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Importance of walking meetings by Beth Kanter, May 8, 2015.

Nice blog post by Katie Bascuas at Associationsnow.com on "Walk and Talk" meetings.

Blog post by William Bowen, March 25, 2013, on movement towards online education. He would like more hard evidence to understand impact/success among other effects, tool kits (platforms), new mind-set to attempt online to reduce costs without adversely affecting educational outcomes, what we must retain in terms of central aspects of life on campus such as "minds rubbing against minds." Excerpts: "My plea is for the adoption of a portfolio approach to curricular development that provides a calibrated mix of instructional styles." ... "Their students, along with others of their generation, will expect to use digital resources-and to be trained in their use. And as technologies grow increasingly sophisticated, and we learn more about how students learn and what pedagogical methods work best in various fields, even top-tier institutions will stand to gain from the use of such technologies to improve student learning." Really like this comment for value of MOOCs for post-college graduates: "A quibble. I am intrigued by your comment about "minds rubbing against minds." While there is undeniable worthiness of the thought inside academic communities perhaps underestimated is the lack of such friction after graduation and how MOOCs can provide opportunities outside the alma maternal environments. To take courses at the local U. costs both in inconvenience of scheduling, transportation and monetary costs equivalent to constantly having a new Hyundai. Those requirements wind up as being unreasonable. Since January I have had the great pleasure of thinking about the thoughts of Dave Ward and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh and arguing about points in the forums. More recently, Michael Sandel on Justice from Boston. These opportunities are enormously better than nothing at all, clearly benefiting myself and probably also friends, colleagues and civil society. While these experiences do not provide the intensity of a post seminar argument in the Ree

Updated blog post by Linda Stone on screen and email apnea, Huffington Post, May 7, 2012. Eighty percent of us seem to have it. I broke the story about it in early 2008 on the Huffington Post, and called the phenomenon, "email apnea." Later in 2008, in talks and interviews, I referred to it interchangeably as "email apnea" and also, as "screen apnea." Definition: Shallow breathing or breath holding while doing email, or while working or playing in front of a screen. Excerpt: Recently, researchers, Gloria Mark, Stephen Voida, and Anthony Cardello, have made headway into formally validating the impact of email, using HRV. Why are we doing this? Our posture is often compromised, especially when we use laptops and smartphones. Arms forward, shoulders forward, we sit in a position where it's impossible to get a healthy and full inhale and exhale. Further, anticipation is generally accompanied by an inhale -- and email, texting, and viewing television shows generally includes a significant dose of anticipation. Meanwhile, the full exhale rarely follows. The stress-related physiology of email apnea or screen apnea is described in some detail in my 2008 post, linked to above. What's the remedy? A new way of interacting with technologies that I call: Conscious Computing. Technologies like the Heartmath emWave2, Huffington Post's GPS for the Soul, and a variety of optimal breathing techniques, can support us in using technologies in healthier ways. Instead of sending an email, call or walk over to your colleague's office. And there's always that other possibility: every now and then, just turn everything off. When you text or use email on your smartphone, when you check and respond to your email, are you breathing or do you hold your breath? Is it worse when you're using a laptop vs. an iPad? How might you incorporate some of the remedies?

Interesting article on how Reddit fired a popular staff person who facilitated the AMA (Ask Me Anything) guests going into different subreddit communities without notifying volunteer moderators of these communities ahead of time. Volunteer moderators closed their communities except to passworded members to show their unhappiness with Reddit executives' lack of early communication, etc. by Rich McCormick, July 2, 2015. Communities reopened within a couple of days.

Article in Fortune about Google and innovation Story of Sheryl Sandberg "Take the case of Sheryl Sandberg, a 37-year-old vice president whose fiefdom includes the company's automated advertising system. Sandberg recently committed an error that cost Google several million dollars -- "Bad decision, moved too quickly, no controls in place, wasted some money," is all she'll say about it -- and when she realized the magnitude of her mistake, she walked across the street to inform Larry Page, Google's co-founder and unofficial thought leader. "God, I feel really bad about this," Sandberg told Page, who accepted her apology. But as she turned to leave, Page said something that surprised her. "I'm so glad you made this mistake," he said. "Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don't have any of these mistakes, we're just not taking enough risk." When a million-dollar mistake earns a pat on the back, it's obvious this isn't your normal corporation."

Nice blog on focusing--understand your priorities on importance and urgency axes; take command of your schedule by defining time blocks; break down big tasks into steps; distract yourself intentionally by stretching, going for a walk, doing routine tasks that don't require brainpower.

The Walk my world project is an "affinity space" for students and teachers to learn together. 

An interesting assessment of how stage fright was picked up and reported in thousands of tweets elevating a single appearance into an epic disastrous event, and how absence from Twitter by the presenter, compounded the error. If anyone thinks that social media can be ignored, they need to read this blog post. Love the quote below from Chris Taylor about how the communications game has changed: It's Twitter, the Internet's first responder, that is primarily responsible for changing the laws of media physics. There are just too many witty things to be said in the space of 140 characters, especially with a moment as shadenfreude-filled as this. Thousands got the Bay-bashing bug, and I certainly wasn't immune. (Hey, it's not every day that a parody of that Aerosmith tune from Armageddon pops up complete in your head.)

some good ideas from Lynn Serafinn, 7 Graces of Marketing, on the whys, hows, and whats of setting up a membership site on your website with recommendations for plug-ins. She believes that content may lure people to your site, but community will keep them there.

AARP offers tech ed for real newbies who buy the AARP Realpad.

Great article by Carol Kinsey Goman on the impact of business silos and how to tear them down. No date. Actions to take: Reward collaboration; focus on innovation; communicate transparently; encourage networks,create alignment, mix it up in teams; focus on the customer; get personal;

very good blog post on building networks both strategically and serendipitously, October 27, 2015

really good advice for freelancers from Monika Jansen writing for Freelancers Union