A Random Panorama Image taken by Nels Lindahl

Education

2012 MPSA Conference in Chicago Trip Recap

Monday, April 16, 2012 at 12:40 PM
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Here are my final thoughts on my first trip to Chicago. Pretty much all prose generation and consumption is going digital… electronic devices are everywhere and are not going away. Maybe you are wondering, “What did I do in Chicago?” Well my answer involves two parts. First, a short recap of my trip; I attended the MPSA conference, presented a conference paper, chaired a conference panel, enjoyed the PNC club at a Cubs game, ate at Hot Doug’s, dined at The Gage, attended a show at The Second City, and spent some time wondering around C2E2. Second, I will provide an indulgently rambling reverse chronological description of events… speaking of which my self-reflective journey is about to start with a reverse chronological accounting of some of the memorable events.

Andy was kind enough to drive me to the airport this morning. The Zip Company rented Andy a very nice BMW 325i sedan. With a cabby hat in hand Andy was a splendid driver. Andy was missing driving gloves and a sweet sign that read, “Dr. Lindahl.” Let me say, “I’m pretty sure that the 71st annual MPSA conference in Chicago will warrant a return trip to the windy city.” I can definitely add the MPSA conference to my yearly conference attendance plan. In general, as an academic I want to attend three conferences per year. My goal is very simple and straightforward. Conferences have deadlines and deadlines force writers to produce. More or less the requirement to produce three academic papers a year keeps me working on projects year-round. The BMW 325i is a pretty fantastic automobile. Maybe after growing up I will be able to afford a sweet sweet BMW.

Saturday night concluded at a wine bar somewhere within walking distance of The Second City Theater. At the very end of the night a massive rainstorm nearly flooded the streets of Chicago. Even the cab driver seemed a little nervous about the sheer volume of water on the roads. The 100th review show at The Second City Theater was pretty engaging; however, the second half of the show was extremely superior to the first half in terms of content and originality. I’ll write a much longer review of The Second City later when I have more time. My flight boards in about forty minutes and I still have several days of traveling to recap. Anyway, I digress… Andy and I spent the better part of Saturday at the C2E2 event at the McCormick Center. While I never actually got to taunt Val Kilmer I did run into John Wigner which was fairly entertaining (Remember to insert the photo of John with the Wolverine claws). John may or may not have challenged Andy to a BBQ throw down of herculean proportions.

Before going to C2E2 Andy and I hit up the legendary (if not epic) Hot Doug’s. I had never had a Chicago style hotdog before eating at Hot Doug’s. Even though the proprietor would not deep fry a corn dog in duck fat for Andy all was not lost. The grilled Chicago style hotdog was epic. I enjoy the fries and Andy even ran into an old high school friend. Andy’s friends naturally enjoyed my suit and tie. Did I mention that I suited up the entire trip? No. Well; I had pretty much taken for granted that by this point in the story that being legendary was assumed.  I was pretty much the only person who rocked Hot Doug’s, C2E2, The Second City, and a wine bar in a suit.

Friday turned out to be a pretty relaxed day. Andy, Colleen, and I hit up a restaurant called The Gage via a reservation and recommendation from Open Table. Reviewers on the internet extolled the virtues of the single malt scotch menu that The Gage thoughtfully provides to patrons interested in Scottish libations. Earlier that day I chaired a panel on digital government at the 70th annual Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) conference at the Palmer House Hilton hotel. The day started off and concluded well. I started the day with a redeye from Starbucks and finished with a drink imported from Scotland.

Day games at Wrigley Field can be epic. On Thursday, Andy scored PNC club tickets at Wrigley Field to watch the Milwaukee Brewers play the Chicago Cubs. The PNC club is a suite level experience at Wrigley that literally has caused people to spontaneously scream, “Legend wait for it (still waiting for it) dary…”  I plan on visiting the PNC club at some point next year during the 71st annual MPSA conference. Before heading out to Wrigley field I presented a paper on E-Feedback. The presentation was epic.

2012 MPSA Conference in Chicago Day 4 Notes – The Wild Day

Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 6:56 AM
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Today’s plan is rather straightforward… I’m going to Hot Doug’s for lunch followed by a visit to the 2012 Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) before finishing up the night by catching the 100th review at Second City.

