Technology and Living in the 21st Century

Training Development and Delivery in the Digital Age

2009-10-19T21:29:00.000-06:00

Traditionally, face to face, instructor led training has been how we have been taught in schools and at work. So far it has been the most effective method of cramming a brain with new instructions. Instructors have always had a preference of being able to look a student in the eye in order to gauge the level of understanding and comprehension as they deliver the course material. However, now, more than ever, multi-media is playing an ever increasing role in both the content and the delivery. Instructors have to tackle problems ranging from setting up complicated multi-media projectors displaying content that was created by a 3rd party and stored on servers located in another country. The dependency on the Internet to provide this content is driving the development of the content and delivery methods. We have to be aware of live streaming or recorded streaming issues and how to download the content for viewing offline (just in case the Internet connection is lost).
Now the next trend has emerged and that is the virtual training scenario. Instructors are faced with delivering training via webcams to an invisible audience. To make matters worse, instructors have keep the students engaged and are willing and engaging participants in the training. In some cases, the students are eager and ask questions, and in others, the instructor feels like they are just talking to a webcam with nobody listening or paying attention.
Now we can add another element of uncertainly to the equation; the Internet and bandwidth issues. Factors such as geographic location, time zones, Internet availability, computer capability, the list goes on. There are now many factors that must be considered when not only delivering the content but building the courseware. Will everyone that takes your training have English as a first language? Do they have the latest version of the browser that supports the multimedia plug-in? Or will you use 3rd party technology like Skype to broadcast the training and interact with the students. How will you measure the level of participation of your students? There are many questions and a variety of answers to these questions. One that I am constantly dealing with is time zones. Are your students just waking up or are they just about ready to climb into bed? Or is it the middle of the night for you and how do you stay awake?
The last point that I want to bring up is the content itself. As we develop new training solutions, one thing is common. The overall size of the training content increases as demand for content grows. What I mean to say is that what we used to be able to delivery as a traditional courseware book converted to slides is now a fancy multi-media presentation with hands-on interactive training. Added up, with hand-on training, the content could fill a DVD. Try delivering this across the Internet to a broad audience in a virtual environment and suddenly you are faced with a variety of points of failure. Now look at the common student that is attending the training and suddenly multiple points of failure appear.
In the traditional classroom, you could take attendance and quickly determine how many students you have in attendance. In a virtual world, you never know who has stepped away from their computer or even lost connectivity and is frantically trying to get reconnected.
Finally, when developing the training, you have to keep in mind your target audience. How will they access the training? Will they need to view it on a traditional computer or can they use a cell phone to stream the content in small chunks.
All of these questions I pose to you as I think about how to develop solid training content to an international audience who all face different challenges in just accessing the content.

What's in a Twitter Background

2009-09-24T20:06:00.000-06:00

One year, for me, has gone by very fast. It was a year ago that I finally joined Twitter. At the time I couldn't see any real value in it and had to be convinced to join. Once I was in, I went crazy with trying to create a profile, avatar and background that would stand out and tell people that I was someone that they HAD to follow.
That was a year ago and now I have a completely different outlook on Twitter profiles, avatars and backgrounds. Anyone can upload a picture, create a bio and then a snazzy background with all kinds of cool graphics and photos. What has become apparent to me is that it isn't the bio, avatar or background that will compell me to follow you (or for you to follow me). It all comes down to the content of your tweets. Are you an engaging person or do you just drone on without listening or interacting with other people out in Twitterville.
When I look at a person's page, I am more interested in what they are tweeting and who they are engaging with. Some of the more clever bots will interact but they only interact with other bots or random people. It takes some work but it soon becomes apparent who is and isn't a bot.
But I digress. Back to the topic at hand. For me, it is not important what kind of background, profile or avatar is on your page. What is really important to me is your tweets. A great example of this is @Kim. Go ahead and take a look at her page. Interesting isn't it. Did you notice how many people she has following her?
With all of the different software programs and ways to interface with Twitter, people's Twitter pages are only viewed when you are sitting in front of a computer and browsing to their page using a traditional browser. So now when I think back to what I went through to create that perfect bio, avatar and background, I wonder if that time wouldn't have been better spent engaging and meeting new people on Twitter.
Just thinking out loud....
If you have any comments or thoughts, please feel free to leave comments (I promise I won't delete them...really!)

You Can Never Tell.....

2009-09-14T21:54:00.000-06:00

Part I
I have to start this posting with a story. This past weekend I was out running errands. While out driving from one place to another, I had a driver in a mini-van start to slowly drift into my lane. I was inching my way to the curb to avoid a collision, thinking that the driver would quickly notice where they were and self-correct back to the center lane. It became very clear to me that this wasn't going to happen so I quickly tapped my horn (twice I seem to recall). This startled the driver who snapped back a hand gesture that wasn't very appropriate or kind. Before I could even react to this, the driver turned left and darted into a parking lot where a kid's football game was about to start. Now I can handle a little hand gesture now and then (well, maybe not) but when the van is full of young children, I begin to wonder what other life lessons these children are learning from someone who they are suppose to look up to for guidance and direction.
Part II
So now I'm thinking about what I see posted on Facebook, Twitter, blogs,YouTube, the list goes on. People tend to say what's on their mind. Sometimes it is positive, and other times it can be cruel and vendictive. You can never be 100% positive that what you read or see is in fact the entire story (or the truth). As I look back at the driver of the mini-van, his reaction to my beeping of the horn was (IMHO) not what I would have expected. The same can be said for tweets, posts or video blogs that I've seen posted (look at all the false reports of famous people dying over the summer). Without knowing the whole story, I can't tell if what I see or read is in fact the entire story. Maybe the driver thought that I was deranged and about to throw down a smash-up derby challenge. Maybe the van was filled with a bunch of wild people who were about to terrorize the park. I will never know the whole truth. What I can say for sure is that any blog, tweet, or post is only one side of the story.
So the lessons learned are:
1) Never over-react to a tweet or blog. In the story of the mini-van driver, my reaction was to mind my own business and keep on driving. As I read tweets, Facebook posts or blogs, I choose to keep my comments positive or silent. Since I don't know both side of the story, I could end up saying something that I will live to regret. As we all know, once it is posted to the digital world, there are no mulligans or returns.
2) Be careful who you choose to look up to and support on the digital roadways. Are they a mini-van drivers on the verge of a nervous breakdowns because the kids wanted to stop at McDonalds before the game or kind and gentle souls who would stop to help the homeless?
I'm not going to dictate to you how to react but at least you know what I will do in Cyberspace.

Stay safe and drive between the white lines.

