The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies has released its top 100 tools for learning based on contributions from 223 individuals who each shared their top 10 tools for learning.  The full list is somewhat mindnumbing to read but if you click through to the tool categories display they usefully organise the tools and then identify the top tool, the top free tool and other tools in each category.  For example, under mindmapping tools they show Mindmanager as the top tool, FreeMind as the top free tool and MindMeister and Bubbl.us as other tools in the same category.

As is often the case with these things it is also interesting to see the tools that didn’t make it.  My current favourite, Evernote, is missing.  What about you?  Any of your favs not on the list?

Steve writes that a recent email from AIIM has made him think that at last we are returning to ‘fitness of purpose’ for records management and especially the recognition that EDRMS is not a fit for every organisation.

This month Computerworld profiles four organisations that are successfully using wikis to manage a range of tasks including technical training and project management.  It is helpful to see some successful models emerging and also to hear where organisations feel this approach is not serving them (see the comments).

We’re using a wiki successfully to hold, manage and build our methodology around a particular piece of work that we do.  This is giving us massive leverage in terms of how quickly (and cost-effectively) we can deliver this service to our customer.  It also has the effect of our virtual brains parallel processing and the output being recorded.  Thus it is combining, in one place, technical insights, business analysis insights, recordkeeping insights and strategic insights with all searchable in a variety of different ways that can combine each of these usefully. 

A key to success has been that the wiki is essentially where the work happens - that is, people aren’t doing something and then recording it separately in some unrelated system.  Instead the thinking, consulting and reviewing is all happening in the one place.

Hat tip: Bill Ives

CMS Watch has a cool ‘London Underground’ map of the major players and where they play.  Some of the vendors we’re used to seeing in NZ aren’t on here but it’s really interesting to see how CMS watch categorise the different products and how they show the relationships between the different functionality.

I recently posted this on a discussion forum.

Sleep is so important to me.  I know when I’m going to get sick (a cold or the flu) and it seems to always be related to a time when I’m particularly tired.

This has always been difficult because I used to be a 10 hour a night person.  I kept waiting to need less sleep as I got older. I tried ‘willpower’ forcing myself to get into a habit of 6-7 hours sleep and for me I just ended up getting progressively more and more tired.

I think, in the past couple of years, I’ve just about cracked it. We’re all physically different - this is what works for me and it’s a combination of things.

Sleeping environment
I have dark curtains, a really comfortable bed and bedding. I also always sleep alone. This might be unpalatable for a lot of people but in terms of deep sleep wow! what an improvement.

Regular sleeping pattern
A regular sleep pattern really helps. What I do is calculate back from the time I have to get up. So, it used to be that if I need to get up at 7 that meant going to bed at 9.

Related to this, I stopped waking up to an alarm (I still do this if I need to catch an early plane) but mostly I wake up when I wake up . It also helps to only occassionally vary this. So my weekend sleep habits are much the same as my weekday ones.

So, now in conjunction with the above here’s the one thing that has significantly reduced (by 1-2 hours) the amount of sleep I need per day and it’s completely counterintuitive.

For the past 18 months I have started seriously exercising. This is not just a walk or a short run but stuff that gets a sweat up 5-6 days a week. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’m doing - so it can be cardio based or strength based but it really makes a difference.

So now I’m on a 10-6 sleep routine (8 hours give or take) and feel really refreshed when I wake up.

This is based on those 8 hours being really good quality.

Here’s my last tip. Sometimes it’s hard to get good quality sleep despite creating a good sleep environment. For me this happens in two ways . Firstly I can be too excited about something and my brain doesn’t switch off. Secondly, I might be travelling and in a strange place sometimes including crossing time zones. I use hypnosis here.

About 6 months or so ago I bought Adam Eason’s deep sleep programme and it is fantastic. I couldn’t tell you at a detail level what happens in the sessions because I can’t remember. My experience is that Adam talks me gently into a trance, and then after about 20 minutes or so talks me out again at which point I turn off the iPod and go straight to sleep. Great stuff!