Finding a house

This weekend we are in Melbourne trying to find a house for the big move, which has been no easy feat. Due to most real estate agents only being open on Saturday we spent yesterday looking at 15 different houses between 10:30am and 2:30pm. Lucky we think might have found one.

Completing the application forms for the rental property is a major exercise, almost more references are required than to get a home loan! Oh well let’s hope we get accepted so we have somewhere to live at the end of the month!

UK blogger sacked (dooced)

From the Guardian in the UK is a story of Joe Gordon being dooced by his employer Waterstone for keeping a blog.

Joe was sacked on 6th Jan a week ago, so far he has been interviewed several times, discussion has raged over in the UK, he has had over 180 comments in the last week on his blog and people seem to be divided over the whole issue. Several people have been writing about the event in their blogs and it has been in Boing Boing, CNET News and many other news sources.

What is interesting is there seems to be some question over if his employer had a online policy, Joe seems to feel none was ever presented to him and if it was he would have ceased his actions.

Bearing in mind there is no specific policy on blogs etc, only a very vague ‘bringing the company into disrepute’ which could be interpreted in any way the company sees fit. I and the union offered to cease if it caused such offence and to accept a warning and suggested a clearer policy be issued to guide other staff in the future, but this was disregarded.

So now it seems that the unions in the UK are getting involved, so things might get very interesting.

I have written several times about this in the last few months, sadly the trend seems to be increasing rather than decreasing, this is the here and here) this week about the issue both of which are very informative.

I guess the best take away from all of the comes from the Sun guidelines, via Blog Your Way (Update 10/Aug/2006 – Blog Your Way does not seem to exist any more), Think About Consequences.

can 43 Things promote online learning?

Here is an interesting goal that I found on 43 Things, the comments provided me with some great “food for thought”. 43 Things is a “newish” social site where people create and share goals and experiences. A similar tool could be put to work within a corporate learning/mentoring environment or even objective planning. Thinking further about objectives, most organisations are trying to develop transparency and linkages between departments and management layers when it comes to objectives. A tool like 43 Things could assist in the alignment and cascading nature of objective setting. As people achieve their objectives entries can be made for all other interest parties to review and provide further feedback.

While the actual performance review might not take place in such an open environment the setting and achievement of objective could. Although there is a movement within HR that feels even performance reviews should be open and transparent.

Live slowly

I started thinking about this while we were at Jonah’sfor our wedding anniversary in November, they had a number of brochures in the room with a message essentially saying something like “relax quickly” or “live slowly”. This got me thinking about how we rush around so much and do not spend enough time reflecting on things. I sometime wish I could easily disappear for a remote beach in Fiji to reflect.

Today I found a post from Harold at Jarche Consulting that is talking about the same thing. Harold has decided to take “thinking longer” as a new year’s resolution, I think I might do the same and pop it into my 43 Things list. While I do feel having my brain connected to the world would be great, the ability to disconnect is very important. Otherwise when can we just sit and think?

iTunes music store in Australia?

Richard over at the Gadget lounge has an interesting lead (possibly the hottest yet) on the pending (I am hoping for a when not if) launch on iTunes music store in Australia. According to Des tomorrow Jan 12th is the announcement date, even if it is not and it is later in the month it will be fantastic!

More on Google riches

Angus Logan has a couple of interesting snippets on the wealth at Google. Following yesterday’s post on Googles potential hiring issues it all makes sense that they might be having a small hiring issue. I for one would probably find it difficult to work in the same cube as someone who has $1 million in stock options and I had none.