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New Year’s Eve Traditions

There are some old New Year’s Eve traditions, like staying at home, drinking and watching Jools Hollands Hootenanny, and then there are some new ones like posting a list of significant blog posts from the passing year, and failing to make any significant predictions.

So this year it’s Tom Jones, Kasabian, Paolo Nutini, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Roger Daltrey, Florence and the machine, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Paloma Faith, Dave Edmunds, Shingai Shoniwa, Rico Rodriguez, Ruby Turner and Boy George.

Dave Edmunds?

And here are the hand selected posts from 2009:

Rowan Tree Folk Song A new song written in Scotland
How to Photograph a Ghost Part of a series of screencasts about Mac Image editing
Blog Action Day – When The Waters Rise
Theatre Breaks Magazine On the launch of a new magazine style theatre blog
Now I’ve Got Swine Flu – Really Live blogging the symptoms
Location independent working – First excursions into the world of location independent working
H1N1 Swine Flu Symptoms News blogging epidemiology at the outset
Grace Hopper on Ada Lovelace Day
Business as usual in the US

Have a happy 2010 everyone, there are going to be some more changes around the corner.

Jools Holland's Hootenanny

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New Year’s Eve Traditions

The Forth Road Bridge

Forth Road Bridge Scotland

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

I don’t have anything in particular I wanted to say about the Forth Road Bridge really, just to post this photograph I took from a vantage point on the south bank of the Forth, just outside the town of Queensferry.

Anything you wanted to know about the Forth Road Bridge you could find out in the rather dull Wikipedia entry:

The Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge in east central Scotland. The bridge, opened in 1964, spans the Firth of Forth; connecting the capital city Edinburgh, at South Queensferry, to Fife, at North Queensferry. The bridge replaced a centuries-old ferry service to carry vehicular traffic, cyclists, and pedestrians across the Forth; rail crossings are made by the adjacent and historic Forth Bridge.
Issues regarding the continued tolling of the bridge, and those over its deteriorating condition and proposals to have it replaced or supplemented by an additional crossing, have caused it to become something of a political football for the Scottish Parliament, which eventually voted to scrap tolls on the bridge with effect from 11 February 2008.

Just whatever you do, don’t get it confused with the much more spectacular but more difficult to photograph “Forth Bridge” which is a railway bridge running parallel, in much the same way as the Tamar road bridge and Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s famous Saltash Bridge ( The Royal Albert Bridge) between Plymouth and Cornwall.

Neither the Forth Bridge nor the Forth Road Bridge is painted continuously.

The Forth Bridge (Railway)

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The Forth Road Bridge

St Andrews Day

St Andrews Day

Today is St Andrews Day, Scotland’s national day and according to French tradition, a sort of birthday for anybody called Andrew. So here’s a picture of the city of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, showing a bit of a cliff where the fulmars glide and the St Andrews harbour wall.

St Andrews

St Andrew himself, if he existed as such, never went to Scotland, he lived in Greece.

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St Andrews Day

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Wordpress Developer Required for Small Coding Job

Are there any good coders out there with an hour or two spare?

I think I’m going to need a WordPress developer of some sort to help me try out an idea I’ve had for better navigation within some of my blogs. To begin with it’s probably just a chunk of code to create a single loop inside a template file, but if it works well there’s a good possibility to turn it into a handy plugin that would be helpful only to certain types of blogs.

WordPress developer required

So where do I go from here? I could go onto one of the rent a coder type sites and ask for a quote I suppose but I thought I’d start by putting this down on my blog so I can refer to it within my networks.

If you think you might be interested in discussing my requirements and starting very soon then do please get in touch.

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Wordpress Developer Required for Small Coding Job

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Ram

Ram , originally uploaded by gil thorp princess.

I think this handsome ram is at Boulder city farm.

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Ram

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Octopus BOGOF

Octopus Agua Amarga Pulpo

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

Octopus was on offer at “Buy One Get One Free” at the local Asian groceries and fish shop yesterday so I picked up two and cooked one today. I simmered the octopus in a Tom Yum broth then added it to a nice sticky tomato sauce with chunks of parsnips, carrots, onions and and beetroot. Served with potato cooked with green peppers.

They also tried to make me buy three sacks of potatoes for the price of four tomatoes but I only wanted the one and stuck to my guns.

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Octopus BOGOF

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Turnstone at Southend on Sea Pier

Turnstone at Southend on Sea Pier, originally uploaded by AndyRob.

I believe that Turnstones should be included as urban wildlife for the way they like to colonise pires, harbours, boat ramps etc in the man made marine environment and the way they behave. Turnstones seem to like hanging about very near people, keeping themselves just a few feet away at times, as they happily wander about pecking at the shorline, floorboards decking or harbour walls.

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Turnstone at Southend on Sea Pier

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H1N1 Virus – Swine Flu Season in Full Flow

Swine Flu Season in Full Flow – H1N1 Virus check

It’s been more than six months since the swine flu epidemic erupted worldwide and in that time we have seen at least two major waves of illness around the northern hemisphere. The first was in our summer as the new virus spread in pockets after international travellers returned home already infected and affected wider populations in specific areas, particularly noticable when attributed to schools. The second wave started when the schools went back in September, in advance of our real winter which is only just beginning now, but peaked within weeks as the warm autumn weather held the virus in check.

November is traditionally the start of the flu season and this year is no exception apart from the fact that the flu virus in circulation is in most cases much more likely to be the new variant of type A H1N1 rather than the usual human h5n1 seasonal flu virus.

Second UK Swine Flu Wave Peaked?

So this is either a third wave or a reprise of the second wave if you prefer, and the signs are that this has just passed a temporary peak, with the number of new reported cases dropping week on week for the first time (UK estimate 46,000 new cases of swine flu in the last week, down from 53,000 week before.) An important question now is whether or not there are any signs of the virus mutating into a type that is more deadly as has happened previously in history with influenza pandemics caused by new strains. The pattern to look out for is one of successive waves of increasing numbers infected, followed eventually by one or more waves which are not only more deadly to victims but also more easily transmittable. Then eventually once a tragic number of fatalities have been cleared away, the flu virus mutates into a milder form that goes on to infect the rest of the world’s population who haven’t already acquired immunity, but without taking nearly such a bad toll in terms of lives. It is reasoned that it’s for this eventuality that various governments have planned vaccination programmes for whole populations, at present being implemented first only for the most “at risk” demographics - young people, children and those with underlying health problems.

For the UK, another important fear is if the virus becomes resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu, since the government has taken the precaution of buying in huge stocks of the tablets, enough to treat one half of the country’s population.

H1N1 Swine Flu in the US after Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday is typically followed by at least a modest bump in early seasonal flu cases, according to reports from the past few years. But this, of course, is not a typical year. Swine flu is a new virus that accounts for nearly all flu cases right now. Usually, seasonal flu is just getting going in late November, and holiday get-togethers allow illness to jump from small pockets to other parts of the country. Swine flu, in contrast, has been widespread for months.

“It’s not like we expect to see a bunch of infected people going to uninfected cities and towns”

said Andrew Pekosz, a flu expert at Johns Hopkins University. The swine flu pandemic hit the US in two waves: first in the spring, then a larger wave that started in the late summer.

The World Health Organization said H1N1 flu was moving eastward across Europe and Asia after appearing to peak in parts of Western Europe and the United States.

Reported Mutations of the swine flu type A H1N1 virus

Mutations of the DNA of influenza viruses are typical of any pandemic and world experts are watching carefully for any first signs of a dangerous mutation. So far the indications are that early warning systems are working but that no such mutation with a deadly combination of easy transmission, deadly payload and/or drugs resistance has shown up – yet. Isolated cases of different mutations have been reported from Brazil, Norway and China and drug resistance in a hospital in Wales.

from MetroNews.CA Toronto

WHO’s spokeswoman in Beijing, Vivian Tan, said the agency is aware of three such cases in China that occurred in June and July that were similar to the cases being investigated in Norway. Tan said WHO had no information on the cases mentioned in the Xinhua report Wednesday.
There is no evidence the mutated swine flu virus is circulating widely in the world, Tan said, but since it has been linked to deaths in Norway and elsewhere, investigators are focusing on whether this mutation could be a marker for more severe disease.
“We are concerned, but realize that influenza viruses, including A/H1N1, are relatively unstable and change easily, especially as they infect more people,” Tan told The Associated Press. “Some mutations can have minimal effects on how a virus functions, while other mutations can create important changes with significant public health impact.”

Several troubling outbreaks of drug-resistant H1N1 have been documented but it has been noted they are limited so far and there are no indications yet that the virus is mutating in a sustained way.

Swine Flu Deters Pilgrims to HAJJ

Saudi authorities announced four pilgrims have died of the H1N1 swine flu virus in the days leading up to the pilgrimage which began on Wednesday 26th November 2009. A Moroccan woman, a Sudanese man and an Indian man, all 75, and a 17-year-old Nigerian girl, died from H1N. The Saudi Health Ministry said the four had not followed ”recommended procedures, especially vaccination against swine flu”.