Nels Lindahl and Andy at Hot Doug's in Chicago

Nels Lindahl and Andy at C2E2

C2E2… happened

Nels Lindahl and Andy at C2E2

Nels Lindahl and Andy at C2E2

The Second City… happened

Nels Lindahl at The Second City 100th Review

Nels Lindahl at The Second City 100th Review

2012 MPSA Conference in Chicago Day 3 Notes – Panel Chair Day

Friday, April 13, 2012 at 3:23 PM
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The MPSA conference book is gigantic and rather difficult to plan from. For the most part, I had to look for academic names I knew and track panels by author instead of by subject. Just by chance, I went to the price room a couple hours before the panel I chaired. For the most part, I enjoyed listening to some very theoretical discussions of specific authors who have made contributions to modern political thought. Initially, I caught the tail end of a presentation by Luke Philip Plotica. Luke’s paced and deliberate style reminded me of what it was like to listen to an accomplished high school or college debater competing at a high level. The discussant for the panel focused in like a laser proper citation when discussing relationships between theorists.

Nels Lindahl and Andy at Wrigley

Nels Lindahl and Andy at Wrigley

2012 MPSA Conference in Chicago Day 2 Notes – Paper Day

Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 9:55 PM
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The Palmer House Hilton was relatively easy to find. The building has a Starbucks located on the street level. People were already lined up to get coffee by the time I got to the conference. Registration for the Midwest Political Science Association conference was painless. My ASUS Eee PC is literally smaller than the 70th annual MPSA conference book. I’ll attached photographic evidence of that reality at the end of this post or on Flickr. I have to confess Open Office writer just did not meet my document processing needs. I downloaded a trial version of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 to get a copy of Microsoft Word on this netbook. The Eee PC does not have an optical drive. That reality stopped me from being able to load my own copy of office, but I digress… I got a piece of banana bread and a tall dark roast coffee with a shot of espresso (e.g. a Redeye) from Starbucks.

My PowerPoint presentation for the conference is titled, “Feedback Driven E-Government: A Study of Local Government E-Feedback Methodology.” The subtitle should read, “A few slides with graphs supplemented by a lot of talking…” When I get back to Colorado Springs I will provide a link to the PowerPoint presentation [here]. At some point, I’m going to pair some data from the NPL Research Group with my dissertation survey to start building a longitudinal dataset related to E-Feedback.

It’s nice to be able to walk around town in a suit without being judged. Pretty much everybody at the conference is wearing a suit and tie. A few people (mostly students) are trying to pull off a blazer look. I’m not a fan of blazers…

The Palmer House has HP mini computers and LCD projectors available to the presenters. At some point within the next couple of weeks I will probably start bidding on HP mini computers.

Nels Lindahl MPSA 2012 Conference Paper

Nels Lindahl MPSA 2012 Conference Paper

Action item: Review a few samples and submit a National Science Foundation grant application at some point before the close of 2012.

The conference panel chair had the entire pool of participants move to the audience area. In hindsight, the chair made the right call. Everybody enjoyed the presentations and discussions from the audience. Welch did a good job keeping all of the academic presentations on schedule.

Would a paper titled, “Increasing disaster management coordination and collaboration by using E-Project Management based on E-Government models,” be publishable?

Action item: Pull the MPSA conference book into a database and compare the elements to major journal publications… what is the degree of correlation?

2012 MPSA Conference in Chicago Day 1 Notes – Hello Chicago!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 12:36 PM
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The ASUS Eee PC netbook that I won through an online auction arrived in time for my trip to Chicago. The only damage to the unit appears to be near the keyboard. It looks like somebody wanted to service the hard drive or RAM and tried to pry open the unit. With a little bit of maintenance I will probably be able to restore the unit to the pinnacle of its original esthetic glory.

The installation of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview operating system took about thirty minutes. I’m giving open office a try instead of Microsoft Word. My Sprint Hotspot is working well in 3G mode at the airport in Colorado Springs. The only problem I have run into so far with the Eee PC has been the sensitivity of the mouse. The smaller keyboard makes it very easy to rest part of my palm on the mouse pad. I’m starting to adjust to this inconvenience, but I think it might take a couple of days. Windows 8 is estimating that my batter life should be about 7 hours. I should be able to take plenty of notes during the conference.

I have been getting a ton of recommendations for places to visit in Chicago. Here is what I have so far:

Based on a recommendation that I received at work, I plan on checking out a restaurant in Chicago called Gino’s East. Allegedly, Gino’s makes a world renowned spinach deep dish pizza. If the pizza passes the test, then I might just send a pie back to Colorado Springs.

  • Andy and I are going to visit Wrigley Field for a Cubs game.

  • Pretty much everybody recommends waking up early on a Saturday morning and hitting up Hot Doug’s before the line gets ridiculously long.

