Getting the Sack from Radio Shack

The Associated Press today reported that RadioShack just laid off 400 employees, which is one thing. But how they notified the unlucky employees is something else...by email!

RadioShack fires employees by e-mail
Associated Press

FORT WORTH — RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.

Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters got messages Tuesday morning saying: "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday's notification on a company intranet site.

Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees.

I'm not sure which is worse, but reading this story took me back to my first job out of university when my employer made a similar (albeit on a much smaller scale) brilliantly classy move. It was an engineering company and we were working on a job site in the back woods of Tennessee. My co-worker had been with the company for a few months and the job in Tennessee meant he was spending 3 out of every 4 weeks away from his wife and 1-year old son. What's more, he was working the night shift.

So just imagine the joy he must have felt when he arrived on the job site at 7:00 p.m. for a 12-hour shift, having slept terribly during the day (neither one of us could ever really adjust to nights), only to find a terse, 3-line fax from our boss telling him his services were no longer required.

Given how much attention these days is paid to employee morale and productivity, it's hard to imagine companies or individuals being so tactless, even if it is letting someone go. I guess the explanation could be..."what are they going to do? quit?"

HELP WANTED: One Canadian Armed Forces

News media in recent weeks have reported that Canada’s Armed Forces are needing to take (to some, anyways) drastic measures to battle a growing problem of attrition vs. sustainability. Not only is Canada struggling to attract sufficient numbers of recruits; it appears even with a full pipeline, administrative obstacles prevent us from getting them into service quickly enough. Case in point: reports came from both the PMO and DND this week indicating a doctor’s note will soon suffice in place of a physical exam to cut the enrollment process from 45-60 days to less than a week.

This weekend, a friend of mine in the Forces articulated the situation further, to the effect that “the attrition rate (due both to retirement and pursuing careers in the private sector) so far outweighs the rate of recruitment, I don’t know where the Army is going to be in ten years.”

While having the utmost respect and admiration for those who have served their country, I myself never have, and therefore I can’t make a single observation or suggestion based on first hand experience. That said, I’d like to offer up a few suggestions, all based on the goal of increasing the number of Canadians who choose the Armed Forces as a career.

Go to School: Send delegates out to EVERY high school in the country to tell students what it means to serve their country in the military. It may be happening already, but not everywhere. Every university in the country it seems visited my high school, including RMC, but not a representative of the Armed Forces. Why not? Not the right message to send to students? Name a more honourable career. Not enough resources? Tap into the Veteran’s Association, or even the Legion…blanket the country.

Ramp Up the Propaganda: Take Ralph Fiennes’s character from the English Patient, multiply him, and send him out on an ongoing media tour across Canada. Yes the war (in today’s case, Afghanistan) is always in our faces, but not at a personal level, and rarely on a victorious one. In his book I’m reading called Virtual War, Michael Ignatieff contends (as I interpret it) that ever increasing freedom and accessibility of the press in wartime has actually undermined Western values of spreading freedom and democracy; we’re happy to support it, as long as we don’t have to see the results. And while you can’t stop embedded, real-time and (often) gruesome footage, you can saturate the market with bona fide success stories and positive progress reports. Any time a Canadian Platoon or Battallion accomplishes a mission (within security parameters obviously), get those guys on the satellite phone to their local TV and radio stations to talk about the bravery, honour and sacrifice they demonstrated as their local town heroes.

Go to Where the Recruits Are: What do smart, physically fit, competitive 18-year olds do with a big chunk of their spare time? Video games: since 2002, the U.S. Army has used online video game America's Army to provide with a realistic experience firing weapons such as automatic rifles and grenade launchers. Surfing the Net: the Marine Corps has set up its own MySpace.com site. Music: the U.S. National Guard gives itunes downloads away if you agree to be contacted by a recruiting agent. Sound crazy? Crazier things have induced people to fight to the death for their country or cause.

New course teaches "ancient art" of (IT) application management

Starting this fall, applications support and maintenance company (and my client) RIS will be teaching a course on Applications Support and Maintenance (ASM) as a continuing education course at Ryerson University.