All the victims so far had been suffering from underlying health conditions with 16 other cases of swine flu infection among pilgrims. Health authorities in Saudi have mobilised for the world’s largest gathering since swine flu began spreading across the globe, but the number of pilgrims going on Hajj is likely to be lower this year due to rainstorms, and local officials admitting that fears of swine flu may keep away at least 40 percent of local pilgrims.

Tamiflu resistant swine flu

A Tamiflu resistant strain of the swine flu has spread between hospital patients in Cardiff, Wales. They are thought to be the first confirmed cases of person-to-person transmission of a Tamiflu resistant strain in the world. Five patients at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales appear to have acquired the infection while being treated for other conditions, and these have now been joined by a sixth related case of the drug resistent flu strain.

The H1N1 virus has been remarkably stable since it emerged in April, but virologists had been half expecting new resistant strains to emerge somewhere in the world, and it appears to have happened first at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

Norwegian Swine Flu H1N1 variation

Scientists in Norway announced recently that they had detected a mutated form of the swine flu virus in two patients who died of the flu and a third who was severely ill. The Norwegian mutation could possibly make the virus more prone to infect deeper in the airways and thus cause more severe disease, such as pneumonia. Influenza is a mutable virus, and changes are to be expected, this is typical early in the spread of a pandemic virus.

Some 680,000 Norwegians are estimated to have been infected with swine flu to date, of which 23 have died.

WHO says there have been over 6,750 deaths worldwide so far.

Vaccine programmes, limited and late

Although the world was alerted to the new strain of flu virus spreading in Mexico City back in April, the preparations made for a vaccination programme have been effected later than was originally hoped. Last week in the UK for example, it was announced that more than three million healthy children under five across the UK will be offered the swine flu jab, whereas the announcements back before the summer were that a widespread vaccination programme would begin in September. Over in France, the first cases of a vaccine induced illness have been reported, reviving fears of a repeat of the terrible situation in the US during the 1975 pandemic when a vaccination programme was halted due to large numbers of tragic side effects.

Further Information: Swine Flu H1N1 Virus Symptoms

Click here to view the embedded video.

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H1N1 Virus – Swine Flu Season in Full Flow

Free Seats At The Free Shop

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

This is one of the free seats at the free shop. Of course some people will say that you get what you pay for and this seat is being offered at a fair price which exactly reflects its use value. On the other hand, at these prices you could chop them up for firewood and use the ashes as soil conditioner. If you’ve had to stand in a very long queue or work on a street stall then you’d know there are times you’d pay anything for a nice sit down, so I suppose the point here is that it all depends on the context.

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Free Seats At The Free Shop

Free FTP Client Software – Using Filezilla to update Websites

Red Panda

panda, originally uploaded by estherase.

The red panda is a very special animal, once thought to be related to the giant panda but now known to be more closely connected gentically with the raccoon and weasel. An endangered species, like the giant panda, this red panda is not wild but a resident at London Zoo, from which one of the red pandas has escaped in the past.

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Red Panda

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Building a log pile

I started building a small log pile a couple of years ago in order to add to the environmental diversity in my back garden. There were only a few pieces of wood though, left over from some grubbing out and thinning. Then there was the incident with the dangerously overgrown eucalyptus tree which had to be taken down or severely pollarded. When the tree surgeons came to do the job I told them to leave me the logs, so this is what I had as my raw material to build my substantial log pile with.

The rest of this story can be told largely in pictures, I think. Unless there are any questions.

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Building a log pile

Chinese New Year February 14th 2010

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

The Chinese New Year festival falls on February 14th this year, 2010 but celebrations in London’s Chinatown take place for a week or more around that time. It’s a moveable feast, also referred to as Chinese spring festival, and just as much belonging to south east Asia as China.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

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Chinese New Year February 14th 2010

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Seashore Image Editing Tutorial 5 – Tinting

This is the last in my series of five image editing tutorials using Seashore for Mac.

Previous video tutorials have covered:

The topic for this latest video (5) is “tinting”, a technique for adding or changing colour tones for discrete areas within an image. The screencast video itself was a little too long to upload to youTube in one piece, so I’ve spit it into two parts, part 1 and part 2.

Image Editing Video Tutorial – Tinting Part 1

Click here to view the embedded video.

Image Editing Video Tutorial – Tinting Part 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

The picture used to illustrate the selective tinting technique is available for practice and has a creative commons license which means that it can be reproduced should you wish to do so, with proper linked attribution.

image editing picture : Houseboat before

image editing picture : Houseboat after

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Seashore Image Editing Tutorial 5 – Tinting

Winter Solstice The Shortest Day

I’m not exactly sure if the Winter Solstice should be celebrated on the 21st December each year in the Northern Hemisphere, or on the shortest day which could be the 21st or the 22nd. The actual solstice itself, is just a moment which occurs when the earth’s tilt is furthest from the Sun, so the Sun’s path across the daytime sky, when it reaches the maximum height, is the lowest of the year. In the Southern Hemishere the seasons are reversed so the winter solstice is around June 21st and they will be having a Summer solstice or longest day while we are urging the Sun to start coming back again, here in the North.

Probably the best thing to do on the eve of the longest night is to create some light and warmth by lighting a fire, and making merry, so it’s lucky that I still have one portion of barbecue charcoal left, and some wood offcuts from the log pile. There’s still some snow on the ground too, so that’s very appropriate.

logs for the Winter Solstice fire

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Winter Solstice The Shortest Day

Redpoll

How to Photograph a Ghost

How to Photograph a Ghost using free image editing software

As it’s halloween night tonight, and I have been requested to publish more image editing video tutorials using the Seashore free image editor for Mac, here’s the latest lesson in the series, which should be a lot of fun. It’s called “How to Photograph a Ghost” and will enable you to produce a well executed picture of a ghostly transparent human body against a real background without any noticable edges and even with the perfect shadow effects. As this is tutorial number 4 in a series, following on from :-

… we do use some slightly more advanced techniques then in the first three image editing with Seashore for Mac videos, but nothing that the beginner cannot master with just a short amount of practice. You can’t use an existing photograph, you’ll either have to go out and take a picture specially in one place, twice, or else you can download and use the two creative commons licensed photographs used as an example in the video.

Image Editing Video Tutorial – Seashore for Mac 4

So first watch the video all the way through, then decide on your subject matter:

After watching the video once, you can wind back to the beginning and try copying the same technique yourself using the seashore software. The best thing would be to go out and shoot a similar pair of your own photographs, being careful to hold the same camera position for both.

If you do decide to use the example pictures to practice on, you can download them by cmd+clicking the following two thumbnail pictures then selecting “save target as” or else clicking through to the larger pictures then dragging them off to your desktop.

Background Picture

Man against Background

Image editing Photo Credits

You are welcome to these or any of my photographs for online publication provided you abide by the create commons license which require you to attribute the photographer as “Andy Roberts” and link back to this blog.

If you found this free video tutorial useful, it would be nice if you would please rate and favourite the image editing tutorial 4 on youtube and blog, retweet stumble etc this post,

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/10/31/how-to-photograph-a-ghost

cheers.

Andy Roberts

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How to Photograph a Ghost

Oystercard PAYG On Main Line Rail in London

Oystercard On Mainline Rail at last

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

At last, since 3rd January 2010 we now have the Oystercard Pay As You Go machines installed and working on all main line railway stations in London. This means it’s no longer necessary to make the advance guessing calculation as to whether it’s better to buy a return rail ticket into Liverpool Street station plus a possible two bus or tube journeys, or buy the one day off peak travelcard. Single journeys are taken off the Oystercard at 2.30 a go, and then the whole days journeys are capped at the rate of a travelcard if you do make that many journeys in total. It’s nice because the range of Transport for London extends right out to Romford as well. The only disadvantage is that the Oystercard now needs topping up more often, but the railway station near where I live has no facilities to do this yet! So it’s a walk across the road to a local newsagents or else remember to top up when I’m out somewhere at a tube station, London Overground, or where the newsagent is right next to the bus stop.

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Oystercard PAYG On Main Line Rail in London

How to make a log pile habitat for wildlife

Take the worry out of disposing of those bulky cuttings and create a home for wildlife. Log piles are a valuable habitat for mosses, lichens and fungi, as well as many insects.

Leave woody cuttings from trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in piles within a shrub bed.
It is best to not cut the wood into small pieces. Leave it in direct contact with the ground, in dappled shade and in compact piles to maintain humidity. Larger diameter pieces are of most value, but even small twigs and branches should not be discounted, and neither should the cut stems of herbaceous plants.

Full sun will dry and heat the wood and it will support little life. Dense shade is good for fungi, but may be too cold for most insects.

Add to your decaying wood, using wood from friends and neighbours. A local tree surgeon may also be able to supply you with some logs. Avoid taking logs from woods and hedges as you will be removing the resource from its natural environment, along with any associated flora or fauna.
Logs at least 100mm thick (4 ins) with the bark still attached provide the best wood. Hard wood trees such as ash, oak and beech are particularly good. Birch logs can look particularly attractive. Be careful of freshly cut willow and poplar logs, as these can easily re-sprout if left lying on the ground.
Allowing a climber to ramble over woodpiles, logs and stumps can cover them and help retain moisture. However, the shade may make it too cold for some insects.