I could use a little less Spam

2009-09-08T13:57:00.000-06:00

Lately, the number of spam accounts on Twitter has reached a point where it is THE place for anyone who wants to sell something to jump on board and make a quick buck. The bad news for those of us regular Twitter users is the number of spam messages that magically appear in our twitter stream is on the rise.
This had led me to a best practice approach to dealing with the spam. You could simply block these users using Twitter or you could Block and Report Spammers using Tweetdeck. This is weapon of choice.
There is nothing worse that getting a tweet from someone that you don't follow and it is an obscure reference to something that you know nothing about. (ok, maybe there are worse things that you could get, but this would be a close second, or third).
I can understand receiving tweets from people that I don't follow when it relates to something that I tweeted about. This is one way of engaging and building relationships. But when the message has nothing to do with life or even something I am interested in, I can only assume that it is a spammer bot in action.
Spammers are employing this technique to make their stream look more lifelike. It is easy to look at someone's Twitter profile and twitter feed to quickly see that they are pure spam. But to look at a feed that has RTs and @ replies make it a little more difficult. Fortunately, I have discovered that there is a trend to these spam accounts. They all use the same tweet messages and are identical. This is a clear sign that I have spammers following me.
My advise at this time is to Block and Report. Don't just ignore them and let them continue to follow you for a day or two. The more people that report these spammers, the faster Twitter will get their accounts shut down. I know what you are saying. They can just start another account up. True, but if you block them enough, they will stop trying to follow you. This practice seems to be working for me.
Oh, and one last thing. If you auto-follow, shame on you!

Twisting the Top Trending Twitter Topics

2009-06-07T16:17:00.005-06:00

Something that I have noticed lately are the tricks that people use to rank high in the top Twitter trending topics or get their message into the top trending topics.
I heard of one person setting up at least 100 twitter accounts to post their hashtag. This allowed them to avoid the spamming rules as well as get their information out as one of the top trending topics. Is this fair? That remains to be seen but until Twitter changes the rules, it seems like it is a fair way to get your trends noticed. This is no different than sending in one thousands entries to a contest. It just increases your odds of winning.
The other trend that I've noticed and isn't as nice is people spamming their content in tweets but using the top trending topic words to lure people into reading their content. The Tweet's content usually has nothing to do with that trending topic and in some cases can be very offensive. Twitter truely is becoming a place where you have to be careful on what you click unless it comes from a trusted tweeter.
If in doubt, use one of the many services that expands shortened URLs. http://longurl.org/
If after you expand the URL and it is still pointing to a short URL, I would advise not to click on the link unless you have pop-up blockers enabled and good, current anti-virus software installed and running on your system. Twitter isn't as safe as it used to be.
Oh, and one more thing. Please check out that website that is referenced in a Tweet before you RT it, unless you want to look like a fool for RT'ing a tweet that leads people to garbage or offensive websites.

Digital Assets and the Afterlife

2009-05-18T20:02:00.003-06:00

I have often thought about what happened to people when their Twitter profiles goes silent or their blog posts suddenly stop without any further updates. Two thoughts comes to mind. That person has either gotten very bored with the Internet or they have met a sudden and untimely accident or death.

This got me to thinking about how I would go about letting people know if something goes wrong with me. I was thinking about an OnStar alert system for my online life. How would I alert people if I was in an accident? This is when I started thinking about a dead man switch. Imagine my surprise when I found this website. Death Switch is the digital equivalent to the dead man’s switch. You are prompted on a regular basis to provide a password to keep the system from being set off. If it goes unanswered after a predetermined number of unanswered email prompts, your pregrogrammed email (with or without attachements) is sent out to your distribution list. It is both a very interesting solution as well as morbid way of informing people of your demise.

Another option that doesn't involve responding to an email on a regular intervals is Legacy Locker. It is the equivalent of digital safe deposit box. It allows you to assign beneficiaries who can access your account in the event of an accident or sudden death (proof of death required). Equally morbid but if your websites are revenue generating and a source of income, you will want to ensure a smooth transition to your estate.

I guess the other option is the more costly but secure lawyer. I would only go down this road if my domains generated enough money that I could afford the retainer fees. I can see it now. Close family and friends sitting in a lawyer's office, listening intently to who will get what domain name, Twitter profile or blog site (or maybe not).

The last (safe) option is a real safe deposit box or my own personal favorite, my little black book and an inter-dimensional time safe.
What do you do to protect your online assets?

BLIP.fm Twitter for the Music Lovers

2009-05-06T20:04:00.001-06:00

I have to say that I haven't spent a great deal of time on the all the different music sharing sites but when I stumbled across BLIP.fm, I was a little surprised to see the level of conversation that occurs on BLIP.fm.
What struck me the most is that some people use this site to tweet with those that share the same taste in music. It could be sharing a mood, a lost love, or a joy in the fact that it is the weekend. The fact that there at @ replies, direct messages and hashtags makes this site stand out as a Twitter music stite
that is Twitter talk but sharing music at the same time. The conversations and threads can be long (over time) and interesting. Along the way, you will meet new people and end up following new people on Twitter. And all this from listening to a little music.
I will blip a song that I like and want share and I have other people re-blipping that song and giving me props. This in turn will introduce me to people who have songs that they want to share and this then opens me up to other songs and artists that I might have never heard before. This is a global environment and people like to share local talent.
On Twitter, people are sharing URLs to websites, blogs, and news feeds where BLIP.fm, GrooveShark, List.fm and other sites are dedicated to sharing music. I've tried a few more than this but haven't gotten the bug like I have with BLIP.fm.
My one frustration with BLIP.fm is finding songs. Sometimes I will have to scroll through many songs to find the right one only to find out that it isn't available. Oh well, things will change and evolve and my taste in music will change.

Twitter's new 1000 Followers Per Day Limitation Policy

2009-04-26T22:36:00.000-06:00

This week, Twitter introduced a new policy that restricts the average Twitter user to following no more than 1000 people in a given day. This was implemented to address performance issues that have recently plagued Twitter. Now I think that this is a good short term policy while the company expands their infrastructure to better handle the load.

However, I don't think this policy is being implemented for the right and proper reasons. If you are new to Twitter or are looking for new people to follow and want some recommendations, the guys at twitter will be more than happy to give you a few people who you can follow. The list of "Suggested Users" has grown significantly and includes the likes of @aplusk and @cnnbrk who were recently involved in a very public marketing campaign. I doubt that any of these accounts have the same limitations placed on them as the rest of the Twittersphere. Can you imagine if this policy was in place for @aplusk, @cnnbrk, @TheEllenShow, or @johncmayer? This policy is in place so that the celebrities and others on the "Suggested Users" page can be followed by as many people as possible without impacting the user experience of following celebrities and other famous Twitter accounts. Oh, and all of these tweeters are primarily one way conversations. Just another way to send out a message to the masses.

