A quiet, chilled end to the year.
Sorted the PC drives out consolidating the 2nd drive’s partitions into 1 that can now take all my music and podcasts.
Made the beetroot/potato gratin recipe again but this time with creamed horseradish that did make a difference.
Rachael was out overnight helping out at Inn Churches at HCC Bradford.
We watched Ponyo,, one of Hannah’s favourite films.
Moved the iTunes library from one disk to the 2nd in the main PC.
Britons fly massive distances to enthuse over coastlines no more alluring than this
Guardian lead article in the regular In praise of … series
The Wales football manager Gary Speed, who has died at the age of 42 after apparently taking his own life, was an outstanding footballer and promised to be equally successful in this new phase of his career. But while he had been in charge of the national side for only 10 games, his playing career was long and distinguished.
Guardian obituary
Gary Speed: A football man of principle who engendered huge affection (Guardian article)
Economist's chief executive explains how a mistake transformed his website and why he is relaxed about losing print sales
Guardian article
Outstanding England batsman whose barring from a tour to his native South Africa led to its expulsion from Test cricket
Guardian obituary
The presenter of BBC's The World at One on career rumours, ageism and preferring Radio 4 to Newsnight
Guardian article
Archive BBC TV film footage, believed to have been lost, has shown the veteran broadcaster John Arlott's unique reflections on his home county of Hampshire.
BBC page (incl video)
Basil D'Oliveira listened to Arlott on the World Service and wrote him a letter. Arlott not only read it, but lobbied on his behalf
Guardian lead article in the regular In praise of … series
The parliamentarian of the year has blazed a trail on female candidates and has great faith in reasonable compromise
Guardian lead article in the regular In praise of … series
When Channel 4 was launched as a radical alternative to ITV and the BBC in 1982, some were baffled at the appointment of Cecil Korer as programme purchaser and commissioning editor for light entertainment. He represented the old school, having spent more than 20 years at the BBC producing populist programmes such as the gameshow It's a Knockout.
Guardian obituary
A sad loss, R.E.M. are one of my fave bands with Losing My Religion probably in my all time top 10.
After 31 years, REM are no more, after an amicable, mutual decision to split. But is it really what they all wanted? And is it truly for ever?
Guardian interview (includes widget for playing music from their current definitive compilation album)
Losing My Religion (YouTube, Wikipedia)
We all enjoyed this one-off BBC drama with lots of actors we recognised as well as Eddie Izzard. Great family Christmas programme.
An urban fairytale from the backstreets of Manchester.
On Christmas Eve, everyone is getting ready excitedly for the big day - everyone, that is, except Anthony, a strange, enigmatic being who wakes up in the street, not knowing where he is or what he's there to do. Anthony has a remarkable ability: the power to find the lost.
But is Anthony's ability real, or just an illusion? Who is he and why has he ended up in Manchester at Christmas, just as the snow begins to fall?
BBC programme page
Really delighted for Rob, Diane and the whole of the Care for the Family organisation and its stakeholders. I have been aware of Care for the Family for many years through Rob’s involvement with Spring Harvest and we have been partners (supporting the work financially each month) for over a decade now.
Rob is one of the most inspirational and motivational speakers I have ever heard (the last time being as recently as Spring Harvest Minehead Week 3 back in April) and a great storyteller putting the audience at the heart of each and evey story he tells.
Rob is also an author of many books including, memorably for me, “The Heart of Success: Making It In Business Without Losing It In Life” which was one of 2 books that led me to resigning from a consulting job with no job to go to when I was away from home every week and not being with my young family as they grew up.
Found this video now which is a good intro to what makes Rob tick:
And reminded of this video which explains the rationale behind Care for the Family:
Just used Storify for the first time and used it to collate into one place Carole’s tweets from the series, some feedback tweets from me (all positive) and some links to Carole’s web site for contact and bio details. I also sussed out how to embed the “story” from Storify into the blog as you can see below.
