Creativity and Peace: Teens Collaborate in Peace it Together

[29 June 2009 - Advertising Age] Fleming Creative Group, a Vancouver-based print/digital design agency, discovers how creativity and peace-building go hand in hand. Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director, explains. ... Can creative exploration contribute to peace? Can filmmaking become a mechanism to break the cycle of hate? Can a camp on Canada's West Coast effect change among youth in the turbulent Middle East? Like many who learned of Peace It Together's unique peace-building program of dialogue through art, we were intrigued by the possibilities. Since 2004, the not-for-profit has been bringing together Palestinian, Israeli and Canadian teens to collaborate in small, mixed-cultural groups, assisted by renowned volunteer filmmakers, editors and writers. In an idyllic camp setting, away from conflict yet still very much in the face of each other's preconceptions and prejudices, the youth produce short films about personally relevant issues. The result: a body of work that finds its way into their home communities and around the world, casting light on the conflict and educating in the process. More

Microsoft's Ballmer on Innovation

[18 June 2009 - The Executives' Club of Chicago] On June 18, 2009, Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, provided a dynamic and engaging presentation on "The Role of Innovation in Changing Economic Times" at the final Global Leaders Luncheon of the season. He spoke to over 1,400 members and guests in attendance. More (read and listen to speech)

Sir Ken Robinson: the creative thinker

[29 June 2009 - Personnel Today - UK] Author and creativity guru Sir Ken Robinson has been described as 'one of America's finest imports'. The Liverpool-born Los Angeles resident shares his thoughts on HR and its role in workplace creativity. [Q] Is there a place for creativity in HR? [A] That's the prime place for it. I've heard people say that the trouble is that you can't define creativity, but I define it as the process of having original ideas that have value. All three parts of that are important. There are three misconceptions about creativity ... More

Can governments till the fields of innovation?

[20 June 2009 - New York Times via Innovator Insights] This New York Times article briefly surveys the emergence of innovation agendas in government, aimed at addressing fields like energy, the environment, and healthcare as well as tackling issues in economic development and industrial policies. The United States, for example, is using the Bureau of Economic Analysis to develop statistics that "uniquely measure the role of innovation." Additional indications of national interest in innovation policy include Great Britain's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and Finland’s plan to become a major competitor in developing software and services, relating in particular to medical monitoring and preventive health. More

Are the Dynamics of Innovation Changing?

[28 May 2009 - MIT Sloan Management Review] Some argue that many of today’s biggest problems are in complex fields such as energy and  the environment — and that solutions will need to be multidisciplinary rather than the work of entrepreneurial inventors. More

Getting scientific about arts education: Education, arts and neuroscience

[24 May 2009 - Los Angeles Times] A new interdisciplinary field researches the effects of learning fine arts on a student's brain. ... For years, school systems across the nation dropped classes in the fine arts to concentrate on getting students to pass tests in reading and mathematics. Now, a growing body of brain research suggests that teaching the arts may be good for students across all disciplines. Scientists are looking at, for instance, whether students at an arts high school who study music or drawing have brains that allow them to focus more intensely or do better in the classroom. Brain research in the last several years has uncovered startling ideas about how students learn. First came proof, some years ago, that our brains do not lose brain cells as we get older, but are always capable of growing. Now neuroscientists are investigating how training students in the arts may change the structure of their brains and the way they think. Does putting a violin in the hands of an elementary school student help the child do math better? Will learning to dance or paint improve a student's spatial ability or ability to learn to read? Research in those areas, Harvard University psychologist Jerome Kagan said, is "as deserving of a clinical trial as a drug for cancer that has not yet been shown to be effective." There aren't many conclusions yet that can be translated into the classroom, but an interdisciplinary field is emerging between education and neuroscience. More

