Weather change

I barbecued less than two weeks ago. It was a very pleasant 72 degrees at the time. Last night it snowed. How does that happen? Seriously.

Tomorrow I have yet another presentation to give regarding our Web 2.0 initiative. I'm presenting to an executive that I have already presented this to twice. This time I'm supposed to be making a formal request for funds and support to help us get through the RFP process, but I have no earthly clue how much money this process is going to cost. I have asked the people involved in the process, but none have been willing to provide an answer. I fully anticipate falling flat on my face as a result. Yay.

SharePoint, My Nemesis

In looking at implementing a Web 2.0 solution here at AAA Northern California, Nevada, & Utah one of the things we had to seriously consider was SharePoint 2007. We already have SharePoint 2007 (SP07) implemented throughout the enterprise. In fact, we also have SharePoint 2003 (SP03) as well. Being as disorganized and technologically backward as we are here at AAA NCNU, we have got things scattered all over the place between the two SP servers. We were supposed to have migrated everything from SP03 to SP07 six months ago so that they could take down SP03. Hasn't happened yet. Some teams have migrated, some haven't. Some, like the Claims College (my team), have material on both servers. It's a mess.

To make matters worse, nobody knows how to find things. Aside from IT, who actually use SharePoint for some internal collaboration, everybody else within the company seems to use it solely for document storage. As a result, there is very little actual useful content on our SharePoint server, and anything that might be useful is probably buried in a Word or Excel file somewhere. And, of course, there is a good chance you won't have access to the specific SharePoint site that has the file in question.

Let me get to the point. I'm trying to implement a new Web 2.0 solution that my company can use to improve collaboration, knowledge management, and training. We already have SharePoint, which is a Web 2.0 application, and so every time I approach someone new about my plan, the first thing they say is, "We already have SharePoint. Why do we need this?" It's a natural question to ask. Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against SharePoint - I think it's a terrific tool. However, SharePoint is not the easiest tool to use. Creating content in SharePoint can actually be quite difficult, and if you don't know HTML or CSS you can pretty much forget about it. The Web 2.0 features it contains also are not very tightly integrated with one another. These two flaws by themselves are the primary reason why our company's SharePoint servers contain so little useful content. Our employees quite simply lack the time and know-how to create and maintain useful SharePoint sites.

And thus the aaaU Web 2.0 initiative. I'm hoping to implement a tool that is not only easier to use, but also has tighter integration of features so that the technologically inept employees of this company will have a Web 2.0 tool that they can actually use. The other benefit of this project is that because we have an official aaaU project going with assigned resources and a budget, that means we as a training organization will be able to build out the site in a way that invites people to use it and to participate in the online community. We will also have the opportunity to provide training on how to create content within the tool, thus empowering everyone.

But in the meantime, I will continue to answer the question, "Why are we doing this when we already have SharePoint?"

e-Learning 2.0: Blogs for everyone!

I just had a kickoff meeting with the broader, cross-college project team for AAA University's Web 2.0 project. I'm not very good at running meetings, but I feel like we accomplished everything we needed to accomplish.

I'm really stoked about this project. Using Web 2.0 tools to implement e-Learning 2.0 is a really exciting way to address a number of the broader issues that we have within this organization such as inter-department communication, knowledge sharing, knowledge management, standards, etc. It has surprised me how receptive others within the organization have been to the idea, and how swiftly my proposal gained traction with decision makers. I just hope that we can get this implemented in the right way, and that the employees find it as useful and valuable as we would like it to be.

Catch-up

Today is my birthday. Yippee.

More exciting than that is the work I got done on the front yard Sunday. We've been planning to put a rock pathway through the front yard all summer long, and on Sunday I finally made some real headway on it. I got all of the sod dug out and leveled everything at the correct depth. I would have finished more of it, but there was a very cold, stiff breeze blowing and after five hours in it I had had enough. I should be able to get all the stones in place this weekend with no trouble. Depending on how long that takes I may even be able to get the gaps filled between the stones and be done.

Yesterday I attended a demonstration webinar of the Xyleme LCMS. It was a very poor presentation, and I think most of my co-workers who attended were similarly tuned-out. The product itself looks powerful and interesting, though rather complex. It would certainly beat the LCMS we have in place now, but I think we're stuck with the existing one for another three years.

Just stuff

I'm sitting in the virtual lobby for a webinar that's supposed to start in about two minutes. What better time to write a blog post?

The short ribs last night turned out just okay.

Oh, heavens! Live video of the webinar presenters... headsets and all! Ack!

Anyway, the ribs. I cooked them at a little bit higher temperature than I should have, which sometimes happens with charcoal. The result was that they were a little tougher than I would have liked, but still good. The chipotle ribs had outstanding flavor -really good. The ones with the molasses marinade and onion marmalade weren't quite as good, but still worth eating.

I also started jogging again last night. That's no fun at all. The first couple weeks are always so difficult, and at this altitude it is even more so. The surprising thing is that I'm not really sore this morning. We'll see if that's still true tomorrow.

Edit:
I had to bail on the webinar about halfway through. The audio kept getting garbled, which made it very difficult to follow the speaker. No worries, though. They didn't seem to be talking about anything new.

The saddest day

Today is quite likely the last day of the barbecue season here in my corner of the world. Colder weather is beginning to settle in, and with charcoal at this altitude it is extremely difficult to grill when the temperature is below about 70. And so it is a sad day because it means I will have to put away the grill and resign myself once again to indoor cooking.

But not before I have one last round with the Weber. I'm taking off work early today to go home and cook short ribs - half with a molasses marinade and onion marmalade, and half with just a chipotle marinade. I need to remember to get the riesling into the fridge as soon as I get home!

Habit Forming

Blogging seems sort of pointless if you aren't going to do it on a daily basis. That's my problem, really: remembering to do it every day.

Since the whole reason I'm doing this is in support of my job, I think I'll try to set aside a little time each day at work to post. That should help me make it a habit.