All posts by Richard

Knowledge Collaboration, Learning and Web 2.0 … An Update

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As requested, I’ve update the "Collaboration, Learning and Web 2.0 post. Please link here to read the original post, update and comments. The original question posed was:

"If one is trying to encourage engineering knowledge transfer and learning at one’s corporation … and you are already using internal blogs, wikis and tagging tools / social networks … what would you do next? Are there "specific" online resources, tools or courses in which you would invest for engineering knowledge sharing and learning? Why? "

College Consultants for Your Kids

College Search

You could pay $40,000 to Michele Hernandez who is a fellow Dartmouth grad and a family college consultant, or read my blog for free! Michele was the focus of a recent Business Week cover story (Oct. 22, 2007).  The Business Week article starts with a quote from the college application essay of a high school senior whose family hired Ms. Hernandez:

"As I listened to my 8th period English teacher drone on for the third time about how Finny, a character in A Separate Peace, was indeed the main character although he was not the narrator, it finally dawned on me that this was not the exciting world of high school that I had hoped for."

Why am I such a bargain? Not only is my advice free, but I graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy … the prep school attended by Finny in "A Separate Peace" (not Devon!). Seriously, if you follow this advice … and some common sense, you can work your way through the college admissions process!

As I’m writing this blog post, my wife and youngest son (a high school senior) are driving home from a few days of college visits (Valparaiso and Rose Hulman Institute of Technology). During both visits, Erik received more personalized attention than other students visitors. Why?  Here is our process:

  • Junior Year in High School: Make initial college visits. Key aspects of these trips are:
    • Visit different kinds of schools (urban or rural community, religious or not, small or large school, etc). Early in the search process, this is almost more important than the specific schools you visit. Always do your research and contact the admissions director by email or phone. Ask for a private visit. Get business cards of everyone you visit.  Insist that your child email "thanks" to each person with whom they talked. You are establishing a relationship with each school!
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    • If one parent stays home (with the rest of the family), hold a debriefing session immediately when your child returns home from the visits.  My wife and I prefer to meet at a local Applebees. The parent who accompanied your child on the trips and saw the schools also should at first remain silent. The idea is to get your high school child to talk! Based upon this feedback, we were able to point our children in direction of schools which fit their parameters (not ours)! Obviously, as a parent you still have to agree with their choices; this is part of parenting.
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    • Finally, pick your target schools and make some more visits. However, be realistic! If your child is not Harvard material, accept that fact. There are lots of great other schools.
  • Summer before Senior Year: Submit all the applications to your target schools by Labor Day. Your high school senior will love you for insisting on this deadline, once he or she realizes it makes senior Fall that much easier! In addition, more scholarship money is available for kids who apply early.
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  • Fall of Senior Year in High School: Visit the schools one more time. Contact the folks you previously met from each school. Let them know that your child has ALREADY submitted an application to their school, and that you are coming for another visit.  Ask to meet again.

This basic process has worked extremely well for each of my three children. Erik has already been accepted at two of the five schools to which he applied (nice scholarship offers also). Much to our surprise, at two of the schools we learned that Erik’s application was the very first one received for this year’s class of candidates. This certainly can’t hurt.  You want your child to become known!

Here is one final example of why I believe this process works. Yesterday at Valpo, during one of their college visit weekends, Erik received private tours from engineering faculty while almost all other visitors were given the large "group treatment". You might be wondering at this point whether my son is a whiz kid. No! While his credentials are very good, he is by no means national merit finalist caliber. However, the admissions department and engineering faculty knew Erik was very serious about their school.