Alternatively, use an old 15 litre (3 gallon) bucket. Drill some drainage holes in the bottom and cut lots of holes (30mm or 1.25 ins) in the side of the bucket at 50mm (2ins) spacing. Put some large stones in the bottom and then quarter fill the bucket with garden soil and top with course hardwood chips. Completely bury the bucket in a discrete corner of the garden.
Lay a stack of logs laid on their side. To prevent them rolling, drive a stake into the ground either side of the pile.

You can create standing dead wood by partially burying logs vertically in the ground to an approximate depth of 450 to 500mm (18 to 20 ins). Use logs of different diameters and length and bury them side-by-side to form a pyramid. If space is a limitation, a single log either buried in the soil or on top is still of value.

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/11/07/building-a-log-pile

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How to make a log pile wildlife habitat

Redpoll

A redpoll visited our wintry East London garden today, part of a small mixed flock of birds including Great Tits. It’s the first one I’ve seen, and this brings the garden birds list total up to 25.

Redpoll

Originally uploaded by ArunMarsh

There’s snow on the ground and plenty of birds are out there stocking up on the wild bird food we put out for them.

The solitary squirrel who took up residence a year or so ago has found a mate, and they can both tightrope walk across the clothes line to get to the bird feeders, which provides entertainment but it seems they are afraid of starlings, so when a flock of those comes by all the other little birds get their feeders back for a while, not to mention the woodpecker.

A dusting of snow

Snow picture by Linda Hartley

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Redpoll

Urban Fox Takes The Tube

This Urban fox was captured coming up the escalator from the tube in London.

by Kate (@radiokate on twitter) via Steve Lawson

Arriving at my home tube station late last night I was greeted by this fantastic/unexpected sight!

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Urban Fox Takes The Tube

Urban Fox Dozing

West End Shows London

Time for another quick round up of the West End shows. London theatreland at the end of 2009 is beginning to adapt slightly to the changing economy and the initial bravado about the industry being recession-proof has faded. The same old shows are still playing to nearly full audiences in the West End, but the theatre going public is expecting to be able to find bargain packages and special offers before committing to future bookings. As ever, a large part of the London audience is comprised of visitors to the capital, more from abroad and a few less from the UK regions. The percentage of foreign language speaking ticket buyers has even been recognised by theatre managers with Hairspray trialling a gizmo that provides a text translation in sync with the show in several popular languages.

New West End Shows, London 2010

Love Never Dies

Andrew Lloyd Webber insists this is not a sequel to Phantom of the Opera but the plot for this big new show continues the story 10 years later with the same characters. Opening in the West End London in March 2010

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is going to be as well known as Oliver because of a similar TV contest to find Dorothy, a show called “Over The Rainbow”

Chicago

Not a new show as such but Chicago in London manages to keep fresh interest through a series of creative cast changes. Early in 2010, West end favourite Ruthie Henshall returns to play Roxy.

Moonshadow

Cat Stevens is back, but different. At some point Yusuf Islam’s “Moonshadow” musical will appear in one of the West end theatres and I think it will find a lasting audience after initial problems settle down.

London Musicals and Plays

Oliver, London

Oliver is on its third Fagin and now Kerry Ellis, the former Wicked star is due to take over from Jodie Prenger as Nancy.

Billy Elliot, London

A Surprising huge success on Broadway, Billy Elliot in London edges further into a long continuous run at the Victoria Palace Theatre. Support the Miners.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Tennesse Wiliams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is the hot ticket for non-musical show in London, with a much acclaimed adaptation brought over from a sell out run on Broadway.

West End Shows London Theatre Breaks

West End Shows London Theatre Breaks as thoughtful presents or booked online during the holiday as an antidote to the festive season.

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West End Shows London

Influencing change using stories

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:33:26 -0400

In late February and early March we ran workshops in Melbourne and Sydney with Kevin Bishop from the UK. The workshops focussed on Influencing Change using Stories. Until recently, Kevin was heading the change activities for 60,000 staff at the Royal Bank of Scotland. We learned heaps and the feedback from participants was fantastic.

The photo show the three of us (L to R: Shawn, Kevin, Mark) last Thursday at the LIW Centre for Leadership at Chowder Bay in Sydney. The photo below shows the group having lunch overlooking the harbour. You might as well do it in style!

Our venue in Melbourne was also fantastic - the headquarters of Lifesaving Victoria right on Sandridge Beach in Port Melbourne.

Origins - Asia Pacific Business Narrative Conference 2010 - Call for Case Studies

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:09:09 -0500

part of The Singapore International Storytelling Festival

6-8 September, Singapore

Call for Case Studies

In early 2009 we (Patrick Lambe and I) wanted to see if we could put together a conference on storytelling for business. Our concept was for a very practical, workshop-focused conference, designed to help Asia Pacific business people apply story approaches to boost business performance. But we werent sure if anyone would come!

So we organised a two-day masterclass on business narrative as part of The Singapore International Storytelling Festival, and the festival did a terrific job in telling people about the event. We waited anxiously to see if anyone would register. Did Asia Pacific organisations really value storytelling as a legitimate and effective business technique? Patrick called me in Melbourne a couple of weeks after we announced the event: registrations were coming in fast. We were booked out months in advance.

This year we want to build on that success and focus on the many story practitioners in our region to create an event where we can learn from each other while also expanding the awareness of narrative approaches among the region's organisations. Were looking for proposals for case study presentations from within the Asia Pacific region to share what you have done and what you have learned.

The conference has three objectives

To build a network of practitioners to deepen the practice of storytelling and story use in organizations.
To create awareness of the broad utility of narrative techniques for dealing with business issues, their capacity to humanise the workplace, and to help organisations deal with complexity and uncertainty.
To inspire leaders to take the first steps in applying narrative techniques in their businesses.

Conference design

The event will have three parts:

Day 1 will be a closed practitioner's forum for the conference speakers and case study presenters only. We will spend the day sharing what we have learned from a practitioner's perspective. The day will be designed for dialogue rather than presentations.

Day 2 will be a public conference where practitioners will present case studies that illustrate the effectiveness of story-work; and

Day 3 will consist of a set of 1/2 day workshops to enable attendees to build their business story skills in specific areas such as coaching, organisational change, leadership development and communication.

Do you have a case study to share?

We are seeking expressions of interest to share a case study at the conference. We are particularly interested in stories of working with narrative in organizations, across private, public and non-profit sectors. They should clearly illustrate the value of how stories and storytelling can be used to meet the organisation's business needs.

Case presenters will:

Participate in the closed practitioners forum on 6 September
Share their case study in round table discussions in the morning of 7 September
Offer to share a technique they have successfully used in a techniques marketplace session in the afternoon of 7 September

How we will select the case studies

We will select case studies based on:

richness of the case for learning
transferability of the lessons
demonstrated impact
innovative approaches
geographic representation
representation of different kinds of organization

Please send a short description (a couple of paragraphs) to both Patrick Lambe (plambe@straitsknowledge.com) and Shawn Callahan (shawn@anecdote.com.au) before 22nd March. Were also happy to trade ideas by email or Skype if you want to develop an idea before you decide to put a more formal description together.

Shawn Callahan

Patrick Lambe

Research shows that stories create personal motivation and increase productivity

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:46:47 -0500

The second Tuesday of every second month the Strathmore Unicorns Junior Basketball Club's committee meets. I'm the club Secretary and last Tuesday we were discussing the perennial topic of how to encourage our players (and their parents) to pay their registration fees on time.

Each year the Treasurer send a letter to laggards warning them that if they don't pay their fees they will not be insured and wont be able to play. This letter might have worked in the past but over the years coaches rarely stop their players from playing because of outstanding fees. So unless we become more draconian, the threatening letter approach has run its course.

As everyone was chatting I was recalling Influencer's six sources of influence and based on that model I suggested an alternative that appealed to personal and social motivation of an important person on every team: the team manager.

Here are my two suggestions. Love to hear yours in the comments.

Personal motivation initiative: we are creating a one-page handout describing why the team manager is an important role and listing four things every manager must do to be great at the job. The first on the list is to collect registration fees on time. I did think we should include a short story of how a manager did one of these tasks (more on this idea below).

Social motivation initiative: For the next four months we will share with all the team managers the overall percentage of teams that are all paid up and either congratulating them of getting all their fees in or encouraging to be as good as the rest. The overall percentage at the outset will be large which will send the message that most people are paying (social proof).

To add to this thinking I discovered this morning some important influence research which shows how stories can be added to this mix with tremendous effect. Over at the Inside Influence Report Noah Goldstein reports on Adam Grant's research showing that reminding people of the meaning and significance of their work can double their productivity. And he did this by simply sharing stories from those people who benefited from the call centre worker's hard work: in this case benefactors of a fundraising organisation.

