The Past is Prologue

Last week, I attended the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, at their new, nice convention center. (It amazes me that communities still fork over cash for stuff like this - $225 million.)

At any rate, the event was focused on the question(s) around how NC is doing to support the pending influx of new residents in the next 20 years. In effect, the entire state of SC will cross the border and join the north, which is hard to expect from SC. But NC, currently about 9 million residents, expects to add about 4 million more by 2030, causing NC to be the seventh largest state in the Union. With that influx comes resource needs and constraints. How can we possibly provide for and handle this phenomenal growth?

Some of the presenters were impressive, including both David Brooks (NYT) and Andres Duany (starchitect/planner). The power in their words was to point out how, at previous points in history, civilizations grappled with and addressed their version of this challenge. The irony to me was that so often we fail to realize, review and learn from our past so that we are better prepared for our present and - more importantly - for our future. The day and a half of conversation still has me swimming with how does all of this information trickle down to me, my work and my life?

And what can I do to positively impact the growth and the impact of said growth on our community, our region and our state?

That question, for me, was not answered last week.

TED Time

All right. I'm a bad blogger. That, or I'm a good TED attendee. Last week, I was at the TED Conference — the Palm Springs wing of the conference. In and amongst experiencing TED and working with the SCI FI Channel on the presentation that we developed for them, I was to blog. You'll notice an absence of blog entries between February 2 - 6 (my time at TED).

Now it's time to talk some TED. I'm back and (mostly) mentally caught up with my body. My plan is to recapture the magic of my TED experience in a series of short(ish) entries.

TED: Take 1 (name tags)

So ... all of us at TED had large name tags hanging around our necks. It had the usual info — you know, name (or pseudonym), organization, home town. But they also had a photo and three self-chosen conversation starters (17-character limit for each). I had to get a little creative with my conversation starters to keep them within the spatial limit. Mine were: EngagingEducation, MagicWandWishes, and Talking Heads.

I had a handful of people ask about (or squint to see) my conversation starters, but it didn't really matter. It seemed everyone was eager to talk. And the name tags were a great opening, because Bruce was so prominent, so it immediately started everything off on a really friendly tone.

That got me wondering if we'd engage in conversations with strangers more often if we walked around wearing name tags with photos and conversation starters, cause I sure did like it at TED.

Finding Meaning in Crisis

By Phelps Sprinkle, Principal, Topics Education

A few weeks ago, a friend forwarded me an article predicting that in 2009, business leaders need to be Chief Meaning Officers. It proposes that given the current crises facing U.S. citizens, business leaders need to make their brands “arbiters of meaning.” That is, consumers will naturally look for products and services – interactions really – that have meaningful alignments with causes greater than their products or services.

The article and its premise got me thinking. Thinking about how and why we tend to look for meaning so much more in a crisis. Thinking about how much richer life is when we do find that meaning. How it expands our world-view and makes us more empathetic and unselfish and grateful.

This type of crisis can be broad (e.g., our economic crisis), but it can also be as specific as it was a couple weeks ago when Captain Chesley Sullenberger was somehow able to land his US Airways plane in the Hudson River without losing a single life. How many of us got teary-eyed while reading the stories of the passengers and their families that came out in the days following the event? How many of us looked at the world a little more wide-eyed, hugging our spouse and kids a little longer than usual? I know I did. And I know those passengers and their families and friends are forever changed. I know partly from experience.

Last January, my then five-year-old daughter, Roxie (who has special challenges caused by mitochondrial disease, which weakens her muscles, brain, and lungs), was fighting for her life in a hospital ICU. Her lungs were attacked by a virus that triggered secondary pneumonia making it very difficult for her to breathe. As a result she spent about three weeks in the hospital. One day it got so bad, in fact, that several doctors and nurses had to manually help her breathe for over an hour. During that time, my wife and I truly thought we might lose our daughter. We found ourselves holding each other, repeating half-silent prayers, begging any higher power that would listen to “please help Roxie.”

Roxie did make it, and a couple weeks later, we were home and very happy as life got back to normal.

But it didn’t get completely back to normal. The experience changed us. Over the next few months, I found myself engaging in more and more long conversations with friends, family, and even complete strangers, searching for meaning and human interaction.

