. Although companies making the 2011 list come from around the world and have made a significant impact on the military training industry across the spectrum of technologies and services, many produce non-military-based offerings as well. An impartial panel selected the winners from MT2’s most competitive group yet. The companies’ products and services enable U.S. MORE >>