mm355: Blast from the Past! No. 14

April 22, 2008

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

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Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our early days, originally posted July 30, 2007.

mm091: The Future of Internet Radio

MUDGE’S Musings

Written recently and not so regarding Pandora.com, MUDGE’s radio of choice these days. And, I do mean choice, since anytime I’m sitting at my home PC, I’m choosing what to listen to, sans annoying commercials, jingles or DJs.

Here’s one of my favorite reads: John Dvorak, a pioneer in the business of all things personally computational, an amazingly well-informed person, and who (and I say this in the most complimentary way) makes the average curmudgeon such as yours truly seem like a cock-eyed optimist.

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mm354: Blast from the Past! No. 13

April 21, 2008

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

lhc250x46_thumb2

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our earliest days, originally posted July 28, 2007, the first of what became a lengthy series of posts on the One Laptop Per Child initiative.

MUDGE’S Musings

Things I found on the way to finding other things…

We’ve been reading about the One Laptop Per Child initiative for some time now, and it’s utterly fascinating to see it closer to fruition, courtesy of eWeek. The story is lengthy and comprehensive and worthy of your time. Click any of the links to pursue this.

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mm353: Blast from the Past! No. 12

April 20, 2008

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

lhc250x46_thumb2

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our early days, originally posted July 28 2007, our first in our series called, over-ambitiously, Web Conferencing Week. The entire group can be found on its own page elsewhere on this site.

WcW003: Web Conferencing Week – Sometimes it’s all about teaching

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Web Conferencing Week

As filled with unusualities as was last week, this past week… was not.

The main theme was teaching. We wrote about this facet of my career quite extensively in mm018 and I don’t feel compelled to rehash here. It’s a significant portion of my responsibilities here at HCA (Heart of Corporate America remember, not its real name).

And, like all things everywhere, it either dies or changes. I vote for change.

For more than a year, we’ve been attempting to turn over some of the basic courses to an expert in our division’s training department. To that end I’ve provided annotated course material, one on one instruction, the opportunity to practice. I am this good teacher, right?

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mm352: Blast from the Past! No. 11

April 19, 2008

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

lhc250x46_thumb2

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our early days, originally posted July 22, 2007, one in our series called, over-ambitiously, Web Conferencing Week. The entire group can be found on its own page elsewhere on this site.

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WcW002: Web Conferencing Week – On Location

In our first venture in this direction, WcW001, I described the week just past as filled with unusualities (coined in this space tyvm; if I use it 500 more times, think that it gets added to anyone’s dictionary?), and described one. Here’s another.

Only a few times in the five years I have been plying my trade at the HCA, have I been asked to conduct business outside the friendly confines of the navel of the known universe, our dual expansive campuses and its outlying but nearby satellite sites.

But, Wednesday afternoon I received voicemail from one of my most frequent clients, the sales training functionary for one of our most important product families, asking that I assist Friday at an all-day session emanating from a hotel near the airport.

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2 Comments | Career, Intro, Life Lesson, Web Conferencing, Web Conferencing Week | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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mm351: Blast from the past No. 10

April 18, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

lhc250x46_thumb21155_thumb1

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our early days, originally posted July 20, 2007, our first in our series called, over-ambitiously, Web Conferencing Week. The entire group can be found on its own page elsewhere on this site.

WcW001: Web Conferencing Week

WcW logo

Web Conferencing Week

Trying something different here at Left-Handed Complement — back to my roots, or at least my original intentions for this space, to regularly explore my professional existence. I have previously written about what I do, and my very recent, quite futile aspirations toward management, but it’s been sporadic at best. Not my intention when I started.

This is an attempt to apply some discipline — maybe most work weeks haven’t recently seemed very interesting to me (although the one just completed was altogether not routine), but I believe that what I do is quite unusual in any corporation, small or large, so I’ll explore those unusualities (have I just coined a MUDGE-ism?) in this space, I hope every week or more often.

And, for you completists out there, clicking the “Web Conferencing” tag cloud on the sidebar will catch you up.

The tent-poles for many weeks are the large scale conferences (or even small, but critical ones) for which I provide consultative, or substantive services. This week was busier in that respect than many lately.

For one thing, I assisted a high level HR manager as he ran a focus group with a group of administrative assistants for one of HCA’s (remember, Heart of Corporate America, not it’s real name) most hidebound and traditional divisions, its corporate attorneys. In the year 2007, I must admit it was jarring to hear more than one of these women (and they were all women) refer to themselves as secretaries. Is it any wonder they had a lot to complain about?

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2 Comments | Career, Intro, Web Conferencing, Web Conferencing Week | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
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mm350: Blast from the past No. 9

April 17, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

The MUDGE family is on vacation this week. We don’t know that we’ll be able to restrain ourselves from blogging during the entire span, after all the grandMUDGElets go to bed pretty early, but without access to our files, and WindowsLiveWriter, for this week only, when we feel that irresistible urge to blog, we’ll treat blogging like we do (sigh) exercise: we’ll just lie down until the feeling goes away.

But, the Prime Directive of Blogging reads: Thou Shalt Blog Daily! So shalt we.

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

lhc250x46_thumb21155

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From our very earliest days, originally posted July 14, 2007.

mm067: By the way, I do earn a living!

I realize that it has been some time since I broached the topic of my career, and what I do to afford the leisure to pursue this blogging thing. Lot’s of Bloomberg here; just not in this post, sorry!

Faithful reader will remember that what I do is web conferencing, an increasingly useful tool that should be adopted by more and more corporate entities due to its transformative capabilities.

