Targeting Public Speaking Skills via Virtual Environments

Recently I shared an a-ha! moment on the use of virtual environments for confronting the fear of public speaking.

The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to claim that the real value of such technology is in targeted skills development.

Once again, I’ll use myself as an example here to make my point.

If I think back to my earliest attempts at public speaking as a graduate student, I’d claim that I did a reasonable job of delivering my presentation. And given that the content of my presentation was likely vetted with my research peers (fellow graduate students) and supervisor ahead of time, this left me with a targeted opportunity for improvement: The Q&A session.

Countless times I can recall having a brilliant answer to a question long after my presentation was finished – e.g., on my way home from the event. Not very useful … and exceedingly frustrating.

I would also assert that this lag, between question and appropriate answer, had a whole lot less to do with my expertise in a particular discipline, and a whole lot more to do with my degree nervousness – how else can I explain the ability to fashion perfect answers on the way home!

Over time, I like to think that I’ve approved my ability to deliver better-quality answers in real time. How have I improved? Experience. I would credit my experience teaching science to non-scientists at York, as well as my public-sector experience as a vendor representative at industry events, as particularly edifying in this regard.

Rather than submit to such baptisms of fire, and because hindsight is 20/20, I would’ve definitely appreciated the opportunity to develop my Q&A skills in virtual environments such as Nortel web.alive. Why? Such environments can easily facilitate the focused effort I required to target the development of my Q&A skills. And, of course, as my skills improve, so can the challenges brought to bear via the virtual environment.

All speculation at this point … Reasonable speculation that needs to be validated …

If you were to embrace such a virtual environment for the development of your public-speaking skills, which skills would you target? And how might you make use of the virtual environment to do so?

Confronting the Fear of Public Speaking via Virtual Environments

Confession: In the past, I’ve been extremely quick to dismiss the value of Second Life in the context of teaching and learning.

Even worse, my dismissal was not fact-based … and, if truth be told, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid opportunities to ‘gather the facts’ by attending presentations at conferences, conducting my own research online, speaking with my colleagues, etc.

So I, dear reader, am as surprised as any of you to have had an egg-on-my-face epiphany this morning …

Please allow me to elaborate:

• Yesterday, I witnessed a demonstration of Nortel web.alive (dubbed by some as ‘Second Life for business’)
• This morning I was brainstorming content with a colleague for an upcoming presentation on computing resources available for researchers at York

It was at some point during this morning’s brainstorming session that the egg hit me squarely in the face:

Why not use Nortel web.alive to prepare graduate students for presenting their research?

Often feared more than death and taxes, public speaking is an essential aspect of academic research – regardless of the discipline.

Enter Nortel web.alive with its virtual environment of a large lecture hall – complete with a podium, projection screen for sharing slides, and most importantly an audience!

As a former graduate student, I could easily ’see’ myself in this environment with increasingly realistic audiences comprised of friends, family and/or pets, fellow graduate students, my research supervisor, my supervisory committee, etc. Because Nortel web.alive only requires a Web browser, my audience isn’t geographically constrained. This geographical freedom is important as it allows for participation – e.g., between graduate students at York in Toronto and their supervisor who just happens to be on sabbatical in the UK. (Trust me, this happens!)

As the manager of Network Operations at York, I’m always keen to encourage novel use of our campus network. The public-speaking use case I’ve described here has the potential to make innovative use of our campus network, regional network (GTAnet), provincial network (ORION), and even national network (CANARIE) that would ultimately allow for global connectivity.

While I busy myself scraping the egg off my face, please chime in with your feedback. Does this sound useful? Are you aware of other efforts to use virtual environments to confront the fear of public speaking? Are there related applications that come to mind for you? (As someone who’s taught classes of about 300 students in large lecture halls, a little bit of a priori experimentation in a virtual environment would’ve been greatly appreciated!)

Update (November 13, 2009): I just Google’d the title of this article and came up with a few, relevant hits; further research is required.

April’s Contributions on Bright Hub

In April, I contributed two articles to the Web Development channel over on Bright Hub:

• Introducing The Aptana Cloud
• HTML vs. XHTML: The Five Key Takeaways

Recent Articles on Bright Hub

I’ve added a few more articles over on Bright Hub:

• GMail for Blackberry Devices: Installing Gmail Client
• GMail Client for Blackberry Devices: Configuration
• Sync Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts with Your BlackBerry
• Creating Dynamic Web Sites with Ruby on Rails
• The Linux Standards Base
• RDFa: The Five Key Takeaways

ORION/CANARIE National Summit

Just in case you haven’t heard:

… join us for an exciting national summit on innovation and technology, hosted by ORION and CANARIE, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Nov. 3 and 4, 2008.

“Powering Innovation – a National Summit” brings over 55 keynotes, speakers and panelist from across Canada and the US, including best-selling author of Innovation Nation, Dr. John Kao; President/CEO of Intenet2 Dr. Doug Van Houweling; chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau; advanced visualization guru Dr. Chaomei Chen of Philadelphia’s Drexel University; and many more. The President of the Ontario College of Art & Design’s Sara Diamond chairs “A Boom with View”, a session on visualization technologies. Dr. Gail Anderson presents on forensic science research. Other speakers include the host of CBC Radio’s Spark Nora Young; Delvinia Interactive’s Adam Froman and the President and CEO of Zerofootprint, Ron Dembo.

