Disinterest in Academic Discourse

By leelefever on August 9, 2005 - 2:11pm.

• Categories:
• academia
• opinion
• personal
• Comments: 7

From time to time, I participate in conference calls and online discussions that are focused on subjects that I should care about: knowledge management, communities of practice, online learning, etc.

More often than not I find that these discussion become academic discourse and generally make me feel the same.

I honestly respect academic discussion and I believe academia lays the foundation for what we know and understand. But man, that kind of discussion is just not for me- and perhaps I'm revealing my ignorance here.

The theoretical, the ongoing discussion about the published papers of respected academics, the arguments about pros and cons of each theory and their applications in endless situations -- it all just drones on for me.

Project Platform Wars

By leelefever on July 21, 2005 - 9:56am.

• Categories:
• opinion
• ourwork
• technology
• Comments: 8

This is a story about something that many of us are faced with – the dominance of the PC and the appeal of the Mac.

I’ve worked on a project at a local Fortune 50 company on-and-off for over a year. When the project started, we all had PCs. We didn’t have a hard time getting onto the company Intranet, using VPN, sharing docs, etc. It worked pretty smoothly.

Along the way, the team morphed and a Mac user came on. He struggled with integration, downloading multiple tools and using virtual PC. He made it work and all was well.

I left the team for a few months and in the mean time, a number of new people came onto the team- all Mac users. When I came back, I came back into a Mac world – I was the odd man out with a PC.

On GnomeDex Wifi (or lack thereof)

By leelefever on June 24, 2005 - 6:09pm.

• Categories:
• conference
• event
• opinion
• wifi
• Comments: 2

I've learned that I prefer either good wifi access or no access at all. Having the constant prospect of a page reloading 1 in 5 times is just enough to keep on trying to make it happen. I feel bad for Chris, I know he's doing everything he can. It'll be interesting to see if Bell Harbor gets it figured out for tomorrow...