What good things can come?

What good things can come?

I can't wait for innovations like this in opacs. Should I bother?

How do you learn from other people?

How do you learn from other people?

Zenhabits.com has an awesome post on on cranking out articles:
http://freelanceswitch.com/writing-productivity/7-ways-to-crank-out-articles/

I modified them to include my most excellent writing mentor's points. Renee & I had talked about how to write at the graduate level & a generalized structure for getting through the paper. I added some of these ideas to the ZenHabit post (that dude rocks!)

-- Set time limits. Don't write over no matter what. Hold back (another zen habits tip.) Write for say, 20 minutes, only after you have done your research, read that research, and thought about it. *Unless you write on something you already know

-- Write first thing in the morning.

-- Shut off all distractions. Create your place to write, space to write, time to write, method to write. Have a process, move thru it. Think Kata, form, directions, start-go-no stop-all the way to finish.

-- Use Google Docs only if you can handled not being distracted by an Internet connection. Consider a simple word processor like AbiWord or NanoNotepad -bare bones. Do not do one once of formatting: like changing font, bolding etc...

-- Reward yourself with email/ surfing for fun. Tell yourself that you cannot check email (or feeds or whatever distraction is a MUST for you) until you finish your article. Write for 30-minutes, break fo 15-minute break. Write for 10, break for 5. Write for 20, break for 20. Stretch & shorten your breaks; keep a dynamic rhythm.

-- Don't write if you don't have notes to start from; pre-write by doodles, comments, words lists synonyms, etc...

-- Write fast, then revise slow.

One good thing to work on is studying how you do your work: bring some focus, or mindfulness to it. That's the current idea. Shikantaza means just sitting in zen buddhism. This articulates the idea into something palpable.

What's new with databases?

What's new with databases?

Could Cebase.com be a killer app. I wish creating a database was this simple. Wait a minute, shouldn't be finding a book be simple ;) ?

Why do we have to wait?

Why do we have to wait?

"One of the conversations was about "paying one's dues." I said that my weakness was maintaining a patience level that would pace me with my organization...I retorted that I did not want to wait 10 years! I am here now!"

All the field is aflame with change, why don't more people see, like this, that the time we really have for relevancy is: now. The world isn't going to wait for us to acquiesce to our colleagues who don't want to change, innovate, and create the future. If you look around and don't like what you see, then you haven't participated. Sometimes that's very hard for so many reasons; but you must try. This is the era of inclusion -not exclusion.

There are three types of people: (1) those who have a job, (2) those who come to work & think they can separate out their private persona from their work persona (they can't), and (3) those who want to go bed exhausted everyday because everyday they worked to make profound changes in their own life, the lives of others they know, and the lives of people they will never know and they keep on doing this everyday.

While experience is valuable it has nothing to do with paying one's dues; that's something from an arcane era where maps warned of dragons. Now, the dragons stand for a place of creativity & not something to be feared as unknown.

Perhaps if the gatekeeping dues-collectors realized they are more effective as mentors they could take proud ownership of what we could accomplish for them.

hey, it's just a thought. relax. i'm not advocating information anarchy -or am i? and i love all my mentors who are brilliant and mean not a lick of disrespect to them.

By the way, the reference desk is dead, yet reference lives on. The book is so ubiquitous it's barely visible, yet more important than ever, and the library has been blown to bits while becoming a focal point in people's lives, (hopefully more so, not less so.)

What won't change?

What won't change?
This is a great idea. Along with permanent innovation, we should see change as the metronome, chaos as the pace-setter, and relinquishment (you have no control save the control over one's self) as the cadence.

How do you learn 2.0?

How do you learn 2.0?
My man wasn't joking when he said "know thyself." So, know more about how you learn. Thanks jennimi.