This is an excellent opportunity to meet and network with up to 250 researchers, scientists, educators, and technologists from across Ontario and Canada and the international community. Attend sessions on the very latest on e-science; network-enabled platforms, cloud computing, the greening of IT; applications in the “cloud”; innovative visualization technologies; teaching and learning in a web 2.0 universe and more. Don’t miss exhibitors and showcases from holographic 3D imaging, to IP-based television platforms, to advanced networking.

For more information, visit http://www.orioncanariesummit.ca.

Stainless Improving By Leaps and Bounds!

When I first wrote about Stainless, I indicated that it provided impressive features/functionalities for a version 0.1 release. In a subsequent post, I elaborated on Stainless’ strengths and weaknesses. 

Stainless is now at version 0.2.5. And in the space of a few weeks, Mesa Dynamics has addressed a number of the weaknesses I previously noted. Specifically:

• Download capability – It just works now! Thanks!
• Offline mode – Via Google Gears. Interestingly, I predicted this might take some time. I am so happy to be wrong!!

The release notes for Stainless provide the details on these and numerous other improvements.

So, what’s left? In order for me to shift to Stainless as my ‘production browser’, I really need:

• Interaction with Google Notebook – Even via the bookmarklet is fine! 
• URL Caching/Auto-Completion – As noted previously … 

Even with these production must-haves, Stainless is well worth a look today.

Juniper Seminar: Key Takeaways

Yesterday, I attended the Toronto session of a Juniper seminar focused on security and datacenter solutions.

The following are the key takeaways I extracted:

• Juniper is standards-oriented. In the area of NAC, e.g., they are co-chairing with Symantec the Trusted Computing Group’s Trusted Network Connect (TNC) effort. It’s not (yet) clear to me how the TCG interplays with the IETF … And speaking of IETF, Juniper’s Network and Security Manager (NSM) makes use of IETF’s NetConf standard in, e.g., simplifying the provisioning of new devices on the network.
• Juniper has a comprehensive portfolio of offerings at the intersection of security and networking. Interestingly, Juniper’s Security Threat Response Manager (STRM) OEMs technology from Q1Labs.
• 802.1x is a solid bet. Based on a number of trends, and a variety of requirements, Juniper promotes use of 802.1x. Even though this is a path we’ve already identified, it’s good to have it independently validated …
• Security, and other services, can be offloaded to purpose-built devices in the core. Instead of inserting, e.g., a FWSM into a device (e.g., a Cisco 65xx) that is primarily providing routing and switching services, Juniper has recently introduced a new paradigm with its SRX series. Touted as a services gateway for the core, the purpose of the SRX is to offload from the routing/switching devices various services - e.g., firewall, VPN, etc. As I understand it, the SRX runs JUNOS with various enhancements from ScreenOS (their O/S from their firewall devices). Even if you don’t make use of Juniper solutions, it may make sense to understand and potentially apply the offloading-of-services concept/paradigm in your core.
• Juniper allows for the virtualization of switches. Juniper Virtual Chassis (VC) is currently only available for their EX 4200 platform. With VC, it’s possible to virtualize up to 10 physically distinct EX 4200s into one. Within the next year, Juniper plans to provide VC on, e.g., their EX 8200 platform. Because vmWare’s vMotion requires layer-2 adjacency, server virtualization may prove to be a significant driver for switch virtualization. I expect that this will prove, e.g., to be particularly relevant in providing failover services (at the networking layer) between multiple, physically distinct, and geographically separated locations.

Even though the event appeared to be more of the sales-y/marketing-y variety, there was substantial technical content in evidence.

What You Will/Won’t Get with Stainless

Earlier today, I started to evaluate Stainless. In this post, it’s my intention to dig a little deeper by sharing more of what you will and won’t get with Stainless.

What you will get:

• Private Browsing – On selecting “File \ New Private Browsing Window”, the Stainless browser that appears makes use of WebKit’s private browsing mode. In this mode, global history, page caching and storing of AutoFill information are disabled. Spawned tabs and windows inherit the private-browsing mode.
• Single-Point-of-Entry – Obviously you can type in a URL. However, you can also type in a text string (e.g., “Google Chrome”) to initiate a search via Google. In fact, via Stainless’ “Preferences”, you can choose to make use of Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, AOL or Ask.
• Process Management – I alluded to the multiprocess capability of Stainless in the previous post. I’ve just realized that by selecting “Window \ Process Manager” you can monitor and even terminate processes via a simple GUI. Very nice!