  • I’m probably going to check out Carson’s Famous Barbeque Ribs.

ASPA 2012 Conference Las Vegas Day 5 at the Flamingo Casino

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 12:31 PM
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ASPA Conference Day 5 Review: Final Thoughts

I finally broke down and brought my laptop down from my room to the sessions this morning. My Dell Studio 1535 is nearing the end of its run. To keep the laptop running, I upgraded to a 40 GB SSD and installed a developer edition of Windows 8. I have been looking at ultrabook options for several months now. Over the last few days, I have been seriously considering purchasing the HP Folio 13. The physical setup of ultrabooks is about to fundamentally change. Current laptop design involves a clamshell setup without a touchscreen. The new models are about to have a clamshell design with a touchscreen. The benefit being that the device could be used as a laptop or if the clamshell is totally reversed the device could be used as a touchscreen tablet. Having a device that could be either a table or a laptop is very enticing.

The memos to the president series wrapped up today with a super session titled, “Memo’s to the President: The public administration community speaks to the nation’s leaders – a wrap-up.” This morning I learned that the “Memo’s to the President” Super Session will be changing over to a “Memo’s to Leaders” title. Apparently, a well-placed separation of powers argument was enough to get the name of the series changed. I really enjoyed the panel discussion for one main reason. The series encouraged scholars to take the cumulative knowledge assembled within the academy of public administration and translate that knowledge to applied theory or at least best practices. The field of public administration has three general pillars including economy, efficiency, and social equality. The field lacks a general philosophy that can be used to facilitate high-quality informed decision making.

I’m probably going to have to go back and review all of my previous conference posts and embed some links to program related content. Working quickly is not an acceptable excuse for a thinker to ignore the responsibility to provide backward linkages. The internet provides people with online access a public commons to share information and engage in discussions. Ultimately, the advent of the internet sped up the velocity of information. The free and open exchange of information has been the foundation of an informed civil society for generations. I’m curious about how or why the discussions of engagement, reorganization, and informed decision making through better metric collection will change the field of public administration. Being presented with limited information can challenge decision makers. Some of them will request additional information, but a large portion of them simply change up the hill.

After several years of hard work, I was finally able to fully conceptualize how to implement my research strategy. I was able to develop a framework to move forward as a researcher. I have been working for the last several months on finalizing a paper titled, “Analyzing social media engagement within e-government implementations using automated data mining techniques: A study of local government social media engagement.” While writing the further research section of the paper I realized that my actual research intentions had been different than the product I ended up producing. At some point, during the process I figuratively jumped out of my chair and yelled, “Eureka!” Over the last two year, I have been collecting social network theory linkage tables. It turns out that while I thought I was working on content modeling the entire time I had been building datasets that could be used in a variety of ways. I have started work on a new paper entitled, “Mapping online conservations: A method for applied social network analysis of websites using automated data mining techniques.”

Building datasets related to the field of public administration is a challenge for researchers. The ability to build is a good skill for quantitative researchers to acquire. Intellectually, I put a premium on creating longitudinal datasets that facilitate high quality empirical research.

Governments are facing a“…growing presence of multi-sector workforces” (Posner, 2012).

Situational Politics… government has grown large enough that instead of taking about the system we have broken down the system into a series of issue related subjects or specializations. Reality is complex. In some ways reality is so complex that we as citizens do not have the capacity to meaningfully discuss the totality of government. Perhaps the confines of language based discourse create the limit. Alternatively, it could be the sheer volume of information makes transparency unrealistic based on our capacity to consume and understand new streams of information. Maybe we have hit our limit when it comes to information consumption. Perhaps in terms of how we process information we have started moving from expansion to reduction.

ASPA 2012 Conference Las Vegas Day 3 at the Flamingo Casino

Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 11:18 PM
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ASPA Conference Day 3 Review: Sunday Slowdown

I’m still not exactly sure if it is possible to truly define how scholars working within the field of public administration can “leverage technology to build people capacity.” During one of the presentations I started to think about the nature of fiat debt. Could the government get away with writing off a significant portion of the Federal Reserve owned promissory notes? I watched a presentation on social media from JD Lasica of http://socialmedia.biz/aspa.

Would public Facebook timelines change the nature of our public commons? Do organizations really have social media campaign strategies? Emergent strategies could potentially be self-sustaining or use pure brute force to initiate some degree of change.

