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"Something successful entrepreneurs should aim to have: Conviction. Being an entrepreneur is not the easy road to success. Sure, you're your own boss-making the conversation in which you ask for a raise far less awkward-but the hours are long, the market always crowded, the naysayers plenty. There will be discouraging news. But the ability to stand behind your decisions is essential. No one else can tell you what you want for your company, and don't let them try. Drive. As an entrepreneur, time is not on your side. The best-laid plans are those that are executed as swiftly as possible. Don't sit on an idea or wait until you've had a chance to "sleep on it." Act now. Innovation. The original brainchild might have been the thing that got you excited enough to take the leap into entrepreneurship. But longevity will depend on continually coming up with new ideas, from products to ways to market them to which audiences to target. Not all of these ideas will be winners. But having them is not optional. Inspiration. You may be your only employee. Or you might have a team that looks to you to engage them, foster their talents, and involve them in the bigger picture. Those employees who feel excited about, and part of, the overall vision will be encouraged to grow alongside you, and work hard for you. Focus. Establish your daily, weekly, quarterly goals and go after them. Connect dots on a daily basis. Avoid distractions, and distracting people. Independence. It's a lonely road, entrepreneurship. Though your goal is to foster community within your company, there will be days when you wish everyone else would be willing to work as hard as you are, to want it as much as you do. But realize that your company's success does mean more to you than it does to anyone else. Be willing to go the road alone on those days when everyone else has seemingly pulled off for lunch. That's what'll make the difference."

How to hack an RSS feed to reduce overload by Dawn Foster, Gigaom, 3.25.2011.

Interesting and VALUABLE links-rich how-to blog post by Wade Foster at Zapier, a distributed company, June 27, 2013 on managing remote teams. Identifies excellent resources elsewhere assembled by practitioners in remote work places. Identifies three key things: team, TOOLS (great list for work team), and processes for success. Team--hire doers, hire people you can trust, trust the people you hire, hire people who can write, hire people who are okay without a social workplace Tools--Campfire for virtual office; Sqwiggle, a persistent video chat room that takes a picture of you every 8 seconds which people can see on their computers and instant video chat; email, Trello for joint to-do list; GitHub for issues and pull requests; iDoneThis for daily digest of accomplishments--notes that "it is great for personal use as well because it can help build habits." Also Chrome profiles, LastPass Enterprise, Draft for easily versioning drafts, and Google Docs, Hello sign (for signatures without hassle of scanning, etc.), and Google Talk Processes--everyone does support on regular schedule to stay close to customers; a culture of shipping, weekly hangouts, weekly learning, monthly one on ones, culture of daily feedback

great slideshare on hacking your RSS feeds to get only the most timely and relevant posts by Dawn Foster at Puppet Labs

Blog post by Chris Collison on 2.26.13, that discusses reciprocity in fostering a learning atmosphere and adoption of best practice in an organization. Excerpt: "Reciprocity is an important principle for knowledge management, and one which underpins the idea of Offers and Requests. Offers and Requests was a simple approach, introduced to make it easier for Operations Engineers at BP to ask for help, and to share good practice with their peers. The idea was for each business unit to self-assess their level of operational excellence using a maturity model, and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses. In order to overcome barriers like "tall poppy syndrome", or a reluctance to ask for help ("real men don't ask directions"), a process was put in place whereby every business unit would be asked to offer three areas which they felt proud of, and three areas which they wanted help with. The resulting marketplace for matching offers and requests was successful because: i) The principle of offering a strength at the same time as requesting help was non-threatening and reciprocal - it was implicitly fair. ii) The fact that every business unit was making their offers and requests at the same time meant that it felt like a balanced and safe process."

blog post by Sean Young, Ph.D., on fostering change in behavior through online comunities, September 28, 2013

excellent explanation by Tom Vander Ark on why parent-managed learner profiles are becoming more important all the time for young people.  Is the corollary true for adults owning their learning in portable, digital carry-alongs for sharing with potential employers, etc.  

Connected Learning, a new research-driven initiative was introduced at the Digital Media and Learning Conference 2012. This blog post by Jackie Gerstein discusses its essence and includes TED video of Henry Jenkins and separate video of Mimi Ito. See excerpt on core values and principals of connected learning: At the core of connected learning are three values: Equity - when educational opportunity is available and accessible to all young people, it elevates the world we all live in. Full Participation - learning environments, communities, and civic life thrive when all members actively engage and contribute. Social connection - learning is meaningful when it is part of valued social relationships and shared practice, culture, and identity (http://connectedlearning.tv/connected-learning-principles). This initiative is being driven by the following design principles: Shared purpose - Connected learning environments are populated with adults and peers who share interests and are contributing to a common purpose. Today's social media and web-based communities provide exceptional opportunities for learners, parents, caring adults, teachers, and peers in diverse and specialized areas of interest to engage in shared projects and inquiry. Cross-generational learning and connection thrives when centered on common interests and goals. Production-centered - Connected learning environments are designed around production, providing tools and opportunities for learners to produce, circulate, curate, and comment on media. Learning that comes from actively creating, making, producing, experimenting, remixing, decoding, and designing, fosters skills and dispositions for lifelong learning and productive contributions to today's rapidly changing work and political conditions. Openly networked - Connected learning environments are designed around networks that link together institutions and groups across various sectors, including popula

Interesting org that strives to foster a deeper understanding of gender and its intersections with race, culture, class, sexuality and other aspects of social identity. This program provides opportunities for women to explore career and life choices in multiple disciplines that enable them to excel and realize their full potential. Connects students with each other and to a strong supportive network of critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem-solving and leadership skills.

