As businesses continue to integrate social media and become more confident and comfortable with social media tools and platforms, we’re starting to see a change in social media usage. A new study reveals what’s changing with social media.
#1: Companies Are Still New to Social Media
#2: Businesses Focus in on the “Big 5″
#3: The 2-Year Confidence Mark
#4: Companies Are Broadcasting Versus Connecting
#5: Businesses Turn to Internal Sources for Social Media Support
#6: Social Media Adoption Obstacles
#7: Lack of Social Media Measurement
#8: Companies Lack Confidence in Their Social Media Strategy
Detail at Social Media Examiner
Mobile Media Production & Training https://www.facebook.com/transmediaNT
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Storytelling for Businesses
Integrating narrative throughout your work has four advantages:
Brand: Story makes what you stand for both clear and appealing. “Stories help to make seemingly indefinable and intangible organizational values and attributes (such as unity and sustainability) concrete and tangible.”
Engagement: Stories humanize your organization, which is important because people engage with people, not with concepts or organizations.
Smart leadership: Stories build credibility and trust, as well as deepen relationships, start conversations and catalyze action. “Stories also help smart leaders introduce the meaning of new projects and products. In a narrative organization, leaders are skilled in linking current projects and challenges to the narrative of the organization’s past, present, and future,” note the article.
Knowledge sharing: Stories work well for sharing knowledge and putting useful frameworks around information. They help us grasp data, learn and surface tacit knowledge. They help us make sense of ourselves and what we do.
via Katya's blog
Brand: Story makes what you stand for both clear and appealing. “Stories help to make seemingly indefinable and intangible organizational values and attributes (such as unity and sustainability) concrete and tangible.”
Engagement: Stories humanize your organization, which is important because people engage with people, not with concepts or organizations.
Smart leadership: Stories build credibility and trust, as well as deepen relationships, start conversations and catalyze action. “Stories also help smart leaders introduce the meaning of new projects and products. In a narrative organization, leaders are skilled in linking current projects and challenges to the narrative of the organization’s past, present, and future,” note the article.
Knowledge sharing: Stories work well for sharing knowledge and putting useful frameworks around information. They help us grasp data, learn and surface tacit knowledge. They help us make sense of ourselves and what we do.
via Katya's blog
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The 5 Elements Of A Good Company Story
1) PASSION – Write stories around issues your audience actually cares about – not just because you can get a customer quote.
2) A PROTAGONIST – This one is easy. It is you, your company, your product, your service, or something along those lines. Too often this is where company stories begin and end.
3) AN ANTAGONIST – Our villain! The villain is often the most overlooked part of an organization’s story. But without it, you don’t have a story at all. As companies, we need to think beyond the traditional “evil doer.” Instead think enemy! What is the issue or challenge that your company has been built to address? Maybe it is a cultural issue, a major industry problem, or even just the inadequate status quo.
4) THE REVELATION – Please tell us something we don’t know. A good story engages the reader who is awaiting some sort of reveal. Share something unexpected with the reader.
5) THE TRANSFORMATION – Think about the impact of your story. What is different as a result of the story you are telling?
If you are missing one of these elements, the truth is, you haven’t got much of a story – so move on and find where the stories do exist within your company.
Monday, April 25, 2011
30 Best iPhone Photo Apps
This is a carefully compiled list of camera replacement, editing studio and single-effect apps that will help enhance and enable your iPhone photography.
22 free data visualization & analysis tools
There are many tools around to help turn data into graphics, but they can carry hefty price tags. The cost can make sense for professionals whose primary job is to find meaning in mountains of information, but you might not be able to justify such an expense if you or your users only need a graphics application from time to time, or if your budget for new tools is somewhat limited. If one of the higher-priced options is out of your reach, there are a surprising number of highly robust tools for data visualization and analysis that are available at no charge. Check them out here.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
12 Great Contemporary Museums & Galleries
Cultural landmarks and civic assets, well-designed museums can put unknown towns on the map, revitalize entire urban areas, ignite discussion about architecture and draw in tourists from around the world. From iconic and instantly recognizable contemporary structures like the Guggenheim Bilbao to subtle modern renovations and promising projects that have not yet been built, these 12 stunning museums and galleries designed by some of the world’s top architects stand out for their eye-catching visuals, respect for the landscape and history of their settings and sheer brilliance. Check them out at WebUrbanist
The Future of Advertising
First, you have to find the core story at the heart of your brand —what we call the Story Platform. Create narratives based on it and publish those narratives across all relevant media in weird and wonderful ways.
