What Einstein and Violins have in Common

The picture to the left was taken about 2 years ago while I was playing with a Jazz quintet at a local winery in Portland, Oregon. Why is it here? Well, the other day, I started thinking about how many musicians I see working in the computer field. It’s rather amazing, they seem to be everywhere. Guitar players, horn players, drummers, violinists, etc.

After doing a little research on the Internet, I think I may have found the answer. It seems that musical aptitude is one of the strongest predictors of success in technical positions. Terry Skyarek, Director of the Institute for Professional Development in the School of Computer Science at DePaul University, states “The highest scores on the admissions test and best performers have been people with a background in music.”

The articles goes on to hypothesize the reason behind this interesting phenomenon. Here are a few highlights:

• Both music and computers are structured environments.
• There seems to be a high correlation between musical ability and reasoning skills.
• Technical people favor spatial/temporal reasoning, or the ability to visualize. Both Mozart and Albert Einstein excelled at this. Einsten was also known to favor the violin.

What do you think? Is this a just a lot of scientific “mumbo jumbo” or is there some fact to this? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Why Online Classes Fail

Many companies are starting to move to distance learning courses as a way to increase the knowledge and skills of their distributed workforce. The most common reasons cited are: convenience, cost, and time. Although many articles discuss what to do and not do in regard to migrating classroom content to the Web, little emphasis is placed on how to prepare people to take online classes. Some people are excellent online students while others struggle. Why?

A few years ago while teaching online courses for a university in Arizona, I begin to notice the students who struggled with distance learning the most suffered from a lack of self-discipline and the inability to motivate themselves. Have you experienced the same problems? If so, let’s hear about how you approached them.

ASTD Volunteer of the Month!

Wow! The end of April 2008 is turning out to be an exciting month for me! A few days ago, I had the opportunity to write a short article on delivering training and seminars online for E-learning Magazine. Today, I received the ASTD-Cascadia Chapter’s newsletter and discovered I’m the “Volunteer of the Month”. What an honor! Here is a snippet from the article To read more, click here.

Volunteer, Podcast Committee, Job Listing Formatter
Hey, those of you who are regular listeners to our PodCascadia…have you noticed something different lately? A lilt in Aaron’s voice? A giddiness emanating from Christine? Well, those are the effects of our new podcast producer, Richard Watson!

Christine shares that “Richard has been a great addition to the podcast team, jumping right in to provide logistical support. He’s already organized our schedules, policies and procedures on a wiki. He’s even recorded his first segment. He’s always enthusiastic and full of new ideas.”

Richard has experience as a technical content writer, and is a published author, having authored and co-authored several books published by Prentice Hall that deal with Windows administration and network security.

The Proper Care and Feeding of a SME

I’ve spent several years training on technical subjects and designing technical content. On some of the projects, I’ve performed the role of Instructional Designer and asked the questions. On other projects, I’ve been the Subject Matter Expert (SME). Here are a few random thoughts on the “Proper care and feeding of a SME.” Enjoy!

The Mystery of the Missing Codec

I was recently asked to troubleshoot an audio/video presentation on a friend’s web site. The goal was to help him identify why visitors to his site were receiving error messages when they attempted to watch the presentation.

Before I explain how his problem was solved, let me give you some background on the video. The video was originally recorded using a WebEx proprietary software program called WebExRecording Editor. This same editor provided him with the ability to export the file to a Windows Video File (*.wmv) format. During the export process, he was prompted to select both a video codec and an audio codec. He chose the Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec but changed the audio codec to ACELP.net. This is where he made his fatal mistake. When customers came to his site, they received an error message: “missing audio codec”

Read on to discover how the mystery of the missing codec was solved…

Tips for Delivering Seminars/Training Online

I’ve done hundreds of online seminars/training sessions over the last year and thought I would write a post on a few of the things I’ve learned. I’ve put them together in a top ten list (no particular order).

#1: Mute attendees when they enter your online session. There is nothing more annoying to a participant then having to listen to people connecting into the seminar (beep, beep, beep) when you are 10-15 minutes into the class. The same goes for when they exit or disconnect from the session.

#2: Don’t mumble! If you don’t know what to say, it’s OK to be quiet for a few seconds. You don’t have to fill every second with information. Know what you are going to say and say it.

Wait, there’s more!

The Art of Non-Verbal Communication: The Pilot versus the Flight Attendant

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a guest to interview for an upcoming podcast show. I was fortunate enough to locate Michael Grinder who is an international speaker, lecturer, author, and facilitator. For those of you looking to gain insight into the world of non-verbal communication, I encourage you to listen to our podcast.

Michael Grinder, founder of Michael Grinder and Associates, started as a classroom teacher and has taught in Oregon, California, and Washington. In 1983, he started his own company. He is still connected to his educational roots (about 50% of the time) but spends the rest of it in the corporate and public speaking arena. In the podcast, he talks about how to make yourself a better communicator when you’re in front of people. The biggest distinction he mentions is the difference between speaking when you are inside the company versus conducting a public seminar. The set of skills required, in each of these situations, is very different.

Analyzing Your Blog Traffic

I was recently talking to a friend of mine regarding how to increase the readership of my blog. He said, “It just takes time…” Well, in the interest of increasing traffic to this blog, I’ve decided to do a little research to further this process along. First, it’s important to get a baseline measurement of how things are going on my blog as of today. I can then use this information as I start to make changes to see how much progress I’m making. So, in the first part of this posting, I’ll talk about some things to put in place on your blog to track current activity. In a later post, I’ll provide some insight into how others are increasing traffic to their blogs.

Pedagogy: Dead or Alive?

As some of you know, I am currently participating in a pilot study group that is preparing for the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential from ASTD. We meet every Saturday to discuss the finer aspects of learning and human performance. The other day, we were discussing the concept of andragogy versus pedagogy. For those of you who have taken a Leadership course in college or have studied anything on adult learning principles, you no doubt have come across these terms. If not, let me clarify them quickly before I get to the main reason for this post.

Social Learning Champion vs. Network/Security Administrator

On the BlogCascadia website, there is an article written by Kevin Jones. The article summarizes a session held by Tony Karrer at TechKnowledge 2008. The article documents things that can get in the way of social learning implementations.

Firewalls, IP, Privacy, Security, Control of information by management, Strict control over policies – Accuracy, Liability / Discoverability / Compliance, Change Management – Ready for it / Culture, Management take it seriously – away from work, Is it real work or not? Education of management, Lack of resources – Mobile devices, Pushback from workforce – adoption

As I read the list, three items caught my attention: Firewalls, Internet Protocol (IP blocking), and Security. Although many companies have policies that dictate their networks need to be protected, it usually becomes the responsibility of the network/security administrator to make sure it happens. I use the phrase network/security administrator for one very important reason. Very few companies have someone who is dedicated to security. In fact, many companies have now pushed the security responsibilities onto the network administrator who has little, if any, security training. Never underestimate the power of influence these individuals have in an organization. If the network is compromised, they are the first people to be called in the middle of the night and the first to suffer the wrath of executives after a security breach. If you want to talk social learning tools with these types of individuals, you will need to understand how they think.