Fun Fun Fun!

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
— E.B. White

The Black Bar glasses strike again: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1707052930. Thanks to Roxanne Darling (Beach Walks with Rox) for turning me on to this silly holiday fun. Note: Elf Yourself is spreading virally, so their server is a bit slow. If you get a server error, try again later. Or not, as your mood dictates. For more giggles check out JibJab including their musical year 2007 wrap-up.

Usually the holiday season is stressful with shopping and shipping to be done for both Chanukah and Christmas. This year, with more free time on my hands, it's been more fun and I'm enjoying making some of the gifts — using my quote collection for inspiration.

I generally have more fun reading online than writing. I'm up and running on Facebook now and hooked on Scrabulous and other applications. I poked around SecondLife some more and ended up becoming (even though I'm a newbie, just by getting there early) an officer of a new guild. It's hard to make myself stop and blog. I have the two next weeks off so I hope to catch up a bit on both learning SL and on my blog.

Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning

"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I'm belatedly posting some notes from an eLearningGuild online forum, Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning, December 13 & 14. There were a lot of great and notable speakers from the cutting edge of technology-assisted learning. These are kind of long so I'm breaking them up into several posts, which will primarily be of interest to my colleagues in the learning professions.

The first morning the keynote was by Ray Jimenez, CEO of Vignettes for Training, Inc., who spoke on How to Integrate Social Networking and Collaboration to Impact Learning and Performance. He opened by talking about the variety of exciting tools that Web 2.0 provides (e.g. wikis, blogs, etc.) to help learners perform on the job and the common tension, in enterprise environments, between formal structured training and informal Web 2.0 learner-as-author content. He encouraged his audience of learning professionals to nurture the content creators among our learners. Ray posted some additional reference material to his blog including a free downloadable report with some case studies.

The next session I chose was Getting Serious about Virtual Worlds by Christian Renaud of Cisco. He cited some interesting figures from a study done by Pearn Kandola for Cisco on effective communications for geographically dispersed teams. For example, that it takes 4 times long to communicate a message electronically versus face-to-face. In SecondLife (SL), Cisco has a public-facing virtual campus, with meeting rooms, office space, a training area, and a theater-in-the-round. See http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds for more information including virtual event dates. The major drawback of SL: there's no security system to speak of, so they don't use (or recommend) it for confidential information. The Virtual World Interoperability Forum working to de-risk this space.

Christian's thoughts on picking the right tool for an interaction:

• talk to a colleague quickly: telephone
• sensitive meeting: video conference if you can't meet live
• board meeting or close a big deal: telepresence
• pitch an idea: Webex
• disseminate your idea to 100s or 1,000s: webcast/podcast
• intimate gatherings with people you may not know: virtual worlds

One tool doesn't fit all, but they're working on integration between these so you can segue as needed. He said the best business use of a virtual world is when you have an intimate audience of people who can't meet physically and who either already trust each other or who don't require a strong trust relationship for the task(s) at hand.

He also mentioned the Mozilla-based Flock social web browser, and I'm giving it a try. But I'm so accustomed to automatically deleting all my personal info (cookies, etc.) when I exit a browser that it's hard to take the best advantage of its built-in features for social networking tools. I do like how easy it's to see status updates from Facebook and Twitter.

Also in attendance for this session was one of the other speakers: Tony O'Driscoll.

The next session I participated in was A New Model for Informal Learning: Communities 2.0 by Eric Sauve, founder and CEO of Tomoye Corporation and an author on trends and issues of Communities of Practice. Some highlights of his talk:

• Workplace trends driving social and informal learning
• Forrester says "More than 80% of adult learning takes place in informal settings outside the classroom, leaving only 20% for formal learning situations. In spite of the disparity between informal and formal learning in the workplace, corporations invest most of their budgets in formal learning."
• Eric noted we're just starting to find effective answers to this problem but it will change.
• Learners as source of content (YouTube-ification)
• Using the model of the Long Tail: while training organizations take on the low end, learners turn to their peers as the "Long Tail" of learning.
• The low end is time-consuming and costly, the long tail is fast, cost-effective, and validated by users.
• The learning environment, with best practices and supporting technology, becomes bottom-up and learner-centric.
• Validation Concerns
• For example: Are we creating value or compounding ignorance? Does the best or worst rise to the top?
• Collective Intelligence as a community validation method (The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki and Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs) says that a large group of peers is more effective at complex problem resolution than a small group of experts because in aggregate, the large group has more perspective and experience -- if you can capture it

• Linkages between formal and informal methodologies:

• as part of a blended learning strategy
• using community subject matter experts (SMEs) to validate courseware development
• point learning solutions for capacity building

• Biggest barrier to facilitating user-generated content: people untrained in instructional design have to think about how to be effective at generating learning content.

