Monthly Archives: September 2012

The Internet Time Lab Rail Yard

The Internet Time & Back is a minimalist, N-scale, single track, time-traveling layout that breaks all the rules. It travels straight through the commercial areas of the Internet Time Lab, ferrying cargos from one end of the Lab’s standing butcher block desk to the other.

During a break this evening, I decided to see how the model would work if I flipped it 180 degrees. Five minutes later, it was done.

You see, the Internet Time & Back is eight feet long and two inches wide. N-scale Continue reading →

The Happy Bottom Line

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CLO, October 2012

“When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” John Lennon

Humans are driven by their emotions. We make most decisions subconsciously, in the emotional brain. That’s the massive parallel processor that has evolved over millions of years Continue reading →

Management 3.0 from Jurgen Appelo

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Jurgen Appelo plays with more models of how things ought to work than anyone I else I know. His book Management 3.0 presents, assesses, and sometimes interconnects with agile, people-oriented processes relentlessly. I’m a fan. See his blog. And this presentation:

Management 3.0 in 50 minutes from Jurgen Appelo

Jurgen and I met at the Stoos gathering. I just bought his latest, How to Change the World, to read on vacation.

Here’s the Stoos bookshelf. This is about as close to a definition Continue reading →

San Francisco, open your golden gate…

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I cannot imagine missing the Singularity Summit. It will take me 45 minutes to get there from my house (thanks to public trans).

October 13-14th, 2012 in San Francisco.

Put this in your stash — mp3s of brilliant people selling inspirational ideas. That’s a recording of every Singularity Summit from the beginning, in 2006. I remember sitting in the second row at that one. Frame-changing insights. Interspersed with a few odd balls.

How to Replace Top-Down Training with Collaborative Learning (4)

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Fourth post in a series. In case you missed them, here are the first, second, and third posts.

Is your organization ready?

How ready are you to tackle Big L Learning? Where does your organization fit on the progression from Hierarchical Organization to Collaborative Organization?

You can take this survey online. We’ll report the aggregate results in a couple of weeks.

Our employees can access the entire Internet from their desktops. ☐ yes ☐ no

Our people are learning and Continue reading →

My elements of style

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Caveat lector.

As my research shifts focus from informal learning to well-being, I’m gaining new readers.

Welcome! Let explain where my blog is coming from.

When I began studying informal learning eight years ago, I decided to exemplify what I was talking about. I gave PowerPoint a rest. I became transparent in my work. I began thinking out loud. I shared ideas that were not fully formed.

Soon after Informal Learning came out, I arrived to give a speech to sixty people just as the Continue reading →

Who says MOOCs are impersonal?

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	Dear 6.002x Student, Our course team is excited for the beginning of 6.002x tomorrow, September 5th, 2012. You will be joining thousands of other students from around the world in MIT’s online course exploring circuits and electronics. We hope that you have set aside adequate time to fully explore the extensive course materials, problem sets and labs. Professor Khurram Afridi and the entire course team are looking forward to working with you during Continue reading →

Clear up the cloudiness about cloud computing

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Cloud computing.

Some people think their credit card information and Amazon preferences are stored a mile overhead in a cumulus cloud. It’s not that mysterious.

Just think of the cloud as a humongous computer that is connected to endless warehouses of rack-mounted servers spread around the globe. Is it safe? Like walking across the street in Manhattan, it’s perfectly safe if you know what you are doing. You don’t need to see inside the cloud. All that’s required is faith when you put things Continue reading →

Where to draw the line on plagiarism?

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Even as original a thinker as Isaac Newton acknowledged, “If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Ironically, Newton borrowed that phrase from 12th century theologian John of Salisbury who wrote, in 1159:

“We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add Continue reading →