Why I’m Blogging Instead of Getting Things Done
By Richard Nantel | July 8, 2008
We use a lot of collaboration technologies at Brandon Hall Research. We’ve built Web services-type software to manage our Excellence in Learning Awards, to update our research KnowledgeBases, to manage inquiries, and to track our time on various projects.
In addition, many of our working documents are online as Google Docs. We love the fact that a Google Doc is the unique, up-to-date version of that information and that multiple collaborators and viewers can access the information at the same time. No more e-mailing documents back and forth, which is so very “1990s.”
Cloud computing is so hip. All we need in 2008 is an on-ramp to the Web to access our applications and documents, right?
Wrong. We also need the clouds to work.
Here I am trying to wrap up formal mid-year staff evaluations, and I can’t access my Google Docs.
Google continues to report a server 502 error and asks that I try again in 30 seconds. It’s been 10 minutes, and this cloud is still broken.
Topics: Collaboration | 1 Comment »
Epistemic Games Encourage Creative Problem Solving
By Richard Nantel | June 20, 2008
Eighteen years ago, I bought the original SimCity game and subsequently went for two days without food or sleep. I obsessively worked away at creating the perfect city filled with happy citizens. The day my virtual city obtained a stadium remains one of the highlights of my technological life.
Games that encourage learners to think like engineers, doctors, lawyers, urban planners, and other professionals are called epistemic games. These applications are now being used in schools to encourage creative problem solving.
Below is a great example from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The lucky students were even able to present their urban plans to the mayor of Madison.
Topics: Academic, Games, Learning | No Comments »
Create Cool Teaching Tools Using a Wii Controller
By Richard Nantel | June 19, 2008
Let’s be honest. It’s been pretty tough for departments to justify purchasing video game consoles for training purposes. Sure, Wii Sports may improve your golf swing or bowling accuracy, but, apart from reducing workplace stress and increasing worker morale, video game consoles haven’t yet made a significant impact on workplace learning.
Thanks to Johnny Lee, you can now purchase that coveted Wii console and write it off as a business expense guilt free. Mr. Lee has hacked a $40 Wii controller to create a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen, and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.
Technically, you don’t need the entire $250 Wii console to create Johnny Lee’s digital whiteboard. His hack only requires a $40 Wii controller, which can be purchased separately from the console, and $10 in electronic parts from Radio Shack. I promise not to tell your purchasing department. Perhaps you can even find a training use for the red-hot Wii Fit.
P.S. Unlike during the pre-holiday shopping rush, you no longer need to camp out all night at your local electronics store to get your hands on a Wii console. Wiis are now commonly available and can be acquired during your lunch break.
Topics: Games, Hardware, Learning, Wii | No Comments »
Connexions: A Free Course Repository and LCMS
By Richard Nantel | June 11, 2008
Last month, The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University announced its annual Berkman Awards for outstanding contributions to the Internet’s impact on society. One of the winners this year was Rice University’s Richard Baraniuk.
Professor Baraniuk won the award for launching Connexions, a public learning content management system (LCMS) that allows teachers to share digital resources and learning content, modify them as required, and provide them online under a Creative Commons license. This free, open-source platform is a building block toward a system of open educational resources.
The content in Connexions is presented in two formats:
- Modules, which are like small “knowledge chunks,” or learning objects
- Collections, groups of modules structured into books or course notes or for other uses
The site reports that it presently contains “5690 reusable modules woven into 339 collections” and covers a very wide range of topics of interest to anyone. Readers of this blog may benefit from the following courses on the topic of learning and technology:
- Best Practices in Online Teaching - Pulling It All Together - Teaching Blended Learning Courses (m15048)
- Best Practices in Online Teaching - During Teaching - Promote Active Learning (m14977)
- Learning Design and Open Source Teaching (m14733)
- Building a Learning Community: Democratic Values (m12921)
Many more courses on online learning are available here.
Mr. Baraniuk spoke at TEDS back in 2006 about how digital learning content such as that found in Connexions will replace academic textbooks. His talk was titled “Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning.” A video of this presentation is available here.
Topics: Academic, Learning, Learning Content Management Systems, Open Source, OpenCourseware | 1 Comment »
Apple vs. Google: Battle of the Management Styles
By Richard Nantel | May 28, 2008
Apple Computer is getting a lot of press these days, but the focus isn’t always on its computers, iPhone, or ubiquitous iPods. Rather, various sources have written about how Apple is run very much like a traditional top-down company. People are told what to do and then sent off to do it. If they do a bad job, they may get yelled at by the boss.
Who would have guessed?
Since reading about Apple’s old-time management style, I can’t help watching the “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” TV commercials more closely to see if the cool Mac guy has bloodshot eyes from crying in his cubicle.
According to Leander Kahney, author of a recent essay in Wired magazine titled “How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong“:
“Whereas the rest of the tech industry may motivate employees with carrots, Jobs is known as an inveterate stick man. Even the most favored employee could find themselves on the receiving end of a tirade. Insiders have a term for it: the “hero-shithead roller coaster.” Says Edward Eigerman, a former Apple engineer, “More than anywhere else I’ve worked before or since, there’s a lot of concern about being fired.”
