As a learning professional, today's Dilbert speaks mountains about learning objectives and expectations in and around organizational power (not to mention why what we think and want is often what we do not get.

Click on the picture to make it larger!

OK, my curiosity was awoken in the Online Connectivism Conference due to so much chatter about Second Life and its use in education, learning, and business. So, I created an account and played around for about 10 minutes. Amazing graphics, and while I only flew and accidentally (sorta) pushed somebody else into the water, I thought I needed to get back to work.

Well, this is related to my work as I am a learning professional.

Time and Date is one of the most useful and practical websites I have used again and again, and recently I have seen a great feature it offers being more widely used. Yes, I do get excited about a website that, you got it, gives the time and date for different cities around the world.

With more blogging and utilization of social media regardless of location and timezone, the Fixed Time option is wonderful for scheduling meetings. Just today I got a link from George Siemens about the Connectivism Online Conference that begins next week, and he fixed the time so participants from the 40+ countries that are attending the conference can be clear what time it is for them. Such a little step, but what confusion and needless time wasting it solves. Thanks for the example, George!

I have already posted how I am planning to attend Northern Voice, and since I take an evidence-based research approach to my work and studies, I am applying for one of their travel bursaries.

I am applying for this not just because I am traveling to Vancouver from New York (by way of Houston and Seattle where I transfer planes with a 12 hour total flight on the first day to get there), nor is it because I (as a working graduate student) am always short of funds. Rather, it is because I believe the contribution I can make to the conference through a research project I am proposing will begin to fill a gap in the literature that may be helpful for others to know more about. Lots of people write about why and how people blog, while fewer people do this in a formalized research manner to ultimately publish and present their findings in an academic, peer-reviewed milieu.

I am proposing, along with my colleague Robin, a qualitative research project to investigate something we can not readily locate in the literature–blogger motivation. We are planning to ask if people self-identify themselves as bloggers or individuals who actively participate in social media. If so, and they consent to participate, they will be asked how they remain motivated to maintain and actively post to their blog. As a closet researcher who believes in following accepted research practices, this project will be submitted for formal IRB (institutional review board) approval at my university, the participants at the conference will be anonymous, the responses will be coded, and findings will be shared with the Northern Voice community, with the larger research community, and with and anybody else who is interested in learning more about this topic.

We believe there has been some discussion about this, but we have not found any research (following formal processes and procedures) that helps us to understand the phenomena. The community that makes up the Northern Voice experience will be offered an opportunity to expand the knowledge of the blogging experience. I hope the bursary award committee agrees with the value in this project and offers to support and participate in it.

Thanks to Scott McLeod in his post, The Results Are In. There was a survey of edubloggers (I did not participate), that received around 160 responses, and in Scott's representation of the results, the slide below struck me:

I felt I was reading about why I started to blog, after many failed attempts, with more regularity. The reflection and voice results are particularly close to my own interests, and while community and learning and the rest are all important to me as well, blogging allows a reflective voice, to a greater or lesser degree, more than most media today IMHO. Perhaps that is why reflective practice and its sibling, the gap between research and practice, are so engaging of my energy.

I just stumbled across the link for the Social Media Club while looking for something else, and it just goes to show how the web can be used as a wonderful social activity, connecting people near and far. Looked pretty interesting, especially when I noticed a name that is strangely familiar - Howard Greenstein. Turns out he is one of the co-founders of this organization that just happens to have a meeting space here in New York. I know him as my director at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Small world, especially since neither of us knew about the techie interests of the other.

Wonder if Howard knows I am traveling to Northern Voice especially to have spaghetti with Lee LeFever (among other things at the conference), as my Foundations of Training I class will be completed by then?