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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/

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.

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.