More popular in the 90’s it seems as though some are still married to the whole idea of soft-skills training. This is like looking back in history for us here at Visual Purple and seeing something that we did 10+ years ago and then thinking of how far our simulations have advanced since the early days of soft-skills training. In today’s training era there are so many more options than what traditional types of soft-skills training once offered. It’s kind of like having an 80’s hair-do in 2010; some people just might look at you a little strange. No longer is it as unique or flexible as once thought- not too immersive, nor entertaining. Today faster computers allow the use of high-fidelity 3D environments and other vast improvements over what ‘old school’ (oh I mean soft-skills training) once offered. And dare I mention the outdated CBT (Computer-Based Training) regime?!
With new technology deployments- a lot are hesitant to jump in and take a risk. The conundrum here is really ROI; will my investment really pay off? New technology deployments are always risky. But just as with anything else without taking the risk one will never know what could have been. Although early adopters tend to jump on the bandwagon, many remain skeptical and want to see some proven success before trying out a new program. Without a tried and proven solution to demonstrate what your specific results may be it may be a hard sell (especially to those higher on the ladder). However, by taking the risk one may gain the technological advantage in the marketplace.
New technology always takes a while to reach the maturity curve and the ROI studies that follow will be tried and true, but you may now be behind in implementing a solution and your competition could have the upper hand. But by the time the technology is no longer new it may be too late. So are you a risk taker or do you avoid risk at all costs? It’s up to you but just remember you may lose the competitive advantage in this scenario.
Socially- referred traffic is becoming the next wave of internet searching; rather than just utilizing the standard Google search feature. Although social search is a relatively new term, just being introduced in 2004/ 2005 it has been extremely successful and a lot of people today value the opinions of others to rank an article. Connections to the social web are becoming more and more commonplace today. Users are able to favorite articles they like and thus the rankings of that article ultimately climb, thus leading to a higher social search ranking. Case in point is shown when an article is tweeted, how many times it is tweeted shows the level of success or Digg for instance where subscribers are able to rate an article based on the thumbs up or thumbs down system. Allowing readers to find and share content is a good method, but what may appeal to one reader may not appeal as much to another reader. Another example is Digg the most “dugg” stories appear on the front page of Digg, this type of voting system has its advantages and disadvantages. So it boils down to human input vs. machine input, does the human input give the user too much control over content?
In some cases social networking sites are generating more referral traffic than the search engine giants. Many media sources (i.e. newspapers online) have made it easy for their loyal fans to easily spread stories across the social search (and rating) landscape. Social feeds have enabled content discovery in a completely different way than past internet systems allowed for. Although the social search is somewhat unique when compared to the main search engine companies (i.e. Google, Yahoo, and Bing) use of machine-based or algorithmic functions, the social search is more so based on personal opinion (by a human). These types of submission and voting systems for social sites are ever most popular and I believe that we will see “social” search continue to grow in the future. It’s these ‘social’ types of relationships that define a lot of computer usage time today. This word-of-mouth nature that social bookmarking allows for is leading to a social revolution of content discovery and ranking.
We’ve all run up against trying to resolve frustrating technology issues, whether it is setting a new watch or programming a remote technology can make you want to pull your hair out at times. Consumer Reports National Research Center recently asked 13,000 subscribers for their biggest technology gripes, and not surprisingly almost everyone (95%) had a problem with a computer they’d bought within the last five years. In addition 80% had problems with their cell phones, and more than 50% had issues with their GPS, TVs, and cameras. While getting a computer error message that you don’t understand can be trying it all takes patience and determination to use technology in today’s technologically advanced society. TV’s nowadays need 2 or even 3 remotes just to utilize the functionality of turning them on and off and changing the channel or volume. These technology challenges all add up to just more daily annoyances that no matter how simplified they may seem to operate, they still present challenges for the novice to the advanced user.
Can training and entertainment really be delivered within a happy medium? Or does one have to train with a complete lack of entertainment? We have a theory here at Visual Purple and that is to add in certain elements to make training more entertaining, after all who wants to sit through three hours of seat time in a simulation learning environment learning about the concepts of compliance within a company without a few entertaining scenarios thrown into the mix? Let me just throw in my yawn now. It’s amazing to see e-Learning marketing today that emphasizes the fact that they now have fancier buttons to push within the course- let me just say this does not make something more entertaining. In stark contrast, immersive simulations result is richer experiences that encompass the processes of thinking, interacting, and doing, rather than rote memorization of factual content. The Edgar Dale studies have shown that “simulation training is a specialized type of e-learning that engages the learner into taking an active part in the training rather than simply reading or listening.”
It seems like all of the hype around live conferences has sizzled out…while some still attend these long drawn out networking events, money and time savings is on the forefront of leading to mass adoption of virtual events. The worldwide virtual conference market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56% between the period of 2010 and 2015. This prediction has been made by Market Research Media Ltd, a leading market and technology research company, in its recent research report “Virtual Conference & Trade Show Market Forecast 2010-2015“. In the estimates made by the report the worldwide virtual conference and trade show market is predicted to reach $18.6 Billion over the period of 2010 to 2015 (and yes, I did say billion with a B).
Image Courtesy of Market Research Media
One of the big advantages of virtual events is that they are able to provide a host of reporting mechanisms on the fly, unlike traditional live conference events. Thus ultimately being better able to qualify and track leads. Interaction between the participants is much more straight-forward and saves wasted time that is spent with unqualified leads. Although the more personal interaction is taken out of the virtual conference scenario; great relationships are still able to be built. Not to mention the big factor of cost, which is much less than traditional face-to-face conferences. The fact of the matter is that event marketing has changed… now there is no need for the hefty price tags associated with fancy displays and travel costs in getting representatives to and from the trade show.
Military forces around the world rely on computer-based simulators to provide invaluable training for today’s warfighters. More and more military branches are turning to the simulation and virtual training market to increase retention and performance of our treasured warfighters, maximizing the benefits of this training technology. Computer wargames in military training have had a good run, but not until recently have you seen more and more publicity around them… sure, we can thank the military for their secretive ways on this one. These simulations and virtual training projects train military staff in a full gamut of activities; ranging from training exercises to rehearsing for complex systems, all of which provide a diverse range of training requirements that must be met. The world’s simulation industry is growing larger and larger with the United States being the leader in the simulation and virtual training markets, followed closely by the UK. Sure, sometimes resources (mainly funding) are hard to come by meaning that a lot of potential training that could be developed never makes it from the initial proposal stage to the drawing board and eventual implementation. These mission rehearsal modeling tools are aiding in overall military readiness by streamlining training capabilities. One thing is for sure it beats the so-called BOGSAT (or Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table). Emerging technologies are changing the way today’s military trains-up.
By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.
Continuing with our vlog ‘how-to’ series called, ‘Emulating Human Voice-overs with TTS Voices’ we now offer this newer presentation, suffixed as ‘Part Three’. We recommend that you review Part One and Part Two first but that is not necessarily a requirement. For this exercise we snipped out a small piece from one of our past projects. Unlike the premise of Part 2, where you learned to sync a TTS voice to a human voice-actor, this video tutorial will focus on the tactics of humanizing synthetic voice-clips with added detail. Today’s presentation does not only reinforce the techniques discussed in Part 1 and Part 2, but will show how to set the talk-pace to improve the phrasings and expressions of synthetic voices. And the concept of formant manipulation is introduced as well. Disclaimer: these are helpful tips, but generalized. Not all editing tools or TTS engines respond to specific techniques that you might try in the very same way. Mainly, just try to grasp the concepts, then adapt your technique to idiosyncrasies of your chosen tools.
The How-To-Humanize your TTS Clips exhibit (Exhibit Part 3). A follow-up on VO elements originally presented in Part 2’s vlog. This time, we introduce Formant handling.
As always check back in for more on this topic and other fun and useful information!
Active in a number of key simulation and training markets, Visual Purple offers you the possibility to change the way people train, through its state-of-the-art technology platforms in Virtual Worlds, Embedded Training and Decision-Based Simulations. Learn more...
