Pat Dear Leads Mimic Product Development

[Richard Ferrell]

Please See the press release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/3/prweb753214.htm

MadCap Software Adds Web-Based Training Expert to Lead Madcap Mimic Product Management
Patricia Dear Brings 25 Years of Training Experience to Evolve Mimic Native XML Software Simulation Package to a Full eLearning Solution

La Jolla, CA (PRWEB) March 10, 2008 -- MadCap Software, the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a showcase company for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft XPS, today announced that Patricia Dear has joined the MadCap team as product manager for MadCap Mimic. In this role, Ms. Dear will build on Mimics powerful, native XML capabilities for creating software simulation movies to evolve it into a robust application for eLearning. Mimic, featuring a small-footprint movie format, currently is used worldwide to create movies that simulate actions on the computer screen and produce interactive instructional videos.



Ms. Dear brings 25 years of experience in training and eLearning. A pioneer from PLATO (the first eLearning system), she joins MadCap Software from Cardinal Health Inc., where she chaired its enterprise-wide Training Standards Sub-Committee; led development and administration of a Learning Management System; and managed Web-based training design and development, producing more than 140 courseware titles. She is a member of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) and The eLearning Guild.

Pats extensive experience developing online training and systems, as well as her efforts to foster training standards will be invaluable in transforming Mimic from a state-of-the-art software simulation tool to a solution that redefines the eLearning development experience,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap CEO. We are excited to have Pat join our team in delivering a best-in-class XML-based suite for the complete documentation needs of an enterprise—now and into the future.”

I am thrilled to be part of MadCap Software which is leading some of the most innovative developments in content authoring today,” said Patricia Dear. I look forward to working with the talented development professionals there to help Mimic realize its potential as a next-generation eLearning solution.”

Prior to Cardinal Health, Ms. Dear developed Web-based training for Pixel Solutions and The Webb Group. At Cambridge Technology Partners, she led the technical training efforts of an enterprise network migration project for a metropolitan city government. She also held training and development positions at The Art Institute of Seattle; Birdrock Media Corporation, Inc.; Coconut Computing, Inc.; Courseware, Inc.; and Online Computer Systems, Inc. Ms. Dear received her masters in instructional systems design from the University of Maryland and bachelors degree in human development from The Pennsylvania State University. She also has been certified as a Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS).

[RamonS]

Welcome to the club and good to see that Mimic gets an expert to drive the project forward.

...everytime I see Microsoft's ticker symbol I have to think of the word "misfit".

[forfear]

With such credentials there's gonna be big expectations on Madcap to deliver on their promise.
Its going to be exciting times i imagine.

i believe this is exciting ground to be treading on. Madcap's got a team that previously came up with sucesses such as robodemo...so it'll be interesting to see how this works out.

The industry in this area has changed a bit with established heavy weights such as the extremely popular Camtasia.....

they say never get into the same business as microsoft....or adobe...

differentiate yourself and innovate the madcap way i say...

[RamonS]

Exactly...since it isn't really that difficult to make better products than Adobe and Microsoft. Getting as good as a legal team like MS might be the tricky part.

[pdear]

Thanks for the intro Richard.

It's a real pleasure to be part of the MadCap team. I'm thinking we're going to have a bit of fun in adding more eLearning capabilities and understanding to Mimic.

Be sure to let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. I'd love to hear from you!

-- Pat

[MikeKatz]

Thanks for the intro Richard.

It's a real pleasure to be part of the MadCap team. I'm thinking we're going to have a bit of fun in adding more eLearning capabilities and understanding to Mimic.

Be sure to let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. I'd love to hear from you!

-- Pat

Hi Pat
I'm glad you are aboard, but I think it's too late for me - Mimic does not run on my workstation:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =25&t=5577
I'm about to purchase a competitive product. I would have liked to give MadCap my business, but the product has to run!

[pdear]

Mike,

Just read your post and resulting thread. Sounds like you certainly made the effort. It would be great if you could use Mimic, but we can certainly understand your need to get on with your project. We appreciate all your efforts. Perhaps we can coax you to try again with some future release of Mimic.

