Off Course-On Target

Cool Tools I Use: Cabinet Scraper

I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an everyday basis and stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  I'd like to hear about yours.  Meanwhile, here's another one of mine:

 One of my favorite hobbies is fine woodworking.  Since I was very young, I've found the entire process of designing and creating furniture, as well as wood sculptures and cabinetwork on my sailboat, to be almost Zen-like in the satisfaction it provides. 

 In a former lifetime I was a woodwork teacher and one of the best tools I shared with my students—one I regard as my "secret weapon" in turning out great works in wood—is a simple little rectangle (or sometimes curved shapes of hard steel) called a cabinet scraper.  This tool is used to "scrape" (cut would be more accurate) surfaces of wood, and is often used in place of sandpaper. Cabinet scrapers work their magic by having a very small "burr" along the edge of the scraper blade that cuts the wood very cleanly, producing wonderful shavings as you work with them.  They work MUCH faster than sandpaper and produce an amazing surface that is flat and smooth and takes a finish extremely well.  Cabinet scrapers are particularly useful when you need to smooth wood with unusual  of different types and at different angles.

They are a bit tricky to learn to sharpen, and as with most cutting tools, having a sharp edge is the key to making them work well.  But once you know the technique, it is quite quick and simple to sharpen a cabinet scraper.  There are some specialty tools for sharpening, but I tend to keep it simple and just use a file and a burnisher.  The two images shown here are from this very good overview from the Woodgears, and a simple online search will produce many more.

Unfortunately most people are unaware of this very old tool and perhaps they disregard it, along with many other "lowly hand tools", which is a shame and their loss.  If you do ANY amount of working with wood, even simple jobs, such as preparing wood surfaces for painting or refinishing etc., you really owe it to yourself to try this one.  They are very affordable (less than $10), easy to use, extremely effective, AND they are the ultimate in "green technology", requiring only the power of your hands—no cords or batteries.  Check online for suppliers. Some of the better makes are from North America, including Veritas and Lee Valley tools.  Once you've used a sharp one, you'll never look back.

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Have  "Cool Tools" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information:

• Name of the tool and source for getting one. 
• What does it do? 
• How did you come to discover this? 
• How do you use it? 
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

Cool Tools We Use

Over the years, many people have asked about some of the "cool tools" I use to do some of the things I do, which range from presentations to podcasts, welding to woodworking, and sailing to speaking. 

In one such discussion a few months ago, long-time colleague Tom King, who now also works with Elliott Masie and the Masie Center as a "Masie Fellow", sent me the following note:

"I'm fascinated by some of the nifty tools I discover one way or another through contact with you. Things like doodle.ch or SlideShare or however the heck you get transcriptions of your podcasts. A totally separate and intriguing topic is how you quickly create such compelling, lengthy, thoughtful posts, podcasts & presentations. I've already seen quite a preso on "Whole New Mind" from you."

"Moving back to nifty tools....I think the interesting idea here is how these tools are discovered and shared-- and what makes them good. That process of discovery & recognition seems to be the long-term value, even if any given "nifty tool" has a place that is only ephemeral in the Internet-time mid-term time phase."

And he went on to say:

"For what it's worth, I think the best tools develop when the tool will "scratch an itch" for their very own developer... or someone near & dear to them. Likewise, I think the best recommendations for a tool comes from someone who uses it, and the second best source is a recommendation from someone who has a trusted/respected source that uses a tool. If the user is passionate enough to convey the value to that second party (who may not even use such a tool), and then recommends it to me.. well sometimes I find that is actually the best recommendation."

Couldn't agree more with your observations, Tom !  I too find great value in discovering such tools, tips, and tricks from you and others. 

Tom being Tom, he had already started to post some of his favorite tools, tips, and tricks on his blog Mobilemind (highly recommended BTW), and you can check out his lists of favorite Web Solutions and his favorite applications from earlier this year.

Cool Tools Kevin Uses:

Of course this is not a new idea. Another of my favorite people, Kevin Kelly over at Wired magazine, has has been doing a phenomenal job of covering a similar idea on his site Cool Tools.  His description is right on target for me:

"Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or web site that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted."

Even Dads can be Cool!

And then there is the totally cool offshoot that sprang up a bit later by Chris Anderson at Wired magazine called Geek Dad.  Check it out, no matter what your gender or status. 

