Neil LaChapelle

Neil LaChapelle (aka "HiredEd") is an e-learning generalist. He was Manager of Courseware Development, Creative Director for Web Development, Product Manager for LMS Development, as well as an Instructional Designer and general communications Writer/Editor for Learnsoft Corporation, the Canadian company that launched Lansbridge University, Canada's first fully-private and fully-online university, and one of the first fully-online university programs in the world.
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He is currently a Web Developer in the Distance and Continuing Education department at the University of Waterloo, Canada - and has a private consulting practice which has largely focused on e-learning intiatives related to the work of the Adizes Institute in Carpinteria, California. Neil is also one of the founders of the newly-launched University of Fredericton. As Manager, Institutional Research, Neil plays a leading role in the definition, positioning and curriculum design efforts for new programs, and is responsible for learning about and advising on continuous improvement for all organizational functions of the university. He is also a course author, currently responsible for writing, instructional design, curriculum design and subject matter expertise (on collaboration and organizational studies) in the production of the university's first program of offer - an executive MBA in collaborative leadership.
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Neil has had involvement in the film industry, with strengths in directing, film editing and story doctoring/script editing (basically, all the big-picture/high-level design-decision stuff...).
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Neil has a BA in Philosophy and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from Carleton University, Canada (having taught in Brno, Czech Rep. and Kwangju, S. Korea). Neil is on hiatus from a Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo.
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His main philosophical interests are (alas) not conventional subdisciplines of philosophy. They include business philosophy, intellectual consilience, personal ethics (intellectual and general), the "clash of civilizations" /cross-cultural philosophy, philosophical outreach (teaching critical thinking skills to the general public), and the revitalization of progressive politics along the lines initiated by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute. Some of Neil's work grounds itself in the conviction that academic philosophy has lost its love for the kinds of wisdom most people really need, and that important themes for philosophical attention can be discovered in popular sources such as the general self-help press and the business self-help/professional-development press. (aka "How to scuttle your academic career...")
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Neil thinks a lot, reads a *lot*, and ruminates a lot... which inevitably means that when he writes, he writes a lot (though less often). This makes him a big-chunk blogger, rather than a rapid-fire one. Just so you know... or perhaps that suspicion is already starting to dawn on you!