kathleen forden

Richard Laermer’s book 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade. It’s a book about how to find the signal in the noise as well as a few predictions on how media will be forced to change for it to remain useful.This video is an interview with 2 guys from Mashable.com and Richard Laermer

i know you’ve heard of or visited LoLCats or Failblog, here is Ben the founder talking about one of my favorite subjects

how his company makes 7 figures in ad sales last year is due to this method of development

A kindred spirit and great personal resource, Jurgen Appelo.  Jurgen is the CIO at ISM eCompany, a Dutch company that creates web sites and web applications for customers

Read more: http://www.noop.nl/welcome.html#ixzz0PMPRR7MI

What (Else) Can Agile Learn From Complexity (presentation)

Agile development has taken a number of concepts and principles from the study of complex adaptive systems. But since the birth of the Agile Manifesto, the study of complexity has not stopped. In this talk I give a number of ideas copied from complexity experts, and I will review what fitness landscapes, patches, power laws, and incompressibility could mean for agile software development.

• Hierarchies are not a problem, they are natural;
• Prediction of velocity includes an (impossible) estimate of unknown problems;
• Patches of Scrums can be an alternative to Scrum of Scrums;
• ScrumButs are natural and necessary;
• Agile management is an often forgotten but crucial part of agile;
• A project with many strong interdependent parts can behave chaotically;
• All we will ever have are a variety of imperfect methods;
• A self-organizing team with the size of 8 should better be avoided;

View more presentations from Jurgen Appelo.

as many of my friends and family members know, i’ve been dreaming and planning my move to the Netherlands and possibly Amsterdam within the next decade to work with some of the most progressive technology folks i’ve ever met.

here is just another example of why i feel this way:

smart products that can change the world – they test them first in Amsterdam

http://www.amsterdamsmartcity.nl/#/en/home

Check out the video

howdy fellow internet fans and die hards

i’ve been missing a bit from the blogosphere due to travel and deadlines for work
plus the reality of :

running two e commerce sites
having people working for you
trying to develop and plan two new ventures
finding time for friends who are in need
finding time for fun with friends
while i keep self educating daily and sharing resources
to help others learn
PLUS taking care of myself, my family, our house
and paying the personal and corporate bills and taxes

i’m finally whipped – hitting the wall

as a technical project manager during my day job, one of my core strengths is the ability to streamline and setup pipelines without obstacles to reach the end goal

time to turn it back on for my life outside of the day job

first change – my blogging,  tweeting and lifestreaming
they are all a priority to me as they allow me to feel alive and help me keep being me
but if i change the way i do them, i can make it easier on myself

ideas are floating around my head on this and i’m doing some research into tools that can help as i debate the best path for me
i’ve decided to just start blogging when i can and to share 3 or 4 resources or links with a short detail of why i recommend it
feel free to let me know if you find anything of value

thanks for reading  and sharing

kathleen

Anticipation for James Cameron’s 3-D sci-fi adventure Avatar has been at a fevered pitch for seemingly forever, and cinephiles and geeks everywhere now have less than five months to see if it lives up to the hype (it’s scheduled to open December 18, 2009). But for the Comic-Con audience, where the toys are almost as important as the movie they’re tied to, Mattel set hearts aflutter with its announcement of its line of Avatar action figures that are expected to hit store shelves in October. And, get this: The toys offer augmented reality. (The good news just keeps coming).

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/stephanie-schomer/write/wait-avatar-gets-little-easier-these-toys-come-life-1

This is my friend Lisa and her love story

by Thomas Bartlett
The Chronicle of Higher Education

John G. Sperling, as he often reminds those around him, is running out of time. At 88, he is in relatively good health, despite a weak kidney and back problems. He still walks the dog, drives himself to meetings, and seems to have no shortage of nervous energy: Forced to sit still for any length of time, he twirls his cellphone between two fingers or distractedly peels the label from a bottle of water, leaving it in shreds on the table.

Even so, he feels the tug of mortality, and he has a lot left to accomplish. Like, for instance, saving the world.

He’s had big ideas before. In 1974, at the not-so-tender age of 53, he left a tenured position at San Jose State University with $26,000 in savings to start an academic program for working adults. In the beginning, he ran the operation out of his house. It soon outgrew those humble digs and later relocated to Arizona, adopting the name of that state’s capital. Now the University of Phoenix has close to 400,000 students, more than 200 campuses and 26,000 faculty members, and is valued at roughly $10-billion.

http://www.phoenix.edu/news_room/releases/2009/07/phoenix-risen.html#