The typical first frost date in Toronto is October 6, which is 93 days away. If we allow two weeks for safety, that gives us 79 days of growing, minus whatever time you need to germinate.

My garden is full. Full full full full. I shouldn't plant any more into it, because each plant needs room to grow. But if I were to plant more veggies in it, here are some candidates:

• Radishes (maturity: 30 days), although they may go to seed
• Beets (maturity: 40-70 days)
• Pole beans (maturity: 60 days)
• Bush beans (maturity: 60 days)
• Peas (maturity: 60 days)
• Cucumbers (maturity: 60-90 days)
• Corn (maturity: 60-90 days)
• Lettuce (maturity: 70-90 days)
• Onion sets (maturity: 50-60 days)

Maybe I have time for another crop of radishes after I harvest this one. =) I'll have a little bit of space.

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
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The cats very obligingly sat for a portrait session:

From Cats

From Cats

No treats needed!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

I love strawberries. They're not that easy to get in the Philippines, where I'm from. Strawberries are grown in Baguio and are occasionally available during the cool months. Strawberries are also imported from Australia and other countries, but they're expensive.

So I'm thrilled that I can grow strawberries here in Toronto. I now have four established strawberry plants. We've picked seven homegrown strawberries (one or two a week) of varying sweetness. Not content with that, I ordered a hanging strawberry planter bag online, and I've just filled it with eight small strawberry plants (some of them from runners).

The strawberries almost make up for the complete lack of success I've had in growing cantaloupes, which I loved having in Manila. =)

It's the little joys in life.

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
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Even my leisure ties into my long-term goals.

One of the reasons why I'm interested in learning more about sewing and gardening is that these are hobbies that I can pursue throughout life. In fact, they're stereotypical elderly pursuits, like golf is. These are hobbies that people can enjoy for decades, where there is plenty of room to grow, and where deep experience results in great satisfaction.

I like imagining what it'll be like when I'm older and more experienced. What will it be like when I can make whatever outfits I want and whatever organizers I need? What will it be like when I know how to grow my favourite fruits and vegetables, when I understand the rhythm of the seasons and the lay of the land? The same goes for my other interests, like cooking, writing, taking pictures, and playing the piano. The learning curve stretches before me.

I know that even misshapen seams and wilted plants can help me get there. It's all part of the learning process.

When I shared this realization with W-, he smiled. He said, "Not like computer gaming." Hobbies like computer gaming don't seem to have as much depth or longevity, and pastimes like watching television, well, they just pass the time.

I suspect this is worth thinking about. Can your hobbies grow over the long term?

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

Now that I've shifted to wearing my consulting hat, I'll be giving more presentations and facilitating more workshop sessions on Web 2.0, collaboration, Generation Y, and other topics. I have a couple of sessions to prepare and deliver over the next two weeks. I thought I'd take some time to "sharpen the saw" by planning how I can do this more effectively.

I need to organize frequently-needed concepts. For example, I often talk about multi-generational workplaces. Organizing key messages, case studies, and other material will make it easy for me to see at a glance which points are relevant to an intended audience and customize the presentation accordingly. A mindmap or outline is one way to do that.

I need to scan what's going on. Most of the discussions and case studies for my areas of interest appear on blogs. Investing time in expanding my reading and organizing my notes will pay off later, when I can refer back to stories and examples I've seen. I can also analyze previous presentations and discussions to look for talking points and results.

I would like to organize my presentations more effectively. I often find interesting charts or explanations in other people's slides, and I sometimes reuse my slides as well. I would like a visual way to organize those slides so that I can easily include them in presentations Microsoft Sharepoint allows Powerpoint 2007 users to organize individual slides in a slide library, but I don't have access to that, and I may move to a Linux/Mac setup soon. One thing I can do is to build a master deck of slides (possibly broken down by topic), keeping track of the provenance of borrowed slides in the speaker's notes.

The ideal scenario would be: The team tells me about an upcoming workshop. I retrieve my notes about that industry, and I do a search for new information about the company. I select some basic talking points with screenshots and case studies that they might be interested in. I put together a brief presentation designed to be a conversation-starter. I deliver this presentation, and we brainstorm scenarios or ideas. I document the results and my notes afterwards.

