Ride For Roswell

Last Saturday the University at Buffalo hosted the 16th annual Ride for Roswell event. The estimates were 7,500 riders, 1,500 volunteers and over $3 million dollars raised for Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

The most amazing part of the day... that everyone showed up even with rain clouds threatening....I'll be honest it did not rain during the main events (10 different routes ranging from 3 miles to 62 miles) or when people were queuing up to eat lunch. It misted right after the main event (a bit) but didn't dampen the spirits of the people listening to the band. No one seemed concerned and everyone was ready to deal with it.

That's one of the reasons I love Buffalo... you make plans, you stick to them. No matter the weather, no matter the crowd, we just come together regularly to make a difference. I was proud to be a part of the day.

HTML5

I'm learning more and more about HTML 5 and I love it. I'm mostly self-taught with this web coding thing and I like the fact that the W3C and WHATWG decided to maintain the flow of web development rather than try to force changes to the way we do business.

From the sounds of it, HTML5 will be backwards compatible, will integrate video and audio, AND if browsers/gadgets/phones decide to follow these guidelines, we won't have to code in special ways for each device.

The part I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is the length of time it will take to get it recommended.... I've seen the websites like ishtml5readyyet.com where we are "years away." But the world is already moving in that direction. It is confusing to me that there are delays when it is just an evolution of the working methods we already have.

Privacy and the web

So, I'm rethinking some of the sites to which I am a member. Recently I've blogged about Empire Avenue but what amazes me is how deep they are finding my social media connections. I got "credit" for liking a video on youtube over a year ago. That made me think, well, where else have I visited in the past three years, five years, decade? I'm an early adopter of the internet, been using it all along.

So, I started looking. I found a "website" I created for a class (took it down); found a blog I used for testing stuff (took it down), remembered I joined a community to help with some health and wellness goals (decimated the personal info on it but stayed a member); am checking my personal settings on facebook again (I check that sucker weekly, they change the rules too often) and am thinking that I probably need to do a bit more searching to make sure I'm not missing anything else.

The most important thing to me is that I keep my private life private and my social life protected. I want to share my thoughts and learn about yours, I want to be more productive at work and share in global thoughts and learning, but I have to remember at the end of the day, keeping these separate protects my family the most.

PSU Web Conference

So, I've been following #psuweb11 for the past two days on twitter. Loving it. Lots of good info, some great links and I've been able to learn some facts remotely. Was looking forward to the #hesms live conference this afternoon. Unfortunately there are technical difficulties and the live stream keeps fading out. I can see/hear part of it, but I don't quite get the whole picture.

Of course, I'm just being grumpy cause I wanted to participate live. This is really cool: a conference of experts, sharing their thoughts live and free! This is why the highered community is so great... they try something new all the time (live conference), they have a back-up plan (video to be posted later) and they still keep the out of towners in the loop (live chat and responding to twitter).

Change

Best laid plans... was supposed to go to dinner tonight with a former co-worker. Sad she had to reschedule. I was looking forward to the conversation and laughter tonight. As we work on trying to find another date... I see that we have to go about three weeks ahead... life is just too filled with sports, community events, birthday parties etc.

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said: "Change is the only constant." I have to just roll with the changes that come.

Global Learning

I work for a university... and my son starts at one in the Fall.

He's going almost seven hours from home for the experience. Makes me wonder, do we need classrooms if the students can connect online from different locations?

Should the goal be to teach students a series of tasks/topics or to teach them how to learn so they can stay ahead of the learning curve? I'm thinking the latter. Time will tell.

I believe that shared experiences and collegiate life are important to adults in today's world, but I also want to be sure that the costs we're going to pay to give him this experience prepare him for a modern career.

Empire Avenue Update

So yesterday was my most "productive" day on Empire Avenue:
Earnings: 135.38e
Dividends/Investment Earnings: 130.47e
Other Earnings: 805.48e
You spent: 4784.13e

My current "value" is e25.61 (+1.067).

I'd originally joined the "game" because of a surge of highered and social media colleagues joining. I thought it might be a way to connect with some different, albeit similar, folks and follow them on twitter to expand my knowledge base.

What I've found is a very involved writers group. And I've read a new book because of them and I'm "re"thinking about a novel I started a long time ago. I have no idea where it will go, but it is nice to be energized again about my writing.

Perfect Weekend

So, this weekend I managed to read two novels (both by Lee Child, from his Jack Reacher series), enjoyed a piano recital, ate out most meals and skipped most chores (except for gardening that I wanted to do). It was probably the quietest two days I've had in a long time and they were needed. I feel so much more energized today at work and full of new ideas.

So, I guess the next question becomes... if a few quiet hours can totally refresh me... why don't I schedule downtime more often? I guess because once you schedule it, it becomes another chore.

Don't get me wrong... skipping the laundry, groceries and house cleaning will catch up to me. But I think I need to figure out how to pull off another hooky weekend again soon.

Follow Up: Change is Now

I rarely check my personal email anymore... in fact sometimes I go a few days without looking at it. Most of my friends are on facebook (so I "see" them daily) and my colleagues are on twitter or email me at work.

My workflow changed subtly... I used to check email at least three times a day... but now I need to set a tickler so I don't miss school stuff or emails from my folks. I much prefer the flow of info from the new social media channels.

The other major change is how I can avoid ads... at least a lot of the time. I've stopped turning on my radio in my car (mind you my commute is only 8 minutes now, but still) and we "tape" everything we watch so we can skip the commercials as we watch a show. Yesterday my youngest and I were looking at bird cams and were both annoyed by a "required" ad to see a nest. He dumped it from his list of cams to check.

How has your workflow/entertainment flow changed in the past year? Five years? Decade?

Empire Avenue

Well, empire avenue... a new "game" around "social media" where you trade your friends to boost influence. A lot of highered folks are joining, so this might become a useful tool for work for chatting about topics and "meeting" like minded individuals. It also combines information from other SM accounts (like twitter and facebook) to give scores (like Klout). What I can't tell is if this will be a turn off to people who join later (when it gets more expensive to connect to people in your portfolio) or who don't want to connect their personal accounts to a business account, or who find it distasteful to be "trading" peers.

It also feels a bit like a pyramid scheme... once you connect and get all the connection "eaves" then the only easy way to get more capital is to bring your friends into it... and again, people get more expensive as more people buy them... not entirely sure how this model will scale up.

It has been fun to collect the badges :) I never was a girl scout so that part is new to me... and safer than foursquare. But more invasive than any zynga game, so I'm unsure how long I'll play this one. It will all depend on if the work component stays fresh and current.