Here is how Grant ran his experiment. Working in a fundraising organisation call centre, Grant divided his participants into three groups: people who were reminded of their personal benefits of the job; people reminded of the significance their tasks was having on the benefactors of their work; and the control group. The personal benefit group read stories from other employees about the benefits of the job such as money, skills and knowledge. The task significance group read stories from the people the organisation was giving scholarships to and how these scholarships effected their lives. The control group didn't hear any stories.

Here's how Golstein reports the results:

What they found was amazing. Employees in the Personal Benefit and Control conditions looked almost exactly the same after the intervention as before it in terms of amount of donation money raised and the number of pledges earned. Yet, those in the Task Significance condition earned more than twice the number of weekly pledges (from an average of 9 to an average of 23) and more than twice the amount of weekly donation money (from an average of $1,288 to an average of $3,130). Additional analyses suggest that the huge increase was driven by previously unmotivated employees increasing the number of calls they made per hour.

So my question is who's story does the team managers need to hear? I can't imagine hearing a story from the committee of how getting the money in on time will motivate anyone. Perhaps it needs to be a story from one of the players that received a scholarship or from a parent in the under eights who gets reduced fees to get them started. Or maybe it is a story from one of the coaches who all just received new coaches tops.

Grant, A. M. (2008). The significance of task significance: Job performance effects, relational mechanisms, and boundary conditions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 108-124.

Influencing change using stories

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:30:57 -0500

Our venue in Melbourne was also fantastic - the headquarters of Lifesaving Victoria right on Sandridge Beach in Port Melbourne.

Endings are important for how we remember experiences

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:29:42 -0500

Daniel Kahneman, the founder of behavioural economics and winner of the Nobel prize in Economics, tell this story in a recent TED talk.

A friend was recently listening to a recording of a beautiful symphony and then at the end of the recording there was a terrible screeching noise. "It ruined the whole experience for me," he said.

Of course the screeching didn't ruin his whole experience because he had 20 minutes or so listening to a beautiful symphony. It did, however, ruin his memory of the experience.

Endings are important. Kahneman describes Dan Ariely research¹ on how people perceive pain when they have a colonoscopy.

Check out these two graphs Kahneman showed in his TED talk. They report two patients' experience of pain during a colonoscopy. The second patient clearly endured more pain over a longer period. Interestingly, when ask to report on their memory of the experience the second patient remembered it to be less painful than the first. Ariely's research concludes that people remember an experience based on what happens as the end, especially if it's trending in a direction (such as, to lower pain).

So it's important to focus on the end. We remember the whole in terms of what happens at the end. With the colonoscopy research they found that just leaving in the tube for longer and not wiggling around too much gave people a happier ending.

It's no coincidence then that a common plot structure is one where the story builds to a strong ending.

You can use this type of plot structure to plan and deliver a presentation so everyone remembers the experience. Of course a good memory of the event happens when the last thing you did is satisfying.

1. Ariely, D. 1998, 'Combining Experiences Over Time: The Effects of Duration, Intensity Changes and On-Line Measurements on Retrospective Pain Evaluations', Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, vol. 11, pp. 19-45.

More anti-procrastination strategies

I've been reading Suw Charman's Desk diary update, in her fight against procrastination, with interest.

I am Queen of writing to-do lists, which only ever get longer. I've got (real) post-it notes all around my workspace, I've got a flip-chart prominently placed in my sitting room. I have two or three small notebooks. And that's before I even start talking about the post-it notes on my computer desk top and my iCal to-do list that sends me reminders.

And still, my lists get longer. And still I spend a lot of time turning over in my mind all the things I have to do. And all the things I'm not doing. It makes it difficult to take time out because I'm haunted by all those things to do. But in not having sufficient breaks I can see that my continuous partial attention disorder worsens.

Also like Suw, I've tried keeping track of my hours in Excel. Perhaps I made it too complicated because I created lots of columns where I had to categorise what I was doing. But the act of categorising makes me anxious and I gave up after a month.

Now she has an A5 desk diary, where she notes how much time she spends on things, including time spent on having a shower and faffing about. And she discovered that she faffs about less time than she thinks.

As I set myself up for a very busy September and October, I have to get my systems set up right. I want to know how much time I'm spending on what. And I need to be sure that I'm building in enough time for myself.

So I'm off to buy an A5 diary. And I'll cut back to one small notebook and my iCalendar. Post-it notes, flip-chart, pieces of paper and extra notebooks are all going to bed. Hmmm ... now is this is yet another procrastination strategy or am I really about to transform my life?

Suw is a speaker at the SHiFT conference on 28, 29th September and I'm looking forward to meeting someone who understands my condition.

Tags: continuouspartialattention, anti-procrastination, SHIFT06

Name of new blog - looking for inspiration

Since getting more organised I've had time to start planning my new blog and mulling over what to call it. I was wondering if I could incorporate a Latin expression from a Roman poet that I have on a post-it note above my desk:

Est modus in rebus. (There is measure - a middle way - in all things).

I wonder sometimes why this quote fascinates me. I think it's partly because the story of my life has been someone who didn't measure things, I only ever fully immersed myself. But with age I'm learning the importance of measure.

And I think it talks to me in another way. While I often hear people framing ideas, concepts and solutions as if they had to be either one thing or another, wisdom actually lies in engaging in that grey area in the middle.

This quote is also on a really cool painting called "The Measurers" in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. There are two things I love about this painting, which is a Flemish image of mathematics in the sixteenth century. First, it shows maths as an everyday activity. There is maths in a kid beating out the rhythm, in a woman working with cloth. There's an amorous couple in the background, and I guess there is some maths in what they are doing. But anyway, it's maths as situated cognition, (and the basis for theories of learning in communities of practice).

The other thing I like about the painting is that the central character is a designer of mathematical instruments. This was, apparently, unusual. The instruments (and their maker) were normally taken for granted. I like the focus on the tool maker as a central part of the activities, in amongst - and probably in conversation with - the people about him.

Anyway, the long and the short of my meanderings is that I'm not going to call my blog "Est modus in rebus", much as I like the expression, the poet Horace (65 BC to 8 BC) and this painting! But I do find myself coming back to the Renaissance for inspiration, so perhaps my next blog's name lies somewhere there...

SHiFT - early bird registration

Today is the last day for early bird registration to ShiFT (Social and Human Ideas for Technology).

They have got a really great lineup of speakers for the conference, including some friends I look forward to seeing and other I hope to meet.

There's a lot happening in September/October!

Tags: SHIFT, conference

Getting ready: next phase

So I haven't been blogging much because:

1. I've had lots of reports to write and work to finish.

2. I'm starting some new projects and have to take care of them.

3. I'm working at less than half speed because I am tired and I dream of going to the beach and doing holiday like things.

4. I feel the time has come to start a new blog.

5. I've been wondering about the question: who am I?

But ... reports have mostly been written, new projects are on the schedule and I think I've got a bit of headspace to go to the beach. Who am I will change as I've decided to work only part-time in Ensino Superior and continue doing more of my own projects - related to designing for learning in distributed communities.

What's more, getting less fuzzy about my identity helps me conceptualise the transition to my new blog. And although it might not be obvious, getting clearer about my identity will also help me finish writing my doctorate.

As for my new blog I've been toying with converting to Wordpress. But yesterday I got distracted with the new Blogger in beta. What I have always liked about Blogger (unlike Wordpress, Typepad etc.) is that you can manipulate the html stuff much easier - but what has bugged me (not to mention the boring templates) is that you can't categorise your posts. Now with Blogger in beta you can categorize your posts. Another small but welcome change is that you can preview your post before sending it.

So ... here's to the small and big things that signal a next phase creeping up!

Tags: identity,, phd

It's how you recover when things fail that counts

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:32:44 -0500

Since we started Anecdote in 2004 our local Kwik Kopy in Coburg has printed most of our posters and workshop materials. Kelvin does a great job. Always high quality, delivered when we need it despite the outrageous time frames we sometimes impose.

That was the case up until this Wednesday. We'd created a high quality handbook to support our Influence Change workshop and I picked them up from Kelvin at 4.30pm ready for the next day. At about 6pm I open the box and my heart sunk. The workbooks looked shoddy. Some of the pages were in the wrong order and all of them had edges that weren't trimmed and aligned properly. Very unusual for Kelvin. And I needed them for 7.15am the next morning.

I called Kelvin. I could hear his concern in his voice and he came over to my house right away. He apologised, kept extremely calm and said he would set it right. He went back to his store a personally redid our handbooks and arrived back at my place at 10pm with a perfect set.

It's interesting how we often don't make a comment when someone provides a great service day in, day out but we really notice when someone recovers well when the chips are down.

So if you are anywhere near Coburg and need printing services I highly recommend Kelvin's Kwik Kopy shop. Here is his address and contact details.

