Middlefocus

All these books on the go at the same time?  Yes and many more too. At first glance it hardly seems to be a productive way to approach the matter of reading.... but if you can watch many different tv series over a week or a month - you can have several books on the go at the same time... Can't you? That all depends on our purpose for reading.  I read for pleasure, information, ideas and inspiration and reading for these purposes necessarily means having several books on the go at the same time. Take The Goldfinch there for example.  Now that's a BIG read and naturally involves a good investment of time.  I've cheated a bit with this one though to create room for others.  I've done that by downloading the Audible version as well. The "talking book" recording lasts a total of nearly 32 and a half hours! The audio version means that I can keep the book on the go while driving or doing other things and can resume the pleasure of reading again when I get th...

Planning out this post in my Moleskin Notebook At a recent exhibition, hosted in the Queen's University Belfast Naughton Gallery, I was taken by the inclusion of the notebook pictured below in one of the gallery bookcases. It was one of 47 kept by the engineer Peter Rice (1935-1992). The exhibition, entitled Traces of Peter Rice, included dozens of photographs and models of many of the projects worked on by this gifted and talented creative.  I needed to know more and purchased the accompanying book,  Traces of Peter Rice ,  Barry, K. (ed) Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2012. Towards the end of the text J. Philip O'Kane has provided an essay, On first looking into Rice's engineering notebooks.  It's a fascinating read that has preserved in my mind's eye an enduring image of a simple, black, A4 notebook. Notebook belonging to Peter Rice, engineer On the pages selected for display there are preparatory notes for a video-recorded lecture given to young ...

The automatic thermostat for our electric frying pan is labelled self control. If that could be plugged into our behaviours in the workplace, I wonder how often it would need to self adjust. What behaviours in office life raise the heat ? Setting deadlines? Not getting recognition? Unreasonable expectations or demands? Dealing with difficult colleagues? Abrasive management style? What cools things down ? Feeling appreciated? Getting recognition? Being kept informed? Getting meaningful feedback? What raises your self control setting to red? And what ensures an optimum position for effective working? You know that setting don't you? It's the one that's neither in the frying pan nor in the fire. Continued success!     Posted with Blogsy

It has been fun going through old digital photos, retrieved from the hard disk of a previous computer. They are now transferred to my laptop, curated through Picasa and backed up to Google+. Many of the photos belong to 2 ongoing album collections that from time to time I share on Facebook. The largest is called "Closed Openings" - some of my favourite pictures of closed windows, doors, gates and other openings.  The other is called "Postbox Read", a collection of the various pillar and wall postal boxes that are so common place we sometimes miss the fact that many date from the time of Victoria. Other photos were taken for use in some presentation or other. Pictures are worth a thousand words and a well chosen image can make a presentation by reinforcing a point.  Same goes for blogposts and articles.  Just check how many writers use visuals from professional picture galleries. Using attributes of one thing to describe an unrelated something else is the bu...

Years ago one of my cousins who had worked in the United States brought back an idea called the "brown bag" lunch.  Essentially in a busy workplace with inherent difficulties of finding time for meetings and updates, his colleagues met over lunchtime to share learnings from work they were engaged in or industry conferences and seminars they had attended.  It was workplace learning shared by and for professionals. I suppose a more recent development is the growth of "meet-ups" where other professionals organise activity or learning sessions online, agree on topics and speakers and then meet at a convenient venue to share expertise. A quick look at the  meet-up website  shows that there is plenty going on around Belfast. Isn't it interesting how some people extend their professionalism to learn more about the things that interest them?  It reminds me of way back in my career when I was seconded as an assistant organiser to a Teachers' Centre. In those h...