Leaner nations bike, walk, use mass transit

Money quote:

"Countries with the highest levels of active transportation generally had the lowest obesity rates," authors David Bassett of the University of Tennessee and John Pucher of Rutgers University conclude.

Americans, with the highest rate of obesity, were the least likely to walk, cycle or take mass transit, according to the study in a recent issue of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health

2009: The Year of Financial Literacy

If there ever has been a cause whose time has come, it's financial literacy. Peter Applebome of The Times lays it out for us here.

Get healthier city, get healthier kids

Trees and other urban vegetation improve aesthetics, reduce pollution and keep things cooler, making the outside a more attractive place to play, walk or run.

via No Impact Man: Green the city, get healthier kids.

Santa Visits Ashley Park Elementary School

Of all the 300 students at Ashley Park Elementary School in Charlotte, NC, only 10 live in homes with both a mother and father. This school is one of the neediest in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, and a couple years ago we engaged with them as a partner. Topics' employees mentor students and coordinate different initiatives throughout the year to help the kids and teachers in all sorts of ways. Yesterday, Santa came to Ashley Park and visited each classroom where gifts were given out to every student. The smiles and excitement made for a wonderful day! See the joy that Bruce, I mean Santa, brought the kiddies.

Good I! A position paper on Instruction vs. Information (Part One)

We do a lot of thinking here at Topics about how best to engage, educate, and move people to action. We think about it so much that Principal, Bruce Nofsinger, has been working hard on a position paper on Instruction vs. Information and Impact vs. Impression. We will roll out segments from the paper here on our blog and will post the full paper to our website in the future. The first segment is copied below ...

The need for effective instruction transcends age, and applies to so many situations outside of formal learning settings. Any effort to inform audiences via the web, face-to-face interaction, printed documents, video and so on, will not succeed without built-in ways to help audiences find relevance, reflect on the information, and assess how the information is applicable in their lives.

Absent these qualities, the onus is completely on the audience to personalize and connect with the information. More often than not, the information comes across in a non-engaging way. The result is no impact.

In this era of information "at our fingertips" (dare I say "information overload"), we hope you will find that our approach to engaging and educating audiences is instructive - that it effectively illustrates the differences between simply passing on information vs. truly instructing to make a lasting impact that moves people to action.

-Bruce Nofsinger, Principal, Topics Education

Teachable Moment: How Can a Butterfly Inspire Your Next Design?

AskNature.org is a newly launched website that serves as a tool to architects, designers, and engineers specializing in biomimicry, and anyone else involved in product, packaging, and service design. Biomimicry (a new term to us, too) pairs biologists with designers to develop sustainable solutions inspired by real-life functions that have been developed and perfected in nature throughout time. So that a designer attempting to create product features that assemble, dissemble, filter, absorb, convert energy, detoxify, and a thousand other things, can look to nature’s little miracles for sustainable solutions. For example, understanding the make-up of a toucan’s beak - strong, yet lightweight, due to a rigid foamy inside and layers of fibrous keratin tile outside – can help an engineer create structural functions.

Why We Like It:
The viewpoint of biomimicry encourages one to look to nature for the most brilliant inventions in our world. Instead of creating toxic products that pollute, designers who practice biomimicry are respecting nature both by looking to its ingenuity for solutions and by protecting the environment with the creation of sustainable products. If we could all look to nature as our wise mentor, we’d certainly be more careful to conserve and protect our natural habitats.

Charities of Choice for Holiday Giving

We’ve heard a lot of buzz this season about people requesting charitable donations in lieu of the food items and clothing usually exchanged between co-workers, friends, and relatives during the holidays. Whatever the reason, we think it’s a great idea! We’d strongly suggest visiting charitynavigator.org, which is a great tool for evaluating the effectiveness of the charities to which you are thinking of donating. A great place to start is with your local schools, museums, arts council, community foundation, churches, and public radio stations. Listed below are our employees’ charities of choice.


Through Heifer International you can give the gift of livestock and training to help families around the world achieve self-reliance.

Building with Books is an after-school program throughout the U.S. that empowers youth to build their own communities while building schools in developing countries.

Communities in Schools (CIS) connects community resources with schools to help young people successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life. CIS is the nation's largest dropout prevention organization.

