BFTP: Do these 5 things to be seen as a tech guru

I only half-jokingly attribute my longevity as a technology director to my membership in a large, active service club (Kiwanis). This group met each Monday at noon and consisted of influential people like city and county officials, school board members, college professors, and business leaders. For many years, I was viewed as the technology guru of that organization since I could hook up about any laptop computer to our club's LCD projector. How could the school possibly fire anyone who was that tech savvy!

Here are 5 more skills you should master and you too can be considered a technology expert:

1. Doing a GoogleSearch to solve a problem - but letting others assume you knew the solution all along.
2. Getting a computer on the wireless network.
3. Clearning a browser's cache to free memory.
4. Doing a search for contents of a drive.
5. Oh, and rebooting to solve about 95% of all technology problems.

As I admitted in my column "The Changing Role of the Technology Director" Educational Leadership, April 2013, my "tech skills"  changed:

Even though I couldn't install a router if my life depended on it, I can describe in plain English things like routers, packet shapers, firewalls, deployment servers, thin clients, Active Directory, DaaS, WAPs, and a whole host of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)—what they are, what they do, why they are important, and what specs to think about when considering them.  

But it is still kind of nice to be viewed as a hands-on tech whiz now and again.

What's the one magic trick you perform to cement your reputation as a techno-wizard?

Original post 10/24/17

It's OK to shoot me last

The current moral conundrum is who should be first in line to get the COVID-19 vaccine. While many people in certain occupations and demographic categories can make a good case for being treated immediately, I am not one of them.

First some clarification. I am NOT an anti-vaxxer. I get my flu shot every year. I recently got a second round of shingles vaccine. Before a trip to hike Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania about ten years ago, I must have gotten a dozen different needles poked in my arm so that I would be less susceptible to hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, rabies, anthrax and meningitis. As I remember, I made sure my children got their boosters as they were growing up. I don’t believe that the vaccine is a conspiracy to inject a government tracking device in my body nor that it will change me into an Antifa radical.

So while at some future date I anticipate getting the COVID vaccine, I would like a ticket that I could give to someone else who may be more important, but in a lower priority category than I am. As I understand it, just behind health care workers and long-term care facility occupants, we geezers who are over 65 are next in line. 

I would like the option to give my place to a classroom teacher or school librarian. Please.

Back in March, I posted “It’s OK to remove me first.”  In it I wrote about rationing of hospital beds:

... I am in good health. I have a lot of things on my bucket list I still want to do. I would like to live long enough to see great-grandchildren and to watch my current grandsons transition into adulthood. I want to continue playing with friends, writing a little, and reading books. I still contribute in small ways to society through volunteering and charitable giving. I enjoy life. I'm a pretty happy camper.

But should I find myself in triage with patients younger than I am, I hope I have the courage and mental capacity to say, "Please, treat them first." This boomer would not resent being removed.

I have always told my children that should I fall off a cliff and die while hiking, know that I have gone happy. I can think of no worse fate than being in a nursing home with a couple tubes stuck in me just waiting for the end. I am by no means suicidal - I exercise, watch my weight, try to eat sensibly, and have even been practicing social isolation and hand washing. But I know my end will come.

Life has in no way cheated me. I have loved and been loved, adventured, traveled, worked, won awards, played, served, written, and read enough for three lifetimes. I am grateful that this life has been so generous to me. 

If a vaccine will give others who have much more life still ahead of them better odds of having a fulfilling life and contributing more greatly to society, please shoot me last. 

Johnson's Rules

While the most commonly recognized forms of learning are reading, listening, and attending classes, life itself is the best teacher of all if one pays attention and learns from both one’s goofs and one’s successes. 

I am not sure who Murphy was or when I first encountered Murphy’s Law, but I was inspired by the ironic truth of the statement and was enchanted by its brevity. In fact I’ve enjoyed such laws, observations, razors, and rules so much that they inspired me to write some of my own over the years.

While I have written nearly 70 of these things <https://sites.google.com/view/dougjohnsonweb/library-rules>, these are just ten of my favorites:

1. Johnson's Observation about the Irony of Success:  The mark of a successful parent is that your children no longer need you. The mark of a successful teacher is that your students go on learning without you. The mark of a successful supervisor is that your workers don’t need supervision.

2. Johnson’s Observation About Public Speaking: You’re never bored when you are the one doing the talking.

3. Johnson’s Law of Literacy: If one can read but is not changed by reading, why bother?

4. Johnson’s Rule of Indispensability: If your job is eliminated, your boss should really regret it.

5. Johnson’s Rules for Spreading Manure: 1) Always check which way the wind is blowing 2) Never lick your finger to find out.

6. Johnson’s Rule of Technology Perspective: Every tech problem is a big tech problem to the person experiencing it.

7. Johnson’s Experience in Assigning Tasks: You may as well give unpleasant jobs to people who are already unhappy.

8. Johnson’s Update of Aesop: The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on learning.

9. Johnson’s Homily on Beta Testing: The early worm gets eaten by the bird.

10. Johnson’s Law of Stress Management: If you can’t find someone to pass the stress on to, you’re struck with it.

I expect the wisest people are those who recognize no one has all the answers. Who are still learning from others. Who sometimes change their views. Ask me tomorrow who the smartest person I know is and you will probably get a different answer. All I know for sure is that it sure as hell isn’t me.

Oh, I have a separate list of Lessons Learned from Bicycling <http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2013/7/7/bftp-lessons-learned-from-bicycling.html>  Here are the first dozen of 30. (I was taken to task by a reader for a snarky comment about spandex on the original list which I’ve since removed.)

1. Balance is a good thing.

2. It's usually uphill and against the wind. (Murphy's Law of Bicycling)

3. Most big hills that look impossible are usually a series of small hills that are possible.

4. I've never met a hill I couldn't walk up.

5. It's better to shift to a lower gear than to stop altogether.

6. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have equipment to blame things on.

7. You really can't make your own weather.

8. Coasting feels good, but you don't get much exercise doing it.

9. A beer at the end of a long day of riding tastes better than a beer when just sitting around (or at breakfast, I'm guessing).

10. Don't drink at lunch time and expect to enjoy the afternoon.

11. Bike helmets are a sure sign that natural selection is still a force of nature.

12. The few minutes putting air in your tires at the beginning of the day is time well spent.

And finally, I’ve compiled  a list of My Biases <http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/my-biases/>. We all have them, of course, but we should be transparent about them. Here are a few:

About education:

1. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own education.

2. The solution to all the world's problems will rely on effective education.

3. Libraries and uncensored Internet access are vital to a democratic society.

4. A teacher's primary job is to instill a sense of importance in his subject. Skills will follow.

5. Schools should teach children to think, not to believe.

About politics and religion:

1. Both politics and religion should be viewed with profound skepticism.

2. Legislators should not require children to take tests that they themselves can’t pass.

On human nature:

1. Although I may not say it out loud, my grandchildren are better than any other children on the face of the planet.

2. I really want most urban legends to be true.

3. Most of us would prefer shallow wit to deep intelligence in our writers and speakers. Thank goodness.

4. Sport stadiums should be paid for by the people who use them; community centers, parks, bike trails, libraries, and swimming pools should be paid for by everyone.

5. Smoking and overeating should be considered poor health choices, not moral failings.

Posters made of the rules (and other stuff)