I just spent the last week on a training course with Scouts Canada. It was an interesting course focused on teaching us to better develop the children through fun experiential learning. One comment really struck me - Scouting is the only organization that I know of that starts training and forming its future leaders at age five. Only a volunteer movement could hope to accomplish such a task.
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
- Example Debate Graph - Click to see in action
I ran across an interesting piece of software yesterday from DebateGraph.org. It creates a visual representation of a debate in a format that is dynamic and rather fun to play with.
At its base, it is a nested tree of XML code in a wiki. The graph can be displayed as an XML file or as a dynamic bubble chart that the user can navigate around by clicking on the bubbles. Like a wiki, any one can edit it and add to the debate. The Debate Graph site hosts a number of public debates on a wide variety of topics.
I’m also interested in how the software could be used for other purposes, such as trouble shooting or diagnosis of problems.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Interviewers often ask a simple question, “What was the best compliment that you ever received.” For me, it’s an easy question to answer. A fellow astronaut, Dave Williams, once said to me, “When you’re around, things work.” Now, almost 16 years later, I still remember it and still feel proud of it.
Why? Because it aligned so closely with my own perceptions of who I was and what I was good at. It reflected back at me my own pride in being able to get people and equipment to function and work together in ways that left others surprised and delighted. It was a succinct and direct recognition of my strengths. As a compliment, coming from a peer who I respected and admired, it was very powerful. I couldn’t ask for better. It has become, in a way, my own personal tag line.
We tend to forget the impact of a good compliment. I’m not talking about a flippant “Good Job!” but a well thought out compliment: one that takes close knowledge of the other, a sense of affinity and real appreciation. Delivered well, compliments are treasured. They can motivate a person through very difficult times and can be more reward than money.
I’ll admit that I am not the best at giving compliments but I try. I try to give compliments more than criticism and I try to make them count for something. I hope I have touched people in the way Dave’s words touched me.
And for you? What is the best compliment you have ever received? If you were to compliment yourself, right now, in a way that would have you thinking about it twenty years hence, what would you say?
After all the posturing and complaining that the last government was dysfunctional, we have a new government that may prove to be just as dysfunctions. Dion will probably step down after the poor showing in the results. If not, he will surely have an internal fight on his hands. The struggle to find a new leader will leave the party in turmoil and focused on navel gazing. Harper, on the other hand, has now won two minority governments, and must be mad as hell. I’m sure he will call another election in about 18 months and we’ll do this all again. So much for the “elections every four years”.
Today, I had a very Canadian experience: portaging a canoe through downtown Ottawa. Portaging (carrying the canoe on ones shoulders) is typically done in the woods, between lakes or around rapids that are too dangerous to traverse, hidden by trees. In the city, it is a different experience, both for me and for the people I passed. It was a short trip from my house to the Ottawa River - probably a few hundred yards - yet I managed to pass in front of a tour group and a number of other people on the street. Thanks to the Frantics, the Rideau Canal and the Ottawa River , it is not unusual to see someone walking down the street of the nation’s capital with an 18 foot canoe on their head. Still I hope the tourists enjoyed the sight as they bought some Maple Syrup candies.
Between the portages from and to home, my wife and our youngest daughter spent several hours on the Ottawa River seeing the sights, the ducks and swans and the leaves which are just about to peak with the autumn colors. With the rocking of the canoe, my daughter only lasted a short while before she was snoring in the bottom of the boat, leaving my wife and I to talk.
It was a great day.
