Girl Geeks negotiation workshop

I'm in Stirling this weekend for the final in this series of Girl Geeks workshops, looking at negotiation skills. It's been good fun so far, catching up with friends and talking national stereotypes. Bed time now, though - planning to make it to the gym in the morning!

Update on Monday, November 22, 2010 at 8:13AM by Gillian Law

Fabulous women, as ever, great networking and some brilliant help with my own plans.

I found this one slower than the previous event, a bit too much sitting round and discussing things. But I wonder if it's simply that I don't really find negotiation very hard - I'm pretty good at it, even! So maybe lots of what we covered was more useful to other people. I did learn some useful things, and it was a great weekend overall. An expensive one, in that I now want an iPad... 

Norfolk County Council goes to the cloud

This seems worth linking to - an article I've just written for Digital Systems KTN about Norfolk County Council's use of cloud in its education services.

Spot on

Good to see Zuckerberg's listening to me ... a combined messaging service it is.

Facebook email

There's lots of speculation about what Facebook's going to announce later today - will it be a fully fledged webmail system? Or are they just revamping their message system? Something else entirely? Whatever it is, it apparently has Google, Yahoo and Hotmail feeling nervous.

If it is a full-on but standard email system, then who does it really threaten? I'm sure it will take some of Google's customers, but there's a credibility difference between giving out a Google and a Facebook address. Maybe Hotmail and Yahoo users will be more likely to shift, but there's an inertia about changing email address that will take some shifting.

Where I do think it could work is if Facebook creates an interface for several types of messaging - its current mail system is great for chatting with a group, for instance - far better than email. And then other types of message are shifting to Twitter - could that be brought in? Together with Facebook's IM system, you could create quite a nice little message centre. 

I'll blow this site sky high...

Like a lot of people I'm pretty gobsmacked - and alarmed - by the fact Paul Chambers lost his appeal over his silly tweet about blowing up Robin Hood airport.*

We all know, from stories in the papers, that it's not a wise thing to make a joke about having a bomb in your bag when you go through customs at an airport. The way customs officers will react in that situation is stupid too, in my opinion - but we've come to know that they'll react like automatons in that instance and so you just don't do it.

But - that's during one or two minutes as you check in and out of a flight. Even if you fly every week, it's a small, limited time when you know the world's slightly nuts and so you just keep your mouth shut.

But now... What now? If a stupid joke can be blown out of all proportion on twitter, presumably Facebook's the same? This blog? A comment to my pal as I walk down the street? Seriously, what's the difference - if someone overhears me and is alarmed ... holy mackerel, we're in a mess.

I'm probably naive in hoping that the outcry over this will make a difference - I thought the judge would see sense, too, so what do I know? But we have to make a fuss about this or we're all in big trouble.

*And by the arrest of a Tory councillor for another stupid tweet on the very same day. A more obnoxious one, but still a stupid, throwaway comment.