More on Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning

"Potius sero quam numquam"
— Livy

Okay, I'm cheating and using a quote the second time (the first time was the English translation, "Better late than never" using Livy's Latin name, Titus Livius. But I couldn't find a more appropriate quote because I was going back over some notes from the eLearningGuild online forum Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning, on December 13 & 14, 2007 and found more that I hadn't posted.

Intelpedia: Intel’s Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration and Enhance Learning
Josh Bancroft, Intel (his blog: http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/)

Some of the best practices Josh used to get the internal Intel community to use the Intelpedia wiki (which probably work as well for other collaboration tools):

• Take advantage of naturally occurring opportunities to be a cheerleader for your wiki. When people complain about other collaboration tools in use, tell them why the wiki doesn't have that problem. When people email or mention a document, ask whether they'll put it on the wiki. And encourage others to advocate for the wiki so it's not just your voice.
• Any time you make a subjective rule about what can go in the wiki, i.e., what's "good enough" you dampen the wiki spirit that people own it and can make it what they want. Encourage people to submit useful stuff, organize it, garden to improve it and make it better.
• All information on the wiki has to be useful to at least one person, but because they want it to be encyclopedic, even vanity pages belong.
• All company security and IP policies apply to Intelpedia content as well, but they encourage employees to post everything that won't violate security concerns on the wiki so it will be encyclopedic. So as long as it's not breaking a rule they welcome people to add.

He talked a bit about why they chose Mediawiki ("it was good enough for Wikipedia") and recommended http://www.wikimatrix.org/ for comparing both open source and product wikis.

What the Heck is Facebook? Using Popular Tools to Train New Learners
Kristin Kahlich and Shon Bayer, Enspire Learning

Many companies have embraced elearning and sometimes simulations but not that many have embraced games, wikis, virtual worlds. Their main point was that employers and those responsible for developing training need to overcome those barriers, because the composition of the workforce will dramatically change as baby boomers leave the workforce and Generation Y enters.

Exploring Enterprise Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse
Ron Edwards, Ambient Performance, Ltd

A few highlights from Ron's talk ...

Corporate collaboration tool context: widely distributed teams, travel as both an expense and an environmental issue, recruit and retain 'digital natives'. Some of the solutions:

• Sun's mixed reality virtual conference room with both people on video and avatars online.
• Cisco partner network is now 3d; see http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/

Benefits of virtual seminars & conferences in SecondLife:

• You can see who's in the room in a richer way than a phone conference.
• Supports virtual breakout rooms.
• For security in enterprise collaboration you need a dedicated non-public platform or your own server inside a firewall.
• For identity,wrap 2D photos around avatar faces and wear avatar name tags.

For training, any one tool should be part of a mix:

• Virtual worlds are good for practice, role playing, sharing
• A blended approach might also include a SCORM trackable mobile procedural reference, hand-held tools with data analysis, decision support (e.g. Decisionability)
• Role playing is a sweet spot in virtual world collaborative learning.

There was some discussion of accessibility and the areas in which virtual worlds aren't there yet -- especially for those with visual impairment. One group had success with those who have hearing impairment. Training in a virtual collaboration environment can be more accessible than, for example, a ropes course. He showed an example of a real course that required learners to wade waist-deep across a stream.

In his opinion, the ramp up time to learn to use a virtual world application is about 20 minutes, less if you're a gamer. My own experience in SL has been that it takes longer to become either comfortable or proficient.

One of the attendees says there are some good YouTube videos by Torley Linden on building and getting around in SL. A bunch of us shared SL avatar names and got some momentum for an eLearning Guild presence in SL. There are lots of education activities in SL including AECT in SL (Association for Educational Communication and Technology).

Check out Wolf Quest, a learning-based game released by the Minnesota Zoo in December, as an of applying these tools for learning. And one more link of interest: Serious Games Institute, UK.

Ron feels virtual worlds will dramatically change the way we work and interact, but today's virtual worlds are like the horseless carriages that were the first automobiles. Gartner says 80% of us will be using virtual worlds by 2011.

