Today was a good day.

We started off attending the opening session at the ASTD TechKnowledge conference. The open speaker was Joe Miller, Vice-President, Platform and Technology Development Linden Research, Inc — i.e. creators of Second Life.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I think the potential future uses on 3-d worlds is interesting and could be very useful. I think that right now for many of the organizations I have talked to the idea of using something like Second Life isn’t an option – for a lot of different reasons. I’ve stated before I am a bit of naysayer – even though I keep many of the Tech trends – but I am trying to critically think of how it can be used. I guess the Second Life bug just hasn’t bit yet. And I’m still struggling to see it’s niche.

I guess its like a lot of things – as instructional designer I try not to get beholden to any one tool. I think like like many other positions the instructional designer needs many tools, so that the right one in the right situation at the right time can be used effectively.

Oh – and I think the presentation would have been more convincing if the avatars in the images used during the presentation weren’t large busted, scantily clad females. I mean, really, are those the only ones they could find. I suppose for some folks that’s the fun right – but when you’re talking to a group of professionals that already have to do a lot of work to justify tools a lot older and more standard than Second Life – couldn’t you help us out a little by at least not making it look like its spring break in Florida on the beach? [sigh.]

On a different note, Ryan Eash (Instructional Designer from TechSmith Corporation) and I presented another session on Camtasia Studio. It went really well. It was funny, I mentioned Second Life and got lots of laughs. I think some of the feelings I have we’re mutual.

The session was really good. We tightened up some of our presentation and felt pretty fluid. Still some more we can do, but teaching Camtasia Studio in 1 hour and 15 minutes is pretty tough.

After the session we received some really nice compliments. In fact, one gentleman mentioned that he has been to the conference for 3 or 4 years and this was the best session he has ever attended. WOW!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! That is quite the compliment, and I feel its safe to say that Ryan deserves most of the credit.

I do have to mention thanks to ASTD for having us — it’s been a lot of fun….

One last note: I showed a few people the Camtasia Studio video I have on my iPod Touch – and everyone is blown away how good it looks. The screen is crystal clear, the text is very readable, it just looks amazing – and I didn’t even add any zoom-n-pan key frames. Man, I love what I do!