April 8, 2010
Dear Everyone:
I've been working with a software application
called "Captivate 4". It's
called "4" because it's the fourth major upgrade since the software came
out some years ago. As with any
software, there's a learning curve.
You have to figure out how to do something, then
learn how to do something else.
What made Microsoft's Office Suite so brilliant was that once you
figured out how to do something in
Excel, you already knew how to do the
same thing in
PowerPoint and
Word.
It shortened the learning curve.
It wasn't that Excel was better than
Lotus 1-2-3, or Word was
better than WordPerfect. It
was that shortened learning curve that sold it.
In the first week, I was floundering.
I couldn't even figure out how to generate a simple text box.
(This is an invisible box that contains words that you want
someone to read.) I have the
book that tells you how to use the software, but the writer must have
assumed that I would already know how to do this.
This is where the "Complete Idiot's Guide to (fill
in the blank)" and "(fill in the blank)
for Dummies" books come in.
They hire the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who know the stuff;
but they also have editors who can tell the SMEs when they need to
explain more of what is second nature to them.
Back when I used to write instructions for
something, I would pick the least-experienced person I could find to
"test drive" them. One came
back to me with, "Did you know you left out the first 15 steps?"
No, I didn't. I made
the (erroneous) assumption that the reader would know how to get to my
starting point.
In the meantime, I was still trying to figure out
how to generate a text box.
My co-worker, the one who has been using the software for many months
now, was out of the office that week.
I asked his office partner and her suggestion was:
Find an already existing text box, copy and paste it, then edit
it. As I was just starting
out, I didn't really have any existing text boxes lying around.
Finally!
The co-worker with all the experience came back to the office.
He showed me in two seconds what I hadn't been able to figure
out. (It was generate a
caption box with transparent boundaries.
Why didn't I think of that?)
In the meantime, I had figured out how to create Forward and
Backward buttons, which the user can use to go forward and backward in
the software.
I also went to a special library here at work where
you can download images to spruce up the presentations.
You need a Question Mark image for quizzes and pictures of people
using computers to illustrate some things.
These images are ones that were generated within the company or
purchased with copyright permissions to use in web pages and
presentations.
I found one in particular that I really wanted to
use. It shows two women and
a man looking at a computer screen.
The women are wearing headscarves and all three people definitely
look like they work outside the United States.
This will go a long way towards showing that this
computer based
training (CBT) is not just for here in the US, but for everyone.
Once I knew what I was doing I've been going great
guns. I finished the first
three modules last week and module four this Monday afternoon.
I'm hip-deep in module five, which is a very long and involved
one. It actually shows how
to create documents within the electronic
document management system as
well as how to bring already existing documents into the system.
The next three modules are equally challenging in terms of length
and complexity.
So why am I the one doing all this?
1) Because I have the Captivate software on my computer, one of
three licenses purchased for developing
SharePoint training.
2) Because I am the only person in the whole company (out of
upwards of 60,000!) who knows anything about training for this document
management system.
On the home front…
I have been living in my “new place” for a year
now. I moved in April 2nd
of last year. The pictures
still haven’t been hung on the walls and the second bedroom is still
very much a “Work in Progress”, but it’s home sweet home.
I’m thinking of replacing the windows and patio door and getting
interior shutters instead of the existing vertical blinds, but that can
wait until the weather is a little warmer.
We’re still having some rain in the forecast and
it’s been a bit cooler than is usual for April, but we’re not
complaining since the rain means not having to ration water this summer.
And I still don’t have a swimsuit to wear when they open the
pools, which should be soon.
But I’ll get one soon enough.
Love, as always,
Pete
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