Benefits of Creative Classrooms: 10 Years After Ken Robinson Report in UK

[23 May 2009 - BBC - UK] Creativity benefits results in other areas, research suggests. ... Ten years ago this month a 243-page report on the importance of promoting creativity and culture in schools landed on ministers' desks. It had been commissioned in the heady early days of the Blair government to recommend ways to make progress in the "creative and cultural development of young people" both in and out of school. The review was led by Sir Ken Robinson and included leading scientists, business leaders, and key figures from the arts world. It was widely acclaimed. It argued that creativity was a skill that could be taught. It was not about progressive teaching or loose discipline. Nor was it in any way an alternative to the essential skills of numeracy and literacy. Rather it was about encouraging pupils to be innovative and to develop the ability to problem-solve in all areas of the curriculum, from maths to technology. It argued that such skills were essential to individuals, employers and the whole economy. But what has happened since? More

Power of Imagination is More Than Just a Metaphor

[15 April 2009 - ScienceDaily] We've heard it before: "Imagine yourself passing the exam or scoring a goal and it will happen." We may roll our eyes and think that's easier said than done, but in a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologists Christopher Davoli and Richard Abrams from Washington University suggest that the imagination may be more effective than we think in helping us reach our goals. More

Not Your Grandfather's Retirement ... Creative Post-Careers and New Retirement

[17 May 2009 - CBS] Aging baby boomers aren't content spending their post-career years idle and are finding new ways to retire. ... Mountain air is not enough for a generation determined to ban boredom in retirement. Martha Teichner visited Asheville, N.C., to explore how some are designing more creative retirements:
John Bauer was a high school teacher in Michigan before retiring to Asheville, and getting a part-time job as a tour guide at the Biltmore Estate. "Why do I wanna keep on teaching when I can retire financially and I can try something completely different?" he asked. Americans just aren't retiring the way they used to ... "We don't want to just sit down and vegetate," said Jim Wyatt. And you don't have to go very far from the Biltmore Estate to see how they're redesigning the whole notion. Nancy Long spent her career writing for newspapers and magazines. Now she's a volunteer docent at the Asheville Art Museum. Long and her husband, Al, were attracted to Asheville, N.C., because for a small city, it has a lot going on culturally. But the big selling point was the fact that they could live right downtown and walk everywhere, a growing trend among retirees. The Longs live in a compact loft in an old commercial building, but here's the kicker: When they retired, they actually lived in Florida … and moved away. Why? "We thought it'd be boring," Martha told Teichner. "Boring," Al agreed. Ron Manheimer, who heads the Center for Creative Retirement at the University of North Carolina in Asheville, said, "People are saying, 'Well maybe Florida isn't the place to go. "What I see is very high expectations that something special should happen in and around this time of life, and I think I see people searching for what that would be." More

Arts appear to play role in brain development

[18 May 2009 - Baltimore Sun] For years, school systems across the nation dropped the arts to concentrate on getting struggling students to pass tests in reading and math. Yet now, a growing body of brain research suggests that teaching the arts may be good for students across all disciplines. Scientists are now looking at, for instance, whether students at an arts high school who study music or drawing have brains that allow them to focus more intensely or do better in the classroom. Washington County schools Superintendent Betty Morgan would have liked to have had some of that basic research in her hands when she began building a coalition for an arts high school in Hagerstown. The business community and school principals worked together, and the school will open this summer, but even at its groundbreaking a man objecting to the money spent on the school held up a sign of protest reading "Big Note$ Wrong Music." More

Creating Positive Community

Check out the Playing for Change Web site, CD and DVD of musicians collaborating around the world to promote positive change and peace.

How learning shapes successful decision making in the human brain

[13 May 2009 - Cell Press via EurekAlert!] New research significantly advances our understanding of the brain mechanisms that link learning with flexible decision making. The study, published by Cell Press in the May 14 issue of the journal Neuron, demonstrates that the brain does not just learn the structure of the physical world but, through learning, encodes rules that regulate how we interpret future sensory information. More and More

On Art, Science, Creativity and Dancing Bees

[12 May 2009 - Science Blogs - The World's Fair - By David Ng] Tonight, I'll be heading out to the Vancouver Cafe Scientifique, where noted bee biologist, Dr. Mark Winston, will be giving a talk about science and dance (May 12th, 7:30pm at the Railway Club). Now, although the linkage between dancing, science, and bees would be normally fairly straight forward, I've been told that tonight's presentation would be more an exploration about dancing as an art form and as a way of creatively expressing science. I'm pretty keen to check it out myself since my own lab does a fair bit of art + science endeavours (although admittedly, I'm a little niave when it comes to the whole dancing scene). More

