During some recent travelling, I used it as an opportunity to re-read (power read, you might say) fellow author and Speakers Spotlight brother Simon Sinek’s book "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Others To Take Action". The fact it was first published in 2009 still gives me goose bumps. Simon was — and continues to be — ahead of his time. If you haven’t done so already, watch his TEDxPuget Sound Talk to get a condensed 18-minute version of his fantastic hypothesis and theory centered (literally) on The Golden Circle. But you really should buy the book. (support those authors - we need new ribbons for the typewriter) Aside from a man-crush on Simon and being highly influenced by his book, I was struck by the simplicity in his overarching point: "People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it." In my personal situation, the WHAT is clearly the Flat Army book — and the other pieces that are going along with it now or in the future — but the WHY is something I care deeply about. I hope you do too. I hope the WHY is why you might have bought the book in the first place, wanted to hear me speak, or continue showing up at this site. I hope the WHY is why we might share a café, beer or an exchange on social media. WHY art thou? The WHY of Flat Army is simple … I’m fed up with the current state of leadership. I’m fed up with current levels of disengagement in the organization. I’m fed up with pervasive levels of command and control in the organization. I’m fed up that although zillions of books have been written about ‘leadership’ over the past 30 years we have witnessed no discernible difference or improvement in employee engagement. I’m fed up that leaders have not truly recognized that an engaged employee will and can result in improved levels of productivity, customer satisfaction and yes … business results such as revenue or profit or shareholder return growth. Put slightly more succinctly and with less ranting venom, the WHY of Flat Army is: to improve levels of organizational and employee engagement and to make leaders and the organization more collaborative such that work gets done in a more harmonious, meaningful and productive manner for everyone. My WHY is my passion for people. Whether employees, leaders or anyone in between, I believe the organization needs to become a mecca of togetherness. My WHY is my wish for employee engagement to actually become the state in which there is reciprocal trust between the employee and leadership to do what’s right however, whenever and with whomever. I wrote Flat Army inspired by the WHY that Simon puts forward in his ground-breaking book. Now you know WHY … WHAT are you going to do to change employee engagement in your organization and/or leadership style?   1,617 total views, 8 views today Dan's Related Posts:Don’t Be a FOOL: Fear of Open LeadershipFuture Of Work: A Flat Army Of Open Leadership via A.G. Lafleythe FLAT ARMY cheat sheetEmployee Engagement is Still Poor but it Does Drive Bottom Line ResultsThe Harmonic Leader: Stage 5 of 5 in the Leadership Tonic Scale

At 7:49:58 AM Eastern time, the New Horizons space probe makes its closest flyby of everyone's favorite dwarf planet, Pluto. The post At Long Last, New Horizons Makes a Historic Flyby of Pluto appeared first on WIRED.

Zidisha connects lenders with entrepreneurs in places where access to capital doesn't come easy. The post SMS Loans Let People Skip Banks in the Developing World appeared first on WIRED.

Update - The upgrade is completed and system is up. You can start using the system.   Adobe Captivate Course Companion (A3C) system will be down for approximately 24 hours starting at 0000 hrs (PST) on 31st October, 2013. This is required for a critical update of the back-end software. Please plan accordingly. We apologize […]

