30 Day Brainstorm Challenge – Day 29/30: Technology is Your Friend

I’m doubling up with Day 29 & 30 of our 30 Day Brainstorm Challenge – Technology is Your Friend!

Until, it isn’t. Due to some crazy weather out here in northern burbs of Illinois, my internet provider gave up the ghost. No amount of resetting my router was going to work. Which, just bites. There was the initial panic of not being able to access the internet on my laptop. Which, at first wasn’t really a biggie – I mean I still had a data plan for my phone and tablet. That is until I actually started to work…then it dawned on me, I depend on the internet for my work. A lot. Uh-oh.

This realization first hit when I went to create the post for this challenge a couple of days ago. A little background first, I have gone against practice when writing posts for this challenge. Usually, I write the post first in Evernote and copy it over. This gives me a back-up, you know, if WordPress ever explodes. However, doing this takes time – WordPress doesn’t quite like the formatting of Evernote documents so you have to play with it a bit to get the formatting to look right, and in the interest of time, I decided to write the posts directly within WordPress. Without getting into a lot of boring detail, trying to access this post and edit it on an iPad wasn’t working for me. Not to mention, my graphics program of choice Canva.com doesn’t play well with mobile devices. Strike 2. I didn’t feel like pushing the universe for a strike three, so I put off the post.

Then I decided to get some proposals written. Um, nope. My proposal program is in the cloud. How about getting some badly needed accounting done? Yep, cloud based too, but at least that program didn’t fight with my ipad, however it didn’t like my receipt scans. Grrrr, (cue head thunking on wall).

When in doubt, cupcakes.

Okay, deep breath. I decided to hit the kitchen and why not? So people, I present you with Lemon Meringue Cupcakes! Ta-da! Thank you Broma Bakery for the recipe!

cupcakes

Now that I had that out of my system, it was time to go back to work. Between my mobile devices and MS office, I did get some things accomplished. I revised my business plan – using good old fashioned Word. I discovered Google analytics had a mobile app, which I downloaded and buried myself in some research. Wrote a couple of conference proposals (again in word but I can copy it later). Created a rocking proposal using PowerPoint. The next thing I knew I was getting stuff done. My Skype was silent, no dings from twitter (phone on silent), and no pinging emails. The dogs and I ate tomatoes off the vines. Not sure if tomatoes are good for them, but hey…they seemed to enjoy the experience.

I lived to tell the story!

So, while I am all about the technology. This time, the universe forced a sabbatical – and you know what? I lived. Now, if this had continued for a third day – I might have freaked.the.heck out. But it didn’t, so no harm, no foul. What did I learn? That once I managed to clear my head of the barriers, I was able to refocus. In this case, my refocusing lead to some pretty nice achievements of things that I had been putting off. I knew I needed to get into Google Analytics more, but just the name analytics gave me twitches and what I learned was – it ain’t so bad, and actually kind of interesting. I’m thinking of posting the results of my research (but I digress!).

Anywho, I’ll be wrapping up the challenge in the next post, I have a lot of people to thank; but I wanted to share this last aha moment with everyone. There is always a silver lining. Oh, and technology is your friend…until it isn’t.

#LETSDOTHIS 


See the original 30 Day Brainstorm Challenge post here

See previous post: Day 28: Dust Just Do It! 

Check out the variety of participants and their challenge entries on the Learning Rebels Facebook page here


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Shannon Tipton

Shannon Tipton

As Owner of Learning Rebels, Shannon Tipton is a skilled learning strategist, content developer and International speaker. Shannon has over 20 years of leadership experience developing successful learning strategies and infrastructures for training departments within organizations in North America, Europe and Korea.

Shannon works with people and organizations to develop learning solutions that brings actual business results. Recognized as bringing real-world expertise into the learning field, Shannon integrates technologies and social learning tools to strengthen workplace alignment, enhance collaboration and increase learning connectivity.

As author of “Disruptive Learning” Shannon frequently speaking at conferences across North America and Europe and ranks as one of the top 100 L&D influencers on Twitter (@stipton).

2 thoughts on “30 Day Brainstorm Challenge – Day 29/30: Technology is Your Friend”

  1. Indeed! OMG, I love my work iPhone, it changed my relationship with work, my workplace data, and my workplace relationships. But there is a requirement to change my password frequently, and with the last change I can’t remember it – I almost never need it since my thumbprint suffices. Long and short, I locked it up and it reset completely. Now I have no access to my data. OMG.

    Anyway, tech is totally your friend, until it isn’t.

    Reply
    • I hate when that happpens! Why can’t the passwords connect all devices? When I reset a password on a program, I have to reset it on the same program on my phone and on my tablet. WHY??? I suppose the security Gods have an answer, but still frustrating.

      Tech is your friend…until it isn’t.

      Reply

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