The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009

The United States tops the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009. Switzerland is in second position followed by Denmark, Sweden and Singapore. European economies continue to prevail in the top 10 with Finland, Germany and the Netherlands following suit.

The United Kingdom, while remaining very competitive, has dropped by three places and out of the top 10, mainly attributable to a weakening of its financial markets.

The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a compre-hensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the report.

Handshakes and their messages

Handshakes have always fascinated me. I was about 11 or 12 when my mom's friend told me that I need to have a firmer handshake and to not shake hands like a dead fish. She practiced a few handshakes with me and ever since then I've had a good firm handshake and forever grateful to her for caring and showing me early in my life how to approach people with a confident smile, look in their eyes and shake hands.

I had a personal incident happen to me see Tuesday June 9 entry. Which made me want to go and explore the types of handshakes that are out there.

Here is an interesting entry that explains the top ten types of handshakes. Very interesting. My incident was with a bone crusher. Had my mom's friend not said anything I may have still been the dead fish type. Hand Wrestler and Teacup are pretty funny but they do exist. I'm amazed at how many different ways people can express themselves through a simple handshake. Too bad we are not all Vulcans.

Remember to be professional in your handshake. Make yourself memorable in a positive way. :-) Peace and out...

A "OH" L

AOL is dominating the Tech news today. After a 9 year old marriage. Some of it good but mostly bumpy the two will be going their own ways by the end of the year. -- Oh I wish I was back there to witness the separation and continue to be a part of that history.

Things are still not looking good for AOL - However, the separation from what I hear will give AOL a better chance to survive.

For more go to: Time Warner, AOL to Split by Year-End

SCORM! Sounds scary but it's not!

In all the years that I've done training or have been part of the training world I had not heard of SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model.)

SCORM is a tool for anyone involved in online training. "Content can be created one time and used in many different systems and situations without modification. This plug-and-play functionality can be powerful within an organization but even more so across organizations. Content can be sold and delivered to the user more quickly, more robustly, and at a lower price." Wow! I could have used this in a previous position when we were planning to have online security awareness. Sounds awesome.

In December 2004, the US Department of Defense mandated that all its e-learning purchases must comply with SCORM standards.

When is SCORM a Good Fit?

• You want to integrate with other vendors
• You are creating a large library of learning objects
• You are using an LMS to deliver and manage learning content
• You are designing learning content that might be reused in other contexts
• You are designing learning content that tracks learner performance
• You are designing learning content that will monitor the learner and adapt according to the learner’s needs

Trip to Mars! Check Expedia

Expedia now has flights to Mars available! Check:

http://www.expedia.com/daily/mars/flights-to-mars/?mcicid=Mars_home_us

The Net is abuzz with all sorts of special deals today! Why? Happy April Fool's day! Check out more fun stuff at Techcrunch:

April Fools: YouTube Flails, Amazon Cloud Computing In A Blimp, 3D Chrome Browsing, Google Masters A.I.

Apple's Developer's Conference in June

Apple is busy getting it's June Conference together. The high point will be the much anticipated Snow Leopard OS. At Learning Tree International, my Mac course on Integrating Mac OS into a Windows Environment will closely coincide with the new developments.

In addition, Apple released iPhone 3.0 Software last week and the anticipation for the Dev conference is a new model of the iPhone. Now that is exciting...

To learn more go to:

Apple World Wide Developers Conference or check the Washington Post article wire by Reuters.

NYT's 10 Rules for Blogging

The New York Times's 10 Rules For Blogging

by Nicholas Carlson|Mar. 21, 2009, 6:00 AM

This week, the New York Times standards editor Craig Whitney wrote a memo on style for bloggers.

It's cranky and pompous. But our main gripe is that it's just packaged wrong.

13 paragraphs? 4 pages?

Any decent blogger knows that a how-to memo has to be presented in bullet-pointed, listicle format.

So, because we care, here are the New York Times's 10 rules for blogging (in a format people will actually read):

• What should be avoided in all of them is any hint of racist, sexist or religious bias, or any suggestion of nasty, snide, sarcastic, or condescending tone — “snark.”
• If something could easily fit in a satirical Web site for young adults, it probably shouldn’t go into the news pages of nytimes.com.
• Contractions, colloquialisms and even slang are, generally speaking, more allowable in blogs than in print.
• Obscenity and vulgarity are not.
• Unverified assertions of fact, blind pejorative quotes, and other lapses in journalistic standards don’t ever belong in blogs.
• Writers and editors of blogs must also distinguish between personal tone and voice and unqualified personal opinion.
• A blog or news column has to give readers the arguments and factual information that led to the writer’s conclusion — enough argument and fact on both or all sides of the issue to enable the reader to decide whether to agree or disagree
• That does not apply to editorials or Op-Ed columns, which “are not intended to give a balanced look at both sides of a debate,” as the Readers’ Guide says.
  
• Headlines on analysis should try to capture the debate rather than taking sides in it.
• If the comments contain vulgarity, obscenity, offensive personal attacks, say that somebody “sucks,” or are incoherent, moderators are advised just to chuck them out.