So Many Tools, So Little Time

But what about the rest of us?  I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an every day basis.  Even more valuable are cool stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  How many of the cool tools that you use did you discover by seeing someone else use them?  Many, I suspect, but the problem is that as great as such serendipitous discovery is, it doesn't seem to scale very well. Considering that there are about to be 6.6 billion of us populating this planet, I think we may all have a few more to discover!

Later on in my discussion with Tom, I noted that I too am fascinated by the process of discovery, and I often point out that discovery is the opposite of invention—that discovery is the finding of something that already exists—whereas invention is the creation of something that never existed before (though most often consists of new combinations of previously existing ideas or things).  My point is to emphasize the differences and the power of going after both. I’m equally intrigued by the differences between invention and innovation, but I’ll stop myself from digressing (lucky you!) yet again. I merely want to emphasize how strongly I agree with Tom's larger point which is the value of the process of discovery and sharing.

So, thanks to Tom for the push. I'd like to see what we can do here on OCOT and as a group to explore and discover more Cool Tools. For starters, here are some quick thoughts from me and questions for all of YOU:

• Is this a topic that you would find to be of high value?
• Would YOU consider contributing one or more of your top cool tools and stories of how you discovered it, use it, etc.?
• Would this topic be well served by having a longer term “theme” or space on OCOT that is dedicated to “cool tools I use”? Or would one or two blog posts suffice?
• Might we be able to create a template that would help people describe their cool tools and stories, and make it easier for others to discover and use them? 
• Would a wiki-like capability work best for this, so that any given tool or technique could be expanded over time, so that other could add their examples of how they use the same tool differently, provide additional techniques or suggestions for getting more out of them, and add their own stories about how they came to discover the tool?
• Might “Cool Tools I Use” be a big enough topic to deserve its own “space” (section of a site, whole blog/wiki itself, etc.)?  For example, this could be a really eclectic mix of tools, where we are looking to discover them in any and all applications, walks of life, etc.

Please send in your comments or e-mails to let me know your thoughts on these questions.

Serious Fun, so let's make this a game!

In many cases we cease to consciously think about these tools. We use them so frequently and for so long that they are part of our "unconscious competency".  To "discover" them again, you may need to start noticing them again. 

So let's turn this exercise into a version of a once popular game based on the premise "If you could only take 10 things with you to live on a remote island for 10 years (randomly picked numbers), what would those be?"  And in the spirit of a game, let's not get too literal with this. Let's imagine that our basic needs for survival are met and focus instead on those things we could otherwise not live without.  In most cases, we probably could live without these, we just don't want to!

And let's really do some coloring outside the lines with this theme and not restrict ourselves to computers or the net!  I could imagine collecting “cool tool” ideas for anything from cooking to car repair to computers or canoeing (today’s post is brought to you by the letter C!).

Let's get Started!

In the interim, I thought I'd get things started by creating a "Cool Tools I Use" theme here on OCOT and use this to collect and share some of the cool tools each of us have found invaluable and to also share, perhaps even more importantly, the ways we found them or how they found us.  What I'll do on OCOT to help with this effort is create a metadata tag called "Cool Tools" and make sure all "Cool Tools" entries are marked with this tag so you can find them easily in the future.

Oh, and just for clarity, let's be clear that this is NOT to be used for nor does it represent ANY endorsement of promotion of a company or a specific product. These are authentic stories about "Cool Tools" that we use all the time and would not want to be without.

Should be fun, and if not, we won't do it! 

Now it's YOUR turn!

OK, that should be more than enough to give you an idea of what I'm thinking about.  Now it is YOUR turn to think about the "Cool Tools" you use and would never want to be without.  Send me your responses to my previous questions and we'll follow through accordingly.

Meanwhile, have a "Cool Tool" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information and I'll start collecting and publishing yours and more of mine.

• Name of the tool and source for getting one.
• What does it do?
• How did you come to discover this?
• How do you use it?
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

I'm sure EACH of you have a list of tools you would not want to be without, and you probably have tools you know that are much better than the ones I have on my list. I can't wait to start to learning and benefiting from your cool tools!

