Clarifying Communication May 12, 2008
Posted by mierow in Uncategorized.Tags: communication, email, father's day, im, mother's day, twitter
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I learned an important lesson yesterday – 140 characters can mean different things to different people, and sometimes you want to be REALLY clear in what you’re trying to say with them. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and as I’ve done since I got married, I wished my wife a Happy Mother’s Day. We don’t yet have any children, but that hasn’t stopped us from this day or Father’s Day wishes. I’m of the opinion that they two days don’t discriminate against people who don’t have kids. They are days to celebrate that sex, for all they do, and their contributions to you.
I’ve twittered (tweeted?) any number of things that may pop into my mind throughout the day. Yesterday was no exception to this pattern. So I twittered the following: “ caribou for the mrs after church. happy mother’s day to her. going to meet the parents & little bro for lunch in about an hour”. I did not realize what commotion could arise from such a statement. At first glance it appears pretty normal, maybe even bland. Five words in the middle is where I needed explanation: “happy mother’s day to her”.
To a few people that follow what information I spew out on Twitter, those five words conjured a different meaning than what I had intended. To those few it was a hint, or insight that I may have bigger news in store. I was sad to report to them that I had no bigger news. I responded to the inquiries either through Twitter or IM and got everything straightened out. It is what it was, just a wish.
This has helped bring home the importance of clarifying my communication with others. As I put more of myself out there for the world to see I need to think about how I may say something. If I’ve only got 140 characters to give, I want to give each of them my attention and meaning.
Mantra not Mission May 7, 2008
Posted by mierow in Uncategorized.Tags: guy kawasaki, mantra, mission, statement, vision
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Yesterday I took some time to view a speech from Guy Kawasaki that he gave in Houston a little while back. You can find a video of the speech here [thanks to Houston Technology Center]. He was mainly there to go through the talk he gives on The Art of the Start. This is a book he has written to help people launch new ideas/products/services/etc. While listening I became struck by his idea of having a mantra and not a mission statement. Instead of a lengthy and wordy phrase that no one in your company knows, he suggests that you narrow yourself to 2-3 words. He gives a couple of examples in his speech, which you can also download from his site as a pdf. You can see the typical mission statement on pg 7 and some sample mantras on pg 11.
This was poking at the back of my mind the rest of the day. I was wondering how (or if) this could be applied to education. Is there a way to boil down what a school does into 2 or 3 words? By example, here are some mission statements from Christian schools of various levels:
The mission of ***** is to prepare students for thoughtful and informed living, for dedicated service to God and humanity, for enlightened care of God’s creation, all within the context of the Christian Gospel.
***** exists to provide Christ-centered higher education equipping students to grow intellectually and spiritually, to serve effectively in their professions, and to give God-honoring leadership in the home, church, community, and world.
To teach the Word of God in its truth and purity, to prepare children to be God’s itnesses, to provide a quality education necessary to equip our children for a God-pleasing productive life in today’s contemporary world, and to develop the gifts He has given each child for his service.
While they sound nice, and I’m sure they took a lot of time and planning to write, they all seem very lengthy and not too easy to remember. Is it possible to break down education (especially Christian education) into 2-3 words? Given enough time I think so, but my brain may be drained just from all the new thoughts that this line of thinking has sparked. Here are the things that quickly came to my mind:
“Life long growth”
“Education for life”
“A better you”
While I don’t think that any of these are particularly good or great, I’m sure that I’ll keep coming back to them to see how I can find something that fits. My only problem is that I’m not sure that I can find an educational institution that would adopt this idea, but I guess that’s a whole different discussion.
Certs May 1, 2008
Posted by mierow in Uncategorized.Tags: a+, ccna, certification, mcse, training
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I have been officially working with technology for the past 10 years, unofficially I’ve been playing with it since I saw my first Apple II in 5th grade over 20 years ago. Starting at a small gaming store, then purchasing manager for a I.T. consulting company, to being a Help Desk worker at a university and now a Network Admin, my jobs have covered a broad range of how technology is used.
Over the years I’ve seen many friends and coworkers plan out all of the certifications that they we’re working on. From A+ to CCIE, it seems like each of these people were driven to get that specific cert. I’m sure these people have seen the benefits of their studies. I just can’t seem to find the motivation for myself to get any certs.
I believe he main reason for this is because I have had several different jobs in I.T. over the past few years. A cert that I may have used on my first job wouldn’t have much impact on my current job, or at least not in my opinion. The second reason is that I think technology is changing all the time. My current job has me working on servers, wireless, VoIP, and more. I don’t have the time to get certs in each of those areas (nor is my company going to pay for all of that training). Even if I did get all of the certs needed, by the time I was done with all the studying and testing, I would need to start over again because everything would have changed. I would never get any work accomplished with all of the studying and testing that I would be doing. Finally, my last reason for not getting certs is my own learning style. I learn really well by getting my hands into a project. I need to be able to play with a device and see it working. Of course I’ll read up on anything that I don’t know how to fix, but simply reading through a MSCE book for a test isn’t going to really teach me much. I’m likely to forget about 50-75% of what I’ve read an hour after I put the book down. Thanks to Google, I can find most of my answers within a few minutes.
Not sure how all of this plays into my future of working with I.T. from here on out. My own opinions may very well change in the near future. For the time being I’m willing to stand on my own work and not on a piece of paper.
