Archive - Technology and Society, Incorporated

Published on: May 7, 2024

London Seaward: End of the Season review

Another season of football (soccer) is in the books and London Seaward finished eight of twelve, with their 29 points well clear of the relegation zone and a solid mid-table performance. There was a rough patch in the middle of the season where Seaward faced a long string of higher-division opponents and other Tier 4 clubs who were undefeated at the time and/or ended up winning their league, but that run included Seaward’s first cup win over a Tier 3 opponent. It was a thrill to see that win and to watch the club right the ship and remain comfortably at Tier 4.

I enjoyed my second season as primary sponsor for the club. As always, the second time around means there’s less joy of discovery and more recognizing the patterns inherent in the business of football, but I still learned a lot. I obviously have nowhere near the experience of my colleagues who have spent a lifetime in the game so a lot of the considerable behind-the-scenes work is invisible to me. That said, my contacts with the club share what they can so I can more fully appreciate how my involvement, and theirs, makes a difference.

Ginny and I were able to travel to England several times during the season, though our weather luck was lousy. Of the seven matches we planned to attend only three went off, with the last one played on a misty March night at St. Neot’s where Cambridge United hosted Seaward in a match that ended 1-1.

I’ll share news regarding the club’s plans for next season when I’m able to do so, but the one thing I can confirm is that Redbridge, the men’s club that generously offered Seaward a ten-year groundshare agreement at Oakside Stadium, will go from a grass pitch to a 3G artificial surface over the summer. Moving to 3G should reduce weather cancellations and open up the possibility of multiple matches, training sessions, and public use throughout the week. Technical improvements in synthetic turf technology have reduced, though not eliminated, the additional risk of injury as compared to grass, so the move makes sense.

It's the end of the season at Tier 4, with the exception of some county cup matches, so it’s time for everyone to take a breath, recharge their batteries, and get ready to go again. Look for more announcements later this offseason.

Published on: January 31, 2024

Kid Lightning by LED

Through my company Technology and Society, Incorporated, my wife Virginia Belt and I sponsored the January 25-27, 2024, weekend run of Kid Lightning by Boise, Idaho group LED. Part of the White Bird Uncaged series, Kid Lightning depicts and comments on the pursuit of celebrity through beautifully choreographed and artfully executed modern dance as told through the lens of a 1970s-style game show.

Narrative dance demands precise movement and effective characterization from the performers. While abstract dance is almost always entertaining, I prefer the challenge of reacting to a story presented to me directly rather than being asked to discern or even manufacture the meaning of what I’m seeing on stage. Artistic Director and Choreographer Lauren Edson, along with husband Andrew Stensaas who is the company’s Creative Director and Composer, designed and executed a performance that Ginny and I were delighted to support.

The dancers were all fantastic and the choreography featured their individual skills rather than forcing them to adapt to a smoothed-out version of the role that anyone with a given (admittedly high) level of talent could do. Ginny was a professional ballerina and has taught me to appreciate the give-and-take between choreographer and dancer—I believe the performance I saw several times over the run showed that Lauren had meaningful conversations with the dancers as the specific choreography for this series of shows developed.

Thanks also to Graham Cole, Artistic Director of White Bird, for inviting us to sponsor LED and Kid Lightning. Boise is a short flight or eight-hour drive from Portland, so we hope to make it to the space LED is growing in Boise to see more of their work.

For more information on White Bird Dance, visit whitebird.org. LED can be found at ledboise.com. Technology and Society can be found on the web at techsoc.com.

Published on: December 28, 2023

Halfway Through the Season

Technology and Society is halfway through its second season as London Seaward’s primary sponsor. Seaward sit seventh of twelve in Division 1 South East with a total of 15 points from eleven matches, and the Reserves sixth of eleven on 10 points after eight matches. Much bigger clubs such as Wimbledon, Norwich City, and Queens Park Rangers are above the Anchors in the standings, but the reverse fixtures in 2024 offer plenty of opportunities to move up.

