January 24, 2011 Leave a Comment

What value are your Social Bookmarks

I have been in love with Delicious bookmarking.  Not just for my own organization but because of being able to view the bookmarks of others.

Delicious Stalking

Whenever I find someone interesting I always check out their bookmarks because I can kind of get a feel for what’s going on inside their heads.  I view all of the bookmarks as information but knowledge is formed when we start connecting the bookmarks.

But what real value are those bookmarks?  I find myself constantly tagging new sites then later having to review each site to remember why I liked it.  So I started to use the note feature of Delicious to write a quick synopsis of the website.

Common things I might include

  • Big take-aways
  • Key points
  • References
  • Connecting thoughts.

I feel that the bookmarks are of more value to myself (and maybe those reading my Delicious bookmarks) because without a note they are just like a page marker in a book.  It tells your where you are at, but nothing regarding the content.

Anyone else doing something to this?

Filed Under: social learning Tagged:
January 10, 2011 1 Comment

Does data really just support what you already know?

I have been tinkering around for the last couple weeks using a combination of Rescue Time and the Time Tracking app on my Android to figure out where my time is going.

My initial reason is because I felt as though I may not have been as resourceful with my time as I should have been.  I felt like I really should be more dilligent about making time for my important tasks and not get sucked into other things.

I also made it a point on Thursday to physically block out times for certain tasks in my calendar and set alerts to keep me on schedule.  This was mainly because I watched Chris Brogans video on time blocking that Beth pointed to in her post on time management.

So after a week of working I pulled my data to analyze and to my surprise I found exactly what I suspected.  I really am not as productive as I thought I was.  I worked on one project in specific for more than four hours when I had another projects that needed to get done.  For me, I sometimes just dread starting in on a project so I keep putting it off and putting it off.  Hence why I worked four hours on one project because I dreaded moving on.  But, I may have found a solution.

I found that on the Thursday I was the most productive.  I am sure this is because I used the time blocking method and was really diligent about sticking too it.  Plus, I only worked in 40 minute blocks (thats about my attention span) and switched tasks fairly often.  I think this is the best way because as the old saying goes, “How do you eat an entire elephant? One bite at a time”.

It was not necessarily difficult to track my time.  The Time Tracking app is relatively painless to use and Rescue Me is even easier.  However, I am really not sure if I am going to continue tracking my time.  I have already proven to myself that in order to be more productive I need to block out my time.  Not sure what else time tracking could do for me.  If I use a calendar to block time (and stick to it) I can easily see where my time is going.

So for me, I already had an idea what the data was going to say, but I am glad I tried out time blocking and had evidence to support that it actually does work!  Has anyone else had a similar experience with time tracking?

Take Aways:

  • If I physically block out time I am much more productive
  • I really like scheduling 40 minutes work on, 10 off.  This works for me
  • Sometimes, you already know what the data is going to say

Also, I would get an alert from Rescue Time saying I was over my goal of less than 1 hour a day on unproductive tasks, then dismiss it and keep going :)  So still, there is always that human element of being productive…If you don’t want to do it, it won’t get done!

Filed Under: geek, productivity Tagged: ,
January 4, 2011 1 Comment

Are Your Friends Adding Value To Your Network?

Dick Carlson over at TechHerding and I had an interesting Tweet the other day which really made me consider what value some of the folks in my social network are contributing.

Dick mentioned how he wasn’t a fan of FourSquare and I responded the same and I added that I am not a huge Facebook fan either.  FourSquare allows you to “check-in” at a location allowing others to see where you are at/have been.  Maybe someone can help me out, but I don’t see the value in that.  Chances are, if I wanted to know where you were, I would call you or vice versa.

My Facebook profile is full of my friends from high school/college and work.  Most of the people of my Facebook network aren’t really sharing anything I find valuable though.  It is more personal information about their lives, family, work etc.   They don’t necessarily have the same interests as all of my friends on Twitter so I keep the networks seperate.

I feel that my setup works the best because I am not having to scan through hundreds of status updates when 90% of them I don’t necessarily care about.  Are most of your members adding value to your networks? Are you doing something similar to what I am?

P.S. – Maybe if I had as many followers on Twitter as Facebook I would be saying the same thing?? Hmmmm…..