Okay. Bringing it back to my two upcoming workshops… For the first workshop, my role is to help the client learn more about Generation Y. We have some material around this already thanks to our work with other clients, and there are some thoughts out there as well. For the second workshop, my role is to help the client learn more about incorporating Web 2.0 features (community, rich user interfaces, etc.) into a website. They're also somewhat interested in Generation Y.

For each workshop, I need to:

• perform an industry scan to find examples from their industry and related industries
• review past presentations to see if there are case studies, statistics, or talking points I can reuse
• review past discussions to find ideas
• brainstorm
• organize the presentation
• prepare the presentation

This will be fun!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

"How are you?" asked a client after the Canada Day holiday.

"Fantastic!" I replied.

She was surprised by that. Perhaps she expected me to say that the holiday was too short, or to wish that the weekend were here. So I told her about how I filled my holiday to the brim with wonderful hobbies, and how I was also happy to have another day to spend on work.

A day is a day. To spend the day wishing it was something else is to waste the potential of each moment.

When it's a holiday, I take time to explore other things and to reflect. When it's a work day, I work. I enjoy exploring my interests. I enjoy figuring things out for clients, the company, and myself.

Every day can be a terrific day when you aren't wishing it's something else.

Almost anything can be terrific when you aren't wishing it's something else.

I learned that the hard way by being homesick and confused. To be homesick is to be mis-placed – to be in the wrong place, to feel confused about where you want to be. I missed the Philippines when I was in Canada. I missed Canada when I was in the Philippines. When I stopped wishing I was someplace else and started really living wherever I was, it was easier to find the good things.

Same goes for days. If you're always wishing for the weekend, or for the end of the day, or for the start of the week so that you can tackle your pile of work, you'll find that time works against you. Time slows down when you're looking forward to something. Time speeds up when you're there–it's over too quickly.

Be in the moment.

=)

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

I spent Canada Day indulging in hobbies that benefit from concentrated time. It was terrific!

I started the day by sewing a pajama set from the adorable penguin flannel I picked up last week. I modified Simplicity 3548 to make shorts instead of pants, and I tried to copy one of my existing pajama tops. The shorts turned out wonderfully. The top is a good first top, and I'm sure I'll make even better ones. I plan to take this set along on my next business trip – another little thing that'll make me smile.

Then I played the piano. The tricky bit in the middle of Send In The Clowns is starting to yield to practice. I'm also enjoying learning the second part of Fur Elise.

I spent some time in the garden, too. I filled all the empty containers with potting soil and planted seeds in them. Might as well enjoy the rest of the growing season, after all. I also weeded the garden, cultivated the soil, thinned the over-enthusiastic radishes , transplanted some basil, and rescued a tomato plant.

Photography was fun. I set up the lights, and the cats decided it was portrait day. Well, Luke sat for portraits, at least.

I broke the mini-USB connector on my camera, so I disassembled the camera and W- soldered the component back on. =D Everything still works–hooray!

Yes, I could've spent the day working, but going a little deeper on hobbies helps me develop a more interesting life. The more I know, the more I'll enjoy. =)

Great day!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

20090701

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

If you're new to social media and Web 2.0, you probably feel overwhelmed by all the different tools that are out there. Should you use Twitter? Get on Facebook? Start a blog? Share photos? Share videos? It seems that as soon as you've worked up the courage to try something new, another ten new tools come along. And where are you going to find the time to do all of this, anyway?

When I coach people on social media, I notice that people often focus on–or get distracted by–the tools. They worry about not being on the right networks, about staying with a tool long after their target audience has passed. They sometimes have a hard time seeing the big picture and how all the pieces fit together.

Here's the big picture: You want to work more effectively. You want to reach out and connect to people.

The tools you use to go for that big picture will change over time. That's okay. You might need to be in more than one network or to use more than one kind of tool. That's okay. You might need to leave tools, copying your data over if possible. That's okay.

The big picture is: You want to work more effectively. You want to reach out and connect to people.

So, how do you go about putting the pieces together?

At the minimum, you should have one website where people can go to find out about all the rest of the tools you use to share. Many people build their profiles on LinkedIn for this purpose, but it's best to use your own web host instead of relying on a third-party company that might be renamed, go out of business, or simply go out of style.

