Group items tagged

blog by Maggie Jackson, on Forbes 100 list of websites for women. Written June 6, 2012. "Encore careers drive to the heart of who we are, and who we want to be. We can't google the answers to such dilemmas. Earlier in the day, I'd attended a rehearsal at the Yale School of Drama for Waiting for Godot. Asked how she prepared for a role, one student said: 'I look for the character's super-objective. What is the essence of what this character seeks?' I shared her words with my classmates, because in an age of career fluidity, we are always shaping and reshaping our life roles. Today, 31 million workers ages 44 to 70 want an 'encore' career that combines income, impact and meaning, according to the think-tank Civic Ventures. On average, they will take 18 months - and a likely pay cut - to make the change. Twelve million in this age group are interested in starting a non-profit or social venture. In this time of invention and insecurity, we need to take the time to think about our next steps. We need to have patience with ourselves."

blog post by Charles Jennings cited by Jane Hart, published August 13, 2014. "And for Organisational Learning? The Web has allowed us to totally redefine our traditional learning models. It has allowed us to reach beyond content-rich learning approaches and focus on experience-rich learning. It has allowed an evolution from 'Know What' learning to 'Know Who' and 'Know How' learning; and it has allowed the emergence from learning in the silos of our own organisations to learning with and through others across the world - easily and transparently. The Collaboration Age On a wider plane the Web has been the harbinger of the Collaboration Age. It has blown away many of the barriers to access and has reinforced the power and influence of collaboration and co-operation1 over silo mentalities. In the Collaboration Age it is those who share and work together who are the winners. Those who hide behind organisational garden walls end up deep in weeds. "

An article for BBC by Maggie Jackson, September 2009, about our inability to pay attention in an age driven by speed through technology "Still, I'm worried. These digital age wonders will be squandered if we can't think critically, research well, and evaluate the data-floods we now have at our fingertips - and these are precisely the skills alarmingly lacking among both digital natives and older generations. Half of college students can't judge the objectivity of a website. Workers now switch tasks every three minutes, half the time interrupting themselves. As David Nicholas points out, we spend our time online 'power-bouncing' from info-snippet to data-point. And this propensity to rely on point-and-click, first-up-on-Google answers, along with our growing unwillingness to wrestle uncomfortably with nuances or uncertainties, keeps us stuck on the surface of the 'information' age. We're too often sacrificing depth for breadth in the ways we make sense of the world. Yes, we've always had 'power bouncing' and distraction. And surfing or multitasking may have an important place in 21st-century society as strategies of learning. But going forward, we need to do much more than hopscotch across the web, split-focused and pulled this way and that by choice distractions. We cannot mistake fragmented, diffused attention as avenues of higher thought. Instead, we need to do better at cultivating - perhaps resuscitating? - deep focus, keen awareness and meta-cognitive 'executive' attention - the skills crucial to creativity and problem-solving. "

Excellent video on why 20s are critical adult forming period--brain is fully formed for adulthood; "Plan and not quite enough time to do great things"--Leonard Bernstein Musical chair relationships and fear of not being able to sit down at age 30 with partner for life can cause bad decision making Post millennial crisis is not having the career that you want, or family that you want Story of Emma--at age 25--"having an identity crisis". Thought she might want to work in art or entertainment. Lived with boyfriend who displayed temper more than ambition. Head in lap, and sobbed for hour. In case of emergency, please call. who will be there for me? Told her three things that all 20 somethings need to hear: 1. Get identity capital--investment in who you might want to be next. Identity capital begets identity capital. Discounting exploration is not supposed to count when it is procrastination. 2. New piece of capital or person to date comes from weak ties--half of 20 somethings are underemployed, and half of them are not--reaching out to weak ties is how you connect; 3. You can't pick your family but you can pick your friends. You can pick your family and the time is now. The best time to work on your marriage is before you are married. Consciously choosing what you want. Found an old roommate's cousin who helped her get a job; married and has plenty of emergency contacts. One good conversation, one good Ted Talk can have an enormous impact. "Thirty is not the new 20, claim your adulthood, get your identity capital, reach out to weak ties to make your family.

"Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations." Think we need to read this book to understand the "eye" metaphor that we can help at WLS.

How the Golden Years Disappeared by Marc Freedman, Salon, April 2, 2012. This is an excerpt from the Big Shift, a book written by Marc Freedman, the man who started Civic Ventures about 10 years ago. Perhaps the WLStudio takes on this social imperative and this is how we get funding? "The new migration is across time and the life course, as tens of millions (8,000 a day, one every ten seconds, are turning sixty) reach the spot where middle age used to end and old age once began, the new territory where a resurgent purpose gap, and gulf in identity, stands. Opportunity is there as well. The surge of people into this new stage of life is one of the most important social phenomena of the new century. Never before have so many people had so much experience and the time and the capacity to do something significant with it. That's the gift of longevity, the great potential payoff on all the progress we've made in extending lives. Realizing these possibilities will require the courage to break from old and familiar patterns that once were our friends but just don't work any longer. It means considering ideas like "gap years" for grown ups, new kinds of internships and fellowships for Americans moving beyond midlife, remodelling higher education to help retrain people who have been working for 40 or 50 years, even the creation of new kinds of investment accounts to help cover the costs of transitioning to new careers. What we're facing is not a solo matter; it's a social imperative, an urgent one that must be solved as the great midlife migration gathers scale and momentum."