Those that know the intricacies of raising children also know there isn’t a day that goes by where we — as parents — aren’t judging. We might be judging other parents, other children, other families, our better half, our own children … whatever the scenario, we’re judging. For the most part I hope we judge as a way of learning; questioning the ways and methods of others to better ourselves as a parent and as a human being. But, there are times we judge in somewhat cynical ways yearning for mistakes or saying to ourselves, "see, I told you so." Denise and I, as parents of the three goats (now aged, 10, 7 and 6) happily encourage them to publicly blog at their own domains: www.clairepontefract.com www.colepontefract.com www.catepontefract.com If you weren’t aware of it, are you now judging us? If you were aware of it, are you still judging us? And is it a positive judgment or a negative one? Why do we encourage (and ultimately allow) three young children who technically aren’t allowed to be on Facebook yet to publicly and openly blog? There are a few reasons, so let us try to help with the rationale. Writing, Motor and Memory Skills First and foremost, this is a chance for the wee goats to practice their writing skills. Now we know the naysayers will say, "isn’t a pad and paper in a diary just as effective?" Sure … we encourage writing on paper as well through the creation of stories, booklets and cards. But hammering out a blog post using Gutenberg’s invention (whether on a laptop or their iPad) is both a writing skill as much as it’s a motor and memory skill as they learn the nuances of the QWERTY keyboard. Motivation and Reward The thrill of both pressing the button ‘publish‘ and knowing others might read their thoughts is both motivating and an intrinsic reward. Secondly, when a comment comes into their site as a result of their post from relatives, friends or yes even strangers, it both reinforces the motivation to write and it too creates a human connection reward. (plus the comments often have some form of learning in it as well for the goats) Creativity Blogging inspires creativity. At least in our house, there are no rules to what they might write about … so long as they are writing. Claire may write about a science experiment she conducted at home, Cole might want to create a presentation about sharks or Cate might want to regale you with her love of gymnastics. Whatever the case, they are encouraged to be creative and think ‘outside the box‘. There are no rules to what they can write about. Everything is a Teaching Moment Before you think Denise and I are complete lunatics, each post is vetted by the parents and often it’s a group writing exercise. With Denise and I both being educators, we’re using the act of blogging to help reinforce life values alongside life skills. Claire wanted to write about Rosa Parks (how cool is that?) and we had a great discussion about the Civil Rights movement at the dinner table that night. The same thing goes for War, which Cole wrote about once. Everything is a teaching moment. Digital Literacy Skills Of course, one of the easier skills we’re teaching is digital literacy. Claire started blogging when she was 7, Cole when he was 6 and Cate when she was 5 … and in each case, the goats are learning the ‘in’s and out’s’ of researching online, finding photos, checking facts (if applicable) as well as using the WordPress application on a laptop or as an app on the iPad. Memory Keeper As they continue their journey on the train of life, we reckon the blog posts that they write will (or perhaps can) act as a new way of documenting life itself. We hope it becomes a looking-glass to the past for each of them; a 2.0 way of tapping into past memories AND learning. Each comment that comes into the sites are first vetted by the parents. Each post is ultimately pre-approved and there is a grammar and diction lesson that goes with it before publication. And yes, we teach the goats about not only digital citizenship but digital safety. Sure, their names are ‘out there’ on the Internet for all to see, but safety goes hand-in-hand with our teaching efforts not only online but in the physical world too. To us, digital safety is an extension of physical safety. We’re proud of the goats. We’re proud they love writing on their blogs. We don’t judge other parents for NOT encouraging (or allowing) their children to blog. But, if you are judging our parental choice on this particular matter, we hope you can now see (openly and publicly) why we’re encouraging it in the first place. Thanks for reading. Love, Dan & Denise   1,217 total views, 2 views today Dan's Related Posts:Interlocutors of 2012 (the goats are better for it)An 8 Year-Old Does Social LearningAutotelic: The Word of 2013The Recalibration of PlayI Detached on Holiday. I Didn’t Unplug. You Should Too.

I’m really excited to be speaking at the World Business of Leadership Summit but before I explain it and your chance to participate, I need to discuss reading. I do a lot of reading.  I properly read a few books a month, I skim or power-read a few more and I’m always digesting blogs, research papers, articles, tweets and other social bits and bobs. Perhaps you do the same? In 2012, Pew Research asked Americans how many books they were reading on an annual basis and the results broke down as follows: 7% of Americans ages 16 and older read one book in the previous 12 months 14% had read 2-3 books in that time block 12% had read 4-5 books in that time block 15% had read 6-10 books in that time block 13% had read 11-20 books in that time block 14% had read 21 or more books in that time block I guess I’m in the last bullet. Equally interesting, however, was how Americans were actually reading those books: 89% of book readers said they had read a printed book. This translates into 67% of all those ages 16 and older. 30% of book readers said they had read an e-book. This translates into 23% of all those ages 16 and older. 17% of book readers said they had listened to an audio book. This translates into 13% of all those ages 16 and older. Can you read an audio book? (just kidding) But what does reading have to do with me speaking at the World Business of Leadership Summit? Over the last few years I’ve definitely increased the number of books I’ve been reading AND the number of conferences I’ve attended … but there is a catch. Although my attendance at various conferences has increased … my participation at them has decreased. How is that possible you knucklehead? I’ve been fortunate enough to have been invited to speak at a number of conferences over the last few years but because I have a real job and because I’ve increased the amount I’ve been reading, I typically go to a conference for the speaking opportunity, mingle with a few people, and then depart the conference to attend to my job or my reading … or life in general. (remember, I have three goats, Denise, a cycling hobby, etc.) I don’t actually get to listen to the other speakers or partake in some of the sessions. But, coming up for me is the World Business of Leadership Summit and not only do I get to speak, I am going to attend (and participate in) several of the sessions found on the agenda. It is a stellar event. (and I’ve read pretty much anything the speakers have previously written) There are 3 key reasons why I’m excited: First off, the conference is spread out between June 17 and June 28. What else is cool? You don’t have to leave your home, office or wherever you happen to park your back side. It’s conducted through virtual tools the entire time. (just pay that internet bill) Second, there are 1-3 sessions each day that you can attend. They are 100% live so you can interact with the speaker through a Q&A during or following the speaker’s timeslot. If you miss one … don’t worry, each of the sessions are recorded and you have up to 6 months to view them. (of course you miss out on the live interactions and you still have to pay that internet bill) And finally there is the talent. Imagine a conference spread out over two working weeks where you can tap into the leadership minds of Jim Kouzes, Charlene Li, Chester Elton, Jody Thompson and Marshall Goldsmith amongst 20 others including … even me … from the comfort of your fingertips. In a strictly platonic way of course. If you’re interested, why not join me as a fellow attendee at the World Business of Leadership Summit.  Click the graphic below to register. 1,480 total views, 8 views today Dan's Related Posts:Review: SharePoint Conference 201110 Free Copies of Flat Army … Participate to WinSteve Denning Nails It on Forbes: Paradigm Shift in Leadership and ManagementThe TED of all Learning Conferences #LWF12Flexible Working Works

