Education

Want a real education? Back up your own data. That's the lesson students and faculty at New Zealand's Victoria University of Wellington learned last week when the IT staff did some routine maintenance. The result: a factory reset of every PC connected to its network and a university of PCs with empty desktop folders and C: drives. Oops! Continue Reading →

Students asked for it, and Comcast stepped up; the company is raising the speed of its low-cost internet essentials plan from 25/3 (that's 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up) to 50/5. Continue Reading →

The velocity of data is increasing and will always increase. Therefore, the need for data literacy is increasing and will always increase. All other things being equal, there is a significant difference between being literate and being fluent. To create value for your business you need to think strategically about sources and uses of data and understand how data is turned into action. Let’s review. Continue Reading →

I miss meeting new people. I miss bumping into people I know. So, necessity being the mother of invention, my team has been experimenting with different ways to gather our community – and we have a plan. Introducing the Shelly Palmer Online Networking Salons. They are free, category-specific, weekly, 20-minute, super-curated, small, Zoom meetings where you will introduce yourself, meet some new people, bump into old friends, learn something, hang out for a bit, and then get back to work. Here’s how we tested the theory and why we know it works. Continue Reading →

If you were giving a graduation speech to the class of 2020, what would your message be? That’s a question I made the mistake of trying to answer on Twitter. Continue Reading →

On one of the toughest days of my childhood, a day that forged much of my world view, my father, as he often did, came up to my room to chat about my day. He offered some advice, some objectivity, and very little comfort. He wasn’t harsh; he was just brutally honest about my “very bad day” and his thoughts about what I could or should do to improve my situation. At the time, all I really wanted was a hug and a more powerful ally to go fix my world for me. What I got was sound advice about choices and ways to think about how to solve my own problem. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was one of the most formative days of my life. Continue Reading →

As out of control as everything feels today, we do have control over one thing: how we spend our time. Time is a currency. So much so that we call the use of it “spending” time. Today, while some are forced to put themselves in harm’s way to do what needs to be done, many of us will have the shared experience of being alone. How will you “invest” your alone time? Here are a few ideas. Continue Reading →

I met Delano Martin yesterday. He’s been shot twice, and he spends his days trying to figure out how to stay alive. Before I tell you how Delano and I came to meet, I want you to read one of his poems. Continue Reading →

An invitation to walk in the Labor Day Parade got me thinking about labor law as an alternative path to meaningful data privacy regulation. Think about this… Continue Reading →

What do you really need to know? Would a sixth-grade education give you enough basic skills to enable you to use online tools to learn a trade or become a service worker or a knowledge worker? Would you need eighth-grade skills? Tenth-grade? Perhaps a four-year college degree? Continue Reading →