ASM is the part of IT that deals with supporting, maintaining and upgrading companies’ existing, installed base of computer applications. And what's really interesting about it is that ASM knowledge and expertise is at risk of evaporating in the next decade as a result of an aging workforce.

You see, many companies today - banks being a primary example - still rely very much on legacy or mainframe applications and computer systems that were built 20...or event 30 years ago. Even if the people who developed them were only 20 at the time, that means they'll be hitting retirement soon, and likely aren't doing hands-on IT support now anyways.

As always, much of the demographic shift has to do with the baby boomers. This year the first of them are reaching age 60. In 2015 the effects will be more profound with the peak of the boomers reaching age 65.

So if if some of the banks' most important IT systems are 30 years old, and the people who know their inner workings are soon going to be long gone, who's going to know how to keep them running? As RIS puts it in their news release about the course, learning the "ancient art" of ASM makes a lot of sense.

Overcoming Serious Gaming Challenges

I came across two interesting article this week that – in identifying some of the genre’s challenges and weaknesses – shed light on why educational video games (a.k.a. serious games) haven’t caught on as quickly as (many would argue) they should have by now. In doing so, they also illustrate the opportunities for innovative, well designed serious games – like the HistoriCanada Project – to be seriously successful.

One article in Monday’s San Jose Mercury News, It's really difficult to find good educational software (see excerpts), tells the familiar story of Gary Church, a clearly responsible and hands-on parent who, in looking for innovative ways to expand his son’s educational experience, bought his son a copy of Reader Rabbit, only to see it gather dust after an hour’s play. Even for a 3-year old, Reading Rabbit couldn’t compete with the towering wall of action and adventure games at the local Best Buy.

The other was an op-ed piece published earlier this month on European tech news site Tom’s Guide, entitled Educating kids with video games: a laudable, but doomed idea. In it, columnist Wolfgang Gruener details quite candidly (“most of the games used in education are crap”) why serious games haven’t hit the mark with students as much as educators (and parents like San Jose’s Gary Church) have hoped.

Excerpts from It's really difficult to find good educational software

``I'm not too happy with the choices. None of them seem to capture the kids' attention as much as the non-educational games,'' Church said while looking for a ``Mario Kart'' racing game for his son's new Nintendo DS handheld at a Best Buy store.

The segment's heyday in the 1990s came as parents raising a new generation of computer-savvy kids stocked up on software titles like Knowledge Adventure's ``JumpStart Preschool'' and Microsoft's ``Encarta'' encyclopedia program.

But not enough new material followed to sustain growth or spark new purchases. Software that was found useful often got passed to siblings.

``In the 1990s, there was a one-size-fits-all mentality, and `Reader Rabbit' and `Carmen Sandiego' were big hits. They fit the customers' needs at that time,'' said Jessica Lindl, vice president of marketing for Riverdeep, which now owns both those classic titles after a string of acquisitions. ``But the customer has changed dramatically over the last five years, and we were not meeting our customers needs.''

Adding to the challenge was the proliferation of free information available over the Internet.

``The tendency for consumers is first to open up a browser rather than going to a store nowadays,'' said Craig Bartholomew, general manager for Microsoft's education products group.

So why haven’t serious game worked? Some of the main reasons are:

Competition with the Internet – as a source of reference information, as well as casual games and communities (like MySpace or MiniClips) where kids spend most of their on-line time chatting, interacting and competing with their peers.

Obvious Educational Bent – students can spot a learning activity thinly veiled as a video game a mile away, and a teacher/parent “seal of approval” on a game is (as Vicki Saunders of Impactanation puts it) like the kiss of death.

Inability to Compete – serious games need different distribution models than console or online games because, when they’re on the shelf side by side with Halo, they don’t stand a chance.

Low Production Quality – due in part to their relatively minute production budgets, and contributing to their inability to compete directly, serious games typically lack the sophisticated interfaces, graphics and animation of their mainstream counterparts.

The Politics of Education – once a computer game even comes close to the classroom, it has to walk an almost impossibly fine line of addressing the needs/concerns of parents, teachers, school boards and government…and that’s assuming a kid will even want to play the game.

Excerpts from Educating kids with video games: a laudable, but
doomed idea

"Using video games to teach kids," goes the theory "makes it a more legitimate entertainment form." Sure, why not? There are, however, a couple of major flaws in this plan:

Most of the games used in education are crap.