What you (likely) won’t get:

• Downloading Capability – I tried to download from a few sites … and all attempts FAILED!! I am shocked and amazed. I saw a Page loading error: Frame load interrupted message appear in the status bar each time … This is disappointing and will hopefully be fixed in version 0.2.
• History – Via Stainless’ “Back” button, there is some notion of history, but that’s it.
• URL Caching/Auto-Completion – URL caching and auto-completion are unavailable.
• An Open Source Version – There’s a significant Open Source aspect to Chrome. Based on proprietary technology developed by Mesa Dynamics for their Hypercube personal-widgetsphere offering, Stainless and Open Source seem unlikely to resonate.
• Cross-Platform Support – Stainless is available for Mac OS X Leopard. Will this offering will be broadened? Unknown.
• Extensibility – This killer functionality is a core competence of Mozilla Firefox. It appears that Chrome will sport something analogous. Stainless? Unknown?
• Offline Mode – I’m thinking of something along the lines of Google Gears … but I don’t see it arriving soon … I installed Gears for Safari. Unfortunately, Stainless gives me the impression that I have Gears support, but in reality (during an offline situation) it’s clear that I don’t. Misleading.

Despite the negatives, I expect to continue to make use of Stainless, and encourage you to do the same.

Feel free to chime in with your impressions.

Chrome Today the Stainless Way

Even though I recently whined about the wait for Google Chrome on Mac and Linux platforms, I haven’t spent any effort empowering some other browser with Chrome-like features/functionalities – even though this is possible. And although CrossOver Chromium caught my attention, I wasn’t sufficiently motivated to evaluate it either.

Somewhat surprising then is the fact that I have gravitated rapidly towards a quick-and-dirty evaluation of “Stainless – a multiprocess browser for OS X inspired by Google Chrome.” Inspired is definitely the operative word here as:

… the Mac version of Chrome will use a WebCore-rendered bitmap to pass between the browser and rendering processes. The strategy we use in Hypercube (and now Stainless) is far less ambitious, but a whole lot easier to do and, thus, available today for your downloading pleasure (for Leopard only, sorry).

Stainless home page

And what a pleasure it is!

Honestly, based on the recent LifeHacker post, I expected a whole lot less than what Stainless actually delivers today – in version 0.1!

Based on about 30-minutes experience, Stainless:

• Performs well – It loads Web pages quickly. And as “ps -alx | grep -i stainless” indicates, Stainless really is a multiprocess browser for OS X. For me, this alone makes Stainless worth the effort.
• Supports AJAX – I’m writing this blog post using Google Docs via Stainless. Stainless worked fine on my initial tests with other Google productivity apps – I tested Google Spreadsheets and GMail. I therefore have some level of comfort in proclaiming it as supporting AJAX. Nice!

I’m sure I’ll have more to say soon … In the meantime, though, even at this early stage Stainless is definitely worth a serious look.

Google Should Not Be Making Mac and Linux Users Wait for Chrome!

Google should not be making Mac and Linux users wait for Chrome.

I know:

• There’s a significant guerrilla-marketing campaign in action – the officially unstated competition with Microsoft for ‘world domination’. First Apple (with Safari), and now Google (with Chrome), is besting Microsoft Internet Explorer on Windows platforms. In revisiting the browser wars of the late nineties, it’s crucial for Google Chrome to go toe-to-toe with the competition. And whether we like to admit it or not, that competition is Microsoft Internet Explorer on the Microsoft Windows platform.
• The Mac and Linux ports will come from the Open Source’ing of Chrome … and we need to wait for this … Optimistically, that’s short-term pain, long-term gain.

BUT:

• Google is risking alienating its Mac and Linux faithful … and this is philosophically at odds with all-things Google.
• It’s 2008, not 1998. In the past, as an acknowledged fringe community, Mac users were accustomed to the 6-18 month lag in software availability. Linux users, on the other hand, were often satiated by me-too feature/functionality made available by the Open Source community. In 2008, however, we have come to expect support to appear simultaneously on Mac, Linux and Windows platforms. For example, Open Source Mozilla releases their flagship Firefox browser (as well as their Thunderbird email application) simultaneously on Mac and Linux as well as Windows platforms. Why not Chrome?

So, what should Google do in the interim:

• Provide progress updates on a regular basis. Google requested email addresses from those Mac and Linux users interested in Chrome … Now they need to use them!
• Continue to engage Mac/Linux users. The Chromium Blog, Chromium-Announce, Chromium-discuss, Chromium – Google Code, etc., comprise an excellent start. Alpha and beta programs, along the lines of Mozilla’s, might also be a good idea …
• Commence work on ‘Browser War’ commercials. Apple’s purposefully understated commercials exploit weaknesses inherent in Microsoft-based PCs to promote their Macs. Microsoft’s fired back with (The Real) Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld to … well … confuse us??? Shift to browsers. Enter Google. Enter Mozilla. Just think how much fun we’d all have! Surely Google can afford a few million to air an ad during Super Bowl XLII! Excessive? Fine. I’ll take the YouTube viral version at a fraction of the cost then … Just do it!

For now, the Pareto (80-20) principle remains in play. And although this drives a laser-sharp focus on Microsoft Internet Explorer on the Microsoft Windows platform at the outset, Google has to shift swiftly to Mac and Linux to really close on the disruptiveness of Chrome’s competitive volley.

And I, for one, can’t wait!