Training Tech Solutions
I am back from Training Tech Solutions. Overall I think attendance was quite down from the expected participation. It was a very small conference with the benefit that you meet a lot of people. For me personally, the best part of the conference was getting together with some speakers and sharing about the new stuff that's out there. I usually don't have time to play with the new cool toys so dinner was great to get up to speed. I did check out some of the tools they mentioned and liked this one: FlockPod - I'd describe it as a social network Web 2.0 way to run a debate about a topic with an option to vote if you agree/disagree with someone's point of view or contribution - if I ever catch up with my emails again, I'll try it out on my blog.
Bryan Chapman did several interesting sessions in the expo hall on choosing tools - I attended the sim tools one. He showed the shootout winners from 2005 (we had won) and 2007 (I didn't have a chance to participate this year). He separated sim tools into desktop tools and server based tools which I thought was a great approach. Your cost for a simulation authoring tool can quickly jump from $699 (CP3) to $20k plus for some of these server based tools.
More blogging about the conference can be found by Brent Schlenker and Rovy Brannon.
I did a hands-on session on Adobe Captivate 3 - there were only 16 computers and 28 attendees. It was quite tough to run a session where only half the attendees can really participate. I was trying to include some extra tips since 50% were existing users and these tips were often too fast/advanced for new users. It's best to split it up into two sessions which wasn't an option this time.
As promised, here are the PPT slides I used in the beginning of the session. Most of the other files and examples can be found in the Adobe Captivate Exchange.
I liked the option to attend a tour at the end of the conference and I joined the tour of Flight Safety International where we got a glimpse at the flight simulators. Quite impressive.