Good games aren't used intentionally

Educational games are too obviously educational

Games aren't being used to teach the right things

The best way of doing this is not for educators and educational game developers to invest large wads of cash into the development of a whole new subset of the gaming industry. The educational sector should instead piggy back on the success of the commercial sector by utilising the same game engines, even games themselves, that the kids are playing at home to educate.

Why aren't id, Epic, Valve, Firaxis, Maxis and Paradox, among others, producing educational video games?

Civilization IV is educational as it is, but you could quite easily modify it to be even more so, bringing the Civlopaedia to the fore. Explain more about the history of technologies whilst kids are researching them, explain the basics of trade, industry and diplomacy as they play.

Fortunately, these two articles were outnumbered by a factor of 10 by articles talking about the growth, potential and increasing investment in serious games. Further evidence lies in the promising research and success stories that continue to pour out of universities and research institutes, and the serious gaming tracks that are increasingly the norm at game developer conferences like the GDC.

What’s more, the HistoriCanada Project appears to be squarely poised to capitalize on the industry momentum, and to address each of the drawbacks discussed in the two articles above. This hasn’t happened by accident; a number of central features and design considerations have been implemented specifically to learn from the experiences and results of serious games past. Specific examples include:

The game is built on – and therefore shares the same sophisticated game engine as – Sid Meier’s Civilization III, one of the best selling PC games of all time. In short, we know kids love this game.

All marketing, messaging, branding (note: the final game title will be determined in the coming months) and more is designed with the end user in mind, and geared towards avoiding the “kiss of death” of appearing like an educational video game. The current website, targeting potential sponsors and educational partners (selling Mini Wheats), will soon be replaced with a site (and game) entirely targeted at 12-18 year-old students (selling the Fruit Loops).

It’s being distributed directly to students, and not through the classroom. Yes, having the support of historians and teachers is important, but ultimately the classroom involves too many parties and . Whether it’s through an in-school magazine insert, a download from a portal or even as a Christmas gift, HistoriCanada is going directly into the hands of our target audience.

At the same time, in order to maximize its educational value, HistoriCanada has to manage the interests of educators, historians and parents too. Through focus groups, speaking engagements, discussion groups and (most importantly) the creative involvement of Historica and Canada's National History Society.

It teaches a ton. HistoriCanada balances accurate historical information (thanks to videos and an in-game encyclopedia based on Historica’s Canadian Encyclopedia and Heritage Minutes) with experiential learning, allowing students to change the outcome of Canadian history by facing the same decisions as early Canadians.

We’re giving it away. Say no more (I think).

Admittedly, several of these steps simply can’t apply to most games, but amongst all the factors one stands out as being critical, regardless of a serious game’s nature; designing it as a game, not as an education tool. Kids can spot a learning tool in disguise a mile away; no matter how delicious Shredded Wheat may be, because it’s nutritious it will never be as popular as Fruit Loops. Or, as friend and colleague Michael Krauss puts it, “it’s got to be ice cream for the kids, and broccoli for their parents.”

New digital video web service to match entrepreneurs and investors

How do you connect innovative business ideas and entrepreneurs with the investors and capital to support them? Since the dot-com days a number of matchmaking models have come and gone, from the physical (like the IT Financing Forum) to the virtual (my personal favorite, the now retired CanadaStartups.com) to the televised (catch the American Idol style Inside the Dragon's Den on CBC this fall).




Today a new service to wed entrepreneurs and potential investors is being launched. Using the latest web and video technology, the digital video elevator pitch service offers entrepreneurs a new high-tech approach to pitching their business ideas to investors over the internet.

read more digg story

Changing the future of Canadian history

I can't believe I haven't blogged about The HistoriCanada Project yet. For the past year and a half, I've been quite lucky to be part of building what could/should very well be one of the most significant innovations in Canadian educational technology. Spanning education, new media, the Internet and Canadian history and patriotism, it's a project that excites me as an entrepreneur, as a parent and as a proud Canadian.