Former Foes Unite to Bridge the K-12 Achievement Gap

[May 2009 - Stanford Knowledgebase] Liberal and conservative groups are forming unprecedented alliances to improve K-12 education in the United States, sparked by a study from McKinsey & Co. that put a $700 billion price tag on the education achievement gap, Jonathan Schorr told the 2009 Stanford Business of Education Symposium. (Includes Video) More

Brain's Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream

[11 May 2009 - Science Daily] Our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. Activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander, according to new research. Psychologists found that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving -- previously thought to go dormant when we daydream -- are in fact highly active during these episodes. More

Cheerful music 'can make everyone around you look happy'

[10 May 2009 - The Telegraph (UK) "Results showed that happy music 'significantly enhanced the perceived happiness of a face.' Further studies of the volunteers' brain waves revealed that the effect of the music was almost instantaneous. It took just 50 milliseconds for changes to take place - too fast to be under our conscious control." More (h/t Arts Journal)

Building an Innovation Zone

[4 May 2009 - 1TO1 VIDEO] Thomas Koulopoulos, author of "The Innovation Zone: How Great Companies Reinnovate for Amazing Success," talks about the systemic changes companies have to make to innovate and survive during economic uncertainty. More

A Single Neuron Can Change the Activity of the Whole Brain

[1 May 2009 - PhysOrg.com] The pulsing of a single neuron can switch a brain’s waves from the equivalent of a big ocean swell to ripples on a pond, according to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Yang Dan of the University of California, Berkeley. More

Demography and Lifelong Learning: New strategy needed for the over-50s

[1 May 2009 - Independent Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, sponsored by NIACE - Report by Professor Stephen McNair] Older people need more opportunities to learn if they are to actively contribute - rather than be a cost to society - during the twenty or more years they spend in 'retirement', a new study of learning and population changes reveals. The report - commissioned by the Independent Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, sponsored by NIACE - argues that the current narrow focus on skills for work and on younger people is inadequate to meet the challenges of demographic change.  These challenges include:

• Most people can expect to spend one third of their lives in ‘retirement'.
• There are now more people over 59 than under 16.
• 11.3 million people are over state pension age.
• Life expectancy for a 65 year old today is now 85 for men and 88 for women.

Read "Demography and Lifelong Learning" (PDF)

Genius: The Modern View

[30 April 2009 - New York Times - Opinion by David Brooks] The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It's not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it's deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft. The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It's been summarized in two enjoyable new books: "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle; and "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. More

On Sustainability and Collective Intelligence

[23 April 2009 - All Together Now (or, Can Collective Intelligence Save the Planet?) - MIT Sloan Management Review] Interview with Thomas Malone: "'Sustainability' as a concept doesn’t take into account that sometimes things are sustainable but aren’t good, and sometimes things are good but not sustainable. ...  Radically open computer modeling will be a key way to harness collective intelligence toward bigger picture goals." More

Innovating During a Downturn

[30 April 2009 - MIT Sloan Management Review] In the last 12 months, “innovation has become more important, not less,” according to Vijay Govindarajan. More

Multiple-intelligences theory helps charter teach children to learn

[April 2009 - Edutopia] A charter elementary school in Georgia is helping children better understand their learning styles, strengths and weaknesses under the multiple-intelligence approach. "In order to motivate and teach a child, you have to find out where their strengths are and what they're passionate about, and use that to move them in the direction of learning new skills," said Sally Meadors, the school's former principal. More

Visual Journals

[22 April 2009 - HOW blog] Designer Ken Carbone explains the importance of keeping a personal, visual journal in this video for Fast Company Magazine.

