the importance of a network

last week I had the pleasure of discovering first hand the importance of a professional network.

During the new hire class I was teaching last week, one of the students had to miss a day of class because of a medical emergency. This student returned to class the following day. I knew that the students are allowed to miss less than 4 hours of class before they are rescheduled to attend another, however I didn't have anything in writing to confirm what I knew. When one is dealing with the federal government EVERYTHING has to be in writing .

Remembering the instructors have a sharepoint site to exchange information, I proceeded to look there with no success. After that, I emailed my STI ( security training instructor) contact list ( I have over 50 instructors in my sti group contact list. Many verified that I was correct, but no one knew where it was written.

Next (and my final step) I got in touch with our resident QA person who has many contacts at HQ in DC. Within 2 hours of the intial call to her she had not only found the person, but also had a copy of the directive emailed to me. I was able to submit my recommendation to place this student a a new class along with the proper documentation. I also emailed my contacts and posted a copy to our sharepoint site.

Whats really cool about networks is not who you know, but who the people in your network know.

Let Us Not Forget

I had the pleasure of being a volunteer for the Harlem Book Fair this past weekend. There were people, panel discussions, workshops and of course books, books, and more books!



All of this got me to thinking about all the the social media that has helped keep us connected with one another-facebook, twitter to name a few and all the electronic media that is now available. It is no longer necessary to hold a book in ones hand, we can read them from our laptops, book reader, and in some cases our mobile phones.



I have become more tech savy in the last few months than I have been in the last year and while I am proud of that, I must admit being around all those people sharing and connecting on a phyiscal and spiritual level, feeling the positive energy that surrounding the event, holding a book in my hands and being able to leaf through it is a feeling that technolgy cannot replace.



I am all for technology,but I think we have to realize and remember that technolgy cannot and will not replace good old fashioned phyiscal contact and interaction with people and boos.

How Do you teach passion and enthusiam?

Its been a long week and its only Tuesday.Yikes!!!! I found out that I was training another class starting next week.I LOVE doing these this classes. I love what i do and I believe ( and I've been told) that it shows when I am in front of a class.

Whats fustrating though is sometimes I am paired with other instructors who don't share the same passion and enthusiam that I have for training. Their attitude is very is uncaring and unempathetic. Some of them are instructors because they don't want to work in the field ( I can't say I blame them). However our quality assessments don't measure passion and entthusiam they measure delivery and professionalism. To be truthful several of them make watching paint dry more exciting.

How do you develop passion and enthusiam if its not there?

informal teaching and learning in a tattoo parlor

I decided this weekend to get my third tattoo.

I went into the tattoo parlor and looked through the various pictures. I was looking for something small to put on the top left side of my back. I decided to get a butterfly with hearts. I proceeded to the back where I was greeted by William, my tattoo artist. After explaining what he was going to do, he asked if I had any questions and I said no because I am familiar with the procedure. ( I already have 2)

A few minutes later as he was tattooing me we started talking about dreadlocks since we both have them. Mine are almost to my waist and his were about the same. He asked who does my hair and I explained to him that I maintain my own hair. He complimented me on how good they looked and wanted to know how to twist them since he always had them done in the barber shop.

As I tried to explain the procedure that I use to him, I could see in the mirror that he didn't quite get what I was saying. So I told him, when you finish the tattoo I would show you.

When he finished, I sat him in the chair he used for me and proceeded to show him how I do my hair by twisting a few of his locks. It was quite a sight actually because in the middle of a tattoo parlor I was giving a haircare lesson.

After I finished, he admired his newly twisted locs and thanked me for showing him how to do it. As I was leaving the shop, he gave me back half the money I paid for the tattoo.

You never know where you will be teaching.