ASPA 2012 Conference Las Vegas Day 2 at the Flamingo Casino

Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 10:14 PM
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ASPA Conference Day 2 Review: Thinking about the process

The traditional conference chair arrangement for the audience does not really support people who are using laptops. Unfortunately, dude to personal preference I do not use my Dell Studio 1535 without a flat surface to rest the device. Therefore, during the conference I have decided to go old school and take notes using pen and paper. In this case, I have elected to test out a Sharpie brand pen. The pen works very well. I’m still a fan of 1 mm ink flow bold pens, but I will probably get over it at some point. Taking notes using pen and paper requires two steps to get end up with a digital product. I am definitely on the lookout for a good deal on an ultrabook. The following are my notes. My notes typically include all kinds of caveats and asides that are intended for further review.

Here are my notes from the opening keynote presentation from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) 2012 Las Vegas conference staring Justin Johnson who was standing in for John Berry Director of the Office of Personal Management who was under the weather. Some people have a type of that personality and can fill a room with warmth energy and some people have a disposition that clears rooms. For those of you who have never met John Berry, for the purposes of this story you should know that John is an engaging speaker that can easily win over a room. I’m glad that Justin was able to speak at the ASPA conference, but the speech lacked a certain degree of empowering rhetoric. Apparently, about 1200 people attended the conference this year.

The conference is live on Twitter, Four Square, and Facebook. Academics have typically ignored fleeting communication tolls in favor of making contributions to the academy. History remains grander than the moment. Academic journals, manuscripts, and books provide a near permanent record of academics thoughts that make a contribution to our written records. I will concede that social networking can help bring people together by increasing the speed of communication, but the academic world does not generally require speed.

First time conference attendees should attend business meetings and try to get a feel for how ASPA works. Tonight the welcome reception will be held on the UNLV campus. ASPA rented buses to take conference participants from the Flamingo to the UNLV campus.  Apparently, visitors to Las Vegas make an average contribution of $120 per day to the economy. I instantly wondered if that number includes hotel costs and food or if the number only includes gambling losses.

ASPA 2012 Conference Las Vegas Day 1 at the Flamingo Casino

Friday, March 2, 2012 at 10:43 PM
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ASPA Conference Day 1 Review: Feedback and or notes on logistics

First things first… let’s talk about the food. Allegedly, I purchased a 24 hour pass to the Buffet of Buffets in Las Vegas. Including the Paradise Garden Buffet at the Flamingo a total of 4 of unlimited pass buffets are within (what I would consider) walking distance of the Flamingo Casino. Yes, I have a plan to visit as many of them as possible. At some point tomorrow, I plan on walking across the street to the Emperor’s Buffet at the Imperial Palace. Convenience alone cannot drive me to eat at the same restaurant buffet for more than three consecutive meals. Assuming the weather is nice on Monday, I plan on walking from the Flamingo to the Spice Market Buffet at the Planet Hollywood or Harrah’s buffet, “flavors.”

I do have one major complaint so far. The check-in process (including the airport shuttle) at the Flamingo Casino was brutally painful. Everybody in the VIP total rewards check-in line seemed very happy. They had short lines and a VIP check-in area. Regular visitors (aka conference guests that are not casino regulars) are intentionally forced into cattle call style lines. Additionally, the Flamingo Casino does not provide any shuttle services to or from the airport. Without any shuttle service, I was forced to catch a cab for about $20 bucks from McCarran International Airport to the hotel. The cab driver did not attempt to engage me in any conversation during the ride. Oddly enough the cab driver would not even make eye contact with me. After arriving at the Flamingo the first 35 minutes of my trip were spent standing in a cattle call line waiting for a customer service agent. In terms of first impressions, I was not very impressed. The check-in process was very transactional in nature. The process lacked any attempt to develop a relationship. The transactional nature of the process became very clear. Overall, the staff was friendly and they certainly have no shortage of employees working throughout the property. I’m guessing that the workforce manager is trying to minimize the number of customer service staff.

I’ll review the Flamingo in more detail at the end of the week. The conference floors seem to be nice and I did not have any trouble finding any of the meetings. I’m pretty excited about the keynote address tomorrow. The 2012 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) conference is off to a great start. Joni is already looking forward to the 2013 ASPA conference that will be held at a hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. The first thing I did after checking into my room was place a small wager related to who will cut down the nets at the conclusion of this year’s round of March madness. I’ll try to take good notes tomorrow during the conference sessions to provide an accurate recap.

