Author: bckhough

“Everything you need to know about training you learned in summer reading programs: what if technology trainers used some of the paths already forged by summer reading program planners?”
Computers in Libraries | September 1, 2003| Hough, Brenda

It’s 7 years later and I still am wishing for this. I still think we could benefit from more ongoing collaboration around tech training. The 23 Things style programs have done something like this for staff training, but I hear libraries wishing for something for public training, too. I have heard that a few libraries have adopted the 23 things model for public training. I think WJ would be a great place to centralize patron technology training resources.There are resources there for patron training, but assembling them into a program (a summer reading style program)… that would be exciting.

I have worked from home for over a year now, so was very interested in Jonathan Mead’s Zen Habits post, “Escape the Cubicle Farm: Top Ten Reasons to Work from Home“. I agree with all of his points and really feel most productive with this lifestyle.

Here’s what I’m up to these days. I’m working on the book right now (manuscript due July 1st) and am also doing some independent consulting (for TechSoup, for the State Library of Kansas, for NEKLS, etc) and have some workshops and presentations scheduled, too (for SWKLS, for SWFLN, for Johnson County, etc). I’ll hopefully be doing some teaching, too,which would be great. It’s going to be interesting, juggling all of these different things instead of focusing on one primary job, so expect more posts about time management and project management over the next months. I’ll be learning as I go!

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing. ~~ Yeats

Charlie Rose recently interviewed Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. Here’s part of that interview.
Charlie Rose:
“You have this thing at Google where you can take a day off of each week or 20 percent of your time, say, out of 100 percent, five days, one day, and you can work on anything you want to. How much of that has led to interesting, productive profitable applications?”

Eric Schmidt:
“We think the 20 percent time is really the only way we’ve been able to maintain our innovation as we have gotten larger. What normally happens with technology companies is the initial founding team gets older, you bring in traditional management, and although it becomes a better managed company, much of the creativity and the flair and the joy did get lost in the process. By establishing the principal that engineers could spend 20 percent of their time working on whatever they found interesting, we created a culture where there’s this constant flow of innovation. Literally every day there’s another fun surprise. Now, before we get too excited about the 20 percent time, these are engineers. They don’t vary that far from their area of interest. But it gives them an opportunity.”

Imagine spending 20% of your time on innovation. What would you do? How would you spur your brain to think in new ways?

Andrew McAfee lost a bet and is therefore twittering 100 times today. So far, I would say it’s a win for all of us! I was introduced to his tweets by a post from Tim O’Reilly and was enjoying the links to poetry, but really liked McAfee’s lessons learned from teaching and thought I would quote him here:
1. Don’t be afraid of silence in the classroom.
2. Ask clear questions.
3. Trust your students.
4. Be the person who most wants to be in the room.
5. Start on time, end on time.
6. Check your fly.
7. Be more concerned with the destination than the journey.
8. We get smarter via respectful disputation.
9. It’s better to be well rested than well prepared.
10. Most students appreciate being held to high standards.

I like them all, but the one that most captured my attention is #4. The times when I have been at my best in a teaching situation have fit that description. #6 is funny and I would add check your nose, your teeth, your shirtfront. I’m still thinking about #7.