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Getting it Right

On Oct. 16th, I had the pleasure of giving a keynote called "Getting it Right" to the Autodesk Bay Area Manufacturing User Group or BAMUG. I was matched with fellow Autodesker Jay Tedeschi, who followed me on the stage and did a great job of putting my big picture and long range views into very clear context for these manufacturing design professionals. You can read more from Jay on his blog "The Gear Box".

My reference to "right" was two-fold:

• First, it refers to mass personalization and the Snowflake Effect: getting just the right stuff, to just the right people, at just the right time, in just the right context, in just the right ..........
• Secondly, it refers to the shift of human skills and value to right brain dominant skills and abilities.

As the slides below show the main topics I covered, including:

• How to avoid the "Perfecting the Irrelevant" syndrome
• The Snowflake Effect
• Skills of the future moving to the right side of the brain
• Applying the Long Tail to design
• The future of design

| View | Upload your own

Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure to be with Dan Pink and will have more on our meeting in a future posting. Dan is the author of one of my top recommended books right now "A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future" and I've been using his observations frequently. 

In this presentation to the BAMUG, I noted the connections between Dan's thought on the future of right brain skills and how this ties directly to design. For example as Dan notes in A Whole New Mind:

“...businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today's overstocked, materially abundant marketplace is to make their offerings transcendent, physically beautiful and emotionally compelling." or as Dan also puts it, "the MFA is the new MBA“

MFA = Master of Fine Arts

MBA = Master of Business Administration

Given that the everyone in the audience at this BAMUG meeting were mechanical engineers (or other design professionals in the manufacturing industry), I pointed out how dramatic the effect of this shift will be on them individually and their professions. 

Their jobs and skill sets have traditionally been focused on very left brain activities, such as analysis, and these are the very things that are becoming increasingly automated by the software they are using. 

I was able to show how Computer Aided Design or CAD programs that this audience uses, such as Autodesk AutoCAD Mechanical and Autodesk Inventor, have been increasingly automating more and more of these left brain skills—reducing or eliminating the time the designer needs to spend looking after them. Therefore the role of the engineer or user of these programs is to look after increasingly more right-brain dominant activities, such as synthesis, seeing patterns, making bigger picture design choices, and problem solving. 

Quite contrary to some of the dark bleak visions of the future predicted by futurists and science fiction writers, in which humans would be relegated to menial tasks and the "machines" would be doing all the "thinking" and be very "intelligent", a very different and very bright future is emerging—one where there is more reliance and focus on the role of the human brain to deal with these very right-brain-oriented skills of recognizing patterns amidst the chaos, seeing the bigger picture, developing holistic solutions, etc.

Meanwhile, the computers and machines are looking after more of the left-brain skills of analysis, and sorting through immense numbers of possibilities. Both sides of the brain and both sides of the human/machine relationship are very necessary. From where I sit, we are seeing a steady migration and matching of which side does what. 

The only danger I can see, and it is a very real and growing one, is to miss this shift to the right and miss the chance to be both more human and more valuable than ever. 

I'll come back to this theme of the shift to the right in future postings. For now, check out some of Dan's points, take a step back, and assess how this trend is affecting your job, your industry and your brain. Just the act of doing so is a great way to exercise the right side of your brain—so limber up, you've got everything to gain.

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del.icio.us tags: Autodesk, Inventor, AutoCAD, mechanical, engineer, right brain, left brain, whole new mind, Dan Pink, exponential change, BAMUG, CAD

Technorati tags: Autodesk, Inventor, AutoCAD, mechanical, engineer, right brain, left brain, whole new mind, Dan Pink, exponential change, BAMUG, CAD

Confusing Flapping with Flying

For a number of years now, I've shared a short story that many have said has helped them to think outside that proverbial box, giving them a new perspective on solving some of their more vexing problems. This is the story about how we often confuse “flapping” with “flying”.  It's only natural to assume that the experts know the best way to do something. But is this actually the case?

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DOWNLOAD Size: 4.1 MB Duration: 11:34 Transcript: 391 KB

In this podcast, Confusing Flapping with Flying, I show that with new ideas and new technologies, we often get stuck when we try to mimic the experts. Instead, we need to focus on identifying and understanding those essential elements that can help us make quantum leaps forward, and take us to where we really want to be.

