FEBRUARY 2008 LEARNING FLASH

Russell Martin and Associates Learning Flash February 2008

Happy Valentine’s Day from Russell Martin & Associates and L+EARN. It’s too cold to be outside long, so this month is pretty ‘virtual’. This issue is all about LOVE.

“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.”

Henry Drummond (Canadian poet 1851-1860).

In this issue, “Love is…”:

·

Inviting You to the First RMA 20th Birthday Party on 2/4/ in Atlanta
Leap Year If It’s Your Birthday 2/29
Blogging With My Friends
Podcasting, But Will It Increase Recruitment?
Improving Managing Project Expectations
Reading
Serving You
The Project Management Flipcard
The Ongoing Top 10 Secrets to Improved Admissions
A Caring Instructor
Surviving a Recession
Virtual, Even at School
Sharing Webinars with You
Google Maps: Visit RMA!
Getting Things Done
Living In New England in February
Strange
A Stable Bank
A Valentine Gift

Love is Inviting You to the First RMA 20^th Birthday Party on 2/4 in Atlanta

RMA will be celebrating all around the country this year, starting on 2/4 in Atlanta while some of us will be at the Training 2008 event. Contact Margie Brown mbrown@russellmartin.com to reserve your spot. Space is limited, and there will be no walk-ins (Zoo Rules)! Other upcoming birthday locations include:

Lincoln, NE (Southeast Community College) 2/12/2008

San Antonio, TX (ASTD Tek) 2/26/2008

Love is Leap Year If It’s Your Birthday 2/29

I found some crazy things out about Leap Year. 2/29 is the traditional time that women can propose marriage. People born on 2/29 have a special organization and magazine. Here are some tidbits about this group:

Your chance of being born on Leap Year Day is about 1 in 1,461. Put another way, only 0.0684% of the world's population are Leapers.
Leapers report that both YouTube and Borders Books said no to Leapers (by rejecting applications from people born on Leap Day). To their credit, they have both fixed this bug in less than a month. http://www.leapzine.com/hr/

Love Is Blogging With My Friends

I’ve gone back to my blogs after a long absence and I’m having a great time. One of my goals this year is to leverage and learn the technology available to me. I haven’t even begun to catch up with my kids! Here are some tips for monitoring my blogs from your email:

Setting Up a Google Reader Account: This should take about 15 minutes if you follow these instructions. Check out the blog http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/what-is-rss-and-how-do-i-.html for a great, simple set of instructions.

Here are my current blogs:

Project Management Mania http://flexiblestructure.blogspot.com/

It’s the People http://itsthepeople.blogspot.com/

IT Leadership Alchemy http://itleadershipalchemy.blogspot.com/

Also, check out my Face Book by searching for Lou Russell and requesting to be my friend. If you can’t find it, email me at lou@russellmartin.com and I’ll send you an invite. You will get to see birthday party pictures and so much more!

I Love Podcasting, But Will It Increase Recruitment?

Lindsay Blamire, one of our partners, recently got me hooked on podcasting. It never dawned on me that I could download audio and video on to my iPod and listen to it anywhere, especially at the dreaded airport. I even recorded my own dramatic (!) reading of The Three Pigs from my book “10 Steps to Successful Project Management” that you can find by searching for Blamire Performance then subscribe (it’s free!). Recently, Tyler Johnston, an RMA alumni, posted an interesting article on his Facebook. Here’s what Rice University's Jeffrey Daniel Frey says about podcasting on campus:

Do podcasts enhance recruiting efforts because they say, here's a university that clearly knows and uses technology well? Or is it the actual information the podcasts contain? “I think that a podcast can give a more real sense of what it's like to be at the university. When you hear a podcast with an actual faculty member's voice, or you see a video in which you're actually in a classroom, or you're touring the campus… If you can watch a video like that, it makes you feel a little more connected to the university.”

What's the top tip you can offer to an individual educator who wants to start podcasting?
”If you can get past the "why"--why am I doing this and who is my audience--then you get to the technology. My number one tip is, do the best you can with the technology… Invest in the technology and the editing, so you can put out something that's of high quality. And it doesn't take much. For under $100 you can get a really good mic that plugs into a computer. There's free software to do the editing. Just do it. It's not hard. It's easy stuff.”

Find the rest of the interview at http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/57399_2/ .