Tempus fugit

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
— Groucho Marx

It's been three weeks since my last post. Well, I started some, but never finished. After I got home from my Thanksgiving travels, I finally got a badge for the ABI office and my own login. That made it easier to go in and work, so I've been spending a lot more time there. I helped TechLeaders program manager Kim McLeod put together materials for two back-to-back workshops, and started assisting with management of the online communities in Facebook and LinkedIn.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I participated in the second of those workshops: Senior TechLeaders: Leading Across Cultures. There was an amazing group of accomplished and experienced women in the room. ABI Research Director Caroline Simard blogged her notes on the workshop:

• Senior TechLeaders: Leading Across Cultures
• Senior TechLeaders Day 2: Dr. Francine Berman
• Senior TechLeaders: Remaining Technical while Becoming an Executive
• Industry-University collaborations

Wednesday night KJ and I joined ABI staff, trustees and advisors at their holiday dinner. We had a wonderful time in such great company. I feel so privileged to be working with this group so committed to positive social change.

Then last Thursday and Friday I attended a great online forum from the eLearning Guild on Strategies and Techniques for Implementing Social, Collaborative, and 3D Learning. Inspired by Caroline I blogged my notes but have to clean them up before posting. It was a fun way to bridge my technical training background with my current explorations and ABI work with social media.

There was plenty of fun over the last 3 weeks. I was glad to get home and back on the trike, and KJ and I have been riding to the Y and around the neighborhood. Latkefest 2007 was fun as always. And one of my nieces sent a stunningly silly pair of Black Bars glasses, modeled here. These may prove useful, since Leaping Woman is still (for now, at least) an anonymous blog.

Trains, Feminists, and Symphonies

"When I care to be powerful -- to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
– Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

I've always enjoyed train travel, but even more so now that flying has become such a drag. So I'd planned to blog about the sights and sounds of yesterday's ride on the Wolverine line from my big sisters in Chicago to my kid sister in small-town Michigan. It was a mellow and relaxing ride brightened by late autumn leaves and the mingled soundtracks of the train and my iPod. But when I had settled in at her place and logged on, my plans were derailed.

Before settling in to blog, I thought I'd catch up on email and some of my favorite web sites. While doing so I ran across yet another woman who felt the need to declare that she is "not a feminist" in order to make sure no one thinks she's one of those threatening man-haters. I'm going to make a big assumption here that if you're reading my blog you can understand why those words were like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

So my reaction – after "Arrrrrrggghhh!!!" – was to go surfing for inspiration and hope and counteractive definitions of feminism that would make it so obvious that every self-respecting woman of any age would immediately want to buy one of those great t-shirts that say "This is what a feminist looks like" and that a goodly number of men would do so as well. My surfing led me to 1001 Feminist Quotes (e.g, "Feminism is for everybody." - Bell Hooks and "In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." — Gloria Steinem) and I started to feel a lot better.

Then my sister came in and got me giggling by reading aloud a timely passage from Ivy Briefs, True Tales of a Neurotic Law Student by Martha Kimes, on how difficult it is to keep one's attention to one's studies, and I was reminded that I had intended to write but instead had spent all my time web-surfing. I signed off without blogging and watched a video with the family instead.

Fast forward to this evening when my niece played clarinet in a symphony performance. It was a great concert; she had fun and played well, and then we all went out to dinner. As we drove home, I thought again about why I'm a feminist. Not only because I'm a woman but because I have sisters and nieces and because there is a world full of wonderful and inspiring women and girls who should not ever be considered or treated as second-class citizens. I sat down to get back to my blogging but first went back to the source of the "not a feminist" comment that I'd followed off-track last night. A lively discussion had followed that comment and it had resolved fairly well. I breathed a sigh of relief. Leaping Woman would not have to leap into the fray. After all, I'm on vacation.

Thanks to my sister for the boost I got when, while sighing with relief, I looked down and saw my blog bookmarked on her desktop. Sisterhood is powerful!

Tomorrow, I'm back on the train to spend a couple of days with Mom. When I fly, the trip is just a means to an end. When I take the train, the journey is part of the fun. Maybe I'll tell you about it when I get there. Maybe.

