Like father, like son! My son Carl is definitely a chip off the old Northstar Nerd's block! He's getting his master's degree at Johns Hopkins … their Bologna, Italy campus. His latest blog post is … Carl of Arabia! Link and you'll find some classic photos!

I have some friends who work for McDonalds and they will like this map, but I find it distressing (from the Map Scroll Blog). The map shows the distance wherever you are in the continental United States to reach the next McDonalds … link to the Map Scroll for full details. The greatest distance between two McDonalds … Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest
Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145
miles by car! (Click upon the image to view full sized.)

It's been a while since I've seen a really good new site (at least new to me) that I wanted to add to my Engineering for Children section in the Engineering Learning Wiki, but SEED (Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development) excites me. Here are just a few links:

• Build Your Own Star
• Math Puzzles
• Virtual Science Labs
• Science Festures

I've yet to explore the entire site; the amount of good content is impressive. I'm still learning how to build a good cosmic star!

I know everyone always says "I know of an excellent Knowledge Management presentation", but you really need to look at this 3 part presentation created by T-Systems, Germany's leading multimedia provider. The content really demonstrates why one should adopt Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools; and better yet … the presentation easily stands by itself without audio. Make certain you click to maximize the presentation via SlideShare. Here is the url … http://www.besser20.de/english/

You may also wish to see my other post from this evening … a Google Fast Flip Tutorial.

When I finished graduate school my first job was for RCA Atstro-Electronics. Our division which designed and manufactured satellites was right down the street from RCA's Sarnoff Labs. Even back in mid 80's, you could already start to see the start of the decline of those famous labs. After a few years at RCA I moved back to Minnesota and have spent the rest of my career at my present company's engineering labs.

To day that I have seen changes over the past 25 years would be a huge understatement, but the one truism I've found through all these years is one must always better learn to collaborate. These days I am focusing upon the use of social media and collaboration tools for the enterprise … the virtual water cooler. Thus it was with great interest I read the latest cover story for Business Week. The major focus of this issue is several articles on how engineering research and development has changed, and how collaboration with folks even outside your own company is critical. Whether you find you agree or disagree with the theme of the article, you need to read this material:

• Big Blue's Global Lab
• A Radical Rethink of R&D
• Podcast: The Radical Future of R&D

I'm still processing all this material myself, and plan to add more blog posts in the future.