Group items tagged

Blog by Penny Scott at Info Career Trends website, 5/4/2009 See excerpt on five year goals and being proactive in PD and career development. When I began my current position at the University of San Francisco in 2003, I knew that five years down the road I would need to apply for a promotion. This involved showing my professional development and service by creating a promotion binder that traced my career development - and seemed a daunting task to my new librarian's eyes, because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find enough professional opportunities with which to fill my binder. I've found, though, that the promotion process is a model for the art of being proactive about career development, both in thought and in deed. Being proactive requires an active, open, seeking attitude, as well as reliable, high-quality action. This combination is very powerful, and can help you get beyond the constraints of time, funding, geography, or your current job description - giving you a career path of which to be proud."

YouTube video by Skip Via, prof. at University of Alaska in Fairbanks on Personal Learning Network, 2010. Has a great image of his PLN. He itemizes the tools according to the functions he needs: 1. Find answers 2. Read blogs/news 3. Publish and share 4. Communicate 5. Collaborate 6. Follow colleagues 7. Aggregate resources All based on people who have expertise or need his expertise.

Jorge Calderon was a venture capitalist who wanted to invest where others weren't. He found his under-served market: women- and minority-owned businesses. Only problem was, he couldn't find entrepreneurs in that niche. He was sure they were there; he just couldn't find them. So four years ago, he started Springworks to [...]

The Blog of Tim Ferriss with guest post by Peter Diamandis about crowdsourcing problems and going to capital sources for funding. Reviews the changes in communication and cooperation and what is now possible with ICTs.

I was looking for a tool that allowed the "crowd" to create a database, which I think is ultimately what we would want. None of the ten listed seemed to fit that description. Did either of you see one that we may want to consider, or do we try to find something else? Does one of these seem like a good fit for us in other ways?

I haven't determined that any of these is the preferred channel for doing the W.W. database, Lyn. But the idea of incentivizing the creation and maintenance of a crowdsourced 'database' (for lack of a better term) is offered by these groups. A wiki that is set up for a Learning W.W. could be the beginning app until we find someone to do it or a tool to do it better. Even using Diigo in a paid account could work to gather tagged contributions with better organization to follow when we enlist someone to help us.

Blog post by David Truss, Pair-A_Dimes, January 4, 2011, on learning at work by professionals, i.e., teachers. Has much more good stuff to say than this excerpt but I find this useful for Information Overload. Another term I ran across lately--practical obscurity--in relation to why we are now part of NSA's scope--because costs have fallen so low to monitor so much behavior online--voice and text--that what was once unavailable without a lot of costs is now quite feasible for someone to monitor, such as NSA, Google, Facebook, etc. Excerpt: "I read a post recently by Jeff Utecht, whom you have worked with, that said this: "Today at school I answered personal e-mail, updated my Facebook status, Tweeted, looked up flights for winter break, and even read articles that didn't pertain to school. And they say we're becoming less productive at work. What really is happening is the line between our work life and our social life is becoming blurred more and more every day." and he continues: "Sure I use some of my work time to do social things, yet I get home from work after 3pm and answer work e-mails, text faculty members about a computer problem, and work on lessons and things that need to be done. So it's an even swap. I'll use some of your time, you can use some of mine.""

home page of ACRL on information literacy "What is Information Literacy? Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. The beginning of the 21st century has been called the Information Age because of the explosion of information output and information sources. It has become increasingly clear that students cannot learn everything they need to know in their field of study in a few years of college. Information literacy equips them with the critical skills necessary to become independent lifelong learners."

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."

Linda Stone's blog, April 20, 2012. Runs something called The Attention Project. New terms: conscious computing, email and screen apnea, continuous partial attention Excerpt: "Thirty years ago, personal computing technologies created a revolution in personal productivity, supporting a value on self-expression, output and efficiency. The personal communications technology era that followed the era of personal productivity amplified accessibility and responsiveness. Personal technologies have served us well as prosthetics for the mind, in service of thinking and doing. Our focus has been on technologies as prosthetics for the mind, and human-as-machine style productivity. This has led to burn-out, poor health, poor sleep, and what I call email apnea or screen apnea. We wonder where our attention has gone. Turns out, it's right where we left it - with our ability to breathe fully. We can use personal technologies that are prosthetics for our beings, to enhance our lives. I call this Conscious Computing. We can use technology to help enable Conscious Computing, or we can find it on our own, through attending to how we feel. For advice from a musician on how to do Conscious Computing, I interviewed the organist, Cameron Carpenter. Conscious Computing with the help of passive, ambient, non-invasive Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology is poised to take off over the next few years. It has the potential to help all of us learn the skills that musicians, athletes and dancers have, that immunizes them from email apnea."

Great article by Susan Weinschenk, Brain Wise: Work better, work smarter, September 11, 2012, and why dopamine keeps us "seeking" when we already have enough information. excerpt: Do you ever feel like you are addicted to email or twitter or texting? Do you find it impossible to ignore your email if you see that there are messages in your inbox? Do you think that if you could ignore your incoming email or messages you might actually be able to get something done at work? You are right!" ... "Instead of dopamine causing you to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking behavior. Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior. From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The dopamine seeking system keeps you motivated to move through your world, learn, and survive. It's not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and fuels your searching for information. Research shows that it is the opioid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure." Turn off the cues - One of the most important things you can do to prevent or stop a dopamine loop, and be more productive is to turn off the cues. Adjust the settings on your cell phone and on your laptop, desktop or tablet so that you don't receive the automatic notifications. Automatic notifications are touted as wonderful features of hardware, software, and apps. But they are actually causing you to be like a rat in a cage. If you want to get work done you need to turn off as many auditory and visual cues as possible. It's the best way to prevent and break the dopamine loops. What do you think? How do you deal with dopamine loops? Are you willing to turn off your cues?

