Lifehacks :: Blog From The Beach

Today was one of those days I wished I had a camera with me as I did the morning beach walk.

I would have been able to capture the bold announcement in the sand:

LANNA WAS HEAR

Washed away now, no doubt.

Of course we know from the OECD that Australian students have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. We also know that the test does not include speling – or even gramer.

I feel for the generation or two of kids and young adults who haveÂ been so seriously short-changed in the cause of educational “reform”. How seriously can a prospective employer in, say, a law firm or a consultancy business be expected to take a young graduate who can’t spell and has no understanding of grammar?

Of course, every good teacher wants to prepare his or her students as well as possible for life, but it doesn’t have to be an either/or thing. As a high school history teacher I found the curriculum very old-fashioned and restrictive, but I knew my students were going to be examined on that. I did not feel I had any right to limit their potential because I had a supposedly more elevated view of the field of history. My solution was to develop ways to fast-track them through the “official” material, put the onus on them do to more at home and then devote as much class time as possible to really getting into history as an exciting intellectual discipline, teaching them how to fish in those waters, so to speak.

But no worries, the OECD says we’re fine on the old literacy front, mate. And we can just download stuff now and learn from our iPods, can’t we?

Now, what was that cricket score?Â

This blog is about an idea, or, if you will, a metaphor for life and business.

The beach is important for me.

I grew up in a beachside suburb of Sydney and spent a lot of time on the beach, in spite of and to the detriment of my Celtic complexion – a Scottish doctor once said to me that he and I were really meant to live in the mist, not under a bright Australian sky.

Nowadays I take better care of my skin and I still love the beach. Walking on the beach most mornings and having a swim in the surf during the warmer months (i.e. most of the year here on Australia’s Gold Coast) are my favoured way of getting set for a happily productive day.

A whale-sighting, as we were blessed with this morning, is a bonus!

This “Blog From The Beach” site is an expression of that enjoyment of the beach and also a place of aspiration.

Aspiration about perfecting the way I want to work and live.

I often think my ideal way to work would be (will be?) propped under a bit of shade on the beach with a laptop and wireless connectivity, blogging away.

The bigger picture is that blogging, like other “Web 2.0″ tools, helps small business owners and solopreneurs have more flexibility than ever before in modes of operating and in lifestyle choices.

So the metaphor for life and business is that technology, and especially the kind of socially connected, easily accessible technology which blogging represents, provides greater choice, more options, for those who want to do business in a different way and to achieve a more consistent and sustained work-life balance.

Des on the beach

“Blog From The Beach” is also the name of my ezine, which takes off where a couple of other ezines left off (a bit too long ago, I admit) – my “Thinking Home Business Insider” (or THB Insider) and “Perfect Days” ezines.

The ezine will be posted here and either delivered direct or notified by email. Or people can choose to pick it up via an RSS feed.

Now I need to get working on the first issue of the ezine.