The brainchild of Thomas Axworthy and Nathon Gunn almost a decade in the making, HistoriCanada is the world's first computer game to simulate the history of Canada. It puts players in control of Canada's destiny as it evolves from initial settlements to a coast-to-coast nation. Assuming the the role of the English, French, Metis, Iroquis or other early Canadian civilizations, players establish settlements, exploit natural resources, trade (and fight) with other civilizations, from exploration to confederation.

One of the main motivators behind HistoriCanada is what we've taken to calling Canada's growing history deficit. Among Canadians of all ages - but particularly among youth - knowledge, understanding and appreciation of our nation's past are seriously on the decline. Studies from The Dominion Institute illustrate this probably better than most; a 2004 poll of more than 500 youth, aged 14-18 showed that only 54% could name Canada’s current prime minister, and only 24% could name one of Canada’s political parties. Ouch, eh?

Plus, HistoriCanada is built on (essentially a customized version of) Sid Meier's Civilization III, one of the best selling computer games of all time. As such, it shares Civ's sophisticated engine that accounts for everything from technological discoveries to the trading value of turbot off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. In short, from a gaming perspective, it's a winner.

Innovation in Education and New Media

One of HistoriCanada's more compelling features is its balance between factual and experiential learning. The game abounds with historically accurate (and vetted) elements; everything from accurate topographical and resource maps of Canada to the introduction of actual historical events. Background information and definitions on every civilization, natural resource, event and more is included in the game by way of the Canadian Encylopedia, an ongoing, monumental initiative of Historica developed by over 4,000 writers, editors and educators. Several of Historica's popular Heritage Minutes video vignettes add further context and transition between game chapters.

On the other hand, HistoriCanada lets players completely re-shape Canada's destiny by being faced with the same decisions and challenges as early Canadians. Depending on the civilization they play (English, French, Native) and the types of decisions they make (where to settle, with whom to allign or fight), the outcome of every game is unique, and potentially vastly different from the Canada we know today.

This ability to change Canadian history, to put players in the shoes of early Canadians, is a near textbook application of experiential learning; an educational philosophy that emphasises immersive, thought-provoking and hands-on learning, and one that is quickly becoming the model for school curricula across the continent. Furthermore, myriad studies on from The
Woodrow Wilson Center, MIT and The University of Wisconsin at Madison have show games like Civilization III (itself the subject of many studies) are not only effective in teaching subject knowledge (from history to physics), but also in important learning skills; critical thinking, decision making, strategic planning, collaboration, and more.

Indeed, HistoriCanada has been heralded by historians and educators alike as one of the most promising, significant new media innovations in Canadian education.

Almost There...We Need Your Help

To change the way students appreciate their nation's past, to help plug Canada's history deficit, and to usher in a new era in educational technology, our goal is to give the game away for free to 100,000 Canadian students ages 12-18.

HistoriCanada will be ready to launch in the fall of 2006, thanks to the financial and strategic support of project partners Telefilm Canada, Historica, Canada's National History Society and Bitcasters. In order to reach our 100,000 student goal, we're looking for "last mile" support in three key areas:

Distribution - providing a direct, bundled, retail or online channel to reach 100,000 12-18 year old Canadians (and ideally to track usage, numbers, etc.)

Production - covering the hard costs of integrating sponsor branding into the game, and (if needed) producing 100,000 CD copies of the game

Marketing - to help make HistoriCanada the computer game kids want to play, while their parents and teachers feel good about it.

From title sponsorship to the enormous PR value (the story almost writes itself), we're confident supporting HistoriCanada will pay handsome dividends to the right partner(s). If you think you can help, call/email/fax/smoke signal...I'd love to talk to you!

680 News...help me with my short attention span!

I'm one of those listeners who has fully bought into the 680 News "if you're reading it, it's history...if you're hearing it, it's news" philosophy; I'm a huge fan, particularly of the traffic alerts every ten minutes "on the ones."

My problem...I have a terribly short attention span and I tend to get distracted really easily, particularly when the traffic report comes on. Invariably I tune out of what's on the radio, coming to only when my "periferal hearing" catches the fact that I just missed the traffic update for the route I'm on. Then it's another nine minutes of news headlines (which I've already heard) and, in most cases, tuning out again by the time the traffic report comes on. This process can repeat itself several times and, as it did yesterday, can leave me livid and at a standstill on the DVP.

