Politeness the Cologne way
The past few days I had the opportunity to teach a group of 13 assistants for Management Circle in Cologne. After a long trip there – floods turned the 4 hour train ride into an 8 hour odyssee – it was lovely to see the majestic Dom. It was late in the evening, and I […]
When you become a whistleblower
Yesterday Edward Snowden came forward and outed himself as the whistleblower who leaked information about Boundless Informant. This system developed by the NSA with major corporations, enables raw data to be analyzed and processed in the cloud, including IP addresses, so sender and recipient information can be tracked to rough location. I’m not going to […]
Describing Germany’s SMEs
This report by Margaret Warner for PBS News Hour about the Eurozone crisis (February 2012) is nice introduction into the world of German small and mid-sized industry, the companies that make “the thing that goes inside the thing that goes inside the thing.” The first 2 videos are about Germany, the third is about Italy. […]
Hans Rosling’s creative teaching technologies – realia, boxes, Lego
I’m thinking through how useful I find using small manipulable toys like cuisinaire rods and Lego to visualize information, to explain and teach things in a small classroom, for example in one-to-one training. Recently I’ve joined a group exploring the terrain of using Lego, and so I’m thinking back to how I have used these […]
Branding: Smells, tastes, feels like home
New exciting challenge. Learning about branding for a company I’ll be teaching at. So here’s my first exploration. Bill said: “Branding is about managing how people instinctively react to your ideas and identity.” Interesting. He’s sent me an ad for an insurance company that the company has branded, made by a separate agency. So one […]
Keep calm and carry on
Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the event of a German invasion. It was never used, even during the air raids, but kept for the worst case. What could be more British! The poster was […]