The new replacement combi gas boiler will be going in on Tuesday and Wednesday as per plan after the electrician confirmed that the electrics in the house are up to the job. British Gas had that survey done as a pre-req to the work going ahead. We can’t quite believe it … Currently surviving with one gas heater in front room and an electric heater in the kitchen. Like the good old days ..
An amazing radio programme, well worth a listen.
Norway is not a strongly religious country, yet after Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in July, it was the Lutheran Cathedral in Oslo that quickly became the focal point for grieving families and a nation in shock.
Five months on, how do the country, families, and survivors prepare to celebrate Christmas in the light of the most traumatic event in Norway’s history since World War II?
BBC World Service
After I passed the kidney stone some time ago, as I was “discharged”, I was told to provide 2 x 24 hour full urine samples for further tests. This was due to me having 2 episodes of kidney stones over the past few years, These did not have to be 2 consecutive 24 hour periods but even so I needed to be around the house to “collect” the samples. Finally managed to do the samples over the past 2 days and took them in to St Luke’s this morning.
A great list to review and ponder. #10 particularly resonated with me at this time of my career.
It's getting close to the end of the year.
A good time to clean out old drawers filled with even older files.
Here's one I just found: Lessons From Fast Company. It was a speech I gave in Brazil at a program organized by the remarkable Oscar Motomura not long after Bill Taylor and I exited the magazine that we had jointly created.
Here's what my speech notes say.
Blog post
PMOs are frequently closed or restructured with only about half of them surviving for two years. This statistic can most likely be attributed to the fact that either failing PMOs are not flexible enough to keep up with the needs of the company, or they do not communicate their contributions well. PMOs and executives need to work together to keep things running smoothly.
Ecommerce Times article
Ernest Shackleton's failed quest to reach the South Pole is still a management tutorial in how to face repeated crises. The crew of his ship, the Endurance, was photographed in July 1915 while trapped by an ice floe.
New York Times
Not much of a baker but this could convert me.
The ultimate baking compendium from Dan Lepard, the country's foremost baking guru.
Dan Lepard’s innovative and earthy approach has made him the baker that every top chef wants in their kitchen, and with this utterly dependable how-to-bake book you’ll be baking cakes, pastries, breads and cookies like never before. Collecting together Dan’s best recipes – and mixing science with old-fashioned kitchen wisdom – Dan has tried and tested almost every baking technique out there.
Guiding you through the crispest flatbreads, blue cheese and oatmeal biscuits, gluten-free white loaves, savoury leek and smoked haddock pies, caramel sweets, frostings, simple scones and pumpkin and ginger cupcakes, Short and Sweet uses the newest flours and ingredients and has everything from updates on the classics to the latest in baking for intolerances.
If baking is therapy then Dan is your life coach. He’ll show you how to improve, what to work on, how to take what is just ok right up to brilliant, without a sweat. No wonder he is the country’s cutting-edge baker.
Amazon UK
Author’s Guardian page with links to recipes and articles
Julia Hobsbawm, who currently runs Editorial Intelligence, a think-club for high-powered professionals and the media, will be taking up the post at the Cass Business School, part of City University, in the New Year. The daughter of historian Eric Hobsbawm, Julia worked in PR with Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah before founding Editorial Intelligence in 2005. She will start her tenure with a lecture before offering her wisdom to MBA and MSc students on the art of professional social skills and making connections. Cass is one of Europe’s top business schools, with a foothold in the City of London, and seems thrilled to be diversifying beyond its financial services and actuarial courses.
“There is a growing awareness of the importance of ‘soft skills’ such as networking to business and Editorial Intelligence is a leader in this field,” says Professor Cliff Oswick, head of the management faculty. Hobsbawm expertly gives her profession a cerebral spin. “Networking is a form of intellectual fitness and is as invaluable to productivity — and therefore economic performance — as physical fitness is to overall health,” she says.