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Obviating the Org Chart

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Many of my audiences have asked me to comment  on my observation that we are seeing the obviation of the org chart in most organizations. Org charts and organizations are typically organized by grouping people by their common functional roles—accounting, engineering, marketing, sales, etc. but while I see continued relevance and value in these functions I don't see much value in grouping people this way. In fact, most of the time is seems that individuals and groups succeed in spite of the way they are organized, not because of it. Perhaps this is because in reality, almost all work is project-based and project teams are very multifunctional and made up of people with a very broad range of functional roles, skills, and expertise.   

How many times have you been shocked or surprised when you see the job titles and locations on the org chart where your fellow team members come from? How often have you found the most valuable members of a very successful project are the ones who were "accidentally" on the team or discovered by pure serendipity at the water cooler? Or how often have you been such a "surprising success" on a team? 

Over the past 10 years, as I travel to more and more locations around the world and have the privilege to be with more and more diverse groups, I've found this to be an increasing trend and pattern of success.  Similarly, when project teams are staffed according to the more "formal" type of classifications or "by the org chart", they are much less successful or at least rarely peak performers. 

But we still need some help in finding the right people, in being discovered ourselves and put on project teams where we can make significant contributions and truly realize our potential.  So if the org chart and other traditional methods are not working, what is? The social networking analysis that I noted, as well tapping into the "informal organization", are two areas that will help significantly. However, there is a way to apply these larger meta-trends to how we can be more effective in putting ourselves together for success as organizations, teams, or any other "assembly" of individuals.   

For example I've suggested that such collections of individuals are yet another form and a great application of the "mashup" models that are emerging (search "mashups" on OCOT for more details on this topic)  Successful teams and groups are also following some of the "un" trends such as unconferences and unlearning which are becoming more and more common and successful as they too focus on the informal aspects of these activities.   

I also see great promise in following the meta-trends of metadata and "getting small" as these apply to people. No, no, not smaller people <g> but smaller characterizations or categorizations of people—all of us. Recognizing each of us us as the unique "snowflakes" that we are. 

How?  By shrinking the organization from a set of boxes on an org chart to a collection of individuals, and "shrinking" individuals down into a long list of rich "metadata" that details all their skills, knowledge, experience, attitudes, aptitudes, abilities, etc. Each of these pieces needs to be as small (detailed) as possible.   

Yes, the length of this list would be huge—millions or more "lines" for each snowflake (person), multiplied by how many individuals are in the organization, and multiplied again by the relationships, past and present, and the "network paths" between them.

But so what if the size of this "database" is daunting? Storage availability is increasing exponentially, cost is on the asymptote to zero and computers love large, so let's take more advantage of all this.  Imagine if you could put together a detailed list of exactly the characteristics or skills or experience you were looking for, and launch this as a rich query into that equally rich database!  Imagine  pattern recognition and recommender tools could help you put together these queries based on the peak performance of individuals and teams that are similar to the one you are putting together. Now compare this to how things have been done to date with blunt instruments like org charts. No contest right?   

And yes, I also see this as another example of how pervasive the simple Lego block model is, not by treating people as blocks, but by enabling each of us to discover "just the right" people... or be discovered ourselves. This discovery model could not only be for full project teams, but for almost any combination of individuals for any purpose—finding the right person to ask a question, to add to an IM conversation, or to meet at a conference.   

This model also helps to show why I'm always advocating that we look way beyond our individual fields of interest and expertise when we are looking for tools, technology, techniques etc. We need to see through the specific context of those being used ,so we can see the underlying and even greater value, if it is there. For example, in the case of this topic of finding "just the right people", I'm hoping that we will start to see how something like the newly advanced forms of "dating technology" can be even more powerful just by changing the context from love to learning, or from romantic relationships to peak performers. 

Yes, dating technology and org charts seem a long way apart as do Lego blocks, snowflakes, and social networks, but hopefully you are finding your time here at Off Course - On Target to be worthwhile and that it is living up to the description of "Where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries".  Here's to more unexpected paths and more discoveries for all of us!

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Shift happens—especially in your mind!

I want to alert you to an article and a book that recently came to my attention with some compelling empirical evidence that shows how effort and attitude really DO matter and that learning to “embrace failures” appears to be a discerning factor of those who succeed.