Reading the February 2012 Project Management Journal cover to cover

Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 9:07 AM
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During the flight from Denver, Colorado to Orange County, California, I had the time to sit down and ready the February 2012 edition of the Project Management Journal (PMJ). My preferred method of consuming academic prose happens to be reading hard copies of long form journal article. Throughout the year various academic journals show up at my mailbox. I try to keep up by reading them all cover to cover as they arrive. Airline flights provide a nice opportunity to read academic journals cover to cover without interruption. Improving and growing as a scholar requires reading tons of articles in different journals (normally across a variety of disciples) and focusing on dissecting poorly written abstracts, rushed hypothesis, and further research sections. Analyzing scholarly articles requires breaking down the differences between the abstract and the article before carefully considering how the findings within the article supported the further research section of the article. Typically, academic articles do not ring true with a degree of clarity that makes them definitive. Research begets more research for either confirmation (validation through replication) or iteration. Overall, the articles in the PMJ were very readable and the degree of complexity seemed to provide adequate scholarly coverage. In particular, I enjoyed the article by Papadopoulos, Ojiako, Chipulu, and Lee about customer relationship management (CRM) system implementation risk factors. I was hoping that the authors would have introduced a criticality index for CRM systems that would help practitioners score current and future implementations based on potential risks.

Working on finishing my Mastering the Project Portfolio class

Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 9:04 PM
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After a full day of work that started at 5:00 AM mountain time, I have decided to push forward with completing the test for my  Stanford Center for Professional Development “Mastering the Project Portfolio” class. Overall I would have to say that my experiences with Stanford University have been gomod. All of the course material has directly translated to things I am doing at work. Well finishing that class was not so bad. The new computer setup in the basement almost worked. For some reason that still remains a mystery the Windows 8 powered computer would not sync right. I had to grab my laptop and get it setup in the basement.

My third Stanford University class marathon weekend study session

Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 1:15 PM
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Working late into the night can be very rewarding. Few people on the planet truly enjoy a good marathon writing or studying session. An even fewer number of people have the drive to sustain a single minded purpose long enough to drive a true marathon event. Strong intellectual performances can be incremental and follow a plan. Projects that involve strategy and planning will almost always trump spontaneous operational decisions. As part of the advanced project management program, I started working on completing my third class from Stanford University. Overall, the Stanford Center for Professional Development class “Managing without authority” has been enjoyable and thought-provoking. The wild card weekend NFL games are definitely a little distracting. Who would have predicted a Houston Texan wildcard matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals?

The move to streaming online content various subscription cable and satellite television services has hit the mainstream media. Check out this weekend’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article Cutting the Cord on Cable.

The company holiday party and my second Stanford University class

Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 11:37 AM
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The weekend started off pretty well. I successfully finished my second Stanford University class and attended the company holiday party. The holiday party at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort was really enjoyable. I missed the company holiday party by one day last year. It is hard to believe that it has been an entire year since the last time I went through a new hire orientation. Every once in a while a degree of synchronicity occurs that allows a uniquely informative moment to occur. For me the Stanford University advanced project management courses have been completely germane. The courses have both validated and have informed my journey within the workplace. Overall, my second Stanford University Center for Professional Development class, “Leadership for Strategic Execution,” went very well. Joni allowed me complete autonomy on Saturday to read, watch online lectures, and take quizzes in the living room. I would like to take a moment to celebrate my Bose Quiet Comfort 2 acoustic noise canceling headphones. I have had my Bose QC2 headphones since 2005. They have held up surprisingly well over the years.

Thanksgiving went well enough

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:02 AM
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So far this week could be summarized with one simple expression of expository prose, “Thanksgiving went well enough.” Our house guests left early this weekend on Saturday morning. I will probably have enough time to assemble the Christmas tree and work on preparing for my next Stanford University class, “Leadership for Strategic Execution.” During the Black Friday online sales extravaganzas I looked at dress watches, browsed topcoats, and searched for dress shoes. Strangely enough, I did not feel compelled to make any online purchases yesterday. Maybe the cyber Monday sales will be more compelling. I am starting to believe the argument, “Beware of monthly subscription services.”

The 2012 ASPA conference committee accepted my paper

Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 1:13 PM
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Lindahl, N. (2012). “Analyzing social media engagement within e-government implementations using automated data mining techniques: A study of local government social media engagement.” American Society for Public Administration 73rd Annual Conference, Conference Paper, Las Vegas, Nevada.

My favorite public administration academic event of the year has to be the American Society for Public Administration conference. I started attending ASPA conferences back in 2005 when the conference was held in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year I will be attending both the MPSA and the ASPA conferences. I am pretty excited about visiting Las Vegas for the first time… anybody got any hotel suggestions? The conference will be staged out of the Flamingo Hotel (so recommendations within walking distance would be appreciated).