Londoner’s Diary, London Evening Standard
When, to the surprise of western chancelleries, central Europe changed utterly in the autumn and winter of 1989, it was a stocky Czech dramatist lately released from prison who produced the abiding metaphor for what had happened. In 1947, after Yalta and Potsdam, said Václav Havel, who has died aged 75 after a long illness, the clock of history had been stopped in his half of Europe – and now it had started again. Havel's own career might resemble the very incarnation of that metaphor – of the notion it encapsulates of communism as no more than a bracket in history, a long deviation from the onward march of capitalism's permanent revolution.
Guardian obituary
How the greatest figure of the northern Renaissance invented a new business model
Economist article
A great article for those of us who get a lot of “stick” for not sitting still while listening to speakers etc and taking notes, doodling etc …
If your audience is fidgeting, it may be a good thing
Via this tweet;
And the gates of heaven keep opening: the benefits of fidgeting and doodling: theglobeandmail.com/life/health/ne… #doodlerevolution
— Sunni Brown (@SunniBrown) December 20, 2011
Practical advice for managers on how the Web and social media can help them to do their jobs better
Today′s managers are faced with an increasing use of the Web and social platforms by their staff, their customers, and their competitors, but most aren′t sure quite what to do about it or how it all relates to them. Corporations Don′t Tweet…People Do provides managers in all sorts of organizations, from governments to multinationals, with practical advice, insight and inspiration on how the Web and social tools can help them to do their jobs better. From strategy to corporate communication, team building to customer relations, this uniquely people–centric guide to social media in the workplace offers managers, at all levels, valuable insights into the networked world as it applies to their challenges as managers, and it outlines practical things they can do to make social media integral to the tone and tenor of their departments or organizational cultures.
About the Author
Euan Semple is one of the few people in the world who can turn the complex world of the social web into something we can all understand. And, at the same time, learn how to get the most from it.
Ten years ago, while working in a senior position at the BBC, Euan was one of the first to introduce what have since become known as social media tools into a large, successful organisation. He has subsequently had five years of unparalleled experience working with organisations such as Nokia, The World Bank and NATO.
He is a one-man digital upgrade option for us all to download.
This world is changing fast, but he makes sense of it because he understands that the core basics remain the same: community, learning, and interaction. He is a master story-teller who offers a host of practical tales about how this new world can work for real people in the real world.
A U.K.-based program called Decoded promises to teach n00bs to code in a day. Writer Louise Jack (and many ad industry types) signed on to find out if they can walk in with a civilian's basic web knowledge and walk out with an app.
Fast Company article
Cora Cash, possibly the wealthiest heiress in 1890s America, has been raised to believe that money will open every door to her. But when her mother whisks Cora to England to secure her an aristocratic match, Cora is dismayed by the welcome she at first receives. The great English houses in which she is entertained are frosty and forbidding, dogged by intrigue above stairs, and gossip below. And it is only when she loses her heart - to a man she barely knows - that Cora realises the game she is playing is one she does not full understand, and that her own future happiness could be the prize.
Amazon.co.uk
Stumbled over Daisy last week for the first time and then see that she “starred” in University Challenge over this Christmas week …
The 48-year-old author on being a tragic teenager, making big decisions and bonding with the Duchess of Cornwall over shoes.
Telegraph article (from 2010)
Daisy Goodwin: A woman of substance
Already TV’s face of poetry, award-winning producer and ‘head girl’ of her own company, Daisy Goodwin has written her debut novel. She talks to Arifa Akbar
Independent article (from 2010)
Hanif Kureishi's latest novel made many reviewers uneasy on its first appearance, because it cuts so painfully near to the bone. If a novelist's first duty is to tell the truth, then Kureishi has done his duty with unflinching courage. Intimacy gives us the thoughts and memories of a middle-aged writer on the night before he walks out on his wife and two young sons, in favour of a younger woman. A very modern man, without political convictions or religious beliefs, he vaguely hopes to find fulfilment in sexual love. No-one is spared Kureishi's cold, penetrating gaze or lacerating pen. "She thinks she's feminist, but she's just bad- tempered," he says of his abandoned wife. A male friend advises him, "Marriage is a battle, a terrible journey, a season in hell and a reason for living."