Apple’s management style seems the polar opposite from what we hear takes place at most modern tech firms, including the world’s most powerful brand, Google. Leander Kahney writes:
“Google’s engineers have unprecedented autonomy; they choose which projects they work on and whom they work with. And they are encouraged to allot 20 percent of their work week to pursuing their own software ideas. The result? Products like Gmail and Google News, which began as personal endeavors.”
Google’s management style sounds idyllic, but I bet the reality of the situation isn’t so rosy. I’m certain there are some team members no one wants to work with and a bunch of projects that need to get done that no one wants to do. I suspect there are even days when the catered meals need salt and the massage therapists’ hands are cold.
From a talent management perspective, I think the Google style may work for Google but is at the experimental stage elsewhere. It’s not yet certain such a high level of freedom leads to greater happiness among employees or a more creative and productive team. Economists would surely say that, given such freedom, team members will inevitably choose individual self interests over what’s best for their colleagues or the company.
The opposite approach, though, of beating employees with a stick, will only be endured by the employee until a better job comes along. Making matters worse, when that employee does leave, he or she will be bitter and will do all he can to hurt the company.
Topics: Learning, Talent Management | 1 Comment »
How to Be Unhappy at Work
By Richard Nantel | May 13, 2008
As a reaction to the media attention being bestowed on the subject of positive psychology and happiness, Eric G. Wilson has written a book, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, that focuses on the benefits of unhappiness. According to Wilson, melancholia can lead to inspiration and creativity. Would Vincent Van Gogh have produced such wonderful art had he not been depressed enough to slice off his ear? Nuff said.
Need more inspiration and creativity at work? Perhaps the problem is that you’re too happy. To embrace the miserable employee within you, you can do the opposite of what positive psychologists have learned generates happiness:
- Don’t pay attention to the present. Instead, just keep your focus on retirement. Only 15 years, 243 days, six hours, and 58 seconds left to go!
- Hate your coworkers. Working with people you like will generate a warm feeling of being part of a team. Think Jane down the hall in accounting is a nice person? Get real. She would stab you in the back just to get your stapler and post-it note dispenser.
- Hold grudges. Did Hank in the IT department publicly humiliate you by disagreeing with your idea to reinstall Windows ME on all department computers? Put his name on a mental list. Act cheerful around him. Plot your revenge. Wait patiently. People who forgive have been shown to be happier. Don’t ever forgive or forget.
- Eliminate your social circle. Having a rich social life significantly increases happiness. So, try to work from home. Don’t speak with your neighbors. Have your groceries delivered. Ask the delivery person to place the bags at the door. Leave the payment in the mailbox.
- Don’t exercise. Research indicates exercise can alleviate depression better than medication. Stay as still as possible. If you must go anywhere, take the car even if it’s just to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper.
- It’s all about the money. Can you believe some people win the lotto and keep coming to work? Morons. There’s only one reason for you to haul your body in each day: moolah. If your job is stimulating and generates a sense of achievement, you should immediately look for something else.
- Multitask like crazy. Immersing yourself completely in a task can lead to a state of “flow,” which has been proven to raise a person’s level of happiness. Check your e-mail and voice mail every minute, keep logged in to all your chat applications, keep your cell phone on at all times, and turn up the volume of that Youtube video while working on something else.
- Never be grateful. Something as simple as mentally making a daily list of five things for which you are grateful has been shown to make people happier. So never be grateful for anything. You deserve much more than you’re getting. Have you just received another raise? Like it’s enough! Other organizations would pay you twice as much.
I know. All of this sounds like a lot of work. But, millions of people have achieved unhappiness at work, and, by following these simple guidelines, you can too.
Topics: Positive psychology, Talent Management | 2 Comments »
First Spam Message Ever Sent Made No Mention of Mortgage Refinancing or Viagra
By Richard Nantel | April 28, 2008
This coming week will mark the 30th anniversary of the birth of e-mail spam. According to technology writer Brad Templeton, the first spam message was sent on May 3, 1978, by a Gary Thuerk to 320 e-mail Arpanet addresses and read as follows:
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE DEC SYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040 AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.
WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CA
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
DUNFEY’S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)
A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.
Apparently, old DEC computer keyboards didn’t have a way to turn off caps lock.
Many recipients responded and were not pleased with the commercial nature of the DEC e-mail. One respondent wrote:
ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.
You can read other responses to this first spam message here.
Today, commercial spam accounts for an estimated 80-90 percent of all e-mail traffic.
More about the history of spam is available here.
Topics: Email, Learning | 1 Comment »
Facebook Chat: Yet Another Instant Messaging Application
By Richard Nantel | April 23, 2008
The new Facebook Chat application was installed into my profile when I logged in this morning. I can now chat with any of my Facebook friends who happen to be online and logged in.
