After the astonishing success of his free online course on Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University, which attracted some 160,000 registrations, Sebastian Thrun has left Stanford to start his own online university Udacity. As reported on MSNBC, Thrun said: "Having done this, I can't teach at Stanford again. You can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture to your 20 students, but I've taken the red pill and I've seen Wonderland."

After my post in December on massively scalable training, I've found it hard not to come to the conclusion that I could achieve so much more leverage in my own domain if I was to employ the same techniques as Thrun (not that I'm putting myself forward as an equivalent, you understand). I'm slowly but inevitably approaching the end of my working life and yet I've still got massive goals. I'm determined to make some sort of contribution to the process of transforming learning and development in the workplace and I'm extremely busy in doing that. The trouble is that the interventions in which I participate reach 10 people here, 25 there, perhaps a couple of hundred if I'm lucky, when the need is to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Let's face it, I'm running out of time.

I have no problem with classrooms, when they're used for the right purpose, and I enjoy the interaction with students. But scalable they are not. Somehow in the next few years we need to pump up the volume, not in decibels but in numbers of learners. We're not going to do that face-to-face, nor with high-touch online tutoring. We need new ways to learn in which a much greater share of the responsibility for teaching and assessment falls on learners themselves, working collaboratively.

But hold on, because I think I've figured it out.

Let's make a comparison. A great deal of work goes into the production values of video games, particularly the big, 3D action games, and yet the ultimate success of games is actually determined by game play. Production values may attract initial purchasers, but if a game fails to engage as a game, then the word will soon get round and the product will bomb. As a result, the upmost care is taken to fine tune the gameplay to ensure as individualised and authentic an experience as possible for every player. In fact, much to the regret of some of the big game studios, production values can be comparatively low - as with most so-called 'casual games' - and yet succeed fantastically as long as the game is fun to play.

Another example. Hollywood spends tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, on the production of major feature films. With the most expensive films, production values are at an extreme high. Yet, as we have seen time and time again, what actually determines a film's success is its plot, characters and dialogue.

So, how is it that, with games and films, success is ultimately determined by the intellectual effort put into the design of products that provide a satisfying user experience, whereas with e-learning this doesn't hold true? The reason, I believe, is that games and films operate in a market with an effective feedback loop between producer and consumer. Selling e-learning, on the other hand, as I've remarked several times on this blog, is like selling dog food - you sell to the owner, i.e. the employer, rather than the dog, a.k.a. the learner. With e-learning we have amarket failure, because there is an inadequate feedback loop from learner to producer. When employers purchase an e-learning product or engage with a developer, they choose on the basis of production values rather than learning design, because they have neither the time nor the inclination to test out materials with real learners.

Where do you see real effort placed on the design of intelligent, individualised learning experiences? Well, it's much more likely to come when the provider is engaging directly with the learner, as with the Kahn Academy or the open courses provided by Stanford University (see my post on Massively Scalable Training).

Assuming I've correctly diagnosed the problem, I've still no idea what the solution should be.

UK-based learning and talent analysts Elearnity have come up with a new service geared specifically to the UK and European e-learning market. Called Vendor Perspectives (slightly ironic as 'vendor' is very much a US expression, where we tend to say 'supplier') the service provides intelligence about available solutions to potential buyers in all the usual product and service categories, including custom content providers, authoring tools, learning management platforms, etc.

Vendors pay to be included, although this buys them no influence on the ratings they receive, which are calculated by Elearnity based on their own knowledge of the market and interviews with a selection of the vendor's clients. Customers get to see Summary Perspectives for free but must pay for 'Deep Perspectives' (is that a mixed metaphor?).

In principle, I like the idea, because it is really hard for potential customers to make sense of all the competing solutions available and objective advice is hard to come by. I know this service is already available in the USA from Brandon Hall, Bersin and others, but the European market is different and local suppliers may not get much of a look in.

For this service to really take off it must first of all get buy-in from vendors. I know that quite a few LMS providers are on-board but this is not enough, because in many ways products like these are truly global in scope. The main regional variation come in terms of services, particularly content development. It will be interesting to see whether Elearnity will be able to persuade enough developers to throw their hat in the ring. The next big question is whether they will stay on board if they get rated harshly.

Another complication is how Elearnity treats open source products. Can you really get a true picture of the LMS market without an appreciation of what Moodle has to offer?

I hope the service takes off, because customers could do with the help. What it mustn't do is crowd out the smaller, niche players without the big marketing budgets.