Factoid of the day: R U Thr Gd? Its me, Margs
86 percent of Japanese high school students read cell phone novels.(Source: Teleread and Japan Today)
The problem with problems
A quick thought about the disconnect between how we prepare kids for work and how work actually operates:In school, problems almost always are clearly defined, confined to a single discipline, and have one right answer.But in the workplace, they’re practically the opposite. Problems are usually poorly defined, multi-disciplinary, and have several possible answers, none of
Sign posts
Regular readers know my obsession with signage, particularly that of the emotionally intelligent variety.Here are three quick sign items from the inbox and the bookpile:1. The Toronto Star‘s Kenneth Kidd has a terrific piece questioning whether the hyperlegalistic signs now dotting the streets of Canada’s largest city actually do any good. They’re so negative, Kidd writes, that “you’d
Method for your madness
UPDATE: IDEO’s Method Cards, a terrific design tool that I mention in AWNM, are now available online apparently no longer available online. Just buy them, you cheapskate! (HT: Avi Solomon)
Inauguration Day 2009
My iPhone photos from today’s ceremonies here in D.C. aren’t very good, but this one’s a keeper — in part because the woman pictured here is standing on the steps of Constitution Hall, site of the notorious Marian Anderson incident.
Obama’s speech . . . graphically
Here’s Obama’s speech today as a Wordle “word cloud,” which give greater prominence to words that appear frequently in a text.
Pink’s Travel Tip #5: More hygiene!
(Note: Since this tip was taped mid-air, the synchronization between sound and picture have a certain astronaut-on-CNN quality.) Pink’s Travel Tips — IntroPink’s Travel Tips — Tip #1Pink’s Travel Tips — Tip #2 Pink’s Travel Tips — Tip #3 Pink’s Travel Tips — Tip #4
Eat locally, animate globally
BusinessWeek reports that when Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries issued a 62-page report “about the country’s worrisome dependence on food imports,” it added a twist. The Ministry summarized their findings in a four-minute animated video, which you can watch below. Maybe Peter Orszag should try this for his first budget.
We have a winner
The polls have closed in The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge. And we now have winner.You have selected “Stay hungry” as the 7th Johnny Bunko Lesson. Congratulations to Becky Blanton of Danville, Virginia, who surged from behind in the last week to win a resounding victory. Her entry received 72 percent of the nearly 5000 votes
Factoid of the day: Is reading on the rise?
The National Endowment for the Arts issued a report yesterday titled Reading on the Rise, which showed that more Americans have their noses in books. Kinda.The percentage of adults who’d read a novel, short story, play, or poem in the last 12 months climbed to 50.2 percent. That’s up from 46.7 percent in 2002. Good