I will be speaking at one of the last Idea Labs at the ASAE Technology Conference next Friday, February 12^th at  3:30PM.

After over seven years of speaking at eLearning and training conferences, I decided to concentrate my session speaking at conferences dedicated to a specific population.  The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the Association Forum of Chicagoland provide opportunities to reach the over one million associations operating nationwide.

At the upcoming ASAE Technology Conference being held in Washington DC on February 11^th-12^th, I will be sharing my knowledge on the open source learning management (and content management) system called Moodle. The Moodle platform is ideal for associations seeking to generate revenue through their professional development offerings— ranging from testing for credentialing to an entire certification curriculum. I will be co-presenting with Sharon Chaplock, the Director of Education at the Society for Clinical Data Management. Our focus will be on sharing two case studies to help answer common questions associations might have when managing Moodle for members:

Jeff Cobb of Tagoras Inc. recently released a report focused on learning management systems for associations. Find below my interview with Jeff, discussing not only the report but also his life as an entrepreneur and his quest for a balanced lifestyle. Full disclosure: Web Courseworks’ LMS called CourseStage is one of the featured systems in the report. I am writing about the LMS Report because it is an invaluable guide for associations considering a business model involving eLearning. I am also intrigued by Jeff Cobb, the entrepreneur.

Ellen Behrens calls her new self-published book aLearning: A Trail Guide for Association eLearning.  If you are an association education director or you are tasked with re-igniting eLearning as a non-dues revenue source for your non-profit, then this book will serve as a handy reference guide.  In the following eight minute interview, I caught up with the retired association education director turned author while she as RVing on the West Coast.  Ellen highlights the importance of taking a good look at using the Internet to replace the loss of revenue from declining face-to-face workshop sales.  What peaked my interest was her insistence that the book is a necessity for an association hiring a professional vendor to develop a new eLearning initiative.

In the following six minute interview with eLearning consultant and social media expert Jeff Cobb, we discuss the ASAE Professional Development Council and Jeff’s thoughts on the recent ASAE conference in Toronto.

I was particularly interested in his ideas on the intersection of eLearning and social media with respect to associations. Jeff shares his thoughts on the “owners” of social media efforts in associations and reasons education directors should consider including it as part of their online education efforts.

Many professional associations are taking a second look at eLearning for revenue generation or for recruitment appeal to the next generation to take interest in their profession. Today Web Courseworks’ games and simulations group released an educational game on the Internet casual game circuit.  The game Gridlock Buster is designed to engage and motivate teens and young adults to seek out more information about traffic engineering.  The Institute of Traffic Studies (ITS) at the University of Minnesota funded the game to supplement a classroom-based summer camp curriculum. Associations responsible for increasing teenager interest in a specific occupations should visit Krongregate and play.

The association marketplace has caught my attention as a promising avenue for eLearning services. The market is as large and diverse as it can get— an association exists for almost all types of interests and businesses from the American Bar Association to the Knitting Guild Association. There are associations for associations, with ASAE being the most well-known, and there are associations for companies providing management services for associations (AMC Institute). No matter how you try to break down the association market, whether by size, staff, industry, trade or professional, the sheer size and variation of the market presents challenges much like a Rubik’s Cube.