What I Know Is…

Ah, hello there. Welcome to episode two of my politically-neutral, entirely unbiased non-editorially-led opinion piece. Subjects on today’s menu are Wikipedia, our upcoming webinar, iPad publishing, Learning Technologies and the rain.

Let’s start at the top – Wikipedia. We all use it, some of us a bit too much I’d wager. I only found out recently that ‘Wiki’ stood for ‘What I Know Is – a perfect summation of the strength of the resource. You know something, you want to share it with other people. Anyone who’s used Wikipedia in the last few weeks (months?) will have seen the mugshot of its founder, Jimmy Wales, splashed all over the front page in a bid to engage its myriad users in parting with a bit of their hard-earned to keep the site going. This week he was in Bristol to give the only public talk of his trip to the UK (we’re privileged!). A packed Victoria Rooms listened to him talk about the philosophy, the history and the plans for the future of the fifth most popular website in the world. Quality over quantity is the new mantra, now that most everything in the world has a wikipedia page devoted to it. Someone raised an interesting question about whether there were plans to engage more academics as editors/contributors, I think that would certainly improve wikipedia’s status as a qualified information source (not that they have a massive problem with that anyway). All in all, a wonderful insight into the work of an internet pioneer.

Continuing the theme of knowledge online, we have a webinar on Tuesday 18 Jan with the lovely Roger Courville. The subject this time around is ’10 Tips for Getting Started with Online Training’, something which more and more people are increasingly doing, and those that aren’t could probably do with a few pointers on how to kick things off. It’s free to register and is taking place from 3-4. Get involved; knowledge is power.

Directly after that, I’m going to sit in on a webinar (as a delegate and not moderator for once) about iPad publishing. Steve Jobs’s massive iPhone has made quite a splash since its release – was there ever any doubt that it wouldn’t? Really? – and with more trainers, learners and other business professionals becoming quicker on the uptake all the time, it’s an apposite time to learn about more ways to reach people on their smartphones, tablets and handheld devices – this is an access method that is only going to grow. To qualify this from a non-brand fascist standpoint, I’m sure plenty of the theory behind it will be just as applicable to how you view your Kindle, Galaxy, netbook etc, so worth a look if you have ideological objections to Apple too.

So to Learning Technologies, 26 -27 January at Kensington Olympia. This is one of the first and one of the biggest events of 2011 and TrainingZone and HRzone will be there to watch it all happen. As well as being a media sponsor, we have a stand where you can meet the team and also have the chance to win an iPad, and I will be there covering much of the talks and seminars over Cover it Live and Twitter. This is a huge event with a lot of ground-breaking talks to attend and plenty of interesting suppliers of technological business solutions there too, so if you would like to find out more, click here.

And lastly, the rain. I have little to say about this other than that it’s annoying all of us here in the office. My bike has a flat tyre so I’m getting soaked on the daily walk to work. The sooner I fix it the better.

Ah, hello there. Welcome to episode two of my politically-neutral, entirely unbiased non-editorially-led opinion piece. Subjects on today's menu are Wikipedia, our upcoming webinar, iPad publishing, Learning Technologies and the rain.

Let's start at the top - Wikipedia. We all use it, some of us a bit too much I'd wager. I only found out recently that 'Wiki' stood for 'What I Know Is - a perfect summation of the strength of the resource. You know something, you want to share it with other people. Anyone who's used Wikipedia in the last few weeks (months?) will have seen the mugshot of its founder, Jimmy Wales, splashed all over the front page in a bid to engage its myriad users in parting with a bit of their hard-earned to keep the site going. This week he was in Bristol to give the only public talk of his trip to the UK (we're privileged!). A packed Victoria Rooms listened to him talk about the philosophy, the history and the plans for the future of the fifth most popular website in the world. Quality over quantity is the new mantra, now that most everything in the world has a wikipedia page devoted to it. Someone raised an interesting question about whether there were plans to engage more academics as editors/contributors, I think that would certainly improve wikipedia's status as a qualified information source (not that they have a massive problem with that anyway). All in all, a wonderful insight into the work of an internet pioneer.

Continuing the theme of knowledge online, we have a webinar on Tuesday 18 Jan with the lovely Roger Courville. The subject this time around is '10 Tips for Getting Started with Online Training', something which more and more people are increasingly doing, and those that aren't could probably do with a few pointers on how to kick things off. It's free to register and is taking place from 3-4. Get involved; knowledge is power.

Directly after that, I'm going to sit in on a webinar (as a delegate and not moderator for once) about iPad publishing. Steve Jobs's massive iPhone has made quite a splash since its release - was there ever any doubt that it wouldn't? Really? - and with more trainers, learners and other business professionals becoming quicker on the uptake all the time, it's an apposite time to learn about more ways to reach people on their smartphones, tablets and handheld devices - this is an access method that is only going to grow. To qualify this from a non-brand fascist standpoint, I'm sure plenty of the theory behind it will be just as applicable to how you view your Kindle, Galaxy, netbook etc, so worth a look if you have ideological objections to Apple too.

So to Learning Technologies, 26 -27 January at Kensington Olympia. This is one of the first and one of the biggest events of 2011 and TrainingZone and HRzone will be there to watch it all happen. As well as being a media sponsor, we have a stand where you can meet the team and also have the chance to win an iPad, and I will be there covering much of the talks and seminars over Cover it Live and Twitter. This is a huge event with a lot of ground-breaking talks to attend and plenty of interesting suppliers of technological business solutions there too, so if you would like to find out more, click here.

And lastly, the rain. I have little to say about this other than that it's annoying all of us here in the office. My bike has a flat tyre so I'm getting soaked on the daily walk to work. The sooner I fix it the better.