I strongly recommend registering your own domain name. If your name is still available as a domain and it's easy to spell, use that. If not, come up with another phrase or tagline that people can use to find you.

Set up a simple site with your photo and some information about you. Include your contact information. You can use something like Wordpress to easily create a few webpages.

You may also want to set up e-mail so that you can use your new domain name for your personal mail. If you never change e-mail addresses, you'll never have to worry about losing contact. Google Apps is a good way to get your own mail system.

Now that you have a main site, you can explore other tools and social networks. Here's a sample:

• Social networks like LinkedIn.com, Xing.com, MySpace.com or Facebook.com make it easy to keep in touch with contacts
• Microblogging sites like Twitter.com make it easy to share short, quick updates
• Blogging sites like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com let you share longer stories and posts
• Media-sharing sites like Flickr.com (photos) or YouTube.com (videos) let you share your creations
• Social bookmarking sites like Delicious.com

Other kinds of sites cover all sorts of other purposes. Go ahead and explore.

Whenever you build a presence on another social network, link back to your main site. If you want, make it easy for people to discover your other profiles by linking to those profiles from your main site.

Worried about losing track of what you put where? Take notes by bookmarking the resources you've shared or by blogging about them.

Over time, you'll figure out which set of tools work well for you, and you'll have the flexibility to add interesting new tools as they come along.

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

I usually spend the evening before a flight putting together a travel dossier. It includes:

• a map of the route from the airport to the hotel
• a map of the route from the hotel to the meeting center
• public transit routes for the airport to the hotel
• some events and background information

This is something a virtual assistant can easily prepare, and he or she can add more information too. I'd love to have:

• restaurants near the hotel, cross-referenced with reviews from Yelp or other sites
• pictures, names, bios and mobile numbers of people in the area who are interested in meeting up
• names and addresses of people in the area so that I can send postcards
• taxi companies and phone numbers

In addition, the VA could update my TripIt and Dopplr accounts, so I can start tracking these trips better.

So I'd give the VAs:

- my flight information
- my hotel information
- the location of the meeting

and they would prepare a document that contains:

1. The weather forecast, if available, including temperature in Celsius and whether to expect rain
2. The flight information (date and time, flight number, booking reference, terminal number if possible)
3. The hotel information (name, address, contact number, whether there's a courtesy shuttle from the airport, and what amenities are available)
4. A map of the route from the airport to the hotel, including a large map and small maps with driving directions for each step
5. A public transit version of that map (large map + text)
6. A map of the route from the hotel to the meeting place, including a large map and small maps with driving directions
7. A public transit version of that map (large map + text)
8. A list of taxi companies and phone numbers that serve the area. If the meeting place is in a different city, get me taxi companies for that city too
9. A list of restaurants near the hotel, ranked by their Yelp rating
10. A list of restaurants near the meeting venue, ranked by their Yelp rating
11. A list of my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Dopplr, and Google contacts in that city, as a table with names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and addresses (if from Google contacts), so that we can reach out to them and ask who's interested in meeting up (maybe a Facebook event + e-mail for those not on FB)

I can then print this document out easily, and keep a copy on my computer for backup.

When people have confirmed that they'll meet up, the VA can prepare a list of pictures, names, contact information, bios/interests, and blog URLs.

Sounds like an interesting idea!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

Business travel makes me anxious.

When I book my flight and hotel, I wonder if I've chosen the right airport and the right flight, and if I can get to the hotel and to the venue easily. I wonder about the moments I'll miss, the stories I'll skip by being away. I worry about my visas and about being stuck on the wrong side of an immigration counter. I worry about losing my paperwork or running out of foreign currency. I worry about forgetting things in hotel rooms or forgetting myself in work.

I can work through the anxiety. My checklists and travel gear make packing easy. I've figured out the trick to doing work at airports and on airplanes. A netbook and a paper notebook mean I never run out of things to do. I wake up early. I explore public transit. Each trip gives me ideas for making the next trip better.

And when I'm there at the presentation, meeting, or workshop, I'm there, not wishing I was miles away.

Many people I talk to who have loved ones at home think of travel as a necessary evil. Travel has its perks: meeting new people, cementing relationships, experiencing new things. But it tires many people out.