Carrie Bustillos, a long time Autodesk colleague and a Stanford alumni, passed along a recent article “The Effort Effect” from Stanford magazine about Carol Dweck’s research and her book Mindset:The New Psychology of Success. This book definitely makes it onto my highly recommended reading list.

Dweck proposes that we typically have one of two types of “mindset”: fixed or flexible/growth. Those with a fixed mindset think that their talents and abilities are preset. They simply are what they are and you just have to accept them. Intelligence and talents are basically what they were born with. This group, according to Dweck, is destined to go through life avoiding challenge and failure and not reaching their potential. On the other hand, those with a flexible or growth mindset regard their intelligence and talent as something that is malleable and can be developed over time.  This group is destined for growth and success.

Dweck was led to this research because she was curious as to why talent is not a good predictor of success. Why do some people achieve their potential while others who are equally talented don’t?  And she also asked herself, “What makes a really capable child give up in the face of failure, where other children may be motivated by the failure?”

It is important to note that the title “Mindset” is a play on words and Dweck is NOT recommending that we have a “set mind.” Nor is she simply championing “the power of positive thinking”. Rather, Dweck is proving how much of a difference it makes for those who choose to think about their abilities, intelligence, and talents as being very flexible.

What I really want to emphasize is that this means WE are in control! Being more successful, and realizing more of our individual potential, is a choice each of us can make. To me, some of her most fascinating experiments were those where she demonstrated that simply by changing the attitude or expectation that individuals had over their abilities (fixed versus flexible) completely determined the outcomes. Her research shows that those who have a flexible mind rather than a set or fixed one are more often successful.

“The Effort Effect” article recounts just such an example. Last November, Dweck served as an advisor to a top soccer team school from the UK whose performance director was concerned that many of their top players had a large gap between their actual performance and their potential. Of note was the fact that these top players were the most resistant to the school’s century old motto—arte et labore—“skill and hard work” and had the least motivation for serious training. With Dweck’s help, they identified the problem as somewhat cultural, since many believed that “star players are born, not made”, so what was the point of practicing?

The Stanford article outlined a recent study that Dweck and her colleagues conducted:

“‘Study skills and learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active ingredient,’ Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. ‘If you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any reason to hope for.’”

I was also immediately drawn to Dweck’s work when she cited one of my favorite examples and topics, Betty Edwards classes and book on Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Dweck noted how Edwards' results show that tests are typically poor at measuring potential because most adults think they can’t draw and for the most part I’d add that the majority feel they are very “left brained” and logical and only a rare few are “gifted” with artistic and other so called “right brain” talents and tendencies. Yet what Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has proven to thousands of adults who have taken the course or used the book, is that anyone can advance from the typical kindergarten-like attempts at drawing say, a portrait, to astoundingly accurate and beautiful portraits by these same “talentless” adults in just a few classes. That would certainly shift your mind set!

One of the things I really liked about Dweck’s book and work and why I’m recommending it for your consideration is that unlike so many others, her conclusions are grounded in over 30 years of solid and rigorous research with many different groups. She is not just theorizing or stating her opinions.

For more insights from Carol Dweck on how this plays out in education and training, I recommend reading the interview with her in Education World, “How Can Teachers Develop Students' Motivation—and Success?” In the interview she explained:

“This is a really interesting question, and the answer is surprising. There is no relation between students' abilities or intelligence and the development of mastery-oriented qualities. Some of the very brightest students avoid challenges, dislike effort, and wilt in the face of difficulty. And some of the less bright students are real go-getters, thriving on challenge, persisting intensely when things get difficult, and accomplishing more than you expected.

This is something that really intrigued me from the beginning. It shows that being mastery-oriented is about having the right mind-set. It is not about how smart you are. However, having the mastery-oriented mind-set will help students become more able over time.”

Now for some additional reading that takes Dweck’s work in very different directions, you may want to look at the following:

• Guy Kawasaki picked up on Dweck’s work on his blog How to Change the World, which generated a lively set of comments and discussion. They took this off into a whole different direction and to my way of thinking, missed much of the key points of Dweck’s research,  but I still recommend it for your reading.

