"It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing--and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite--that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that."
- Mark Twain, from a letter to Helen Keller.

About an ideation, problem-solving technique mentioned by Napoleon Hill in the book "Think and Grow Rich: Have a "council table" where you "invite" anyone (living, dead, imagined) -- and have a definite purpose for these "meetings".

How to respond to an angry teen? "Crombie suggests starting the conversation with one very basic question: 'What's up?'
This works, he says, because you are using their terminology. Teens are more likely to give at least some sort of answer when the question makes sense to them.
When they do respond, pay close attention to their body language and the number of words they use. Then, respond back to them in a similar manner.
For example, if your teen answers your 'what's up?' question with two words, give two words in return. If he or she gives you three sentences, give three sentences back, and so forth."
Author: Dawn Weinberger, KING5.com, March 23, 2012

"Steven Strogatz, an award-winning professor, takes readers from the basics to the baffling in a 15-part series on mathematics. Beginning with a column on why numbers are helpful, he goes on to investigate topics including negative numbers, calculus and group theory, finishing with the mysteries of infinity."
Author: Steven Stogatz, NY Times

"We like to believe that a few bad apples spoil the virtuous bunch. But research shows that everyone cheats a little—right up to the point where they lose their sense of integrity", says Dan Ariely.
Author: Dan Ariely, WSJ, May 25, 2012

Author: Consumer Reports, May 22, 2012

Interview with Mike Ambinder, experimental psychologist for Valve Software, who are makers of the top-selling games Left 4 Dead, Half-Live, and Team Fortress

"Nothing is more important to business success than the knowledge and know-how of workers. ... Organizations that fail to leverage informal learning leave buckets of money on the table. In a knowledge era, it is irresponsible to disregard the prime means of creating, sharing, and replenishing intellectual capital."

"Informal learning is effective because it is personal. The individual calls the shots. The learner is responsible. ... Informal learning is the path to organizational agility and profits. It also respects workers and challenges them to be all they can be."

"Learning is successful adaptation to change. Informal and formal learning are the end points of a continuum. On one end, formal learning is like riding abus: The driver decides where the bus is going, while the passengers are along for the ride. On the opposite end, informal learning is like riding a bike: The rider chooses the destination, the speed, and the route. The rider can take a detour at a moment’s notice to admire the scenery or use the bathroom."
Author: Jay Cross, May 25, 2012

Practice basic math skills.

What makes your MVP special is the ability to solve ill-structured problems. These are the problems which have something unique about them, whether it’s designing a new solution strategy, or envisioning a new skyscraper." Solving "ill-structured" problems is "based on three kinds of knowledge:  how things work, problem solving strategies, and context knowledge.

What's an experience map? "it's a model. A model on steroids. It's an artifact that serves to illuminate the complete experience a person may have with a product or service.

But it's not just about the illustration of the journey (that would simply be a journey map). And it's not a service blueprint which shows how a system works in enough detail to verify, implement and maintain it."

What are the criteria for a good experience map? "First, it can stand on its own, meaning it can be circulated across an organization and doesn't need to be explained, framed or qualified. Like others, we make our experience maps large, often greater than five feet long. They're meant to engender a shared reference of the experience, consensus of the good and the bad. Second, it's clearly a means to something actionable—ideally something to design around—and not an end in and of itself. A good experience map feels like a catalyst, not a conclusion."

About experience maps: "It should also illuminate the most important dimensions—which could be the transition from phase to phase, or the switching between different channels. This is where you may want to get your Tufte on and make sure that you aren't simply illustrating the journey step-by-step, but ideally revealing something about it based on how you model the data, e.g. how many people use one channel over the other, which part of the experience is blatantly broken, or which part of the experience hasn't been considered much?"
Author: Chris Risdon, Adaptive Path, Nov 30, 2011

"Learning & working are interconnected in the network era. If learning support is not connected to work, it’s rather useless. Learning is the new black – it’s everywhere; and that’s exactly where learning specialists should be. Net workers need more than advice (training), they need ongoing, real-time, constantly-changing, collaborative, support."
Author: Harold Jarache, May 21, 2012

Author: Clark Quinn

Get an insult from the Bard.

