Dinosaur Thing

Learning in 3D

Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll's book "Learning in 3D" is now out. BP's  Global Graduate Challenge project features as a case study. Worth a read to see the successes and key learnings in this space.

Death

Bit of an odd day today. Being snowbound I caught up on a few things at home instead. When checking on my facebook friend posts I saw that one had had a go at the Death Time app. So thought I might have a try myself and ended up croaking on the 12th of June 2057 at 4:30 am (???) from choking on spaghetti. I can only assume force fed by an evil nursing home staff member as otherwise I hate spaghetti. But hey what an innings. So although this is a monumental load of crap I feel quite positive today. The linked app. that tells you what you will resurrect as was more worrying as apparently I will be a chicken in my next life. For those of you familiar with my eating habits this will indeed be karma kicking back. Whilst catching up on things in my study though I fulfilled a promise to a friend to copy a couple of audio cassettes to CD that were recorded by her late husband literally days before he died in the Falkland's war some 28 years ago. It was indeed a profound comparison to hear a man filling his friends in on his news and confidently making plans for his family and knowing that by the time it was finally played he was dead. Carpe diem comes to mind. 

The Music I Loved in 2009

2009 was pretty weird music wise for me. So much fresh new stuff that surprised me and occupied the CD and MP3 player and very little from the old guard to keep me interested. But no classics though. The best was definitely from an area I hadn't expected I'd like. Namely the 80s retro girl fronted bands. Florence and the Machine, Bat For Lashes, La Roux and Little Boots were all superb. Very fresh, exciting and not just one big girlie moan. So I would happily recommend all of those to anyone even if they didn't like the 80s. From the old guard really only 3 albums stood out. Simple Minds "Graffiti soul" is a corker and about time too. Their live gigs are still superb and if you missed the tour you can still download each night from their website. Steve Hackett too emerged from probably the nastiest divorce I've heard of with "Out of the Tunnel's Mouth". Its still growing on me but clearly a cracker. I found it odd that in the music magazine's over here people still list "Seldom Seen Kid" by Elbow as their album of the year when it came out in 2008 but then so few classics came out last year its hardly a surprise. For me though the best album of the year was clearly U2's "No Line on the Horizon". An easy choice you'd think but after 4 or 5 listens this gets under your skin in a way that their last 5 or so albums haven't. 

My take on Copenhagen

I spent a lot of the holidays tracking a few things. First of all my Twitter and Facebook friend's newsfeeds. the first time I guess I really understood the power of both to convey the mood of the world. The second was the feedback from my colleagues from my Antarctica trip who attended and, amazingly for their young age, negotiated at the Copenhagen conference. Like me they are all bitterly disappointed with the result. A horrific future in front of us if we do not radically change our ways and those of others and little achieved after 2 weeks. But I am forever an optimist. As I said to a very close friend and China/Japan war veteran back in 1986, the world is changing. We become more aware now more rapidly than ever before. The bad guys get found out faster, poor politicians and public representatives get found out faster and its harder being a bad guy when you know the world is watching. What I saw both before and during Copenhagen was an awareness that wasn't by anyway present before. People are only just waking up the problem and those who are aware are either in some psychopathic denial or bargaining stage in their mind or actually doing something. Politicians got found out for what they really were and frankly their constituents will hold them to account very shortly. As the sax player in "The Commitments" said "It was dismal, truly dismal, but it was a start and I believe in starts". This was start. Don't lose hope.

What I did on my holidays

Like most parents of young kids I was pretty much wrapped up with my 2. Whilst it feels like a chore at times their little personalities develop 10 fold when spending quality time with us so at the end of the holidays its great to see how much they have developed in 2 short weeks. My son's favourite Xmas present was in fact his present to me...a lego Star Wars X-fighter which we hope to finish today. He himself was ladened with Ben 10 toys including a skateboard he has no chance of riding. My daughter too was blessed with loads of Peppa Pig stuff but was more concerned at Santa being greedy and eating all the cookies. I am looking forward to some structure and frankly adult conversation. Speaking in fluent CBeebieese for 2 weeks does get to you after a while. 

Worst Blogger of 2009

...and the winner is...well me really. As someone who is supposed to be a social networking pioneer this blog was shockingly quiet through 2009. I had my reasons which is why I am writing this blog now. I think the biggest blockers to writing a blog are largely fear based (I'm no different) but also in my case "why would anyone want to read about this?" So very often last year that "publish" button didn't get hit. I started this year badly but wearing a "Yabba Dabba Doo" t-shirt my kids bought me for Christmas. I promised them more Fred Flintstone than Grumpy this year and that's how I intend to theme my year. So here goes.....

Robert Swan's New Book

Robert Swan OBE, who lead the fabulous Expedition Antarctica 2009 that I was extremely privileged to be on earlier this year has just brought out a new book. Click here to buy it. Incidentally my own book now has a full preview available on www.blurb.com if you'd like to take a look at the full experience. 

The Listening Pool

I love listening to little lost albums like this. Still Life by the Listening Pool (3/4 of OMD to the rest of the world.

Forthcoming speaking engagements - Serious Virtual Worlds

I have a few speaking engagements coming up this month. The first of which is an open one. I'm at the Serious Virtual Worlds conference at the Coventry Serious Games Institute where the topic will be getting real value from virtual worlds. I will be speaking about some of the virtual worlds projects we've been doing at BP and the return on investment that we're now realising. The following week I'm speaking to a class from IE, Madrid on digital media.

Expedition Antarctica 200 hits the bestseller list

I'm delighted that my Expedition Antarctica Book has hit the Blurb bestseller list for the second week in a row. Its available globally so if you'd like a preview or to buy it click here....