Tuesday, March 24, 2009

A number game

I believe that this business of eLearning is nothing but a number game. With each day, this belief is gradually becoming a conviction.

I am a member of the Instructional Designer fraternity. I am supposed to bridge the “knowledge gap” of the learner. However, this involves, getting tossed between projects, while juggling verbs like ideating, visualizing, thinking, reviewing and scripting.

The crunch hits when the verbs collide and I suddenly realize they are not so abstract after all. This happens, for example, when scripting of a module crosses paths with visualizing of a previous module, or, when comment fixing (a follow-up activity of scripting) crashes against reviewing of an alpha module.

In these moments of verb(al) crisis, I sit back helplessly and try to duck the lethal volley of toxic mails flying into my mailbox. Alas! Without success! Soon, I start using a more physical verb — running, from senior reviewers to project managers, trying to explain that the timelines are absurd. More often than not, I feel like a clown performing alongside a domesticated lion, who is confused about what to fear more…the lion or the probability of missing the glass plates that he is juggling.

Time goes, in this — almost daily — melee of verbs, and it is time to catch the evening office bus.

I realize another day is over. Numbers on the calendar inch closer towards the dreaded project delivery date. Daily deliverables, in the form of number of screens, fall below the company benchmark. Appraisal ratings, again numeric, get affected by the previous two numbers. Finally, all the numbers together, cast an ominous shadow on the numbers on my paycheque.

In this season of recession, when numbers are pivotal to global financials, it is only a matter of time before they catch me too. Another number added to the number of pink slips.

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