Love is Improving Managing Project Expectations

If you could build a dashboard on your desk that would help you say at a quick glance the status of all the initiatives your team is working on, what would it look like? Are you given the date for most of your team’s projects before they even start? RMA has developed a dashboard for your current projects which includes:

· A dashboard to track initiatives

· A TETRIS board to graphically display project capacity

Intrigued? I’d love to tell you about it. Contact me at lou@russellmartin.com.

We are currently developing a kit for project managers to give to their project stakeholders to set the expectation early for the role they will play on their project going forward. I am looking for people to give me feedback on this product. Contact me at lou@russellmartin.com .

Love is Reading

Get a quick learning pick me up: check out Lou’s most recent articles from Inside Indiana Business

Healthy Teams, Healthy Profit

The Top 5 Scary Delegating Sins

Grow your abilities this year by reading one of my books:

The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook Learn how to Lecture as a Last Resort

Project Management for Trainers Learn how to streamline training projects

IT Leadership Alchemy Grow as an IT Leader

Leadership Training Teach leadership using this course in a book

Training Triage Implement a training solution in 24 hours

10 Steps to Successful Project Mgmt Practice quick, practical project management

Buy your copy (signed!) at www.russellmartin.com

Love is Serving You

Because we care about the quality of our services to you and because most of our supply chain prices have increased (shipping, assessments, supplies… they all take oil, I guess), we will be increasing our prices to the following:

Workshops: $2800/day + travel
Consulting: $3000/day + travel
Lou Russell: $3500/day + travel
DISC & Workplace Motivator profiles: $75 each.

But we’ll give you a little bit of time to adjust. If you book any of our services before March 1, 2008, we will honor 2007 pricing. Contact Margie at mbrown@russellmartin.com or Leah at lcolville@lplusearn.com .

Love is The Project Management Flipcard

The Project Management Flipcard is a handy little gadget that attaches to your monitor so you will always know where it is. This Flipcard is filled with all you will need to know to make your project successful. It is a perfect reference for any project.

You’ll be reminded how to Define, Plan, Manage and Review • You’ll be given hints and outcomes in the Analyze, Design, Develop/Test and Implement phase • You’ll receive a list of ‘Red Flags’ to help you to know if there is cause to stop the project and what you need to worry about. Order your own at http://russellmartinandassociates.stores.yahoo.net/prmafl.html.

Love is the Ongoing Top 10 Secrets to Improved Admissions

Unless you are clear what the Director of Admissions (or Recruitment) is responsible for and how that will be measured, your admissions will never improve. Like all leaders, especially in sales-like jobs, it is easy for a DOA to be distracted by day-to-day fires or become too hands on. Invest in growing the leadership of your DOAs. Reward them for growing admissions through the representatives, not by brute force. Combine recruitment metrics with leadership metrics to ensure that the entire organization is growing. Need ideas for growing Admissions leaders who grow starts? Contact Leah at lcolville@lplusearn.com .

Love is a Caring Instructor

As I shared in my first book The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook, learners learn best when the person teaching them is focused on the learner and not their own ego trip. Here’s a quick exercise that you can do with your faculty, instructors and training staff to help them see how they really feel about the process:

Give each of the participants a piece of white paper and a pencil. Ask them to sketch themselves in a very positive learning experience on one side of the paper. As they draw, continue to encourage them to add things to the picture that would show the time of day, props that are with them, location, who else is there, etc. Take no more than two minutes.
Now, ask them to turn the paper over and draw a picture of themselves teaching. Again, continue to coach them about capturing the environment in the picture. Again, take no more than two minutes.
Now ask each person to privately reflect on the difference between the two pictures. Which one is happy? Which one is not as happy? What does the learning picture show that is missing in the teaching picture? Are there students in the teaching picture? How big are they? Are they learning?
Finish by asking people to share one thing they’ve learned about their own beliefs about teaching that they’d like to challenge. Do not ask them to share their pictures, although let them if they want to.

Love is Surviving a Recession

The financial news is gloomy on a good day. What is the secret to companies that weather recession and return to rule the marketplace? Resilient people aligned to a well-planned strategy working on the right things at the right time. Check out your organization. How does your staff rate (1 low to 5 high) on:

Resiliency 1 2 3 4 5

Strategic Planning 1 2 3 4 5

Collaboration 1 2 3 4 5

Project Management 1 2 3 4 5

Communication 1 2 3 4 5

Accountability 1 2 3 4 5

Leadership 1 2 3 4 5

If you scored less than 25, maybe you should be worried OR you can contact either Margie mbrown@russellmartin.com or Leah lcolville@lplusearn.com and they’ll help you grow these competencies.

