Interrelativity: musings about interrelatedness
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Hearts and Minds, Us and Them, War and Peace
Curtis Johnson shares some insightful — and potentially inciteful — views on new ways of thinking about — and acting on — the issue of terrorism in an article entitled "Towards Effective Global Influence". After starting off with a quote from Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson "Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and…
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Revolution: the Business and Brand of Sustainability?
The Seattle Times recently ran a Washington Post article on how Steve Case pushes symbiotic relationship of business principles, green ideas. This was particularly interersting to me, given that a few days earlier, Case‘s new company, Revolution, LLC, had flexed its muscles to grow Flexcar, whose [now] former CEO, Lance Ayrault, had shared some of…
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The Health of Nations: Inequality, Stress and Dissatisfaction
Stephen Bezruchka wrote an article in Sunday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer noting the higher average health found in nations with more egalitarian distributions of wealth. The article, "Economic equality is best medicine" bore the subtitle "Health of societies mostly relies on political and economic policies, not the individual treatment of disease." Bezruchka notes that Japan has the…
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Why Wiffiti? Wi Not?
Sean sent me a link to the Wiffiti blog last week, and I was immediately intrigued with this new twist on an interactive display in a "third place". Users can send text messages to a large plasma display installed in a restaurant or bar via mobile phone (SMS) by specifying the screen identifier. Real-time approximations…
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A Lion in the House, Tears in my Eyes: On Cancer, Courage, Honesty and Generosity
Leukemia. Children. Families. Doctors. Nurses. I just watched the second half of A Lion in the House. I don’t think I have ever had tears in my eyes for as long a stretch as during the last two hours. I feel sadness, gratitude and awe at the inspiring stories that unfolded in this episode of…
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An Inconvenient Truth, and a Call to Action
For Father’s Day, our family went to see An Inconvenient Truth, a movie I wanted to see … and wanted my children to see. In the film, Al Gore poignantly highlights many of the disturbing impacts of global warming, including natural disasters, droughts, sea level rise, epidemic illnesses and species extinction. Gore makes a compelling…
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Social Entrepreneurship at NWEN: Doing Well by Doing Right (via Flexcar)
Lance Ayrault, CEO of Flexcar, gave a great talk at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN) Venture Breakfast at the Bellevue Harbor Club yesterday on the topic of social entrepreneurship (a topic near and dear to my heart … and blog). Flexcar is an interesting exemplar of a non-traditional social venture, in that they are a…
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Stumbling on Happiness: Simulation, Surrogation, Attachment and Service
Dan Gilbert gave an inspiring talk at Microsoft Research recently (before heading into Seattle to present to a larger audience at Town Hall), sharing some insights from his book Stumbling on Happiness. Dan provided numerous opportunities to experience "learning through laughing" as he guided us through an engaging, enlightening and often delightful exploration into how…
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The Pervasiveness and Permeability of Games Worlds
The Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium this week highlighted the pervasiveness of games and raised a number of questions (for me) about the thin membrane between games worlds and so-called real life. I was also reminded of a number of themes I first encountered years ago in a delightful and insightful book, Finite and Infinite…