March 2012
1 post
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A Redesigned Report Card →
January 2012
2 posts
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The Right Tools for the Job: We Need Educational...
We have all heard variations of the saying: “The right tool for the job makes all the difference.” As the son of a furniture-maker I concede that I might have heard this saying a little more often than other people, but I’m sure we can all agree that the right tool can often make a job easier, more efficient, and deliver better outcomes. Of course, put the right tool in the hands of a person...
December 2011
3 posts
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WatchMy cousin (a few times removed - but hey, we’re a big Franco-American family) Roger gives a fascinating talk about his Kitchen Gardeners International network.
Creating Jobs, Harmonizing Nonprofits, and... →
The Forbes Impact 30 - Forbes →
Forbes releases its list of the top 30 social entrepreneurs working on the world’s most intractable problems.
November 2011
25 posts
Unexpected Innovation Lessons from the Do Lectures... →
The Stanford Social Innovation Review presents lessons on doing from this year’s “Do Lectures”.
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Once Wary, Apple Warms Up to Business Market →
Apple, long resolute in its catering to consumers, is suddenly finding corporations becoming big customers.
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WatchHow can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up
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“As when some carcass, hidden in sequestered nook, draws from every near and...”
– Hubert Howe Bancroft, gold-hunter and historian quoted in H.W. Brands The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
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“Our heritage is much more than our collective memory, it is our collective...”
– http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_kacyra_ancient_wonders_captured_in_3d.html
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WatchA wonderful presentation by Ben Kacyra about his work digitally preserving the world’s heritage sites.
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“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at...”
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Google X: Google's Secret Innovation Lab →
“It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.
These are just a few of the dreams being chased at Google X, the...
GOOD 024: The Data Issue →
An issue devoted to qualifying our quantifying in the age of information overload.
“A view is a composite of experiences.”
– Daniel Kish (PopTech 2011), a blind man who uses his ears to see, on CNN. (via poptech)
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A Social Entrepreneurship Bibliography - by... →
This bibliography is an attempt to list the most relevant material on the topic of ‘social entrepreneurship’ published within the past two decades. The Academic Search Complete and Web of Science databases were used to conduct a literature search using the keywords ‘social enterprise’, ‘social entrepreneurship’ and ‘social entrepreneur’. The literature search was limited to peer-reviewed journal...
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“Only operations that are well-established, high-turnover, standardized or highly...”
– Jane Jacobs as quoted by Stewart Brand in “Nobody Cares What You Do in There: The Low Road
Watchpbsthisdayinhistory:
NOVEMBER 7: FIRST WOMAN ELECTED TO CONGRESS, 1916
On this day in 1916, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress. The Republican from Montana managed her historic feat four years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women all over the country the right to vote.
This Montana PBS special introduces us to the life of Jeannette Rankin. Get a...
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Watch
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Here Comes the Sun by Paul Krugman →
”[…] Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific America put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar...
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“Teams have an inherent advantage in the identification of the best ideas. A...”
– Singh & Fleming in Management Science 2010
Stanford Social Innovation Review's Webinars →
The Stanford Social Innovation Review offers a whole host of webinars for $19 updated every 4-6 weeks. Past topics included: Building the Funding Model for Your Organization; Implementing Organizational Learning; Nonprofit, For-profit, or Something in Between?; The Future of Green Tech; Philanthropy and Social Investing; The Dragonfly Effect: Harnessing Social Media to Drive Social Change; Design...
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WatchWith scissors and paper, artist Béatrice Coron creates intricate worlds, cities and countries, heavens and hells. Striding onstage in a glorious cape cut from Tyvek, she describes her creative process and the way her stories develop from snips and slices.
October 2011
22 posts
Teaching the Key Skills of Successful Social... →
The Stanford Social Innovation Review posts the skills/characteristics that the Transformative Action Institute (TAI) asserts all successful social entrepreneurs need.
1. Leadership. These people take initiative and action to solve problems (rather than complaining about what’s wrong).
2. Optimism. These people are confident that they can achieve a bold vision, even when many other people...
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man...”
– Theodore Roosevelt: The Man in the Arena
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“That’s when it dawned on me: we need a new language. The critical distinction is...”
– (Collins, 2005)
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WatchBlaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. Using still photos culled from the Web, Photosynth builds breathtaking dreamscapes and lets us navigate them.
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“The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of...”
– President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address 2011
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WatchA fascinating account of the most up-to-date child development research. What do babies think?
Social Media versus Knowledge Management - Anthony... →
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“Innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship, whether in an existing...”
– (Drucker, 2002)
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WatchAnother engaging talk from Malcolm Gladwell weaving the tale of Karl Norden and the unexpected impact of the groundbreaking piece of World War II technology - the Norden bombsight.
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Watch#David McCandless, Designer, Learning Without Frontiers London delivers a talk on the visualization of data
Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence →
It afflicts us all. Because surety in our own judgments is part of being human.
What business can do to restart growth - A... →
Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma - James... →
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WatchRichard Wilkinson delivers a compelling presentation of how economic inequality harms health, lifespan and social values.
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Recommended Reading: Where Good Ideas Come From by...
Johnson, in beautiful and engaging prose, provides a framework for understanding where the great innovations throughout human history have come from. Rejecting the more common conception that great innovations come from isolated geniuses struck by single moments of inspiration, Johnson demonstrates that innovations have primarily come from:
Liquid Networks
Slow Hunches
Serendipity
Error
...
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WatchJeff Skoll, co-founder of Ebay, talks about his film production company Participant Productions. A company devoted to creating films that inform and inspire others to do good.
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The American Jobs Act →
Does the American Jobs Act do enough to foster innovation?
Welcoming the Winners of the 2010 National Medals... →
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