• Malcolm Gladwell’s blog and his New Yorker article “The Talent Myth:Are smart people overrated?” highlights a common and very troubling myth that is rampant in much of the business community. This was expounded upon at great length, and unfortunately to great effect in the book The War for Talent, written by a group of McKinsey & Company consultants who meticulously researched what made top performing companies different from the others. They concluded that:

“Success in the modern economy requires "the talent mind-set": the "deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels is how you outperform your competitors." 

Unfortunately this “talent mind-set” became the doctrine of many managers and companies, the shining (for a moment) example being a company that was entirely built upon this model and had this embedded into the corporate DNA and culture. The company was Enron.

As you can see Dweck and her research have definitely sparked a lot of interest and diverse applications. To bring us back to Dweck herself and a focus on learning, here are some of Dweck’s tips from the Stanford article's sidebar "What Do We Tell the Kids, which I thought many of you would find very useful. Although they are aimed at children they can easily be adapted for adults and applied to many situations both professionally and personally.

• Listen to what you say to your kids, with an ear toward the messages you’re sending about mindset.
• Instead of praising children’s intelligence or talent, focus on the processes they used.

Example: “That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”

Example: “That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”

Example: “You put so much thought into that essay. It really makes me think about Shakespeare in a new way.”

• When your child messes up, give constructive criticism—feedback that helps the child understand how to fix the problem, rather than labeling or excusing the child.
• Pay attention to the goals you set for your children; having innate talent is not a goal, but expanding skills and knowledge is.

Dweck continues, "Don’t worry about praising your children for their inherent goodness, though. It’s important for children to learn they’re basically good and that their parents love them unconditionally. The problem arises when parents praise children in a way that makes them feel that they’re good and love-worthy only when they behave in particular ways that please the parents."

Whether it is your children, your co-workers, employees or yourself, I hope you enjoy reading more and find this topic intriguing and valuable. Here at Off Course - On Target, I'm aiming to help shift your mindset to the flexible setting!

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Paying Forward Really Pays Back!

I’m sending this post out to those of you who have been giving unselfishly of your time helping others, whether formally as a teacher, coach, instructor, club leader, or more informally as a parent, mentor, trusted advisor, or friend. I suspect (and hope) that this includes most of you. I’ve tried to do my best at this, formally for over 15 years as a high school teacher and university instructor and more informally since then for the past 20 years.

I know firsthand that there are times when you wonder if it is all worth it. “Am I really helping? Does it matter? Am I making a difference? Am I having an impact?”  My hope is that this post will help you to answer these questions with a most emphatic “YES!” I’d like to share a recent experience that puts the exclamation point on that answer, so I can encourage those of you who may be questioning your efforts to keep up the “good fight”.

Several weeks ago, I received one of those wonderfully unexpected and rare notes a teacher gets from a former student. One of my high school students from the class of 1988 (my last year of teaching before I decided to try out the private sector “just for a year” and came to work for Autodesk Inc.) This former student tracked me down last month via an online search and sent me an e-mail that said in part:

“Dear Mr. Hodgins,

After all these years, I’ve finally tracked down an email address for you. I hope you remember me, ….I graduated from your career prep drafting/ CAD class in 1988.

Although I never really applied myself in your class, nor any other for that matter, I wanted to let you know how much your classes affected my life. It not only gave me a solid foundation for which to grow on, but it also gave me a wealth of useful everyday information – like how tall standard door frames are for example. Immediately after completing high school I really didn’t know what I wanted to do – so I went to work at my Dad’s automotive shop… which I stayed at for several years. It wasn’t something that I really enjoyed, but at the same time I didn’t want to let my Dad down either.

Today I am one of the General Managers of a global packaging company that is based in Tokyo. I still do a great deal of design work and use AutoCAD on a daily basis. I am solely responsible for this location and only report occasionally to the owner in Japan. Our facility here is 40,000 square feet and employees about 25 people.

It is very rare in life that we get a chance to say Thank-you to people that make a difference in our lives – I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss out on this opportunity to Thank-you and to let you know how much you contributed to my life. Without the education that I received from your class, I really don’t know what I would be doing today.

Next time you’re down this way, please let me know as I would enjoy buying you dinner and listening to whatever you’ve been up to in the past 20 years.”

