Lessons

Where’s my “Show Desktop” icon gone to?

by Alan on November 22, 2012

in Lessons

When I used Windows XP I had a nice little icon on my toolbar to take me back to the Desktop, now having moved to Windows 7 I couldn’t find a similar icon and for the last few months have been “living” without it. You know: just making do, accepting the price of progress is that some things just fall by the way side.

And then tonight something odd happened, I’d be using 2 screens when I unplugged the laptop and some of my open windows were left invisible as they were on the disconnected screen. There was a hint of them on the edge of my “live” screen so I tried to drag them in. I did this by clicking on the right hand side of my taskbar and amazingly my desktop appeared.

Apparently the “Show desktop” in Windows 7 is enabled by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It’s been there all the time, just nobody had told me.

I wonder where all the other things I can’t find are?

Take charge in a crisis

by Alan on November 21, 2012

in Business, Lessons

Someone told me a great, yet also sad, story recently that is a valuable analogy for business. It concerns a crashing aircraft and how the problem was managed at the time.

The story, as I remember it goes like this: a transatlantic flight crashed on its way across the ocean, and all souls were lost. The flight recorder took a long time to recover, but when it was found and analysed it showed the following.

[click to continue…]

A truly inspiring moment

by Alan on August 8, 2012

in Lessons

When Laura Trott met Bradley Wiggins in 2004 she had a photograph with him and his newly won Olympic Gold Medal.

Yesterday, 8 years later, on 7 August 2012,  she won her second Gold Medal of the Olympic Games.

It’s now her turn to help to Inspire a Generation in order to fulfil the ambition of the 2012 Olympics.

Fortunately she won’t be alone in that challenge.

 

The Olympic Spirit personified

6 August 2012 Lessons

After an Olympic week that began with the most wonderful opening ceremony and a weekend that produced some great results for Britain, the performances and results have been inspiring and truly wonderful. But the games have shown themselves to be far more than just the competition and the results in my opinion. They have delivered a grace, [...]

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A Moment in history? No: the realisation that Terror does not pay

27 June 2012 Lessons

When the Queen met Martin McGuinness this morning in Northern Ireland, it really was a tremendous turnaround from previous expectations for these two individuals. Much has been written about how historic an occasion this was, but actually if you stand back and reflect, there is nothing new in terrorists becoming politicians, eventually. And nor is [...]

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Would we be better off with conscription?

8 June 2012 Lessons

Why on earth would a civilised nation want to have a system that conscripts its young people into military service? If you look at a map of the world that shows countries with conscripts you can soon relate to the notion that they are countries that you’d probably prefer not to live in. But then: each [...]

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What have Boris and George got in common?

8 May 2012 Lessons

Boris Johnson won in London, George Galloway won in Bradford, but what is it that made them winners? I think the answer is pretty clear: they both stood for something and both connected with and appealed to the voters.

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