Murphy's law in action

What could possibly happen when you have spent many hours/days preparing this complicated package of financial report files and you try to send the big zipped file to the project coordinator on time?

Apart from that temporary issue of the WeTransfer service (which is described with a fine taste of humor in their website), I highly recommend it as it is a really convenient and totally free (not even registration is required!) way to send large files (up to 2GB) to any email recipient. My colleagues really appreciate that I stopped jamming their inboxes with large files after I started using the WeTransfer service instead!

P.S. The issue was solved after 2 minutes! WeTransfer, you are great!

A tweet that made my day

Today I was (and still am) having a really hard day at work, sorting a lot of different tasks. It was a good thing that I noticed a really interesting tweet by Erik Duval, which really made me smile!
Even though it looks funny, at the same time I appreciate the way that technology can interfere and provide substantial (but still funny!) results.
Erik seems to have an amazing sense of humor (apart from having enough spare time during the ECTEL11)!


And what was behind the link?

A reply tweet by @GSiemens proved that I am just following the trend:

Έρευνα με τίτλο “Επαγγελματικές Πρακτικές & Αειφόρος Ανάπτυξη”

Θα θέλαμε να σας προσκαλέσουμε να συμμετάσχετε σε μια έρευνα που αναπτύχθηκε από το θεματικό δίκτυο EU Life Long Learning program-ERASMUS: “Innovation in the Teaching of Sustainable Development in Life Sciences in Europe” (ISLE).

Σκοπός της παρούσας έρευνας με τίτλο “Επαγγελματικές Πρακτικές & Αειφόρος Ανάπτυξη” είναι η συγκέντρωση πληροφοριών από εταιρείες, κυβερνητικούς και μη-κυβερνητικούς οργανισμούς καθώς και από άλλους σχετικούς εταίρους, από το δίκτυο κάθε πανεπιστημίου του δικτύου ISLE, με σκοπό να αποτυπωθεί η τρέχουσα κατάσταση της αειφόρου ανάπτυξης (SD) στις επαγγελματικές πρακτικές που σχετίζονται με τις φυσικές επιστήμες καθώς και η αποσαφήνιση των αναγκών της αγοράς εργασίας στο χώρο της SD στο εγγύς μέλλον, με σκοπό τη βελτιστοποίηση των Εκπαιδευτικών μας Προγραμμάτων.

Η έρευνα είναι διαθέσιμη online στη διεύθυνση:
https://encuestas.unileon.es/index.php?sid=69386&lang=en

Σας ευχαριστούμε εκ των προτέρων για τη συμμετοχή σας!

(Ισχύει έως: 30/09/2011)

Organic.Edunet multilingual survey!

Dear Organic.Edunet user,

The Organic.Edunet roadmap includes a significant number of new features and upgrade of existing ones. The main goal is to enchance the overall user-experience, the effectiveness and efficiency of all the tools and services, while new content is being added and more repositories are introduced in the federation of the Organic.Edunet repositories.

In order to help us better recognize your needs, please click on the following link to participate in our survey regarding your multilingual requirements and expected new features.

http://goo.gl/Dq8vO

The survey should not take more than 10 minutes to complete and it's completely anonymous.

The Organic.Edunet Community

Organizing things... by the book

I am always in the need of organizing things, such as tasks, deadlines and my available time in general,  in the most optimal way. There are periods when free time is a luxury and the pressure is heavy. In these periods, it is really important for me to be able to organize and prioritize tasks, while automating standard procedures in order to save time.
I decided to ask for help in organizing things from a specialist, so I ordered "Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity" from Amazon since I read really good reviews about it. I have just downloaded a .pdf version but it is really hard to read such things using the monitor of a laptop (no tablet yet for me...), so I preferred to get a paperback version of the book. I plan to read it during my commuting to and from the office.

I am really anxious to receive the book!

Taking a break - Web 2.0 tools

The last days have been really busy, full of real-life meetings, flash meetings, project revisions, tasks and deadlines... things are getting harder day by day. A nice way to take a break while working is to dedicate some time updating the Web 2.0 tools of the projects that I am involved in. So, today I "worked" on the following side-tasks:

1. Creation of the VOA3R Twitter account
2. Creation of the Organic.Edunet Twitter account
3. Updated the ISLE and Organic.Balkanet Twitter accounts
4. Created a Facebook group for the Green Ideas event
5. Updated the Organic.Balkanet website with news

I also updated the Facebook groups of the projects that I am involved in with last-minute updates and links.

In addition, I slightly revised a flyer for I.S.L.E. and updated the one for Organic.Balkanet, in order to have them printed for the Green Ideas 2011 event. All these while struggling to finish the review of two deliverables, trying to finalize another one and sending an outstanding number of emails in an effort to solve issues and sort things out...

I just realized that I am at home but still working! No rest for the wicked, they say...

Training Course and Green Ideas 2011

During the last weeks my time is almost completely dedicated to two important tasks:

1. The testing phase of the VOA3R content population. Trying to coordinate a task which involves a significant number of project partners is not always easy, especially during August! I will not go into more details about this task.

2. The "Joint School on IT-Enhanced Organic & Sustainable Education for Teachers, Trainers and Agriculture Professionals", which will be a really big training course involving a number of respected tutors and a diverse audience, case study visits, lectures and hands-on exercises etc. Even though the organization of this course has been taken over by two colleagues of mine, still there are a lot of things to take care of, such as arranging flights and accommodation for the participants, estimating costs and involving budgets from different projects. Speaking of projects, the course will be primarily supported by Organic.Balkanet and CerOrganic, while VOA3R and I.S.L.E. will also be represented and contribute. This course will be collocated with another interesting event, Green Ideas 2011 which "will bring together people and institutions that are interested into agricultural, biodiversity and rural education, so that collaboration opportunities may be explored and exploited". This event will feature a really diverse list of participants, is sponsored by a number of relevant E.U. projects and supported by major organizations, such as FAO.