I was honored to be invited to keynote the e-Merging, e-Learning Conference 2004 in the United Arab Emirates.
When His Excellency Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Chancellor, Higher Colleges of Technology extended the invitation, I was intrigued by what role a visual journalist could play in the conference.
But as we discussed the issues of online, distance learning, and the characteristics of users involved in these programs, it became obvious that what we have learned over the past 20 years about media consumers—and particularly about newspaper and online readers—applies to learners generally.
Impatience and lack of time top the list—online learners and users come to their computers with a tremendous thirst for information, and little time. Most spend about 32 minutes at a time surfing the net, and visit about six sites during that time. If we review in the life of the typical media user or online learner, we see that as early as 7 am, many of us have already Used about 7 different media to receive information: radio, a newspaper, TV, the Internet, a mobile telephone and perhaps a Palm Pilot or some other form of electronic planner.
Newspaper readers crave what Ron Reason calls “chunky type” and others called sidebars and secondary readings. Online learners go for secondary readings first as well. At the Poynter Institute, my long time colleague Roy Peter Clark has written about the fact that “most stories can be told in 800 words or less”. The same theme of conciseness applies to long boring lecture. Instead, learners want to get new information and knowledge in short modular learning packages.
At Garcia Media we apply these principles in all our work. Most recently we aided Bank of America with the creation of training online modules for their employees. The idea: focus the message, prepare learning modules that zero in on specifics, facilitate navigation and offer the depth and substance the user craves for, but in visually appealing and digestible formats.
With knowledge becoming the single most important factor in economic development and global competitiveness, those of us who disseminate information need to devise solutions that expedite the process, attract and
keep the users interested, and move them through the communication journey
faster.
For those of us in the media business this mandate is clear, and so is the
challenge it represents.