Shifting Gears

"You should always know when you are shifting gears in your life. You should leave your eras; they should never leave you."
-- Leontyne Price

Today it's been exactly one month since I packed up my office and voluntarily left my job. It was a good job in many ways: It was challenging and I was always learning. I worked with some fine and delightful people with whom I accomplished a lot, and who will remain friends and valued colleagues. Leaving my job was more about what I want to move towards than it was about what I leave behind. I made a conscious choice to leave that "era" of my career, so no regrets.

The last month has been somewhat chaotic, as most transitions are. It's been a mixture of catching up on sleep and doctor appointments; enjoying more time with KJ; riding, playing and exploring (offline and online); organizing the stuff I brought home from work; and getting started at ABI. My mind is filled with ideas and new information, and overflowing with possibilities.

Today I'm heading East to visit my family over Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for, foremost of which is KJ's complete support for this leap I've taken. And I'm grateful to be working with the fine folks at the Anita Borg Institute, and to have this opportunity to give back to the technical women's community from which I've drawn support. I could go on and on, but I have a plane to catch today, so I'll stop here.

Tales of a Tech Woman

"Don't wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater."
-- poet Mary Mann Morrissey

Things are getting rolling at ABI now. I spent several hours there on Thursday and Friday, and I'm so thrilled to be working with this nonprofit led by the awesome CEO Telle Whitney. Telle and I talked about my goals and interests and agreed on the primary project that research director Caroline Simard had selected for me. It's a great fit based on my interests in and experience with corporate women's groups (and my own experiences as a technical woman) so I dove in and started reading up on background materials.

At home, I kept sitting down to blog and getting distracted by other cool, interesting and relevant stuff on the web. Now that I'm part of ABI I'm paying closer attention to my incoming Systers email, where there are often pointers to articles about or resources for technical women. And I've been reading a lot about social media and nonprofits. Between Systers and reading Beth's Blog (that alone seems to send me off to a dozen other useful blogs, videos, etc. every time I read it) I've been doing an awful lot of tagging on del.icio.us.

Big Day on the Trike

"Nothing compares with the simple pleasure of a bike ride."
— John F. Kennedy

It was a beautiful sunny day and I spent the first half of it online. After lunch, KJ and I got out our wheels and pedaled over to the Y. Round-trip we did four miles — which made this my longest trike ride yet (albeit with quite a break in the middle). Also it was the most traffic I'd been out in. But the drivers behaved and I didn't stress. We must have been quite a sight on our two recumbents, bike and trike. I was smiling the whole way.

At my last job, I used the company's on-site gym primarily for Pilates classes, which were offered only intermittently. Outside of class, I found it hard to tear myself away from my desk to workout. So one of my goals in quitting that job was to establish new habits around exercise before I start the next one.

So, not only did we ride over to the Y, but we went in and added me to KJ's membership. And whether we ride or drive over, the option of going together is likely to get both of us there more often.

Isn't it delicious?

Better late than never.
-- Titus Livius (59 BC - 17 AD)

I finally made the leap and signed up for del.icio.us. What pushed me over the edge was the exponentially increasing numbers of bookmarks I've accumulated lately. So I spent this morning tagging those links and removing them from my bookmarks folder. Of course it's perfectly obvious to me now that I should have done this a long time ago.

Monday Afternoon Play Date

While I didn't quit my job to be a slacker, I'm definitely enjoying my unscheduled days (until I have a badge and a place to sit at ABI). This afternoon, our plans to see a matinee fell through so KJ and I went to play mini-golf instead.

Freedom to Browse

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."
-- Gertrude Stein

I'm always looking for quotes from women since most of the web (and print) collections are dominated by men. I also look for quotes on learning that are relevant to my work in training. But sometimes the search for the right uplifting, thought-provoking, entertaining, or at least relevant quote becomes such a time sink that I have to let it go.

For example, I went looking for something for my previous post, Freedom to Learn and Play. My search spread, intermittently, over a few days and took me to several sites with quotes by women:

• Feminism Quotes
• Quotations by Notable Women
  
• Quotable Women
• Women's Quotations
  

Four days later my browsing and searching had led me, by a delightfully circuitous route, to this quote:

"We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn."
-- Mary Catherine Bateson

But not before I'd spent hours reading blogs such as Beth's Blog on social media for nonprofits, watched a few educational videos, signed up for Sloodle, browsed a Second Life virtual bookstore, and grazed many other sites including a LifeHack article Learn Something New Every Day that tempted me with links to more great sites.

