"Unconference formats are great and powerful, but they require a thorough knowledge of the audience and speakers alike and very experienced moderators. I would suggest a simplification of the process for future endeavours.

Reduce the amount of tracks and talks to a minimum. one track, five to six talks per day, one hour each. As history keeps reminding us, less is more. Better off with six bad-ass, in-depth and engaging talks during a single track than four tracks and a myriad of cliched talks that barely scratch the surface of the topic."

[Seems to me that this misses the point of the unconference. There shouldn't be any talks at an unconference, just conversation (possibly activities/tinkering too). See the comment from Martin Eriksson. Also, unconferences are usually (but not exclusively) focused on the local.]

"My sarcasm is, of course, a thinly veiled attempt to point out how absurd it is to refer to events in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere as the Twitter Revolution, the Facebook Revolution, and so on. What we call things, the names we use to identify them, has incredible symbolic power, and I, for one, refuse to associate corporate brands with struggles for human dignity."

"That problem being that gamification isn’t gamification at all. What we’re currently terming gamification is in fact the process of taking the thing that is least essential to games and representing it as the core of the experience. Points and badges have no closer a relationship to games than they do to websites and fitness apps and loyalty cards. They’re great tools for communicating progress and acknowledging effort, but neither points nor badges in any way constitute a game. Games just use them – as primary school teachers, military hierarchies and coffee shops have for centuries – to help people visualise things they might otherwise lose track of. They are the least important bit of a game, the bit that has the least to do with all of the rich cognitive, emotional and social drivers which gamifiers are intending to connect with."

"Drawing/diagrams in the form of trees, which both elucidate & obsfucate roots of contemporary phenomena & terminology. Sort of like borrowing evolutionary tree format & applying it to other, often incompatible, things. In doing so a kind of humorous disjointed scientism of mind heaves into view.

"Is there a name or term for the aesthetic these blogs contain?...there is a definite theme & aesthetic quality in a lot of the blogs I read. But when trying to relate this to a friend yesterday, I realized I can't seem to figure out what it is or even quite how to describe it. It bothers me even more because this aesthetic is very similar to things I('d like to) wear, things I collect, how I decorate areas in my room, etc, which is likely why I read them in the first place. It's not just the vintage stuff, but that is a large part. There's a lot of overlap between them in modern things as well, & I think this combination of the two is rather important. So what's the name for this aesthetic & how can I describe/define it? And as a side question, are there blogs/resources where I can find more of the same? The blogs are: A Continuous Lean, The Material Review (a tumblr blog by the same guy who does A Continuous Lean), A Time to Get, Cold Splinters, Secret Forts"

"So if thinking is at the center of the activity that we want to encourage, it is not the kind of thinking that doctors and lawyers, professors and business people already do. It is not a feet up, data spread across the desk to be absorbed kind of thinking. It is a pencil in hand, scribbling on the board sort of thinking. And while that may be obvious to those close to the process already, I am afraid it is not what folks conjure up when they first hear the phrase design thinking."

"My intent, from this point forward, is to stop talking about the "long-term." No more long-term problems, long-term solutions, long-term changes. No more long-term perspectives. In its place, I'm going to start talking about "multigenerational" issues. Multigenerational problems, solutions, changes. Multigenerational perspectives."

"British schools are dropping the s-word — “school” — in favor of “place for learning” or “advanced learning centre,” reports the Times of London. Some secondary schools are renaming themselves “colleges” to sound “upmarket.”" ... "Here in the U.S., “academy” is the hot word, usually referring to a school for low-income students. I’d like to see more honesty in labeling: Let students choose between a school, a social center and penitentiary prep. I really think most would pick “school” if the choice was clear."

"Jessica Shepherd reviews the recently published How Children Learn at Home in the Guardian. The review seems to focus more on the unschooling subset of home education and the part that I find most interesting is the comparison to the messiness that often results in creative leaps. It reminds me of a variety of articles that have been emphasizing the importance of random events and cross-pollination or hybridization of traditional fields of study."

"I’ve been thinking about this page for quite a while, but I really only had two or three terms to post with links. Once I sat down to write this, though, I found a few others. This list provides examples of literary terms, primarily in videos and images, though there are a few written texts here for now. Page updates will happen. Hopefully this helps define, work with, teach, and learn these terms."

"If you’re in search of a term, how about ‘Philological Cladistics’ to describe the exploration of ways in which knowledge/fields-of-study can be compartmentalised (also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_decimal ), and ‘Philological determinism’ to describe how any compartmentalisation inhibits interdisciplinary exploration."

"Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world" or "perfecting the world." In Judaism, the concept of tikkun olam originated in the early rabbinic period. The concept was given new meanings in the kabbalah of the medieval period and further connotations i

"feeding frenzy currently going on, as companies large and small seek interaction designers to do...well...whatever it is that they do...Determining how one actually becomes an Interaction Designer is an even tougher challenge."

"scattered+uncertain state of mind created by increased technology+contradictory knowledge...inability to focus...from knowing very little about a great # of things...feeling you get when clarity breaks up in an ocean of infinite and ever-changing data."

"Two of his most basic neologisms, present-at-hand and ready-to-hand, are used to describe various attitudes toward to things in the world."