Sadly, this is my last ever post to our Tribal Labs blog.
After three exciting years as Tribal’s Head of Innovation, I am leaving.
For those of you who have only met me via this blog, I have a long history here that predates my current role in our Innovation team. I have been working in the same business in Cambridge for almost 20 years. Always championing technology as a tool for learning. Always innovating. Always creating new things. Constantly learning from others.
I’d like to thank the many colleagues, clients, and co-conspirators who have helped me on that journey. Challenging my thinking. Coaching me. Sharing skills and ideas. And helping to prepare all our users to be the learners and tutors of the future.
I’m leaving behind an awesome team, who will no doubt push this blog post of mine into history, with a constant flow of exciting new ideas from the lab:
- Chris Ballard is doing great things with learning analytics.
- Ben Lowe is championing HTML5 as well as touch interfaces.
- Chris Whitehead, Jon Brasted, Mahdi Barakat and Jack Kierney are all plucking up courage to post about the awesome Azure, and mobile stuff they are working on.
- Jo Colley , Jess Wakelin and Anusha Iyer may even be tempted to go public on our mobile content work (which rocks!).
- Ben Smith will be leading all our m-learning product development.
But this blog is just the tip of the iceberg. The Tribal Labs team continue to do as many external projects as internal:
- Our mobile learning platform is still growing, and is already being used by clients as diverse as the US Government (yes, really!), McDonalds UK, and training providers from Spain, to Turkey, to Norway! (If you want to join them, speak to Ben Smith)
- Our open formats for m-learning content are gaining increasing traction with mobile learning creators, eager to share content to all platforms.
- We are about to release an open source version of all the good bits. Watch this space for announcements about OMLET.
- Our HTML5 framework looks likely to be rolled out to all government schools and colleges in NSW, Australia.
We’ve come a long way from Tribal’s first innovation team meeting, 3 years ago. Even further from our technical role in the world’s first international mobile learning project in 2001 (who said these things move fast?). The technologies may evolve rapidly, but the need for people like ourselves to harness them for good seems to remain constant.
So where are you going / what are you going to do next?
I am still doing learning technologies, still mobile learning. In fact, a LOT more mobile learning, as I am joining one of the mobile technology giants, Qualcomm, to become a mobile learning champion and thought leader for them. My base will still be in Cambridge, but I’m likely to be spending some time in the USA, as the majority of their people are on the sunny coast of San Diego.
So – yet another sign that mobile learning is here to stay, and truly global. Thanks to everyone who has helped us get there!
