I’ve been talking with friends and a discussion reminded me….

Some hate the ‘click here‘ to read more on blogs, I see it as valuable in keeping my front page looking fairly accessible, concise and pretty and I don’t really like to see loads of text on a blog entry page. Equally, whenever I tweet about a post it is always to the full post so I don’t see it as an issue. Furthermore, if you’re accessing this via RSS then your client may also be affecting the ‘click here‘ to read more process.

Michael Gelb is the author of a book called “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” and in it he expands on the ‘seven steps to genius every day‘ …

Now, I haven’t read the book yet but I’ve seen the seven steps listed and they’ve fascinated me enough to want to share them with you all. These principles need, so says Gelb, to be followed for success. Whether it be a new language, training to be a chef or just wanting to improve yourself in your current job.

Anyway, the seven steps are:

1. Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life.
2. Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
3. Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience.
4. Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
5. Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination (“whole-brain thinking”).
6. Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
7. Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; “systems thinking.”

I don’t know about you but these steps fascinate me and I will be getting a copy of the book when time allows. I understand that the book have some of da Vinci’s illustrations as well and the book references its principles to da Vinci’s accomplishments.

I originally posted this some time back and elsewhere as a reminder for myself and as an aid to other parents / students. I present it here, in a slightly edited format but in principle the ethos of the original remains:

I never went through trying to pick a Universitymyself as I had grand plans to join the RAF at 16 as an apprentice electronics technician. I was amply qualified, I sailed through their tests but (as I later found out from a neighbour) I was only offered a job as a truck driver so that they could fulfil their quotas.

Anyway – enough of me. My eldest was in his final year at school and has determined what he wants to do as a degree. However he hadn’t a clue and nobody seemed to be providing that clue as to how one picks a university. After several fruitless attempts to get some help we sat down to surf a bit and found some excellent resources. In fact and as the title suggests there are precisely 3 of them and I share them now so as to help other year 13 (aka upper sixth) students or their parents.

1. Unistats – This was teh “Teaching Quality Initiative originally but it’s morphed into Unistats now. Search by subject, university, compare, etc
2. The Alternative Guide to British Universities – as it says on the cover but from the students perspective. This guide is produced by Virgin and you may need to search for a different year as this one links to 2010.
3. The Guardian University League Tables – as with Unistats – The Guardian have long produced an annual guide to Universities but also make it available online.

There are other resources, including other newpapers such as The Times but I didn’t like the way they laid out their results and this can lead to some confusion. It is also at odds with what other organisations have determined and furthermore it is at odds with those universities I have personally visited with my eldest.

There is a predeliction to keeping Oxford and Cambridge at the top of the rankings but without justifying why. The other guides don’t fall in to such short comings (to my eyes anyway) and note well, this is not educational jealousy as my son was perfectly capable of attending Oxford. To that end we went along to the appropriate Open Day and our feelings on the matter will remain private, but suffice to say it is not the place it pretends to be. Finally, and less personal is the fact that Oxford and Cambridge instruct their students to not reply to these annual surveys and instead the results are based on their own internal surveys – not at all suspicious!

Anyway, I hope these few links help you as they have helped my son and I.

I have this question.

What is networking to you?

And when I talk about networking I mean the interaction amongst humans for pleasure or profit. The trouble with that one question is it forces me into lots more. (more…)

Recently I posted a comment to a blog. As always I left a way for the blog owner to be able to contact me. They did just that and took me to task over my comment. I replied and clarified and all is now happy and peaceful again twixt they and me.

The issue here, I guess, was my phrasing and the blog owners initial reading of my comment. My intended attempt at a bit of tongue in cheek humour failed miserably and this set me to thinking. I’ve read many a time about how we all get mis-understood in online communications and indeed I have been guilty of both sides of that story in the past. However, due to the nature of my job (I deal quite a bit with a myriad of end users from CEOs down to the stores person through to dealing with people whose first language is not English) I have adapted over the years and I guess have become a little blasé about my leisure writing style. (more…)