This new policy has created an even more 'elite' status on Twitter. Not only are you famous but you can have tens of thousands of people follow you every day while we toil in the weeds. Granted, I will never follow a thousand people in one day. But you never know, I may want to one day. Hopefully, by then, Twitter will have expanded their infrastructure enough to allow me to follow more people than I could possibly manage without my tweeting turning into a full time job.

Till then, I will continue to tweet in mediocrity.

Twitter Karma

2009-04-19T23:32:00.004-06:00

This week I am going to talk about Twitter so if you don't tweet then I suggest you take a pass on reading this post and do something else.

One thing that I don't care much for is the people who feel the need to turn Twitter into a competition. This past week's race between @aplusk and @cnnbrk was sensational(ized) media and showed what can be done with Twitter (how many people a single person can reach and affect with 140 characters). However, it also demonstrated the ability for two corporation to benefit each other with a little advertising campaign. CNN is a global media corporation and Ashton Kutcher is a Hollywood media corporation. It wasn't so much of a race between Ashton and CNN as it was two media companies promoting each other through Twitter. Now Oprah, Ellen and other media empires have joined in and are gaining more followers in a day than I will ever have following me on Twitter. I think they finally see what you can do with Twitter. You can choose to either follow them or not. I will leave that up to you. Just be warned. Are they genuine? Who's message are they tweeting? Is it their own or is a slick marketing campaign? Time will be the determining factor.

When a person or corporation has close to one million followers, how can they effectively interact with these people. I can't see how unless they have either a large staff to read and respond or they have lots of free time on their hands.

This brings me to Twitter Karma. If these people are genuine, and engage with their followers, they will be rewarded by the interaction and feedback that is not available in any other social media setting. It is like getting all of your followers into a big room and have a huge interactive chat session with the freedom of having everyone say what is on their mind.

Now, this brings me to another type of Tweeter. These are the people that have been building a huge following, engaging and following back. I've even had the pleasure of @reply and DM conversations with some of them. Some conversations are not appropriate for @replies so I prefer to DM. I also don't want to tweet too often otherwise I will lose followers. I really do enjoy following and engaging with these people.

The third and last kind if tweeter is the one that is going to have a negative experience with Twitter Karma.

I have blogged about the different kinds of tweeters that you will run into in the Twittersphere. Now I've come to find a new type of Tweeter who only wants to hear the sound of their own voice and participate in one way communications.

Initially I thought that these people were the real deal as they followed everyone back who followed them. They seems to be engaging (on the surface anyway). But once the number of people following them got into the high tens of thousands, they suddenly stop following all but a few people. I don't get it and I can only hope that Twitter Karma will come back to haunt them. All I can see is a person who turns Twitter into a one way conversation. Maybe they enjoy the sound of their own voice. The only people that I will give the courtesy of this practice are celebrities or those that, as a practice, don't follow many people from the start and tweet about topics that I find interesting.

All I know is that I do my best to engage with the Twittersphere and for those of you that drop all but a few of your followers, I've already unfollowed you.

If you follow me, I will follow you. My only warning is that I will engage with you....

Quiet Easter Weekend - But I did stimulate the Economy

2009-04-13T17:53:00.000-06:00

I took the weekend off from blogging and other IT consulting work to spend the time with my family. However, all is not lost in the blogging arena. I will be updating the blog this week with some reviews of my latest crime-fighting and adventure traveling technology.
I purchased a new point and shoot camera that is waterproof to 10m or 33ft and shockproof to 2m or 6.6ft.I see lots of potential for both adventure trekking and crime-fighting with this camera.
I've upgraded at least half of my treking gear. Weight reduction and new technology are all the primary modivators behind these acquisitions.This includes boots, jackets, new tech clothing, stove, water purification,etc. The list goes on.
So, stay tuned. As I find the time this week, I will be posting more information and some reviews.

Backup Your Twitter Account

2009-04-07T21:19:00.018-06:00

Why on earth would I want to backup my Twitter account. I trust that the guys are keeping everything safe and sound on their servers and I should always trust them.
Well, I can think of a couple of reasons why you might want to backup your Twitter account.

Just to refresh your memory, the program that I am referring to is tweetake. This site allows you to backup a whole host of stuff from your Twitter account.

Ok, why don't I start with some of the reasons why you might want to backup your Twitter account.
1. You're new BFF just got on Twitter and wants to know 'everyone' and follow everyone that you follow. Well, save her the time and email the list of friends to follow.
2. You have a crazy online stalker who is leaving you very weird and strange tweets. Backup the tweets and start working on that restraining order.
3. You love to work with Excel pivot tables and arranging your tweets by followers, DMs and friends in a pivot table looks way too cool.
4. You want to change your Twitter name and re-follow everyone as well as contact everyone that is following you. See #2 for reason to change name.
5. I just like to backup everything up.
6. Remember the Black Thursday Twitter crash from the summer of '08? (July to be specific). People lost followers that day. With a backup, you can save the time and energy of re-following those friends and waiting for people to re-follow you. Twitter did their best to recover all of the data but some of it was never recovered.
So, it is always better to be prepared than to be sorry. Backup your Twitter account now, before it is too late.

Twitter and My New Found Wealth

2009-04-05T20:57:00.004-06:00

I've followed a bunch of new friends who are going to help me achieve all of my dreams. Here is how it works.
I have friends following me who promise they that they can show me how to make $2,500/wk. And that is without doing anything more than clicking on a URL! Imagine That! I can't wait as I must have clicked on at least 1,000 of these URLs, which, according to my math, means I will be making $2.5 million dollars a week! I'm not sure what else I will have to do but I eagerly wait for the cash to start rolling in.

The other set of friends that are following me, promise that I can get a new laptop if I click on their link. Now, I could use about 1000 new laptops for my neural network that will control the power output of my Flux Capacitor powered super hero den. I must have clicked on 2000 of these URLs in the hope that at least 1/2 of them will arrive.

The power of Twitter amazes me with the fact that I have all of these people wanting to show me how to make money and get free laptop without doing any work makes it worth every tweet.

If you've gotten your free money or laptop, please let me know so I can start planning my retirement and sign the lease on the new space that I need to expand the lair.

Oh, and I'm tweeting with a Nigerian Prince who is having money problems and says that I can help him get out of trouble.

