From Kevin Kelly’s blog, comes a review of the book Art and Fear which includes this point: “The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, …
Froma comment left in my Maps and Territories blog: “Seeing maps as places where secrets are burried, changes the use of them. Traversing every street is not generally a feasible goal but getting lost by calculation with a map can serve some of the same purposes. If in our notion of urban space its most interesting bits are not easy to get to or fully displayed, if we see a city as a puzzle or a set of riddles, we will believe ourselves closer to its heart when lost or going nowhere in particular.” — From Chapter 7, The Mind’s …
Heath Row at the Fast Company blog points to this article on good vs. bad gossip in organizations. Basically it says that bad gossip is bad for the organization, but when people say nice things about each other, that’s good for the organization. That might bit of a bit simplistic synopsis, but I feel like these researchers have missed a big opportunity. When I am working with organizations who complain that they have communication problems, I always ask about gossip. I ask how long it takes for a juicy rumour to propagate through the organization. People usually respond with some …
My fellow Bowen Islander John Dumbrille is getting his new blog into second gear: “Tom Peters’ and other’s vision of globalization, a vision which is coming true at a breakneck pace, will only be a fascinating, and rich future for those who are free enough to change. I don’t believe that it is inevitable that the income gap will continue to grow, and that the extremely poor will grow in numbers, covering the world more evenly. But to escape this we have to change – I do not think that books are enough or 3 hours of homework in grade …
From time to time as I travel around the country working on First Nations issues, I sometimes hear from non-Aboriginal people how First Nations were immigrants too, as if this somehow undermines the notion of Aboriginal title. While no one population group ever seems to stay put for very long, First Nations have had a very long history of occupation of the coast. Here in the Vancouver area settlements dating back 9000 have been discovered in a number of places along the Fraser River and in parts of Burrard inlet. These settlements would have been established not long after the …