Economy

I just read Jeff's blog about losing his job and at our staff meeting we talked about the cuts in government which ultimately affects my job. It is such a scary time for everyone. We have been told to cut back travel etc. and the focus is definitely more on technology in training and the need for distance learning. I imagine we will continue to see a lot of changes and reductions over the next few months. Scary.

A great website

For anyone who needs to email a very large file I found a great site that will allow you to send the first five files free!! It is called Drop Send and I was able to send my demo webinar through email.
Check it out.
DropSend

Marty's wiki

I got the chance to review Marty's wiki. For anyone interested in wiki's I would highly recommend looking at it. She did it for work and it looks very professional with a ton of information on it. I told her she did a great job even though I didn't get what she was talking about!!

webinar

It has been very interesting to me as I have been trying to learn the in's and out's of facilitating a webinar. I had set up a demo for us to practice on and it was just amazing to me if things can go wrong they will go wrong!!
We had technology clitches from the get go. The four of us were in different locations and our intranet was very slow was just the beginning. Then one of the trainer's headset wasn't working and she was to be the SME for this.
In the end, we punted, the remaining 3 trainers. I conducted the lecture making up the info as I went! The other trainer had to run the presentation since I couldn't access it and the last trainer was the audience!
Needless to say, we all learned a lot, we learned a lot about the webinar and we learned to definitely have back up plans for the real thing!

Family Wiki

I have mentioned that I started a Christmas wiki for my family. It has been interesting to see how everyone has gotten involved with it. My children immediately got on and begin linking items to it for all to see. My sisters have also have gotten into it, editing, changing and adding info.
I have showed my parents and they have viewed the wiki but haven't quite got the hang of it. I figure at least everyone is trying/or viewing it!

Wiki

I just created my first wiki! Whew, what a lot of fun! I set it up for my family for Christmas lists etc. It will be interesting to see their reactions and if indeed they will use it.
If anyone has any great, creative tips either for the wiki or other tools that work in communicating with people for free let me know!

My Audio

Listen to me. Click here



Audio clip:

Podcasts

I found this site when I was looking for training podcast. He talks of using video together with his podcast. Interesting, I was wondering how other people have incorporated pod casts etc. into their work place

Click here

Check this out!

Check this blog out!! It is from a guy at work who loves to cook as well as keeping up on the latest technology. http://www.roastingrambler.com/

Technology-wow!

In the last two weeks I have joined and participated in a Skype chat, viewed and signed on to a wiki, checked out some podcasts and have decided there is so much information out there I don't know where to begin!
I have to say the skype chat was fun I would like to do that again and do more than just chat which is what we did for another class.
At work we are also beginning to do some webinars. If anyone has any great advice for a webinar I am open to any suggestions.
I would also like to know what other people use at work when collaborating on a project. We cannot use any of this free information due to security reasons so I am curious how people communicate within team groups? We are trying to get permission to use share point (?) but the bureacratic system doesn't work very fast!

Availability of knowledge

I am continually amazed at what is out on the web. I have been working on a CBT for work and ran into a clinch I couldn't fix. I googled it and began reading websites and blogs. Sure enough someone else had the same issue and wrote about the solution that worked for her. The fact that people put their questions out on the web has always intrigued me but I am slowly beginning to understand the appeal and the benefits of doing just that.

Who Knew?!

My husband (a techie) has tried to tell me for the last 20 years how much fun computers can be. Now that I have spent over the last hour viewing other blogs and customizing my own, I might be willing to admit to him that he is right!! Who knew!

City Lights

click here to go to my wiki

Participation

The power of technology became very evident when reading the passage about Hurricane Katrina and the people who began to sift through all the information on missing people. The information that was initially posted was fragmented and difficult to sort through. One person began to organize the information and it snowballed from there until thousands of information became processed from the work of many volunteers.

Prosumer Communities

I didn't even know what prosumer communities was until I read this book. How it makes sense to involve the customer in the creation of a product. I was particularly interested in the Lego corporation and how initially they responded with threats when receiving feedback and suggestions from their customers. But instead of lawsuits they began to realize the creativity that so many people could bring to their product. Great way to build upon an idea.

Free enterprise and profit

I really struggled with the concept of people offerring so much information without a price. Skeptic that I am. It began to make sense to me after reading about Behlendorf who created the Apache web server. He never made any money off of it and people questioned why (me included). But the book goes on to say how Behlendorf went on and created a new successful company and that might not have been possible had he not become so well known for creating Apache.

I found it very interesting the information about wikipedia and Britannica. The fact that wikipedia contained 4 inaccuracies to Brit's 3! I have always heard how unreliable wikepedia is and never really thought about the people that add the information to it. I also liked the fact that Brit's errors obviously are still present in the printed form while Wikipedia have long been fixed!!

Early Thoughts on Wikinomics

My first thoughts from Don Tapscott's book concern the Shared Spaces, especially MySpace. He talks about the reason teens use myspace is a means to reclaim their private space. The book mentions that teen-agers have lost their place to hang out with their peers and this is their way of communicating and spending time with their friends.
I never thought about this is the way kids are communicating with their friends. I took it for granted that they communicate with their friends the same way we did growing up talking and hanging out at the mall etc.