Although mostly for high school and college students, WILL has an international program and offers some wonderful learning opportunities.

A PDF presenting the mission and strategic plan for Association for Women in Science 2011-2014. Well done in design and content. Look at these goals and objectives: Increase awareness of issues that impede and endanger American competitiveness by limiting progress in STEM careers Promulgate results of important national studies on gender inequity in learning environments and workplaces Work with federal and local agencies to show how gender equity aligns with their goals for workforce development Actively seek out opportunities for positive coverage in the media of AWIS activities and positions Highlight ways to restructure STEM environments to foster diversity and inclusion to advance national competitiveness Focus on career transitions and special needs of women of color and other underrepresented groups Actively propose and support federal legislation and initiatives which are consistent with AWIS policies and position statements such as, but not limited to: 1. Economic equity; 2. Flexible work options; 3. Parental leave; 4. Improvement of post-doc employment status; and 5. Title IX compliance. Develop mechanisms to engage individuals and chapters in advocacy Identify opportunities for innovation and systemic change across multiple work sectors Promote best practice models for employers and educators by gathering and highlighting examples from different disciplines, work sectors, and industries Highlight the central role of professional societies in advancing women's careers Expand our voice through strategic alliances and partnerships

nice summary slide program on what AND men can do to help foster equality in the workplace

In this blog post, John Hagel "lifts" from a much larger report, what platforms are, the three types (aggregation that is mainly short-term, transaction based; social for building long-term relationships and meshing of relationship networks to foster diversity of connections, and mobilization--those that move people to act together to accomplish something, ex. supply network, Linux in open source, and social movements such as Arab Spring), and how a fourth one--the "learning platform" is the aspiration of business ecosystems everywhere. Platforms do not mean apps. Platforms offer governance protocols and structure for determine who belongs and who doesn't. They also facilitate coordination, collaboration, and connection.

Great blog post by Holly Clark on Edudemic connecting education & technology, September 24, 2014. She suggests: Find another class to do a project, blog or twitter chat with. Change the classroom set up to allow for more student movement & interaction Have students create blogs to foster global interactions Use Skype to promote interaction with the outside world If your class has 1:1, look for other schools to collaborate with Tweet your learning with another class Understand that learning is happening through networks--not textbooks--"Textbooks are a solitary and isolated learning source and their days are numbered. Learning will become about networks. It will be about the people and information you know how to access and create. Your students are not quite savvy enough to do this effectively on their own, so show them how to interact with a network of experts from your subject area. ..."

article by Jonnie Goodwin, founding partner of Lepe Partners, August 2014 on how the internet fosters traditional arts and crafts and passions that might turn into professional work opportunities

article by teacher in 2012 in Baltimore Post-Examiner on why technology is so vital to learning in the classroom. "Is that how we learn nowadays? Let's say I wasn't helpful and didn't provide a definition of intensive-explicit instruction, but you wanted to know what it meant. What would you do? Google it, of course. That's the power of technology: I can learn so much about the world through my own sense of discovery. The trick for today's teachers is to instill that sense of discovery, and traditional intensive-explicit instruction will not foster that independence."

Interesting assessment of LinkedIn Groups' value and whether groups foster community and will be around for much longer (on a free basis) and the annoying SWAM (Side Wide Automatic Moderation) feature by Maggie McGary, 2014.

blog post by Megan Conley/Emily Wilson, SAP Business Innovation, 12/22/14. Could have been written by us. Excerpt: "How can your business make sure it doesn't disappear? The answer may surprise corporate learningyou: Create a business culture that fosters life-long learning. Encourage employees to be students throughout their career Although this advice seems like a no-brainer, only a small number of companies are actually making this transformation. Fewer than 10 percent of businesses worldwide have succeeded in creating a learning culture. Yet, 70 percent of executives believe learning and development is a key part of business strategy."

This 'manifesto' was offered in response by Paolo Bruttini to Jarche's adherence to networks for organizations operating today with different type of leadership. October 2014 Jarche concluded in his post: Networked leaders foster deeper connections, developed through ongoing and meaningful conversations. They understand the importance of tacit knowledge in solving complex problems. Networked leaders know they are just nodes in the knowledge network and not a special position in a hierarchy. What does a post-hierarchical organization look like? It will be one that provides a sense of belonging like a tribe, but with more diversity and room for personal growth. It will have the institutional structure to manage the basic systems so people can focus on customers and community, not merely running the organization. It will have market type competition, but without a winner-take-all approach. Finally, it will promote cooperative actions that add to the long-term value of the ecosystem and community, not just short-term collaboration to get the next project done or achieve some arbitrary quarterly results. Making the networked organization more resilient will help everyone in it, not just a few central nodes. The networked organization takes the long view.

Guide for organizations to plan how to convene f2f diverse groups to top into groups' shared intelligence and problem solving skills. Based on the Foundation's extensive experience with convening, they created this guide to foster more collaboration outside of their funding. The link to the guide, entitled Gather, is contained in this web page.

Interesting look at associations' challenges in 2014 Following 2013, a year in which 42 percent of the respondents to the "DC Associations Salary Survey Report 2013-2014" reported a decrease in membership revenues, 74 percent of respondents reported that increasing membership is their number-one challenge for 2014. The survey also identified several of the ways associations plan to foster growth this year. "This pressing issue is confirmed by plans to find innovative ways to deliver programs and services-clear paths to increasing membership and revenues," according to the report. Increasing staff performance and productivity was also reported as a strategic priority to ensure growth in 2014. Fifty-eight percent of respondents reported that they plan to do so. Roughly 50 percent plan to increase staff in key areas and increase staff training and coaching.