As each story is published, it needs to be syndicated and shared with it’s intended audience where they are most likely to encounter those stories. Then use paid media——TV spots,events, paid search and so on——to let people know your content is out there. The content has to be easy for people to share so everyone can help spread the brand’s stories. To make sure your audience can find your content when searching, make sure everything is tagged and optimized appropriately.
So it goes, round and round, driving results and effectiveness up, up, up while driving media spend down, down, down.
The best part comes next: Sustained by the brand’s storytelling, the brand’s fans add, syndicate and share their own content——comments, links, ratings, and entirely new versions——and all this brand-inspired content——whether new stories or conversation about old ones——creates more marketing momentum for free, forever.
The result of rigorously following this path is a permanent market advantage for the brand——lower total cost of marketing; higher impact. All you need is to make sure you’ve got your story straight.
Read more at Content Matters
As each story is published, it needs to be syndicated and shared with it’s intended audience where they are most likely to encounter those stories. Then use paid media——TV spots,events, paid search and so on——to let people know your content is out there. The content has to be easy for people to share so everyone can help spread the brand’s stories. To make sure your audience can find your content when searching, make sure everything is tagged and optimized appropriately.
So it goes, round and round, driving results and effectiveness up, up, up while driving media spend down, down, down.
The best part comes next: Sustained by the brand’s storytelling, the brand’s fans add, syndicate and share their own content——comments, links, ratings, and entirely new versions——and all this brand-inspired content——whether new stories or conversation about old ones——creates more marketing momentum for free, forever.
The result of rigorously following this path is a permanent market advantage for the brand——lower total cost of marketing; higher impact. All you need is to make sure you’ve got your story straight.
Read more at Content Matters
The Connected Company
One of the most difficult challenges companies face today is how to be more flexible and adaptive in a dynamic, volatile business environment. How do you build a company that can identify and capitalize on opportunities, navigate around risks and other challenges, and respond quickly to changes in the environment? How do you embed that kind of agility into the DNA of your company?
The answer is to distribute control in such a way that decisions can be made as quickly and as close to customers as possible. There is no way for people to respond and adapt quickly if they have to get permission before they can do anything.
If you want an adaptive company, you will need to unleash the creative forces in your organization, so people have the freedom to deliver value to customers and respond to their needs more dynamically. One way to do this is by enabling small, autonomous units that can act and react quickly and easily, without fear of disrupting other business activities – pods.
Read more here.The Art of Immersion: Why Do We Tell Stories?
Anthropologists tell us that storytelling is central to human existence. That it’s common to every known culture. That it involves a symbiotic exchange between teller and listener—an exchange we learn to negotiate in infancy. Just as the brain detects patterns in the visual forms of nature—a face, a figure, a flower—and in sound, so too it detects patterns in information. Stories are recognizable patterns, and in those patterns we find meaning. We use stories to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others. They are the signal within the noise.
The way we tell them changes with the technology at hand. Every new medium has given rise to a new form of narrative. The Internet is the first medium that can act like all media—it can be text, or audio, or video, or all of the above. It’s nonlinear, thanks to the World Wide Web and the revolutionary convention of hyperlinking. It’s inherently participatory—not just interactive, in the sense that it responds to your commands, but an instigator constantly encouraging you to comment, to contribute, to join in. And it is immersive—meaning that you can use it to drill down as deeply as you like about anything you want to know about....