Thanksgiving football and a ton of random snacks

Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 12:13 PM
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I’m officially taking the entire day off of work (groundbreaking strategy I know). The Thanksgiving holiday season provides a great opportunity for extended vacations. For the first time since Joni and I move to Colorado we will be entertaining family for Thanksgiving. Vacations that involve prolonged shopping adventures are not really vacations. Strangely enough Thanksgiving (a holiday firmly rooted in the consumption of vast quantities of food) has become closely associated with the shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday. Black Friday deals are arriving via email at an unprecedented rate. Earlier this morning I almost purchased a topcoat based on a door buster savings deal. At some point, I want to transition into being able to wear a suit to work every day.

Good new! I have been taking a victory lap all week; after completing my first Stanford University class this week. I really did enjoy taking, “Converting strategy into action,” from the Stanford Center for Professional Development. As part of my current professional development strategy, I started pursuing avenues that would enhance my project management knowledge, skills, and abilities. Professional development will always be an ongoing process. Things change at different rates. Practitioners have to evaluate and reevaluate the playing field by using reflective techniques mixed with strategic forecasting.

Stanford University: The SCPD has a YouTube channel

Monday, November 7, 2011 at 4:31 PM
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If you enjoy watching academic videos online, then when you get a chance consider checking out the Stanford Center for Professional Development staff’s YouTube channel. I enjoyed watching the video associated with this post entitled, “Decision Quality: The Art and Science of Good Decision-Making.”

The 2012 MPSA conference committee accepted my paper

Friday, November 4, 2011 at 8:22 AM
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Lindahl, N. (2012). “Feedback Driven E-Government: A Survey Based Study of Local Government E-Feedback Methodology.” Midwest Political Science Association 70th Annual Conference, Conference Paper, Chicago, Illinois.

I have never been to the annual national Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) conference before. From what I can tell the conference is held yearly at a hotel (The Palmer House Hotel) located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. I’m looking forward to seeing Andy and visiting Carson’s ribs for some of their famous barbeque. Andy will probably build a list of the best Chicago restaurants.

Stanford AI-Class Week 3 mixed with Halloween Preparation

Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 3:28 PM
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Would a cookbook of one sentence recipes work? For example, “Bake at 350 to 375 until done (about 15 minutes) place pieces of asparagus on a baking sheet over a sheet of foil tossed with salt, pepper, EVOO, and covered in lemon slices.”

The publishing arm of the Royal Society (the world’s oldest scientific publisher) has decided to build a searchable online repository of publications.

I have been wondering about online content delivery.

  1. WSJ
  2. USA Today
  3. LA Times
  4. Google News?

I have been trying to figure out the best method to display webpages on my Sony Bravia. TiVo does not really provide a web browser and my PS3 barely has a functional web browser.

My Saturday will involve watching college football and homework

Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 3:58 PM
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I started by looking for an eatery that had house specialties of either sesame beef or orange beef. However, the proprietor at Wok In Wok Out in Colorado Springs, Colorado really does adhere to their delivery area. Andy from Chicago suggested compromising by offering to meet the delivery driver at the delivery area boundary. Andy’s suggestion was innovative. However, my only opportunity to vote within the community of commerce involves my spending choices. If the proprietor does not want to deliver, then the proprietor missed out on a new line of business. As part of my enhanced Saturday football watching experience I have decided not to leave the house.

I did write at least one tweet on Twitter: @centurylink What’s up with the corporate decision to deny customers access to @ESPN3 without any explanation or plan for action? I really don’t want to switch from CenturyLink to Xfinity, but you’re making it hard to be a customer.

Other than ESPN3, what is the best internet option for watching college football games? I’m willing to pay for a quality service, but I have no interest in subscribing to cable/satellite television.

Fortunately, ABC will be broadcasting the Stanford University football game against the University of Southern California (USC) tonight.

Stanford AI-Class Week 2 mixed with a very busy work week

Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 8:29 AM
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What a busy week!

I have started to ask myself the question, “How many hours should a salaried employee work during a busy week?” The answer remains elusive. As modernity has crept stealth-fully into our lives while technology has interested with productivity the expectations for a workday have been fundamentally altered. Overall, workload is often dictated by capacity. In some ways skill sets define what tasks a worker will be assigned. Time management can only take you so far when the list of tasks outpaces a forty hour work week. I have decided to spend my Saturday morning listing to the entire series of week 2 “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” class lectures. The intro to databases class seems to be more time consuming and I might have to revisit the class the next time it is offered. The decision will largely be made based on how much time the AI-Class takes today.

