TEDActive: What the world needs now

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More commerce, more learning, improved healthcare, and a cleaner environment thanks to solar power

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Welcome to the age of direct democracy

Listening to Mads Qvortrup, I learned, for example, that, according to a study, trust in politicians goes up by as much as 20% in the places / countries, where you have direct democracy. What's it like in the places where you live?

A new model for emerging markets

Listening to the interview, embedded below, with Matt Eyring, I learned, for example, that what is missing in emerging markets is products and services for the emerging middle class, i.e. products and services between high end and low end. During the video, Mr. Eyring shows a couple of interesting examples.

3 technologies that changed the way we think

The Internet is just one in a series of “intellectual technologies” that have reshaped the way humans think. In the interesting 5 minute video embedded below, Nicholas Carr gives examples of 3 technologies that changed the way we think:

The map

Before the map came along people understood where they were and where they were going through what they saw, heard etc. With the map, the pure visual and auditory and sensory perception was supplemented by an abstract picture, which is a radically different way to think about space. The map trained us to think more abstractly.

The mechanical clock

Before the mechanical clock came along, people experienced time as a natural flow. People measured time by watching the stars, the moon, the sun etc. With the introduction of the mechanical clock, people came to experience time as a series of discreet, precisely measurable units: Seconds, minutes, hours etc. People’s way of thinking became much more scientific.

The printing press

What the book does as a technology is shield people from distraction. In other words, the book gave people a more attentive way of thinking – whether you are paying attention to a story, an argument or whatever.

A tour of Masdar City

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 was awarded to Martin Luther King Jr. Via this posting and this posting, I came across the speech below by Dr. King:

Examples of growth in hard times

Reading this interesting McKinsey Quarterly article, I was struck by this paragraph: 

"Although the 1930s were very hard times for the United States, not every industry or business declined. As the economy shifted massively from capital goods to consumer goods, some industries - such as steel, rubber, coal, glass, railroads, and building - suffered greatly, but consumer brands such as Kellogg’s hit their stride. Campgrounds and motels blossomed along highways. Airline passenger traffic grew robustly. Entertainment surged with the growth of the radio and movie industries, and of their audience, during the Golden Age of Hollywood."

You don’t have to be afraid of what you are

“There’s a hero if you look inside your heart; You don’t have to be afraid of what you are.”

Listening to the very first words from the song Hero, which Mariah Carey performs beautifully in the video embedded below, I came to think of the 5 personality traits in the five factor model. Do you know who you are, and who you are not? In this regard, I also reflected on these tips to help improve self confidence. Have you thought about that knowing who you are will contribute to improving your self confidence?

Citizens in Mexico create bike lanes themselves

The 4½ minute video below about Mexican citizens, who – in Guadalajara, Mexico – create bike lanes themselves is in Spanish. For those of you who are not fluent in Spanish: Don't worry: Images speak for themselves ;-) In this article through which I learned about this quite remarkable citizen initiative - an initiative that led my thoughts to FixMyStreet - I also read about the reasons why these citizens decided to act themselves. Here’s an extract:

[We have a problem: 350 cars are added to the city traffic every day; the average traffic speed has fallen to 18 km/h and the quality of our air reaches alarming levels during several days of winter.] [In Mexico, the cost of building a bike lane reaches about 100,000 dollars per kilometre. This means that the section on which we worked, 2.5 kilometres on each side of a two way avenue, could have cost about 500,000 dollars. The investment, the citizen's investment, was only 1,000 dollars.]

Here are some ideas on creating bicycle friendly cities 

Experience it for yourself

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KLM Surprise

In a previous posting, I posted an example of a fine initiative Spanair took to surprise customers positively at Christmas time. Here’s another interesting example – initiated by people working for KLM. Via.

Here are some inputs on improving the customer experience.

Spanair's special Christmas surprise

Here is an interesting initiative from Spanair showing that it is a good idea to work on surprising customers positively. Not least for the kids in the video, the experience seemed to be great.

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Do you know why you are here?

In this interesting conversation between Charlie Rose and Clayton Christensen, I learned, for example, this:

Minute 5

Clayton Christensen: “To know why we are here is of critical importance to guide our lives”.

Minute 9

Charlie Rose quotes Einstein: “95% of getting to the right answer is asking the right question.”

Rethinking recruitment

Rethinking Recruitment         

10 business models that rocked 2010

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10 business models that rocked 2010

View more presentations from Board of Innovation (BOI).

Legal challenges to collaborative consumption

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