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Daily Highlights for BcB 08/31/2008

• Innovate: Why Professor Johnny Can't Read: Understanding the Net Generation's Texts

  A bit academic for my taste, but good article, nontheless (free registration required) that explores the nature of today's online content as a reflection of the differences between today's students and their older instructors.  It discusses the unique challenges this group of learners may present for instructors who don't share their students' technological immersion.  But, it also suggests how such challenges might be overcome.  Key points highlighted below:

  tags: businesscasual, learning, training, presentation, articles

  • In the last two decades, computer-enhanced learning has exploded to the point where almost every college campus markets its cutting-edge technology resources. Part of the impetus behind this growth is an attempt to address the needs of a fundamentally different type of learner who has been identified in the literature as the Net-Generation, or N-Gen, student
  • One indicator of the extent and type of differences between the Net Generation and previous generations of learners are the texts that N-Gen learners create and consume.
  • Failing to recognize these texts as valuable tools in the teaching and learning process, professors dismiss an entire constellation of literacy skills.
  • while N-Gens interact with the world through multimedia, online social networking, and routine multitasking, their professors tend to approach learning linearly, one task at a time, and as an individual activity that is centered largely around printed text
  • Research in social psychology suggests that culture influences not only what a person thinks about but also how he or she thinks; that is, strategies for processing information may differ according to the culture in which a person matures
  • a phenomenon referred to by Trojan et al. (2004) as "adaptational neuroplasticity" (104). This research points to the possibility that N-Gen students are literally wired differently from previous generations, their brains shaped by a lifelong immersion in virtual spaces. Repeated and prolonged exposure to the digital world may mean that N-Gen students process and interact with information in a fundamentally different way from those who did not grow up in this environment.

  • How does what we learn by studying the N-Gen's texts compare with what happens in the classroom? Gee (2007) points out a key distinction:

    Classrooms tend to encourage and reward individual knowledge stored in the head, not distributed knowledge. They don't often allow students to network with each other and with various tools and technologies and be rewarded for doing so . . . . classrooms tend to narrowly constrain where students can gain knowledge, rather than utilize widely dispersed knowledge. (103)

  • While interaction certainly exists in a traditional classroom, much of the pedagogy is built on models that require solitary, independent learning.
  • One way to build a stronger understanding of the N-Gen student is by participating in the same learning spaces where this generation spends so much time.
  • think of places where N-Gens create, consume, and reshape text not as strictly entertainment or social gathering places but as alternate classrooms

YouTube - viewed another way

Below is a great presentation given by Michael Wesch at the Library of Congress this past June.

What I liked about is the anthropological (try typing that 10x fast) perspective of social networks (specifically, YouTube).  Interesting to consider the popularity of sites like YouTube as one outcome of the loss of community in the physical world.  A sort of "networked individualism" where "everybody is watching where nobody is."

This'll be one to bookmark for when you have about an hour.  (Remember, it's a presentation, not a 2-minute YouTube video... you know what I mean.)

"(That little glass dot [webcam]) may not seem of any particular interest.  But consider again that dot. 

That's there, that's somewhwere else, that's everybody. 

On the other side of that little glass dot is everyone you love.  Every one you know.  Everyone you've ever heard of.  Everyone who's living out their lives who has access to the internet.  Billions of potential viewers and your future self among them. 

Some have called this the biggest and the smallest stage.  The most public space in the world from the privacy of our own homes. 

It's been used for many things.  A political soapbox.  A comedian's stage.  A religious pulpit.  A teacher's podium.  Or just a way to reach out to a next door neighbor or across the world to people we love, people we want to love or people we don't even know. 

To share something deep or something trivial, something serious or something funny, to strive for fame or to simply connect. 

It could be many things.  But it cannot be just one thing.  And it cannot be only what you want to be.  It is not just what you make of it.  It's what we make of it.  it's the little glass dot in the eyes of the world."

-- Michael Wesch

Daily Highlights for BcB 08/30/2008

• My Global Career » Blog Archive » Your Next Job Interview – Via Webcam?
  

  Interesting 'fringe' article about the increasing acceptance of video-based job interviews.
  
  tags: businesscasual

  • Although video résumés are controversial and have not been accepted by corporate America, video interviews conducted over the Web or on videoconferencing systems have caught on quickly.
    
  • Why do hiring managers feel video is okay for interviews but not for résumés? In a word: control. It turns out that employers are comfortable using video for interviews when it’s clear that they can both control the process and save time and money by not having to fly (or even bring) in three candidates for every one they hire. Currently employed job candidates like it because they don’t have to miss work or travel just to complete a job interview.
    
  • The Q&A approach solves one of the major problems found with video-résumés - it imposes structure on the production process and forces applicants to address the employer’s questions in a fixed period of time.
    
  • One catch is that job seekers are typically inexperienced at setting up or using webcams and usually don’t know how to make themselves seem professional in a cyber-setting
    
  • Penelope Trunk, a career columnist and author of Brazen Careerist, suggests that job candidates approach video carefully. “Get coaching if video is required, and if video is not required, skip it all together,” recommends Trunk.
    
  • Once a candidate is deemed viable, a video-based job interview, which is typically orchestrated by a specialized provider such as HireVue or a large recruiting firm such as Korn/Ferry, introduces a question-and-answer process that is controlled by management and more impervious to the whims of amateur videographers.
    
  • Practice for the interview. Good video interview software will have a window that shows what you look like to the interviewer.
    
  • “It’s totally different than sitting in front of someone for a live interview. You have 30 seconds to read the question and at the same time you have to think of an answer. The green light comes on and all of a sudden you’re being recorded.”

• Capturing Screenshots in Firefox 3

  Here are eight Firefox 3 screenshot tools that are worth trying.  These tools will do everything from save just a section of a page to entire pages, as well as give you the ability to upload images automatically to specified image hosting services.

  tags: businesscasual, webtools, productivity

• Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

  tags: businesscasual, training, elearning, astd

Finally! Group Discussions Comes to LinkedIn.

I've heard rumors for a while that LinkedIn might bring discussions to LinkedIn Groups.  Then, early this week, it firmed up more with an e-mail to group managers announcing that discussions would go live today, Friday, August 29, as a birthday present to me.  (Well, okay, maybe I'm embellishing a bit about its purpose.)  But, there's no denying it has gone live and, at least from my perspective, it's a much welcomed addition to groups on LI.  Especially, since I've been one of the ones clamoring for them to add this feature.  (After all, what the heck is the value of having a group if you can't collaborate with its members in, well, group fashion?)

Before its roll out, I read some angst about a supposed 200 character limit for discussions.  Now, I'm all for the direction LI seems to take in terms of brevity of postings (e.g., 100 character limit on status updates, visual brevity in Q&A postings, and similarly for recommendations, etc.), but I too was a bit bemused about the value of 200 characters for a "discussion." 

As it turns out, in keeping with the implicit design catering to brevity, LI rolled it out with a "teaser" area that's limited to 200 characters.  Sort of like, "allright, here's the discussion forum you keep asking about, but keep it short." Then, their design says, "But, oh, but if you're real talky and need more room, click 'Add Details.'"

"Add Details" opens up another text area where you can write much more.

I like this new direction LI is taking.  It opens up a much needed area for group collaboration around specific business/topical niches.  It's worth checking it out.

What does the Olympic spirit mean to you?

...is there an 'Olympic Spirit'?  It's sports.  It's an over commercialized event made up mainly of professional athletes competing in sports that people only care about every 4 years...

I lifted the excerpt above from Matthew's cynical response to Megann's open question about Olympic spirit.  What does it mean to you and how do you apply it in your day-to-day life? Everyone's entitled to their own..., as they say.  But I couldn't disagree more with the quote above.

First of all, it's not every four years.  The games in Vancouver are just two years away.  And, two years after that, London.

But, more to the point.  While I won't deny there is commercialism, and let's not forget politics, associated wtih the Olympic games, I think it's woefully short-sighted to take all of what that may represent for us and transfer it all to those who live the spirit everyday.

For me, it's hard not to be inspired by that spirit when I hear about a 22 year old kid --a girl no less -- in Iraq.  Who, despite cultural and religious barriers that keep her cloaked in a hijab and long pants while she trains in her country's 100-degree heat, still manages to go out daily to train while dodging bullets.

"Once when I was training in Baghdad a sniper opened fire on me... There are many bombs.  When you are on the way to the stadium, you don't know what will happen to you... I will still continue my training and my sport...When the sniper opened fire on me, I went back and trained in the same place 30 minutes later.  I will continue my training, even if there are snipers." -- Dana Abdulrazak (participated in the women's 100-meters)

But, we don't have to look far, nor hold up elite athletes as flesh-and-blood manifestations of that spirit.  One of the people in my running group is a mother of two kids.  She is also nursing a knee injury and is determined to run a marathon this October.  While on some of our training runs, we talk occasionally about how she has to balance the demands of the marathon with the needs of her personal life. Much like an elite athlete does.  It would be easier to say, "oh... too hard, no time to train... you'll understand if you have kids."  But there's none of that.  Instead, she exercises discipline to train regularly and is on track for her fourth marathon in Long Beach this October.

Then, there was February 3, 2008.  I watched hundreds of runners, despite chilling rain and strong (I'm talkin' horizontal) winds that battered the Huntington Beach coast line continuously since the night before, dig deep to line up for the start of the 2008 Surf City Marathon and Half-marathon while huddling like penguins. 

Imagine going to bed the night prior with it pouring rain outside with wind and temperatures pulling the thermometer down to the 50s.  All the while wondering if discipline was sufficient to motivate you to run in all that chaos the following morning.  Then, to find the following morning dark, cold and no let up in sight for the storm. 

Yet, all those runners found the mojo to crawl out of a warm bed to don (of all things) running shorts and a singlet so they could go spend a few hours in that weather.  In that cold weather.  In that cold, wet, pre-dawn ickiness. 

Oh, and, when they got to the parking lot at the event, despite the distance they yet had to experience ahead of them, still managed to suck it up to run the two miles from the parking lot to the start line because that was warmer than waiting for the shuttle bus.

It's true that all the glam and glitz seems to bombard us every couple of years when the Olympic games roll around.  But that spirit and the glory of it can be experienced by any one of us even if we don't get to stand on a box and have the national anthem played on our behalf. 

If we step outside of our comfort zone, face fears and endure discomfort to march on and actually finish what we said we would finish; when we hold ourselves accountable to a promise made while sitting in more comfortable surroundings -- despite how "hard" we later find keeping that promise really is -- then, I think, we come to understand the Olympic spirit.

Active Spaces: Yorba Linda Park 8-mile out-and-back

I started doing something again that I was doing before, only I stopped, but now I'm doing it again.  (??) 

I started packing a camera again when I go out on my running treks.  I stopped for a while (the camera thing, not the running part) because, I don't know, I just did. 

This one's cool.  It's a Coolpix S210, meaning it can also shoot video.  Nothing fancy, but certainly good enough for putting up on the web.  And, with a 1GB SD card, I can take a lot of video.  Not hours and hours worth but certainly minutes and minutes -- about 60 minutes worth(?) -- certainly enough  to capture those little interesting things I happen across every now and then that make me sometimes say, "Awww, arrgh! I wish I had my camera!"  Well, now I do.

This one fits, literally, in the palm of my hand.  It's about as thin as a business card case and fits nicely in the little fanny pack I use to carry my little Sport Beans, Gu gels, and what have you during the races.  When I'm not racing, I can carry the camera.

Now, instead of just mapping my routes online to share with friends, I can now also put pictures and video online to augment those route maps.  Oh, how I wish I had this camera with me when I ran that route along the coast in Monterey earlier this year.  (Awww, arrgh!  I wish I had my camera then!)

