Pressure, Linkedin, Communities, Twitter, & Impromptu Learning

How to Avoid Choking under Pressure - Scientific American

If you scrutinize your performance too much-trying to control, for example, the natural inflections in your voice as you present an important finding to your office mates - you will be priming your cerebral cortex to trip over your cerebellum, leaving yourself at a loss for words. But if you focus on a single word or idea that sums up your entire presentation ("smooth" or "forceful," for instance), you will be best equipped to prevent your brain from getting in its own way.

LinkedIn traffic grows - cnet

Market researcher ComScore reported that LinkedIn's unique visitors rose to 7.7 million, a 22 percent increase over December, TechCrunch reported Saturday. And not only are more people visiting LinkedIn, but they're hanging around longer as well. Total minutes spent on the site last month more than doubled from December to 96.8 million, according to TechCrunch.

Communities and Networks Connection - Tony Karrer

This is a great week for content communities. And there's a very interesting effect and a realization (aha moment) I've had about all of this that I describe near the bottom.

Yesterday, I was able to announce that I've been working with Judy Brown to launch the Mobile Learning Content Community.

A few other communities Tony has helped build:

• Judy Brown - Mobile Learning
• Jay Cross - Informal Learning
• Nancy White - Communities and Networks
• Tony Karrer - eLearning Learning

Twitter: What is it good for? - 60 Second Science

Many Twitter users embrace the technology as a way of feeling "ambient intimacy, just as people share the details of their lives with those far away via the telephone, email and blogging. "What's new about it is the ability to communicate with so many people at once. What's not new about it is you can create niche audiences just like we've been able to with blogs, with listserves back in the day. Twitter and status updating in general is another link in the chain of what we've been seeing the last 10 years.

Impromtu Learning - Fire on the Mountain - Guy Wallace

Great story and pictures (click to enlarge) — go read it.