Flux Capacitor Powered Appliance Project

2009-03-29T12:05:00.022-06:00

I've had many people ask me for an update on my Flux Capacitor appliance project (ok, several people). I wanted to let everyone know just where I am with the project and some of my successes and failures that I've experienced along the way.
The first major hurdle that I had to overcome was the power output conversion from the Flux Capacitor to 110 volts AC. The Flux Capacitor is a DC power output device that kicks out 1.21 jiggawatts of power. The typical household appliance blows up real good when current is applied directly to the motor. After a little tinkering, I was able to get a standard DC-AV inverter to work (after I buffered the power output down to a reasonable rate).
For a little background. I started this project with the intention of sending a working washing machine, dryer or dishwasher back in time approximately 40 minutes. This way, I would have a completed load of laundry or dishes flash in front of me without having to wait for the entire wash cycle. Pretty good concept, eh? Saves a ton of time on household chores.
I didn't have much luck with the dishwasher. The field side affects of the Flux capacitor did some strange things to anything that was non metallic which didn't please my wife.

The dryer experiment didn't work at all as the drum didn't spin fast enough in any of the tests. Any modifications made to increase the RPMs only resulted in lackluster results for any delicate clothes which caused me to scrap that experiment.
The washing machine was a mixed results experiment in that it worked perfectly with an unexpected outcome. The bad news is that I think I have a decimal error in my calculations and sent the washing machine back in time either 40 or 400 years. I've been at the archives reviewing old newspapers to see if any stories about the sudden appearance of a strange alien device filled with wet cloths made the headlines. I'm also trying to figure out just where I made the error in my math. The good news is that it work! I just have to iron out the bugs in my math.
I've also had requests for a Flux Capacitor powered vacuum cleaner. Thus far, this is still on the drawing board as I can't find a willing volunteer to go back in time with the vacuum cleaner (it can't drive itself people!). I don't see this one getting very far.

I've had to suspend the experiments for now and look for a new washing machine for my wife. Any future experiments will be done on older washing machines (I promise).

If you don't care to experiment with a Flux Capacitor but would like to show off your very own replica to your friends and fellow geeks, hurry to ThinkGeek before they run out again (they go quickly). Please note: This is a replica and doesn't output the power needed to manipulate time.

(photo courtesy of Thinkgeek)

Yes, I've tried to power my entire house with the Flux Capacitor but you have to remember that this device only supplies power for short bursts which makes it impractical for powering the house. Believe me, I've tried.

We Are Moving

2009-03-25T22:09:00.002-06:00

I have grown tired of the limitations of blogspot. I posted a question/query to Twitter wondering aloud if I should migrate to Wordpress and had an overwhelming number of people recommend Wordpress.
I have already setup my new account and working on the process of moving my posts over to the new site. I have all kinds of housekeeping to take care of before I redirect. Hopefully it will not take more than a couple of weeks to complete.
Say tuned... I will do my best to make this as painless as possible.

karl

Some Assembly Required

2009-03-22T22:59:00.003-06:00

I got a call from friend the other day. The entire conversation was focused on the crappy instructions that he got with a very expensive garage lift. Turns out, after getting most of the unit assembled and in position, he discovered that certain steps in the assembly guide were assumed and not documented. This required some backtracking to fix the mistake and get the lift to work properly.

This got me to thinking and recalling my own experiences with out of the box manufacturer assembly instructions.

I remember, as a teen, working at a major department chain store at an after school job. Weekdays I spend my time as a gopher running errands, stocking shelves with merchandise and fixing whatever was broken. Weekends were a different story as I spent my time assembling all the bikes, swing sets, barbeques and other stuff that had to be put together for eager shoppers.

I spent many weekends at work, parts spread out on the floor around me, flipping pages upside down and right side up, scouring the floor around me, looking for that elusive part that would connect A, B and G together for a new swing set. I would often wonder who the brainiac was that scratched together the unintelligible guide and if they had ever seen the swing set or even tried to put it together using their own instructions. Or, at the very least, watched someone attempt the same feat using said instructions.

I look back fondly on those days (they were care free) and wonder why technology hasn't really improved that part of our lives. The last barbeque that I bought and assembled was not that long ago and the process has not changed much from when I was a kid. The instructions are just as vague and include those hard to understand drawings and technical schematics. I understand that keeping expenses down are key to getting these products to market but does it really cost that much for a company to provide an easy to understand set of instructions? I mean, really....

It seems to me that the best aid for the average consumer is the Internet and not the manufacturer. It is relatively easy to find someone who has posted a video, blog or forum post with detailed instructions. I just wish that these companies would hire a tech savvy person to copy and paste these URLs to the front page of the instructions. Or even pay the author for the rights to include them in the box. Until then, I will continue to look to the Internet for the real instructions.....

Feed Your Geek

2009-03-14T19:44:00.021-06:00

Unless you are someone who lives in self imposed technological dark ages, you will have; at some point in time, asked a geek for help.

For most people who seek out help, they are faced with one of the following options:

1. Phone a friend (hope they have the answer)

2. Call the vendor/manufacturer support help desk (how many times has this really helped?)

3. Pay someone who knows (which can get expensive)

As life gets more integrated into technology, this can become a never ending circle of upgrades, updates and repairs. No single person can keep up with this, except a geek. Geeks get it and are always up to date with technology, gadgets and gear.

I don't plan on providing a "how to guide" on seeking out and securing your very own personal geek. Instead, I want to impart one simple yet effective tip that you must follow if you do happen to find someone who is willing to lend you a helping hand now and then with your technology problems.

The one thing that most geeks have in common is the need to eat. You can use this to your advantage and take your geek out for lunch at least once a month. Please avoid fast food joints and look for a place that has tables, menus and people who will take your order. If your geek has been working hard on a difficult project, then I would suggest taking him or her out for dinner somewhere that has meat on the menu. Treat your geek to a great meal and your technology will be in good hands for as long as you follow the Care and Feeding plans for a geek. Oh, and one last tip. Friday's are a great day to take out your geek for late lunch or early dinner. This way, you can add some beer to the offering.

Have you found your geek yet? I still have a couple of free lunch hours open during the month.

Tales of a Teleworker

2009-03-05T08:00:00.011-07:00

I work out of a home office in a virtual office environment. This involves dialing into conference call #s on a daily basis to attend meetings. I don't enjoy all the meetings but it is the price that I pay for working from a home office.

This week my telephone service provider (& ISP) called to informed me that the numbers I was calling on a regular basis are considered business use and I am limited to 200 minutes a month with these numbers. I was baffled as my current phone plan includes unlimited long distance calling within North America and all the numbers that I dial are toll numbers. I even go the extra mile and not dial toll free numbers to save on costs.

