Happy Chinese and Korean New Year. It’s the Year of the Monkey, and isn’t necessarily good: The Year of the Monkey, 2004, in the Hsia calendar, is symbolized by two elements � with wood sitting on top of metal. According to the cycle of birth and destruction, which governs the inter-relationship between elements, metal will destroy wood. Therefore, wood sitting on its destroyer � metal, is a symbol of disharmony and this may lead to international conflicts. The yang wood is always compared to a tall tree, with the characteristic of being proud, tough, stubborn and sticking to principles, inflexible …
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 …