The five ages of the brain

[April 2009 - The New Scientist] Throughout life our brains undergo more changes than any other part of the body. These can be broadly divided into five stages, each profoundly affecting our abilities and behaviour. But we are not just passengers in this process, so how can we get the best out of our brains at every stage and pass the best possible organ on to the next? New Scientist investigate. More

Scientists show how a neuron gets its shape

[3 April 2009 - Rockefeller University via EurekAlert!] For the brain to work, neurons have to be connected in the right places. Now, new research shows that rather than growing like the branches of a tree -- extending outward -- certain neurons work backward from their destination, dropping anchor and stretching their dendrites behind them as they crawl away. More

Managing innovation: Pages from Alessi’s handbook

[3 April 2009 - McKinsey Quarterly] In February, we published an interview with Alberto Alessi, head of the iconic houseware design firm in Italy. Alessi talked with the Quarterly about how the firm manages to sustain innovation over decades. The multimedia interactive featured here offers a behind-the-scenes look at the design and operational processes of one of the world's best-known design firms. The feature showcases Alessi's formula for evaluating the risks and rewards of new product designs. It also includes video commentary by Alberto Alessi and a narrated slide show on the design firm's roots in open innovation. More

Author: Educated girls are key to peace

[14 March 2009 - Inservice, ASCD Blog] Author and activist Greg Mortenson says he places high value in educating girls around the world, pointing to statistics showing that in countries where girls are educated, infant mortality is lower, population growth is more sustainable and the overall quality of life is improved. Mortenson says education is a conduit to peace because ignorance fosters only hate. More

A practical guide to managing innovation

[24 March 2009 - INSEAD Knowledge] What does innovation mean? It used to relate mainly to products and that's still important. But over the last decade or so, businesses have been putting more and more emphasis on innovating new services and business models as well. In light of this, it's time companies take another look at how they manage innovation. More

The Key to Job Creation: New Ideas

[12 March 2009 - CNBC via FastTrac Highlights] Carl Schramm appeared on CNBC's Street Signs with Erin Burnett yesterday. The segment featured the message that entrepreneurs are the key to the economic recovery and told the story of Daniel Kivatinos, a laid off information technology worker who took a FastTrac program offered by ITAC in New York with a college buddy: Michael Nusimow. They are now both working full-time on their company: Dr. Chrono, which provides online appointment and billing services to doctors' offices. More

Book Review: Chasing the Dance of Life

[17 March 2009 - Book Review by Connie Tyler (via Facebook)] Chasing the Dance of Life, by Cynthia Winton-Henry -- A review by Connie Tyler

Want to laugh and cry, and say, "Oh, my?"

And then, "Oh, yes, oh, yes?"

Read Cynthia Winton-Henry's new book, Chasing the Dance of Life – a faith journey.

Cynthia, co-founder of InterPlay, speaks with candor and honesty about her struggle to find a place in the world for her dancing spirituality. She says of herself, "What do you do if you hear voices or see things? ... You should shut up. However, if there are voices that prod you to quench the thirst for big human needs like Love, Justice, and Freedom, you might become a blabbermouth performance artist like me." (p. 9) Like a ballerina doing tour jette's in a china shop, Cynthia plunges into confrontation with church officials and august parishioners, while we stand with our mouths open in admiration and fear.

She starts with her struggles as a child, teenager, and college student to pull her love of dance and her spiritual inclinations together. Her joy at finding Carla DeSola, Doug Adams, Pacific School of Religion, Judith Rock, and the Sacred Dance Guild is tempered by the struggle as an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to carry dance into the church. When, eventually, she finds she needs to renounce her ordination she doesn't just slip away from the church, she demands the right to have a ceremony of de-ordination to counter the ordination ceremony.

She wrote this memoir specifically to show why she eventually renounced her ordination, but her struggles go beyond just the struggle with this particular denomination or even with "the church" in its larger sense. She is struggling with the way of life she grew up with, finding new ways to approach people who are different, new ways to live in a material world, new ways to see our world, our life.

