Life Imitating Art

We got our kids an XBOX Kinect for Christmas. As I was playing it with my kids--waving my hands in the air to move things on the screen--I was truly amazed at how life imitates art.

I can see that in 3-to-5 years we are living with computing devices very similar to those seen in the Tom Cruise film "Minority Report". I vividly recall a scene where Cruise is manipulating objects on his screen with a flick of his hand and scrolling through information with the motion of his fingers. Of course he was wearing those silly gloves... Soon, you'll be doing it without any accessories.

In fact, someone already is! Check out this video by a programmer at MIT.

I think we're closer that we think.

OK. I've been AWOL for a while and haven't written on my blog for a couple of months.

But I have been busy. A colleague (Treion Muller) and I are just completing a book entitled, The Learning Explosion. It's a take on how so much knowledge can be found in the strangest places. But the bulk of the book talks about how organizations can take their corporate training online through the use of virtual classrooms.

400 galley copies are being printed and delivered tomorrow. The final draft will be available sometime in January if all goes well.

You can follow our tweets here: http://twitter.com/learningexplosn.

An addicting game...

This is, by far, the most addicting game I've played in a long time.

Dan Ball

Josh Loses a Tooth

My son Josh has been wiggling his loose tooth all day. He finally asked if he could have a little help to get it out. This is what we came up with...

Adam Barker Photography

If you want to see some great landscape photography, check out Adam Barker's galleries online. It makes me want to quit my day job and just shoot pictures all day! He's got a great training course coming up this fall... Perhaps an early birthday present?

http://www.adambarkerphotography.com/galleries

Moving the classroom online

For a couple of years my team and I have been working on finding an effective way to move training classrooms online. We've always known there's more to online events than just free, promotional, webcasts. We knew there had to be a way to effectively teach people live online

I believe the main reason we succeeded at this project was because we didn't know any better. Had we known then what we know today we probably would not have tried. And trust me, there were times I really wanted to quit. It was really hard to blaze this trail.

But, in the end, it's interesting to see how many of our competitors have tried to follow (and copy) exactly what we've done. It's flattering actually. Some have copied our pricing. Some have tried to copy our technology. But the one thing they can't copy is our content. This is OUR intellectual property.

What content do you have that others can't copy? Put your stamp on it and put it online.

Expose Yourself by Seth Godin

I really liked this post by Seth Godin a few days ago (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/). I think about my kids and what they're exposed to and how this will form who they are in the future. For example, each year, my oldest son reads more books than the librarian. Not surprisingly, it's his dream to be a best selling author. (I told my wife that we need to feed our children more candy so they have greater to the dental profession.)

Here's Seth's post:

"Expose yourself"
With so many options in media, interaction and venues, you now get to choose what you expose yourself to.
Expose yourself to art, and you'll come to appreciate it and aspire to make it.
Expose yourself to anonymous scathing critics and you will begin to believe them (or flinch in anticipation of their next appearance.)
Expose yourself to get-rich-quick stories and you'll want to become one.
Expose yourself to fast food ads and you'll crave french fries.
Expose yourself to angry mobs of uninformed, easily manipulated protesters and you'll want to join a mob.
Expose yourself to metrics about your brand or business or performance and you'll work to improve them.
Expose yourself to anger and you might get angry too.
Expose yourself to people making smart decisions and you'll probably learn how to do it as well.
Expose yourself to eager long-term investors (of every kind) and you'll likely to start making what they want to support.
It's a choice if you want it to be.

New Lens

I'm pretty excited. Tomorrow my new Nikon lens arrives. I purchased a Nikon 18-200 VR. From everything I've heard, it's a great all-in-one lens. All of the articles I've read have pointed to the fact that this is a lens that you rarely take off your camera. I bought it at Pictureline (pictureline.com).

I can't wait to get it.

By the way the Nikon 18-135 lens is as horrible as all of the reviews state. It broke within a year. Don't buy it.

Rearview Mirrors

I was walking through a parking lot and couldn't believe the volume of bangles and junk hanging from people's rearview mirrors. Some was creative. Some was filthy. And some left me wondering how people could actually see where they were going.

I mean really... just how much air freshener do you need?

FranklinCovey's New, Online Learning Suite Launches at Training 2010: World Renowned Content Now Available in a Unique, Online Format - FOXBusiness.com

FranklinCovey's New, Online Learning Suite Launches at Training 2010: World Renowned Content Now Available in a Unique, Online Format - FOXBusiness.com

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How do I get photos off of my Apple iPhone

If you're using a Mac with Snow Leopard, there is an easy way to download your photos from your iPhone without ever opening iTunes.

