Photos – The Falls at Niagara.

Piloting Our Collaborations Platform. John Zeus demonstrates the integration of Smartboard, Enterprise Wiki, Distance Learning Strategy via Webinar at a local YMCA.

Notes

Our Collaboration Platform provides an easy and secure, web-based, content creation and management platform designed to be used anywhere, any time. The system empowers contributors to create attractive documents with rich content including images, links, media and more. With Instant publishing out goes the single gatekeeper and in grows a thriving collaborative community. Each workspace has its own designated editor(s) and its own security settings. Fine-grained, flexible permission schemes guarantee that only the right people can view, contribute or publish content. Our Platform allows stakeholders to manage day-to-day operations by enabling users to track, organize and manage their activities, while providing one central location to manage intellectual assets. The solution includes social collaboration tools with wiki’s, blogs and an informational dashboard that displays what team members are working on and contributing to. As a result, team members can easily find relevant content, communicate with experts, look at past or similar projects, and keep on top of any relevant content changes.

The idea is that there can exist a simple, easy-to-navigate and easy-to-participate in, on-line portal that gives a wide variety of audiences (Youth, Administrators, Funders, Partners, Facilitators, etc.) the opportunity to view, share, create or find information related to their particular “level” of interest.

Our platform organizes these disparate groups into logical communities of interest, and provides “snapshot” views of happenings across a host of activities; including Internships, Essential Skills Development, news, events and much more. Users will have the ability to create new content, establish a simple profile, and engage in collaborative discussions or “sharing.”

• For the busy CEO or manager? Our ‘community of practice’ serves as a “collaborative news portal”—giving thumbnails and snapshots of activity across the the organizations spectrum. (a single website to use…to know “what’s going on” without having to become mired in the details)
• For the Administrator or Facilitator? Our ‘network of networks’ is a way to connect and collaborate with other department  locations and personnel—and to share success stories and deeper program information by utilizing links to deeper information housed on the wiki and other sources.
• For Youth and program participants?  With ‘shared leadership’ ‘knowledge production and transfer’  we serve as a sort of social network revolving specifically around the organizations programs, activities and success stories nationwide.  As members we definitely see that we are not alone in our endeavours!

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Some Brandmarks can hold a lot of information about the brand, all you have to do is look at the clues within the image. This is a small sampling of a few to get you started.

Used to be the emblem for the Milwaukee Brewers. Baseball glove forms an “M” and a “B”. Logo was designed by a college art student.

Smiley face is also a “g” like in “goodwill”.

See the gorilla and lioness ?

Northwest Airlines. Circle is a compass. Guess which direction the arrow in upper left corner (or beginning of “W”) is pointing ?

There is a bear if you look closely at image of Matterhorn. Toblerone chocolate bars originated in Berne, Switzerland whose symbol is the bear.

There is a sideways chocolate kiss between “K” and “I”.

Arrow probably means Amazon has everything from A to Z ?

Do you see the arrow between the second “E” and “x” ?? I had never noticed this before.

Probably the world’s most famous bike race. The “R” in “Tour” is a cyclist – yellow circle front wheel of bicycle.

2nd and 3rd “t’s” are two people sharing a tortilla over a bowl of salsa.

It was a dark foggy misty afternoon in Vancouver. I was done with my meetings and had the remainder of the afternoon off. Wanting to connect with the synergy of this beautiful place I hiked up to Grouse Mountain. After a while there was a clearing in the fog, to my surprise I had stumbled upon a habitat for orphaned Grizzly bears.  Click on a thumbnail to access the gallery, enjoy the photos…

• Jellyfish Photos – Vancouver Aquarium.

This is my favourite wiki introduction video. I find it works great in learning webinars when coaching an organization on user adoption or fostering communities of practice.
View it to stimulate discussion and make sure to debrief the opportunities of using wikis instead of email.

• Wikis In Plain English – on YouTube

I had an opportunity to meet Leah at a mentor appreciation event at Robert Lee YMCA in Vancouver. Her passion and enthusiasm for mentoring and building her community was contagious.

Success Story

Excerpts adapted from:  An Opportunity For A New Direction – Intern, Leah A. … read more

I WANT TO STUDY INUIT CULTURES SO THAT I CAN HELP MY PEOPLE EVEN MORE. THIS INTERNSHIP SHOWED ME JUST HOW POSSIBLE MY DREAMS ARE IF I’M JUST WILLING TO WORK HARD.

For intern Leah A., finding a new direction in life was as simple as reading a bulletin board. A FPSYIP posting caught her eye one day while working at a child care center in 2009, starting her on a path that lead to her current position as a medical billings officer for the Government of Nunavut.