"Pinterest" for learning

"Insightful solutions to problems often happen when people reuse knowledge that they did not realize would be valuable when they learned it. ... That kind of creativity requires three components: 1) improving your knowledge about the way all kinds of things in the world function; 2) developing strategies to pull out the knowledge you need when you need it; and 3) developing thinking habits to support these skills."
Author: Art Markman, Chicago Tribune, May 23, 2012

"Ever find yourself going over and over a problem in your business, only to hit a dead end or draw a blank? Find an innovative solution with one simple technique: re-describe the problem."
Author: Nadia Goodman, Entrepreneur, May 23, 2012

The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing that we each need a personal privacy strategy. This post is Part Three of that series.
Author: Dan Tapscott, The Huffington Post, May 23, 2012

"Got innovation? Just about every company says it does. ... But that doesn't mean the companies are actually doing any innovating. Instead they are using the word to convey monumental change when the progress they're describing is quite ordinary."
Author: Leslie Kwoh, Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2012

"More than 90 percent of Americans think equal access to fresh produce is very or somewhat important, according to a new survey by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. ... Interestingly, 70 percent of those surveyed said they had bought fresh produce from a farmers' market or stand in the past year, and more than 68 percent said they ate more whole grains, fruits and vegetables than they did five years ago."
Author: Rachel Tepper, The Huffington Post, May 22, 2012

The infographic on infographics

Free, online book by Stephen Downes, May 19, 2012.

"An intrapreneur is someone who has an entrepreneurial streak in his or her DNA, but chooses to align his or her talents with a large organization in place of creating his or her own.:

Intrapreneur = An entrepreneur in a large organization

"An intrapreneur is someone who has an entrepreneurial streak in his or her DNA, but chooses to align his or her talents with a large organization in place of creating his or her own."

"Smart organizations will seek out individuals who like to invent, innovate and want to be on the front lines of change. These individuals can work independently but even more important can work seamlessly as part of an integrated team structure and also effectively embrace and embody the culture of the intrapreneur’s host organization."

Author: David Armano, Forbes, May 21, 2012

"A fascinating new paper in the Journal of Neuroscience led by Michael Treadway at Vanderbilt University [is a] first draft of what happens in the brain as we choose between effort and indulgence, work and distraction."
Author: Jonah Lehrer, Wired, May 17, 2012

resources from Thea Boodhoo for presentation at WebVisions Portland 2012

"If nothing else, it would be wise for us all to remember that, while our information technology may be digital in nature, the human beings interacting with it will always be infuriatingly and delightfully analog."
—
Adam Greenfield

via @tkadlec at #webvisions

HFI's usability buttons that they've handed out - images on Pinterest

Guidelines on "voice" and tone in writing content.
In this case, the guidelines are for the Tuft's University web site.
Has quick good examples, that include:
"NO: ;Undergraduates can choose from more than 100 student organizations.;
YES: ;Simpsons? Sci-fi? Salsa dancing? Service? Yeah, there’s a club for that.;”

"You have to create alongside your customers, because you can’t rely on a robust outcome of your in-house innovation process."
Author: Pascal Finette, Fast Company, May 15, 2012

"But a new wave of gamification is underway, one that is focused on creating a deeper understanding of what makes a business successful. It’s not about 'virtual' points, but hard-dollar revenue. ... [now game] mechanics are not the star of the show. They are tools for answering questions such as:
Who are our top performers?
What do they do to achieve success?
What activities lead prospects to buy more?
What activities lead partners to sell more?
How can high performance techniques be widely adopted?
The next wave of gamification is not about games. It is about understanding business processes. In essence, gamification, applied to the enterprise, is an improved and flexible form of business process management (BPM), one that offers a new way to understand and optimize business processes."
Author: Dan Woods, Forbes, May 14, 2012

Dogs catch your yawns. Does this mean that they have empathy?
Author: Zuberosa Marcos, Science AAAS, May 7, 2012

"Without remembering how the past unfolded, trying to plan ahead is "like being in a room with nothing there and having a guy tell you to go find a chair."
Author: Carl Zimmer, Discover, April 24, 2012 (April issue of the printed magazine).

