What I want to be when I grow up

Many people have asked me what I want to do with my Masters degree once I have it. I orginally thought that I wanted to be an independent, solo e-learning developer. I later realised that while I enjoy tinkering around with websites, creating cool image with photoshop and whizzy animations in Flash, to do it full time AND design the instruction too would be too much and frankly too detailed for me. My strength is communication and organisation (though you wouldn't think so looking at my cupboards). So I now think that I can help companies that are branching into the world of e-learning. I can be the one to unravel the mysteries of the IMM world.

Today I found a posting on the E-learning Guild website that kind of sums it up:

'From: nbird
Nbird@rwd.com
Nov 29 2004 11:22AM

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Hello, I actually worked as a one person shop for over a year and I know what you mean. I was responsible for HTML, Flash, and Authorware development. I also had to use tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, FreeHand, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Discreet Cleaner XL, Snag-It, etc... You name it I probably had it. No one person can do all this work and quite frankly no one person wants to. The number of skill sets that this tasks encompasses is large. I serve on the program committe for the E-Learning Guild as well as for TechLearn and I can tell you we are seeing growing numbers of one person shops these days. There is a balance between productivity and quality you must accept. To turn things around in a timely manner requires a one person shop to keep things simple. To get detailed takes time. Now that I am on the services side of the world I am seeing many of our clients leverage our development services to fill the gaps as with so many other third party content providers. As a one person shop I got countless calls from companies in the US and abroad, mostly abroad from India. More companies are "outsourcing", "outtasking", or whatever you want to call it. Basically they find it is more cost effective to pay a company that specializes in content design and development to build their programs then to do it in house. It is because of the challenges and diverse skill sets needed to be able to produce highly interactive SCORM/AICC conformant content. My advice would be to consider the value of outsourcing portions of the work to increase productivity and focus on the quality. There is a lot of talk from folks like Elliott Masie about the end of SMEs. I could see the one person shop individual becoming the individual that represents their companies interests as a project manager. Their purpose changes from a person who does all the work to the person that manages vendor relationships and makes sure all the work is done on time, within budget, and is relevant to the business. I think any management team that has no budget for outsourcing domestically or abroad has not been shown the value of the concept. Someone sees outsourcing as taking someones job away and not as paying for improved ROI, increased productivity, and more effective learning. There are too many major corporations and CLOs that believe strongly in the value of partnering with development companies to fill skill gaps rather than paying for the help. The cost of inneffective training is far greater than the cost of outsourcing. Thanks, Nick'

Must get in touch and get some more ideas