Testing "Software" Times

How aware are you? Do you live in the here and now or is your mind always somewhere else? This blog post is about Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a simple meditation and is defined as (According to Wikipedia): "The intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment" Now Mindfulness has become more popular in the west in recent years as it has shown to have benefits for people who are suffering from Depression and Anxiety. It has been around for a while and is often thought to of originated from Buddhism and some people believe it started thousands of years ago. Now modern life is hectic and I’m sure we all have lots of things going on in our lives that keep our Brains busy and trying to focus on one thing at a time can be a challenge. I can't remember the number of times I've been doing something and my mind is somewhere else entirely. Mindfuln...

Sat in front of my TV one boring week night a while back I noticed an Advert for Barclay's bank and something they called Barclay's Code Playground. So, intrigued I went on their website and found this: "You rarely see it, but computer code runs our world. Everything from the website you’re reading to the traffic lights on our roads relies on the mysterious world of code. It’s even part of the national curriculum now, and learning what makes tech tick could give your kids a head start in the world of work." So what Barclay's have is a way for kids to learn how to program by letting them write simple code to change animations and other cool things. You can do this in selected branches or on the Internet. Now I think it is great that a bank like Barclay's is helping to teach kids the concepts of coding. It is also great that England has become the first country in the world to mandate computer programming in primary and secondary schools. However I ...

Having recently undertook the running of some training, I thought it would be beneficial to post some of the things I learnt from it. The training I was performing  had around 8 trainees and latest 4 days and was for a system that is used in the Financial services industry.  Be Active By 'Be Active' I mean 'work' the training room. Go round the room and see how people  are getting on. Do they have a confused look on their faces? If so ask them if there is anything they do not understand or is there something they would like clarifying. Don't be a trainer that sits at his machine and just waits for the questions - be proactive !!! Make sure the exercises are completed If you training incorporates exercises that the trainees need to complete then encourage them to complete them. You're not doing your job as a trainer If they don't do the exercises and you then get bombarded with questions once they start using the system for real. Yes not all exerci...