After the warning about using these numbers, I was then given three options to remedy the situation.

1. Continue to use these numbers and if I exceed the 200 minutes, my phone service would be suspended for 24 hours.

2. Upgrade to a business phone package. (But I am not a business and can't justify the additional expense.)

3. Buy and use a calling card to dial into these numbers.

I am working on option #4. Change phone providers!

With the current state of the economy, more and more companies are forced to get creative with cutting costs and trimming expenses. Closing down offices and moving employees into home based offices appears to be a common practice and an easy way to quickly shed expenses. Now I am being penalized by my ISP which forces me to incur more expenses. It is a vicious circle.

If anyone has any creative thoughts or solutions, I would be happy to hear from you. I'm looking for advice on other phone companies that don't have this policy.

I would also welcome hearing from other Shaw customers who have been given the same "warning" and what you did to solve or work around your problem.

Also, has anyone else heard of this policy? I couldn't find it anywhere but then again, I'm no lawyer.

Until then, I will have a timer running during my next call. At least I will have a great excuse to drop off the call early.

Twitter - The New Online Vanity Plate?

2009-03-01T20:34:00.017-07:00

Disclaimer: This graphic is for demonstration purposes only. It in no way implies or refers to an actual license plate or individual.

I was looking at the number of Twitter accounts that have folllowers in excess of 100,000 and though about some of the recent news stories outlining how some of these Twitterers have been able to use their tweets to help public causes using a single (140 character) tweet. It got me to thinking about the domain name squatters who have made a living at registering domain names, parking them and finally selling them to the highest bidder at a very tidy profit. Could the same be done with Twitter?

Twitterers who have large (and sometimes very loyal) followers can get a message out to 100,000+ people in a matter of minutes. These tweets can then be RT (retweeted) to another 100,000+ people in a couple of more minutes. Given enough time, these tweets can become viral.

Think about it for a moment. If you have enough followers, a great branding message and a cool (or name brand) Twitter username, you have the potential to make a lot of money either leasing yourself out or selling your twitter account outright to the highest bidder.

What about those people who have moved on from domain squatting to Twitter squatting? How much money do you think they could make selling brand name Twitter usernames? In the current economy, I don't think too many companies will be making any outrageous offers in the near future. But when things turn around and the economy picks up again, I think we might see this turn around.

There is a lot of buzz in the media about Twitter. I'm assuming it is because of human interest, popularity, and the ability for one Tweeter to have a significant affect with 140 characters. I can only assume that all of this media attention will have corporations running out to see if they can secure their Twitter usernames and get on the new social media bandwagon. Those that are too late....well, let's just wait and see.

Yes, My Blog Does Have a Personality

2009-02-24T17:49:00.041-07:00

I have only recently started blogging and there are times when I question my sanity and wonder who would want to read my blog posts. Well, the logical side of me installed Google Analytics code on my site to watch the traffic and see if anyone was reading my posts. I have to say that validation is slowly in coming as I check the reports and see the number of readers climbing. In fact, after last weekend's post about "Sunken Treasure" and my forgotten memories, I noticed some traffic from LA and West Hollywood. (Thanks @Wilw). I see the numbers grow after I post my weekly blog update. But I still have lingering thoughts about my writing style and if it is too technical or boring. I also can't tell if people are reading the first sentence and then madly running away to wash their eyes at an emergency eye wash station.

Anyway, as I was reading though some tweets from favorite that I follow, I came across this great tweet:

@bladenews Found something fun. What is your blogs' personality type? Ours was ENTJ. http://www.typealyzer.com/

I just had to check it out and was I amazed at my blog's personality.

This is from the typealyzer.com website

ESTP - The Doers

The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Analysis

This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

The site also lists books and artists that I might find interesting. I know, you are all saying I don't read anything but technical manuals. That maybe true but I am currently in the middle of Wil Wheaton's "Sunken Treasure". After that, it is on with the list and recommendations that I am getting from the Twitterverse and maybe the books recommended by typealyzer. My goal is to have at least a 3:1 ratio of technical vs fiction/nonfiction books to read.

This revelation came as a surprise to me. It was eerily accurate. I guess my blog has a personality that closely matches me (the writer/author). So now that I have traffic and a blog with personality, I need to work on moving brain activity from the left side to the right side or at least to the middle of my brain.

What is your blog's personality type?

Can I get a Little Sign? Let's Communicate

2009-02-22T09:43:00.068-07:00

The inspiration for this post came to me yesterday evening after Wil Wheaton tweeted (follow Wil here) that his book "Sunken Treasure" was available (via Lulu) for purchase as a PDF download. Earlier in the week I had listened to his interview during Tweet-a-thon 2009 and was impressed with what he had to say and wanted to read the book. Well, I was pretty quick to download and start reading. I probably downloaded the book within 15 minutes of his first tweet. Yes, I'm a bonafide geek and got the tweet on my iPhone, ordered, processed and downloaded using my iPhone.

Just a little side track here... If you are looking for an interesting book to read (actually, a really great, funny and inspiring one at that), I highly recommend you either download the PDF or buy the paperback You can get it here http://stores.lulu.com/wilwheaton.

Anyway, I was reading his book and got to the story "Remember This" where he talks about an encounter with some female fans at a restaurant. The young ladies starting signing the song "Stand By Me" after one of them recognized Wil from that movie. I laughed out loud imagining them excitedly signing the words to the song with wild and animated hand gestures. A long distant memory came trickling into my consciousness of a time I was riding the bus home from work one hot summer day. All the windows on the bus were cracked open in the hope of getting some fresh air flowing through the bus. The sun was too bright for my eyes, causing me to squint as I made my way to the back of the bus. As I threaded my way down the isle muttering "pardon me, excuse me" to no one in particular, I could hear people talking about their plans for the evening and upcoming weekend.

This was long before the days of the iPod when people would casually engage in idle chit chat or sit and stare out the window in silence, watching the streetscape slowing change on the winding path home. I preferred to sit in the back of the bus and on this jammed packed ride I was standing in the back, hanging on to a pole beside two young ladies seated on the side bench talking to each other using sign language. I could tell that they were arguing very passionately about something by the way they were wildly gesturing with their hands and the emotional and angry expressions on their faces. I imagined they were arguing over a guy and were desperate to determine who he loved more.....

