Author: Dr. Donna Murdoch

Adult Learners. Lifelong Learning and Relevancy. Opinions are my own.
Donna Murdoch, Startups

Why Your Company Needs To Measure Employee Engagement

We measure and assess so many things – seems employee engagement would be necessary.  Employers, especially of early stage companies, are often too busy to notice things….until the job doesn’t get done.  These ideas about how to measure employee engagement, from TNW, are helpful.   “There are many facets to being engaged at work, these are a few sentiments commonly measured by teams looking to make sense of their people data. Your employee engagement level is simply a yardstick for how emotionally motivated, committed, and connected people are to their work.”

via Why Your Company Needs To Measure Employee Engagement.

Digital Puglishing, Donna Murdoch, Tech Hardware, Tech Software

How to learn to play piano with a little help from your iPad

Who would have thought there would come a day where you could really learn to play an instrument without an instructor.  There’ve been YouTube videos and other ways to learn online, but this is a hands on method that looks promising.  From GigaOm.  “There are aspects about learning to play piano where the iPad can help, and there are others where it can hurt. The following will look at both sides and hopefully make learning a bit easier.”

via How to learn to play piano with a little help from your iPad — Tech News and Analysis.

Digital Puglishing, Donna Murdoch

Flickr to Lose Facebook and Google Sign-In After June 30

Hope IFTTT gets to work on a recipe for this fast – this might be a problem for many.  “Yahoo earlier this year announced plans to phase out Google- and Facebook-based sign-in from its services. The feature was initially removed from a sports service and now it is Flickr’s turn, after Yahoo emailed users of the photo site with notice that Google and Facebook IDs will no longer be accepted there after June 30.”

via Flickr to Lose Facebook and Google Sign-In After June 30.

Digital Puglishing, Donna Murdoch, Tech Software

The 18 Most Important Features in iOS 8

I missed watching the stream of the conference, and at first it didn’t seem like anything terrific was announced.  The more I read, the more I am excited for some of the new functionality with both Yosemite and iOS8.   From Mashable.   “This year’s conference has had its share of surprises, and it’s little wonder devs are salivating: Apple is allowing more flexibility about what developers can grow within its walled garden. For the first time, third-party onscreen keyboards will be welcomed in iOS 8, widgets are coming to the notification center, and media apps will have greater access to the device’s camera. Apple even debuted its own programming language, Swift, which got some of the loudest cheers during Monday’s keynote.”

via The 18 Most Important Features in iOS 8.

Donna Murdoch, Tech Hardware

Wearable Computing is Not Calm Technology, Yet

The Big Think discusses Wearables, and the article hit the nail on the head for me.  They are not transparent – they are constant work.  They are “more a flashback of your worst Tamogotchi nightmare.”  Technology really should only require our attention when necessary, and wearables are certainly not what the article calls a “Calm Technology.”   “Wearables only work if you keep wearing them, and studies have found that most people don’t. Half of American adults who own an activity tracker no longer use it, and one third who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. Obviously the reality of wearable computing isn’t as compelling as its promise.”

via Wearable Computing is Not Calm Technology, Yet | Capitally | Big Think.

Donna Murdoch, Tech Hardware, Tech Software

How the Internet of Things Will Change Business

Ubiquitous technology is here, and it is not confined to computers and smartphones.  Prices of radio chips are falling, and its getting possible and affordable to connect things in every day life.  Sewer pipes, trash cans, HVAC.  Has it gone too far, or are we just beginning?  MIT Technology review sees both sides of the emergence of everyday and workplace Internet of Things.  “The technology industry is preparing for the Internet of things, a type of computing characterized by small, often dumb, usually unseen computers attached to objects. These devices sense and transmit data about the environment or offer new means of controlling it.”

via How the Internet of Things Will Change Business | MIT Technology Review.

Donna Murdoch, Future

California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September

Didn’t realize we’d already come so far.  I can’t quite imagine this on the East Coast, but it will be interesting to see.  From TechCrunch.  “Come September, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin granting licenses to select driverless cars and their human co-pilots, which will make it a bit less legally iffy as to whether or not they’re actually allowed to be on a public road.”

via California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September | TechCrunch.

Digital Puglishing, Tech Software

How Smartphones Will Wreck Your Weekend Plans

Many can identify with this – the way plans are made/not made and broken now that we do everything with phones.  From Mashable.  “The video shows how easily one plan can bleed into another, and identifies three kinds of flaky texters: latecomers (who are perpetually “10 minutes away”), no-shows (who ultimately want to reschedule) and optimizers (who try to wheedle information about an event from the person suggesting it, to determine whether it’s worth their precious free time).”

via How Smartphones Will Wreck Your Weekend Plans.