Toyota has changed the economic and business landscape. Author and professor Jeffrey K. Liker explains that this success was the result of consistently applying four key management principles for organizational excellence-Philosophy, People, Problem Solving, and Process. The Lean Blog has now published a three part series / podcast of interviews with Professor Liker on his new book, Toyota Culture. In this book he notes that a key aspect to Toyota’s success is culture … in fact it is the "heart and soul of the Toyota Way"

• Jeff Liker Interview – Parts One | Two | Three

Stormbringer commented yesterday about a very cool tool, WikiBooks2PDF. This simple and easy to use tool allows one to convert Wikibooks to pdf for offline use. Just do the following:

1. Link to Wikibooks
2. Find the "book" in which you are intersted
3. Copy the URL
4. Link to WikiBooks2PDF
5. Paste the URL in the window indicated
6. Voila … about 30 seconds later!

Following up on yesterday’s post (my thanks to Peter Skomoroch over at Data Wrangling Blog), I’ve added the following courses to the Engineering Learning Wiki and it’s embedded Google Co-op search engine. The links given below take you to the correct wiki section.

• Convex Optimization – Stanford University
• Fundamentals of Physics – Yale University
• Fundamentals of Wireless Broadband Networks – RPI
• Machine Learning – U Cal Berkeley
• Thermodynamics – Cambridge University
• Wireless Sensor Networks – University of Freiburg

Remember to check out the courses page of the Engineering Learning Wiki. This page has the search engine and lists the LARGE curriculums (i.e. not just individual courses).

The Connectbeam Blog has an interesting post today, it’s title: Should Facebook Be Banned from Work? Gardner’s Nikos Drakos versus Ray Valdes. Given the fine reputation of the Gardner Group, I recommend you link over to Connectbeam and read up on this issue. The problem of access to web 2.0 / social networks is one facing many corporations. While there is obviously content on YouTube and Facebook which is detrimental to polite society and not work focused (or worse), many companies now use YouTube for marketing. I actually found a great professor, Jake Blanchard, via one of his YouTube video / tutorials. He now teaches MatLab courses for my company.

One month from today is the UnEvent! BarCamp Minnesota will be held on May 10th. Why should you care? Have you been UNsuccessful in increasing your knowledge? Do you get outside your current box? Is your thinking UNrestricted? (hmmm … I wonder how many more times I can use UN in a sentence).

Two years ago I attended Wikimania at Harvard. While strictly not an UNconference, it showed me I needed to get outside my comfort zone and work at learning. Most conferences tend to be an excuse for a thinly veiled vacation. BarCamps are held all over the world. The concept is quite simple; the attendees set the agenda … and flexibility is key. I will report on BarCamp Minnesota via this blog.

If your job involves understanding the ways of the web, and technology trends, you owe it to yourself to learn more. Attend a BarCamp in your own local area (held globally). I’ve even signed up to give a presentation (not a big deal). These events are normally held on Saturdays, often with a Friday night mixer. If you want to attend minnebar … the super secret wiki login password is … c4mp