That brings the total to three ways I can chat with people through the Web services and software I use on a daily basis:
- Gmail
- Skype
The new Facebook Chat application is bare-bones. Click a little icon to see who’s online, initiate a chat session, type a message, and send. There are no bells and whistles such as file transfers. You can’t add a third person or others to a chat session.
Of everyone at Brandon Hall Research, I was probably the most resistant to using chat in day-to-day work activities. My past experience with IM was that it wasn’t more efficient than e-mail since so many chat sessions turn into long social conversations or brainstorming sessions.
This is going to make me sound square, but I’m slowly coming around to adding a bit of chat in my life. I love being able to see if someone is online, ask a question, get an immediate answer, and move on. Since I want to provide others with this ability, I try to keep logged into Skype and Gmail during the day.
Often, though, the phone starts to ring, the Skype and Gmail chat boxes both pop up, a flood of e-mail comes in, and I just start clicking wildly to set various profiles to “offline.”
I guess you can say I love chat when it gives me what I want but not when I’m providing a service to others. Yes, that’s totally selfish.
I suspect it’s only a question of time before other software I use daily will include proprietary chat features. So, my days will soon be filled with changing the status of my various chat apps to Online, Busy, Away, Offline, Invisible, etc. Perhaps someone will come up with a killer app that changes the status of all of these chat applications with one click of a mouse.
Topics: Learning, Social networking, instant messaging | 2 Comments »
TeachStreet: A New Social Learning Site
By Richard Nantel | April 21, 2008
A new social Web site has just appeared, designed to put learners and instructors together. TeachStreet’s (www.teachstreet.com) beta launch currently focuses on the Seattle area and boasts a listing of 25,000 available classes. Topics include anything and everything:
- Languages
- Fitness
- Hobbies
- Academic subjects
- Etc.
How It Works:
- Search for a topic you’d like to learn. (Since I’m currently experiencing a bit of insanity in considering running a marathon this fall, I typed in “Marathon Training.”)
- The system provided a list of instructors who provide marathon training in the Seattle area.
- I could sort the list to find an instructor close to me geographically, or I could sort the list based on ratings by other TeachStreet users.
- Clicking on an instructor provided a description of the training provided, a Google map showing the person’s location, photos, links to see who “favorited” this teacher, links to send an e-mail to and write a review of the instructor, and a link to forward the listing to a friend.
The service is free and makes money through ads and providing links to related products on Amazon.
This looks like a great Web service. I can hardly wait for it to include resources in my geographic area. Well done, TeachStreet!
Topics: Learning | 2 Comments »
Happiness: The Hottest College Course
By Richard Nantel | April 16, 2008
My colleague, Gary Woodill, thinks I’m getting all Oprah-like by reading books about happiness. I’ve been trying to convince him that positive psychology, the study of happiness, is just as legitimate as the study schizophrenia, depression, and other psychological ailments. So far, Gary’s unconvinced.
What should help convince my doubting colleague is that students in more than 100 respected universities are enrolling in positive psychology classes in very large numbers. How big? In his book “Happier,” Tal Ben-Shahar mentioned that the first year he taught a course on happiness at Harvard, a handful of students signed up. The second year, more than 300 enrolled. By the third year, more than 850 students had registered, making it the most popular undergraduate class offered at this prestigious university.
Adding even greater legitimacy, some universities now provide graduate level courses in positive psychology. The University of Pennsylvania has taken this even further by offering the first Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program in the world.
A key component of Tal Ben-Shahar’s class at Harvard and other courses on positive psychology is the notion that happiness can be taught. Although research indicates that individuals commonly have a set range in their level of happiness, their average level of happiness can be raised. Based on the number of people enrolling in these classes, this is certainly a promise that resonates with students today.
Dr. Martin Seligman is often referred to as the father of positive psychology. Realizing that psychology has, for more than 100 years, largely focused on mental illness, Dr. Seligman turned his attention in 1998 to the study of human happiness. Since then, studies into happiness have been producing interesting findings.
In his book, “Authentic Happiness,” Dr. Seligman reports that:
- A systematic study of 22 people who won major lotteries found that they reverted to their baseline levels of happiness over time, winding up no happier than 22 matched controls.”
- “Within a few years, [paraplegics] wind up only slightly less happy on average than individuals who are not paralyzed.”
- “In wealthier nations … increases in wealth have negligible effects on personal happiness.”
Studies also indicate that happiness has a significant impact on health and longevity:
“In the largest study to date, 2,282 Mexican-Americans from the Southwest United States aged 65 and older were given a battery of demographic and emotional tests, then tracked for two years. Positive emotion strongly predicted who lived and who died, as well as disability. (p40 “Authentic Happiness,” Martin Seligman)
Happiness also significantly impacts productivity. One study of 272 employees showed that happier people went on to get better evaluations from supervisors and higher pay. In addition, happier people have been shown to select bigger goals, persist longer, and perform better on a number of laboratory tasks.
As interest in positive psychology spills from academia into the workplace, it probably won’t be long before we start seeing happiness courses added to workplace training programs.
Topics: Learning, Positive psychology | 6 Comments »