Let’s share a few scary cool tips and tricks for creating great eLearning with Adobe Captivate this Halloween. I held an eSeminar yesterday with a complete overview - Here is the downloadable source: littlMonstors.cptx, as well as a brief overview of some of the highlights. Trick #1 - Create a popup window with just a […]

A lot of new movie and TV footage got released during Comic-Con. Here it all is in one handy list. The post All the Essential Comic-Con Trailers You Should Watch Right Now appeared first on WIRED.

I spend a lot of time thinking, writing, speaking and working in my own personal and professional venn diagram of: leadership development; social collaborative tools; and all things related to learning. One of those pillars — the learning space — is where I started my career. I owe much of what I have today in my professional life to the learning space, be it K-12, higher education or the corporate sector. But it’s the corporate learning sector in particular where I believe a new ‘learning arc’ must be developed. It must shift from Status Quo Ante (as was before) to Ad Meliora (toward better things). Two of my dear friends and colleagues — Marcia Conner and Kerry Brown — were thinking the same way and so we put our collective heads together and developed a manifesto for you to read, and ideally, to be inspired by. As we state,"the corporate learning field is in dire need of bravery, insight, creativity and boldness." Use as you see fit and imagine a new ‘learning arc’. Imagine "learning nouveau". Revolutionize Corporate Learning: Beyond Formal, Informal, Mobile, Social Dichotomies by Marcia Conner, Dan Pontefract, and Kerry Brown.   From Slideshare you can download the full .pdf file. We are working on creating additional e-reader formats and will link to them here. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. We want it to spread at no cost with attribution. Read, share, and use. Please attribute as follows, with a link: "Revolutionize Corporate Learning: Beyond Formal, Informal, Mobile, Social Dichotomies" by Marcia Conner, Dan Pontefract and Kerry Brown. May 2013. www.marciaconner.com/learning-nouveau/ Fascinated by that cover image? It was taken at the rehearsal for the wedding by Charlottesville wedding and portrait photographer April Bennett. Stephanie Helvin, the performer pictured, is part of the fire troupe Scintillation. The ARC graphic is by Steve Kizer. For information about this report or to begin, contact revolution@sensifygroup.com. 3,751 total views, 7 views today Dan's Related Posts:Flat Army Graphics on SlideshareSteve Denning Nails It on Forbes: Paradigm Shift in Leadership and ManagementAnnouncing the Full Book Cover Jacket of Flat ArmyThe Remarkable Leadership Story of Conner & Cayden LongThe Leadership Tonic Scale - Free PDF Download

Last month at DevLearn 2013 conference, I participated in the 9th Annual eLearning DemoFest event and showcased an Interactive eBook for iPad on how to use Adobe Presenter to create eLearning courses. There were 81 participants at DemoFest showing off their latest and greatest development efforts, offering the DevLearn conference attendees an opportunity to see […]