When subtle acts of humming birds and eagles speak to her, she dares to see them as prophecy. She analyzes marriage and comes up with new metaphors that better fit reality than the older ones that don't seem to work. She jumps dancing feet first into life and discovers, "For young or old, the universe loves a dancer." (p. 216)

And the message? She says:
Stubborn standers, beware.
Planted on twin pillars
Of righteousness
And self-righteousness
Your footing stiffens
In that precarious pose.
Resist -- you stand against.
Consist -- you stand with.
Persist -- you stand through.
Insist -- you stand in.
All stands degrade.
Want peace?
Release your footing.
Dance life's stubborn dance

(Winton-Henry, Cynthia, Chasing the Dance of Life – a faith journey, Berkeley, CA, the apocryphile press, 2009, 255 pp)

On Hope

"Hope doesn't come from calculating whether the good news is winning over the bad. It's simply a choice to take action." -- Anne Lappé

Why Bad Times Nurture New Inventions

[13 March 2009 - New York Times - Opinion] With consumer confidence plunging, the jobless rate rising and the gross domestic product falling at a rate second only to the decline seen in the 1982 recession, there's little hope of good economic news anytime soon. But some economists and historians point out that such fallow ground can make a fertile bed for seeds of innovation and invention. What kinds of businesses thrive in recessionary times? How do entrepreneurs get a running start in a recession? More

Help Support Strong Arts in Connecticut -- a Budget Issue

Please read the following letter written by artist Mark Patnode to Connceticut Gov. Rell. And then consider sending your own letters to the governor and your Connecticut legislators.

Steve Dahlberg
International Centre for Creativity and Imagination
Willimantic, Connecticut
http://www.appliedimagination.org

================

Governor M. Jodi Rell March 8, 2009
Executive Office of the Governor
State Capitol
210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06106

Dear Governor Rell,

As the focus of much of government turns to the financial sector and the word "crisis" is foremost in the media's dialogue, it is important to remember the fundamental contribution The Arts make in our culture and to our cultural stability. Yet, in Connecticut the artistic endeavor is
being undermined.

For example, the proposed incorporation of the Commission on Culture and Tourism (CCT) into the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) is not a hallmark of efficiency; but rather it is a damaging consolidation. Keep in mind, of the 50 state arts agencies; CCT is the only state arts agency to not define itself as arts-centric. No other state is making arts as inaccessible, or proposing such consolidations. Should Connecticut have the dubious distinction of taking a lead role in arts exposure reduction?

Often the arts are considered frivolous and non-essential to education. I would contend that society is measured by its art, architecture and literature. Furthermore, science and art are not mutually exclusive. You may be aware that the Mars space rover unfolded from its transport ship because the NASA engineers were familiar with origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. This is a wonderful example of the confluence of art and science. Children learn in different ways and the language of art makes that learning more accessible.

As The Constitution State, Connecticut has a distinction of leadership. As Governor, your exemplary contributions can help ensure Connecticut arts programs continue to lead. Respectfully, I suggest the following:

1. Assure the arts division will maintain staffing and funding to carry out their work.
2. Ensure the right staff are in place and available to meet the challenges.
3. Creation of a Volunteer Arts Advocacy organization, similar to Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, to maintain Connecticut Arts posture and integration.
4. Convene a forum to assess the status and needs of CCT arts programs.

Through CCT, I have been featured on the cover of the CCT Teaching Artist Directory (left), my work is displayed in Senator Lieberman's Washington, DC office as part of CCT's Art in Public Spaces program, and Senator Lieberman selected me as Connecticut's 2008 White House
Christmas Ornament Artist. I mention this, not out of self-interest or self-promotion, but to establish credibility.

Sincerely,

Mark Patnode

Making the Sale: How to Pitch Your Ideas

[ March 2009 - Leading Effectively - Center for Creative Leadership] In the best of times, it can be a fight to get your ideas implemented at work. In today's organizations -- where resources are under siege and uncertainty abounds -- advocating for your approach, idea or product is tougher than ever. The time is right to take a more disciplined approach to pitching your ideas, says CCL's Harold Scharlatt, author of Selling Your Ideas to Your Organization. "If you don't have a strategy for selling your idea, you put yourself, your group and potentially your organization at risk," says Scharlatt. "If you have a project that you believe will improve the organization, you've got to find the best approach for getting it implemented. You can't afford a false start," says Scharlatt. To be successful in getting other people to consider and adopt your ideas, you need to consider two important things: the environment and your tactics. More

Can Fearful Memories Be Erased?