I was messing with the blog post template within Microsoft Word 2010 and noticed that somehow the “Do not check spelling or grammar” check box had become unchecked. Even on my best days I make the occasional grammatical or typographical error.

Will Flickr make it? Should I start uploading my video library to both Flickr and YouTube? I know that my video library basically has to be backed up to the cloud and a few Blu-ray discs stored in our local safe deposit bank vault. Over the years Flickr has been a fantastic photo sharing tool. I’m just not sold on the financial model that drives Flickr. Then again what financial model has Yahoo been using? Strangely enough Yahoo and HP have been in a high stakes battle to determine which company has the worst board of directors. I hope that the financial chaos does not lead Flickr shutting down.

Stanford AI-Class Week 1

Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 8:24 AM
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Initially, I underestimated the time commitment that both the Stanford Engineering into to artificial intelligence and into to databases would require. After a few minutes of personal reflection, I decided to deregister from the db-class and take it the next time it is offered. Overall, I have been very impressed with the quality of the ai-class. The video lectures are informative and easy to watch. After getting used to the quizzes at the end of each video the format is strangely compelling. I ended up watching most of the class videos during two separate working sessions. The week 1 homework was fairly straightforward, but the presentation could have included a few more details about the homework questions.

During my travels across the State of Kansas this week I tried to watch the ai-class videos on my HTC EVO 4G phone. I was able to play the coursework videos, but the JavaScript based quizzes were unable to execute within the Android based web browser. Firefox mobile for Android was completely ineffective.

I am really curious to see how I did on the week 1 quiz.

Gearing up for the massively large Stanford online classes

Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 2:44 PM
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On October 10, 2011 the freely available online Stanford engineering sponsored AI and db classes will start. I have been looking forward to the advanced version of Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig’s introductory to Artificial Intelligence course. I think these classes are ultimately part of a larger social experiment about distributed online learning.

http://www.db-class.org/
http://www.ai-class.com/

Taking some Stanford Classes

Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 4:16 PM
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Who thinks about career development strategies? Do people actively engage in long term career planning? Professional decision making can certainly involve utilizing career trajectory management strategies. I certainly like to think about how the future will unfold. As part of a broader career development strategy, I have decided to take a few classes from Stanford University.

Here are my answers to two of the application questions:

“Please summarize any project, program and/or portfolio management experience you have gained in previous positions, including experience as a project team member, project sponsor, or executive with project management oversight.”

With respect to summarizing one specific project I have worked on that exemplifies project/program management experience I think you will enjoy my example. My career highlight has to include the one major project that I have worked on for the better part of the last decade. I have severed as the primary project manager/sponsor for the Graduation with Civic Honors project since May 2002. The program has expanded to multiple states and is in the process of international expansion. The basic premise is fairly straightforward. I have argued that academic programs have a rich tradition of offering graduation with Honors and are capable of implementing Graduation with Civic Honors. The Graduation with Civic Honors program is the institutional recognition of civic engagement in the community during the graduation ceremony. Graduation is an incredibly important time and a major life event for most people. Recognizing individuals with Graduation with Civic Honors, helps focus the attention of a new generation on realizing the possibilities of practical programs increasing civic engagement through community involvement. Please review my answer to the first application question if you are interested in what specific skills I utilize on a daily basis.

Program References:

Carlsen, C. J., Lindahl, N., & Lindahl, S. (2004). “Civic Honors Program at Johnson County Community College.” Journal for Civic Commitment, 4th Issue, 1-9.

Lindahl, N. (2006). Graduation with Civic Honors: Unlock the power of community opportunity. New York: IUniverse, Inc.

“What do you hope to achieve through your participation through the Stanford Advanced Project Management Certificate Program?”

I hope to achieve a better understanding of what advanced project management can do for an organization and I hope to implement that knowledge on a daily basis. As a reflective practitioner interested in both business and civil society, I believe in lifelong learning and personal improvement through the pursuit of knowledge and the internalization of experiences. I would like to augment my current skillset by earning the Stanford Advanced Project Management from the Stanford Center for Professional Development. I believe the certificate program will help focus my previous public administration training from the University of Kansas MPA program related to improving efficiency, economy, and social equity. Professional project management is a powerful approach to taking ideas from the drawing board to practical implementation. I have a solid understanding of public administration, civil society, civic engagement, and knowledge management. I believe that expanding my project management knowledge base will help me leverage all of my skillsets to effectively management large operations side projects. Currently, I serve as a project manager for telephony and operations projects within larger company wide projects I serve as a business analyst type resource. The advanced project manager certificate program will help me strengthen the Graduation with Civic Honors project and improve my capacity to manage corporate projects.