I know she hates the attention, but The Athletic named Seaward defender and club secretary (and so much more in the early days) Jo Butler-Williams a Grassroots GOAT for her work (along with many others mentioned in the article) keeping the club alive after Leyton Orient went in another direction. The club’s success as an independent outfit earned them a 10-year groundshare agreement at Oakside Stadium in Redbridge and a technical partnership with Puma, both of which offer present stability and the potential for future growth.

And, if you’re interested, the away shirt (which one online commenter described as “an absolute banger”) is available for purchase!

Living 4,500 miles away means I don’t touch the club’s day-to-day operations, but that’s likely for the better. Experience, friendships, rivalries, and friendly rivalries built over lifetimes means that everyone on the ground in England is much better equipped to manage Seaward’s affairs than I could hope to be. When I came on as sponsor I felt I could trust the committee and other volunteers to wield the resources I provided effectively. I was correct. That custom-designed away shirt, as well as the Puma model Seaward plays in at home, highlight the club’s dynamic spirit.

What I haven’t done so far is ask the club to help me market my products and services beyond passive mentions of my website and pieces in the match-day programs. I’ve been fully booked creating courses for LinkedIn Learning and content for other clients for several years, but now that my outside workload has slowed I can turn to personal projects. In early 2024, look for me to release a series of training videos on my YouTube channel. I’ll mostly focus on Microsoft Excel, but I’ll also create videos for data visualization package Tableau and do the occasional book review. Techsoc started as a book review site in 1998 and I still enjoy reading and recommending books that look at the intersection of technology and society.

The videos will be free to view, but I hope to reach a critical mass of subscribers so I can share in the ad and subscription revenue they generate. I’ll let you know when to rush to YouTube to subscribe.

I look forward to the 2024 leg of the season! Ginny and I hope to make it to London once or twice before it’s over to enjoy the football, bang some balls around at the snooker table, and visit our friends at London Seaward.

Published on: November 7, 2023

A Major Milestone

When you do something for long enough you start to pass milestones that seemed unreachable at the start of your career, if you even suspected it would be a career at the time!

In this case my milestone accomplishment is that, with the release of MATLAB Essential Training on November 7, 2023, I have had 100 courses published through LinkedIn Learning (formerly lynda.com). I’m not counting the 20 or so translations and foreign language adaptations created from my work: the number of courses that I personally recorded has now reached triple digits.

When you go to my author page on LinkedIn Learning you’ll see there are around 35 courses listed. The other courses I created are still on the site but have been retired and don’t show up in search, mostly because they cover older versions of software such as Excel 2016 or because viewership wasn’t where we needed it to be. Yeah, I’ve had a few courses that didn’t do as well as we’d hoped, but overall my track record has been pretty good.

There are so many people to thank for helping me with my success, but I always start with a grateful nod to Tim O’Reilly, who gave me my first professional writing job in 1996. O’Reilly published The State of Web Commerce in January 1997 and that credential opened up writing opportunities I parlayed into more than 40 books, most notably the Excel Step by Step series for Microsoft Press, and more than 100 online courses when you include the four I created for DigitalThink in the early 2000s.

I’ve been ably represented by Studio B Productions for more than 25 years, starting with company co-founder David Rogelberg, then by Neil Salkind (who I miss terribly), and now by the other company co-founder Sherry Rogelberg. Their early guidance provided the support I needed to establish myself as a working professional, helped me avoid the unfavorable (and occasionally unsavory) contracts offered to newer writers, and more than earned their commissions by finding me work early in my career and helping me manage my jobs as our relationship continued.

You can blame Bonnie Bills for recruiting me as a lynda author in late 2008 or early 2009 (my memory is hazy on timing and my email archives are squirreled away…somewhere…). My first course, Excel 2007: Financial Analysis, went live on August 25, 2009. With MATLAB Essential Training releasing on November 7, 2023, it took me 5,178 days to go from zero courses to 100. That’s one course every 52 days, averaging almost exactly seven courses per year for 14 years. Quite a few of the projects are updates from previous work, but by my count I’ve created courses on 55 distinct topics in the business software field.