Read more at TribecaFilm.com
The way we tell them changes with the technology at hand. Every new medium has given rise to a new form of narrative. The Internet is the first medium that can act like all media—it can be text, or audio, or video, or all of the above. It’s nonlinear, thanks to the World Wide Web and the revolutionary convention of hyperlinking. It’s inherently participatory—not just interactive, in the sense that it responds to your commands, but an instigator constantly encouraging you to comment, to contribute, to join in. And it is immersive—meaning that you can use it to drill down as deeply as you like about anything you want to know about....
Read more at TribecaFilm.com
DataVizChallenge.org
Open data = creative industries innovation. Check out the recent competition Visualize Your Taxes
Apps for Communities
This project will be interesting to observe:
Apps for Communities
The Knight Foundation and the FCC challenge you to develop a software application (app) that delivers personalized, actionable information to people that are least likely to be online. Using hyper-local government and other public data you should develop an app that enables Americans to benefit from broadband communications -- regardless of geography, race, economic status, disability, residence on Tribal land, or degree of digital or English literacy --by providing easy access to relevant content.
Apps for Communities
Museums on Twitter
A handy list of 1500 museum Twitter IDs for you to follow Museums_on_twitter_2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Seven Myths Of The NBN
The first myth is that the private sector can do it... read more at newmatilda.com
StoryTec
StoryTec has been conceptualized as rapid prototyping environment to facilitate the authoring process of interactive applications.
Examples include, but are not limited to Story-based city and museum guides, classical Web-based training courses, game-based learning appliances for kids, students and families as well as process-oriented, individual and collaborative simulation and training environments for trainees and employees or personalized exergames to increase the motivation for a sportive and healthy life.
Nowadays, within the information society and the age of digital natives and digital immigrants, interactive media become highly relevant. Stories and game-based approaches are broadly used, not only for knowledge transfer, but also in the context of marketing and advertisement or other business domains.
StoryTec offers any kind of authors – might it be a lecturer, teacher, trainer, coach or a kid, pupil, student, tourist or senior citizen – the possibility to document personal experiences and common knowledge and to create interactive media appliances out of it.
Homepage: StoryTec
Examples include, but are not limited to Story-based city and museum guides, classical Web-based training courses, game-based learning appliances for kids, students and families as well as process-oriented, individual and collaborative simulation and training environments for trainees and employees or personalized exergames to increase the motivation for a sportive and healthy life.
Nowadays, within the information society and the age of digital natives and digital immigrants, interactive media become highly relevant. Stories and game-based approaches are broadly used, not only for knowledge transfer, but also in the context of marketing and advertisement or other business domains.
StoryTec offers any kind of authors – might it be a lecturer, teacher, trainer, coach or a kid, pupil, student, tourist or senior citizen – the possibility to document personal experiences and common knowledge and to create interactive media appliances out of it.
Homepage: StoryTec
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Top 10 Social Networks for Creative People
This article starts by looking at the benefits of networking for creative people. It then surveys 10 social networks that should be on your radar as a creative professional. Read more at Lateral Action
Thursday, April 14, 2011
App Search Engine: Quixey
Tell Quixey what you want to do — see sports scores, edit video, find cheap gas, etc. — and the search engine will return results, ranked by relevance, with all of the web, Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Firefox, IE and Chrome apps that match your query. Read more here.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Integral Thinkers
If you are a leader, change agent, or someone who helps to develop either, I think you’ll find this article & linked resources not only deeply useful, but even potentially transformational.
Telling a Story in 5 Photos
Take a look at the Flickr group Tell a story in 5 frames. Read through the description of the group and their guidelines to get a sense of what they’re looking for:
* 1st photo: establish characters and location
* 2nd photo: create a situation with possibilities of what might happen
* 3rd photo: involve the characters in the situation
* 4th photo: build to probable outcomes
* 5th photo: have a logical, but surprising, end
Read more at Go Digital, Mom!
* 1st photo: establish characters and location
* 2nd photo: create a situation with possibilities of what might happen
* 3rd photo: involve the characters in the situation
* 4th photo: build to probable outcomes
* 5th photo: have a logical, but surprising, end
Read more at Go Digital, Mom!
