Pew: Internet Revolution Will Be Slow, Painful – AOL News

Pew: Internet Revolution Will Be Slow, Painful – AOL News.

The Internet may improve our most powerful institutions in the next decade, but a Pew Research Center poll also suggests there is a strong undercurrent of opinion that believes that positive change may be precipitated by a violent electronic revolution.

Some even think that revolution would utterly destroy and remake the old ways of doing business and governing, quite literally in some cases.

TED and Teaching Ourselves With Technology | Fast Company

There is a new alchemy of informal learning going on where people working on ideas can publish quickly, fail fast, shine light on successes, get feedback and encouragement from a community, learn from the best, and try again. And the process is speeding up with the help of Web video and its high-bandwidth transmission of information.

via TED and Teaching Ourselves With Technology | Fast Company.

The Strategy of the Fighter Pilot | Fast Company

Business is a dogfight. Your job as a leader: Outmaneuver the competition, respond decisively to fast-changing conditions, and defeat your rivals. That’s why the OODA loop, the brainchild of “40 Second” Boyd, an unconventional fighter pilot, is one of today’s most important ideas in battle or in business

via The Strategy of the Fighter Pilot | Fast Company.

A working mom doesn’t necessarily hurt child’s development, study finds

A new study finds that babies raised by working mothers don’t necessarily suffer cognitive setbacks, an encouraging finding that follows a raft of previous reports suggesting that women with infants were wiser to stay home.

Researchers at Columbia University say they are among the first to measure the full effect of maternal employment on child development — not just the potential harm caused by a mother’s absence from the home, but the prospective benefits that come with her job, including higher family income and better child care.

via A working mom doesn’t necessarily hurt child’s development, study finds.

Why Change Is So Hard: Self-Control Is Exhaustible

You hear something a lot about change: People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.

http://www.fastcompany.com/video/why-change-is-so-hard-self-control-is-exhaustible

February 2010 Bridging Skills Gap

February 2010 Bridging Skills Gap

Long-term benefits are possible when organizations obtain a big-picture understanding of the skills gap and what it means in today’s global business environment.

“Bridging the Skills Gap” is the third report from ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) to cover the growing importance of talent to organizational performance and the skills gap that threatens so many organizations today. This report updates the picture, including the role of job losses during the current recession, and examines the influence of Web 2.0 and the Net Generation on workforce skills.

Posted using ShareThis

BlindSpot – SnagFilms

Blind Spot is a documentary film that illustrates the current oil and energy crisis that our world is facing. Whatever measures of ignorance, greed, wishful thinking, we have put ourselves at a crossroad, which offers two paths with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will choke the life out of the planet and if we don’€™t, our way of life will collapse.

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EDSA I ANNIVERSARY

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have… a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.

– John Adams (One of the Founding Fathers of the United States)

In light of today being the 24th anniversary of the overthrow of the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos and with the up coming Presidential elections in May, that we as voters have our own responsibility to uphold our own freedoms.

1. Freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. Freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. Freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking,speaking, etc., according to choice.
4. Freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint:The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
5. Freedom or right to frequent or use a place: The visitors were given the liberty of the city.
6. Unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties.

We must not let apathy take place and surrender these freedoms. Our government is not perfect and more so our politicians. But this should not be an excuse. We should hold our government and politicians to a higher standard than us.

When it comes to politicians, I will take an honest man over a dishonest man any day.  For a politician who is corrupt, only decides what is best for him and not what is best for his constituents.

Discover What Life Coaching Is All About!!!

A Life Coach determines and assists you in attaining your goals in life, on a corporate level and on a personal development level.A life coach will help focus your vision for you and help tackle any obstacles in the way, overcome challenges and reach success.Through working with a Life Coach, clients can achieve results more easily and quickly, with a more focused approach to their life, greater levels of confidence and higher self esteem.

