Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

5 Myths About Education Reform

Education in America is a topic of public discussion. Everyone has an opinion and is willing to express it, and everyone has ideas about what’s wrong with our educational system and how to fix it. What most well-meaning people with good ideas don’t seem to know is that reform in education has been going on and has been the subject of debate and discussion for many, many years. The problem is that if we don’t make changes based on what we know works, the changes we make will not help. Reform in education sometimes seems like a hamster in a wheel, always running to stand still. Myths about reform abound, and need to be debunked so we can move forward. Here are 5 of the most prominent myths about education reform.

1. If teachers don’t produce results, they should be fired – after all, no other profession is unaccountable.

There are a couple of good reasons to debunk this myth. First, teachers are more and more the target of laws that do make them responsible for producing acceptable results, and they have lost their jobs for not meeting standards. Unfortunately, these results and standards are not black and white, but based on complex and unpredictable changes in faulty human beings, and are affected by many important variables outside of a teacher’s control. Second, consider doctors – we do not hold them accountable for not getting society as a whole to eat better, exercise and stop drinking and smoking. There are indeed other professions that are not held accountable, because it would be impossible, impractical, and immoral to do so. The same should hold for teachers.

2. We keep throwing money at the educational system, but nothing changes – scores on achievement tests haven’t gone up.

The first argument against this myth is that achievement as measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress trends have shown statistically significant gains in recent years, so that there actually have been modest but real improvements. The second counter to this myth is that there are other ways to measure improvement. One example is the drop out rate from high school, which has declined significantly for all income levels since the early 70′s. Saying that an investment only has one measure to show a return just doesn’t work in education like it does in finance.

3. Those who don’t believe that achievement scores should be used to evaluate teachers only care about protecting teachers and their unions.

Statistical errors go in both directions, so teachers abilities are overestimated just as much as they are underestimated. According to studies, over a quarter of all ratings of teachers are incorrect, so we are actually protecting bad teachers as well as good teachers. Most teachers and reformers have many concerns about students, and keeping incompetent teachers without trying to improve them is one.

4. If we agree that the education system is in need of repair, then we have to blame teachers for breaking it in the first place.

First, it is not logical to blame teachers for failure of the system if they have not been given every opportunity and resource they might need to succeed. Then, if they fail, it is clearly their fault. Second, teachers do not work in a vacuum – students are affected by everything that happens outside of the classroom, and that in turn affects their achievement. But teachers have no control over what happens outside of their short time with students, so they can’t be the reason for the failure.

5. Charter schools are the answer to the problems the education system faces.

The population of students that attend charter schools is different than the general public school population, and so are their parents. If you compare the two on the basis of scores without adjusting for those differences, it’s apples and oranges. Besides, only a handful of charter schools are producing the results that get attributed to all of them.

Education reform is not a destination, it’s a process. Part of the process is understanding what needs to be done and what doesn’t. By understanding some of the myths surrounding it, progress may eventually be made.

Making Money With A Home Based Business

Making money with a home a home based business is growing ever more popular these days. The idea of being your own boss, seeing your family or friends whenever you wish, and getting paid very well for it, is one idea that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Here are another couple of reasons why more and more people are dropping their commute and re-locating their office to their spare room at home.ONE. Other business opportunities like becoming a franchisee are way too expensive, especially in the current financial climate. They also offer a very long time span for a decent return on investment.TWO. The dawn of the internet has brought about a whole new industry and age of opportunity for people looking for it. Home based online businesses are affordable and very profitable.So, making money online is one of the best ways to ditch the office at work and create your own business from the comfort of your own home. But where do you start?If you search the internet for these kinds of opportunities I’m pretty sure you will get overwhelmed quickly by how much is out there. There are thousands upon thousands of websites offering you anything from ways to make your fortune overnight, to those who just want to help you learn some basics for free. One quick word of warning from someone with experience – if the offer of overnight fortunes sounds way too good to be true, then please do not waste your money on them!The first thing you should spend online is your time. I recommend you find someone who can offer you a product or service that can teach you to become an online business person. A great way to get your foot in the door is to study internet marketing.Take your time to find someone who will go out of their way to help you learn, before they take your hard earned money. The best thing you could find is probably an internet marketing coach or mentor. A good coach or mentor should be able to help you decide if starting a home based online business in internet marketing is the right way for you to go. They should be easy to contact and connect with. Try to avoid those who you feel are hiding behind their website. Go with your gut instinct about people. If you like them and like what they have to offer then try to get involved in what they are trying to teach you.Eventually you will decide if becoming a home based internet marketer is right for you or not. If not, then do not give up in finding the right opportunity for you. If you feel internet marketing is the right home based business for you, then it’s time to spend some money on your online business education.Again, take your time to choose which learning platform you feel is best for you. Once you have found one that covers all the aspects of internet marketing you want to cover, then go ahead and take the plunge! If you have acquired the right information, the right coach and are ready to put in the hard work at the start, then you might have just found yourself the perfect home based business. Good luck on your journey.