The Irish have voted yes to the Lisbon treaty. At least they have been given the chance. Our “elected” representatives ratified it on our behalf. The one sure thing that comes from Ireland’s yes vote is that we are one step closer to the possibility of Tony Blair becoming the unelected president of the EU. The thought that a war criminal could achieve this status leaves me cold. Doubtless there will be some palace for him to hold court in and an entourage to go with it – all at our expense. The only expense he is worth is a jail cell.
A really interesting post from Ewan on teleworking. I “work from home” – I’m just not at home very often. I don’t have to contend with time differences but I do have geography against me. Covering the whole of Scotland and now having some responsibilities in the North of England (thats north as in north of Oxford!) the challenges of being in all the places I need to be while having a meaningful family life are getting tougher. Ewan is making the most of the remote working tools available to him and taking advantage of the time zones. I’m conscious that I, and my colleagues, need to make more use of these tools. Do we always have to be there in person? Is a Yugma conference or a Skype call good enough? I think it will all come down to the quality of the experience for the end user. If our customers don’t have a good experience then I’ll be in the car driving all over the country and while I’m behind the wheel I’m not productive. So there’s a bit of a quandary. There’s a compelling commercial argument for me to do three remote meetings in a day rather than doing a six hour round trip for one meeting. But if the experience for the customer is not flawless then they won’t accept it.
I’d love to spend less time in the car, hopefully I’ll be able to harness some of this technology to help achieve this. I think I’ll be returning to this over the coming months.
I’m here with Andrew Roland and George Hannah at Teachmeet 08. We’re going to do a bit of a thing on the RM Asus miniBook.
We snapped this picture of Bob Geldof at BETT08 today. He was giving a key note at an event hosted by Integris and Groupcall.
It always seems to creep up on you – right after the New Year. No doubt this one will be bigger and better than previous ones although how it could be any busier than last year I don’t know. The RM stand will be the same but different. No green goblins, this year we’re in black and white. There’s going to be some interesting stuff to see and I’m sure my feet will be very sore by Saturday night. Swing past the stand and say hello – I’ll be in a black polo shirt.
The dust has settled and SLF07 is behind us. I had a great time. Our Educational Update session on Wednesday was well received and the stand was really busy. On Thursday I had the unprecedented opportunity to take in a couple of seminars and a keynote. The highlight had to be Mick Waters keynote, it was truly inspirational. Ewan McIntosh’s Why Scotland’s been blogging for Five Million Years was really good fun. Thanks for the intro to cup stacking. It was great to catch up with Ewan for a beer later as well.
Back to reality this week. Roll on SLF08.
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It was a great honour to be invited to be a Reading Champion at The Reading Bus in Aberdeen today. I spoke about what I do for a living, reading to my children and memorising song lyrics as a teenager. I had great fun. Hopefully the P6 pupils of Donbank Primary School got something from it as well.
Prior to doing this I had helped the Enterprise Group at the school to make a poster for a VIP visit to the Reading Bus using Easiteach.
Thanks to Jenny for inviting me.
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I’ve managed to get my hands on one of these for a seminar I’m giving at SETT – The Scottish Learning Festival on September 21. First impressions are that it is a very nice machine. Centrino Duo and 1GB RAM make it fast enough, slot loading DVD is nice touch as well. The rotating screen is taking a bit of getting used to as I’m used to the RM slate tablets. It’s a wee bit heavy but I’m sure I’ll build up my muscles. I’m going to try to do a fuller review soon but the seminar prep and loading the tablet with all the software I need is taking priority just now.
In the mean time get more info here.
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Don’t really know much about football – I support Partick Thistle! Celtic are currently developing their new training facility at Lennox Castle. It isn’t so much landscaping, more terraforming that they are doing.
Anyway I’ve started a flickr photo set that will chart the development. find it here.
I’m hoping to keep it updated quite regularly.