Storytelling Methods
Moving from marketing to an entertaining delivery of useful information creates a much higher likelihood of successful communications between an organization and its stakeholders. Like gamification, storytelling entertains the online reader/viewer/listener, earning their interest. Compelling stories convert dry boring content into worthwhile time expenditures.
Success assumes a few of things: 1) That the storyteller understands what compels its stakeholders; 2) the information presented in the story is useful; and 3) the return on investment for an organization is asked for in a tasteful manner. Meeting those three fundamental building blocks empowers an organization to make storytelling work.
There are many approaches towards storytelling. Personification, third person storytelling, embedded journalism, and metaphors are just four ways to enliven content. Take a deeper look at Geoff Livingston's Blog
Stories as Agents for Change
Linked via Organisational Storytelling Examples
I realized that the conventional mode of consulting was insufficient for the quick, wide, and lasting assimilation that was essential for valid research implementation feedback.
I realized that the conventional mode of consulting was insufficient for the quick, wide, and lasting assimilation that was essential for valid research implementation feedback.
My answer to this problem was storytelling. Why? Because I realized that my role was similar to that of an optometrist -- trying to convince people that in order to change the way they viewed the world, they would have to change their eyeglasses. I also realized that people's minds are changed more through observation than through argument. I therefore thought that the telling of real-life stories by credible and successful managers, colleagues from their own company, would serve as an efficient substitute for observation.
The idea that successful and busy project managers should set aside the time to tell and write stories was not adopted easily. First I had to overcome the prevailing feeling that stories are meant for children and not for managers. Even including the word 'story,' in the title of a booklet we produced as a pilot, was deemed inappropriate. Then I had to overcome the disbelief of the managers in their own writing ability and convince them that the effort was worthwhile. But once we started, there was no way back. Almost everyone who saw the booklet became enthusiastic immediately and wanted to contribute his/her own success story.
NASA - Stories as Agents for ChangeOrganisational Storytelling Examples
Good examples of policies, processes or incentives to encourage storytelling embedded in this article
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Knowledge Ecology
"Knowledge ecology" is an interdisciplinary field of management theory and practice, focused on the relational and social aspects of knowledge creation and utilization. Its primary study and domain of action is the design and support of self-organizing knowledge ecosystems, providing the infrastructure in which information, ideas, and inspiration can travel freely to cross-fertilize and feed on each other.
Read more and sample the resources here
Read more and sample the resources here
The Expressive Energy Grid
I'll confess to being a metaphor man. I'm always seeking and assessing different ways of describing the world that help me understand and explore it better, and help me describe and discuss that world with students and colleagues. But when it comes to describing the part of that world I serve -- the arts and culture industries, either narrowly or broadly defined -- I've usually come up flummoxed.
A colleague describes the network of arts and culture organizations as 'a multi-national corporation with thousands of branch offices and no headquarters.' That metaphor tends to draw affirming nods and laughs from a room. But like most metaphors, it comes bundled with assumptions, in this case, that there should be a headquarters (which I don't believe is probable or even desirable).
So, here's what I'm thinking lately: The arts and culture organizational infrastructure is a power grid, a loose-knit collection of utility companies that discover, refine, and distribute a unique and essential form of energy.