All these thoughts made me think about what that same ride would be like today, with cell phones, text messaging and iPods and how different it might be. Would the two young ladies be furiously texting each other rather than using sign language? I don't know about you but signing is a form of communication that I don't see much of anymore and I think it is due to the widespread use of text messaging. I kind of miss that third person view of sign language interaction and conversation and the glimpse into a different world of non verbal communication. We live in a world that is already crammed with too much expressionless communication, thanks to text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and all the other forms of text based social communications.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and got back to reading "Sunken Treasure". I reread the paragraph a couple of times and wondered if what Wil had meant to say was sing instead of sign. This made me really laugh again thinking about this story and if it had happened with today's youth who clutch their phones and furiously text rather than talk. Would Wil have reacted the same way? probably not. It was at this point that I realize he probably meant to say that these star struck fans were singing rather than signing. This is where the ideas, words and inspiration for this post came rushing to my left brain as I started to collect my thoughts and write this post.

A part of my job involves reviewing and editing way too many technical manuals and I see a lot of typos that are created by the auto correct feature embedded in word processing programs. I had to assume that the word "sign" was one of those "thank you technology" errors that we miss from time to time. How is the software suppose to know what we meant to say? I've trained my left-brain to spot these errors in order to prevent someone from misreading the printinged documentation which could lead to costly mistakes. but in Wil's case, it was LOL funny.

I fired off a quick email to Wil mentioning this and hoped he would clarify the whole sign vs sign thing for me. I wasn't holding my breath or anything. I have done this for other technical writers before and never expected a reply. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I opened my inbox to see that the email was not an auto response from Wil but an actual reply. Wil was quick to respond to my query. His answer was short but as I read it, I could imaging the cursing upon realizing that everyone missed such a simply typo. His words made me lmao!.If I was drinking a glass of milk, I would have been spitting it out in laughter. Then I realized, as I read his response, just how much his story and my distant memories resonated with me (signing, not singing). This, and Wil's reaction to the typo gave me the inspiration to blog about it.

I can honestly say that if you enjoy reading something other than technical books and blog posts, order your copy of "Sunken Treasure" today. It just might inspire you to write more and get creative with your posts. Every book you read will expand your thoughts, and, like me, bring back fond memories from times long forgotten. I hope as I continue to writing, my right-brain will take over and I might be an inspiration to someone else.

Who has inspired you today?

Adventures in a Hardware Store

2009-02-15T16:35:00.055-07:00

Today I set out with the goal of buying some new power tools. The old set of Ryobi cordless tools have long exceeded their life expectancy. The batteries are dead and the tools don't have the features that want in my tools. So off my wife and I went in search of a good deal.
I am always interested in the technology that goes into new cordless tools, batteries, chargers, motors and ergonomic design. I was on the lookout for not just power tools, but tools that had some cool, new technology integrated into their design and function.
We found ourselves walking up and down the power tool isle (at a major hardware retail outlet) looking at the various manufacturer's tools when a great deal presented itself. I love looking at tools and I enjoy it even more when those tools are on sale. I've been keeping my eye on the newer 18V & 24V volt tools, patiently waiting for them to go on sale. Well today I spotted the Ryobi 18V lithium 4 piece combo kit with the auto shift drill on sale. These tools are just loaded with new technology and the sale price was too good to pass up the chance to replace my old worn out cordless tools with new, feature laden cordless tools. Here in Canada, specifically Edmonton, (at the nameless retail outlet), the price is $349. Today, the displayed sale price was $199 (wow). I could only see a single box left on the shelf and quickly picked it up (I didn't want to miss out on this deal). In order to ensure that I was getting a good price and not something that they had reduced to make way for a newer product, I wanted to find a sales person to explain (to me) the details of the various tools in the box.
Now, finding someone can be a challenge (if they are really busy). I've learned that the most efficient way to find an answer is to take a picture and ask the closest sales person that isn't busy with other customers or ask at the customer service desk. So I snapped a few pictures and went off in search of a sales associate.
I eventually found a tool specialist and asked him about the tools and why they were on sale. To my surprise, he pointed out that the 4 piece combo kit that I had grabbed wasn't on sale and then walked me back to the power tools to point out a different set that was on sale. I was taken aback as the big sign hanging on the wall display in front of the tools showed the price of $199 / regular $349.

I was very surprise with this statement and thought that he was mistaken. I told him that I would take the new tools to the till and have them scan the box and verify the price.
The young lady at the till scanned the box and told me that the price would be $349 (plus G.S.T). I showed her the picture (on my iPhone) that I had snapped and asked if she could clarify why they were listed as being on sale but not showing up that way in the system. She immediately called a manager over to ask for clarification. The manager didn't even pause for a second before telling me that someone had made an error with the sign but that they would honor the price as displayed on the display. At this point in time, the sales associate who was assisting me, arrived at the till with the sign from the tool display. He was trying to explain that the sign was for a different model number (for the older tools) and not the tools that I had at the till. I felt sorry for him at this point in time as he was told that he had made a mistake and was then asked to correct the error before (I'm assuming) anyone else saw the sign.
Thank you Bonnie, wherever you are (name changed to protect the innocent). You truely inspired me today with your people management skills and the calm, cool and professional way in which you dealt with the entire situation.

We walked out of the store with a new set of tools, ready to tackle our home renovation projects with our brand new 18 volt lithium powered tools.
All of this reinforces in me what affects a mistake can have and the ripple effect that it causes. Policies and procedures have to be followed to avoid mistakes, which reminds me: I just have to work on my measure twice, cut once policy and procedure.
Have you used your iPhone or other cell phone to help you get a good deal on some cool new toy or gadget? Drop me any comments or suggestions for a future blog post.

Volunteering Can Make A Difference

2009-02-09T22:40:00.009-07:00

Last Friday I got a call from the Canadian Blood Services. They were looking for a donor match to donate blood platelets. Now I have been a regular donor for several years and I go as frequently as time permits. Now I am not a big, long time donor. I've only donated 26 times but to me it is the fact that I go as regularly as I can and donate that matters to me.
Well, anyway, I got this call asking if I could donate. I normally get these calls if I haven't come in for a couple of months. Well, I only donated a couple weeks ago and my next appointment was not for several more weeks so I was wondering what the call was all about. Turns out, I am a match for a person who has the same blood type and had an urgent need for my platelets. To make things even more exciting, I am one of only two people in the whole city that are a match for this person. What an amazing call to get on a Friday afternoon.
I was only to happy to crawl onto a comfy sofa chair for my 2 hour donation (yes it takes that long for me). The nurses wrap me in warm blankets and heater packs to keep me warm. I can watch movies or TV shows on the LCD TV hanging in front of me. I can read or even sleep. I usually take my laptop and iPhone and listen to music while I review courseware (student guides, etc).
After the donation, I asked one of the nurses how they would be using my platelets. Turns out, there is someone who is undergoing chemo treatments and they need my platelets to help them with the treatment process. I am not very technically knowledgeable when it comes to the medical terms so I don't understand all the medical jargon, but I am thrilled that I was able to really make a difference with my donation today.
If you haven't signed up to donation blood, plasma or platelets, consider what kind of a difference that donation and volunteer time will have on other people in your community.
BTW: I hate needles and the whole process of giving blood. I can't stand it. Now you ask "Why do you go and do this so often". Well, it was my New Year's resolution a couple of years ago. I always say "Play hard or go home". My resolutions are the same as my motto. Giving blood platelets on regular basis is a very rewarding experience and it helps me to get over my aversion to needles.
Have you thought about donating blood? If not, give it a try. It is not that difficult and very rewarding.
Here is a link to a larger photo of the machine. I will take more pictures the next time I donate (March 2). I will also try and include so photos of me donating (if I can convince a nurse to take the picture with my iPhone).

