On my last trip to Tolmezzo I visited a ham factory in Sauris and made lots of pictures. One of this was choosen for the wikipedia article about Speck.

And this happens to me, who has no clue about photography

Aim of this project was to find a common agreement regarding the content of the methodology.
The suggested proposal was written by some partners of the group and focus on assessment centre as a tool for assessing strategical individual competencies. Also contained will be self assessment and, outgoing from the results, a plan for personal development will be suggested. All will be available on a CD, also for limited time on the project website.
My resume:
As different as our backgrounds and level of experiences as different are the approaches to test and develop strategical individual competencies. The result ais a common agreement, not really revolutionary, but not bad.
I know, there are no easy recipes and personal development is a difficult and never ending long way.
It is sometimes a walk on the edge to test soft skills and give pre-formatted suggestions for personal development.
Companies use such tests for a pre-selection out of a large number of applicants.
But more common are online test environments which simulates real working processes, or project related internships. Both tools, used for a longer period of time gives assessors and attendees a better possibility to recognize resp. show their competencies.
However, for some persons the test can be an impulse to thought about personal weaknessess and strenghts. In the wild forest of personal coaching methods are lots which promises fast results on an easy, mechanical way, but also some whith a real focus on personal development.
Each human being has it's own strategy to cope with it'S weaknessess and opportunities, by ignoring them, do not realizing them or giving responsibilities for own decisions and behaviour away. Just few wants to go the deeper inside to reveal reasons for and change behaviour.
We do not really always want to know what happens inside
C'est la vie!

Yesterday, early in the morning I started a long journey to Heraklion. I tooks me 18 hours to get there  from Barcelona, with three stops in between. Here we will have our fourth project meeting to develop the methodlogy to test and how to assess them.

It will be a strong working meeting, but this morning I had a bit time to go around in Heraklion.

A father passing by his son's bedroom, was astonished to see the bed nicely made, and everything was picked up. Then, he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, ' Dad .' With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.

Dear, Dad .
It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you.
I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you. I've been finding real passion with Stacy, and she is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her, because of all her piercing's, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.
But it's not only the passion, Dad . She's pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't, really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves, and trading it with the other people in the commune, for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.
In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS, so Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!
Don't worry Dad , I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself. Someday, I'm sure we'll be back to visit, so you can get to know your many grandchildren.
Love, your son, Joshua

P.S. Dad , none of the above is true. I'm over at Jason's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that's on the kitchen table.
Call when it is safe for me to come home

I am just back from a meeting to start a new European project.
It was a hard, intensive three days work because of many unexspected things. The application was written at the end of last year/beginning of 2007 and in between the world has been changed in terms of institutional conditions and objectives. Not all partners were able to sign the contracts and so me. At the moment I do not know what will happen with machm-it.org.
We still have a bit time to take a decision, would be great to continue our project work.

Once upon a time,  in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess, happened upon a frog as she sat contemplating ecological issues
on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the princess' lap and said: ' Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.

One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am and then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so.

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sautéed frog legs
seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself:

I don't fucking think so.

I have got the presentation Paul Jackson from Forrester research held on the Virtual Worlds Forum last week in London.

It's good summarization of categorization and users in virtual worlds.

short summary of the presentation someone from  riversrunred made:

• creating collaboration,
• design your communication environment
• think as vw as networks --> this is the added value
• go in slowly, understand it, casy study yourself
• control your brand

I just had an interesting session about the integration of mobile devices in virtual worlds.

Have a look at vodafone in SL. There you can take a mobile and phone and send SMS into real world and vice versa.

ironstar from Helsinki created MoiPal, something like a tamagocchi for playing in virtual worlds. Target group are kids.

Nice idea

conclusion first day:

virtual worlds will change our way of communication and work

• virtual worlds are mainly used for social interaction
• need of interfaces, standards to integrate business applications, secure payment systems and mobile devices
• universal avatars would be great
• tendency to closed worlds for communication networks in companies, open source solutions are preferred
• additional marketing tool for companies
• people use their avatars as a toy
• an avatar is always a substitute of the real human being behind and shows - wanted or not - wishes and unconscious behaviour

All in all a confirmation what I already know, but not to bad.