My employer in the Heart of Corporate America (HCA) is a grand old conservative organization, proud of its financial performance measured over generations (a quarterly dividend paid without interruption since before my late father was born!). It seldom moves quickly where infrastructure technology is concerned, rightfully (I admit with admiration and affection that I have come to see it as rightfully) expending whatever fleet instincts it possesses towards the tooth of its tiger, not its tail.

Which is a long explanation for the fact that HCA has only been using web conferencing for a few years, mainly the five-plus years that I have been there. That’s an interesting tale. I found myself “at liberty” after my previous employer, having entered into a “merger of equals” disappeared utterly, as far as most of its human capital is concerned.

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Posted by mudge

mm349: What’s Mike really going to do next?

April 16, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

Thought I was done with Michael Bloomberg.

Not so fast, tiger.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC for U.S. President 2008
mm024: Bloomberg?
mm038.1: Jews Sorta Like Bloomberg Even Though…
mm051: Bloomberg.com: Bloomberg’s Money, Visibility…
mm054: Chicago Tribune news: An Idea for Bloomberg
mm057: Bloomberg for President?
mm058: What Kind of President would Michael Bloomberg?
mm064: How to take down plutocrat Michael Bloomberg…
mm066: Michael Bloomberg’s Knightly Ambitions
mm069: The Votes Are In for New York’s Mayor Mike
mm086: Bloomberg Takes School Plan… to Midwest
mm110: Grading Mayoral Control
mm117: The cure for the Electoral College is worse…
mm208: Overdue — a Bloomberg post
mm238: Bloomberg’s candidacy — closer to real?
mm248: Political Potpourri
mm254: Bloomberg – just won’t go away…
mm263: This man -so- wants to pull the trigger
mm280: Bloomberg for Vice President? Take 2
mm285: Mayor Mike tells some hard truths
mm290: Gassing ’bout birds and supermen
mm300: Bloomberg: I’m not running, but…
mm301: Sorry, Mudge, the answer is no!
mm304: Mike, now I’m done!

This is all good sport in New York City, where, after all, Bloomberg is the two-term mayor, in a term-limit district. What’s a billionaire to do? Next?

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mm348: Business blogger? No, no, no, not me!

April 15, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

Faithful peruser of this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© is aware that, contrary to the evidence of daily blogging, yr (justifiably) humble svt does earn a living, toiling away at a quite exhilarating (lately!) day job in the field of web conferencing for a large Midwestern corporation.

If I identify my employer at all, it is very circumspectly. References found at the above link refer to the “Heart of Corporate America,” or HCA. That link, by the way, is my static page (as opposed to the home page, updated with every new post, all 375 of them, and counting, thank you very much). As we produce new editions of Web Conferencing Week, we post them in both places; you might have seen this one last week.

You don’t know my employer’s identity, at least from me. They don’t know that this space exists, at least from me. That’s as it should be. I stay away from its business, while sharing with you my skewed view of the universe beyond the wrought iron fence demarcating its property, except for those technical items of interest about what I do for a living, and how I do it. Always very generic, as I feel most comfortable doing.

Please know that I do have strongly held opinions about my employer. Most of them are quite positive. None of them, in my opinion, are worth jeopardizing my job to share with you.

That brings us to this interesting incident, courtesy of one of the world’s top publications, Business Week.

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Leave a Comment » | Blogging, Business, Career, Internet Culture, Life Lesson, Web Conferencing, Web Conferencing Week | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mudge

mm347: It’s official, we’re depressed — er, recessed

April 14, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

Paul Krugman has appeared in this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© quite frequently; he’s an economist, and an insightful writer, and a lot of news lately has been about our economy, and cries out for insight.

“May you live in interesting times”
mm344: Welcome to interesting times
mm337: Dare we trust the guys who got us into this mess?
mm335: Are you prepared for interesting times?
mm334: Rearranging deck chairs
mm333: “Great people shouldn’t have a resume”
mm331: Obama at Cooper Union: Lincoln?
mm328: Today’s economics lesson: Depression 101
mm309: The news Bush really hates you to hear
mm289: Recession: Paying the price for our power
mm285: Mayor Mike tells some hard truths
mm263: This man -so- wants to pull the trigger…
mm257: The R-Word – Not that racy television show
mm256: I don’t hate big corporations, either

Since so much of the U.S. economy is driven by consumers, and has been, I’m imagining, since the end of World War II, when the bomber factories returned to stamping out annual cosmetic freshenings of shiny Fords, Plymouths and Hudsons to an eager population that couldn’t wait to “See the U.S.A in your Chevrolet,” consumer perceptions are a key indicator of economic health.

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4 Comments | Business, Economic depression, Economy, History, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mudge

mm346: All together now: Ewwwwwwww!

April 13, 2008

MUDGE’s Musings

Encountered this at lunch last week; it became a formidable challenge to finish (the story / the lunch: pick one!). Consider yourself warned, faithful reader, should you be snacking on some luscious sweet or casserole while perusing this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©.

And remember, this comes not from some fringe or undocumented source, and also remember, April Fool’s day was some time ago.

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Surgery Without the Slicing

Going in through existing orifices is good for patients and device makers, less so for doctors and hospitals

by Catherine Arnst | Business Week Sci Tech April 3, 2008, 5:00PM EST

On Mar. 11 Jeff Scholz, a 42-year-old former U.S. Marine, developed severe abdominal pain. It wasn’t as bad as the gunshot wound to the leg he suffered while in the service, but it kept him doubled over for most of the night. At the insistence of his fiancée, he went to the emergency room at the University of California at San Diego med center the next morning, where he learned his appendix was inflamed and had to come out. That’s how Scholz, the owner of a wholesale clothing company, ended up making medical history. He’s the first patient in the U.S. to have his appendix removed through his mouth.

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