Sydney, Australia is recently experiencing a large number of young visitors for World Youth Day 2008. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Australia yesterday for the festivities and ceremonies that will kick off tomorrow. This marks the fourth Papal visit to Australia.


Australia was chosen as the site of the 2008 World Youth Day celebrations and announced by Pope Benedict XVI during the conclusion of the 2005 World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne, Germany.

There has been significant criticism of the 2008 World Youth Day due to the quarter of a billion dollar funding arrangement from the Commonwealth and New South Wales State Governments. Both the Commonwealth and New South Wales State Governments have stated that the revenue generated by World Youth Day will offset these costs. Catholic schools and community centres have been kind enough to provide accomodation for the young group of people who are visiting Sydney. The NSW government have been busy trying to sort out the logistics, transportation and security issues, but so far everything seems to be going to plan.

World Youth Day was initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1984, that would bring together millions of young people on pilgrimage to Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Oceania.

According to Wikipedia, the idea behind World Youth Day, stemmed from Pope John Paul II's experience with his young friends in Srodowisko and their exploration of the personal and vocational dynamics of adolescence and young adulthood. Srodowisko saw youth groups evolve into networks of intellectual conversation. Both youngsters and intellectuals got involved in vacation excursions.


We (Sydney siders) have been warned that there may be delays in public transportation, so we have a few choices to make during this period. We either take a break, work from home or stay away from the city during this hectic time. Luckily for us (or unlucky) we actually live very close to work but also a walking distance from the Sydney CBD. We are starting to see a lot of young pilgrims walking about in our already busy city.

Simon and I walked through Darling Harbour in Sydney on the weekend and took some photos of the preparation and impending celebrations in the coming days. You can see some of the photographs I've taken against this post.

Networking

One news report stated that networking is an important part of getting the pilgrims to World Youth Day 2008. On hearing this, it actually got me thinking about the concept of networking and it's application in our daily lives, business and on the internet.

1. Purpose of Networking - Some people network to gain new friends or new business opportunities. On the internet, you may be involved in social networking to obtain or share knowledge with like-minded people, to promote your business/brand, or simply to make new friends. Why do you network with other people?

2. Networking Benefits - By getting to know other people, you may find some that are extremely helpful and a great support system to have. They may add content to your blog/website, promote your product or idea and are generally good allies to bounce off ideas or share information with. When you meet people like these, don't take them for granted. Like any relationship it's a two-way street, so always maintain a sense of professionalism and respect for each other. If one party is constantly giving, while the other is constantly taking, it will certainly destroy that networking relationship. Try to be fair and balance with how you both approach things. Have you found some great people you are currently networking with?

3. Places to Network - In life, people can network through mutual friends, work, religious affliations, at sporting events, clubs, pubs, or just about anywhere where you may start up a conversation. Through the internet there are many social media sites you can join up with, you have all heard of many of them before so I will not mention them on this post. Depending on what it is you wish to achieve will define the type of social networking site that will work for you. If you want to promote your website/blog or just who you are, I've found that visiting regularly sites of interest and leaving quality and constructive comments or participating in the forums can help get you noticed. What has worked for you?

4. Creating a list of Friends - These days a lot of people have their own list of friends or are on someone's list of friends. This is great, provided that you are on a list with a group of like-minded people who share your ideas and understand the areas you are interested in. There's nothing like getting a shout on Digg (from a friend) about a new 'hot sports car' if you're interested in saving the environment. Therefore, find a list or group of people where you have a common ground. You do not need to agree on the same thing or like exactly the same thing, but having the same basic fundamental view of certain concepts will certainly help. Do you have a small or big list of friends? How effective is it?

Now look around, start networking with those around you and find a connection. You might be surprised with what you find out, what you may learn and what opportunities it may open up for you.

Widgenie is a free data visualization tool which will benefit most non tech people. It’s an easy way to publish data online without learning how to code. The data that I am referring to are charts and graphs. If you are familiar with Microsoft Excel then you probably know that it’s very easy to produce graphs using the software. Just place in the data and you can easily make a visual representation using that data in just a click or two. The question is how to get it online?


For starters, you need to have an account in order to use the service so you have to register first. You will need an existing Excel File (XLS) or a CSV (Comma-Separated-Values) file. What Wigenie does is convert those data files into a visually rich widget for you to easily share and publish online.

How to Use:

To create a widget, choose a file format to upload. You can choose to upload an Excel file or a CSV file. After uploading, name your data file and also write a short description about the data. This will be useful once you have created several widgets in your Wdigenie account. You can edit the columns and choose a data type for each one. You can also remove columns that you do not wish to appear in the widget.

When you’re done with all that, you can select a widget format you wish to use. You can choose Tabular, Animated Line Chart, Animated Bar Chart, Animated Area Chart, Animated Pie Chart, and a Text Cloud Widget. Upon choosing which format you want to use, Widgenie will bring you the widget design phase where you can just drag and drop the columns from your data to the X and Y axis of the graph. In the layout tab, you can define your X and Y axis and change the Chart orientation along with the height and width of your widget. You can also include a “Grab Me” sharing link to your widget. This will let other people use your graph and place it in their own sites.

The final step is to get the embed code and place it in your blogs or websites. You can also quick publish the widget in your Blogger, Facebook and iGoogle accounts. A public link to your widget is also available for email purposes.