I suppose that roundabout journey could be considered "losing my common sense" as Gertrude described. But I had so much fun and learned so much (Sloodle!) that it could as easily be considered "coming to my senses." Still, Gertrude's quote describes modern information overload so well that it's hard to believe she died in 1946. And to get the hang of blogging I may have to start partitioning my reading time from my writing.

Freedom to Learn and Play

One of the great benefits of quitting my job has been time to play with more flavors of Web 2.0 technology. In addition to creating this blog I've been reading the fantastic blogs of women I met at She's Geeky, and playing with Flickr, SlideShare, Second Life, etc. In my last job I'd been working a lot with the Confluence wiki, and towards the end had linked up with 150+ connections in LinkedIn, but hadn't had a chance to play with much else.

One of the other pleasures of not having a 9-5 job is riding my Sun EZ3 USX recumbent trike around the neighborhood in the middle of a week day when there aren't a lot of cars on the road. I hadn't been on a bike for years (long story) and although I can't ride far or long yet, it's lots of fun tootling around. The EZ3 USX is almost a comfy chair with wheels. Note the under-seat steering.

Of course all this leisure is about to change as I start my service year with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI). Today I attended my first program team meeting, and got a sense of what I'll be working on, at least initially. More on that later, however. Right now my sweetie is home and it's time for dinner.

The Power of 1600 Screaming Girls

"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito."
— Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

Still basking in the afterglow of Grace Hopper and She's Geeky, today I made this a three-week estrogen spree by volunteering at the Girl Summit. There is nothing like the energy of 1600 preteen and teenage girls screaming and dancing to wake a body up in the morning! The girls gathered at the San Jose Convention Center to share, have fun, and learn about creating social change together.

This fabulous event was the kickoff to the Girls for a Change (GFC) school year program. GFC is another of my favorite nonprofit organizations, with a program that empowers girls to become social change agents who have a real impact in their schools and communities. After the Summit, many of the girls join Girl Action Teams through their schools or other organizations. Last year I co-coached one of these teams, and it was great to see some of the girls from our team at the Summit. Here's a short video clip on the Girl Summit from CBS channel 5 News.

Since my last day on the job I've done several short volunteer stints: Grace Hopper, the She's Geeky registration desk, today's Girl Summit and, last Friday night, the Haunted Lake at Palo Alto's Foothills Park. Thursday, I head over to the Anita Borg Institute to get started over there.

She's Still Geeky

I finally got some notes posted for the sessions I scribed at the She's Geeky (un)conference. But it took me quite a while because I got so wrapped up in reading all the great notes and blogs others had posted. And looking through the Flickr slideshow (yeah, I'm in a few). And some of the slides that were posted on SlideShare. Not to mention the She's Geeky confession video (no, I'm not in it):

I See Tech Women

"Helping one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood."
— Louisa May Alcott

Providing support and empowerment to women and girls is one of my passions, although to date that has not been the work I'm paid for. I scheduled my departure from work so that I didn't have to return to the office after the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) in Orlando. Although I've only been able to attend sporadically, GHC has always been one of my favorite conferences. For starters, there is the sheer pleasure (and rarity) of being at a technical conference where we women are in the majority. Then there are always the great programs (the TechLeaders for Social Innovators workshop was awesome) and the wonderful role models (like the Award Winners and Fran Allen, the first woman to win the Turing Award!).

This was also the first time I've ever moderated a conference panel and with the help of my awesome panelists it was great fun. I came back from GHC with lots of notes, urls to check out, business cards and ideas -- so many that it will take me awhile to process them all. The Grace Hopper Celebration is a program of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. You'll hear more about them in later posts.

On Monday I was off to She's Geeky: A Women's Tech (un)Conference in Mountain View, CA. Again, a great program and more awesome female role models. This conference was much smaller (GHC had 1408 attendees; She's Geeky had an intimate 175-200). The Open Space unconference format on Tuesday, faciliated by Kaliya, was perfect for this group of women. I only wish I had a clone so I could have attended more of the sessions!

The Leap

"Leap, and the net will appear"
-- American naturalist John Burroughs

I've just quit my high-tech management job in order to redirect my career to more meaningful work. For the foreseeable future I'll be doing volunteer work, exploring various options, and learning all I can. Family, friends and colleagues asked me to keep them posted on what I'm up to, so I've started this blog.

I have a little catching up to do since this new adventure started 12 days ago when I left the office after my exit interview. So there will be a flurry of posts while I catch up, then things should calm down a bit.