Creativity, Living and inspiration

Thanks to @edwardharran for sharing this entry from a blog entry by Prof. John Maeida (MIT Media Lab) A snippet below:

So it dawned upon me how important it is to be a creative. Because it means you
have within you infinite capacity to experiment. You are unafraid to go somewhere new because you are creating a new thought process about your own creativity. You know that if you stop and no longer challenge yourself, you cease to be creative. You become still, silent, and the bow no longer connect with the strings and music is not made. And you do not exist. You show you do not have the courage to exist.

[how can I not add this to CreatiVivi?]

Creativity is courage. The world needs more fearless people that can influence all disciplines to challenge their very existence. Creativity is reflection aimed not at yourself, but at the world around you.

[Hello world! Thanks for sharing]

Jounalism Reinvented

I always knew I wanted to study journalism. Ten years ago I graduated with honors from a good J-school in Mexico, complete with CNN internship and half-a-dozen "real" articles in business magazines by the time I handed in my BA thesis.

Today, all this is basically useless.

(and I'm not only talking about the concept of an undergrad thesis)

The only thing remaining is the “core” – the drive, the discipline, the writing skills (and the luck.) But the majority, that 89.6% of the content taught in journalism schools today, is completely out of synch with the reality of surviving in an era of blogs, free newspapers, and kids with camera phones and portable MP3 recorders landing larger headlines than the networks. No wonder that many of the traditional reporters are reluctant to blog, add video and other channels, change.

As Steve Outing recently wrote in his column at Editor & Publisher,

"Even at the college level, where you might expect all students to be on
board with the notion of a digital-centric, publish-it-right-now,
multi-media approach to news, I still run into budding journalists who cling
to the hope of finding a traditional newspaper reporting job."

Here's a snip from the reaction of Mindy McAdams (of Teaching Online Journalism blog fame)

Tear up your news hole. Destroy it.
Tear up your CMS templates. Install something else and link to the new thing.
Do it fast and furiously, as if your life depended on it. Because it does.

Yes!

On changing the world

At LeWeb3, basically everybody in the room thinks they can change the world (and most want to get filthy rich on the way). There’s a lot of emphasis on change and inspiration and dreams. But what impact are they really having?

After Hans Rosling’s talk, I felt moved. I wanted to continue to act, to make a difference in one of the “220 varieties” of countries he was referring to. But then, something started to bother me: as much as Gapminder brings alive otherwise very dry facts and statistics, the access to these graphs requires certain basic level of background/education to understand (as well as the means to see them).

I tracked Hans Rosling at the coffee break to ask him about the “lowest common denominator” of the people who use these graphs. His answer, tongue in cheek, was, “kids under 12 and Heads of State.” And added “This is because neither group wants to be told what to do. They want to explore themselves.”

Hans is a good conversationalist. People burst out laughing. Then somebody jumped in with a stat on the low ratio of CEOs with MBAs, and the high correlation of CEOs with MBAs that end up in jail. More laughs.

But Jonathan Mark, who was standing nearby, understood what I had in mind. Yes, the issues in so-called “third world” countries are important to raise. But by doing this on our own, with our own language and without giving others the chance to join the conversation (or create and preserve their own), we’re just imposing our own views on the subject. We’re not attempting to share (or listen to) the voices from those we’re trying to “help” in the first place.

Jonathan is trying to change this. He’s involved in projects in Africa that teach villagers, and especially women in these villages, to continue sharing their stories, their memories, their problems. The technology is simple, and most importantly, using a medium they’re familiar and feel comfortable with: voice. Radio is the solution.

Grass-roots radio stations are popping up everywhere. Women are communicating their issues, their hopes, their solutions, their dreams. And thanks to these projects, they’re preserving their stories, their memories.

Now that’s impressive.

Lessons on Innovation from Google - CCS

What does Google have to say about Innovation? Here's a Google product manager's view:

1. Culture: this is the most important one. According to Nelson Mattos, Google puts users first; profitability is "an afterthought." Also in the Google credo: create a global skills base, as only local engineers will be able to understand the nuances of their geographies (Orckut big in Brazil, blogging big in France but not Latin America, etc) Finally, maintain a non hierarchical structure
2. Collaboration: Some secrets are more valuable when shared
3. Speed: Fast is better than slow. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be fast beating slow. At Google we absolutely encourage people to move at high speed, build a prototype, launch immediately and get feedback directly from the users. And improve over that.