[13 March 2009 - Talk of the Nation - NPR] Scientists studying how the brain forms memories have found that by targeting brain cells expressing a certain gene in mice, they can erase a fearful memory association days after the event. Steven Kushner and colleagues describe the research in the journal Science. More

Isolating creativity in the brain - On improv, music, the brain and creativity

[5 March 2009 - The Harvard University Gazette] How -- exactly -- does improvisation happen? What's involved when a musician sits down at the piano and plays flurries of notes in a free fall, without a score, without knowing much about what will happen moment to moment? Is it possible to find the sources of a creative process? Aaron Berkowitz, a graduate student in ethnomusicology at Harvard, and Daniel Ansari, a professor in the psychology department of the University of Western Ontario, recently collaborated on an experiment designed to study brain activity during musical improvisation in order to get closer to answering these questions. The Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative awarded the collaborators a grant to look at musical improvisation in trained musicians, utilizing brain scans done with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology. Their paper, Generation of Novel Motor Sequences: The Neural Correlates of Musical Improvisation," was published in the journal NeuroImage, and received the journal's 2008 Editor's Choice Award in Systems Neuroscience. More

'Mind-reading' experiment highlights how brain records memories

[12 March 2009 - EurekAlert! / Wellcome Trust] It may be possible to "read" a person's memories just by looking at brain activity, according to research carried out by Wellcome Trust scientists. In a study published today in the journal Current Biology, they show that our memories are recorded in regular patterns, a finding which challenges current scientific thinking. Demis Hassabis and Professor Eleanor Maguire at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have previously studied the role of a small area of the brain known as the hippocampus which is crucial for navigation, memory recall and imagining future events. Now, the researchers have shown how the hippocampus records memory. When we move around, nerve cells (neurons) known as "place cells", which are located in the hippocampus, activate to tell us where we are. Hassabis, Maguire and colleagues used an fMRI scanner, which measures changes in blood flow within the brain, to examine the activity of these places cells as a volunteer navigated around a virtual reality environment. The data were then analysed by a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis. "We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were," explains Professor Maguire, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. "Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words, we could 'read' their spatial memories." More

An Undaunted Soul

They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher.
And I am none of them.
When I write, my fingers
get covered not in ink, but in blood.
I think I am nothing more than this:
an undaunted soul.

-- Words Nikos Kazantzakis used to describe himself in 1950

On the Creative Life

"Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives ... most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity ... when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (h/t: aestheticflow)

On the Creativity of Young People

"Our future depends on the creativity of young people. And how to do you stimulate young people? By getting them to ask questions of themselves. This work is a battery of ideas, as Joseph Beuys would say, which can recharge and fire the batteries of young people." -- Anthony d'Offay (More)

Special People Deal with the Unknown and Unknowable and Make Things Up

[5 March 2009 - The Guardian (UK)] Facts are tedious. People who put great store by them even more so. Who wants to be stuck with the club bore or local know-it-all? Yet last week the country went weak at the knees before members of Oxford University's Corpus Christi quiz team, winners (and now, losers) of a TV panel show. Why? Just because they were able to chime back some speedy answers to some fairly arcane questions. Now they are being told they are special. They are not. Special people don't deal with facts; they deal with the unknown and the unknowable. Special people like to make things up. More

[Plus, read more in this same article about German artist Joseph Beuys -- "My life in art: How Joseph Beuys convinced me of the power of conceptual art" ... Beuys's strange work changes the status quo into a world where facts and fiction are indistinguishable]

Developing entrepreneurship among the world’s poorest

[McKinsey Quarterly - March 2009 Newsletter] In this video interview with Jacqueline Novogratz, posted alongside an excerpt from her new book, The Blue Sweater, she shares her experiences, from encouraging entrepreneurs in Africa to founding and running a "venture" philanthropy. More

Everyone an Artist

Global voices calling for the development of "every human being (as) an artist" (Joseph Beuys). Shot by Steven Dahlberg at Weimar Sommerkurse 2007 in Weimar, Germany.