Kwik Kopy Printing Centre Coburg

Kelvin Minerds

583 Sydney Road, Coburg, VIC 3058

Phone (03) 9354 5822

Strategy alignment and execution consultants: Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney Australia

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:12:51 -0500

Anecdote helps you harness the natural power of stories to bring your strategy to life. We help you tell your strategic story and then engage your employees in the strategic process so everyone has a hand in creating it. The result is a strategy everyone understands in concrete, specific terms where the level of commitment to its achievement is vastly increased.

We apply four specialties to bring your strategy to life.

Business Storytelling

Anecdote trains and coaches leaders to find and tell their stories to influence, persuade and communicate more effectively, and to provide a coherent path when times are turbulent.

Facilitating change

Anecdote facilitates complex change initiatives by balancing the nuts and bolts of what needs to be done with insight into whats really going on and through engaging emotions to create a resolve among your people to take action.

Leadership and management development

Anecdote delivers leadership development programs that enable leaders to conclude for themselves the essential traits of a leader and starts them off on their own personal change journey and then act as a powerful model for employees.

Building collaborative workplaces

We help our clients be more effective and resilient through developing their capabilities to work collaboratively, in teams, in communities of people with shared interest and expertise, and across diverse networks.

NB: For our regular readers you might be wondering why we are explaining what we do in a blog post. We just wanted to make sure people could find our services around making strategies stick and our four speciality areas.

Business storytelling consultants: Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney Australia

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:10:02 -0500

We apply four specialties to bring your strategy to life.

Business Storytelling

Anecdote trains and coaches leaders to find and tell their stories to influence, persuade and communicate more effectively, and to provide a coherent path when times are turbulent.

Facilitating change

Leadership and management development

Building collaborative workplaces

Book review: SwitchHow to Change Things When Change is Hard

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:34:05 -0500

It was going to be difficult to surpass their last book, Made to Stick, where they showed us that people wont pay attention unless our message is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and a story. And it was going to be even harder practising what they preached to make Switch stick. But I'm delighted to report that they've pulled it off and have created an engaging and useful work on how to change things when change is hard.

Switch is arranged around an analogy (immediately visual and sticky). When we are making a decision we're often torn between our rational, logical reasons and our emotional, intuitive feelings. Chip and Dan ask us to imagine an Elephant and its Rider (the mahout). The Rider represents the rational and logical. Tell the Rider what to do, provide a good argument and the Rider will do it. The Elephant, on the other hand, represents our emotions, our gut response. The Rider might like to avoid that hamburger and chips but there is very little the Rider can do if the Elephant really wants it (OK, so I'm telling you what happened last night). To complete their analogy they include the Path they are travelling along. If the Rider can direct the Elephant down a well prepared Path then there is a good chance for change. The Path might represent, for example, access to user friendly technology or effective office space design. Switch is arranged in three parts: Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant and Shape the Path.

On Saturday in 2000 ... In 1990 ... A doctor was asked ... Crystal Jones joined Teach for America in 2003 ... These are the first few words of the first four chapters and apart from the last chapter each starts with a story. And within each chapter are more stories. These stories are well chosen and illustrate the behaviours we need to adopt to effect change. The whole book is focussed on behaviours and rightly makes the point that change comes from changing people's behaviour. That's the level you need to take. A leader cannot afford to stay aloof. For change to occur they need to get into the detail as well as stay strategic.

As a business storyteller Switch is a treasure trove of stories to be retold in organisations. Last week I was running a strategy workshop and I wanted the group to identify a set of guiding principles for their organisation. So I told them the story of the Brazilian railway that was going broke and how Alexandre Behring and his CFO created four rules to guide everyone's spending behaviour to get them out of debt. I shared the rules with the participants and they knew exactly what I meant and were able to easily create their own guiding principles. Strategy execution is a change initiative and Chip and Dan advise us to script the critical moves.

Here is the structure of the book. Notice how each section is a pointer to behaviour.

Direct the Rider: Find the bright spots; Script the critical moves; Point to the destination

Motivate the Elephant: Find the feeling; Shrink the Change; Grow your people

Shape the Path: Tweak the environment; Build habits; Rally the herd

On page 58 we encounter our first clinic and I must admit I groaned slightly when I bumped into it. Getting me to do exercises while I'm reading is normally a pain. I was going to just skip the clinic but decided to have a read and the thing I noticed was that the repetition of the ideas in another context was really helping me to remember. I knew repetition is important but I guess the story approach sucked me in and reinforced it.

One the first things I check when I get a book like Switch is to see whether it is comprehensively referenced and what type of studies are being referred to (if any). Switch passed with flying colours. The endnotes are expansive and they share a swag of evidence for each point they make and often used the psychological experiments as stories rather than just presenting the facts.

Switch is a book that will be read by senior leaders. It's engaging, well written, funny in parts and insightful. If you're an change practitioner in an organisation I recommend you buy a handful of copies and give them to your leaders. In my experience they wont read it right away but then they'll jump on a flight and start and wont stop. At this point you'll not only have a supporter but someone who will compel your involvement. Malcolm Gladwell has served me well in the past and Switch is in the same league.

Some tips for capturing stories on video

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:13:22 -0500

A few nights ago I watch Changeling starring Angelina Jolie. It's directed by Clint Eastwood (has he ever directed a dud movie?) and I was fascinated by a short documentary we found in the DVD extras where Clint explained why he never calls out 'Action' when directing a scene. As an actor Clint found a director's call to 'Action' off putting. He was immediately reminded that he was an actor, acting and his performance suffered. Instead Clint calmly and quietly says things like, "OK, in your own time ..." or "when you are ready ..."

I'll add that advice to my repertoire of tips for getting people to tell their stories on video. I like to use my Flip Video to make rough and ready clips. Here are the seven things I keep in mind when filming:

Sit the person in front of plain background--you don't want to be distracted by what's behind the storyteller
Have light come in from the side (sit them next to a window) to give their face more depth. But not in direct sunlight.
Hold the camera as still as I can.
Start filming well before you ask the person to recount their experience and engage them in some idle chit chat. This gets them used to being filmed.
Keep the camera as close to my face as possible and tell the storyteller to tell me, not the camera, the story. Ask them to look me in the eye. With the camera close by it will look like they are looking at the camera.
Keep filming after they finish their story. You never know what they will say after they relax and then there is plenty of space to edit the ending.
Try to avoid making noise and nodding while they are telling their story (hard to do). Otherwise your sounds and movement also get captured.

Collaboration provides autonomy

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:54:16 -0500

Last week I started a new Making Strategies Stick project with a large IT company. The guys I'm working with are the technical sales folk and as we were working out their strategic story they mentioned that the passion that was once there for their products seemed to be waning among some of their technical specialists.

These guys work closely with the sales people. The way they work together, however, varies dramatically from being merely instructed by the sales people to do demonstrations of the product (they call this being demo dollies) to working collaboratively as peers with the sales people.

I asked whether those who showed a lack of passion were also the ones treated as demo dollies. Th answer was yes.

Dan Pink has done a good job in his latest book, Drive, to show that there are three important factors that affect our motivation: purpose, mastery and autonomy. It seems that in this case those treated as demo dollies were losing their autonomy (and also unable to apply their mastery) and were losing the spark for the product. Collaboration (where collaboration is when peers work together to tackle complex activities--see our paper), on the other hand, provided all three factors.

Another good reason to get serious about collaboration in your business.

Leaders should tell a story to explain why

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:52:17 -0500

On a recent trip to Canberra I was lining up to board the plane. Behind me was a young family. Their young son, probably four or five, was quizzing his dad.

The boy said: "Why are we in the line?"

"Because we are getting on the plane," his dad replied.

"Why are we getting on the plane?"

"Because we are visiting Grandma in Canberra.," says dad.

"Why are we visiting Grandma?"

"Because we love Grandma and she likes us to visit."

Our urge to know 'why' is deeply embedded in our psyche. From an early age we want to know the reason things happen. It helps us predict what might happen in the future and makes us feel safe.

The desire to know why doesn't diminish with age. If a CEO announces that the company is shifting direction to concentrate on customer service, everyone in the company will want to know why.

And if they haven't been told the story of how the shift came about, they will create their own story.

Imagine two colleagues chatting after the CEO announcement to focus on customer service.

"After all these years banging on about innovation, now it's customer service. What's that about?" says Paul

"Well, I heard the new chairman is a zealot for customer service and at his last position there was a dramatic improvement when they focussed on their customers. He must have twisted the CEO's arm," says David

"Good to know the CEO can think for himself," Paul chuckles rolling his eyes.

If leaders don't tell the story that explains important decisions then employees will use the best information they have to create their own story. At best this only confuses everyone and stalls action. At worse the new direction is actively undermined by the competing stories.

You might be thinking, "so do the senior leaders simply spin a story that's serves their purpose?" You could try but employees are too smart to believe a porky pie. It's in everyone's interest for the leaders to tell what really happen to prompt the change. There are two things someone hearing the story will ask themselves before they will really listen to what's being said: is it relevant? and, is it plausible? Fail these two tests and you may as well be telling the stationery cupboard. With something as important as a new strategic direction it's vital that all the leaders want and can tell this story.