Read more at The Artful Manager
@storytellin
I've been impressed of late with the quality of the links tweeted by @storytellin - my new favorite follow given the work I do. Rather than create multiple posts for each article of interest to me on this blog, I'll consolidate today's haul into this one post and forgo the titles and teaser:
http://www.artsmarketing.org/resources/article/2011-03/rethinking-online-video-content-matters?utm_source=MagnetMail
http://www.the-storytellers.com/blog/199?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheStorytellers+%28The+Storytellers%29
http://www.nyvs.com/courses/lessonslist/Video-Storytelling-Basics
http://www.microsoft.com/education/Story.aspx
http://jontangerine.com/log/2011/03/web-design-as-narrative-architecture
http://www.uni.edu/icss/researchhelps/miller.pdf
http://www.am-psychotherapists-new-york-city.com/counseling/resources/12-stages.html
http://www.story-telling.com/References/WebSites.htm
http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=storytelling&subject=All+subjects&grade=All+grades
http://digital-stories.wikispaces.com/
http://www.media-and-place.org/
http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com/articles/article66.html
http://k12media.usc.edu/
http://www.artsmarketing.org/resources/article/2011-03/rethinking-online-video-content-matters?utm_source=MagnetMail
http://www.the-storytellers.com/blog/199?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheStorytellers+%28The+Storytellers%29
http://www.nyvs.com/courses/lessonslist/Video-Storytelling-Basics
http://www.microsoft.com/education/Story.aspx
http://jontangerine.com/log/2011/03/web-design-as-narrative-architecture
http://www.uni.edu/icss/researchhelps/miller.pdf
http://www.am-psychotherapists-new-york-city.com/counseling/resources/12-stages.html
http://www.story-telling.com/References/WebSites.htm
http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=storytelling&subject=All+subjects&grade=All+grades
http://digital-stories.wikispaces.com/
http://www.media-and-place.org/
http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com/articles/article66.html
http://k12media.usc.edu/
Friday, April 8, 2011
2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
In this free report, you’ll discover:
- The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
- How much time marketers invest with social media activities
- The top benefits of social media marketing and how time invested affects results
- The most used social media tools and services
- Marketers’ future social media plans
- Activities social media marketers are outsourcing
- And much more!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
What's Our Story? A challenge for Alice Springs
The narrative of Alice Springs is under construction. In the midst of a perfect media storm, the current chapter is being written at a furious pace by many urgent voices, focusing our attention on identifying solutions to the things that divide us.But what of the things that unite us? What processes do we have for exploring and amplifying universal themes that help us describe aspects of the intercultural zone?
There is an opportunity in the near future for you to explore this notion : HOME is a collaborative artwork developed by internationally respected artist Craig Walsh and presented as part of Digital Odyssey
In HOME, individuals from across our community will share how circumstances and experiences have shaped their perceptions of ‘home’, and what remains important to them in defining this term. These video portraits will then be screened in public spaces across Alice Springs, May 12-14.
On behalf of Watch This Space and the Museum of Contemporary Art (NSW) I'm inviting you to participate.
Interviews will be recorded May 3-6 at the Watch This Space gallery. Please reply email or tweet me @transmediaNT to arrange a suitable time.
Watch a video about Craig here. An ABC Arts video here.
Implementing Knowledge Cafes
Knowledge Sharing is a key issue for Knowledge Management and for organizational success. But real Knowledge Sharing requires an open mindset and continues to be a challenge for many organizations. In fact, it can be difficult to even get people to talk openly to one another other about their specific corporate interests, opportunities and responsibilities.
One way of energizing an organization to take real advantage of conversation and consequent tangible business benefits is the use of Knowledge Cafés. A Knowledge Café is an effective vehicle for opening up conversations and discussions that lead to a deeper understanding of the business world that is turn leads to improved decision making, new ways of working and innovation.
A Knowledge Café is a tool that is used to share tacit knowledge. It can be used within teams, Communities of Practice or across silos to question entrenched assumptions, to help facilitate learning from others and gain a deeper collective understanding of a subject – through conversation.
It is not just about talking and networking though these are secondary benefits but allowing people to engage each other in "dialogue" with the aim of learning from each other rather than entering into unproductive debate and attempting to impose their views on the other which invariably end in failure and frustration.
Knowledge Cafes can be used to many businesss ends. Here are some specific examples:
Masterclass: Implementing Knowledge Cafes (Edinburgh) , 07 Jun 2011, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Gurteen Knowledge)
One way of energizing an organization to take real advantage of conversation and consequent tangible business benefits is the use of Knowledge Cafés. A Knowledge Café is an effective vehicle for opening up conversations and discussions that lead to a deeper understanding of the business world that is turn leads to improved decision making, new ways of working and innovation.
A Knowledge Café is a tool that is used to share tacit knowledge. It can be used within teams, Communities of Practice or across silos to question entrenched assumptions, to help facilitate learning from others and gain a deeper collective understanding of a subject – through conversation.
