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Ideas Half-Thought
A compendium of things, physical and aetherial
Emptyage: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It
It’s a parent now, and there’s always so damn much to do. Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account. It wonders where its 30s went. It wonders if it still has time to catch up.
There’s some humorous truths in here.
(Source: New York Magazine)
Mid-Flight Musings
Winging my way from SF back home, I’m thinking that I need to start taking advantage of the outlets available to me. Since this sort of thing is supposed to be my bag (meaning the intersections of technology, social media, and marketing), I’m very much on the side of the lurkers. It’s a personality trait combined with an inherent laziness mixed with a perceived lack of time. I’ve orphaned more blogs and sites over the years than I can remember. A quick look at my various social network accounts shows bursts of posts at best; retweets, reblogs, shares and/or copypasta at worst.
Is it the myriad choices that makes it difficult to post? The social networking equivalent of analysis paralysis? Is the idea that one post disappears into the ether so quickly that it almost doesn’t exist like the proverbial silent tree in the forest?
At the end of the day, all this sharing of minutiae is really about calling attention to ourselves. Every poorly lit photo of a plate of food, every Foursquare mayorship, every meme shared on our Timelines is a request for acceptance to the self-defined tribe of cool. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Hell, why do you think I’m writing this?
I guess what I’m getting at is I’m hoping to be switching sides from a content consumer to a content creator. The question still remains if anyone will see it and if that’s the best judge of its (or more cynically, my) value.
Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
In fact, since academic excellence wasn’t a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland’s students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland — unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway — was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.
That this point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. The chasm between those who can afford $35,000 in tuition per child per year — or even just the price of a house in a good public school district — and the other “99 percent” is painfully plain to see.
(via smarterplanet)
The World’s Tweets Light Up the Globe in Stunning Live Visualization | Wired Design | Wired.com
It’s simple, but lovely. Web designer Franck Ernewein‘s real-time Twitter visualization, Tweetping, drops a bright pixel at the location of every tweet in the world, starting as soon as you open the page.
The result is a constantly changing image that grows to look like a nighttime satellite shot, bright spots swarming over the most developed areas. But Ernewein has packaged it all in a subtly interactive visualization that avoids distracting the viewer while still imparting a great amount of information.
A Smarter Planet: CES 2013: The Break-Out Year For The Internet Of Things
Robin Raskin is founder of Living in Digital Times, which produces conferences and expos at CES and throughout the year focusing on how technology enhances our lives.
Robin Raskin
CES, like Las Vegas where it’s held, has always been about big. Big announcements like…
(via rachelfershleiser)
I believe…Romney is a good man. Loves his family…But I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country considered themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about. Folks on Social Security who’ve worked all their lives. Veterans who’ve sacrificed for this country. Students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams, but also this country’s dreams. Soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now. People who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don’t make enough income. And I want to fight for them. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last four years. Because if they succeed, I believe the country succeeds.
What you need to do to create a "wirearchy"
If you are convinced that your future workplace should look more like a Wirearchy, (a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on, knowledge, trust, credibility, a focus on results; enabled by interconnected people and technology) then the best thing you can do now is prepare.
- Prepare yourself to be a continuous learner.
- Prepare yourself and your team/department to work collaboratively.
- Start narrating your work.
- Become a knowledge curator and share widely.
- Engage in professional social networks and communities of practice.
- Model the behaviours you would like to see in others.
Finally, watch for moments of need, when the organization has a problem or crisis and then be ready with the tools and skills to help. It’s like being your own upstart company, developing asymmetrical skills under the radar, inside your organization.
(Source: ibmsocialbiz)
Stowe Boyd: Leadership In A Social Era: Notes From #Pivotcon
We’re no longer living in the old economy, based on industrial-era principles. That’s over. We’ve crossed into the Postnormal, and most leaders are either unaware of that transition, or are seeing only disconnected parts of it.