Love is Virtual, Even at School

From USA Today this week: Harvard University computer science professor David Malan has launched "virtual office hours," allowing students to chat via text or microphone in live, online help sessions. The system, which was launched in the fall, improves efficiency for students and instructors alike, says Malan, who teaches more than 100 students.

Love is Sharing Webinars with You

Here is our webinar schedule for the 1^st part of 2008:

1-3 PM ET on Thursday 2/21 10 Steps to Successful Project Management
1-3 PM ET on Wednesday 3/19 Teach Less to Learn More: Accelerated Learning
1-3 PM ET on Monday 4/21 Grow ROI by Growing Project Sponsors
1-3 PM ET on Monday 5/19 Leadership Can be Used for Good or Evil
1-3 PM ET on Friday 6/20 My Team: Can't Work With 'Em, Can't Work Without 'Em

Our partners at Elluminate, the leading provider of live Web conferencing and eLearning solutions, are hosting some quick 1hr webinars directed toward our secondary education and career college clients. Check them out at Elluminate Live Demonstrations and Events.

Love is Google Maps: Visit RMA!

Go to www.google.com and Click on Maps.
Type the RMA Address in the search box: 6326 Rucker Road, Suite E (or try your own). Click on our company name. Pick “Street View”.
We are a little north, across from the church in the office complex, kind of behind the trees.
Click on the arrows to travel around our office building.

Love is Getting Things Done

David Allen (www.Davidallenco.com ) and Mac fans – Lindsay found you a special present - an amazing PM tool for Macs - http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/ It's call iGTD. It's an entire program based upon "Getting Things Done". It lets you add projects / tasks directly from your email. And it's FREE!!! I want a MAC!!

Love is Living In New England in February

Last month’s Jeff Foxworthy entries enhanced by my brother David Russell. We are all crazy.

If you can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in New England. (The real fun is using high beams and pretending you are traveling at warp speed.)
If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you live in New England. (The best advice at Home Depot is from anyone who doesn't work there.)
If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England. (How about holding a nice phone conversation with a political pollster because they sound stressed out and you feel bad for them.)
Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow. (How true, plus snowmobilers blend with traffic much better than bicycle riders.)

Love is Strange

Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand. - Anonymous

I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox. – Woody Allen

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. – Samuel Johnson

An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her. – Agatha Christie

Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love. – Albert Einstein

I know that somewhere in the Universe exists my perfect soulmate -- but looking for her is much more difficult than just staying at home and ordering another pizza. – Alf Whit

What the world really needs is more love and less paper work. – Pearl Bailey

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. – Robert Frost

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. – Henry Louis Mencken

Love is A Stable Bank

Bank Failure in Second Life Leads to Calls for Regulation

By Bryan Gardiner

The recent collapse of Ginko Financial, a "virtual investment bank" in Second Life, has spurred calls for more oversight, transparency and accountability, especially when it comes to business practices in the metaverse. Last week, Ginko Financial -- an unregulated bank that promised investors astronomical returns (in excess of 40 percent) and was run by a faceless owner whose identity is still a mystery -- announced it would no longer exist as a financial entity. The declared insolvency meant the bank would be unable to repay approximately 200,000,000 Lindens (U.S. $750,000) to Second Life residents who had invested their money with the bank over the course of its three and a half years of existence.

Yet in many ways, the undoing of Ginko and the collective loss of more than 750,000 very real U.S. dollars is only the latest event hammering home the fact that the lawlessness of the virtual land has its drawbacks. Indeed, after Linden Lab, the owner and operator of Second Life, invited the FBI to investigate casino activity, the company subsequently instituted a ban on all gambling earlier this month. http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/second-life-ban.html

Love is a Valentine Gift

I made these a few years ago with the kids and they are very cool. For kids, the construction takes a little getting used to, but they’ll enjoy making fun gifts for their friends.

From www.familyfun.com.

CRAFT MATERIALS:

Thin rubber band

Peppermint Life Savers

Smarties

Cinnamon gum

Heart-shaped stickers

Time needed: Under 1 Hour

1. Thread the rubber band through the holes of two Life Savers, then balance the roll of Smarties between them, across the rubber band.
For wings, balance the stick of gum on top, perpendicular to the Smarties, and pull the rubber band up and over each side of the gum to hold it all in place.
Decorate the wings with tiny heart-shaped stickers or a message.
Tips: If smaller fingers are having trouble with all that balancing and stretching, have one person hold the candy in place while another works the rubber band up and over the gum.

Lou Russell

President/CEO