This week sees the start of my Digital Assistant Academy which will train 18 low income women from diverse backgrounds in new media skills. After a small pilot last winter funded by UnLtd, I was lucky enough to get further funding from the Nominet Trust to run the Academy again, and this time, to try a blended learning approach, combining on and offline learning.

This new Academy is turning the learning model on its head. My 18 digital trainees will undertake the majority of the training at home in their time, using multimedia resources – a mixture of text, video and assignments. Four live ‘meetups’ have also been programmed during the eight weeks of the course to provide further support and a private Facebook Group is being used to provide peer support and learning.

eLearning can be a good way of delivering learning to a distributed community. The women on the course are based all over London and there is even one in Manchester! The students can also access the learning wherever they are using their smartphone rather than being tied to a classroom or home computer. Delivering training this way is also great for scaling up the social impact as once the training has been designed, it can be reused again and again.

Let’s break down the 7 elements of the Digital Assistant Academy eLearning platform:

1. Web Hosting

The first thing you will need is web hosting to host the platform. This can be a protected part of an existing website, or you can set up a new dedicated site. There are a host (pun intended) of web hosting companies to choose from but my personal recommendation is Bluehost due to their unlimited storage space and their excellent support.

Cost: $60/year including domain name.

2. Website

WordPress.org is an open source software that will allow you to build flexible websites for your projects. With thousands of free and premium themes available, you can have a great looking website up and running in minutes. Plugins (little pieces of code) add functionality to WordPress websites, so whatever you need to add to your eLearning platform, there will probably be a plugin for it.

You can install WordPress manually onto your web hosting space or if you use a host like Bluehost, you can install it using their One Click Installation.

To find a theme (design) for your new platform, search the free themes on the WordPress site or have a browse of premium theme sites like Woo Themes or The Theme Foundry (where my theme for the Academy, Chalk, is from).

Cost: Free.

3. Membership

There are a number of ways of protecting content on a WordPress site. The easiest is to add password protection to individual pages or posts.

However, if you want to be able to manage members and add sequential layers of content, a premium plugin such as Wishlist Member is worth the money. Wishlist Member allows you to turn any WordPress site into a membership/eLearning site. For the Academy, I have used Wishlist Member to create different trainee levels with modular content that students can only access once they have passed the previous module.

Cost: $97.

4. Video

Video is a great way of engaging learners. There are a number of free and paid for ways of creating videos for your lessons.

If you have a PC, the free Windows Movie Maker software allows you to easily record and edit videos of yourself from your webcam or video camera/smartphone. If you are a Mac user, iMovie would be your first choice.

If you want to record your screen to demonstrate a piece of software or record yourself speaking over a PowerPoint presentation, Camtasia Studio for the PC or Screenflow for the Mac are the market leaders. They are not cheap though.
Free alternatives are Jing (which records a maximum of 5 minutes) or CamStudio (an open source screen recorder).

Next, you have to host your videos. If you are open sourcing your content, YouTube is a good (and free) place to store your videos as it is a good source of traffic. Videos have to be less than 15 minutes though in length. If you are hosting a lot of video, it might be worthwhile looking at setting up an account with Amazon S3 to host the videos and using the Flowplayer player to embed them into your site.

Cost: Free.

5. Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way of delivering content to students as they can download the podcasts to their smartphones and learn on the go. The voice recording on most smartphones is usually of high enough quality for recording. If you need to edit them, install Audacity (for PC) or use GarageBand if you have a Mac.

For distribution, you can have them available to download from your platform or, if you are open sourcing your content, upload them to the iTunes store for wider distribution.

Another quick alternative is recording short podcasts on your iPhone or Android phone using AudioBoo and embeding them into your site.

Cost: Free.

6. Live eClasses

You may want to programme some live eClassess, webinars or class tutorials as part of your course. I have tried many webinar solutions but WebEx is one of the best. It has all the normal features you would expect such as screen sharing, chat and VOIP but it also allows for 7 way video which means you can get a live workshop feel for a small group.

Another option to try is the free Google+ Hangouts where you can share video with up to 9 people.

Cost: Free to £30/month.

7. Speakers

For the pilot Academy I asked 6 successful women to come speak about their experiences of working on the web. This time around I will interview them on Skype, record the calls using a call recorder such as Pamela, and upload them as videos for the students to watch.

Cost: £25.

So that’s it. 7 easy (and cheap) steps to building an eLearning platform.

What have I missed? What tools or platforms do you recommend for your training? Do share in the comments.