Donors Choose addresses the scarcity and inequitable distribution of learning materials and experiences in public schools through a platform for private citizens to donate directly to classroom projects across the nation.

Human Rights Campaign envisions an America where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are ensured of their basic equal rights, and can be open, honest, and safe at home, at work, and in the community.

Teaching Tolerance, founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations, and supporting equitable school experiences for the nation's youth through free educational materials for teachers and other school practitioners in the U.S. and abroad.

World Wildlife Fund's mission is the conservation of nature. Using the best available scientific knowledge and advancing that knowledge where possible, WWF works to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth and the health of ecological systems

Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization, founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions, and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.


Inspired by nature, Sierra Club members work together to protect our communities and the planet. The Club is America's oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization.


As one of the largest health charities in America, United Cerebral Palsy Foundation is the leading source of information on cerebral palsy and is a pivotal advocate for the rights of persons with any disability. They strive to advance the independence, productivity, and full citizenship of people with disabilities through an affiliate network.


Fisher House Foundation provides comfort and housing to military families who must travel to visit their ill or injured loved ones at military hospitals.

Doctors Without Borders provide independent, impartial assistance in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.

Top Five: Ways to Winterize your Vespa

With scooter purchases up this year (24% increase in the first half of 2008 alone) and two Vespa owners in our very own office, we want everyone to know how best to protect their fuel-friendly transport this winter.

1. Change oil
2. Add gas and fuel stabilizer
3. Run it every week or two to charge battery
4. Cover it
5. Dream of warmer days

*For more details, see advice provided by the Vermont Scooter Club

New Year's Resolutions

By Winn Maddrey, Executive VP, Topics Education

At the end of the year, with the holidays ever-present, self-reflection – if one can get the time – seems almost natural. As the new business and corresponding activities screech to a halt in the Thanksgiving to New Year’s black hole, those of us who rarely slow down, finally find the time to reflect on the year and adjust our outlook accordingly on how best to move forward.

It’s a wonder that self-reflection, being so important, depends upon the lack of other activity to take place. But in this month, with reflection top of mind, I gravitate toward thoughts about engagement and communities, why each relies on the other, and why we need to consider them in our resolutions for the New Year.

Recently I attended what was billed as a community discussion on campaign-related issues. During the forum, we explored aspects of the Presidential campaign that caused tensions and that demonstrated the need for an adequate framework to help citizens make sound voting decisions. I was energized by the interaction and not just because I am political junkie. Rather it was because I was in a room of diverse citizens who’d rolled up their sleeves and come to participate.

Unfortunately, self-reflection wasn’t emphasized, and a good opportunity for community engagement, growth, and change was missed.

However defined, a community needs a few things to really thrive. First, people must buy in to the idea of community, of the give and take that makes up being part of a collective group. Next, thriving communities house people who are engaged, who are aware and educated on the issues facing the group. Finally, people must participate in the discussion and decision-making. They should bring their cares vocally to the community center, put them on the table, and be willing to participate in the community’s dialogue. This is a role embraced by elected leaders historically, but it is one that seems nearly universally abdicated by those in power these days.

So as 2008 comes to a close, I look back on what I have accomplished as part of my community and what we as a country have accomplished and think, what a great start. Now part of me just wants to sit back and see what happens next, but the rest of me realizes that now is the time for all of us to step up and help build thriving communities, wherever we live.

What Muddy Sneakers Means

What Muddy Sneakers Means

Posted using ShareThis

Stories like this one ... this is why some of you hearing me howling at the moon about getting kids outside.

Dallas will be NASTy (not what you think)

I'm headed to Dallas next week for the National Association of State Treasurers’ (NAST) Conference, an annual gathering of State Treasurers and staff from across the nation sharing and learning best practices. The timing could not be better for innovative ideas on financial matters, and I’m lucky enough to be presenting our work with North Carolina Treasurer Richard Moore's office. Jennifer Cohen (his Chief of Staff and the main member of our team) and I will share the work we did to advocate for greater emphasis on financial education, as well as explore with the group how the State Treasurers Offices can engage state agencies and corporate partners to better impact financial education efforts.

More on ideas shared and learned when I return next week.