What A Journey!

You have come such a long way, and created some beautiful art.

Well done for making it through this course of Applied Digital Skills for the 21st Century.  The goal of this course was to get you familiar with lots of the tools used in modern business practice.  This was not only using the time served apps, like Word Processing, and Spreadsheets, but also how to collaborate on documents, work in a distributed environment, and understand the connected nature of modern business applications.

This course was aimed at Level II+ Digital Skills, and I was aware that this can often be daunting as a prospect for many people.  This is why we started off nice and gentle by looking at a brief history of computing, computers and how they have impacted on our ability to access education, work, and opportunities.  I’ll attach a link to each slide deck as this document progresses.  https://files.nowo.co.uk/index.php/s/week1

What’s Inside The Box

Everything Is A Trick

I often get treated like I have some sort of superpowers because I know a few special keystrokes on a laptop, etc.  They are all shortcuts, or tricks, to get a better outcome, or faster, or easier to understand data.  It’s only a magic trick when you don’t know what the conjurer is doing.  When you look behind the velvet curtain, and see what is actually going on, you are faced with two emotions: either disappointment, or inspiration.  If we can learn how to apply those tricks to our lives, our business, our training, etc, we can develop those rare and valuable skills which will elevate ourselves to super human. We also looked at learning at a level that promotes “Flow!” Remember, around 5% above our actual ability is the sweet spot for learning.  Also, attach different methodology to your practice: because the more ways we learn, the more embedded that knowledge is.  Neurons that fire together wire together!  Week 2

Let’s Make A Budgeting App For Our Phone

Real, everyday practical skills that not only improve your life, but build your skills!

We used Google Forms to create a Data Collection application: that would help us better manage our money.  The goal was not merely to track our income and outgoings, but to help us get to grips with Data Literacy.  Collecting data is often where the errors/anomalies take place.  Designing “tidy” data collection in form is one of the most robust ways to collect data.  That data can then be collated into a spreadsheet.  Once that data is collected we can perform analysis to better understand the choices/decisions we make, identify any problems we might not have foreseen, and better plan for the future.

There are numerous resources available to learn spreadsheets.  The problem is, that if you are just learning it in an abstract way that doesn’t connect with your real life, and make changes to your decision making, story telling, etc, then you won’t use it, and/or gain the embedded knowledge needed for business solutions.

I would recommend Data Analysis courses too: so you see the relevance of collecting data, and how it improves decisions. This is quite a good one, but you choose one that suits you and your learning journey: https://www.codecademy.com/learn/paths/data-analyst

We then looked at Ideation and Innovation

We explored all the different, disruptive, business ideas.  

There are still lots of opportunities to make a splash out there with a good idea, but most importantly, a good plan.

Our Ideation sessions were brilliant: where everybody came up with great ideas.  Often our learned helplessness, or imposter syndrome, causes us to doubt our ideas as “silly,” or a “non-starter.”  However, when the hive mind thinks, and discusses, and documents, those ideas can quickly become a viable reality.

I’m sure you’ll all agree that the best thing about creating something out of  mere ideas, without funding, is achievable with the right knowledge, but most importantly, you are acquiring that rare and valuable knowledge while you are creating and working on your projects.

We looked at some useful tools for ideation like Mind Mapper, Minder, Balsamiq, etc, and then workflow with Trello, or Mattermost.

We provided solutions to most of these ideas, and lots of them can be hosted via the one platform: The Hug Club

There have been other wonderful solutions too.  With some people setting up, and getting to grips with e-commerce sites: fumi.nowo.co.uk and ezeh.nowo.co.uk - built on the Presta Shop Platform, numerous personal promotion websites (blogs) setup too.  This will help with self authoring, building confidence, and most importantly, the in demand job skill of web authoring.

We’ve also got The Rochdale Games Jam where all ages can play, create and learn games, but with an emphasis on promoting tech free gaming, especially for children.

The Public Transport issue was a difficult one to come up with an easily describable solution.  Protest might work?  

However, I think what everybody was crying out for, in our ideation session (the common theme), was the real need for community, community support and venues where people can congregate, create and share their life skills, stories, care and affection.

The Tools Of The Trade

We’ve already looked at some of the tools like spreadsheets, word processors, etc.  So we then moved on to more business front end utilities like marketing tools, customer (constituent) relational management programs, content management systems, and an overview of what they are capable of doing, as well as having your own to experiment with.  Here’s a little list:

https://create.vista.com/home/

https://www.adobe.com/express/create/logo

https://www.drupal.org/marketers

https://wordpress.com/

https://www.prestashop.com/en

https://suitecrm.com/

So, we’re all busy on our lifelong, (life changing) journeys, and remember as long as I live and breathe, I will be here to help you as best I can for evermore.

 

My contact details are:

Paul H. Woodhead - No Worries IT Ltd

paul@noworriesit.co.uk

Harehill House

Littleborough

Lancashire

OL15 9HF

Tel: 01706 378679

Mob:07791 385151

Book Mentions:

I know I mention lots of books in my presentations, and obviously I don’t expect you all to remember.  So, here’s a list:

 

Linchpin - Seth Godin

Anxiety Is Your Superpower - Dr Wendy Suzuki

Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Ph.D.

Stolen Focus - Johann Hari

Ego Is the Enemy - Ryan Holiday

Atomic Habits - James Clear

The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle

Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert T. Kiyosaki

This Is Marketing - Seth Godin

Turn the Ship Around! - L. David Marquet

The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

The Obstacle Is the Way - Ryan Holiday

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason

 

Plus many many more….. The only thing we all have that is equal is time.