If anyone can figure out how to make travel awesome, I can. If travelling will help me create the most value for our clients, the company, and myself, then I might as well figure out how to not only tolerate it, but even enjoy it.

So I made a mind-map today about the things I didn't like about travel and the things I liked about travel, and I decided to work on emphasizing the positives. Here's what I'm going to do to make future trips awesome:

• Learn more. Interesting experiences + time to explore = awesomeness. =)

• Focus on the advantages of stretching my comfort zone. Yes, it's hard to find your way around an unknown city, particularly when you don't have GPS or maps on your phone. But if anyone's prepared to do it, I am. My parents took us backpacking across the US and Europe when my sisters and I were kids, and I loved reading maps. As a technical intern in Japan, I took overnight buses to Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto to see the sights, practice Japanese, and just enjoy wandering around. I'm not one for packaged tours or popular tourist spots. I love starting to find my way around a place, starting to get a feel for the public transit and the pulse of a city.
• Take more pictures and share more media. I usually don't
  take a large camera because I pack light, but if I carry a camera, I
  can share more experiences with W-, J-, and others. I always take a
  recorder, thoughMy netbook has a built-in webcam, so I can explore
  videoblogging and I can use it for video chat. Maybe if I take a camera, I can get better at figuring out what a place looks like and feels like.

• Enjoy eating out more. I hardly ever eat out in Toronto because home-cooked food is fun to make and eat. When I'm out and about, however, I have to eat at restaurants. I prefer to find small, local haunts instead of eating at multinational chains. W- reminded me that I can use these trips to explore cuisines and look for inspiration. Besides, not spending time on cooking or cleaning up should give me more time to learn, write, and explore.
• Sew more stuff. I liked bringing an eye mask that I made myself. =) I think I'll spend this Canada Day sewing pajamas, and a passport organizer, a travel kit… <laugh>
• Take more pictures and share more media. I usually don't
  take a large camera because I pack light, but if I carry a camera, I
  can share more experiences with W-, J-, and others. I always take a
  recorder, thoughMy netbook has a built-in webcam, so I can explore
  videoblogging and I can use it for video chat.

• Meet up with friends. I can get better at tweetups and other meetups. Maybe this is what a virtual assistant can help me put together–a list of restaurants near the hotel, a list of people who want to meet up… =)

Maybe I can help find ways to make travel better. =)

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

I learned a lot from another three months doing Drupal. Here's a summary:

• I learned how to write low-level design documentation. I used to hate doing this because I was much happier prototyping things in order to figure things out, and writing in a word processor instead of a code editor seemed slow. Also, laying out images was a pain in both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Word. The key breakthrough was that after a lot of iterations, I finally got to a document that had the level of detail my project manager wanted. Once I knew what he wanted, it was easy to write documents like that. In fact, I did one better–I filled in lots of details in the validation section of the design document, and I used that for test-driven development.
• I smoothed out more of the kinks in our deployment process. Always testing our update scripts with update.php's access check set to false helped flush out assumptions about user ID. Our regression tests came in handy, too.
• I practiced more test-driven development. And I loved it! =) Yay yay yay yay.
• I learned JQuery and the ins and outs of Views+Calendar. We customized our calendar implementation extensively, and it doesn't look half-bad. Working with timezones had given me a lot of pain, though, but I managed to address all of those issues (and I have the regression tests to prove it! ).
• I learned that I should've gotten a second computer a long time ago. Having a dedicated development computer and another computer I can leave on Microsoft Windows means less hassle and less stress when it comes to working with other Windows-centric people and tools.
• I learned that I have a lot of things I can teach people about Drupal. =) Mentoring is fun!

I'm moving to strategy-focused projects next quarter, but if I were to continue on this project, I'd probably:

• Learn more about optimization (started doing a little bit of this, speeding up a page by an order of magnitude)
• Write more validation tests in my design documents
• Figure out how to check that coding standards are consistently applied
• Find some way to convince folks to go for Drupal 6, or find another project that uses Drupal 6.

The Dilbert Blog: Career Advice

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

I'll be changing hats at work. For the last year or so, my primary focus had been a Drupal-based project to help IBMers transition to new careers in nonprofit organizations, education, or the public sector. I learned lots of technical skills along the way, and became one of IBM's subject matter experts on Drupal. I learned how to write good design documents and regression tests. I learned the ins and outs of the modules that we used, and I built quite a few custom modules for our team. I shared the build and deployment practices I'd developed with the community at DrupalCon2009 and on my blog.

Now IBM's giving me an opportunity to practice using another hat: consultant. It's a bit of a jump going from writing code as a developer to participating in strategy workshops, but it's one of my quirks that I enjoy both. I had sprinkled strategy workshops and presentations throughout my development work, taking a few days here and there to travel and speak. This time we're reversing the mix: mostly workshops and strategy, and a little bit of technical mentoring. (Not bad for someone who's officially an entry-level employee! )

One of the wonderful things about being in IBM Global Business Services is that I can do both development and consulting from the same position. From the point of view of the company, it's just another assignment. As long as my billable utilization remains high, I can work on whatever creates the most value for our clients, the company, and myself. I seem to flip between consulting and development every six to twelve months, which is enough to keep things novel and interesting.

I might blog less about Drupal and more about Web 2.0, Gen Y, and travel. Instead of applying relentless improvement to my coding skills, I'll work on honing my presentation and facilitation skills. I'm sure I'll come out of this with a broader and deeper understanding of different industries and emerging topics. I'll probably also end up with a more modulated voice, a good wardrobe of suits (some of which I may even have made), and probably a thirst for another coding project.

Exciting times!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

From last week's plans:

• Complete contact preferences feature and admin feature for forums (Drupal) Skipped
• Give
  two presentations at work (LinkedIn and Twitter, Totally Rocking
  Presentations at IBM) and submit a third (I.B.Millennials: Working with
  and Learning from Gen Y)
• Sew a nylon bag for carrying lots of stuff I have my own tote! =)
• Host a dinner get-together That was a surprisingly satisfying Saturday supper salad and sorbet soiree. =)
• Have a facial Ow!

I also:

• Accepted a challenging new assignment at work – Web 2.0 and Gen Y parts of strategy workshops with top clients, oh my!
• Had a garden salad with radish and lettuce sprouts
• Helped W- and J- do awesome things with my sewing machine
• Read lots of books
• Found out
• Biked a bit

Next week:

• Handle any issues in the Transition2 roll-out (seems pretty okay for now, looks like our lessons learned from last phase did the trick)
• Get ready for next two assignments
• Prepare presentations
• Blog thoughts
• Take pictures of sewing projects and garden
• Document lessons learned

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

From last week's plans:

• Complete contact preferences feature and admin feature for forums (Drupal) Skipped
• Give
  two presentations at work (LinkedIn and Twitter, Totally Rocking
  Presentations at IBM) and submit a third (I.B.Millennials: Working with
  and Learning from Gen Y)
• Sew a nylon bag for carrying lots of stuff I have my own tote! =)
• Host a dinner get-together That was a surprisingly satisfying Saturday supper salad and sorbet soiree. =)
• Have a facial Ow!

I also:

• Accepted a challenging new assignment at work – Web 2.0 and Gen Y parts of strategy workshops with top clients, oh my!
• Had a garden salad with radish and lettuce sprouts
• Helped W- and J- do awesome things with my sewing machine
• Read lots of books
• Found out
• Biked a bit

Next week:

• Handle any issues in the Transition2 roll-out (seems pretty okay for now, looks like our lessons learned from last phase did the trick)
• Get ready for next two assignments
• Prepare presentations
• Blog thoughts
• Take pictures of sewing projects and garden

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

Today was a day for making things.

Pictures to follow!

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

When one of my mentors asked me if I could do a session on presentation skills for the new interns who are coming in as part of IBM's Extreme Blue program, I said yes, of course. =) Great opportunity to give back and learn.

Here are the key points I shared and learned in the session today:

1. Look for inspiration. It's easier to get better at presentations when you know what good presentations look like, sound like, and feel like. Watch videos or download podcasts from TED.com to see what passionate brilliance is like. Check out Slideshare.net to see what kinds of presentations real people put together. Pick up tips from books such as Presentation Zen (also blog), Slide:ology (also blog), Rainmaking Presentations, The How of Wow, and Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins. Be inspired.

