Over the weekend i watched a TED talk by Sir Ken robinson about education and creativity. He has done a series of talks now whilst promoting his new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. He speaks very broadly about his passion and belief in creativity but it is his pinpointing (and finger pointing) of the huge schism in our education system that is really spot on. Essentially his argument is that we box up and sideline certain elements of intelligence and that in order to prepare for an ever increasingly fractured future we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence.
On a slightly different note it reminded me a lot of a conversation i had a while ago with James Woudhuysen on the failings of the advertising industry. In it he derided the lack of polemic debate within the idustry and for its blinkered views on future talent. This has also led me to think back on a book i read 5 years ago now called The Seven Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler but i will save all that for another blog post.
The other reason to watch Sir Kens talk is for his wonderful stand up, comic timing...the whole thing is littered with quips and anecdotes such as the one about a child drawing God.
Teacher: What is it you're drawing
Little Girl: I'm drawing God
Teacher: But no one knows what God looks like
Little Girl: They will in a minute
Education Reformation
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 | | Labels: education, inteligence
‘Peak Consumer’
Friday, April 24, 2009 | | Labels: consumer
On Wednesday, whilst grazing on some brioche and making my morning tea I heard James Jones (bishop of Liverpool) speak on Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’ about the awful and dated word ‘consumer’ (1 hour 49 on the today program if you want to listen again).
It reminded me of an article in Contagious magazine that i read by Grant McCracken about changing the term consumer to ‘multiplier’ in reference to Jerry Michalski
Im not sure about his particular suggestion but I do wince at the term consumer and think we should start seeding some more accurate and meaningful terms that might go some way to emulate the world of psychology where patients have become clients.
Its amazing just how insidious the word is, I find myself saying it without even noticing. I think the dilemma for the term ‘consumers’ really hits home when its tested against other social models currently gaining currency. How does Freecycle and skill sharing fit into the consumer model?
Im not economic expert but i think the new budget proves quite categorically that buying our way out of anything is nonsense. Have we reached the point of ‘peak consumer’ in the same way we have ‘peak oil’?
Andrew Simms talks about the consumer facade much more eloquently than i can here.
A google ballsup
Monday, March 16, 2009 | |
The inbox on my gmail account has been going up steadily all day long...with nothing actually appearing. I now have over 600 mails that i cant see anywhere.
Complex algorithms my arse...just tell me the right number of mails in my inbox.
Money/People
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Business is not about dollars its about people...Dollars are simply a way to keep score.
Source: Unknown Amazon contributor
A4art
Friday, January 30, 2009 | | Labels: A4art, art, china, exhibition, sense
I Went to the A4art China exhibition last night in the Sense Loft, London. It didn't take long to get there... 35 steps from my desk in fact, 20 of which were of the raised variety up the stairway.
I was not involved in planning any of the (china)nigans at all so i saw the whole thing with fresh eyes. Joe Orton did a great job of pulling it all together and unraveling the mysteries of the Chinese language. I thought that some of the pieces where impressive and certainly beautiful on a number of levels. However, I was more struck by the overall tone of the commentaries submitted by the artists to accompany their work.
Ignorant as I am of Chinese culture I was a little surprised at how philosophical, verbose and 'otherworldly' the intentions of the artists were. In any other exhibition I would have scoffed and muttered some childlike profanity under my breath recalling frustrations of my own fine art 'education'. However in this case i did no such thing, being promptly distracted by the smell of hot Chinese food that had arrived and remained safe in the knowledge that the following day i could quiz Joe...
And so i left, my belly full of food and my head full of questions.
Job done.
BBC NEWS | Technology | White House plans open government
Friday, January 23, 2009 | |
