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TA Tuesday (August 8, 2017)

Here's your weekly dose of TA. Enjoy.

Online tools

  • COLORRRS HEX to RGB Converter does what it says. Type in the hex number and it will give you the RGB numbers (there are three, one each for red, green, and blue). The tool will also change the background to the number you provide.
  • Another useful tool is TextCleanr. It removes email indents; cleans up spacing, line breaks, and Word characters; and lets users decide which cleaning option is needed. Works like a charm and saves a lot of time.
  • WeTransfer is a free (they also have a paid version) file sharing app for laptops and desktops and mobile devices. It comes in handy when you have large files and Dropbox is not an option.
  • Need Depression-era photos? Your first stop should be Yale University's Photogrammer platform which holds "170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI)." Users can search and map the photos. Very useful.

At work

  • You've read it before... the working world is changing. Skill, re-skill and re-skill again. How to keep up with the future of work encourages individuals and organizations to take action starting today. For example, one piece of advice for individuals:
    Don't feel like you have to retrain yourself completely, all at once. First of all, as pointed out by the New York Times this week, many of the skills needed to do fading jobs are applicable to growing jobs.
  • Stop Going to Meetings That Don’t Have Agendas makes the case for agendas (as you'd expect from the title).
  • The digital native is a myth is a must-read, particularly if you serve or work with the younger set. The Nature editorial describes younger people as "yeti with a smartphone." One of the paper's highlights is "Learners cannot multitask; they task switch which negatively impacts learning." On this topic, the editorial:
    Digital natives are assumed to be able to multitask, it warns. But the evidence for this is also scant. Reading text messages during university lectures almost certainly comes at a cognitive cost. So too, employers might assume, does fiddling with smartphones and laptops in meetings.

    Want to read the entire paper? Search for the title "The myths of the digital native and the multitasker" at Sci-Hub.

Learn something

  • Nuts and Bolts of National Voter Registration Day webinar, August 15: Learn the basics of an effective National Voter Registration Day (September 26, 2017) effort in this free webinar. Presenters will explain the holiday's origins and goals and walk participants through the many materials, tools, and resources available to partners interested in either holding a voter registration event or promoting the holiday in other ways.
  • If you missed Crafting Your Nonprofit IT Security Policy, no worries. Head to the site for the slides and recording of the webinar. You'll learn what you need to include whether writing or updating your organization's official policy.
  • Images that work: A Guide for Using Photos to Build Support for International Family Planning (PDF) is a must-read if you work on social issues. As a colleague wrote about the report, "The new report from Resource Media that shows what kinds of photos resonate with audiences when you're promoting family planning. But the concepts behind the photos likely work for many other thorny social issues."

On the lighter side



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