Hearing it first


Long-time e-learning chronicler, Bob Little, reflects on the emergence of TACT - the UK’s first industry body and the forerunner of today’s e-Learning Network.


Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, we had experienced the de-regulation of the City via the ‘Big Bang’ and Harry Enfield was typifying the mood with ‘Loadsamoney’ when The Association for Computer Based Training (TACT) emerged to explore the relative virgin territory of learning technologies.


The next big thing


Almost all computer-based training (CBT) business owners then would tell you their company was at the leading edge of the CBT world, yet the market wasn’t mature enough to appreciate, or buy, what their company sold.


But within 18 months, technology and buyers’ understanding would have moved on and profits would roll in.


Two years later I’d have very similar conversations with those same people. They would say although technology and buyers’ understanding had developed so had they.


Consequently their company was still at the leading edge and still about 18 months away from making a huge fortune.


I concluded, and events have shown, the ‘cobweb theory’ of economics applies perfectly to the learning technologies industry.


The sector will never achieve equilibrium, where supply meets technology-led demand. Rather, demand will always lag behind supply, and the market winners are those whose


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products are some way off leading edge in terms of the application of technology.


Tactful approach


TACT had been going about three years when I first attended.


I was invited by then chairman, former policeman turned instructional designer, Richard Haycock, to edit the TACT newsletter, which I did from February 1992 to July 1999.


Each edition chronicled the previous meeting’s presentations plus other industry news. To herald the new Millennium, TACT embarked on an eight-page journal. It lasted two editions!


A couple of key – maybe historic – moments from these meeting reports include:


• December 1992: Virtual reality specialist Barry Sherman said the technology’s roots could be traced to the Sensorama machine developed in the US in the 1950s. He said future virtual reality developments are likely to include doing away with headsets and placing the images on spectacle lenses or even directly into the eye through retinal imaging.


• October 1999: A Black Box Network Industry Survey revealed 20% of IT directors say their organisation is seriously affected by staff wasting time on web browsing and say internet abuse is a significant concern. An Epic survey also revealed while 5% of organisations are delivering online learning, 16% plan to use it within two years and 22% within five years.


The survey also predicted training via videodisc will rise from being used by 8% of organisations in 1999 to 14% in 2004.


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