Wow.

My release pace with LinkedIn Learning has slowed, mainly because the company has successfully recruited a wide-ranging group of authors who can provide valuable insights on topics I cover. Sharing diverse perspectives and distinct voices benefits everyone. I served my purpose as an author who was willing to work more or less full-time on course creation at a point when other qualified instructors weren’t ready to make the jump to video. Now that they have, they deserve their turn. And the good news? There’s plenty for everyone.

I look forward to working with my LinkedIn Learning colleagues Marjorie Page and Steve Weiss as well as Sherry and David at Studio B as I continue my career. Who knows what we’ll dream up next?

Published on: September 26, 2023

OpenAI lawsuit -- Post Deleted

This post originally contained an amateur analysis of the proposed class action lawsuit against OpenAI for unauthorized use of texts from George R. R. Martin and other authors. On reflection, I'm glad I thought through the issues but the piece was not suitable for publication because I ignored recent precedents that would have affected my analysis. I've deleted the post but wanted to leave this note indicating what had happened.

Published on: August 30, 2023

August 30th, 2023

I just returned from two weeks in England, scheduled around the first two matches played by London Seaward. My company, Technology and Society, returned as Seaward’s sponsor for the 2023/24 season. I arrived on August 16 and, because I was staying in central London, checked into my hotel and made my traditional trip to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone. Happy to report it’s still there.

Over the next few days I visited museums, played snooker (poorly) for a few hours at Cousins on Seven Sisters Road, and had dinner with Gareth, my contact with Seaward. On Sunday, I took the Central Line to Seaward’s new home at the Oakside Stadium in Redbridge, Ilford. The first match day of the season is always a whirlwind, but this one was particularly busy.

First, there were new volunteers to train on getting spectators in through the gate and serving as matchday secretary. Second, there were the new home and away kits to distribute to the players. The away shirts were printed six months ago but circumstances delayed their introduction until now. The new home shirts arrived much more recently and were provided by Puma, Seaward’s new technical partner. The official numbers and badges arrived (in two shipments) from the Women’s National League just in time to get everything pressed and down to London without a moment to spare. And did I mention the new warmup outfits? A team representative drove to Nottingham and back on Friday to grab them.

Both shirts are gorgeous. The away shirt is a custom design by Foudy’s and the home shirt, while a stock item from Puma’s team collection, is something any side would be proud to wear.

Away shirt worn by my across-the-street neighbor and soccer player Evangeline, the first away shirt sported by anyone outside of the club!

Although England didn’t win the World Cup final, the Seaward game didn’t disappoint. The Anchors went ahead 2-0 and for the most part controlled play. A converted penalty brought Actonians to within 2-1, but a third goal closed out the scoring and sealed a 3-1 win over a team we hadn’t beaten before. Overall it was a solid performance that highlighted the quality of the retained core of the team and the new players added over the summer.

After five days in Bath and Northeast Somerset where I met up with my wife and got way too much sun (cloudy days and open-top convertibles will do that), we returned to London for the second match. This game was a League Cup tie against London Bees, a club associated with Barnet on the men’s side and that plays a tier up from Seaward in the Southern Premier Division of the Women’s National League. It was always going to be a tough game, but Seaward played well and threatened throughout, especially in the second half. The scoreline of 3-1 for Bees was a fair result, but Seaward had chances to pull within one late in the game and apply even more pressure.

Every club sponsor wants to see that the resources they provide are being used effectively and progress is being made on and off the pitch. London Seaward worked relentlessly during the previous season and this summer to secure a long-term ground share agreement with Redbridge, begin the technical partnership with Puma, and recruit new players and support staff. I’m delighted with the performances I saw, in spite of one 3-1 scoreline being a win and the other a loss. I want Seaward to win every time almost as much as the players do, but it’s a long season. These two matches bode very well for our performance in the league and our other cup competitions.

We are London Seaward.

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