Some Great Posts Finishing Off The Year & Predictions for 2009

I saw some great posts from the last couple of days with great summaries of 2008 and 2009 and I'd like to capture them here as well.

Jane Hart's prediction for top tools of 2009. I've used a few of these and agree with Jane that they are wonderful tools and simple to use.

Robin Good led a group of 130+ through an online live mind mapping exercise creating an amazing picture of 2008's collaboration tools. This was incredible to watch it coming together live.

15 ways to improve your presentations in 2009 by Olivia Mitchell. Everyone can always use more tips or at least reminders on upgrading our presentations.

15 Useful Tools for WordPress Bloggers by Jacob Gube. I don't use WordPress, but many do and the options here are impressive.

I'm sure over the next several days the wrap ups of 2008 and predictions for 2009 will start flooding in and I look forward to reading all of them.

A New Year, A Chance to Start Fresh

I was a little disappointed with my self and my postings over the last year, mostly the last half of the year. They became fewer and fewer as I became more consumed with work. It's nice to be really busy, especially with the outlook of economic lows ahead. However, being too distracted with work hindered my learning from and networking with others. My reading of other blogs dwindled and with that my learning decreased which ultimately lead to me posting fewer items to my blog.
I am looking forward to a new year with my RSS reader cleaned out and ready for a whole new load of information ready for my eager eyes to scan through. There is one catch however, it's nice to start fresh but one must develop a plan for actually keeping up with the growing or over-growing amount of information that gets passed through the reader.

My plan is to learn from others and dump out those feeds that I truly only scan the headlines of and rarely look deeper into, this should hopefully make my inbox a little leaner. Second, I have set aside an hour at the end of each day (I find there are more posts then) to read through feeds and post my own thoughts. When I first started blogging I was writing once a day. I would like to get back to that habit, but we'll see if 3 times a work week is more feasible.

I'm hoping that this will work well for the upcoming year. I'll need to revisit "the plan" in a month to see if it is actually working. A little more than an hour may be necessary or work might be all consuming still and not allow me any time. Fingers crossed on this resolution.

Cheers to All for the New Year!

Ever want to just escape it all? (Two LMS's? Are they trying to kill me?)

Ever just want to run away and escape from it all?

I just came from a meeting from our Emergency Planning dept. and have been so graciously informed that they are purchasing a system to ensure or emergency readiness. Great, sounds wonderful. I think we need that. The catch....it has an LMS built into it and they want to run it for just those courses. Ugg Why would we want 2 LMSs running in the organization?

One of the main reasons we even started on this journey was that our educators were getting concerned that they were each tracking the learning of their staff in a billion different ways. Know one knew what anyone was taking or had taken. This is especially a problem with several hundred transfers a month around the organization.

On that note...I don't know how some of my peers cope with more than 3000 staff and multiple facilities. They should be praised.

I'm now in need of a desperate talk with my CIO to see what we can do, what we should do, where we should proceed. I'm quite concerned that when staff see/use this new LMS (it will be their first LMS experience and is scheduled to be up in several weeks) and then need to use my original LMS (yes they have yet to actually see it) they will be very confused and will be drawn to the new system as it is (as my IT buddy calls it) a much "sexier" system.

I'm confused already and neither system has launched. I'm also quite concerned about the potential of having two areas of administration. Historically our department (or I should say me) has been responsible for the administration of our Core Curriculum (6 mandatory courses that must be sent out to all staff each year). This new system would be responsible for only 2-3 of those courses. That makes little sense as well and would only duplicate much of my work.

I now need to desperately have a meeting with my director and my CIO to get these concerns on the table asap as this new system seems to be a go whether I like it or not.

I want to Blog...Where to Start?

I'm curious to find out a few things from bloggers who have been posting for more than a year:

1. What is your blogging tool of choice (blogger, wordpress, etc)?
2. Have you always used the same tool? If you switched why?
3. How often to you post?
4. Does traffic to your blog matter to you?
5. Do you try to stick to one topic/theme or are you generalized?
6. How many other blogs do you follow?
7. Have you kept your blog in the standard templates offered, have you tweaked it, or have you designed your own fully?
8. Do you blog internally for a company/organization or is it out there for the world to see?
9. Do you try to promote your blog (increase its searchablility - is that a word)?

Trouble Concentrating on One Task at a Time

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on one task at a time, let alone complete one and before I move onto the next. Am I normal for my generation; a product of my environment; has work forced be to be this way; is it just too much info all at once? I'm just not sure any more.

I certainly know, as it seems to be discussed more and more that information overload is bogging us down. I never believed that it was really happening. I felt like I was thriving learning more and more. I was excited to read, hear, see the next big thing or learn more about a topic I that found really interesting. I also never believed that I couldn't multitask and still get everything done that needed to be finished.

I now think, as 2008 is coming to a close, that I feel more drained then I have in a very long time. I feel that little has been accomplished. I've started a lot of projects, but have I really completed them to my full potential. I'm not sure. Even when I think of housework, something simple, something just for me....I fly around the house from one bit to another....clean a sink, wait spot on the mirror, do that....do another mirror, do another mirror....lint on the floor, better vacuum...back to sinks.... Eventually it gets done, but the process is crazy.

How did I get this way? It may be a bit because of my work. Rarely does a day go by where I can sit there an concentrate on just one task. There are phone and email interruptions both of which must be answered immediately. For some reason a culture has developed at my work where if a call/email is not answered immediately the person will try another method to reach you. I've even had people come to my office if I don't answer them within 30 minutes. There are the constant drop ins asking questions and usually they are about something irrelevant to the task at hand. I sit an area of the hospital where there are frequent visitors and patients that often need assistance with just logging on the computer. You can not tell them to wait, that is not an option.

And so wrapping up 2008 I seem to have my LMS at least in my grubby hands, but not yet functioning at a level that will make my users or instructors completely happy. I have started to create 2 different elearning courses, but haven't completed either. In case the LMS isn't a go in Jan. '09 then I've started creating 5 other courses for paper distribution. Oh and even if the LMS does work who's to stay everyone is going to access it anyway....the paper distribution better be ready any way. I've hosted 6 orientation sessions over the year. I did run a conference for our staff in April, but I'm back planning (in bits and pieces) the one for next April.

I'm feeling a bit like I'm running in a hamster wheel right now. Once in a while I get out and breath for a moment, but then I'm right back in running my little feet off.....and my brain.