If I’ve intrigued you with this post, read my other posts on the college search process. One final comment, we have an agreement with each of our children that unlike the attached graphic, one only takes four years to graduate. The message is: have fun in college, but education is serious. Parental funding ends after four years. The phone just rang; it was my son, Erik. Time to go meet my wife and him for another college debriefing session!.
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College

Cluttered User Interfaces

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One of my pet peeves is web site clutter. Whether it is a corporate intranet site, or a major portal like CNN, Yahoo or MSN … clutter is everywhere. As sites try to attract more viewers, their never ending additions have exactly the opposite effect.  Via Bill Ives’ Portals and Knowledge Management Blog (one of my favorites) I learned of this brief screencast. Take a look, pay attention, and learn:

Google

Knowledge Collaboration, Learning and Web 2.0 … What’s Next?

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Hi Folks:

This is my first serious test of asking a question via Web 2.0. I’ve asked this same question via Facebook, LinkedIn and now my blog. I’m trying to expand my own knowledge base as I consider new programs for my company. I’ve got actual budget for 2008, but I’m concerned about adding "same old / same old". Thus my question … I’ll use your answers in an engineering strategy meeting later next week. Thanks.

  • If one is trying to encourage engineering knowledge transfer and learning at one’s corporation … and you are already using internal blogs, wikis and tagging tools / social networks … what would you do next? Are there "specific" online resources, tools or courses in which you would invest for engineering knowledge sharing and learning? Why?

Either post your answers in the comment section, of contact me privately via email. Thanks.
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Update #1 on November 13th:

Folks have asked for an update on how my research is proceeding … a fair question. Although my goal is getting useful ideas, one interesting aspect of my search is I used three different social networks, my blog, LinkedIn, and Facebook. This blog and LinkedIn Questions far exceeded FaceBook in terms of generating useful discussion and links. Even though I am a member of the largest Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 groups in Facebook, I found little interaction via that resource (I did have fun wasting time on other Facebook features only … added "My Map").

From my vantage point, have I solved my problem? No, but I’ve been pushed in some interesting directions. One LinkedIn Question post in answer to my question commented …

"Since your question referred to engineering and there have already been a number of good answers, I’ll focus the "what’s next?" part of your question a bit further into the future. What’s next for engineering is that remote autonomous sensors (on robots, UAV’s, satellites, whatever) will be able to autonomously digest and analyze the constant (huge) stream of sensor data. These "intelligent" sensors will give automatically give robust diagnostics, prognostics and reports, which are directly sent to these Web2.0 sites such as Twitter, MediaWiki and more."  (Christiaan Erik Rijnders)

Christian’s answer led me to do some research on "intelligent sensors" and "intelligent search agents". Although the concept of intelligent search agents has been around for some time, there is new MIT research on the topic which I’m still assimilating:

In the end, no one suggested traditional learning sources. Given this audience, perhaps I should not be surprised. I’ve also been contacted by some folks who represent various knowledge management tools. The companies range from small to large.

Here are two other closing comments:

  • John Hunter posted about my search in the American Society of Engineering Education Blog. That was neat.  Hopefully we’ll get more input from this group.
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  • A anonymous commenter to this post noted: "Is some form of reward and recognition appropriate for those that choose to be knowledge sharers. Some people have the ‘knowledge is power’ ethos and will happily take knowledge for their own gains but not reciprocate." This person also provided an intriguing link to a journal article on the same subject: Inside Knowledge

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Update #2 on November 13th:

I just received another response to my LinkedIn question. Amanda Smith gave me some excellent ideas, and also a link to a very interesting NASA expertise locator project (i.e. finding the correct technical people in a large dispersed organization). You may wish to view my LinkedIn question and all the reponses
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Per the comment about knowledge sharing! Given I’ve blogged, created screencasts, search engines, wikis, etc … I guess I am contributor! Oh yes … here’s how I wasted my time on Facebook! (see image)
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Map
 

Language Learning Resources from the BBC

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A friend just sent me a link to the BBC’s language learning resources.  It’s good stuff, and the price is right (i.e. free).  Here are some links:

BBC Language Learning Resources (root page)

In addition, you may be interested in some prior posts I had on language learning resources. All of this content is of high quality and available without charge via the web: