So now that you have the building blocks of your strategy in your
sights, it important to maintain focus. Now is not the time to get
caught up in discussions about building your first app or what type
of devices the IT department is going to be buying. You need to
stay in the driver's seat and craft the strategy to match the
technology landscape of the community at large and also find a
healthy mix of progress and protection to meet your business
goals.
What The Strategy Provides
More than anything else, the mobile learning strategy gives you a
compass on which to guide your team's efforts (maybe more
appropriately, a GPS). This aerial view of the mobile learning plan
you have in mind prevents distractions. Think of wasted time in
meetings, hours writing RFPs, designs and wireframes destined for
failure. This strategy helps you continue making progress, not
wasting efforts. It allows you to see the proverbial forest for the
trees.
The Trees
Oh the trees! They're beautiful! With mobile there are just many of
them. Every time a new tablet comes out, a tree! With every OS or
SDK update and beta distribution, another tree! A press release
from a company regarding their plug-ins status on mobile, there's
yet another. You see where I am going with this, right? Reading
mobile industry news sites is a great idea of course; it keeps you
informed as to where the leaders are headed. Attending conferences
and webinars is also a great thing to help you see where technology
is going. However, to take a single news story or a single bullet
point in a keynote speech and seize on it as the cornerstone as
your entire strategy will surely lead you to ruin. Each of these
aforementioned 'for instances' is insignificant in the bigger
picture and should be weighed and considered in light of all the
other news items, customer or user inputs, and so on in order to
help create your larger strategy.
When the trees keep popping up quicker than you can cut them down,
you know you are in trouble. You'll constantly be issuing
statements to your management about what the latest development
means to them and your work. You'll start to lose credibility with
your stakeholders and designers as well. You must elevate and think
big!
The Forest
Step back for a moment and take a look at the trees from a
distance. What direction is the wind blowing through them in your
line of work? I'm talking about big ideas, concepts, and trends.
Are tablets growing in popularity? Is a particular platform taking
over or dwindling rapidly? Are users demanding notifications and
content just-in-time? Are advanced hardware features like cameras,
geolocation, 3D graphics, etc., a now expected featureset? Are
regulations hampering progress in your business? Are the
stakeholders ready to make decisions and contribute? Is the mobile
web winning over hearts and minds in your IT department due to
scalability and ease of deployment and support? These are the
telling signs that let you understand where you need to spend your
efforts. These signs show you the true shape of your forest.
Until Next Time
Now that we've gone over why a good Mobile Learning Strategy is
important, what one looks like and you also have a good idea of
what happens when you neglect to use one, we'll talk implementation
next week!