I have been watching the Olympics on the excerable Channel 7 in Australia. See some of the complaints here. So jingoistic is it, that if the heat does not include an Australian, the channel cuts to an Ad break (of which there are many) so you never find out who was in the heat as only the first three are registered on the screen as the event finishes.

But what are the lessons about learning?  I have noticed a few things:

• You might not get it right first time.  Even at Olympic standard, small errors are corrected in situ and minor improvements are made continuously.  Coaches take prodigious notes or shout instructions from the side-lines. And the athletes listen and act.
• Praise constantly.  Team sports are a mass of congratulation and little recrimination.
• Each outing is a new challenge and needs separate and unique preparation.  There is no such thing as a standard response.
• The best performers are focused totally on the job at hand.  Phelps comes out to a race with his iPod on, looking like he is in another world, staring intently at nothing in particular, and totally calm.
• They all readily acknowledge the hard work that has gone before, and the huge support they received. 
• Noone takes anything for granted.  It is all in the details.
• However good an individual is, he or she keeps and eye on the competition.  In the race itself they all appear acutely aware of the environment.
• They learn from each other.
  

I am slightly loathe to add to the volumes that have been written on the iPhone but I was reflecting today on why I like the beast so much, and that has a lot to do wiht how I use it.

I txt every day; use the internet a lot (83 mgbt download in the last month) and have Google Maps save my life on numerous occasions.  I use Google search on the run a lot, to find stuff, plus the phone is my calendar and my address book.  I check names and addresses as well as names and numbers.  Plus a bit of podcasting, a bit of calculating, coverting currencies, temperatures weights and more plus the time zones so i always know what time it is in San Francisco.  And then I use the 'Pocket Watch' function to have a big clock on my desk when I am working at home, and iSolitaire occasionally keeps me occupied on a train, tram or bus.  Did I mention that I use it as a phone as well.

So what makes it different?  For me, it is the fact that it is delivery agnostic.  The web works as well as the phone.  Using numbers to dial or click on a contact is as easy as making a favourite list or checking voicemail.  Therefore it works like i do.  It is not a phone that struggles with the internet or a computer that can make calls at a push.  And everything is one click off the home screen, using my clumsy, podgy fingers. A delight that has genuinely made my life easier and I have no intention of moving back to Blackberry or Nokia or even Palm.

I was at the KM Australia conference last week and one side-show was a list of 'trust behaviours' which delegates were asked to rank.  This all resulted in a blog posting by Shawn Callahan which you can read here.

Shawn came up with eight trust making behaviours and they were ranked in the order included here.  Two further ones were added by the delegates (including me!) These are the final two in the list

• Being open and honest about your intentions
• Looking after your colleagues when times are tough
• Consistently delivering good work
• Team members are involved in decision-making

  

• Being able to speak your mind in meetings
• Being generous with what you know
• Giving credit where credit is due
• Making promises and keeping them
• Being prepared to allow the group to come up with "your idea" rather than tell them how you believe it must be
• Creating an environment where positive feedback always comes first and participation is encouraged

This sent me scuttling back to Stephen MR Covey's excellent book, the Speed of Trust where he lists his thirteen behaviours for relationship trust:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

And then set up your Action Plan to see it all through. Covey's fit neatly into Shawn Callaghan's list. And both choose straight talking as the highest priority.  I can instantly think of examples from my own career where each and everyone was broken as standard corporate behaviour. I remember talking about 'trust' in the BBC (the first value -by the way-) and being told by someone: 'you must be out of your mind'.

There are interviews with Stephen here. Worth listening to one or two and you can take a personal trust test.

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has recently released a massive tomb (over 500 pages of text) called Education in a Digital World.  You can read about it here.  It has five parts:

Part 1: The Impact of Instructional Technologies
Part 2: Preparing Online Courses
Part 3: Implementing Technology
Part 4: E-learning in Action
Part 5: Engagement and Communication

And what is more, if you want to download it you can, for free.  The entire book is available or you can download the separate parts.  And what most impressed me was the fact that every chapter has a little synopisis and these are collected together in the first 5 pages of the book so you can check out out sections before deciding what, if anything, you want to download.  What a friendly, generous model. And this is a serious book written by a high-powered team from around the world and edited by Dr David G Harper of the University College of the Fraser Valley, Canada

My continuing saga about personal trainers for the brain got a little boost in the current edition of BOSS magazine.  An article supports the idea of keeping the brain mentally tuned and fit.  It cites Elkhonon Goldberg a professor of neurology at New York University who invites particpants to his Mind Gym for an hour three times a week for a customised programme of exercises. The article adds:

'Seeking out new challenges, particularly in areas very different from our everyday work activities, enhances creative thinking skills, taking us out of the established patterns that our brains slip into in daily work.'

The article adds that it is not just exercise but diet and calmness PLUS exercise gives your brain the best chance.  Could not agree more.  By the way it gives a web ref to mindtools for tests and exertcises.