Twitter and Social Communication

2009-02-02T22:59:00.005-07:00

Recently I’ve been swept up in the Twitter storm. Late last year I decided that, as part of my New Year’s resolution, I would get more active online with a blog, twitter and Facebook. My primary goal was to increase my awareness of interacting socially with these tools. After a couple of weeks of Twitter, I’ve come to realize that it is more than what I first imagined.
If you use Twitter and understand what followers and following is all about and know what RT@karlkovacs means, then you can stop reading and move on to other thing (such as watching another amazing video on TED.com).
Twitter is a social messaging application that allows you to follow other people’s tweets (or rants). A tweet is a 140 character text message that you post for your followers to read. It is an almost real time way to follow friends, family or people that you find interesting. I have found that twitters fall into one of three different categories. The first is someone who twitters about their whereabouts during the day. The second is a person who twitters about what they find interesting and are raising awareness about issues. The third is someone who is trying to reach a large audience with a marketing message. A good example would be then presidential candidate Barack Obama (23,971 following & 227,757 followers). An example of a bad twitter is someone who advertises that I can make $15,000 a month and has zero (0) following. I personally fall into the second category.
If you want to start using twitter, it is as easy as signing up using your email address and password. Any replies to your tweet will be forwarded to your email informing you of a new tweet. I’m not going to get into all the desktop applications that you can install for twitter, but I will tell you I have more than one twitter application installed on my desktop and iPhone.
The people that are getting on twitter range from the inane to the insane. In between that, you can find celebrities that are now on twitter. Here is a compilation of the top 50 celebrities on twitter (http://tinyurl.com/bsmkyz). My favorites are the celebrities who have something to say and are using twitter with a twist of humor. I have to disagree with some of the names on the list, specifically who isn’t on the list. I guess the author didn’t spend much time looking as he didn’t mention Barack Obama (he is a celebrity..right?) or Ashton Kutcher.
Now, the etiquette of tweeting is a whole different story. Do you want to build a following? Are you interesting in keeping that following? I found a great tweeter who summarized the top 15 things you should (and shouldn’t) do. He has promised to blog about them soon so check him out on twitter (sethsimonds). I don’t have a massive following (I only just started) but I have learned that I want to avoid tweeters who are just out to market a product and I don’t want to offend people to the point where they are blocking me. This means using common sense and having fun.
Another great thing to do is to explore and check out everyone on twitter from the celebrity (mrskutcher), to the talented artist (AFineFrenzy) the news commentator (andersoncooper) and the athlete (lancearmstrong). I am leaving out a huge range of people to follow but I don’t have enough room in my blog to mention all the people that you can follow.
Once you’ve mastered the basics of Twitter, you can add to your repertoire and add photos, videos and blogs to your list. Oh, and one last point. Twitter is limited to 140 characters so if you have a URL that you want to tweet, use a service like TinyURL to shorten those really long URLs to give you more characters for your tweet.
Happy tweeting.
Update to the Blog:
I found an excellent article by Warren Whitlock on how to grow relationship on Twitter.
http://tinyurl.com/ardmfd

Volunteering to Benefit Your Career

2009-01-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged about volunteering and what I see in the value of what I give back to my community. This week I want to take that a step farther and explain how you can use volunteering to help you in your career or even to help you decide what career to pursue.
I've been asked by many young aspiring IT professionals if they can work for me “doing what I do”. I have to sit them down and explain that, at my level, the years of experience required to "do what I do" are long and littered with the casualties of the brutal hours and failed projects. (a topic for another blog)
What I tend to do is recommend that if someone is interested in IT, has some skills but nobody will hire them is to consider volunteering. Many nonprofit organizations have shoestrings for budgets and will welcome any and all help that they can find. If they have someone willing to toil away for countless hours installing, configuring and fixing computer problems, you will have friends for life. On the flip side, you will be gaining invaluable time that will look very impressive on a resume. The other big but secret bonus is this: If you don’t know how to use their web graphic design program but express an interest in learning, you will be more than welcomed to learn. You will have access to the hardware and software and time. Not many companies today will pay for an inexperienced person to learn new programs on their own time and dime. How much better can it get than that!
Now, not only will you have gained IT experience but you have a double win with the volunteer work. Employers look at potential employees very carefully and having volunteer work on your resume (or CV) will go a long way to showing your level of commitment and dedication. These are qualities that are highly desired by resume screeners and hiring managers.
So if you are looking at IT and want to get into it and give it a go, volunteer and find an nonprofit organization who is looking for someone who is willing to learn on the job and help where others are not willing to help. The other benefits to volunteering can be found on my previous blog.
Now the other aspect of volunteering is how it can be of great value to your career. Say you want to take on more challenging responsibilities but your boss just isn't giving them to you. Or you have reached the top and there is nothing else that you can learn or take on in your current job. Great ways to add skills to your portfolio are to (you guessed it) volunteer! Volunteer organizations have so many opportunities that it would take many weeks to list them all.
If you volunteer for a large event, you can get experience in event coordination. There are college diploma programs that are focused on event coordinator planning. Spend several months (or years) coordinating large scale volunteer events and you will learn more than you could ever learn in school. Remember that school is just the beginning of your learning path. Large scale events usually have several (if not more) coordinators and Rule #1 always applies is this situation. (see Rule #1 below)
If project management is your cup of tea but you just haven't had the chance to manage a large project, look for a volunteer organization who needs an assistant to the volunteer coordinator. They will more than likely hand off as much as they can. Volunteer coordinators are managing large scale, multi-year projects. Don't forget: Volunteers are always looking for their replacement. Did I forget to mention that?
The other aspect of volunteering is the ability to be assigned positions where you can become a people manager. Volunteer coordinators have to interview, hire, and fire volunteers. Getting practice in these situations where it isn't as life changing for the people on the other side of the table can only be learned on the job. Unless you have taken acting lessons, you probably haven't gone through the process of hiring a bright, talented individual only to find out that they were a scam and had to be terminated.
Another great way to gain skills that you might never get at work is to volunteer for boards, executives or other committees. These are the groups that handle the overall budget, long term planning and other activities that in a typical company are handled at a senior level. This experience is excellent if you plan or want to plan on moving up the chain and into management.
So what is stopping you from getting out there and volunteering? I haven’t regretted any of my volunteer work and I am always looking for more responsibilities and challenges that I apply to my own career.
One last note: Don’t forget the other people that are out there volunteering. You may bump into another volunteer who needs an IT guy and you just so happen to fit the bill, come with excellent references and a proven track record at your current volunteer organization. Rule #1 also applies in this situation. That volunteer you are working beside or with or for maybe on the hunt for new talent.
Volunteer Rule #1: Once you volunteer for a position, always be on the lookout for your replacement.
You never know how long you will be in that position before you can recruit your replacement.
Volunteer Rule #2: Dress for the job and perform like you are being paid.
Take on the responsibilities as if it was your real job. This will help those who manage you provide excellent references to potential employers.