We call this type of story a strategic story and we've been having fun helping some interesting companies find and tell their strategic story.

The people part of change

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:37:23 -0500

In late May 2009 I was invited to advise on change management on a big project in Sydney.

The client was a medium size logistics organisation with a history of poor performance, low staff engagement and sub-standard customer service. They were in the midst of something of a crisis. They had been directed to substantially down size, two recent reviews had condemned them for their inefficiency and appalling service and a recent reorganisation appeared to have made matters worse.

One of the first things I did was to talk with the senior leaders. The CEO explained that they had reorganised twice, reviewed and substantially modified all operating procedures and introduced new and more efficient technologies to support their work. And despite all that he explained with frustration, nothing had improved. Most of the staff were "hopeless" and he thought the best thing was to replace them all. He had introduced a compliance team to monitor staff adherence to the new rules and processes, but despite many staff being caught and punished, they hadn't improved.

I gently explained that there was no point changing structures, processes and technology if people continued to behave as they had in the past. They had neglected the people bit of their change agenda. I was mildly surprised when this explanation appeared to come as a revelation for them.

My surprise was short-lived as I observed the way they talked about their staff and behaved over the next few days. I wish this story had a happy ending. I also wish it were an isolated incident.

One public workshop this year: influencing change with stories

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:16:12 -0500

We often get asked whether we are running any public courses on our techniques but for the last couple of years we have reserved these courses for our clients.

But this February and March we are running one workshop on influencing change with stories in collaboration with Kevin Bishop, most recently the Royal Bank of Scotland's change manager in the UK.

If you would like to attend here are all the details.

We only have limited places so please let us know as soon as you can to secure a spot.

Keeping richness in our decision making

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:28:10 -0500

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (180773) was a Swiss-born American zoologist and geologist who taught at Harvard. Imagine that you went to Louis Agassizs laboratory at Harvard as a student. Agassiz would place a small tin pan in front of you with a small fish and utter the stern requirement that you should study it, but should on no account talk to any one concerning it, nor read anything related to fishes (Cooper, 1987: 79) nor use any artificial aids like a magnifying glass until he gave you permission to do so. As one student said, To my inquiry What shall I do? he said in effect Find out what you can without damaging the specimen; when I think you have done the work, I will question you (Cooper, 1987: 82). Students kept telling Agassiz what they had found and Agassiz kept saying That is not right. This went on, typically, for 100 or more hours with the same now loathsome fish. Agassiz would keep asking What is it like?, Do you see it yet? and saying You have not looked carefully and You have 2 eyes, 2 hands, and 1 fish (Cooper, 1987: 81). Gradually, things would begin to change. One student replied to the professors query as to whether he had seen one of the most conspicuous features of the fish, the symmetrical sides with paired organs, No I have not seen it yet, but I see how little I saw before. Agassiz replied, That is next best . . . now put away your fish, go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish (Cooper, 1987: 81; emphasis added). Another student reported the following experience: I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck meI would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the Professor returned. That is right, said he; a pencil is one of the best eyes (Cooper, 1987: 81; emphasis added).

Agassiz (nicely told by Karl Weick on an article on richness) was acutely aware of the human propensity to name something, to categorise it, and then discover its properties vanish before our eyes. Once named we no longer need to attend to the details to work it out. As Weick points out, naming things is an essential action to coordinate activities. Unfortunately we lose detail in the process.

One way to keep richness in our understanding is to identify the stories that represent situations. We are currently working for a government agency helping them to create and tell their strategic story. They've identified seven strategic directions and in and of themselves are abstract ideas such as, achieve with our partners, be easy to deal with, nurture independence. These ideas only make sense when illustrated by an prototypical story.

References

Cooper, L. 1987, 'Louis Agassiz as a teacher', in CR Christensen (ed.), Teaching and the case method, Harvard Business School, Boston, pp. 7982.

Weick, K.E. 2007, 'The Generative Properties of Richness', Academy of Management Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 149.

HT to Tim Kannegieter for pointing me to the Weick paper.

Healing as part of learning

Last week I participated in a workshop organised by the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton: "Knowledge, Learning and Change in International Development".

It was one of those events where I really felt like I learned a lot. Learning as in engaging with people and language in ways that will change my practice.

A number of my conversations were around the practicalities and politics of running workshops where community, process and trust are the drivers for learning, rather than expertise and transmission of knowledge. These workshops have messy methods where the overlaps between disciplines, researchers, practioners, consultants and organisational workers are a ubiquitous part of the whole event. Cycles of process and product, reification and participation, are how it works.

Not everyone feels comfortable with that. Where is the piece of knowledge I have come here to get? Where is the slickly presented final product? How embarrassing to see people make themselves vulnerable and get it wrong! Bring on the people who know the right answer.

During the workshop there was one word that leaped out at me and turned on the lights. It was brought up by Camilo Vila, from Columbia and doing his PhD in the Netherlands. The word was "Healing". Yes, healing is a crucial part of learning. I feel it. Among other things learning can be threatening and painful and it can squeeze and wrench at your, and a community's, identity. Does it ring bells with anyone else. I would like to think of some examples of healing. Where have I seen it integrated in the processes of learning? And I'd like to ponder more on how to integrate it into designs for learning.

Tags: KM4DevBrighton, learning, reificationparticipation messymethods

A new home!

After talking about it for a few months, I've finally built my new house. I'm changing to a new blog, a new life.

I started Em duas lnguas on August 13, 2004 with the post "Getting started". Phronesis begins on September 4, 2006 with the post "Refresh". The underlying principlies are the same. The practice has moved on.

Always interested in process, this is how I got there:

Year: 2006

1. January, 17. Thinking about my identity and who I am in relation to my blog in "Feeling who I am".

2. March, 23. Pissed off at blogger not having categories in "Clicking on home".

3. July 2. Worrying about being forced to categorise by the technology in "Intellecutal hygiene v. messy methods".

4. July 6. Realise that I am outgrowing this blog in "I've got it. I've got the answer".

5. July 19. Consider using Drupal in "Thinking of Drupal".

6. August 19. Contemplate using Blogger in beta while "Getting ready for the next phase".

7. August 22. Think about "Este modus em rebus" as the name for the new blog in "Name of new blog - looking for inspiration".

8. August 26. Reach the name Phronesis in "Strong opinions weakly held". Nancy likes it too!

Resumindo e concluindo, my new blog is called Phronesis and is in Typepad. I feel kind of anxious about moving, although I think it's the right thing to do. I had fun making a a poll (sondagem) so you can tell me if you think the new blog is better or not - see the right hand column.

So here's the link to my new blog Phronesis. And here's a link to the blog's feed.

Here's to a new phase!

Only weirdos choose to move to Portugal

Miguel Vale d'Almeida spells out something that I recognise in the eyes of every Portuguese that meets me:

Ningum vem para Portugal porque quer. A no ser que seja um certo tipo de reformado ingls em busca de campos de golfe e cerveja barata.
No-one comes to Portugal because they want to. Not unless it's a certain type of retired English person looking for golf courses and cheap beer.

That's why I'm such an oddball in Portugal. I chose to live here - not because I'm retired, nor for the golf or the cheap beer (although I do appreciate the price of good wine). And it's not because I was looking for low-salaried work that no-one else wants to do. And no, I didn't come because I fell in love with a Portuguese guy.

I'm just a peculiar person!

Maybe it's because of the scuba diving I was crazy about ... on the Portuguese wreck in front of Fort Jesus, Santo Antonio de Tanna. The stories of battles between the Portuguese and Arabs, reflected in the mix of Portuguese-Arab architecture and people in Mombasa fascinated me.

Maybe it was my excitement about the lost Swahili town of Gedi, north of Watamu. Gedi was a once great civilization (in the thirteenth century) that still puzzles historians because it was isolated and unknown. It was suddenly and inexplicably deserted, with no trace of its residents and my young heart trembled when we walked through the ruins, knowing that here lay the banquet tables, the sewing, and the signs of life that had been so quickly abandoned. The story that thrilled me was that maybe the people heard that the "the fierce men from the sea" (the Portuguese) were invading.

Also I was stung badly - and survived - by a Portuguese Man o' War while swimming, another addition to my mental map of the Portuguese.

Then when I lived in England I was an anti-apartheid activist and campaigned tirelessly for SWAPO (Namibia) and with FRELIMO (Mozambique). The stories of the Portuguese from our comrades in Southern Africa were not the same as the ones I hear now in Portugal.

None of that explains why I live here in Setbal, but maybe it helps show that my canvas - and my childhood imagination which I have never shaken off - is different to the golfing, beer lovers from England. And it might help people in Portugal to pardon me for being a little peculiar!.

Fort Jesus, Mombasa:

Castelo So Filipe, Setbal:

Transmitting information

Today I bought a MacBook Pro. And within 90 minutes I had copied everything from one computer to the other, using FireWire. And when I say I copied everything I mean that everything was copied - not just my files, but all my applications, my browsers, my favorites, my passwords ... everything. My desktop, files and folders all looked exactly the same in my new computer. It was wonderful. Every piece of information transferred perfectly.

