The Hub and Spoke!

The IT Skeptic writes in Great paper on failure of complex systems : " It is not often you read something that completely changes the way you look at IT. This paper How Complex Systems Fail rocked me. " The paper is indeed brilliant and a worthy read.  The author Richard Cook is a medical doctor and his other papers are available here .

Planning - clear purpose of conference, understand deliverables, determine number and length of sessions, agree on content, technical pre-setup. Documentation - ISDN numbers, names of sites, names of participants, mobile phone numbers of participants for backup, technical troubleshooting: Sound, video, dial tones, feedback, batteries and cameras, address book. Session protocol - introductions and formalities (location, time, weather), focus of conference and procedural information (muting), talk naturally, at an even pace, with expression and clarity (emphasize pitch, tone, volume pausing and pacing), remember that an animated, energetic, enthusiastic presence is critical when motivating, holding attention and emphasizing points, Look at the camera, not the screen, share tasks across the sites and encourage participation, do not talk for more than 30 minutes without a break, after the session email participants, thanking them for their participation and include opinions and issues

Read the special edition of Life magazine's Apollo 11 report, here .

The good olde days of Netware and DOS.  Perform3 - brings a tear to this oupa. View the video here .

Kate Godfrey writes in an email: " As I was recently rummaging through the lab for a token ring type 1 cable for some industrial art I decided to make we had a ''fascinating conversation'' for which we had no conclusion. Do you remember a sort of square box which had around 4 type 1 connections and one in the middle to stack to another one of the boxes. So you could sort of chain together a TR network without a hub. Any idea what that was called? " Anyone recall what the thingy majigy was called.   I think it might have been something like a four-port hub???