Bramley Famli » Stuff

I’d pick more daisies, be thrown out of more places, have different friends

Barrie — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 06:40:52 +0000

Nadine Stair. From Louisville, Kentucky, USA. That’s about all I could find out on Google. I stopped at 5 pages of search. Even tried Wikipedia. Nothing that I could see. But she’s responsible for a poem that’s lived with me for a long time now. A poem I find very difficult to live with. ‘I’d pick more daisies’.

It’s a beautiful piece of wisdom. Someone nearing the end of this journey called life, looks back and leaves some wisdom for people like me.

I say it’s difficult to live with, because I’d have to change some of who I am. Not all, just some. And if I did, what might happen? The poem calls for a little more of a care-free existence. A little looser around the edges. A little more irreverence. If I’m honest all of that gets my engines revving, and I know some people who’d suggest I live like that already. But what if I released the mechanisms that I have in place to make me more socially, business, family and friend acceptable?

And Nadine Stair has explored this question better than I. She knows the answer. And she has some pointers to get there:

If I had my life to live over,
I’d try to make more mistakes next time.
I would relax. I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have on this trip.
I would be crazier. I would be less hygienic.
I would take more chances, I would take more trips.
I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets.
I would burn more gasoline. I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I have had my moments
And if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.
Just moments,one after another.
Instead of living so many years ahead each day.
I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, and a parachute.

If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things.
I’d travel lighter than I have.
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefooted earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.
I would play hooky more. I wouldn’t make such good grades except by accident.
I would ride on merry-go-rounds.

I’d pick more daisies!

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The challenge of multiple communication channels

Barrie — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:57:34 +0000

One of the challenges the internet has created is an unthinkable number of channels through which to broadcast. Of course none of us make use of every channel, but there is always someone using a channel we’re not. And so if you want to communicate to them the days of taking the attitude of ‘you just come to us’ is over. Chances are, because they’re not engaging with your channel is that they don’t even know about you. And so if you want to find them, you’ve got to insert yourself into their space. It doesn’t end there, because each channel requires a different format for your content. You don’t just write an article or record a podcast and hope it translates easily into each space. No! You’ve got to take whatever you start with and continually adjust it to whatever context you’re going to post it to.

And if you’re like me, then you’ve got a headache just thinking about the ‘how’ of taking your message to as many platforms as possible. What I have learned is that the ability to do this is getting easier and easier (in terms of tools available), and the more I learn about new channels the more competent I feel and become in my distribution efforts.

With that as a pre-amble, let me tell you about my latest adventure….

I took the e-zine article (Five Practical Steps to Retain Talent) that I produce for TomorrowToday each month (it gets sent to around 11 000 people via e-mail), posted it onto our blog, built a short presentation and built a video PodCast. The video file was then uploaded to iTunes and YouTube.

I don’t know if this sounds like a lot to you? It exhausted me. Took me 1.5 days to work it all out, learn new skills and get it all to a place I was reasonably happy with. Of course next time around it’ll take far less time and in my experience always better quality.

Here’s the video below from YouTube.

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DotBall finally gets recognition

Barrie — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:05:08 +0000

Here’s an article (DotBall gets recognition) from The Times of India dated 10 Feb 2003. Brought back some nice memories as I read it. Of course doesn’t hurt that my name is mentioned : )

The dot ball development is the brainchild of two South African cricket fans from Durban, Roger Scholtz and Barrie Bramley, who latched on to its importance last year and shared their idea with CWC 2003.

You can learn more about DotBall from at least these few spots:

DotBall Official Website – www.dotball.com
Follow DotBall on Twitter – www.twitter.com/dotballt20
Visit DotBall on FaceBook – www.facebook.com/DotballT20
Download DotBall Mobile Phone game – www.dotball.com

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Barrie in the News

Barrie — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:56:30 +0000

A couple of months ago I was interviewed for Izimvo, a great web site dedicated to interviewing South Africans, or in their own words, ‘Interviewing South Africa‘. It does rate as one of my favourite interviews from an interviewee perspective. The questions were well thought through, and I had to work hard to get through the list they sent me.

Last week my interview with Izimvo was selected for ‘Global SA 2010 – Careers in Africa Recruitment Summit‘, in ‘The South African‘ which is a publication providing news for Global South Africans (living in the broader UK).

The South African is the online portal for South Africans living and working in London and the broader UK. The website is updated throughout the day with news relevant to the South African community abroad. The website hosts a comprehensive list of events, from business networking opportunities to music festivals, as well as travel news, sport, UK lifestyle articles and photo galleries.

