Day 13 - Vancouver BC

learning about the business of e-learning ...

Went for a run in Pacific Spirit Park at 8am. This is huge forest surrounding the campus with walking and horse trails through it. What was planned as a shortish jog turned out to be closer to a half-marathon as I got hopelessly lost! The problem is that everything is upside down and back-to-front in the Northern hemisphere -ie. in the South, if you are looking north then the sun is generally in front of you. This is why its good to have a north-facing house so you get the sun in the winter. But in the North, if you are looking towards the sun, you are actually facing south! There are other weird phenomena - like the water swirls down a plughole in the opposite direction. Anyway - although there were maps on junctions of the trails, I took a turn that I though was leading me towards the campus, but was actually heading in the opposite direction. ....

Eventually realised my mistake and substituted right for left in my head, and got back just in time to shower, put on a jacket and tie!, and catch the bus to the eLearningBC meeting. I was a bit nervous since it was a business and not an academic gathering, but was soon made to feel welcome as a special guest from NZ (and the CEO of Flexilearn!). Was a typical corporate occasion - in the Vancouver Sheraton ballroom, 3-course lunch (I did have to pay $35 as a non-member:), but very worthwhile as I made some useful contacts and learnt a lot more about the business side of elearning. I think there are heaps of opportunities in this area - they were making projections like the global elearning market would be $40 billion in the next 2 years!

I was totally exhausted when I got back at about 5pm, and after dealing with all the GSE survey emails just had an early light supper and went to sleep at about 10.30 (just after the sunset). Conference starts tomorrow.

Posted: Tue - June 10, 2003 at 08:23 AM Stan's Travel Blog