This Indian carrot salad works great with all kinds of spicy dishes from, you guessed it, India but also from North Africa or even Asia. The post Slow Carb Recipes: Indian Carrot Salad appeared first on Kirsten Winkler.

The goal of every tutor is the success of her student. But many tutors artificially hold back their students based on the fear of missing out on revenue. The post Keep what you got by giving it all away appeared first on Kirsten Winkler.

Zaalouk is an eggplant and tomato salad from Morocco, easy to prepare and bursting with flavor. It's especially great in summer with grilled meat or fish. The post Zaalouk - Moroccan Eggplant Salad loaded with Flavor appeared first on Kirsten Winkler.

To kickstart my day with a power breakfast or for that extra boost of energy during the day, I often prepare myself this nosh. The post Power Breakfast: Grated Apples with Oats and Cinnamon appeared first on Kirsten Winkler.

This is my version of the traditional Scottish caramel shortcake recipe. Who doesn’t love the combination of shortbread, caramel and chocolate! The post My Caramel Shortcake Recipe appeared first on Kirsten Winkler.

Working professionals are beginning to realize that they must be in charge of their own personal development. Traditional courses, offered through a corporate university or an accredited college, are becoming out-of-date at record speed. What is needed intead is a new approach to learning-one that focuses on using Web 2.0 to continuously build one’s profile of competencies. Web 2.0 refers to the Web as a platform to publish and create new content. The web has gone beyond static pages to a dynamic mix of creativity and fun where users generate much of the content. This has resulted in a major cultural phenomenon, indicated in part by the fact that, according to Technorati, the number of blogs has doubled every six months for the last three years. There are now over 70 million blogs. As learning professionals we have to determine what we can we do to use Web 2.0 as a vehicle for engaging everyone in the organization. Well, here are some "to-do’s" you can suggest to your team as a way of becoming Web 2.0 savvy: Create a channel on your Intranet site for learners to "rate" their courses, just like Amazon does for books. Sign up for news feeds so you can keep track of what consumers are saying about your products and your company. Interview a consumer on what it means to be do business with your firm, then consider editing this into a five-minute podcast. Technorati Tags: podcasts, web2.0

Each facet of our lives as working professionals is being dominated by Web 2.0. Consider what is happening in the current race for U.S. president. All the candidates now have a presence on MySpace and YouTube. Also, YouTube has sponsored a debate for each party (with more debates scheduled), in which questions for the candidates were solicited from site users and select questions were then put to the candidates during the debate broadcast. Senator Hillary Clinton may have the most interesting YouTube presence. She has asked viewers to vote on a theme song for her presidential campaign. According to Peter Daou, Clinton’s campaign Internet Director, the possible theme songs have been viewed more than 900,000 times in a few months. The leading contenders include: "Rock This Country," by Shania Twain, "Suddenly I See," by KT Tunstall and "You and I," by Celine Dion. Write in songs continue to come in daily to the site and the winner will be announced soon-after creating quite a buzz online.

Clearly we will be left behind as learning professionals if we rely solely on a linear production model of instructional design. Recently I spoke with Karie Willyerd, VP and Chief Learning Officer at Sun Learning Services, about what she is doing to enourage her staff to use use Web 2.0 regularly. Karie has some suggestions for experiments designed help further employ Web 2.0 as a tool for learning. She believes CLO’s should consider the following: Develop a wiki for your New Employee Orientation program requesting input from recently hired employees on what to include in future programs. Rather than spend 6-9 months in the instructional design phase, the wiki could begin to capture the suggestions of new employees as they enter and then complete the program. Create a podcast series profiling a variety of subject matter experts sharing their "top tips" in a number of areas relevant to learning clients in the organization, such as new product development, leadership development needs and branding challenges. Use the latest computer technology to troll Internet sites and push blogs and other feeds to the desktops of employees so they can keep track of what consumers are saying about your company and your competitors. Develop a channel on your site to have learners "rate" their courses, just like Amazon does for books. Amazon, their such innovations, has had a huge impact on book retailing (things aren’t like they used to be anymore). Another way to utilize this Amazon tool is to create a referral service so you can begin to capture which books your managers and staff are reading that may be of interest to you. Develop a private online community for the learning organization staff to share the latest ways Web 2.0 can improve the design, development and/or delivery of a program. Create a wiki of company acronyms and invite everyone to contribute. Also, create a wiki for the vision and goals of a new product/project so that all can comment about them in a regular and easy way. Add a search engine connected to your Learning Management Services (perhaps Goggle). Let anyone in your organization build a course in Second Life and then create a blog about their experience. Encourage comments by offering prizes so you can create a buzz in your group for trying these new tools. Identify experts you are reading about in the media (political figures, university presidents, etc.), and then reach out to them to see if they will link their blogs or websites to your site. Adding lots of interesting links will increase usage. Remember: the goal is to make learning accessible, engaging, and fun.Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Wikis

The age of the Net Generation (people born between 1977 and 1996) is defined by rampant online social interaction, rooted in individuals desire to be able to interact with one another immediately, any time (24/7), any place. Websites like Twitter.com and MySpace represent examples of websites that keep users updated, informed and in constant contact with their friends, colleagues and co-workers. Learning, like the workplace itself, is becoming more team- based and collaborative, and thus more dependent on a new set of technical competencies. Don Tapscott says in his book, Wikinomics that the ability to use a wiki, software that enables any number of users to easily edit the content of web pages, will be a required job skill in the next two to three years.Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

One of the most powerful concepts to be explored at the recent World Economic Forum is "open source innovation." This refers to the creation of a Linux style innovation engine where practitioners, not just subject matter experts, play a leading role in creating the end product. There are many examples from the consumer world of open source innovation now in action. In the past year, companies as diverse as Nestle and Procter & Gamble have reached out to their consumers to encourage them to share experiences in using their products. Consider the following examples. The Purina division of Nestle is soliciting "secrets from dog owners" for training their dogs; the input is being used to promote a new product, Second Nature. In just two weeks, the website doglitter.com generated over two million email messages from dog owners fully engaged in sharing problems, secrets and tips in training their dogs. Procter & Gamble went a step further in their campaign, "Are You Strong Enough to Share Your Secret?" The company asked women to share their "inner most secrets," via either text messaging or the website shareyoursecret.com. The secrets were time-stamped (with many coming in the wee hours of the morning), and than they were all displayed on the huge message board on the Reuters Building in Times Square. A sample letter was selected and shown on a 30-second commercial. The response: overwhelming buzz in the marketplace, proving consumers are just waiting to be asked for their input.Technorati Tags: Open Source