More rules will follow in later blogs, so stay tuned.

Volunteerism

2009-01-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

Volunteerism (as defined in Wikipedia) is the willingness of people to work on behalf of others without being motivated by financial or material gain.

Volunteering is an important part of my life. A long time go, I couldn't have even imagined that I would be saying something like this. I can remember when I would talk to friends or co-workers who would take vacation time from work to volunteer for an event. To me, this was insanity. Taking a week or two of precious holiday time to spend all of your free time working for free was not something I would even consider.

Today, I am talking a different story. I have come to enjoy my volunteer activities. I could not have imagined all that I would get out of volunteering. The friendships, sense of community, accomplishments and pride make the amount of time committed seem insignificant. Giving back to the community has become far more important to me than having a couple of hours to myself to watch TV.

Stepping up and volunteering can be surprisingly easy. If you have ever mowed your neighbor's lawn or shoveled the snow off of their sidewalk, you have already volunteered your time. The next step is to volunteering on a regular basis is to go out an look for organizations that need volunteers. This can be as easy as spending time at a homeless shelter serving meals to the highly demanding responsibilities of serving on the board of directors for a volunteer organization.

For me, I spend twenty to forty hours a month, dividing up my time among 4 different organizations. During this summer months, this can increase to an almost full-time job. I can easily spend every weekend in the summer months volunteering at community events or festivals. Added up, this consumes any and all of my free time. This is where it gets tricky balancing work, family time and hobbies with volunteer activities. I have yet to take an entire week of summer vacation volunteering for an event but I will probably make that step this summer at the 2009 Edmonton Indy Car race. I have attended the race every year and the excitement is electrifying and I want to immerse myself in the entire week of events that lead up to the actual race. Now I'm getting sidetracked from what I wanted to talk about.

Volunteering is both very rewarding and fulfilling. When I first started, I really wasn't sure how much time I would be able to spend and wanted to limit my exposure and time commitment. I looked for something that wasn't took intensive and didn't require more than a couple of hours a month. I didn't have to look far as my local community league was looking for volunteers for various events. The time, scope of work and distance to travel was something that I could manage. From there, I got informed about what was happening in and around my neighborhood and wanted to make a difference in a positive and measurable way. That was a springboard for wanting to get involved with making my community a safer place. This turned into a journey that I look back on and can't believe where it has taken me. I eventually wound up volunteering with the Edmonton Police Service, the Community Police Radio Network and other smaller volunteer organizations. Both of these organizations look for people with skills and a willingness to give time to helping out with various activities. One of the highlights for me was getting to stand on the high level bridge and watch the Canada Day fireworks from the best seat in the house. I also discovered, by accident, a requirement for my IT skills in a unique way. I turned my professional consulting practice into a volunteer consulting practice assisting a team within the EPS. The major challenge that I face now is ensuring that I don't over commit with my my time to volunteering.

Today (Jan 19) is a very special day in the United States and the message from the new administration is helping your community by volunteering in any way shape or form. With the start of a new year, go out and do whatever you can to volunteer and make a difference in your community.

Next week I am going to focus on how volunteering can help your career by learning new job or life skills.

(if you see any typos or gramatical errors, please let me know)

The speed of life

2009-01-12T20:50:00.001-07:00

It is one thing that I have come to realize over all these years is that people's expectations on how fast things can be accomplished has greatly accelerated in the last decade. No, make that the last 20 years. The opportunities that are now available to kids today were only something that I could dream about when I was a child. Before then, my father and his father couldn't even dream about such fanciful things as they struggled to feed the family.
Today, people live in a technological society (modern western) that encourages the excesses of life. To get the best paying job that you can find so that you can buy that dream life that you wished for as a young adult. Or living the life that your parents dreamed that you would have.
I look at the pace of life and often consider what choices I make that pull me back into the fast lane. So fast in fact that I often have to use a parachute or speed brake to get myself grounded and thinking about what I need in life and not those things that I want.
I spend a great deal of time volunteering my time to give back to my community. Even these interactions show me the fast pace of life that those that are less fortunate have but can't make their most basic dreams come true. They are busy trying to work every angle or job to make ends meet.
I am often reminded about what I can do to slow down and look around. Now this is easier said than done. Slowing down isn't (by my nature) something that I can easily do. My career and brain chemistry cause me to be always going Mach 1, trying to avoid slowing down as it will only take me longer to get back up to speed.
My personal activities are geared to keep me going as fast as possible and I treat anything that will slow me down like the black plague.
However, every once in a while, I have one of those moments of clarity that gently remind me what it is like to live at a slower pace and really enjoy and appreciate life. Today I was privileged to take care of a sick child (just a cold) but it is on these days that I really slow down and pay attention. All of the questions, ensuring that they have something to drink, that I have the perfect animated movie for them to watch (there I go with technology when I should be reading them a book) and that they are snuggled in front of a wood stove with plenty of warm blankets. All of these things make me forget out the fast paced life that I lead and challenges that I have to overcome, new skills that I have to learn by tomorrow or the never-ending deadline at work.
I have to remind myself that I can't completely "unplug", move to Tibet and lead a life of solitude. But I can take steps to slow down and really appreciate the things that I have, the friends that I have made and the life that I have been blessed with. Sure, I can always make more changes and improvements but life, like a home renovation project, takes time and I am going to take the time and always be working on it.