ScoutOffice revisited

It's been four months since my (first?) update about ScoutOffice. It's really hit a snag which I'm trying to deal with but seems to be a large deal breaker. Let's see if I can explain this in English.

The BSA launched a software platform called ScoutNET in 1999. It was supposed to be revolutionary and answer our Scouting prayers and probably dispense candy to small children. It failed to do any of those things (I'm still waiting for my M&Ms). However it's still around. It manages to provide some level of backbone on a national level I guess. Councils can submit and request reports from it. Local units are supposed to be able to recharter with it. Yadda yadda.

From best I can tell, back in 1999 and 2000 the BSA allowed only four software vendors access (and subsequent certification) to a ScoutNET api which facilitates the communication between local units and their respective councils.

Since then, two of those vendors have stopped supporting their products leaving two to choose from.

My unit is slowly getting on the technology revolution (they think this Internet thing may be around for a while). And of course I want to gallop and sprint through and make cool stuff happen. I want to frolic (yes and perhaps prance) in the fun of writing software for them! But this stupid ScoutNET certification. /grumble

I've scoured the net trying to figure out what this api is. It looks like it's not publicly available. I'm currently grappling with the idea of writing something that simply imports/exports similarly to the remaining two certified vendors, but that's a hack and it's going to be painstakingly hard.

I just want to the BSA to get off their 1930s attitudes and catch up already.

connecting the theoretical and practical dots of leadership

Last weekend was our first ever "Suriviorman Weekend" for the Boy Scout troop. The wilderness survival event was inspired by the current television shows: Survivorman and Man vs Wild. It was an excellent success.

For our purposes the weekend was a scenario-based competition between patrols. We scored them on obvious categories such as shelter, food, and fire as well as less obvious ones like morale and teamwork.

When judging morale and teamwork, we were looking to see how a group of Scouts worked together. Did they look after each other and cooperate or did they bicker, fight, and hassle one another? Were they able to get done work quickly by coordinating tasks or was everyone fending for themselves? Reflecting now on the weekend, the judges saw an array of responses. One patrol managed to delegate responsibilities. Another did not fare as well since the oldest boys performed all the work leaving the youngest underutilized and bored.

It dawned on me while watching (from afar) these patrols work that we were witnessing differing leadership styles immerge on their own. Some Scouts were content to do all the work at the cost of morale and efficiency. Others had higher performance and were able to delegate, but required less than pleasant tones to motivate others.

So I've been considering the success of the weekend and what I witnessed. I was trying to diagnose how some patrols did better than others and I came across this article at Dumb Little Man. It was while reading the article that I had an epiphany - I understand what had happened: the Scouts were concentrating more on the tasks at hand than the bigger picture of wilderness  survival.

Our event lacked the emotional connection that would inspire Scouts to be good leaders. When the fire competition began, Scouts decided the best way to win that competition. They then choose the best food cooking methods that they believed would earn them the most points. The underlying problem is that there was no incentive to be a good leader - just a good enough leader.

True survival situations require the seven tips as discussed in the article. Morale will be affected by how well the leader motivates and inspires others to strive toward goals. And morale is one hell of an ally in tough situations - even more so than dry socks!

So how do you bridge the gap? I wish I knew! I can't drop the Scouts in a jungle just to see them actually have to work together (although that would be amusing). I think you can start with having a healthy discussion about the good and bad things that happened.

What do you think? How do you bring the emotional desire to perform good, high-leveled leadership to an event?

"Blog about Jott" ...A message I left myself.

I've been meaning to write about this topic and am just now getting to it. A few months ago, I had identified a problem in my life. I have a crappy memory. That's neither a new or startling revelation. I attempt to mitigate my crappy memory with to-do lists on scraps of paper files with limited success. The particular issue with that resolution is that I don't always have a pen, paper, or the ability to write something down (i.e. when driving).

So I had been thinking for a while that I needed some sort of device or service similar to a mini-cassette recorder. I, of course, did not want an actual mini-cassette recorder - yet another device to carry around. It would be ideal if it worked with my mobile phone since I'd have that just about everywhere.

I had been brewing about this problem for a few weeks. One evening I was began telling Anne about my idea that my cell phone would double as a simple voice recorder. She listened sleepily (she was just going to bed) to my idea and I went back Google Reader to do some reading. The very next post was Robert Scoble talking about Jott. I've dropped Scoble from the feed since then, but I've gotta give him cred (the "street" variety) for this one.

Here's how it works. I call Jott and it automatically records a message. It then transcribes my message to text and delivers it to email or mobile phones as a text message! I really like to send myself Jotts to keep track of reminders or mental notes. It even allows me to set up text message reminders and alerts.

Jott is currently free and in beta. I'm hoping those two are not linked because I'm getting hooked. So sign up and send me a Jott.

So what's the morale of this story? First, get Jott because it rocks. Second, next time Dave has a problem, don't wait to read about the solution! Make the solution yourself and perhaps change the world (or at least profit).

xkcd compiling shirt

I showed Anne this comic and she was quite unimpressed. I can't blame her really. It's not like I'd understand some comic about teaching. However I told her I wanted the shirt (second down) inspired by the comic and she knocked me! I do agree that geek shirts with random obscure and technical jargon isn't usually my style, but comon'... they're sword fighting!

Perhaps Santa or the birthday fairy will remember this since I don't think Anne was taking notes.