A few tips when uploading a data file.

1.All data must be contained in the first sheet of the workbook. I you have multiple sheets in your workbook, Widgenie will use the 1st sheet and the rest will be discarded.

2.The sheet should contain only the data and column headers. Titles, notes and other text outside of the data table will impede the upload.

3.The maximum file size that you can upload is only 2MB.

4.Column headers are recommended and cannot start with number or contain punctuation or spaces. These characters will automatically be removed.

5.Empty rows will also be removed during the upload.

6.Each column of data should have the same data type (ie: strings, dates, or integers).

Widgenie can prove to be a useful tool when it comes sharing your Excel or CSV data online. It’s very easy to use and consumes less time. They also have an analytics feature where you can track your widget’s number of unique views and visits. It also provides blog and website visitors with a new experience in viewing and sharing data.

Coming soon: Online data feeds support for Google Docs and Amazon's Simple DB.

Check out their tutorial video:

Recently, I came across an interesting article written by Ann-Maree Moodie in an innovative Australian magazine called FastThinking. The article had a title called Leave me Alone so it sure got my attention! The author talks about how ironic our state of lives have become. On the one hand, we strive to create new technological gadgets and electronic products, which is supposed to help make our daily lives easier.


image:Golden Wood Studios
Unfortunately, items such as mobile/cell phones, e-mail, electronic organizers and the like also serves to create distractions and intrusions on any quiet time that we may obtain on a given day. She also made a good point, that even when you are on a plane and flying at high altitude, it is now possible to reach you via e-mail or phone, so you don't even get any quiet time while flying anymore! The article also goes deeper to examine studies that have been done by cognitive theorists on idea creation.

However, the issue that the author had raised about the importance of silence and the influence it has on the formation of ideas helped me to look at my own environment and the distractions that I face on a daily basis.

Take for example at work, I'm expected to find new solutions and ideas that can be incorporated to our existing software system. But, during the course of the day I will receive a huge amount of e-mails (sometimes it feels like an insurmountable amount of e-mails; currently, I'm still trying to clear my inbox as I have a lot of follow-up items that have yet to be actioned!), then there's the phone calls, skype messages/calls, meetings (and more meetings) and generally people just coming up to me to discuss things. With all these distractions, I do wonder how I find the time to come up with practical solutions, let alone coming up with innovative ideas? To be honest, it is very hard with all these constant distractions (and I know these are just part of life at work). I'm just wondering how I can be more constructive and innovative in the face of these daily happenings? And that's just at work. When I am at home, the television is blaring in the background, the microwave or jug/kettle is boiling, dinner to cook and if I'm surfing the net - then there goes most of the evening!

Take a look at your day and list the items that take up your time and prevents you from focusing on forming solutions or coming up with new ideas for a project - you might be suprised as to what you will find out.

Based on this article and after an assessment of my own daily rituals, I do agree that it certainly doesn't hurt to have some quiet time out. Lately I've been trying really hard to have a few quiet moments, so that I can think clearer and find some focus so that I can come up with more innovative ideas whether it is for work, our websites or projects we have in mind. I have been trying to implement the following:

1. Reading books - I do a lot of reading on the net each day, but I do remember how much I used to enjoy reading a novel. I find reading to be very relaxing. It provides me with much needed quiet time, helps me to unwind and think clearer so I can reflect on life and things in general. It also stimulates my imagination, which in turn helps me to think outside of the square. I have just finished a Jane Austen book and I am currently reading Charles Dickens's masterpiece "A Tale of Two Cities" (ok, this is a rather hard book to read, though once you get passed the first few chapters, it is pretty good and you learn a lot about how people used to live from 1775, especially in France and England).

Basically, find a hobby that you enjoy that helps you to achieve your own quiet tranquility and fosters your mind to be creative and active.

2. Turn off the television - For me anyway, television is a huge distraction, so I am trying hard to make sure that I do not watch too much of it. Lately, because I have been reading my novels, I've spent less time watching TV. Turning it off or just putting it on mute, provides the silence I need to think clearer.

3. Allocate time on the net - I know this is hard for a lot of us, but I think putting aside time one spends on-line is important. If we consciously do not do this, then like anything it becomes an addiction and we start to lose touch with the real world. I personally think the internet provides us with a lot of helpful and good resources. Information is at our finger tips. All I'm saying is that it's also important to find a balance.

4. Reduce mobile/cell phone usage - In the age of the mobile/cell phone technology, I know a lot of us spend time on the phone either talking, texting and now the ability to also surf the net. Again with this technology, balance is the key.

5. Emails - I enjoy reading personal e-mails, but these too are a real distraction. At the same time, work related e-mails can consume one's day especially when we all rely on it so much. I tend to create folders, so I separate work and personal e-mails from each other. When I need a sanity break I will open my personal e-mails. However, finding your own method to get on top of your e-mails is crucial, so that you do not spend the whole day sifting through them. I tend to assign a few hours in the morning to sort through them, that way I can focus on other things during the rest of the day. Like I said, I'm still working on it as my inbox is still very full!

6. Find quiet time - Honestly, just set aside some quiet time for yourself. It can be as little as 30 minutes each day. Try it out and see if it helps you relax and think clearer so that you can come up with more innovative and creative ideas.

Here's hoping that you may find silence to be golden for your life aswell...