Filed Under: geek, social learning Tagged:
December 28, 2010 1 Comment

Starting to share what you know

The whole idea behind social learning is to share what you know.  It is  really that simple, but many will try to wrap it  into technology.

It was @RalphMercer who pointed out to me that “social learning is connecting people to people to ideas , technology is only an enabler”.

So it doesn’t matter if you Tweet it, Blog it or Upload it.  Technology is simply the means to share the information.

“But I don’t know have anything to share”
This is what I though initially when I first made a dedicated effort towards social learning.   The reality is we all have something to share, we just need to find it.  Here are some tips:

  • Are you the “go to” person among your friends on a certain topic?  Consider making a list of their frequently asked questions to post.
  • What do you talk about (offline) with your friends?  Guaranteed you are constantly contributing something to the conversation so just put it online
  • Researching something?  Consider posting your research notes as a blog post.  I have been doing this with my Masters work

We all have something worth sharing.  Sharing doesn’t have to be some big elaborate blog or a perfectly crafted Tweet.

Find a medium that you enjoy and start contributing slowly.

Filed Under: social learning Tagged: ,
Tracking My Time
December 21, 2010 2 Comments

Tracking My Time

Because of my obsession with Google Analytics (Fun graphs and charts!) and my research into Business Intelligence Systems for my masters program, I started tracking my time.

Using the Time Recording App on my Android, I started logging my time into a couple different categories:

  • Work
  • Blog
  • X Plan (little  project I’m working on)
  • Social Learning/Research
  • Masters
  • Exercise
  • Sleep
  • Entertainment
  • Daily Tasks – Making breakfast, doing laundry, showering, taking the garbage out, etc.
  • Meal – I eat, a lot, and often with friends which consumes a large amount of time

So, Day 1 :

20 Dec 2010 Time Chart

What does this mean? I obvious slept a lot.  I slept more than I worked (But my work day was shortened by 3 hours)….

My daily tasks is interesting that it is 12% equating to about 3 hours.  This is definitely an area of opportunity.  My fascination of lean manufacturing and productivity hacks will start to work on cutting this down.

Of course, this is just 1 day of data so looking at it as it stands is somewhat useless, but hopefully if I am diligent in tracking my time, it will prove useful.  The app isn’t that hard to use so logging the time isn’t as tedious or hard as you might think.

I am pretty sure that nobody cares about this data, but I am trying to find some use for it… I would love to compare data with someone!

Filed Under: Uncategorized
December 21, 2010 Leave a Comment

How I Have Learned….

Reading Harold Jarche’s blog about story telling in the Army reminded me of how I have learned to fly with the Air Force over the past two years.  As I talked about earlier on my blog that a lot of the learning was done by sharing what you learned with the class, it was really a form of storytelling.

Thats B.S.

We would all sit around after we landed and talk about our problems, solutions, moments of panic and excitement.  Of course these stories were sometimes embellished (read=B.S.), but they all generally had a point.  There were a few nuggets of information in every story that you filed away to be recalled when you were in a similar situation.  That is how a lot of decisions in aviation are made.

Engineers vs Pilots

There are thousands of pages produced by engineers that outline the performance parameters of the aircraft and how to make it fly, but most aren’t really a step by step list of how to fly.  It is the techniques that have been passed down from pilot to pilot that actually give a complete “step by step guide” to flying the aircraft.  Unfortunately, techniques are rarely physically documented and are passed down from instructor to student orally.

You can imagine the frustration of a new pilot that is eagerly searching for the best tecnqiues but they are all locked up inside instructors brains’.  It isn’t exactly easy to create a hard product of 20 years of experience, but is there a way to capture the information?

Bringing Story Telling To Social Media

Changing how we learn isn’t something that can easily be done, but I believe changing how we capture what we have learned is possible.  The round table conversations that I had during pilot training need not be limited to the table.  The table should be changed to some form of social media.

Through pictures, powerpoints, written stories,micro-blogs, blogs, audio clips, movie clips the learning can be recorded.  It will be a change in culture, but people are already doing it.  Instead of using social media to talk about their non-work related lives, maybe we should consider using it to share work related knowledge.

Is there a lot of “technique” involved at your work?  How are you sharing the techniques?