At the heart of the novel is this terrible paradox: "You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them." Male readers will wince with recognition at the narrator's hatred of entrapment and domesticity, and his implacable urge towards freedom, escape, even loneliness. Female readers may find it a truly horrific revelation. Kureishi is only telling it like it is, in staccato sentences of pinpoint accuracy. By far the author's best yet: a brilliant, devastating work.
Amazon UK
From the Suffolk countryside to the old Basque towns of Spain, Emma Darwin's unforgettable debut tells the astoundingly moving story of Stephen, a veteran of Waterloo, whose suffering and secret lost happiness is transformed by love. Gorgeously written, fascinating and engrossing, THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE is a sexy, heartbreaking, glorious novel by a major new literary star.
Amazon.co.uk
It’s time we start being brutally honest about the missional movement that has emerged in the last 10-15 years: Chances are better than not it’s going to fail.
Mike Breen blog post (from September 2011)
In a sense, The Information is a book about everything, from words themselves to talking drums, writing and lexicography, early attempts at an analytical engine, the telegraph and telephone, ENIAC, and the ubiquitous computers that followed. But that's just the "History." The "Theory" focuses on such 20th-century notables as Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, Alan Turing, and others who worked on coding, decoding, and re-coding both the meaning and the myriad messages transmitted via the media of their times. In the "Flood," Gleick explains genetics as biology's mechanism for informational exchange--Is a chicken just an egg's way of making another egg?--and discusses self-replicating memes (ideas as different as earworms and racism) as information's own evolving meta-life forms. Along the way, readers learn about music and quantum mechanics, why forgetting takes work, the meaning of an "interesting number," and why "[t]he bit is the ultimate unsplittable particle." What results is a visceral sense of information's contemporary precedence as a way of understanding the world, a physical/symbolic palimpsest of self-propelled exchange, the universe itself as the ultimate analytical engine. If Borges's "Library of Babel" is literature's iconic cautionary tale about the extreme of informational overload, Gleick sees the opposite, the world as an endlessly unfolding opportunity in which "creatures of the information" may just recognize themselves.
Amazon.com
Wikipedia entries for the book and the author
Author’s web site
Introducing a writer with a keen eye, a wicked tongue, and an appealing take on family.
In the family of Jen Lancaster and Elizabeth Gilbert, Kyran Pittman is the laid-back middle sister: warm and witty and confiding, with an addictively smart and genuine voice-but married with three kids and living in the heartland. Relatable and real, she writes about family in a way that highlights all its humor, while at the same time honoring its depth.
A regular contributor to Good Housekeeping, Pittman is well loved because she is funny and honest and self-deprecating, because her own household is in chaos ("semi-domesticated"), and because she inspires readers in their own domestic lives. In these eighteen linked, chronological essays, Pittman covers the first twelve years of becoming a family, writing candidly and hilariously about things like learning to maintain a marriage over time; dealing with the challenges of sex after childbirth; saying good-bye to her younger self and embracing the still attractive, forty-year-old version; and trying to "recession- proof" her family (i.e., downsize to avoid foreclosure).
From a fresh new talent, celebrating the joys and trials of a new generation of parents, Planting Dandelions is an entertaining tribute to choosing the white-picket fence over the other options available, even if you don't manage to live up to its ideals every day.
Amazon.com
There's never a shortage of new books about how to be more effective in business. Most of them are forgettable, but here are 25 that changed the way we think about management — from the iconic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to groundbreaking tomes like "Guerilla Marketing" and quick reads like the "The One Minute Manager".
Time site
Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app — including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers — will find value and inspiration in this book. 37signals used the Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no outside funding, no debt, and only 7 people (distributed across 7 time zones). Over 500,000 people around the world use these applications to get things done. Now you can find out how they did it and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as you think if you Get Real.
