Networking. Education. Technology.

Jon Foster-Pedley's Blog (17)

Are business plans a waste of time?

Yes they are - according to David Kirsh and Brent Goldfarb of the University of Maryland after studying 700 start-ups - see the short video. “Spending time and energy tweaking your business plan is a waste of resources. It’s a limited-use document that will in no way substitute for the hard work of actually building a business. You’re better off investing in your idea, your social network, finding potential i… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on November 4, 2009 at 9:30am — 1 Comment

Bell curve - schmell curve!

I can't believe it but it's true - we really do still use the bell curve to manage assessment at schools and universities. OK - I get the logic about rigour and standards, but it is a dumb, old world logic in my view. My thing about the bell-curve is this - 1 standard deviation (1 sigma - 68% of the population) are deemed 'average' so only 16% can possibly be A's... and isn't it mainly the same driven few who obsess for the A's - so everyone else stops trying or believes they can't do well... an… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on October 30, 2009 at 2:00am — 1 Comment

Briliiant memorable start to the Silicon Cape Initiative - well done all. Premier Helen Zille's comments summarised

Repeated from Juliet Pitman at http://www.siliconcape.com/profiles/blogs/live-blogging-at-silicon-cape - thanks Juliet 12:15 Premier Helen Zille [I can't possibly do justice to the Premier's address so have simply transcribed parts of it here below to share it with others who couldn't be here. It was truly inspiring] "I do like to avoid cliches but I do have to say that when we look back in t… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on October 9, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Huddleminder hits the no1 bestselling spot on Amazon

A new book. 'Creating We', by Judith Glaser with a chapter contribution by Huddleminder… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on September 20, 2009 at 10:00pm — 1 Comment

"I sold my soul for a tenth of what the damn thing is worth now......"

Barry Schwartz's revitalising TEDtalk on wisdom, choice and re-moral-izing and re-morale-izing life set me up for a great day this morning...

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Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on September 17, 2009 at 8:00am — 4 Comments

Great blogging and website tips and advice

Great advice here for anyone interested in making a website work.... 100 sites with loads of ideas on writing, working freelance, being creative and positive, using web tools etc. And here's Tim Ferris, author of the 'Fo… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on August 8, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

See a preview of Google's WAVE coming communications platform here

Open source, maybe to replace email and consolidate social media....

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Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on August 6, 2009 at 7:30am — No Comments

Edu-energy changing lives for good

On those happy occasions when I actually get to the gym, I often wonder about all that sweat & eff… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on August 2, 2009 at 1:00am — 5 Comments

Our futures - ideas from the Dinokeng scenarios

According to the latest scenarios about South Africa produced by an energetic group of leaders and thinkers (no geeks included it seems) we face three possible futures - Walk Apart int a declining mess of social and national chaos, Walk Behind into a stagnant state with… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on July 10, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

The positive power of social networking to raise money

We at Huddlemind just created a learning platform for a 3-week leadership programme run by the Graduate School of Business UCT for SABMiller. During the programme, working with the platform to connect around the busy workshop and lecture schedule, the SAB participants raised an amazing R600,000 which they have given to the SA National Blood Service for 17 tents (and gave blood), to Amazing Grace… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on July 1, 2009 at 11:30am — No Comments

Green Geekonomics

Tired of the snowstorm of contradictory twaddle and skewed factoids about climate change? Want to know what really to do? Cambridge physicist David J.C.McKay has written a brilliant book called "Sustainable Energy - Without Hot Air" which you can buy in hard- or paperback - and also download free as a pdf. Love it... He delights in Simple and in getting a real perspective - "Every Big Helps" rather than every little helps. Like - the energy you… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on June 16, 2009 at 8:12am — 1 Comment

Hopeless? Hopeful?

We choose our levels of smarts and our levels of happiness it seems..... Here's a gen x video found on Presentation Zen with a quirky and hopeful twist that lightened up a late Sunday night for me...

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Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on April 19, 2009 at 11:08pm — No Comments

Politics 2.0 - America’s first digital president

Talking about elections and democracy this week... if you want to get a lift out of local politics for a moment - a new publication, Smart People Magazine has an interesting article talking about how social media is changing it all: "Web-based citizen empowerment can potentially strengthen liberal democracies and, more importantly, bring democracy to countries currently living under tyranny and despotism in its many fo… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on April 18, 2009 at 9:00pm — No Comments

How social networking and a 24-year-old won the US election

Barack Obama won the election in part by spectacularly successful use of social networking to mobilise millions of smaller donations and grass-roots support. He employed Chris Hughes, 24-year-old co-founder of Facebook to help. This graphic from Xplane explains all...

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Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on April 14, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Brilliant teachers

It's great to find brilliant teachers being recognised and becoming celebrities, even. Check out how Tim Rylands is using peaceful and beautiful games in ICT teaching to inspire creativity, engagement, fun and confidence in writing and performance. And Stephen Heppel's brilliance in ICT and media education, Te… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on January 12, 2009 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Ben Zander - what I got out of it, in brief

I immersed my self in Ben and Roz's work this week, attending two talks, a dinner, Roz's course, a 2030 Cape Town facilitation and two concerts. I wanted to learn what I could about music, speaking, facilitating, doing good work ...and in brief, I got these bits: Classical music - I loved Ben's ability to make this music be accessible to me, in a way that hadn't happened much before in my life. Especially the explanations of the pieces, of how the orchestra was coached, of seeing how much… Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on September 1, 2008 at 1:00pm — 2 Comments

Any NGO's that could use some free assist/consult from overseas MBA's?

Do you know any NGOs in the Cape Town/Western Cape are that might benefit from bit of free energy, emotional and intellectual resource from members of a mature MBA class from a leading international business school visiting in September ? Please leave names contact or contact me jon@fosterpedley.com or 082 925 0991 - THANKS! Continue

Added by Jon Foster-Pedley on May 28, 2008 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment