Doug has a nice post today: Micro conversations can be a counterpart to micro credit: what if we could encourage people to converse in little groups, to take charge of their lives, jointly, in little snatches, and spread these micro conversations to thousands and thousands? Here is where the pyramids and circles work, because there is an infinite set of permutations and each one is creative (not additive, not multiplicative, not geometric). It is not zero sum, where one gathers at the expense of another: all benefit. Not just individually but in our interwoven whole. Just host a little conversation, …
More on action systems, but this time from a poet, Anais Nin: And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. That describes shift perfectly…when the status quo becomes more painful than the move. [tags]anais nin, transformation[/tags] Photo by Ernie*
“We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy and the one facing what we do to the enemy.” –Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, p. 301 I wish I could find a more coherent way to talk about this, about the complex set of emotions I feel in wearing a poppy and believing in peace. Joseph Boyden’s quote reminds me about the humanity that is at war. Whenever humans are involved in something, it’s never simple, so bear with me. I am trying to write about something that lives strongly in my heart, and heart …
I am trying to book a flight from Vancouver to Penticton. The Air Canada website is giving me all kinds of errors tonight and I have been ploughing away for about 45 minutes trying to secure a booking. In an effort to just cut to the chase, I called the reservations centre. They normally have a $20 fee for booking over the phone, but I assume that they will waive that to get me a booking as the web site is clearly down. To my faint surprise and astonishment, Kevin, the reservations agent, says he can’t do it. …
I was reading the striking conversation between Jimmy Wales and Dale Hoiberg, from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica respectively, and I suddenly had the strangest thought. These two publications represent completely different creations stories. Britannica is the Garden of Eden, a perfectly designed place that can only get worse as people tamper with it. It is the “order to chaos” model and so it is surrounded with protection to keep it in it’s pristine form. (I was also surprised to read Mr. Hoiberg’s comment that the Britannica endeavours to represent all of human knowledge. That seems absurd to me.) Wikipedia is …