Online copy
Jason Fried hates lame meetings, tech companies that don't generate revenue, and companies that treat their employees like children. A peek inside his typical workday.
An Inc.com article from November 2009.
Mum and Dad came down for lunch with us and stayed till mid afternoon. All very civilised and chilled. The boys lost (again) at Pictionary – not good. Home made soup and sausage rolls going down well.
Everyone in Trine Hahnemann's family has their favourite Christmas cookie recipe – pepper, vanilla, almond… So in the end she bakes them all
Observer article
Imagine the scenarios:
Now imagine a parade in the streets for each event. That's the vision of Proverbs 11:10, in which the tsaddiqim--the people who see everything they have as gifts from God to be stewarded for his purposes--pursue their vocation with an eye to the greater good. Amy Sherman, director of the Center on Faith in Communities and scholar of vocational stewardship, uses the tsaddiqim as a springboard to explore how, through our faith-formed calling, we announce the kingdom of God to our everyday world. But cultural trends toward privatism and materialism threaten to dis-integrate our faith and our work. And the church, in ways large and small, has itself capitulated to those trends, while simultaneously elevating the "special calling" of professional ministry and neglecting the vocational formation of laypeople. In the process, we have, in ways large and small, subverted our kingdom mandate. God is on the move, and he calls each of us, from our various halls of power and privilege, to follow him. Here is your chance, keeping this kingdom calling in view, to steward your faith and work toward righteousness. In so doing, you will bless the world, and as you flourish, the world will celebrate.
Amazon.com
This blog post is a landing page for 23 blog posts that Mike Breen posted earlier this year. Worth a read and follow-on action.
As I’ve observed the “art” of creating extended families over the past 35 years, I’ve noticed that it always takes a combination of two things: PLAY + PURPOSE.
Love this Mike Breen blog post and associated 2 x 2 matrix.
Many men can build a fortune but few men can build a family.
J.S. Bryan
Martin Scorsese's family friendly fantasy is a cinephile's delight: a beautifully designed homage to the power of the first film-makers
Guardian review
In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies. After his clockmaker father (Jude Law) perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), a drunkard who maintains the clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller (Christopher Lee), who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René (Boardwalk Empire's Michael Stuhlbarg). In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese's adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal.
Amazon.co.uk review
i was aware of the benefits of writing things down and links to the brain, recollection etc and did practice this when I was younger for revision notes and the like. These days I am much more digital and still seeking my “ideal” set up ..
Writing things down, with your actual hands, is just plain better at getting you to remember and execute good ideas. Here's why.
Fast Company article
At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest. We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service.
But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.
Our first issue is dedicated to Data – amongst a morass of information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help transform your business? We hope that you find inspiration, insights, and more, in Think Quarterly.
Issue #1
Helped to set up (minimally) for the Inn Churches project at HCC Bradford (opening up the hall for 12 homeless people from tonight through to New Year’s Day).
Majority of the day at Michael/DIann/Chloe/FInlay’s.
good time, chat, company, curries, key lime pie at Diann/ Mike's(Rach's bro) this aft/evening #familytime
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 26, 2011
Never before in human history has it been possible for over two billion people to publish their views, access information, discover new ideas and inspire each other. Within three years, over half the people on the planet will share this opportunity. That’s why this edition of Think Quarterly celebrates and examines the points where technology, business and people come together in surprising and exciting ways.
Looking at Google’s own innovation processes.
