From Through The Prism of Human Collectivity by Huck Gutman: “As I walked, I passed a dry cleaner�s shop. At its front, immediately behind a large plate glass window, was a man ironing a shirt. I stopped and watched…He ironed, and I watched. And watched. He ironed one shirt, then a second. There was a defined progression for each shirt. First, he sprayed the shirt lightly with water to dampen it. Then, as he ironed each successive portion of the shirt he sprayed on a light dose of starch to make the fabric stiffer. He proceeded to iron the collar, …
I have always loved Erik Satie. The French composer wrote beautiful modern music, tying much of his creativity to the explosion in avant garde modes of expression sweeping Europe in the early part of the last century. This piece is called “Gnossiennes No. 1.” and the score has little verbal instructions for the pianist that are intended to guide one’s approach to the music: “Shining”, “Questioning”, “From the tip of the thought”, “Wonder about yourself”, “Step by step”, “On the tip of the tongue.” Taken together, this short piece captures the process of the emergence and expression of a thought …
Interesting stuff…Rykodisk has released a podcast (mp3) of Brian Eno talking about his new album, Another Day on Earth. The interview is accompanied by a rather nice little ten minute mix of most of the tracks from that album, all of which are songs. Some of the transitions are a little rough, but there is a nice overall feel. The album sounds great. You can see all the lyrics here. My favourite section is from “Caught Between” which captures some of the sense of what it’s like to facilitate a learning process with a group: Reaching out To still the …
I’m just returning from Calgary where my partner Susan Neden and I have been doing some design and faiclitation work with the imagineCALGARY Roundtable. imagineCALGARY is a 100 year sustainability planning exercise, in the spirit of the Imagine Chicago process. Last night we took the group through a short Cafe process about their engagment and reasons why the roundtable participants agreed to join the enterprise. In the midst of all the conversation a line stood out for me that rocked me very deeply. In going over the table notes afterwards Susan read out this zinger: “Cities last longer than countries.” …
What if you lived in a country where something like 20% of the population had a phone, and waiting for a phone took 5-10 years? What if you had pioneered a microlending scheme that enabled very poor women to buy cows and sell the milk? What if cows=cell phones? The Grameen Bank, well-known for their micro-credit loan circles has come up with another amazing scheme for building empowerment in poor countries using a distributed business model in which poor people are seen as assets instead of liabilities. Ethan Zuckerman reports on a presentation by Iqbal Quadir, one of the founders …