It is not just about talking and networking though these are secondary benefits but allowing people to engage each other in "dialogue" with the aim of learning from each other rather than entering into unproductive debate and attempting to impose their views on the other which invariably end in failure and frustration.
Knowledge Cafes can be used to many businesss ends. Here are some specific examples:
- turn a traditional chalk and talk, death by powerpoint presentation or meeting into an engaging learning event
- transform an internal conference from a series of boring lectures into an exciting day
- transform traditional management training courses where younger managers learn from more experienced ones
- as a powerful sales tool to engage customers in conversation and thus better understand their needs for and them to betetr understand your product or service
- surface hidden problems and opportunities that exist in the organisation or in a department or project - especially ones caused by lack of communication
- break down organizational silos
- encourage knowledge sharing and the creation of a knowledge sharing culture
- give people a voice so that they feel heard and are thus less cynical and more engaged in their work
- bring managers and technologists together after a merger to build relationships, surface new opportunities and address cultural issues
- build and improve relationships
- improve business networking and make new connections
- solicit input and obtain buy-in for a new project or initiative
- as part or replacement for a paper survey or interview (the problem is that until people talk - their knowledge fails to surface)
- as a stimulus to innovation: Knowledge Cafes connect people to people; people to ideas and ideas to ideas; they challenge people to reflect on their thinking; surface new ideas and make new connections
Masterclass: Implementing Knowledge Cafes (Edinburgh) , 07 Jun 2011, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Gurteen Knowledge)
Creating digital stories to enhance vocational learning
This pilot study sought to improve the vocational learning and literacy development of learners through the making of their own digital stories. The findings were that digital story telling supports vocational learning and literacy development, reflective conversations encourage deep learning, and collaboration fosters empathy and transformative learning.
Read more at Ako Aotearoa
Read more at Ako Aotearoa
Harnassing institutions to serve communites' knowledge needs
Skilled people, appropriate technologies, and reliable and relevant information are the building blocks of a successful communications environment. What generates news and information in that environment, however, is not just those building blocks. It is engagement--specifically, people's engagement with information and with each other.
I think that when people "engage," some of the things they do include:
I start with the bias that we need institutions for these purposes. I am open to the idea that we need institutions less than we used to, because now we have virtual networks (like Facebook, or the Internet itself) that cut the costs of discussion collaboration. But I see no evidence that these networks have yet revived our democracy. And I think the tough questions to ask are:
Read more by Peter Levine here.
I think that when people "engage," some of the things they do include:
- Discussing information with other people, including people who have different values and interests, in order to make sense of it;
- Using their knowledge to help them manage public resources, run organizations, and work on public problems together. In turn, their experiences as they work together generate information, knowledge, and understanding;
- Recruiting other people, including young people, to be interested and concerned about important public issues and giving them the skills they need for interpretation, analysis, collaboration.
I start with the bias that we need institutions for these purposes. I am open to the idea that we need institutions less than we used to, because now we have virtual networks (like Facebook, or the Internet itself) that cut the costs of discussion collaboration. But I see no evidence that these networks have yet revived our democracy. And I think the tough questions to ask are:
- Can a loose, voluntary network really recruit people who lack motivation and interest in public affairs?
- Can a loose voluntary network reliably bring people into conversation with others who are different from themselves?
- Can a loose voluntary network be accountable to all its members in a fair way?
- Can a loose, voluntary network hold governments and businesses accountable consistently, over time?
Read more by Peter Levine here.
The Mixing Room | Lumen Digital
Interactive tables for museums etc. Nice work. The Mixing Room | Lumen Digital
More 360º Video Platforms
Imagine you're watching moving footage from a concert or sporting event, and you're able to look in any direction, peering into the crowd to see who's behind you or up into the air to watch halftime fireworks. No more 4:3 or 16:9 frames. No more boundaries. This is QTVR on steroids. Check out the yellowBird Video Platform
See also Ladybug
See also Ladybug
360º video
Following on the technological heels of Google, NASA and National Geographic, northStudio360 created the web-based video by using a custom-built rig to which they strapped six cameras to a pole and hung it out of a helicopter while flying over a 150 km track of stunning coastal mainland. To finalize the product, northStudio360 used their proprietary video merging software for a seamless flying experience.
