Mid Life Crisis

 From Lord Of The Idiots

According to Dave Barry, the typical male goes through many lifestyle phases which can be easily mapped out according to the chart below:

AGE... PHASE.... INTERESTS

0-2 ......Infancy... .....Pooping
3-9 .......Innocence ....Guns
10-13 ....Awareness... Sex
14-20 ....Emancipation.... Sex
21-29 ....Empowerment.... Sex
30-39 .....Attainment..... Sex
40-65 ....MIDLIFE CRISIS OCCURS HERE
66-Death .....Contemplation.... Pooping

Novel teaching methods: The Bollywood flashmob

Here’s a fun way to get students interested in anthropology. Earlier this year, Alberto Gomes of Melbourne’s La Trobe University (who, as coincidence would have it, also came here to Max Planck to give a lecture last year) embedded a flashmob of Bollywood-style dancers in his introductory anthropology lecture. It’s worth watching to the end, when the entire lecture hall gets up to perform the dance moves.

The Growth and Future of Business Anthropology

Anthropology: What Is It?

Anthro Links

Big List Here 

A list of top 25 Anthropology blogs by Blog Rank

Few more below

Throwing Yogurt: what if the only ammo was Greek?

 ......Why couldn't we just throw yogurt? In the anthropology of possibilities, wouldn't we all be better off to emulate the Greeks at their protests earlier this month? I mean we are more than happy to reinvent the gifts of the Greeks in every "Western Civ" class that I have ever encountered. And we loved the hell out of them in "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding". Plus, I understand that Greek yogurt sales are way up in America over the past two years. The package pictured above was purchased at our new Whole Foods with a dollar off coupon....see, we can get it on sale and it might even be cheaper than that other kind of ammo. And...it washes out.

What would it take us to "go Greek"?

http://teachinganthropology.blogspot.com/2011/07/throwing-yogurt-what-if-only-ammo-was.html

Top 10 Providers Of Free Online Training

From e-Learning

1. How to Create a Cartoon in After Effects: Excellent  and detailed tutorial showing how you can create funny and semi-complex cartoons using Adobe After Effects.
2. CBTcafe.com: Some great free training demonstrations. They also resell inexpensive e-Learning tutorials.
3. GCF Learn Free Organization: GCFLearnFree.org® is supported by the Goodwill Community Foundation, Inc.
4. Free Microsoft Office  Online Training Courses (by Microsoft): Courses developed and offered by Microsoft.
5. Small Business Association (government): SBA is dedicated to helping you and your small business succeed. There are a variety of online trainings which cover many business topics for you to learn.
6. Free Online Conversvation Training: Learn more about this facinating subject. This conservation training is an online course system focused on conservation-based training, created and maintained by the Nature Conservancy in partnership with other conservation organizations.
7. Lynda: A popular provider of e-Learning covering a wide range of areas
8. Free OSHA Training: OSHAcademy online safety and health training is endorsed by theNational Safety Management Society and approved for the accredited Associate Safety Health Manager (ASHM) certification through the Institute for Safety and Health Management. We provide free online safety courses and low cost certificate programs. We also conduct training throughout the world by independent Authorized Trainers.
9. Free Training Power: TrainingPower is committed to connecting individuals and companies to valuable free resources, getting them started with long-term training initiatives. TrainingPower has added valuable usability and effectiveness functions to free government-published content and is offering a selection of free courses to workers, trainers and employers on its FreeTrainingPower.com web site.
10. Online First-Aid Training: Everyone who loves someone should know first-aid. Do you and your fellow employees need or want first-aid training? Try this great free resource.
11. Free Online Safety Training: Offering a wide range of free and fee-based online Safety courses.
12. eLearning Center

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Gen Y and Customer Service:

Gen Y, the Millennials, Young Un's whatever you want to call them are your youngest employees. The oldest ones turned 30 in 2010 (I wish I turned 30 in 2010!). And some of them just might need a little help in the people skills department. Now, let's not stereotype an entire generation, but let's not ignore what obsessive use of technology can do. If you grow up communicating primarily via text and e-mail, how can you master crazy skills like making eye contact? After all, you haven't looked anybody in the eye since that mean man at the hospital spanked you into existence. It doesn't even occur to you that texting at work is inappropriate you've been doing it at the dinner table for years.

Most of the workforce consists of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, and depending on what business you're in, probably most of your customers as well. These people expect their co-workers and the people who serve them to have some people skills. If you are a manager, it is up to you to make sure your youngest employees have these skills.

Read more »

Why People Hate Training

Why People Hate Training By Denise D. Ryan

Commentary: Well, do people really hate training? I don't know. I suspect the author is tilting at straw men to mix metaphors, but, this article contains some useful hints about how to get better results from seminars.
Most employees view training as medicine or worse, as punishment. As an outside trainer, I work with hundreds of groups in a wide variety of industries and most people enter the training room as if they are going to the gas chamber. They might not expect death, but clearly some horrible form of torture. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are few and far between. Why is this and what can we do about it?

Cognitive Anthropology

Cognitive anthropology expands the examination of human thinking to consider how thought works in different cultural settings. The study of mind should obviously not be restricted to how English speakers think but should consider possible differences in modes of thinking across cultures. Cognitive science is becoming increasingly aware of the need to view the operations of mind in particular physical and social environments. For cultural anthropologists, the main method is ethnography, which requires living and interacting with members of a culture to a sufficient extent that their social and cognitive systems become apparent. Cognitive anthropologists have investigated, for example, the similarities and differences across cultures in words for colors.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/#Ima

Cognitive Science & Learning

By na - Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. 


Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computationalprocedures. 


Its organizational origins are in the mid-1970s when the Cognitive Science Society was formed and the journal Cognitive Science began. 
Since then, more than seventy universities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia have established cognitive science programs, and many others have instituted courses in cognitive science


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/

Evaluating Cognitive Training Outcomes: Validity and Utility of Structural Knowledge Assessment

By Journal of Business and Psychology, Volume 18, Number 2 - Conventional approaches to evaluating cognitive outcomes of training typically use paper-and-pencil tests that emphasize gains or differences in declarative knowledge. Yet a key factor in differentiating expert and novice performance is the way individuals organize their knowledge. Accordingly, the acquisition of meaningful knowledge structures and methods of assessing structural knowledge are potentially important issues for designing and evaluating training programs. Two studies were conducted to examine the validity and utility of one structural assessment technique called Pathfinder (Schvaneveldt, Durso, & Dearholt, 1989). Results from academic and organizational samples indicated that Pathfinder measures of structural knowledge quality predicted individual differences in performance self-efficacy. After controlling for differences in declarative knowledge, measures of structural knowledge quality added to the prediction of performance self-efficacy in the student sample, but not in the organizational sample. The unique features and potential advantages of structural assessment for training evaluation are discussed. 

Use this process to create a training knowledge base

By Lauri Elliot - A knowledge base can be a highly effective, inexpensive tool when traditional user training isn't an option. Here's a case study from an IT consultant and trainer that will teach you how to create and manage a training knowledge base.

Classroom Presentation Checklist

By na - A basic evaluation type checklist for classroom presentations that contains 16 items. Can be used in a number of ways, but we include it here to be used as a basis for customizing.