Wow! Does this guy know how to make my day/week/year! I did indeed remember this student, in spite of the accuracy of his statement “I never really applied myself in your class, nor any other for that matter”. But as those I’m addressing here would know, you learn to never judge students (or anyone for that matter), especially ones at this age, by their outward appearances and behaviors. You can imagine how proud I am to learn about his great story and his success in life. He is a perfect example of why it DOES make sense to just give of your time without knowing when, how. or if you will ever be rewarded or what effect you will ultimately have. This one took almost 20 years to get back to me, but boy, did it ever come back!

We are all in this together and it is a rare one amongst us who doesn’t know that we owe a great deal of our success to those few special people we’ve had in our life to give us guidance, instill confidence in ourselves, and help us see and believe in our true potential, which is usually much greater than we’d otherwise imagine. I know that this recent example has inspired me to work ever harder and to lead by example.

So, to all of you who are currently doing your best to help guide and support others, and to those who are having some doubts about continuing or starting down such a path, I hope this small example will help you keep the faith and trust in the power of paying it forward.

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My Dad

A doubly unique post from me today; it's short and it's personal.

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who have been so patient and supportive as I spent the past 2 weeks up in Vancouver with my father, Bert Hodgins. I was able to be at his side for his last days and as he passed on gently last night. He was able to leave this world for the next just as he wished; quietly in his sleep.

     I’m beginning to accept,

     the idea of a world without Bert.

     But, it’s a world without my Dad

     that really makes my heart hurt.

Thanks again for your patience. It's been a learning experience and I'll be back to blogging more regularly again next week with some new perspectives.

w
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UNLearning in Langkawi

Is it just I or did someone hit the fast forward button on the world clock?  There is NO WAY it can be March 2007 already!  It’s been a busy start to the new year for me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My experience is just more proof that the adage “time flies when you are having fun” is true. I’ve certainly been having lots of serious fun with my latest travels and engagements, but I have not found much time to get this all captured and posted, but here’s to learning and improving!

This week I had the privilege of giving two keynote presentations at the National Higher Education conference sponsored by Autodesk in lovely Langkawi in Northern Malaysia. Langkawi is a collection of islands (99 during high tides, and 104 during low tides) situated just off the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, about midway north/south between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. This area is one of the fortunate places that the recent tsunami missed.

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I was involved with many education initiatives in Malaysia and Singapore, so it was particularly rewarding to be asked back by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and to see their tremendous progress and continued commitment to higher education and education at all levels. In addition to the Minister of Education and several directors from the ministry, the majority of the attendees were deans and directors from schools of mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and architecture. They asked me to provide some new perspectives on the future of learning and education, and I put a particular emphasis on design, one of the top themes and skills of the future as I see it.

In my short keynote on Wednesday I provided a broad overview of some of the key trends I’m seeing for learning, education, training, and design including:

• Every * One * Learning” – Adaptive personalized learning for every person every day
• Exponential change – How our inability to see today’s rapid change as exponential rather than linear keeps us from adjusting to the challenges presented by technology and other factors (listen to my podcast “Living in a World of Exponential Change”) 
• The Three “C’s” – The convergence of Content, Competencies and Context

I framed my comments on the future of learning and performance in the context of higher education in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. Although my slides from that presentation don't provide the context of my remarks, you can view them below:

My second keynote on Thursday "UN Learning: The New Skill of the Future?" covered new skills for the future within the context of design:
·    Learning + UN learning + RE learning (see my podcast and transcript)

• Design (redefined)
• Storytelling
• Synthesis
• Smart decision-making
• Finding (vs. searching)
• Semantics (adding meaning)
• Abstracting
• Collaboration
• Heuristics

Within the context of UNLearning, I also covered trends towards:

• A right brain economy
• An economy of abundance (see David Hornik’s article and Chris Anderson’s blog entry),
• The Long Tail effect
• Mash-ups (see my blog entry "The Future is a Monstrous and Marvelous Mashup")

All of these can or are having a VERY positive effect on learning, education and design. They most certainly are positive steps toward the grand vision of personalized learning experiences for every person on the planet, which I laid out in the previous keynote and which I continue to pursue with great passion and commitment. Stay tuned for more postings and podcasts on this and other related topics. You can see my slides from the UNLearning keynote below:

You can also listen to my podcast on "UNLearning, the New Skill of the Future".
Here’s to all of us improving our skills in learning, unlearning, relearning, living, and loving.

w
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Fast, Fresh, and Furious: “Pecha Kucha”...the New Karaoke?