I put the concept to a test this morning and put the video below together in a few minutes.  Not as inspiring as the Monterey route, perhaps, but this one's a local favorite of mine.  Also, below the video is the route map.

Top 10 Pet Peeves

It happened again this morning.  I was lining up to enter the gym this morning right behind this lady who, like me, appeared to be struggling with pre-dawn mobility.  She got to the double doors at the 24 Hour Fitness Center in our community, pulled it open, stepped through -- and let it go. I was less than three steps behind her.  The door slammed right in my face.  Despite having seen me, she didn't even look back. Neither before, nor after.

So, topping my list of pet peeves today:
#1  People who go through building entries and don't look behind them before they let the door slam shut.

Other pet peeves that come to mind due to their proximity to my experience in the past week (in no particular order):

• That guy who was talking loudly on his cell phone in the restaurant table next to me and my wife during dinner last weekend.
• That kid in the movie theater who insisted on texting during the movie and all the while clueless about the distracting bright glow emanating from his seat.
• The punk who still finds flashing lasers at people and the theater screen funny.
• The self-centered automobile driver who did a dead stop on a busy 3-lane road and then proceeded to back up diagonally across two lanes causing me (on my motorcycle) and several other drivers to brake and swerve.  He did this to re-align himself with the parking lot entrance to a strip mall.
• Drivers who don't signal before they turn.
• Motorcycle riders who split lanes on the freeway.  (There's no need for it and it gives the rest of us a bad rep.)
• People who spit on the sidewalk.
• People who text while driving.
• That lady who was driving 10 MPH under the speed limit in the fast line while talking animatedly on her cell phone and waving her hands as she spoke.

Do any these strike a cord?

"It's not a matter of 'IF' you go down, it's a matter of 'WHEN'..."

"It's not a matter of IF you go down, but only a matter of WHEN."

... I hate that statement.

Since having brought home a motorcycle last month (for the record, not my first) I now find myself on the receiving end of that statement from otherwise well-meaning friends, family members and even passing strangers.  It's usually offered as unsolicited wisdom as if it were some sage piece of Confucianism to spark enlightened thought in my undisciplined self.

Even my brother, a retired California Highway Patrol Captain, has been keen to chime in with the obligatory "statistics show...", followed by anecdotal statements about the preponderance of motorcycle rider fatalities in vehicle collisions and the likelihood of death in even "minor" collisions that would otherwise have resulted in only a fender-bender between automobiles.

I believe the folks that give me these snippets of wisdom do so because they care; they have an underlying fear and concern for my safety and health.  Given that, it's hard, really, to express the frustration I'd otherwise like to blurt out. After all, "DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW?!"

Instead, I now say, "You know, you're right.  And here are some other statistics I bet you didn't know:

• Since the gas crisis reared its ugly head again, there are now more commuters who are jumping onto motorcycles.
• In 2006, the number of motorcyle licenses in California reached 1,109,374 -- an increase of 34% from 10 years earlier.
• But, over the same period, the number of motorcycle fatalities in California increased by 116%.
• In Orange County, CA (my current stomping grounds) although the number of motorcycle fatalities has remained relatively steady over the last three years, the number of motorcycle accidents over the same period has increased by 54%.
• About 29% of California motorcyclists involved in a fatal accident in 2006 didn't have a valid driver's license. 

So, yes, I'm aware of the statistics.  More so, I'm VERY aware of the risks.  I only have to go back as far as yesterday (or this afternoon, or "just now") when that lady in the Acura cut over into my lane without looking.  Or, when that bonehead in the Honda Civic decided to back up across two lanes so he could re-enter a strip mall entrance he missed.  Or, I would simply remember the morning traffic reports that daily seems to communicate a "motorcyclist down" on some stretch of interstate.  Or, R.I.P., the 25-year firefighter veteran who died last weekend after his motorcycle struck a pickup truck on a rural road after the pickup truck driver pulled out from an adjacent road in front of him.

Yes, I'm aware of the risks.  And I don't take them lightly. 