In 2003, a total of five exabytes of data existed. Now we generate that every two days. We are, literally, more creative than ever. Where to begin? Right here. We've curated big ideas from heads of industry, leading experts and our homegrown visionaries -- all to help guide your own thinking. In our inaugural US issue, we focus on Innovation. Where can you break molds and shape the future? We hope this gives you inspiration, insight, and some new ideas of your own. Official website: http://www.thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/quarterly/innovation/
Following the death of her husband Sir Florian, beautiful Lizzie Eustace mysteriously comes into possession of a hugely expensive diamond necklace. She maintains it was a gift from her husband, but the Eustace lawyers insist she give it up, and while her cousin Frank takes her side, her new lover Lord Fawn states that he will only marry her if the necklace is surrendered. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie's truthfulness is thrown into doubt, and, in her desire to keep the jewels, she is driven to increasingly desperate acts. The third in Trollope's Palliser series, The Eustace Diamonds bears all the hallmarks of his later works, blending dark cynicism with humour and a keen perception of human nature.
Amazon.co.uk
Via Francesca Simon selecting the book as her selection on Desert Island DIscs
Information Management article from 2000, via Abid (former colleague)
I have been “into” cathedrals since reading about why Ken Follett wrote The Pillars of the Earth.
Spooky, I clipped this 5 weeks before starting a redundancy consultation period. A big fan of Patrick Dixon.
Article (includes video)
Jack Goes Boating sees Academy Award Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman making his feature directorial debut. Hoffman plays Jack - a New York limo driver, who is set up on a blind date with Connie (Academy Award Nominee Amy Ryan - The Wire, Gone Baby Gone) by mutual close friends. Charmed by Connie's subtle grace and dry humour, he sets up a second date before realising he's out of his depth: Connie dreams of going boating and loves good food ... and Jack can neither swim nor cook. Entrusting his fate to his friends, Jack has just a few months to learn how to swim and upgrade his cooking from a hot plate to haute cuisine.
Featuring outstanding performances from a stellar ensemble cast, this touching story is about real people, their flaws and their aspirations. Funny, clever and endearing, Jack Goes Boating is a finely tuned comedy that speaks of love and friendship in equal measure.
Amazon UK
This piece is based on two talks I (Clay Shirky) gave in the spring of 2005 -- one at the O'Reilly ETech conference in March, entitled "Ontology Is Overrated", and one at the IMCExpo in April entitled "Folksonomies & Tags: The rise of user-developed classification." The written version is a heavily edited concatenation of those two talks.
Blog post
alacrity
cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness; liveliness; briskness
Dictionary.com
The Royal Society has today (26 October 2011) announced that its world-famous historical journal archive – which includes thefirst ever peer-reviewed scientific journal – has been made permanently free to access online.
It’s become a firm fixture of everyday life, loathed by some but essential to nearly all of us, and yet its future is far from certain. Email is forty years old this month, with the first message having been sent in October 1971.
The Next Web article
(from the inside flap of the book)
TODAY'S BIGGEST TRENDS—the mobile web, social media, gamification, real-time—have forced us to rewire the way we think about and run our businesses. Consumers are creating a new digital culture, shifting business landscapes onetweet at a time. New networks have created an ever- expanding "egosystem," in which everyday people believe their lives deserve 24-hour broadcasts. But now, we need to decipher the significance of this behavior and understand where the social and mobile web are headed. At the heart of all of this, a new breed of consumer is emerging—and they're changing the very foundation of business.
The End of Business As Usual explores each layerof this complex consumer revolution that is changingthe future of business, media, and culture. As consumers connect with one another, a vast and efficient information network takes shape and begins to steer experiences, decisions, and markets. It is nothing short of disruptive.
The End of Business As Usual will change the way you view the world of business, from sales and marketing to customer service and product development to leadership and culture. Its critical insights include:Shared experiences are redefining brands indigital consumer landscapes, and astute brands can now also create and steer these experiencesConsumer influence is growing, and businesses can use this to their advantageConnect with a rising audience (and with audiences of audiences) through new touchpoints between consumers, brands, and new influencersCreate a culture of change to earn trust, influence, and significance among connected customers
Rather than disregard these new consumer behaviors,learn from them in order to drive engagement with your stakeholders. Raise the significance of your business and your brand by implementing new ways to connect, learn, and adapt. While other businesses will fall to digital Darwinism, your business will evolve and thrive. This is the end of business as usual and the beginning of a new era of relevance.