Pat

[SteveS]

Welcome, Pat.

We won't give you too hard a time.

Yet.

[forfear]

Welcome, Pat.

We won't give you too hard a time.

Yet.

Aye aye. things will start to get interesting when there are more people building real projects and applications on it. Flare's gone really far...

[forfear]

The thing i like about video recording versus computer simulations si that they computer simulations have this knack of running slow, with all kinds of necessary interactions and appearing sluggish.

IMHO, video output like what a screen recorder does as in Camtasia and Hypercam just seems like a more human and more natural way of doing and learning something.

Hwoever i can see avenues where having to engage learners by clicking to get them to respond occassionally might be a good thing. Online learning exams and all that to get a quick response and triggers without too much programming.

But generally i've appreciated short video demos recorded off webcasts, which move fairly fast and fluid like the few ones made available on the Madcap site or on youtube nice little distractions to watch.

[RamonS]

...and it should be quite easy to implement those into Flash output. At least YouTube uses Flash video and I use it since years on my own web site and I must say, given the size of the files it is just awesome quality, especially when it has to get delivered via the web.

[CharlesJet]

I'm a bit sour on YouTube regarding the image quality... Flash is great for video, but the scalability means that existing full-screen demos don't squash as well as ones that are tailored for the viewing window.

Tailored to YouTube size demos often give improper context of viewing the entire application - there's workarounds to this. One solution I've been looking at for people using YouTube is to do a short five or eight frame video introduction with a hyperlink which takes people into the 'bigger picture' type of frame. Otherwise you're inevitably going to get to a point where things get wayyy too labor intensive in shrinking windows, retaking images, etc. to support the YouTube frame.

Speaking of concepts...
From YouTube's Video Annotation (Beta)

Video annotations are available now as a "beta" feature. We're working hard to get this out of beta and, once we do, annotations will support more languages (not just English) and appear on videos embedded in other websites.

I think they're on the right track for getting YouTube to be more collaborative in nature and to allow users to build more into the direct user experience. I guess I'm just not a fan of what Flash does to video content. I do think this Video Annotation process adds a great deal to the game as far as YouTube is concerned, I just think that .

However as you might know from my research, I'm excited about the potential for Silverlight though. One large thing that YouTube does has going for it is the name recognition, searchability, and marketing potential. That's out and out fantastic.

All they need now is better technology. I'm irritated in how the scalability of Flash video works in a richer environment, like my desktop. I want to see more hi-def within the application from a single source. I'm so demanding.

-- C

[RamonS]

I agree, the quality on YouTube sucks, but you need to keep in mind that higher quality means larger files and that means not only drastically more storage needs for YouTube, but also closing the door on large numbers of potential viewers. Keep in mind that broadband is available to only an elite minority in the US, so this stuff needs to work reasonably well over dial-up.
I recently tried to sell two PCs and had a tough time since everyone asked if they have modems installed. I have DSL and ditched modems a long time ago. So I went and bought some and the PCs went out the door within a day.
I use the free RivaVX encoder to make Flash Video from my home DV camera. But here as well, my parents in Germany only have dial-up and they have to pay for local calls by the minute, so download size is crucial.
I've seen Silverlight and yes, it has potential, but I don't see where it has more potential than AIR. Silverlight is not cross-browser and cross-platform compatible and is geared towards developers. I am sure that a software developer with .NET blinders on chooses Silverlight over AIR any time. A web designer probably picks AIR/Flex/Flash and the end-user is interested in something that is easy and is commonly known. And they may dislike SIlverlight just because it is from Microsoft, a company knwon to screw its users, just look at the OOXML joke. And then again, just because Microsoft copied Adobe doesn't mean Microsoft's gizmo is better. Microsoft is like Brawndo, nobody cares what it is, but it has electrolytes, and that is what plants crave.
I chose Flash Video because I found the awesome FLV player from Jeoren Wijering that was very easy to implement in my PHP projects and with the RivaVX encoder I can create video for the web at no extra cost.