But, rather than you all telling me about all the ways I can die, I'd appreciate more anecdotes of safety. 

Tell me about the motorcycle safety course that's facilitated by the motorcycle safety foundation.  Tell me about a coupon or a gift certificate you were considering giving me for a bright-orange or bright-green motorcycle riding jacket.  Tell me about the orange safety vest I can get to wear over my regular riding outfit.  Tell me about the hiking boots that I can wear to protect my ankles should, god forbid, the unthinkable happens.  Tell me about the brightly colored safety tape I can get for my helmet and riding garments; gift me a set.  Get me that safety video...

You see where my head's at with this?  Because, you see, focusing on death and dying while I'm out on the road is more likely to actually get me killed than if I were focusing on safety. 

So, please, rather than fill my head with all the statistics I already know about all the different ways I can die on a motorcycle, I'd rather my head be filled with behaviors and habits that actually help me be safe. 

So, help me out, will ya?

How well do YOU prioritize LIFE ahead of WORK?

I had an opportunity recently to re-read Dirk’s post about Time Blocking and thought it was right on point -- especially where he suggests blocking time for our personal life before time blocking anything else.

In a similarly-themed post, Don Hobbs talked last year about “that look of utter exhaustion” when he sees real estate agents at his various speaking engagements.  And, if 2006 Real Estate Apprentice award winner, Kendra Shearer’s testimony of 14-hour work days straining the proverbial balance wheel is suggestive of the work-life balance of many agents -- indeed many professionals across other industries -- then we’d do well to pay more heed to how we view the “life” part of “work-life” balance.

But, it’s an age-old battle, isn’t it?  I came across these results recently from a LinkedIn/BusinessWeek poll about the most significant workplace challenge business people face.  (That’s what brought all this re-reading to mind again.)

(source: http://polls.linkedin.com/polls/63/answers)

Significant to me is how Work/Life challenges rates among the workplace challenges we face.  Add to that the related challenge of Managing Time and together they comprise more than 50% of responses.

The fitness/runner in me views it as a “discipline thing.”  Yet, the corporate trainer in me wonders if many of us even possess the appropriate skills to begin with; skills  that allow us to properly manage our time such that we can appropriately prioritize Life into the day-to-day activities of life.

To that end, and short of enlisting in a Covey course (which I’d recommend, btw) I scrubbed through some of our archives for related themes.  I'm happy to share with you below previous posts from our esteemed contributing authors that are worth re-visiting.

And I wonder, do you feel you do a good job today of prioritizing Life ahead of Work?

o  From Dirk Zeller:
    -  Time Blocking Your Way to Success
    -  Avoiding Time-Blocking Mistakes
    -  Attitude and Expectations

o  From Don Hobbs:
    -  A telltale sign that you’re a workaholic...

o  From Cheri Alguire:
    -  Pure and Clear Goals
    -  Knowledge Really is Power

o  From Robyn Hardy:
    -  Creating a Nurturing Culture

What an idiot!

Check out this post on The Onion.

Some people have way too much time on their hands.

The guy that's the subject of the article (not the stock image-guy on the left) spoke with reporters to announce plans of posting an idiotic comment beneath a video on an internet website.  (TBD.)

"The result will be an astonishing combination of ignorance, offensiveness, and sheer idiocy...After clicking the 'submit' button, I will immediately refresh the page so that I can view my own comment. I will then notice that my comment has not appeared because the server has not yet processed my request, become angry and confused, and re-post the same comment with unintentional variations on the original wording and misspellings, creating two slightly different yet equally moronic comments... It is my hope that this will illustrate both my childlike level of impatience and my inability to replicate a simple string of letters and symbols 30 seconds after having composed it."

You, along with I, might wonder, "WHY...?"  In a fashion akin to watching someone chew sand.  Then there's this,

"Once this minor diversion is complete, I will finish posting my comment, then sit there like the worthless human being I am and wait for other commenters to respond...Because, as I mentioned before, I have nothing better to do with my life."

Ahh, that explains everything.