Serious Weekend Thinking

Saturday, September 3, 2011 at 4:46 PM
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Maybe you guessed it from the title of this weblog post, but in case you missed the headline let me be exceptionally clear, “I have decided to devote parts of this three day weekend to thinking about life, the universe, and everything.”

In terms of intellectual development, I have decided to focus on taking a few additional classes online. If you wanted to sign up for the Stanford Engineering, “Online version of Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. The course runs from the 10th of October through the 18th of December, 2011. Enrollment will be open until the 9th of October,” then now would be the time to complete the registration. I completed the advanced registration option at http://www.ai-class.com/. Interestingly enough, a number of other classes are available online courtesy of the Stanford Engineering Everywhere project. I imagine the publicity of this massive online class will help Stanford University develop a large beachhead in the world of online education.

In terms of family activities, Joni and I went to the Happy Apple Farm located in Penrose, Colorado.

Joni and I also went to The Winery at Holy Cross Abby in Canyon City, Colorado.

Stanford CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Online

Saturday, August 6, 2011 at 8:41 AM
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Kudos to Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig for teaching a free online version of Stanford University’s intro to artificial intelligence (AI) class. The website promises that online class participants will receive a benchmark certificate. The class is scheduled to occur between October 10 and December 16, 2011. I plan on purchasing the text book and attending the class if I can manage to sign up fast enough when the online section opens.

  1. Will other professors offer popup online sections?
  2. How many participants will be allowed to take the class?
  3. Could this type of online section breakdown the admissions gatekeeping system?

Jury Duty Reading

Monday, April 11, 2011 at 10:44 AM
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While waiting to be called for jury duty, I am reading Robert Cooper’s “The other 90%: How to unlock your vast untapped potential for leadership and life.”

* Posted from WordPress for Android

Considering Communication

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 10:37 AM
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Each individual living within society needs to understand the nature of contemporary thought with respect to the speed of modern communication. Every new method of digital communication builds a certain degree of shared understanding. The depth of communication seems to be changing.  People seem to have given up classic argument formats in favor of simplistic exchanges of common information. Typical interpersonal exchanges between people have fundamentally devolved from philosophical exchanges to a series of observations and preferences.

Document Fatigue

Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 10:47 PM
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After reading the same pages over and over again a certain degree of fatigue sets in for the reader. For a writer this type of document fatigue can be incredibly befuddling. Editing a document to some degree remains conceptual. Grammarian concerns stand as a constant reminder of the grand construct of language hierarchy. Within all of the reminders and concerns that exist within document editing a resolution has to exist. Some method has to exist to allow the writer to strive toward a definable end. Maybe a vision of the completed document stands just within reach of the writer’s ambition. Dedicated writers typically work until the document stands complete.

Ceiling Repairs

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 8:17 AM
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The following prose involves a few notes about the process of ceiling repairs. Instead of hiring a trained professional, to attempt the repairs a decision has been made to attempt the repair process.

Yesterday, a few early hours of the morning involved a few home repairs. Even a brand new house involves a certain degree of maintenance and that task is the true test of homeownership. Last week a water pipe under the sink collapsed and flooded a kitchen cabinet, the kitchen floor, and a wall in the basement. The repair only took a few minutes of actual labor. Unfortunately, the supply cabinet in the garage was fresh out of extra plumbing supplies. Traveling to the hardware store had to wait until a proper water damage averment protocol could be developed.

The hardware store was selling a new type of orange peel textured spray. However, the repairs involve dealing with the very height of a vaulted room. The weight of the ceiling fan might have caused a series of cracks along the edges of the sheetrock. Could this be a sign of poor construction techniques? In reality, the cracks probably indicate a combination of poor techniques and the inadequate use of building materials.

Currently, after the application of a base layer of drywall tape the first layer of drywall spackling is drying. Eventually, the drywall will need to be sanded down before a layer of orange peel textured spray can be applied. Finally, a coat of paint will cover the layer of orange peel textured spray. Theoretically, after the completion of the process the ceiling will appear to be uniform.

Yet, those questions about the uniformity of a repaired ceiling will have to wait for definitive answers. Those answers will unfold at the end of the project.

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