Internet Time Blog is shifting its focus from learning to “getting things done in business.” Since this blog is my alter ego, I could just as well say that I am focusing more and more on helping people in corporations prosper, now and the future.
Both the blog and I are cutting back involvement with training trade associations, instructional design orthodoxy, and academic theorizers. My attention is turning to practical things instead of mind games.
As I unlearn the vestiges of the industrial era, I’m exploring the concept of the business world as ecosystem. And what to do about it For me, it’s time to throw out the time cards and control systems; I prefer to help sow the seeds of the coming era.
May a thousand flowers bloom.
My re-orientation is not entirely a matter of choice. Details are often beyond my reach. Give me a field of flowers to play in, not a single blossom.
Take my iPod. The iPod is supposed to be so easy to figure out that you don’t need instructions. Pre-schoolers can do it.
Out for a walk, I stuffed my Nano in my pocket. Some combination of button-pushing flipped it into Chinese. Now I am off to Chinatown for help. Before I go, can someone tell me if the characters above are Chinese or Japanese?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Jay, its looks as if it is on the music menu right now. Push the menu button and it will take you up one menu, which should be the main menu (if you changed it since the picture was taken, then keep pushing the menu button until it takes you to the top menu.
Now choose the fourth option from the top, which should be the “settings” menu (at least it is on my older iPod Nano).
Then go to the third option from the bottom, which should be the “language” menu.
You should now be able to select “English,” which should be the first option.
Jay, it’s traditional (as opposed to simplified Chinese), according to my son’s lawyer friend from Shanghai, who is staying with us over Easter. He (James) is in the UK for one year on a training programme sponsored by the Ministry of Justice/Lord Chancellor and he is staying at the University house of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where my son is in his first year of a degree course in Japanese and Anthropology. In two weeks my other son will be home from East Africa, where he has been studying conservation in Tanzania and Kenya. These boys,along with their sister in Bath, England, and her 3-year old daughter, our granddaughter, are the future, bless them…
Jay, it’s Chinese.
Instructions for changing it back: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070714065624AAKtxQS
We will miss you in the e-Learning community.
Direct from Apple (though I don’t think it’s as helpful as the one on Yahoo! Answers): If an iPod has its menus in the wrong language, you can change them to another one by going to Main Menu > Settings > Language or by doing a Reset. Doing a Restore may also work, but it will erase the contents of the iPod.
Apple Support Discussions has a page on fixing language problems: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121866&tstart=15
Interesting post, Jay. I’ve been having some similar thought about “getting things done in business.”
Also, looks like Chinese to me, but I’m don’t actually read either. (But my cheat is that Japanese usually has the simpler looking Hirahana characters mixed in.)
I sense a book coming about your transition. I think its great! RE-invention is also critical in this new era.
Don’t completely disappear…okay?
Cheers!
Brent, I’m not going to disappear. A key to getting things done is redefining the meaning of learning to fit modern times. It’s a new ball game. But I hope to convince some of my compadres to join me.
Everyone, thanks for the iPod info. It’s currently in my suitcase, headed to NYC tomorrow. I’ll report back when it reverts to English, although having French or German menus might be fun for a while.
Technology is sometimes crippling, as you said a field of dasies and the view of the valley from the mountain top is any day more pleasant than dissecting the dasies. A few days back I dropped my ‘very slim’ phone and it just went blank. Next I was stranded, I could not communicate with my bus mates as all the numbers were stored in the mobile. I missed the bus to office, irritated my husband as he could not get through and had no way of calling him back as, again I had not copied the number in my phone book. So lol, as your mobile troubles you with its Chinese instuctions I can sympathise and say ‘et tu, Brutus!’