2. Figure out what you want to say, why it matters, and how you want to say it. Let's tackle those parts one by one.

What do you want to share? Many people make the mistake of thinking they don't have anything to say because they're not experts. As a result, they don't volunteer for presentations or submit ideas to conferences.

Why does it matter? Again, many people make the mistake of thinking that all they need to do is inform their audiences. Every presentation is an opportunity to influence, to persuade. Every presentation is an opportunity to help someone think differently and even take action. Figure out what you want people to walk away with, and why they would care about your message. Talk in their terms.

Make your presentation even better by figuring out why it matters to you. That's how you tap into your passion and energy. Why do you care about the topic? What do you bring to it that nobody else can? What do you want to get out of the presentation?

Whenever I prepare a presentation, I look for ways that I can learn a lot from it. That's why I love handling lots of questions, because questions tell me what people find important. Questions let me pull more ideas out of my head and get them into a form that I can share. People in the audience share their experiences and insights, too. If something really stumps me, well, that points me to something I can learn. This adventure is one of the reasons why I love giving presentations. And that's why I can bring so much energy and joy to my presentations–I'm doing it because I want to do it.

When you know what and why, how becomes much easier to figure out. You can play with your toolbox to see what fits. Bullet points are one way to do it. Try full-screen stock photography, or individual words with lots of whitespace (or black backgrounds), or purposeful animations. Try Creative Commons-licensed pictures from Flickr. Try telling a story. Try not using slides. Try using a scenario. Try finding statistics. Go ahead and experiment. Go ahead and play.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

There's no shortcut here, and no matter what other people might tell you, stage fright never goes away. But practice can help you get better at harnessing that nervous energy. Practice can help you figure out and remember what you want to say, why it matters, and how you want to say it.

The obvious way to practice is to sign up for more presentations. But even if you don't get that many speaking opportunities, there are plenty of other ways you can practice. You might try explaining what you do and why it matters during conversations. You can speak up during meetings. You can prepare slides and post them on Slideshare or other services, even if you don't have a presentanion scheduled.

I find blogging to be an incredibly useful way to practice thinking and speaking. Most of my presentations start as blog posts. If you're interested in something, write about it. If you're really interested, write again and again. In the process, you'll learn about the topic, and you'll connect with other people who are interested. Then you can turn your notes into presentations, because you've already done the hard work of thinking about what you want to say and how to say it, and you know it matters to you.

So the next steps I want to convince you to take are:

- Look for inspiration. Start with ted.com. =)
- Figure out what you want to say, why it matters, and how you want to say it. Experiment. Explore.
- Practice, practice, practice. There are lots of opportunities to learn how to present, and not all of them involve a stage. (Or a stuffed toy, which I occasionally use.)

How can I help you become an even better speaker?

(I've omitted the IBM-specific parts here. Ping me internally if you want a link to the presentation and the recording!)

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

W- turned to J- and asked, "So, why don't you want to go to summer camp?"

"The first reason is that I want to spend my time more wisely," said the 11-year-old. I cheered.

"The second reason is that it's just like daycare. If I go to daycare during school and camp during summer, then it's the same all year round."

"Variety!" I said, nodding.

"The third reason is that there are all these young kids running around," she continued.

"So you've outgrown camp," said W-.

J- nodded.

"Well, if you can take the responsibility for spending that time wisely, sure!" I said.

Kudos to her for knowing what she wants and going for it.

So we're going to build photography experiments into our summer schedule.

We played lacrosse catch in a nearby park, and then we took pictures. J- was delighted with her silhouette experiments and her flower photography. She likes taking macro shots.

As the light faded, we switched to panning shots, catching cyclists and cars. Even when we were walking back home, she'd sometimes run ahead to take a picture of a passing car.

When we got home, she skipped ice cream time to play on the piano instead. She has figured out how to play both hands for "A Whole New World", and she's been learning "Part of Your World" and the introduction of "Fur Elise" almost entirely on her own. She asked me how to play parts of Fur Elise, so I showed her that the notes she wrote down were correct.

"This isn't the real song, is it?" She asked.