The Valentine Peace Project

[11 February 2009 - Ode Magazine - Blog - By Susan Corso] The Valentine Peace Project was created to expand the vision of Valentine's Day to include public participation in creative peace action. On February 14 poems surrounding the themes of peace, love and community, will be wrapped around thousands of different flowers in various cities to give away. The mission is to rediscover some of the mystery and magic of love and how that relates to peace. What does Valentine's Day mean to you? More

Loneliness as Harmful as Smoking - Loneliness Affects Brain

[16 February 2009 - Psych Central News] A new study finds that social isolation affects not only how people behave, but also how their brains operate. University of Chicago scientists presented their research, "Social Emotion and the Brain," at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The work is the first to use fMRI scans to study the connections between perceived social isolation (or loneliness) and activity in the brain. Combining fMRI scans with data relevant to social behavior is part of an emerging field examining brain mechanisms. Researchers found that the ventral striatum -- a region of the brain associated with rewards -- is much more activated in non-lonely people than in the lonely when they view pictures of people in pleasant settings. In contrast, the temporoparietal junction -- a region associated with taking the perspective of another person -- is much less activated among lonely than in the non-lonely when viewing pictures of people in unpleasant settings. ... John Cacioppo, one of the nation's leading scholars on loneliness, has shown that loneliness undermines health and can be as detrimental as smoking. About one in five Americans experience loneliness, he said. Decety is one of the nation's leading researchers to use fMRI scans to explore empathy. More

Selling Culture as an Economic Force ... Saving Federal Arts Funds

[15 February 2009 - New York Times] The challenge for culture boosters in Congress was to convince a House-Senate conference committee that the arts provide jobs as other industries do, while also encouraging tourism and spending in general. "We had the facts on our side," said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus. "If we’re trying to stimulate the economy, and get money into the Treasury, nothing does that better than art." ... As the details of the final bill were being hammered out, tens of thousands of arts advocates around the country were calling and e-mailing legislators. Arts groups also organized an advertising blitz arguing that culture contributes 6 million jobs and $30 billion in tax revenue and $166 billion in annual economic impact. The tide turned. In addition to preserving the $50 million allocation, the final bill eliminated part of the Senate amendment that would have excluded museums, theaters and arts centers from any recovery money. "It’s a huge victory for the arts in America," said Robert L. Lynch, the president of Americans for the Arts, a lobbying group. "It's a signal that maybe there is after all more understanding of the value of creativity in the 21st-century economy." That Senate amendment, proposed by Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, had grouped museums, theaters and arts centers with implied frivolities like casinos and golf courses. More

On Education - Our Greatest National Shame

[15 February 2009 - New York Times - By Nicholas Kristof] So maybe I was wrong. I used to consider health care our greatest national shame, considering that we spend twice as much on medical care as many European nations, yet American children are twice as likely to die before the age of 5 as Czech children -- and American women are 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as Irish women. Yet I'm coming to think that our No. 1 priority actually must be education. That makes the new fiscal stimulus package a landmark, for it takes a few wobbly steps toward reform and allocates more than $100 billion toward education. ... So for those who oppose education spending in the stimulus, a question: Do you really believe that slashing half a million teaching jobs would be fine for the economy, for our children and for our future? More

Richard Florida on How the Crash Will Reshape America

[March 2009 - The Atlantic - By Richard Florida] The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide -- destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all? More

How to fix the innovation gap: A conversation with Judy Estrin

[15 January 2009 - The McKinsey Quarterly] In this video interview, the author of Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy says we are living off the previous generation's research investments and thus failing to make the basic research investments needed to seed innovation in the future. Estrin taps her years of experience in nurturing Silicon Valley companies to describe what’s necessary to help new ideas thrive. She also offers some advice to the incoming administration on how to begin reinvesting in fruitful research. More