Reflecting on these examples, I think at some point, in any kind of crisis, we realize that we don’t have control over everything, that we must rely on others, to trust others to help us. We start to see beauty in things. We start to find more meaning in everyday interactions, and we realize that “hey, maybe I really can live in the moment.” We find ourselves looking through a different filter than we previously had.

I think this is what those passengers on US Airways flight 1549 are feeling. And I think this type of experience is happening in some small way across the nation as each of us deals with the uncertainty and instability of these changing times. More and more of us are understanding how important it is to listen, to pay attention to the stories of other people, other nations, and other religions. People want to stand for something. We want meaning in our everyday lives, and we are starting to understand that to find that meaning, that beauty, we’ve got to slow down, look around, and breathe.

Top Five: Favorite TED Clips

In honor of TED’s 25th anniversary conference happening this very month (and the fact that two of our employees get to go and the rest of us are very jealous!), we’ve decided to share our Top Five Favorite TED clips. If you aren’t familiar with TED it is an annual gathering where the world's leading thinkers and doers give fascinating talks in less than 18 minutes. They are the kind of talks that can squeeze out tears of hope, help you better understand the world, and move you to do good. Watch and be inspired!

1. Majora Carter “Greening the Ghetto”
A moving talk about environmental racism and how she plans to reinvigorate the economy and the environment in the South Bronx which also serves as her home.

2. Sir Ken Robinson “Do Schools Kill Creativity”
Creativity expert, Ken Robinson, says that, in a massive disservice to our youth, the public education system is extinguishing individual creativity. One of his particularly good lines (of many) goes as such: “Our education system has mined our minds in the way we strip mine the earth for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won’t service. We have to rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children.”

3. Jill Bolte Taylor “My Stroke of Insight”
A brain scientist recounts what happened when she experienced her own massive stroke and encourages us all to spend more time in our right brain.

4. Dave Eggers “TED Prize Wish: Once Upon A School”
Dear Everyone: Find a student, help them with their schoolwork, and bask in the positive effects this movement will have on the education of our nation’s youth.

5. Nicholas Negroponte “TED in the Field: Bringing One Laptop per Child to Colombia”
The founder of One Laptop per Child is changing lives and helping nations by bringing laptops to kids in developing countries. He explains, “Think of this as inoculating children against ignorance and think of the laptop as a vaccine.”

Good I! Part III of Series: The Value of Reflection and Assessment

In Part III of our series on impact vs. impressions and instruction vs. information, Bruce explains how and why including moments of reflection in instruction is crucial to creating a relevant and impactful learning experience for an audience. If you missed the earlier pieces, you can read Part I, here, and Part II, here.

To engage an audience is to “invite” it to experience something interesting, meaningful, and relevant – and in context. But, the invitation alone is not enough. The outcome of relevant, engaging instruction must be an inspired and motivated audience that will explore the subject more deeply and more personally.

This cycle of willing and enthusiastic exploration by the audience – connecting with the subject, reflecting on it, assessing its value and real-life application, and putting new concepts into practice – is a vital element of successful instruction and evidence that genuine learning is taking place.

This period of reflection is crucial to designing relevant instruction. Reflection reinforces how the content, concepts, behaviors, and experiences are relevant and important, and when built in to the instruction, guides learners to find and make personal connections to the subject. If it feels personally connected to the subject, the audience will “take ownership” of its learning experience, resulting in a natural and willing desire to know more.

Successful instruction must also build in assessment tools, for instructors and audiences. Instructors must be able to gauge the impact of their instruction and materials. More importantly, audiences must gauge their own learning levels and experience the connection that comes with “getting it.” The subject “clicks into place” for the audience, preparing participants to put new concepts into practice and real-life application.

Topics at TED '09

The office is feeling rather quiet today and I'm feeling rather jealous. Bruce, Topics' co-founder and Billy our creative director are flying cross-country right now en route to the TED@PalmSprings Conference for a week of inspired talks with a little work on the side. We're hoping to get some stories from the two posted here at Topics Three Sticks, so stay tuned. In the meantime enjoy one of our favorite TED Talks from Sir Ken Robinson on how schools are killing creativity ...