The free weekly newspaper is available on the streets of London on Tuesday mornings and is distributed at specific locations around the UK. The newspaper targets young professionals and expatriates living in the UK and but includes content relevant to travellers and backpackers.

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T20 may kill Cricket Tests

Barrie — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:40:47 +0000

I have an interest in Cricket. It’s been a long road of interest for a guy who isn’t a cricket nut in any way shape or form. But I do know a great idea, especially when I’m a large part of it. One day I hope to tell the full successful story of how I’m involved. For now, it’s darn hard work.

T20 has revolutionised cricket. It’s placed cricket firmly in the space of ‘Extreme-Sport’. It still lacks the regular possibility of death : ) but for shear excitement and action it’s a darn good attempt. So it’s little wonder that this article (Twenty20 could kill tests) had my attention. It’s a worthwhile read if you’re interested in cricket in any way shape or form. Especially if you spend any time wondering where it’s all headed?

“I consider myself optimistic, but it isn’t difficult to look ahead and see the pessimists’ apocalyptic version of the future of the game – where Tests are virtually redundant, Twenty20 saturates and players are globe-trotting mercenaries.”

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Radical Parenting

Barrie — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:00:50 +0000

Found this website, Radical Parenting, this morning following up some Twitter feeds.

Looks like a differently put together web site for parents in that you’ve got mostly, as far as I can see, teens writing. So it’s not an adult to adult site, it’s a teen to parent site. Very nice concept.

Seems to have had some good coverage and one of the articles I read was worth the read.

Go here if you want more.

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Sleep Cycle iPhone app could be a winner

Barrie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:48:58 +0000

Yesterday while browsing the iTunes App store I came across a little beauty called ‘Sleep Cycle’. Read a review here. Cost me around R10, and it very cleverly ‘apparently’ monitors your sleep pattern and then sets the alarm off somewhere during the last 30 minutes of your sleep, during that sleep period where you’re in your most awake state.

How it does it is with the iPhone’s accelerometer. You place your iPhone under your sheets near the top of your bed, and as you move during the evening, this app picks up that movement and tracks what depth of sleep you’re in. As you get 30 minutes away from your wake up time, it chooses a ‘light sleep’ moment to set the alarm off. It threfore saves you from waking up as a grizzly bear because you had to get up in a ‘deep sleep’ zone.

Very kewl idea and concept. Who couldn’t do with one of these? However, we tried it on Leish last night and it didn’t work. it did pick up that she got out of bed during the night to check on the girls but other than that nada.

We haven’t given up, the jury’s out and we’ll give it another bash tonight. One tiny kewl feature, and you wonder why other digital alarm clocks don’t do this – is that it keeps a record of your sleep volume. So once you activate it, to when you wake up is stored and you get to build a history of your sleep over a week, month, etc.

As soon as we have more I’ll comment on this post. While I was reading up on the app, I found this slightly related cartoon that I thought worth adding in : )

Click here to go to Sleep Cycle App Web Page

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Being an expert – what does it take?

Barrie — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:53:01 +0000

My coleague Graeme Codrington sent me a mail link via Twitter today that discusses the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. It’s a nice punchy overview of the 5-steps towards being an expert (starting as a novice) Well worth the read.

By looking at the five levels from a higher altitude, we can distill some common themes that emerge as one progresses from novice to expert:

Moving away from relying on rules and explicit knowledge to intuition and pattern matching.

Better filtering, where problems are no longer a big collection of data but a complete and unique whole where some bits are much more relevant than others.

Moving from being a detached observer of the problem to an involved part of the system itself, accepting responsibility for results, not just for carrying out tasks.

As I read it, it reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, where one of his chapters is dedicated to the concept of putting in 10 000 hours in order to be a world expert at something. It’s not 10 000 hours doing the same thing. I imagine that simply makes you an expert at monotony. It’s 10 000 hours of growth, development, stretch, etc, etc. 10 000 hours roughly translates to 4 hours every day, 5 days per week for 10 years. When you think, expecially, of sports champions, it does give some insight and perspective to the sort of investment they’re put in to get them where they are today.

I managed to get the PodCast of Gladwell being interviewed on 702. Follow this link to listen to the 10 000 hours exert.

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Fixed by what’s right with you

Barrie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:50:18 +0000

Maybe there was never anything wrong with you, that can’t be fixed by what’s right with you! No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

How to run Barefoot

Barrie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:37:46 +0000

Here’s an interview with Christopher McDougall, author of ‘Born to Run’ talking about running barefoot, the evil hiding in shoes and showing how to do it.

CNN Interviews Christopher McDougall about his best selling book, Born to Run

I’m inspired to see if all this barefoot running talk will stop my knee injury?

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