Amazon.com
Publisher’s book page
Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod (associated blog post)
Photographer Mariana Cook (born 1955) is best known for her intimate character studies of persons both in and out of the public eye, as published in her much-acclaimed collections Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, Generations of Women, Couples, Faces of Science and Mathematicians. Cook departs from her portrait work withStone Walls: Personal Boundaries, a project that was conceived one day at her home on Martha's Vineyard, when 56 cows strayed through a crumbling section of the stone wall she shares with her neighbor. From this serendipitous moment of inspiration, Cook embarked on an eight-year journey, travelling from New England to the American South, Britain, Ireland, the Mediterranean and Peru in pursuit of dry stone walls. Far from being a conventional travelogue, these beautiful black-and-white photographs portray the wall in landscape, the wall as abstract form, and the return of rocks to nature. Cook is fascinated with the juxtaposition of stones as an instance of geometric composition, as well as with the resonance between walls of different cultures. With a tribute from Wendell Berry and essays providing a context for the walls of each region, the resulting collection captures a fundamental aspect of the relationship human beings forge with the land they inhabit.
Amazon.com
The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological "nuts and bolts" of writing organised under the headings to the left. It was designed primarily with international students whose first language is not English in mind. However, if you are a native speaker writer, you may still find parts of the material helpful.
Web Site
Via @DeeClayton’s blog post
With spending on digital-related initiatives and activities accounting for 10% or more of all expenses at many companies — and forecast to increase at double-digit rates for the foreseeable future across most industry segments — it’s time for CEOs and boards to give serious consideration to establishing a “Chief Digital Officer” (“CDO”) office or equivalent. The stakes are too high, and the issues too complicated to leave this domain left managed by an informal, undefined, and mostly powerless assemblage of mid-level managers across an enterprise.
Chief Executive.net article
Also see references to New York appointing a Chief Digital Officer, Rachel Sterne (see her Road Map for the Digital City).
Helpful self-help publications on these important subjects afflicting many from the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.
A selection of tweets:
Merry Christmas all, my music disease kicked in already today, "got" Kendrick's He Is Here, not heard/sung for years goo.gl/wc2Rc
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
big shout out to Grandma Jean for the Potty Preserves shipped in from the Isle of Skye esp the v garlicky beetroot chutney #lovefoodpresents
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
loving Isaac's Angry Birds speaker that HE got for HIS netbook/ipod, sounding ace with MY laptop #lovesharingpresents ;))
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
got off reasonably lightly this morning, kids woke up 6:35 :))
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
someone will die if they use a metallic utensil on my shiny new non stick milk/scrambled egg pan, good job we got these goo.gl/pKad8
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
Christmas Day service (@ Holme Christian Community) [pic]: 4sq.com/tM7hZO
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
... Grandma Jean's (mother in law) for lunch, will be v chilled :))
— Simon Fogg (@srjf) December 25, 2011
Our turn to host the Egans and Pearsons. I made the Waitrose Mulled Wine recipe which was amazing and the ultimate as billed! Lots of tasty food including a pork roast and rolls. Good presents too …
The following article by Archbishop Rowan Williams was published on Christmas Eve in The Times newspaper, saying that whether we are damaged by war, the riots, illness or depression, the Christmas message helps us recover hope.
Fulltext
Yes, really …
Welcome to Scarves.net, a side project from the folks at AffordableScarves.com and the web's most comprehensive resource on how to tie a scarf. Whether you are a scarf-tying beginner or a seasoned pro, this is your complete guide to dozens of unique and practical ways to tie, wear and style a scarf.
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Poppy Day is a compelling love story that sees Poppy, the young wife of a soldier serving in Afghanistan set off on a journey to try and save the man she loves. Along the way, she faces an impossible dilemma that results in huge personal sacrifice to get what she wants and with no guarantee of success. The book is both moving and funny, taking the reader through the full range of emotions as they follow Poppy's progress.
British Legion page
