I found this video on e-Clippings and am intrigued to dig into the Croquet Consortium, which encompasses two things that I am very interested in following: multi-user virtual 3D applications and open source collaboration. Throw in touch screen and count me in. More and more the “E” in eLearning is beginning to stand for Experiential Learning, as it should be.

eLearning, as learning, is not just about combining mouse clicks and key strokes, it is about creating an immersive learning experience for the learner. This experience, whether it be mobile, animation, video, audio, 3D, 2D, static imagery or text only, needs to 100% engage the learner.

Croquet is a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and metaverses that are (1) persistent (2) deeply collaborative, (3) interconnected and (4) interoperable.

Wow, I just registered for an awesome video mail service called Eyejot. Thanks to Buzz Bruggeman for the reference, who I met at Seattle Lunch 2.0! I am extremely impressed with the slick user interface and ease of use. Besides for general person-to-person communication, this type of easy messaging can totally lend itself to corporate internal communications. Eyejot is really getting it right and here are a few highlights.

Embedded instructions - I love the built in text fields instructions in the registration form. It just makes sense, right. Instead of hiding text entry idiosyncrasies of a system from user and expecting training to take care of it (i.e. “don’t enter it this way…enter it this way…), Eyejot takes the high road and embeds it into their user interface, which includes ‘green check marks = good / red captions = bad.’

Snapshot of user registration.

Less is more - With a very clean and streamlined design, it makes composing, sending and receiving video messages simple and fun. With the of absence distracting visual elements and plenty of white space, it allows you to focus on the video message.

Snapshot of Inbox

Snapshot of Message Viewer

I just signed on to alpha test LUNARR and I am stoked. It looks like it puts the collaboration back in document management. I must say that I am already impressed with the way they handle embedded quick product tours.

I attended the latest Seattle Lunch 2.0 hosted by CarDomain. It was my first one, so I didn’t know what to expect. The discussion was engaging, the lunch (Indian food) was yummy and the view of Lake Union was awesome. Thanks to Josh Mayer for putting this together.

Rajan Krishnamurty, the CEO, gave an excellent overview of the company, which has evolved into like a social network for car lovers and gear heads. Users can upload videos and pictures of car-related stuff and connect with like minded people. Brier Dudley, from the Seattle PI Times was also there, although I was not sure if he was there to present, or just help facilitate the discussion with Rajan.

A major take away for me was that CarDomain and their advertisers are focusing more on the “prosumer” and web banner ads are gradually taking a back seat to user participatory (content-blended) advertising (i.e. the Scion xD Community Project Car). Rajan described how the company has embraced web 2.0 technologies and is continually integrating them with their current infrastructure. Although, Dan “I can’t remember his last name” from CarDomain chimed in a few times to say that results from a wiki pilot showed that their audience wasn’t really into wiki collaboration…as in “I don’t want people editing my stuff…” He said that this reminded him yet again of not “starting first with a technology in mind” and instead letting the business need drive the solution, which are words to live by.

It’s about time! This is likely just the beginning of Web 2.0 solutions being targeted for enterprise needs. More and more employees will not have to feel like ‘one arm is tied behind their back’ at work and they can use the web more comfortably like they do at home.  Check out this Scoble/Podtech interview.

Brad Allen, founder and CTO of Siderean, shows me how Oracle and other companies are using his company’s software to capture and share knowledge. You know, people’s ideas.