[image with thanks to echtpraktisch via CC]

This is an extract from my new book The Business Yogi: How to be Happy at Work due to be published this Thursday 26th April.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Albert Einstein

Let me take you back. Think about the first yoga class you took. What were your preconceptions? Go on – be honest. Were you worried that everyone would be all bendy and Zen when you couldn’t even touch your toes?

Did your fears come true?

Well, perhaps they did. But the beautiful thing about yoga is that there’s a way in for everyone. Do you like the gym or running? Then Astanga Yoga might be for you. Need an oasis from your hectic work life? Restorative Yin Yoga, where you hold poses for five minutes at a time, might be what your body and mind needs.

I started my yoga journey 11 years ago with hot and sweaty Astanga classes during a blazing hot summer in Sydney. Coming from a semi- professional dance background, I was looking for a very physical practice, and thought I wasn’t interested in the spiritual or philosophical side of yoga. That changed two years ago when I was introduced to the practice of Anusara Yoga – a physical and demanding practice for sure, but one where the philosophy of yoga is ingrained.

Different yoga styles and teachers can provide different entry points for individuals, but each yoga pose also many variations and different teachers will show different ways of getting into the pose. Triangle pose can be approached as a standing side bend, or built up from the base. The arm balance Crane can be approached either from above or below, depending on what feels more achievable.

In the past, poses that have seemed impossible with one teacher have been opened up to me with a new variation.

The lesson for our work? There is more than one way of doing things.

We can get stuck in the same patterns of working, the same habits and the same way of looking at problems – especially if we work alone.

Here’s how to mix it up a little:

1. Change what information you consume.

Reading the same newspaper, the same blogs, and watching the same TV shows mean we never get a fresh or alternative perspective on the world. Mix up your information inputs by reading blogs unconnected to your work. Follow some new people on Twitter. Ditch the TV shows for a documentary.

2. Mix up your yoga practice.

Try out a new yoga class or teacher. Choose a class that’s the opposite of what you are normally are drawn to. The wonderful YogaGlo.com streams thousands of online classes in different styles and durations – so you don’t even have to leave the house!

3. Change your space.

Research into innovation shows time and time again that being in a new environment can help our creative problem solving. So get out from behind your desk and talk a walk in the park. Take your notebook and
sit in a new coffee shop and see what comes up. Try a new spot in your
office or co-working space. Go and work in a new city.

Try something new today.

[image with thanks to cyron via CC]

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes” - Marcel Proust

This is a guest post from Bridget Stacey-Luff, founder of An Urban Om and co-author of The Business Yogi: How to be Happy at Work (out 26 April 2012).

I had one of those mornings (or maybe a month of mornings?) where it felt like that little grey cloud was hovering over me – broken toilet, bad coffee, bills to pay, slow bus, loud passengers. As I neared the yoga studio I suddenly caught a perceptive glimpse of myself. Here I am in this exciting city, owning an apartment with my dear husband, in a job I love and having wonderful friends. Uh… what am I moaning about?

It’s so easy to forget.

Easy to forget the dark times when things are going well and to nitpick and picknit everything and everyone when things aren’t going our way. We close ourselves off in our bubble of man-made misery.

Yoga wisdoms teach us to be grateful for what we have. Because we have more than we need, and we are everything we should be. As we focus on the more positive aspects, life seems fuller, and we experience more contentment (santosha). No need to delude ourselves, just take a good hearty look. As my good friend always says, “Don’t sweat the small stuff” . Your strong challenges will come don’t you worry about that, so preserve your adrenaline for when you actually need it, don’t deplete yourself.

Remembering your lot i.e. being grateful means bringing it back in, shutting off the “I wants” from the outside (not looking at the big A-boards telling you what you need). In your deep core you know you have enough. Go deep and see yourself for who you are, then spread out the lurve, the luff, the love!

Practising santosha: just before you drift to sleep and first thing as you wake , on the threshold of consciousness, think of three things you are really grateful for. They can be very small or very big, they can be the same thing everyday, but make sure you mean it.

Join Sinead and Bridget for the launch of The Business Yogi on Thursday 26 April at Club Workspace in London Bridge. Book your free place here: http://thebusinessyogi.eventbrite.com/

LinkedIn is probably my favourite social network and the one I always recommend to clients to get started on. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is used almost exclusively for professional purposes. Therefore, if you are dipping a toe into social networking for your business, it’s a great place to start. LinkedIn also has a very high Page Rank (the results that show when you Google your name or brand name), so it’s essential to claim your ‘real estate’ on the network and put your best foot forward.

With Spring upon us, why not take some time to do a spring clean of your LinkedIn profile and put your best foot forward for the rest of the year.

