Events
2009 - a year for Playing 'Catch-Up' (Part 1)
Monday 19 January 2009
This is Part one with Part two (looking at who will probably better off at this time next year) to come shortly. If you are in a position to sharpen your thinking, catch a breath or use some time to improve your understanding of the ways in which we create our societies, then I have a three items to recommend to you for this year - two books and one search engine option. The books offer additional ways to the consider some of the scientific research we hear about (without being too 'jargon' laden) and the search engine is arguably one of the best pieces of technology I've seen for quite some time.
First up the books which I'd recommend you include in your 2009 reading priorities.
John Grant's 'Corrupted Science: Fraud, Ideology and Politics in Science' was published in 2007 by 'Facts, Figures and Fun' and may not have made it into your basket for holiday time. Don't miss it. If you'd benefit from understanding the way in which science is used to support dubious political and personal positions, with great case studies and blatant 'lies' in science, then you ought to read this book. It'll certainly improve your 'BS Detector' when the next piece of psuedo science is thrown at you to support an less than supportable case.
'The Carbon Age' by Eric Roston is the next book, published late last year by Walker & Company it is a wonderous look at the atom that is 'Carbon', its various forms in combination with other atoms, how we manipulate it and what The Carbon Age really means for us as a species. A bit more science heavy than Corrupted Science, Roston poses the position that Carbon Dioxide greenhouse gases and the like that are top of mind and highly reported at the moment are natural events that circulate carbon in various forms as part of an earthly cycle but that we have added the breakdown of the carbon atom such that we now threaten life as we know it. It is a scary proposition and one that forces a need for action, not complacency in terms of addressing the way we are adding to the speed and size of the cycle. The book falls a bit flat towards the end before picking up again and by then you should have a greatly enhanced understanding of what we are really talking about when we talk the age of Carbon.
Finally I'd like to recommend a Search Engine tool called Searchme.com that could well be the shape of search engines in the future. If you've read my writings over the years you'll know even as a futurist I am a technology sceptic, having seen and read more claims about innovations in technology that I can recall. You'll also know that I am a pragmatist and am fully supportive of any technology that can really improve the things we do. This search engine presents you with a visual view of the front page of websites that contain the subject you've entered into the search bar. You can then simply scroll past each page quickly reading the headlines before skipping on to the one you want or trying again - just like reading a magazine. I'm a huge fan of Google and as the new search engine builds, suspect I'll be using Google less and www.Searchme.com a lot more and if you have a preference for viewing images rather than reading lots of text (as traditional search engines present things to you), then this new beta format is one of the game changing ideas.
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Events
Friday 16 July 2010
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of 'future strategy' and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single 'home run'. To that end I've recently considered sporting bodies and local community driven programs which has triggered these 'thought bubbles'
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Monday 5 July 2010
Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field of endeavour (learning & teaching et al). The link below will take you to a presentation by David Harvey that walks you through an interesting interpretation of the Capitalist model and where we are at in the world affairs. Whether or not you agree with the content, it is highly recommended
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Monday 28 June 2010
Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I'm in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek out random connections. I once 'solved' the nuclear fusion problem whilst reading books by Umberto Eco and John D Barrow. A physicist friend of mine suggested my idea was radical and yet theoretically possible. But I digress. Right now I have a wide combination - 'From Poverty to Peace' by Duncan Green looks at ways in which we can empower people to help themselves more effectively, whilst looking at the myriad of mistakes so commonly made in the area of 'aid'. 'New knowledge in Human Values' is an older book edited by Ambraham Maslow with a wide contribution of thoughts from the likes of Pitirim Sorokin, Dorothy Lee and Paul Tillich (among others) and is a walk through some of the thinking about Human Values emerging in the late 1950's. The chapters are appropriately dense undertakings and I'm finding it hard to stick with, especially as I'm more inclined to lean towards the model of Clare W Graves and his Value Systems Thoery; 'Coercion as Cure' by Thomas Szasz is a ripper of a book thus far, though I'm only a few chapters in, I can tell the quality of a book by how much 'tagging' I do within a text
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