I totally love this idea. Connecting people via social networking AND spreading lovely holiday lights all over the place in sync. Fantastic.
Visit CheerLights for the details. And, if you don’t have a strand of the CheerLights (like me), then get the Android App! (I will soon)
Maybe I need to learn how to build one of the actual strands…..
I have really only cried when two celebrities died: Roberto Clemente and Jim Croce. I was much younger then, of course, but while I have been saddened by the loss of a favorite singer, actor or other celebrity, I have not really been moved to tears in a long time until I heard this morning about the death of Steve Jobs.
I am an unabashed Apple fangirl and I have been since my first experiences with the Apple II during undergraduate school and the time that a friend brought over this new computer called a Macintosh..it was cute. Small. “Portable”. And this mouse thing was really something else. I was hooked and have been ever since.
Several models later, a few iPods, iPads and so on (except for the iPhone – never had that), I remain brand loyal and a big Steve fan. Yes, he has an ego. Yes, he sometimes pushes things that I don’t think are the best move but by golly, his vision wins and then all of the sudden we realize that we didn’t know we needed (fill in the technology here) but we certainly cannot live with out it now!
His vision of technology is one of beauty, simplicity, power, creativity and fun. How can you not love that?
Some things to share about Steve Jobs:
A nice video tribute from Gizmodo using the text from the Think Different campaign
Lovely tribute photo and text
An oral history interview from the Smithsonian.
11 Best Steve Quotes (via Huffington Post)
His Stanford commencement speech:
Image via Tom Davenport
I am continually inspired the more I read and learn from Brene Brown’s work on vunerability and whole-hearted living. Then, the other day, I was visiting her blog and noticed this badge:
I was intrigued. In a nutshell, Free-Range Social Media encourages you to share yourself openly, use others for inspiration but not for wholesale copying and not to hide behind the easy to use anonymity that many social media/networking sites allow you to do. You can read more at her FRSM page.
I have shared her TED talk earlier here and I just re-watched it yesterday. It really speaks to me and I think I need to watch it a few times a year just to remind myself of how I need to work on being open and honest. At the first part of her talk, she states that we are all hard-wired for connection. This is the same conclusion that the author of the common book we all read last year at my college drew in his book: The Geography of Bliss. It is all about relationships and connecting.
In this hypertexted/hashtagged world of social networking, I began thinking about how we connect beyond just the basic communication tools like texting, comments, email (oh so 2009) and so on. We also link to each other’s work, pass along URLs via Twitter, post YouTube videos on Facebook, etc.
Brene Brown also links to another person’s badge called Link with Love, which has this badge:
This reminded me of Alan Levine’s definition of “linktribution“, which I latched onto right away, of course, this approach’s definition is much more “feely” so it works on a different level, I suppose. It is about accepting responsibility for what you do online, respecting the intellectual property of others and yourself and protecting those rights.
And, it also seems to ring more true for the connections and relationships. If you choose to link to something, it makes sense to share it in the world appropriately and with respect to whoever created it. You would expect the same from someone else.
I think I have always tried to follow the precepts of the Free-Range Social Media but I will be aware even more.
This TED talk really spoke to me. The last part is something to keep in mind….
This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee — and that’s really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that’s excruciatingly difficult — to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, “Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?” just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, “I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.” And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we’re enough. Because when we work from a place I believe that says, “I’m enough,” then we stop screaming and start listening, we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves.
I have always been a fan of the Beloit College Mindset published each year right before the start of the fall semester. It lists the experiences that are “molding” the incoming freshman class.
This set of predictions from JWT Intelligence is much more widespread covering fashion, art, food, travel, business, technology and more. It was fascinating.
Some of the predictions were right up the T-F mindset like:
33 – alternative social networking sites to Facebook. Like Diaspora, which I helped fund in its Kickstarter campaign.