Filed Under: flying, knowledge management Tagged: , ,
December 19, 2010 Leave a Comment

Relying on the Cloud

With the threat of delicious shutting down, many are scrambling to backup their bookmarks and made some consider where the rest of their online data is.  It has made me wonder if I am relying to much on the internet cloud for storage.

I guess I haven’t really taken my data seriously, but now as I start to look at data as my “life long learnings” I really need to do better.  I wish I had more of a plan like Harold’s together.

So, what I plan to do is at a minimum backup my social bookmarking sites (delicious currently), website and Evernote.  I feel that this should be adequate enough for me to rebuild anything I could loose if my cloud went down.  The service I am relying on most is Evernote.

I love the Evernote product and am trying integrate it more into my life, but I have to rely on their (paid) service to keep my data.  Call me old fashioned, but I still want to own the storage device of my data…The only other thing left to do is figure out a way to automate the backup process.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
December 15, 2010 Leave a Comment

Business Intelligence Systems As Applied To Your Life

I have just started dong some reading on business intelligence systems and their implementation and it has made me consider how I could possibly apply this to my personal life.

CERN Server 03

Thats some serious data....

I love the idea of “data warehousing” and “data mining”, probably because it just sounds sexy (to a nerd).  The idea of massive amounts of data available for thorough review and analysis is simply awesome.

Maybe this is why I enjoy Google Analytics and Mint.com?  I think to be tackle this idea I need to look at what data I generate in my life and how I could analyze it (if its worth analyzing).

Lets see, the things I could extract data from daily are:

  • Financial transactions – Mint.com
  • Work tasks – Google Tasks
  • Exercise – Runkeeper.com
  • Cooking – ?
  • Social interactions – Blog postings, Twitters
  • Professional development (Masters study, researching) – Hours researched, pages viewed

I am sure there is enough data there to keep me busy.  But, is there really value here?  I realize that a business uses BI systems to improve revenue, increase service and productivity but what would I use it for?  Save money through Mint, Keep on my running goals, Add quality to my social interactions, Increase quality of my research?

Like I said before, all of this data that we are producing unknowingly everyday is great, but could it be valuable?  Does anyone track where their time goes versus quality of work?  More simply put, how can I use my “life data” to support my goals?

Filed Under: geek, productivity Tagged:
December 6, 2010 1 Comment

Military Instruction – Share What You Know

I was reading a post by Harold that talked about his experience in the military and how they conduct training.  He summarized that there is individual training that is done in formal training schools then later there is collective training done with the unit.  For the past two years I have been in formal pilot training with the Air Force and have experienced the individual training but it isn’t as individual as you might think, actually, its pretty social.

The formal pilot training course consists mainly of an instructor and student flying a specific lesson which the student learned as much as he could in the 1 hour flight.  It is expected that you take the lessons you learned in the air and share it with all your classmates, because there is no way to learn everything in the 1 hour flight.  It was never a good thing if one student knew a critical piece of information and the rest of the class didn’t.  The saying was always “Cooperate and graduate”.

Point is, social learning and knowledge management isn’t about fancy content management systems or elaborate knowledge sharing systems.  Its really about you learning something and sharing it with others via some method.  That method might be like in my case, word of mouth, but could also be a CMS.  So regardless, if you have information, figure out some way to share it.

I have just recently been turned on to social learning and have been trying to get my hands on everything I can read about it.  Its funny because unbenouned to me I have been involved in social learning everyday for the past two years.

Filed Under: flying, knowledge management Tagged:
December 5, 2010 Leave a Comment

Drupal GMap Module

If anyone hasn’t checked out the Drupal GMap module, it is awesome!  I have been working on a project where I wanted to display nodes on a Google Map and Gmap plus the Location modules did just that.

Basically the location module adds fields to your node form asking for various “location type” info, i.e. address, city, state, Lat and Long.  Once the user submits the node it is plotted on the Google map that you create.  You have the flexibility to change the size of the map, default position as well as the marker symbols.

It was a pretty easy to do because of the how-to video from Drupal Love.

The one thing I did find difficult was the fact that the module is such that the map is only available on one page.  I wanted it put in a block and battled with this issue for 2 days before stumbling on this code:

<?php
echo ‘<h2>Map of ********</h2>’;
return gmap_location_node_page(NULL);
?>
Just paste this into a new block and you are all set to go!

Filed Under: geek Tagged:
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