Here’s four ideas to get you going:

1. Make Your Headline Count

As default, LinkedIn will pull your Headline (the line at the top of your profile) from the title of your Current Job. Manually override this in the Settings and optimise your Headline for any keywords you want to rank for. Have a look at my Headline below to get an idea:

2. Add Projects to Your Profile

This is a relatively new LinkedIn feature and it’s great for highlighting current or past projects or programmes that you offer/have worked on. You can add a relevant URL to each project which is great for driving traffic and, if your collaborators are also on LinkedIn, you can connect them to the project as well.

Have a look at how I have used this on my Profile.

To add this to your profile go to Profile > Edit Profile. Under the primary gray box of your profile, you’ll see a new Add Sections feature on a blue background. Click Add sections, Projects and enter a project title, description, date (if relevant), URL and team members (if relevant).

3. Customise Your Website and Public Profile URLs

Make yourself stand out from the crowd with customised URLs. As default LinkedIn lists your websites as Company Website or Personal Website. To edit these, go to Edit > choose Other from the drop-down menu. Add the title of the website in the box and the URL in the next box.

Customising your public profile URL can also make you look professional (and it’s great to add to business cards too). To edit it, go to Edit > Your public profile URL > Customise your public profile URL. Set it to LinkedIn.com/in/yourname if available or yournamecompanyname if not.

4. Change the Layout of Your Profile

LinkedIn profiles have a default layout that don’t always do our profiles justice. Why highlight your work experience when highlighting your Recommendations or current Projects and Publications might be more beneficial.

Changing the layout of your profile is easy. In Edit Profile mode, hover your cursor over the name of the section e.g. Recommendations, and then drag and drop it where you want it to appear. I have arranged my profile like this:

1. Summary
2. Projects
3. Publications
4. Skills and Expertise
5. Recommendations
6. Honours and Awards
7. Experience
8. Education
9. Everything else …

Remember most people won’t read down more than a scroll or two, so think about why information you want to highlight and bring that to the top.

Why not dedicate 30 minutes this week to spring cleaning your LinkedIn profile?

[image with thanks to nan palmero via CC]

It’s the end of March. A quarter of 2012 has gone. Ever get the feeling that life is speeding up? Maybe it’s just me but the months and years seem to go by quicker and quicker.

I find this time of year is a good time to take stock; to both review where we are with our big audacious goals we set ourselves in January but also to take a moment to see how far we have come and to be grateful to ourselves for all our hard work. It’s a great time to jump off the roller-coaster of working in our business and spend a little time working on our business.

Let’s start by taking stock.

In our busy work lives, especially if you are a solo entrepreneur, we rarely take the time to give ourselves a pat on the back.

Grab your diary, planner or schedule. Don’t rely on memory. Write down everything you have achieved in the last three months. Include both professional and personal goals and activities.

Here’s my list:

• I finished (woohoo!) my new book The Business Yogi: How to be Happy at Work ready for launch on the 26th April.
• I wrote 12 blog posts here on 8fold and four guest posts for other blogs. Some of my favourites: Forget New Years Resolutions; Make a To Stop List Instead, Authentic You and Forget Habits; Try Rituals.
• I helped eight Digital Wellbeing 101 clients get to grip with the web, social media and online tools.
• I gave a talk on Wellbeing at Work for the Stiglitz WOW talks.
• I wrote three newsletters with tips and resources for digital wellbeing (make sure you don’t miss the April one by signing up here).
• I mentored teams at the Lean Startup Machine weekend in London.
• I ran Digital Wellbeing training days for the South East Leadership Network in Brighton and Designers Network in Chelmsford.
• I started Project Sky High on Facebook to raise awareness and foster action for issues that affect women and girls in the development world.
• I ran a six week Mindful Productivity eClass with eight wonderful women helping them make real behavioural change in their workflow.
• I ran a successful event (Life, Work, World: Women Empowering Change) for Social Media Week London.
• I visited the Algarve, Lisbon, Dublin and Budapest.

How does your list make your feel? Do you feel proud? Our memory can trick us into thinking we haven’t achieved much but this is rarely true.

Next, if you did an annual review or plan at the start of the year, now is the time to dust if off.

Take a critical look at what goals you had set yourself for the year. Have you achieved some of them? Have your priorities changed? Are there some goals that you would still like to achieve but have not started on yet? Remember – there is 9 months left of the year, plenty of time to still put your plans into action.

Get out your calendar or print off the ‘month at a time view’ in Google Calendar or Outlook. Now start to schedule in your goals for the next three months. Remember projects don’t happen unless we commit to when and where we are going to do them.

After you have done this process, give yourself a treat. Coffee and cake at your favourite cafe, a yoga class or like me, take the afternoon off and enjoy the Spring sunshine!

[image with thanks to El Frito via CC]