Hmm ... Could I say that with this perfect transmission of information - today was a sign of good teaching?

Tags: teachinglearning

Still thinking of feed mixers

Still on the conversation of feed mixers I got a suggestion from Monica of B2B who points me to feedblender.com

"although it does not respond by itself to the tags options you would like (you could import the resulting blended feed and use a tag cloud software ;-)"

She also says: "i think the most important part is not blending the feeds but thinking how they will be displayed in the community". Joitske (in a private discussion) extends the question to "how can CPsquare leverage its members blogs for learning and linking within CPsquare?"

... which is exactly the thought that I'm chewing on.

John Smith has used feedburner to create an aggregated feed for CPsquare member blogs, suggesting that he found feedjumbler and kickrss the most viable aggregators.

But who, I ask myself, would look at feedburner to see community members' blogs? It looks like a linear set of opening blog entries from people whose shared interests aren't so obvious. Too uninteresting for words...

Another thing I did - and which doesn't feel much use - was to create a combined feed of all the blogs, put this feed in my feed reader and ... hey presto ... a bit of a disappointment. All I see is the blog headline and date (and first paragraph if I click into the headline). Visually this blurs everyone into one blob of a community - I find it much more friendly and helpful in my current individual feed system where I can see the name of each blog whose familiar shapes and logo help create a sense of the identity of the person who keeps the blog.

So now I'm coming round full circle to thinking that you might be better off having a page with a tagged list of the blogs of community members, with their feeds. And you would have a tag cloud. People could choose for themselves which blogs they subscribe to. Ideally people would list their own blog and tags and perhaps there could also be a space for individual comments to those blogs on this joint blog page.

But this starts looking like a bigger project that I had in mind. For the time being I would be quite happy to find a mixer that you could subscribe to and which would separate out the feeds in your feed-reader. When you joined the community you could subscribe to the feed mix which would give you separate feeds for the individual blogs. You could then go through at your leisure, trimming out the ones that you didn't want to follow.

Does anyone know of one of these?

Tags: RSSmix,, aggregators,, communitytools

The fire's have started

Calmly working on the varandah, but it got cut short. A reminder of things over which I have no control.

We have a fire in Viso. The sky looks eery. The sirens are ringing and the helicpoters are overhead. I hope everyone is OK.

Howard Rheingold - collaboration and technology

A great interview with Howard Rheingold by Robin Good, where he finishes with these words:

We have to spend part of our days retooling and if you don't do that you're not able to take advantage of the opportunities that are available out there.

It's not just going to come in a package on your desk. It's something you need to do with your mind.

Harold Rheingold, for who doesn't know, is worth listening to as he is one of the orginal and currently leading thinkers on the cultural, social and political implciation of modern communications media.

One of the things he says in the interview is:

It's the social part of the technology that I think is the tricky part. You can buy a manual and figure out how to make the machine work but the human communication the human working together part that involves a lot of other things that aren't in the manual.

Oh yes! "Technology" is such a concrete thing for people to get their minds round. You know how to use it or you don't. It is a unit that has a price. It has a shape and takes up space.

It's much easier to grasp "the technology" or the "how to ... " of the technology than it is to make sense of people just talking.

Tech obsessed?

The Age newspaper talks of ten signs to see if you are tech obsessed. Read the article for a funny discussion of each point.

1. You forget basic bodily functions
2. You collect ridiculous accessories
3. You check your email on Sunday... at 3 am
4. You know your mates by their online handles rather than their real names
5. Your favorite song goes "beep"
6. Instead of laughing, you say "LOL"
7. You answer your mobile phone when you're on a date
8. You change their outfits depending on their mood
9. You own a BlackBerry
10. You speak in a secret language.

I identify with many of them, but there's also sign I have which isn't there. When I can't find my car keys or my mobile phone, my finger and brain start twitching for the tag. For some brief moments I'm reassured that as long as they are tagged I'll find them.

Strong opinions, weakly held

"Strong opinions, weakly held" is a post that jumps out at Shawn Callahan (Anecdote) which he reads in "Bob Sutton's blog. It is Bob Johansen's advice about the wisdom for moving forward in times when the future is uncertain. It's about having and testing your opinions, while leaving yourself open to listening to other people.

It jumps out at me too. And it comes as I contemplate wisdom and the name of my next blog. My current favourite blogname is Phronesis, a word I readily identify with. The easy translation of Phronesis (from Greek) is "practical wisdom", ecompassing reflection, ahieving ends, particular contexts, and experience and measure.

It also happens to relate to a small, but significant, personal story about "raining men!"

Flexible learning ...

It's that time of year ...
Context: third year degree students at the Business School where I work. It goes something like this (in Portuguese):

Dear Teacher
You don't know me as I have never attended any of your classes, nor have I made any contact with you. This is because I have been very busy because I have a sick aunt/I am a working student/I can't speak English ...
Neither have I attempted either of the two Evaluation Systems we have had to pass your discipline (Avaliao Continua ou Exame). However, I will now attempt the final chance I have to pass the discipline.
Please understand that this is the only disciplina I have em atrso. If I don't pass your discipline, then I will not pass the year and I will not go to the fourth year. Please also understand that eu tenho muitos dificuldades em ingls; it is very difficult for me to do a discipline in English.
Send me all the materials that I need to study for the exam and tell me what the exam will be like. I will pass by your office on Monday evening before the exam to tirar duvidas (remove doubts).
Thank you for your understanding.
Without further ado,
your Student.

Tags: ensinosuperior

The 1% rule

I just read the 1% rule in the Guardian Unlimited which are figures which run parallel to observations about the types of participation in online communities of practice.

It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.

Similarly, in a healthy online community you can expect 10% of people to be active and discussing. However, an initial reaction by people who post in online communities is frustration and disappointment that there is so little participation, where they equate participation with posting.

In my own research one of the findings that has surprised me the most is the number of people who posted little or nothing in an online event (e.g. a course of a workshop) but who report that they felt transformed by that event. And how much they felt part of the group even though they weren't posting.

That ties in with what Wenger says in his 98 book. Participation in an online community isn't about specific activities related to specific people, it's an accountability to a community and the meanings that are given through their participation in it (p.57) Participation is a constituent part of a person's identity, it's not an act of posting.

Tags: legitimateperipheralparticipation, lurking, communitiesofpractice, participation

Time out

I organised everything so that I wouldn't log on to the computer this weekend. These two/ three days were going to be the first time in years that I spent more than 24 hours away from my keyboard.

I didn't manage it, but ... the time was very important. The psychological business of being disconnected was important. Preparing to be disconnected was also important. Disconnected, that is, with all my tasks and feelings of accountability to online work partners, friends and truly special people.

First, I mostly slept. I slept at least 24 in 48 hours. Then, I spent time just doing the things I like to do on the computer. A bit like basic gardening. Weeding, getting rid of the bicho (bugs), enjoying the sun on your back as you do it, planting some seeds, watering .... and doing absolutely nothing ... even if it was doing nothing on the computer!

I managed, somehow, to let go of all the things that still need to be done. It was helped with a dinner party on Friday night where no-one knew of what I see as my professional identity. I felt free. Of course this is no big news for anyone who works 5 days a week or 9 to 5! It's just one of those things that some of us retards have to learn!

And then, quite unexpectedly, a wonderful thing happened to me this evening, at the end of my two/three day break. It happened before I could stop myself. A crucial chapter of my doctorate just popped out. I rushed to get pen and paper as it happened while I was eating dinner. It poured out onto the piece of paper without any effort on my part ... words that just made sense. They were words that gave me the the context for writing. Who knows, I may even discard them - but they they feel very important for what comes next.

So, maybe I still have to have my time away from the computer. But also I know that I need that time at the computer when I'm not totally overwhelmed with things I have to do. I need time when I can just wander about in the same way as I might wander about the Avenida and the baixa, gazing into shop windows, stopping for a coffee or to chat with someone at leisure.

I need a time for not thinking of that list of things on my flip chart and when my problem of bilingual continuous partial attention disorder doesn't get in the way. Some of it might have to be away from the computer but I also need to build in relaxation and play time on the computer.

Tags: phd, continuouspartialattention

A blog about Setbal

Now I feel happy!

I've been invited to contribte to a blog about Setbal. My ninho.

I still have to sort out the problem I have with iPhotos ... but as soon as it's working, I'll be posting.

Tags: setubalnow,, setbal

Does this count as spam?

Last year I went to the demonstration of an e-learning system being developed by Universidade Piaget. To get into the system a temporary account was set up with my name and email address.

Since early yesterday morning I have been receieving an email from the system every three and a half minutes, day and night. It tells me that the system is out of service until the 7th August and the new version will be ready on the 8th August. The email ends with this friendly instruction:
"Grato pelo vosso cuidado na leitura desta mensagem." (Thank you for your care in reading this message).

When I woke up yesterday to find the first 40 messages I set the filter for it to go into trash. But lots of people are on holiday now. I wonder how many thousands of emails they will return to when they get back!