To innovate, we need environments that support imaginative thinking, where we can go through many crazy, tangential, and even bad ideas to come up with good ones. We need to work both collaboratively and individually. We also need a healthy amount of heated discussion, even arguing. We need places where someone can throw out a thought, have it critiqued, and not feel so judged that they become defensive and shut down. Yet this creative process is not necessarily supported by the traditional tenets of brainstorming: group collaboration, all ideas held equal, nothing judged. ... At Continuum, we use deliberative discourse--or what we fondly call 'Argue. Discuss. Argue. Discuss.'”
The article lists the 5 rules of engagement that Continuum uses.
(1) No hierarchy. (2) Say "No, because". (3) Diverse perspectives. (4) Focus on a common goal. (5) Keep it fun.
Author: Daniel Sobol, Fast Company, March 22, 2012

"In 2012, growth is no longer a matter of market share. In a world dominated by constraint, the brands that grow do so by understanding and meeting more and more needs and producing products and services to meet those needs. Growth is about share of mind and wallet, not simply share of market. It’s no surprise that the world’s most powerful brands can jump categories at will. Apple, Google, Tata, Innocent, Sony, Sky, Virgin, Tesco can gate crash almost any category they choose. Credibility, not capability, is king. It’s easier for a trusted brand to become a bank than it is for a bank to become trusted."

"And the brands that will have the greatest impact on all our lives are those that see themselves not as citadels that need defending but as causes that need joining. The most important, most effective, most impactful brands are those that have put petty competition behind them and embraced collaboration as an operating principle--it is their core DNA. These brands are clear about their ambitions and are not shy about seeking out others who share those ambitions. And with these partners they will pool resources to create a better future."

"Traditional branding is currently too crude for the subtleties we now demand. Brands on a collaborative stage need to work out when it’s appropriate for them to be present, when they should be absent, and when they should be recessive."
Author: Nick Keppel-Palmer, Fast Company, May 15, 2012

"Diversity is the crucial element for group creativity. Innovation teams tasked with creating new products or technologies or iterating existing ones need tension to produce breakthroughs, and tension comes from diverse points of view. ... How to get started? Take a stubborn challenge you're currently facing and set up an informal meeting with a harsh critic, someone who often disagrees with your point of view. Critics challenge assumptions and are usually very passionate. Invite them in; hear them out. You may be surprised by how much you learn, and also by how thinking about a problem from a different perspective can refresh and energize your own ideas."
Author: Beth Comstock, HBR, May 11, 2012

"Games consoles are all the rage in Mogadishu, keeping boys away from school but also away from the militants"
Author: The Guardian, May 4, 2012

Liars are betting at spotting lies.
Author: Christian Jarrett, Research Digest, May 14, 2012

Specialists at the Kennedy Krieger Institute ... are testing the use of early intervention groups to improve social and communication skills for 1- and 2-year-olds who are considered at high risk for autism and related disorders.
Author: Shirley S. Wang, WSJ, May 8, 2012

"People rush through experiences because they don't realize that slowing down consumption leads to more pleasure, a study finds." People who add Hersey's kisses at their own rate (93 sec on average) "said their pleasure dropped steeply from the first kiss to the last. For the more leisurely group [assigned to eat a kiss every 200 seconds], enjoyment dropped only slightly Something similar happened with videogames."
Author: WSJ, May 12, 2012

Toxic stress physically damages a child’s developing brain.
How a school principles learns from John Medina, author of "Brain Rules" and Natalie Turner. "Toxic stress comes from complex trauma ... [which] ain’t pretty. It’s when your dad’s in prison AND your mom’s a meth addict AND she’s too drugged out to move in the mornings, so you’ve got to take care of your little brother, get him fed and off to school, AND you’re despairing about being evicted for the third time because she hasn’t paid the rent and the landlord’s screaming at you to do something. ... Teens who live with complex trauma are walking post-traumatic stress time bombs ... They teeter through their days. The smallest incident can push them into a full-blown meltdown. Some kids run away. Some explode in rage. Some just mentally check out."

"There are just two simple rules, says Turner. Rule No. 1: Take nothing a raging kid says personally. Really. Act like a duck: let the words roll off your back like drops of water."

"Rule No. 2: Don’t mirror the kid’s behavior. Take a deep breath. Wait for the storm to pass, and then ask something along the lines of: 'Are you okay? Did something happen to you that’s bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?'”

"It’s not that a kid gets off the hook for bad behavior. 'There have to be consequences,' explains Turner. Replace punishment, which doesn’t work, with a system to give kids tools so that they can learn how to recognize their reaction to stress and to control it. 'We need to teach the kids how to do something differently if we want to see a different response.'"

Handy spreadsheet of TED Talks - listing speakers, topics, a short summary, and a links to the videos.