WOW!  Did I ever have a fun evening last night with my first ever Pecha Kucha Night experience. Pecha Kucha, pronounced “peh-chak-cha”  or “pet-shah coot-shah” depending on who you talk to, is a relatively new presentation format that is seeing quite an underground surge of interest. It’s happening in over 50 major cities around the world. Heck, even Tasmania has one now! My company, Autodesk Inc., set up this event at our annual worldwide sales conference for all our thousands of resellers. It’s taking place in Las Vegas, so perhaps that part makes sense. Thanks to Maurice Conti (who came up with the idea) and his talented staff of helpers, it was a huge success. Here was a packed room full of several hundred curious sales people wondering just what this thing that they couldn’t pronounce was all about.

So what is it? As I mentioned earlier, it’s simply an interesting format for “presentations” but it would be better characterized by the Japanese term Pecha Kucha, which it is derived from and reflects the sound of casual conversation ("chit-chat").

As a Pecha Kucha presenter, you come up with 20 different images (photos usually), put them in an order you decide upon, and provide these to the organizers who then put them into a sequenced roll or “slide show”. They set this up with an automated timer to change to the next image every 20 seconds. The timing is automatic and the speaker has NO control over timing of the slide change. As a Pecha Kucha presenter you take the stage, tell the projectionist to “hit it” and you’re off.  Six minutes and 40 seconds later, you’re done! Time for the next person.

Pecha Kucha Nights were started in 2003 by two architects living in Japan: Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham od Klein Dytham Architecture as a venue for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. They were looking for a way to get people who are typically shy or at least busy working behind computer screens or in studios out in public to tell their stories and join in the conversation.  As Moma put it in his Wired article about his Pecha Kucha experience in Wired magazine “The solution: Give them a format, a structure, a parlor game, a chance to talk about their current interests and listen to others doing the same.”

As a forum for designers, it was perfect for myself and for Autodesk since we are both very focused on design. Last night I was honored to be invited to join seven other creative thinkers with VERY different backgrounds.

The roster included:

Carl Bass – CEO of Autodesk Inc.
Ken Bado – Senior VP of WW Sales & Marketing, Autodesk
Bruce Beasley – Internationally renowned sculptor
David Montesino – Visual Journalist, art director and 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Johnathan Pickus – Manager, Las Vegas Valley Water District
Sylvain Plourde –  Co-founder of graphics company 3Vis in Montreal Canada
JT Tomlinson –  Head of Automation, Cirque du Soleil

Now THAT is diversity…not only from their job titles and organizations but even more so by the Pecha Kucha “conversations” they provided!

And what did they Pecha Kucha about? Couldn’t really do it justice with just words, but what was common about each of these otherwise wildly different presentations was that each of us talked about a mixture of things we care about and what makes us who we are. So it was a wonderful blend of personal interests and projects and professional pursuits. The commonality that came through loud and clear to me was passion—connections to family, personal interests such as some amazing fine woodwork projects, pursuit of meaning, life and work experiences and an overall exploration of what motivates us.  It was truly an example of “experiential learning” and you really had to be there to understand it and to appreciate one or more of the apparently tasty PechaKutinis that were being served to one and all!
(The sessions may have been videotaped so I am working on being able to upload some for you to look at and I’ll post them here if I’m able to locate them.)

What did I learn and enjoy from the experience that you might find of value and interest? As per the title of this posting,  it was wonderfully and frighteningly fast, fresh, and furious. The tight and simple 20 image/20 second format flipped the tired lecture, PowerPoint presentation on its head and stimulated diversity, connectivity, and cross-discipline conversation and collaboration not only in the presentations themselves, but in the great conversations in between and afterwards. People I’ve run into here since then are still buzzing and talking about it.

I also appreciated how this standard format acted as a great equalizer of presenters and every one of their images since they each got exactly the same time up on the screen. Is this the new way to do all presentations? Absolutely NOT!  As I’ve said many times here at Off Course – On Target, a truly new innovation rarely eliminates or replaces what went before. Instead, it adds to our choices for powerful ways to capture, express and share ideas. I’d recommend it highly for your consideration if you are organizing or participating in events where you or others are trying to share ideas with others. Or you may just want to experience a Pecha K