Just follow these steps:

1) In your Pictures folder, create a new folder called "iPhone Photos"
2) Plug in your iPhone to your Mac
2) Open Image Capture
3) Select your iPhone in the left hand nav
4) At the bottom, select the new folder you just created, "iPhone Photos"
5) Import your photos

It's a piece of cake to import your Apple iPhone photos to your Mac.

Was it something you did, or didn't do?

I'm convinced that most stresses are caused internally... you do it to yourself. They're caused by lack of preparation and planning. Stephen Covey calls this proactivity.

Think about it. When was the last time you were speeding to the airport, stressed that you weren't going to make it through security in time. Why were you stressed? Was it because of something the airline did? Probably not. Was it because of something your boss did? Maybe, but probably not.

I'll bet it was because of something you did, or didn't do. It was because of lack of preparation and planning. Were you late because you were surfing the web, or doing some other thing to waste time? Were you working on lesser important things rather than the things that really matter?

Like I said, I think most stresses are caused by this -- lack of preparation and planning. Of course there will always be stress caused by emergencies or accidents or the unforeseen problem that will surface tomorrow on your desk at about 9:00. But most stress is caused because you are not planning your time well -- or at all.

If you would have left for the airport just 15 or 20 minutes earlier wouldn't that have relieved a lot of the pressure and stress? As a result you'll be transferring your stress to others through poor driving. Speeding. Recklessness. Tailgating. Talking on your cell phone.

Getting out of bed 15 minutes earlier won't kill you. But the drive to the airport just might.

Plan your time so you know what's important and then do it.

Review: Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro 7.5

I've been a faithful user of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro for some time now. But before I started using it, I did a lot of due diligence in identifying the right webinar tool for my needs.

Needs:

1. Flawless streaming video
2. Customizable layouts (chat/polls/PowerPoints/whiteboards)
3. Ability to customize the wrapper around the platform to allow for a certification system
4. Customizable reporting
5. Integrated VoIP

It met all of these criteria with flying colors except the last one. The VoIP constantly had feedback loops and was hard to manage. We recently were upgraded to version 7.5 which is supposed to integrate multiple teleconference carriers into the system.

I've tried it once with pretty good success. It still seems a bit clunky, compared to the integrated audio in the Citrix products, but it seems to do pretty well. I'll be spending the next week or so giving it a run for it's money with some hard core testing.

Platform Grade: A

VoIP Grade: B

The Davis Principle

I played in rock band for the better part of High School and College. Lots of ska, a bunch of covers and a few great originals. It was a great way to earn money for pizza.

After each performance we would inevitably have a box full of cords and cables that were all tangled up in a knot.

Matt Davis was one of our lead singers. He had a theory that if you took this knot and shook it, it would unravel -- it would de-knot itself. So he would shake, and shake, and shake and, in many cases the ball of cables would eventually unravel or get close enough that you could easily finish untangling them. Whereas the rest of us would be fiddling with them and usually end up tying them tighter than they were before and it would take twice as long to undo them.

Now, this didn't happen all of the time. It worked when the bundle wasn't too messy. When it was a big messy knot it required someone to tackle it and trace back the ends of the cord like a crazy three dimensional maze until the cords were untangled.

You know where I'm going with this story, don't you?

This is a lot like the problems today. In some cases when you have problems that cause you stress and pressure you don't always need to sit and worry over them as much as you think you do. Some knots will unravel themselves with just a little effort, just a little shaking. However, there are some knots that are so tangled that you do need to take time and manage them until they're resolved. These are typically the knots that have been in the bottom of the box the longest and haven't had regular shaking. But for the most part, many of the knots in our life just require a little bit of coaxing and they'll resolve themselves.

• Go and talk with the person that is causing your stress.
• Spend a couple of additional hours working on that high-pressure project.

Some days I wish I had a roadie to shake out all of my knots at work. Wouldn't that be nice!

The 5 Bypass Activity

My father retired many years ago from a high stress, high pressure job as an executive at the leading TV and Radio stations in our market. Very shortly thereafter he had a massive heart attack. Five bypasses later, he recovered. But it was very scary for all of us.

Although there were probably many contributing factors to his heart attack, I believe stress was the fuel.

How long has it been since you checked your stress level? Here is something you may consider if you feel an overwhelming amount of pressure.

Pull out a piece of paper and evaluate the stress sources. I call this the 5 Bypass Activity.

What is causing your stress? Rank these in order of highest stress factor to lowest.

1. Is it your job? (Specific projects or people?)

2. Is it your family (Problems with your children, spouse, or parents?)

3. Is it a church responsibility? (Not enough time to accomplish it all?)

4. Is it volunteer responsibilities? (Concerns about the welfare of others outside your immediate control?)

5. Is it something else? (Something within or without of your control?)

Once you have these identified, it will be clearer to evaluate possible solutions to these problems.