Research article.
What's more motivating to learners?
* linear video that consisted of video taped presentations
with demonstrations of techniques and principals discussed
* lecture presentations by experts on the subjects that included use of overhead projector as well as demonstration of skills
* computer-based instruction that utilized an interactive multimedia format
Learners who used the computer-based instruction (CBI) had higher motivation in all of the ARCS areas (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) than learners who used other media. That's probably because the CBI had simulated scenarios that provided instant feedback. The other methods didn't have opportunities to practice.
Author: David L. Rodgers and Beverly J. Withrow-Thorton, International Journal of Instructional Media Vol, 32(4), 2005

Themeefy is a curation and self-publishing platform, that lets people do four things
- Curate information from the web from various sources
- Create their own content, via notes or pictures
- Publish this collection in a book format (Themeefy Mag). This is an HTML5 / JS based magazine that can be viewed on computers and devices like the iPad
- Read and share magazines and personalize this via bookmarks and comments."

Brain Science podcasts

Author: Tom Kuhlmann, Rapid eLearning Bog,

You may have heard of Instagram, Zappos, and Pinterest. Others on the list:2tor (putting higher education online), Global Giving, Airbnb(renting out extra space to travelers), Square (allows mobile merchants to accept payments), BetterWorks (workplace recognition and rewards), Docstoc, and Better Place.
Author: Ilya Pozin, Forbes, May 9, 2012

Pinterest Flowchart - Is Pinterest right for me or my business?

Designing for Growth - website for the book

Is your problem a puzzle or a mystery?
Refers to the "Designing for Growth" book -- showing the key chart that forms the framework of the book.

Alternative to Prezi - that creates similar presentations.
It' free as long as you share the result publicly. To keep it private, you have to pay.
See also the article about this tool.

Do you love Prezi but want a few more features? Try Ahead.com. Ahead is a non-linear presentation tool similar to Prezi. You can load just about any type of content, then move and resize it. ... It includes a background layer, perfect for a large image, and a front layer…both remain static. All of the main content is in the zooming layer."
It's a free tool.
Author: Mark Brumley

Author: PsyBlog

Free Penn State course on gamification

Slidedeck from presentation on Mobile Content Strategy

The researchers "decided to study “fake” exercise instead, using two specialized drugs that had been tested several years ago by scientists at the Salk Institute in San Diego. The drugs had been shown to induce the same kinds of changes in sedentary animals’ muscles that exercise would cause, so that even though the mice didn’t exercise, they physiologically responded as if they had. ... After a week of receiving either of the two drugs (and not exercising), the mice performed significantly better on tests of memory and learning than control animals that had simply remained quiet in their cages. ...The results, published in the journal Learning and Memory, showed that the drugged animals’ brains also contained far more new neurons in brain areas central to learning and memory than the brains of the control mice, an effect found by microscopic examination."
Author: Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, May 9, 2012

Tips on using Evernote to go "paperless" and remember everything.
Author: Jamie Todd Rubin, May 8, 2012

A counter to Ruth Clark's article "Why Games Don't Teach".
Author: Christy Tucker, May 8, 2012

Author: Ruth Colvin Clark, ASTD, April 30, 2012

Webinar - I'm registered for it

"Neuroscientists have pinpointed the areas of the brain that help us to look on the bright side."
Author: Kerri Smith, Nature, 24 Oct 2007

he other week web pioneer Jakob Nielsen made waves by suggesting web developers:

Build a separate mobile-optimised site if you can afford it.
Cut features to eliminate things that are not core to the mobile use case.
Cut content to reduce word count and defer secondary information to secondary pages.
This led to a big backlash from the responsive design camp. Josh Clark replied ...

"A University of Alberta researcher is questioning the notion of "group think" -- a common psychological phenomenon -- that has been used to explain some of the extreme things people do once they are within the confines of a group. Rob Wilson, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, rejects the popular idea that groups tend to have a mind of their own and says the notion of a collective mind is problematic."
Author: ScienceDaily, Mar. 25, 2010

"The process of melding individuals into effective, problem-solving groups should involve empowering individuals to realize they have important ideas to share.Dr. Bryan Bonner, an associate professor at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business, believes the first step to building successful organizations is deceptively simple: self-realization by each participant of his or her unique knowledge and experience."
Author: ScienceDaily, Mar. 27, 2012