Archive for 2007

In the spring of 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered a commencement speech at Stanford that quickly became one of most emailed documents I’ve ever encountered. Now Stanford on iTunes has the live recording. Some of us listened to it here at the Pink House a couple of days ago — and, in this Pink’s […]

Time readers pose 10 questions to Richard Branson, including one whose answer is consistent with the dyslexia advantage. Skye O’Brien of Dartmouth, Mass. asks him: “Has your dyslexia hindered you in the business world?” To which Sir Richard responds: “Strangely, I think my dyslexia has helped. When I launch a new company, I need to […]

Death tourism: Terminally ill people traveling to places such as Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands that permit assist suicide. (Source: WSJ‘s Informed Reader)

In AWNM I wrote about studies showing that self-made millionaires are much more likely to be dyslexic than the rest of the population. Now comes a fresh round of research, reported in the New York Times and pointed out to me by my pal Chris Nippert-Eng, revealing that a whopping 35% of American small business […]

Careful readers of AWNM know about that Rainbow Project, an alternative SAT, that is often a better predictor of college grades than the mainstream test. Part of the Rainbow Project involves giving test-takers blank New Yorker cartoons and asking them to write captions. It’s an interesting exercise in R-Directed thinking — which is one reason […]

Factoid: “Although English speakers outnumber Japanese speakers by more than 5-1, slightly more blog postings are written in Japanese than in English . . . [and] By some estimates, as much as 40 percent of Japanese blogging is done on mobile phones.” (From this excellent WaPo story on Japanese bloggers) Quote: “The way left-brain people […]

“The largest number of adolescents in history is coming of age world-wide. All told, some 1.2 billion people — one person in five — are between ages 10 and 19, according to the United Nations Population Fund. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 29 million teenagers, with their numbers growing at twice the […]

“In the past, we were left-brain oriented: science, tech, engineering; as we move to a creative society, we need to leverage the right side of the brain.” — Tan Chin Nam, Permanent secretary, Singapore’s Ministry of information, communication and the arts (Source: Bruno Giussani’s Lunch over IP blog, 11/29/07)

Michael Bierut — he of the must-read book, 79 Short Essays on Design — emails his own examples of emotionally intelligent signage, which his Pentagram partner Paula Scher created for the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. “Not exactly what you mean,” he writes, “but funny for parents, and — I promise you — every kid wants to […]

Phil Downs, principal of Cedar Canyon Elementary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, writes: “We were having problems with our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders playing in the restrooms at our school. Here is our attempt at an emotionally intelligent sign for them.” Permalink