Interview by Andrew Leonard, February 22, 2014, with danah boyd on Salon on findings from her new book--It's Complicated: the social lives of networked teens. The "why" they hangout and their actual skill levels excerpts are below. "What exactly is it that teens are trying to do with social media? They're looking for a space to hang out. When we grew up it was the mall or cafes or a variety of other physically grounded spaces. Teens today don't have access to those kinds of spaces and what they've done is they've turned to social media to regain some kind of access to public life. These new "networked publics" - places like Twitter and Facebook - are spaces that are created by digital technologies but they are really about people - the broad network of people that teens have learned to negotiate and socialize around." Teens seem to embrace these new "networked publics" very rapidly, but one chapter of your book annihilates the notion that teens are somehow "digitally native" - that they somehow understand these new technologies more readily or more naturally than their forebears. Teenagers are much more willing to experiment with these technologies to service their end goals - their social goals. There is no doubt about that.. Teens are always much more willing to just try things out. But just because they are willing to try things out doesn't mean that they understand how it works. That doesn't mean that they are inherently technologically sophisticated or understand technology in the ways that are often implied by "digital native."

RedHoop has an aggregation of over 7,000 (free, free trial, paid) online courses. Put in the topic you wish to learn about, and it sorts through the database to find them. I found 11 in 2 seconds on infographics. Like their tag line: search, learn, grow. Maybe we should just have RedHoop as a one-stop directory?

One in a series of 9 lessons/blog posts by Paulago1 on Roadmap to Self-Employment

An amazing interview with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, July 2013 Highlights: What is your area of expertise as a writer or online publisher? I'm not an expert and I aspire never to be one. As Frank Lloyd Wright rightly put it, "An expert is a man who has stopped thinking because 'he knows.'" Brain Pickings began as my record of what I was learning, and it remains a record of what I continue to learn - the writing is just the vehicle for recording, for making sense. That said, one thing I've honed over the years - in part by countless hours of reading and in part because I suspect it's how my brain is wired - is drawing connections between things," "Do you believe in "writer's block"? If so, how do you avoid it? I think the operative word here is "believe." If you fixate on it, it'll be there. It's kind of like insomnia - the more you think about not being able to fall asleep, the less able to fall asleep you become. It's different for everyone, of course, but I find that you break through that alleged "block" simply by writing. As Tchaikovsky elegantly put it, "A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood." The writer's creativity … Define creativity. The ability to connect the seemingly unconnected and meld existing knowledge into new insight about some element of how the world works. That's practical creativity. Then there's moral creativity: To apply that skill towards some kind of wisdom on how the world ought to work."

Once again, Copyblogger offers something very worthwhile! Clear and great ideas about how one's "brand" opens or closes doors. 1. Plan the effect you want to have--get to know your audience to use their words in your message 2. Dress the part--understand what motivates them and choose a website theme that uses brand colors, right fonts, and print materials to make a consistent positive impression 3. Stand up straight and make eye contact--own your look on a couple of social media platforms. Do blog posts, webinars, speaking gigs, and interviews. 4. Speak their language--goes back to #1 a bit; do a focus group to pick up their phrases 5. Direct their eyes to your best attributes--three things--size, color, and placement 6. Be yourself--find a way to make them talk about you; exude confidence in what you're doing.

Jarche's post on connected leadership, November 14, 2013. Gives us rationale for leadership online emphasis. "Those in positions of leadership have to find ways to nurture creativity and critical thinking. The connected workplace is all about understanding networks, modelling networked learning, and strengthening networks. In networks, anyone can show leadership, not just those appointed by management." Second excerpt: "leadership will be seen for what it is - an emergent property of a network in balance and not some special property available to only the select few. This requires leadership from everyone - an aggressively intelligent and engaged workforce, learning with each other. In the connected workplace, it is a significant disadvantage to not actively participate in social learning networks. Leadership in networks does not come from above, as there is no top."

Blog post by Marc Ensign on how to build business via your website. February 2013. "Step 1 Let's start by creating a list of our ideal clients. There could be several factors that might make someone an ideal client such as: They are very profitable They are easy to work with They need the type of work you like doing most They give a lot of referrals They are big players in their industry They share their experiences on social media They offer a lot of repeat business Here are some ways to help you start to find some of these ideal clients:"

"Now, new research finds that women are more likely to trust and value information found in online women's communities than other social networks or websites. In a survey of over 2,000 adult women commissioned by iVillage, a massive online community for women from NBC Universal, respondents said they valued time spent in women's communities three times more than social networks (45% vs. 15%) and almost twice as much as portals like Yahoo and AOL."

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A blog post by Jessica Leber published by Fastcoexist.com about Angeline Gragasin, a documentary producer and her Women of the Future, a monthly series of webisodes on inspiring renaissance women. Love the quote below attributed to the first interviewee Eva Franch, a Catalan architect who directs Storefront for Art and Architecture, in NYC SoHo neighborhood. Excerpt In a 30-second preview clip you can watch above, Franch shares with Gragasin her inspiring thoughts on creativity: "Culture is about expanding your horizon of expectations in relationship to what is possible. Curiosity is actually the only thing that allows you to go further, right? To find new horizons."

Very interesting Slideshare on finding the juicy problems of your customers that they will pay you to help solve. Should go into our marketing resource group. Offers a leanstartup validation board from customer hypothesis to problem hypothesis to solution hypothesis to design experiment (get out of the building) to validate what you plan to offer.