I laughed. "Play the demo again, and look at the notes." I traced them with my finger, like the bouncing ball of karaoke lyrics. "See, you haven't been playing with training wheels. You've been learning the real thing."

"Ooh! Cool!"

"Terrific! And what would let you enjoy piano even more?"

"Well… What about the Star Wars music?"

"Dum-dum-dum-dum-dah-dum-dum-dah-dum…?"

"No, the one at the beginning."

"Oh! Okay, let's go look for that…"

And now she's off teaching herself the Star Wars Theme. =)

I tell this story because it's a wonderful thing to help cultivate enthusiasm. We were watching J- chase cars with her camera, and W- said, "That's the kind of enthusiasm I was thinking about." I smiled and said that it takes only one interest. Once she knows what it's like to be passionate about something, she'll discover other things as well.

Ah, Mondays. =D

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

If you've ever wondered where the day went, or where the week went, or where the month or year went, slow down. Take notes. Keep a diary, a journal, a blog, or whatever other way you want to keep track of your accomplishments and celebrate the little things.

Notes don't lock you into the past. They let you see where you've come from and remember where you're going. You can store your unfinished thoughts for further reflection. You can figure out what to say and how to say it. You can figure out what you think.

Keeping notes also helps you in other ways. If you write down your accomplishments along the way, yearly performance reviews become a lot easier. If you write down solutions to problems you've encountered–or even the things you've tried along the way–you'll find that your notes will save you time when you need to solve that problem or similar ones. Record other things: what you enjoy, what you don't, what you're curious about, what you've learned.

So get a journal that you're not afraid to write in, or start a blog (more about this later), or write one-line summaries of your day on Twitter. Block time in your schedule so that you can write. Five minutes will do. Fifteen minutes would be even better. It doesn't have to be a perfect record. It doesn't have to be a coherent essay. Don't beat yourself up if you miss a day. Just keep writing. Be kind to yourself when you write. Celebrate.

Come back after you've done that for a month. Now life should've slowed down for you, slowed down enough to enjoy. You can look back and see where you've been, what you've done. And you might've found yourself writing about who you'd like to grow into, what you'd like to do–great!

Keep writing.

Now think about some stories you can share with more people. Stories can help you connect with others and build relationships. Through stories, you can teach other people about what you're good at and who you are.

Here's the big step: try telling those stories in a conversation. Or even better: on a blog. You don't have to tell everyone about your new blog, if you don't want to. You can just write. Share your notes. Share how you've solved problems, share what you've learned. Share a couple of stories from your day.

Why?

Because you'll learn a lot more along the way. You'll learn in the process of figuring out how to explain things to someone else. You'll learn from your own notes. And you might just learn something from the questions and experiences of other people.

You'll learn a lot from helping other people by sharing your experiences. And people will learn more about you and the value you create.

It's a great habit, and not hard to start. After all, life already happens. The problem you'll find yourself encountering, actually, is that there will be too many great stories to tell.

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!

From last week's plans

• Social Recruiting Summit
• Taking the Stage: The Power of Voice
• Develop Drupal system – Transition2 Got the forums to mostly work
• Coach clients on LinkedIn
• Prepare presentations More work needed
• Attend sprouts class Skipped, decided to learn this on my own instead. $40 could buy a lot of seeds. =) Started mung beans and mustard seeds.
• Dinner party Postponed to next week.

I also:

• Sewed a laptop case with pockets for my power adapter, iPod, mouse, and other gadgets
• Attended W-'s extended family's Father's Day dinner and had tons of fun =)
• Uploaded some pictures
• Played shutterbug with W- and J-. It's like Punchbuggy, but you have to shoot the Beetle
• Planted marigolds and strawflowers in the front flower boxes, near the new blueberry bushes
• Read lots of books =)

Next week, I plan to:

• Complete contact preferences feature and admin feature for forums (Drupal)
• Give two presentations at work (LinkedIn and Twitter, Totally Rocking Presentations at IBM) and submit a third (I.B.Millennials: Working with and Learning from Gen Y)
• Sew a nylon bag for carrying lots of stuff
• Host a dinner get-together
• Have a facial =)

Post from: sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek.
Check out my blog for tips on managing virtual assistants, Drupal, and other topics!