But I'm not just complaining; I have a solution, and one that I think would be fairly easy to implement. What if 680 recorded each traffic update, posting the recording to a special *680-type number that drivers like me could call in for a traffic update? If I tune out of the traffic report like I normally do, I could simply dial the number and hear a recording of the last update, fully alert and concentrating. Or I could simply dial up the number when I'm first getting in the car.

I'm pretty sure this would be a quick system to implement, and even one that could pay for itself. The recorded reports could be "brought to you" by paid advertisers, and listeners could pay $0.25 or so for the recording (if it were a quarter vs. another nine minutes of rage, I'd pay!).

So, if anyone from 680 is reading this, please help me with my short attention span!

Does anything matter?

Ever since he gave the keynote speech at an event one of my clients hosted (the RIS IT Executive Think Tank), I've been quite intrigued by the work of author and technology futurist Nicholas Carr. Carr is best known for his now infamous Harvard Business Review Article from a couple years back, IT Doesn't Matter, in which he claimed that IT has lost its competitive value and has in fact become a commodity or utility - as basic as heat and electricity.

I couldn't help but think of Carr yesterday as I was walking down the street and came across a flyer (I've since seen several more) advertising quick and easy divorces for a flat fee of $300. The flyer got me thinking...what other, previously high value, deeply personal and intimate aspects of our lives have been commoditized like IT and computing?

To find out, I spent about 10 minutes on Google finding out what people now do online or in an automated fashion what have typically been (again) very personal and intimate tasks - the basics that get you out to meet your neighbors, for example. Here's what I found:

Banking - My grandfather went to the same bank branch for 50 years because of how much he valued the personal touch. Today 70% of Canadian Internet users use online banking, and only 54% have been in a bank in the last month.

Groceries - That same grandfather owned a grocery store at one time and, in that role, was literally a hub of his neighborhood's social scene. Today 125,000 people across Toronto forgo the social aspect of grocery shopping by using GroceryGateway.

Dating - My wife and I met at school, as did a number of my wedded friends. I know at least four couples who grew up across the street from one another, or whose parents' houses back onto one another. For up to 1.2-million Canadians though, online dating is the way to go...which helps make it one of the more profitable sectors online.

I also came across three online wedding sites in my research - iROM.org, Bored.com and GetMarriedOnline - but thankfully, they are all for entertainment purposes only. So yes, we are getting more automated with some things (I haven't been to a bank in at least a year) but it's a relief to see that some things are still sacred.

Oh, and the punchline on the divorce flyer; you know those little tear away tabs with the URL or phone number to contact? There was only one left.

Lost in Translation

The Associated Press today reported that Iran’s President has ordered all government and cultural bodies to use newly identified Persian words or phrases to replace Western words that have crept into the Iranian lexicon. “Pizzas”, for example, will now be known as “elastic loaves.”

Aside from the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably has more pressing matters to deal with right now, I think he’s onto something that could be of value here in North America. Not to replace words with foreign origins, but replacing the jargon, buzzwords and other elitist dialects conceived on the part of the technocracy, as John Raulston Saul would put it. Specifically, if I were Canada’s Minister of Propaganda:

Dial tone, 9-11, system access, system connection, network maintenance and other fine print line items that come on your phone or cell phone bill would now be known as extra profits. I mean really…can I opt out of the dial tone feature?

Café lattes, moccaccinos, frappucinos, macchiatos and correttos would now be known simply as coffee. Coffee with lots of milk, coffee with caramel, with lots of whipped cream – you name it, but just call it coffee.

Mobile phones, wireless devices, PDAs, palm-tops and blackberrys would now be known as cell phones. Within the next year they’re all going to have the same features anyways.

Equity ratings such as buy, sell, outperform, underperform, hold, market perform, overweight, neutral or strong buy would know be known as your guess is as good as mine. I’ve read repeatedly that companies with sell ratings consistently outperform those with buy ratings, which kinda begs the question…

Trans fats, saturated fats, sucrose, fructose, glucose, electrolytes, essentially fatty acids, cholesterol, MSG and other ingredients would be known simply as good food or bad food. Especially for simple folk like me, it just gets too complicated otherwise.