Premise(?) for WL Learning Studio from Harold Harche's blog, February 23, 2012 Excerpts: "Those specialized departments of the 20th century need to engage in social learning, by modelling behaviour and continuously developing next practices to adapt to changing conditions. This is the challenge to remain relevant in the 21st century workplace. Learn or die." "This isn't the Information Age, it's the Learning Age; and the quicker people get their heads around that, the better - Prof Stephen Heppell" "It boils down to the fact that in the network era, value is derived from workforce collaboration, where you are either contributing to the network, or you are no longer required."

Interesting article published 1/6/2014 on Second Acts for baby boomers. Quotes Marc Freedman, Elizabeth Isele (who lived in ME for a long time), and mentions Bevan Rogel. The Boomerworks online service for matching BBs with work opportunities is very interesting--wonder how they are doing? And whether we should try to ally with them? "In 1998, living in Maine, Isele created CyberSeniors, a multilingual nonprofit computer training company that eventually trained more than 28,000 seniors in 24 states. She's led numerous nonprofits over the decades and is now pushing public policy changes and forging connections between organizations to create an "entrepreneur ecosystem." That ecosystem is flourishing in Sarasota. Sarasota's Institute for the Ages, established in 2009 to change the conversation about aging as one of deficit and decline to one about enhancing lives, is a lab for companies and services that want to tap into the needs of older adults. In late 2013, the Institute launched Boomerswork.com, a web-based network to connect freelancers with companies seeking seasoned professionals for project-based work. The program started in Canada and the Institute is the first organization to bring it to the U.S. When the Institute convenes a national convention here in February, entrepreneurship and encore careers will be a large part of the agenda. In addition to a keynote address by Freedman, Isele is leading a workshop on entrepreneurship with Bevon Rogel, who runs a Freedman-related Encore Academy in St. Petersburg to help seniors find meaningful work. For Southwest Florida, which has one of the highest concentrations of seniors in the nation, the idea of an "encore" seems natural. As the rest of the country and world grays, branding this life stage as one that brings years, or potentially decades, more productivity and meaning to life has become an imperative."

Great videos on e-learning with such topics as: How does one get started as Instructional Designer? Does Social Media Selling Works? How to build your digital footprint. What's your learning style? Knowledge Creation Digital Age. Embrace the digital communication age. What we're learning from online education. The educators is as site that has resources and blogs about learning. You can spend days here!

Great infographic on the use of smartphones by age as well as by type of phone (iPhone, Android, Microsoft, RIM). Highest smartphone penetration rate is 62% in age group 25 - 34.

Interesting study using Facebook volunteers. The authors analyzed 700 million words, phrases and topic instances from Facebook messages of 75,000 volunteers who took standard personality tests, and found striking variations in language with personality, gender, age. Used an open-vocabulary technique where the data itself drives the exploration of language that found connections not captured with traditional methods. To date, this is the largest study, by order of magnitude, of language and personality.

Some interesting findings based on age and gender

Directory page for Leadership Council of Aging Organizations.

Interesting article by Megan Hughes, March 23, 2015 on how inventers are racing to meet the needs of baby boomers with personal behavior tracking/assessment devices (Fitbit and others) to help boomers enjoy good health for as long as possible. Boomers are afraid of losing their independence according to market assessments that drive new tech development for this age group.

great interview in 2013 with Felix Wu in Cardozo Law School publication on privacy in the digital age.

Second story by Eric Nelson offers good reasons for volunteering during transitions to build relationships, references, reach clarity on new directions, etc. January 29, 2013.

Very nice site by the Milken Institute (changing the world in innovative ways) featuring bite-size multimedia appetizers of its Best Cities for Successful Aging research.

Colorful, informative graphical mindmap by Jane Genovese at Learning FUNdamentals in Australia for high school students on how to focus in the age of distraction. The branches include taking time to reflect and review, creating rituals/habits, how to work; managing your space, taking a digital technology detox, and help for addicts. From Learning Fundamentals. Also has a presentation for use with with these learning outcomes: By the end of "The Facebook Effect" workshop students will: 1.have developed an understanding of how social network sites (e.g. Facebook) are highly addictive; 2. have developed an understanding of the many benefits of working in a focused manner in a distraction free environment; 3. have access to a range of tools to help them eliminate distractions in their work environment; 4. have a deeper understanding of how multitasking can slow down their mental processes and lead to poorer learning outcomes; and 5. be aware of strategies to enhance their focus and concentration

Interesting article on the age divide between new guard (Stripe) and old guard companies (Cisco) and why that is so, Yiren Lu, March 12, 2014

call for descriptions of how technology innovations may help older Americans as they age. May 15, 2015 was the deadline.

This writer, Ronni Bennett, affirms what I believe in the power of the internet for creating new relationships and social networks that help you age well online and off. Blog post on March 25, 2014. "You and I are lucky that our generation has a new tool for a new kind of friendship - the internet. Although it has been awhile since I've mentioned it, I have written a lot about the importance of online and blog friends. (These are several of those stories.) I wholeheartedly believe that the web is a boon for elders and these days, about half the people I hold most dear I have met as a result of this blog."