59 – the Life in A Day user generated documentary. I participated in that as well. Doubt my footage will be selected but I find the whole idea of collaborative art projects really interesting and a nice mix of the technical with the psychological
83 – Social Objects which will allow folks to scan or otherwise interact with objects merging the digital and the physical. My pals Brandon and Lia are all over this trend with their materialmashup site.
and, of course
93 – tube free toilet paper!! What????? Where will all of those kids find raw materials for their art projects?
Or even the professional artists might have problems with this one…
What do you find most interesting?
How could I NOT love this project? Combining Google Street View creation with a large performance art exhibit so that you have “easter eggs” all over Google Street View for this particular part of Pittsburgh. Brilliant! Completely T-F!!
You may or may not be able to tell that I am a science nerd. I used to teach high school chemistry, physics and math, so it seems only natural. Even though my career path has taken me away from science education, I still really do love it. So, when I saw this video called “Chemical Party”, I just thought it was a brilliant mix of the joy of teaching science along with solid educational concepts within the content.
Enjoy.
It reminds me of the other science related media that I have loved like:
The Element Song by Tom Leher
And, of course, any Schoolhouse Rock like Electricity (although their science entries were weaker than the math, politics and grammar ones). I was privileged to hear the creators of the series at a conference a few years ago. They related that the idea came from observing that one of their sons could not learn the multiplication tables but could memorize the lyrics for every Jimi Hendrix song.
And, the wonderful tunes from They Might Be Giants:
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
I took a workshop a few years ago about finding your life’s purpose. It was an appeal to my Feely side and it turned out to be much more beneficial than I dreamed it could be. The end result of the day-long seminar was to create a personal mission statement. It was supposed to be short enough and easy enough to remember if you were being held at gunpoint and asked to recite it. After going through several worksheets to help identify verbs and values that should be included in the statement, I eventually derived this statement:
My life’s purpose is to illuminate, celebrate and participate in the circle of life with friends, family and the Universe.
I like it. The verbs really resonate with me and what I find valuable, useful and important in life- both at work and not. It also was important to me to recognized the Circle of Life as I know it is constantly moving and must be a part of how we live in this world.
Parts of the circle of life are easy for celebration and participation. Birthday parties. Graduation. Weddings. First bike ride. All kinds of things. And, some parts are harder.
Yesterday, I had to participate in one of the hard parts of the circle of life as I said good-bye to my dog, Haleakala. From a post I wrote back during my Project 365:
Back in March 1999, this skinny scared dog showed up in our yard upon returning from a trip to Hawaii. We named her Haleakala and on April 22, 1999 (Earth Day) she came inside the house for the first time. So, we declared Earth Day as her unofficial birth day. She got some treats from a vendor at yesterday’s Earth Fest. She loves them!!!
Saying good-bye to her was one of the hardest things I ever have had to do. She was diagnosed with cancer three months ago and the decline started shortly after that. It is a gift that we can prevent suffering and pain but it is a hard gift to give.
But, I want to celebrate her life and what she gave to me.
I went through my Flickr account and pulled together a slideshow of good, bad and ugly photos of her over the past 4 years or so. You can see what a pretty girl she is.
The Circle of Life keeps moving and so will I as I keep illuminating, celebrating and participating.
Been a while since I took a quiz.
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ENFP – “Journalist”. Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population.
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I know that I have already blogged about how BIG the internet is. But, in many ways, it does feel small.
For example….
Earlier this month, I was sitting in a webinar learning about new functionality for a system used at my school. It was quickly getting over my head so, of course, I went to Tweetdeck to see if anybody was tweeting about the same webinar. I found one person who mentioned he was watching the same session. Okay. One other person. Fine.
Later that same day, I was dealing with a technical issue with a plug-in for our WordPress Multiuser system and started working via email one-on-one with the developer of the plug-in. He was very helpful and we got the issue resolved relatively quickly. (it was one of those issues where it finally started working with settings that made no sense but neither of us wanted to take the time to figure out why it broke or why is was working with those settings – sometimes you just have to take the victory and run).
After working with him, I decided to check on Twitter and see if he was there. One search query later, I found his Twitter page and in his tweet history was the ONE TWEET about the earlier webinar. He was the one person I found also watching the same presentation.