Bar Camp Portugal

I would like to go to Bar Camp Portugal which is taking place in Coimbra Portugal 2 - 3 September.

The idea behind Bar Camp, held in different places all over the world is cool. It's about Web2.0 and related things:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

When you come, be prepared to share with barcampers.
When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

But I have to say that I am staggered to notice that of the thirty-four people who have signed up to participate, only one is a woman. Rita Duarte of Marciana, you've got a cool blog and I'd love to meet you at BarCampPortugal, but unfortunately I won't be able to make it.

Tags: BarCampPortugal

The Prato Dialogue

I have set up a blog, The Prato Dialogue, in Wordpress for the conversations we are organising in Florence about memories and forgetting in communities of practice, and which I have posted about before.

The reason it's The Prato Dialogue and not the Florence Dialogue is because it is timed to coincide with a conference about constructing and sharing memory in communities organised by the Community Informatics Research Network at Monash University in Prato. Some of us will stay on for the conference and present a workshop at that conference that lead from the Dialogue.

Tags: pratodiaologue, CIRNPrato06

Today I was distracted

View from my appartment ...

I'm not busy.

Two weeks ago I started my anti-procrastination strategy and bought a diary to record where I was spending my time.

Now I've done the accounts and these were my suprises:

Excercise (cross-country cycling + walking dog) = 10 hours/week;
MSN with family/friends = 8 hours/week;
Dinner out with friends = twice/week.

No matter that the rest of the time was spend working on projects and I am on holiday - it was more time off than I thought.

Shawn over at Anecdote refers to "the busy-ness meme", which I recognise that I subscribe to:

"Hi. How's it going?"
"Soooo busy."

He wonders what would happen if we said: I have a bit of free time at the moment. Its just the way I like it.

And I wonder how much I make myself a prisoner of time by constantly talking about the lack of it. I certainly make myself bored by talking about it!

So I've made my decision. I am not going to refer any more to my busy-ness; I'm going to develop alternative language that refer to pleasure and time off. Here are some of the alternatives for my new repertoire:

> Hi. How's it going:

1. Fine thanks. And you?
2. Wonderful thanks. I had a great cycle ride this morning.
3. It's going very well. I've had some time for reflection this week.
4. I'm fine thank you. The Serra is looking beautiful at the moment. All the flowers are out.
5. Very well. I've been enjoying the varanda lately.
6. I'm well, and you? Very busy? Pity ... I've been enjoying some wonderfully relaxing moments.

After all, I have all the tools, a fast computer with high-speed connection to the Internet, and applications that help me do things quicker than ever before. Therefore I must have more time!!

Tags: anti-procrastination

Looking for the right RSS mixer

This is a bit of a geeky post. And I realise that there are not many people in my universe who know what the hell I'm going on about. But I guess that's the advantage of saying it on a blog ... there is someone out there!

In my learning community, CPsquare, John Smith of Learning Alliances starts thinking about aggregating the blogs of all the members in CPsquare so that there is one container for all the feeds. This ties in with something else I've been thinking about for another community and so I decided to have a play.

First, what's the advantage of having one container for all the feeds? It means that anyone in the community can have just one feed (in their feed-reader) which subscribes them to the feeds of all the members of a community they belong to. It's a great way of getting a feel for who community members are and it's also reassuring to know that people in your community have a greater chance of finding your blog. After all, it's usually them you are at least partially writing for. Of course, if each individual member's feed was also tagged, then it could be a wonderful networking tool.

So I followed up on Marshall Kirkpatrick's links to RSS Mixers on Cogdogblog to get a feel for what some RSS mixers are like. They are all very different, with these being some of the main differences:

you only get a link to a feed vs. you generate a feed plus a page with the links (e.g. like Superglu);

you have to put the links in one at a time v. you can put the links in in one batch;

you just enter the feed URL v. you also enter the name and type of blog etc.

the RSS mixer has an inelegant/geeky appearance vs. it has a less than inelegant appearance.

For the RSS mix experiment I used the following members' blogs:
John Smith, Learning Alliances
Edward Vielmetti, Vacuum
Andy Roberts, Distributed Action Research
Nancy White, Full Circle Online Interaction
Shawn Callahan, Anecdote
Bev Trayner, Em Duas Lnguas

And these were the notes I took when I tried to set up an RSS aggregator for those blogs:

KickRSS
+ gives a feed and a webpage - see experiment RSS mix webpage;
- viewing all blog entries (especially when there are many) as a webpage can be overwhelming;
- can add one feed at a time (or all via OPML, if you know how to);
- always gives error message first time you enter feed, so you have to go back and do it again

FeedShake
+ very simple - put in all the feeds and get out one feed;
- asks for information you're not sure about so can be confusing;
+ quick
This was the experiment feed.

Blogsieve
- ads right in your face
- can only add five feeds max.
- can only add one feed at a time
- annoying set of questions to answer and categories to put yourself in
- gave up because at the end I forgot to put in my email address and it wanted me to start the whole process again

RSS mix
+ very simple to use;
+ you can put all the feeds in at once
- BUT maximum of four feeds only!
However, you can make a new feed mix from your existing mix. That means you can keep mixing the feed mixers until you get everyone in one feed!
Here's the experiment feed mix with four. And it also creates a webpage.

lazytom's FeedJumbler
puts all the feeds into one feed - here was the link it generated for the experiment.
+ easy to use
+ you can enter all the feeds in one go.
+ easy to subscribe this new feed in your feed reader (i.e. has the usual feed-reader links right there for you)
- includes lots of info. that most people won't want.
- needs a good makeover.

Feedmarker
+ it has a bookmarklet making it easier to put in feeds;
+ you can tag the feeds;
- you have to enter each link individually;
- it got beyond the bounds of my patience to see how to get the link!
I had the idea that it's more for organising your own feeds and having them tagged (which seems like a great idea). I just couldn't find the generated link (getting tired by now).

Feedcombine
only gave errors

Frankenfeed
+ neat interface
+ easy to use
+ you can enter feeds in batches
This was the feed it generated for the experiment.

Wishlist for an RSS mix:
By now I was getting the general idea and didn't look at any further. But there must be others. Someone somewhere must be designing an RSS mix:

for large communities,

where it's easy to enter feeds in one batch,

where you can tag the feeds,

where members can upload/update/tag their own and others' feed,

which is visually agreeable/ not too geeky.

Let me know if you know one!

Tags: RSSmix, aggregators,

Portugal Positivo

The biggest problem Portugal has - she said grandly - is that people don't know how to tell a good story about themselves. Not unless it's about football, food or male virility.

Then when I was looking for Drupal sites, or evidence of a Drupal community in Portugal, I discovered "Portugal Positivo". Great idea!

This site is doing just that - looking and telling the positive stories about Portugal. Sign me up, Scottie!

Tags: Portugal, DrupalPortugal

Designing for learning Web2.0 technologies and tools

At the KM4Dev workshop in Brighton I did a breakout session with Nancy about my reflections/feedback on the workshop about Communities of Practice and Web2.0 technologies that I presented earlier this year. I am currently in the process of writing a report about the workshop, so the idea of this session was that it might help me reflect and articulate some ideas.

To my suprise I discovered that how few people involved in learning and knowledge management are familiar with social software and Web2.0 stuff. That was an important insight for me because I tend to overestimate how much sense these tools and technologies make to other people.

Some of the questions that arose for me after the session and individual conversations (especially with Nancy White) in designing a workshop for learning new (Web2.0) technologies were:

* Imagination: how do you trigger the imagination needed to make the tools meangful? Using them requires a leap of imagination and a transformation in thinking, it's not just a technical competence. How do you design for triggering imagination?

* Making it meaningful: What are the other triggers for making the technology meaningful for each person? It is not just perceived need. What's more, the need or the gap cant be seen beforehand (i.e. there is no point is asking people: what is it that you need?)

* Risk-taking: you need to be able to take risks and to get it wrong. You need to be able to talk about not knowing. How do you help people get over a lifetime of being taught to do the right thing and being taught to show what you know rather than what you don't know?

* Different entry points: there is no one way of getting into Web2.0 tools, it depends on an individual's needs, objectives, skills, imagination etc. How do you design for different entry points for different people?

* Minimum elegant structure: What is the minimum elegant structure in order to create a space where participants can create their identity and environment?

* Recipes v. complexity: How do you find the balance between people's need for recipes and formulas for "how to do it" with the complexities, overlaps and contingencies of new technologies?

* Web2.0 Gestalt: understanding Web2.0 is more than the sum of knowing how to use individual tools. How can you zoom in and out of individual tools and the bigger picture without making it feel overwhelming?

* Accounting for time: you need uninterrupted time to be able to use the technologies and then you need ongoing maintenance. But people's busy lives don't allow for that. How do you account for time?

* Solitary v. joint enterprise: The act of sitting at the computer is a solitary one. How do you transform that act into a social one where you feel part of a shared enterprise of doing, getting it wrong, talking and learning?

Tags: POLEN2.0, CoP2.0, design, Web2.0, learning, KM4DevBrighton