I’m taking the liberty of reposting Norman Lamont’s superb slideshare presentation on the use of new technology in the workplace.

I do so a) because it’s probably the one piece of content I’ve recommended to more people than any other, b) because it gets the message across more powerfully than any academic treatise on the subject and c) because it should be required reading for anyone responsible for learning and communication in the workplace.

I generally use the Seesmic web app to access Twitter on my Macs, but as I’ve been using my netbook more frequently I was keen to try Seesmic for Windows. Unfortunately it didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked.

When running the setup file I was faced with an error because the installer was trying, but failing, to connect to http://d.seesmic.com/swin/SWin.application. After a fruitless search on the Seesmic Web site and across Google in general, I finally found a solution myself by trial and error. I’m posting this here in the hope that anyone else searching for a solution is able to find it.

My searching suggested that this problem mainly affects users of Windows 7 and some users of Vista, although advice that this may be related to an inability to connect via a proxy weren’t relevant in my case.

The solution was remarkably simple; right click on setup.exe, select Troubleshoot Compatibility and accept the recommended options, which in my case was to run as compatible with Windows XP SP3. I clicked on run, the installer did its job and the app runs without issues (so far at least).

I’ll post more about the app once I’ve had time to use it, but in the meantime I hope this post helps some people who are having issues installing it.

Image source seesmic.com

*Disclaimer – I am a partner in Onlignment.

Over on the Onlignment website, we have just launched a free e-book download, a facilitator’s guide to live online learning. In 55 pages it covers:

• Whys and wherefores
• Planning your session
• Communicating with voice and live video
• Communicating using images and text
• Sharing resources
• Building in interactivity
• Building up to the session
• Facilitating the session
• Following up

The e-book is issued under a Creative Commons license.

You can download the book here (we do ask you to sign up for our mailing list).

Today in the UK it is National Poetry Day and the subject is heroes and heroines, so I thought I would take the opportunity to post one of my favourite poems, written to honour the pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain.

Fighter Pilot

He was no Galahad, no knight sans peur et sans reproche.
Sans peur? Fear was the second enemy to beat.
He was a common, unconsidered man, who, for a moment of eternity,
held the whole future of mankind in his two sweating hands.
And did not let it go.
Remember him, not as he is portrayed, but as the man he was.
To him you owe the most of what you have and love today.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris

Just ran myself through Tweet Psych. Not entirely sure what this says about me, but here are the results;

Cognitive Content

1. Present tense
2. Positive emotions
3. Tentative
4. Future tense
5. Upward motion
6. Insight
7. Senses
8. Past tense
9. Cognitive processes
10. Space
11. Occupation & work
12. Motion

Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content

1. Abstract thought
2. Social behavior
3. Constructive behaviors
4. Concreteness
5. Glory
6. Restraint
7. Anxiety
8. Visual sensations
9. Order
10. Positive affect

Why not give it a try?

Setting up this blog is something that has been on my mind for close to a year. That’s an embarrasing confession for someone who spends a great deal of time telling people that starting a blog is easy. There are several reasons that it’s taken so long to go from idea to reality, not the least of which was my decision to go from comfy corporate life to freelance consultant. But there’s more to it than that.

It’s about producing something worthwhile.

I’ve been reading Jupiter’s Travels, the story of Ted Simon’s four year journey around the world by motorcycle back in the 1970′s. Whilst travelling across Africa, he is reading one of Henry Thoreau’s journals, and reaches this conclusion;

“He wrote: ‘We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.’ If Thoreau were alive today he would have full confirmation of his fears. Instant information is instantly obsolete. Only the most banal ideas can successfully cross great distances at the speed of light. And anything that travels very far very fast is scarcely worth transporting…”.

So with no little trepidation, and keeping those thoughts in mind, it is my hope that this site evolves to be something useful. For those reading, and for me writing it.