 

In addition, coaching is now used for numerous reasons and objectives. It is a powerful tool in creating positive results in the context of the following:
  

• Business / organizational change (merger, right-sizing,  de-layering, etc.)
• Talent Management (i.e. succession planning)
• Organizational development
• Culture building and shaping
• Sustaining and achieving more success
• Sustaining great performance at work and raising the bar
• Life issues, in general
• Personal development
• Personal life transitions
• Communication and relationships
• And many others

 

With proven results and many success stories, The International Coach Federation (ICF) released in July 2008 the results of its first ever Global Coaching Client Study conducted in 2008. The study reveals that coaching generates a solid return of investments for clients, besides positively impacting individual and business goals. The coaching client survey was fully participated by individuals from different continents namely, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The results proves the true power of coaching. The astounding survey shows:

 

1. Eighty-six percent (86%) of companies that have used coaching shows a jaw-dropping 100 percent (100%) return on investment.

2. Eighty percent (80%) of coaching clients said they have experienced a positive change in self-esteem as a result of partnering with a professional coach.

3. A staggering 82.7% of individuals who have experienced professional coaching report being satisfied with their coaching experience.

4. A whopping 96.2% of individuals said they would want to repeat the coaching experience.

 

Therefore, it is clearly shows that working one-on-one with a coach can speed up the results you want. It provides a sense of synergy and accountability in the tough times and creates a support net. A few coaching sessions(with us:-)) can be enough to give you the boost you need!!!!!.

Think outside the Box

I have been asked why I decided to become a Personal Coach.  Having been in Information Technology for over 24 years as a Systems Engineer, Operations Manager, Technical Manager and as the main GO-TO guy when things hit the fan. And seeing all the technological changes that have occurred, such as the developement of the Personal Computer and the Internet. Change has always been a difficult concept to understand, either you accept it with open arms or deny it kicking and screaming.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword, bringing us longer and healthier life spans, freedom from physical and mental drudgery, and many new creative possibilities, while introducing new and salient dangers on the other. Such as creating a throw away society, fractured personal relationships, declining education standards, elective surgery, cloning, an aging populace, negative birth rates, peak oil, and asymmetrical warfare.

Where advances in technology used to occur over generations, it now occurs within a generation. There is a theory called technological singularity, where technology is advancing so quickly and in great strides, that there will come a time when man will lose control and technology takes over.

I personally do not think this will happen. Advances in technology is usually expensive and takes time to disseminate. Those who can afford it gives them an advantage to those who can not. But there does come a point where technology becomes available to all and not to just a few, and that advantage is lost. The time gap between creation and commonplace is getting shorter and shorter. I do think that technology is like the mythical Ouroboros,

simbolo alquímico (Ouroboros serpent in old Greek alchemical manuscript)

an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. Sooner or later, what is new becomes obsolete, to be replaced by something more advanced.

We have as a society become more dependent on technology. And as such, our basic skills of survival, communication, reading and writing, problem solving, mathematics, and ethics has declined. A good friend of mine put it best when after interviewing a prospective hire observed “Why is common sense so uncommon today??”

We tend to be creatures of habit, doing the same thing over and over. Our decision making, how we act, how we observe things, these are guided by our cultural traditions, genetic heritage, how we think (our ability to analyze /synthesize), and our previous experiences. We can adapt to change, no matter what the circumstance, given that we have time. Shorten the time or add change upon change, then it becomes more and more difficult to adapt quickly enough. And if you constantly fail to adapt, frustration occurs.

Frustration arises when a person is continually thwarted in his attempts to reach a goal. One outgrowth of this frustration is anger. Frustration and anger encourages impulsive reactions, irrational behavior, poorly thought-out decisions, and, in some instances, an “I quit” attitude. People tend to avoid doing something they can’t handle and fall back to the things they are familiar with, regardless if it is the wrong thing to do.

Future shock is a term for a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies, first introduced in 1970 by Alvin Toffler in his book of the same name. Toffler’s shortest definition of future shock is a personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time“. And one way for us to combat this perception is that we must constantly learn, unlearn, and relearn. Change is more commonplace now and what was valid yesterday, may not be valid today, and that which may be valid today, may be invalid tomorrow. As they say “The only thing constant in life, is change”.

As a Personal Coach in thinking outside the box, I can empower my clients to embrace change not as something they have no control over but a challenge to be overcome.