To experience the software first-hand, visit www.nimmobay.com. More information is available at www.northstudio360.com.
To read the rest of the article click here.
To experience the software first-hand, visit www.nimmobay.com. More information is available at www.northstudio360.com.
To read the rest of the article click here.
Farming vs. Mining
Let’s come up with an analogy and then torture it like we’re the Cheney administration: imagine you’ve just purchased a plot of land. What are you going to do, mine or farm?
Read more here.
See also (video): China's Ghost Cities
Read more here.
See also (video): China's Ghost Cities
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Connecting Meaning and Learning Through Storytelling
People instinctively organize their thoughts as stories. Well-crafted stories engage, inform, and inspire and inevitably resonate with us over time. The practice of storytelling is not a new one. Stories have always carried messages even before writing was the main carrier.
The art of storytelling in recent days has made a resurgence in business and marketing. People are realizing the power that narrative has in engaging and informing people about a product or a brand.
Within education, these same techniques can be used to create an emotional connection with curricular content. With the flurry of testing our students and teachers are now subjected to, education has become formulaic in its approach. Rubrics are given to students that define their success for them before they even attempt a task on their own.
Read more here.
The art of storytelling in recent days has made a resurgence in business and marketing. People are realizing the power that narrative has in engaging and informing people about a product or a brand.
Within education, these same techniques can be used to create an emotional connection with curricular content. With the flurry of testing our students and teachers are now subjected to, education has become formulaic in its approach. Rubrics are given to students that define their success for them before they even attempt a task on their own.
Read more here.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Earth Charter
We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Holacracy
Over the past two decades, dozens of thought-leaders have pointed the way to new capacities organizations must develop to thrive amidst our 21st century challenges. These visionaries are highlighting the limits of our conventional views of organization and leadership, and offering a glimpse of new possibilities available to us – if we’re able to make the leap. Yet it has proven difficult to sustain a whole-system transformation by simply applying isolated principles and practices within our conventional frame. To really achieve the promises of the emerging new paradigm, we need a fundamentally new operating system for our organizations – a core upgrade to the way we govern, manage, and execute work.
Holacracy offers a comprehensive practice for governing and running our organizations. Its transformative structure and processes integrate the collective wisdom of people throughout the company, while aligning the organization with its broader purpose and a more organic way of operating. Holacracy takes the principles, ideas, and emerging mindset articulated by many cutting-edge thought leaders, and instills them in the actual structures and processes of the organization. This grounds them in practice and brings them to life, and the result is dramatically increased agility, transparency, innovation, and accountability.
Download PDF here
Constitution here
Holacracy offers a comprehensive practice for governing and running our organizations. Its transformative structure and processes integrate the collective wisdom of people throughout the company, while aligning the organization with its broader purpose and a more organic way of operating. Holacracy takes the principles, ideas, and emerging mindset articulated by many cutting-edge thought leaders, and instills them in the actual structures and processes of the organization. This grounds them in practice and brings them to life, and the result is dramatically increased agility, transparency, innovation, and accountability.
Download PDF here
Constitution here
Adobe Youth Voices
Demonstrating the power of technology to engage middle and high school age youth, Adobe Youth Voices provides breakthrough learning experiences using video, multimedia, digital art, web, animation, and audio tools that enable youth to explore and comment on their world. Learn more here.
Friday, April 1, 2011
10 Essential Web Application Usability Guidelines
Users should be able to simply, quickly, and intuitively use any web app, like with any tool in life, be it a car, phone, or anything else. After all, a useful web app doesn’t do much good if it’s a pain in the butt to use – many users will eventually give up and go to an easier-to-use alternative.
So how do you maximize usability in your web app? In this article we share 10 Web Application Usability Guidelines that we feel are essential.
So how do you maximize usability in your web app? In this article we share 10 Web Application Usability Guidelines that we feel are essential.
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