Weeknote 14/2017
This week I’ve been:
- Sending out Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter loosely structured around education, technology, and productivity. Issue #253 was entitled ‘Spring has sprung!’
- Attending a meeting of the local Scout group’s Executive Committee. Given the concerns I raised about using Facebook as the primary means of communication, it looks like I’ve got a couple of actions relating to the website…
- Planning a Creative Commons Summit session with Laura Hilliger. We’ll be over in Toronto running a workshop which aims to forge links between co-ops and the commons.
- Hitting publish on the March issue of my Dynamic Skillset newsletter. What do you mean you haven’t subscribed yet?!
- Running an online workshop for Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. The session was on Open Badges and part of a week of activities supported by All Aboard: digital skills in Higher Education. The session was recorded, so I’ll share that at some point in the future. My slides can be found here.
- Catching up with Kev Jones from Sussex Downs College about a potential application our co-op is making to the Ufi VocTech Seed Fund 2017.
- Reflecting on being in business two years as a consultant. When I see how little many in full-time employment seem to enjoy their job, I’m thankful every day! I wrote up my reflections here.
- Travelling to and from Manchester to present at the Co-operative Education and Research Conference. It took 6.5 hours to get there due to a fatality on the line, but it was definitely worthwhile going. The slides for my two sessions can be found here and here, and I did a brief write-up on the We Are Open Co-op blog. The keynote from Keri Facer was great, and (amongst others) it was good to catch up with her, Joss Winn, Mike Neary, and Richard Hall.
- Messing around with ZeroNet. It’s describes itself as allowing ‘open, free and uncensorable websites, using Bitcoin cryptography and BitTorrent network’. Despite still be new and experimental, it’s extremely well-constructed and answers a question I’ve been asking for years about how to create an un-takedownable website!
- Planning my keynote and workshop for my visit to Queen’s University Belfast next week. I’ve only got 45 minutes on ‘The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies’, which I could actually talk about, without notes, for hours.
- Drafting a job advert for London CLC, as one of their long-serving members of staff is off to join Google! I was keen for them to attempt to recruit someone in a less ‘stodgy’ way than usual, so they’ve video interviewed the person who’s leaving, and I’ve tried to make the job advert more conversational and focused on the individual who’s considering an application.
- Climbing Ben Nevis, Stob Bàn, and Mullach nan Coirean on Friday and Saturday. It was a five-hour journey each well, too, so I spent almost the same amount of time driving as walking! Ben Nevis on Friday was a bit boring, but I enjoyed Saturday.
- Writing:
- Badging ‘co-operative character’ (We Are Open Co-op blog, 6th April 2017)
- You can chain a knowledge worker to a desk, but you can’t make them think (Open Educational Thinkering, 4th April 2017)
Next week I’m working from home on Monday, travelling to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, presenting and running a workshop at QUB on Wednesday, doing some work remotely with MyKnowledgeMap on Thursday, flying home, working from home on Good Friday (I know, I know) and then flying down to meet the rest of my family in Devon for Easter!
I make my living helping people and organisations become more productive in their use of technology. If you’ve got something that you think I might be able to help with, please do get in touch! Email: [email protected]
