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Professional Writing for the Unprofessional Writer
The image above is for a presentation I put together for a writing course a friend of mine teaches at Boston College. My role at my company (Newfangled) involves quite a bit of writing, and so my friend asked me to talk about writing from the perspective of someone who does it in a business context, rather than as an author. I’m willing to bet that there are many professionals who have similarly found themselves writing for… -
Suing the State Over Crappy Education
Only the ACLU would think of this: They have banded with parents and student of Palm Beach County and mounted a trailblazing class-action lawsuit, the only of its kind (ever?), claiming that students’ constitutional rights are being violated by the incredibly horribly awful schools there, which result in low graduation rates, particularly among blacks and Latinos. The county, for its part, says it’d doing a fine job, of course. So let’s look real quick at the numbers. According… -
Ideas for Cities: Google Analytics for Learning
Google Analytics for Learning
Cities should measure the impact of learning more closely, because education reduces unemployment and poverty and creates a greater culture of ingenuity—producing jobs and individual entrepreneurs. The city and its citizens should use better analytics to make it clear why investments in learning and the learning infrastructure more than pays for themselves. Learning solves problems. This is part eight of a continuing brainstorm on the future of cities, inaugurated at the Velocity conference in September 2009. We’ll post a new idea each day until we run out,… -
First meeting for the “Create, Don’t Hate” billboard project
Seven designers/design studios connected with seven youth in a speed-dating session to getting to know each other, fast. Five (or so) minutes per person. It went fast and we were able to make the pairings of Designer/Student soon after. The event was held at p:ear in downtown. I’d have to say that, both groups were a little tentative at first but everyone loosened up and had a good time finding out about each other’s work. Maybe… -
Obama Celebrates Anniversary by Pushing Controversial Education Reform Program
Well this is interesting: The President and Arne Duncan are celebrating Obama’s first anniversary in office by pushing states to come up with bold ways to reform education. Until recently, it seemed to me that education had fallen off the administration’s priority list entirely. Then Obama delivered his intense and hated-by-conservatives stay-in-school plea (follow that link for video and transcript), where he put the onus on kids to take responsibility for their own education, and now… -
Harvard to Buy Power from Maine Wind Farm
Harvard University has entered into a 15-year agreement to buy power and renewable energy certificates from a wind energy farm to be built in Maine. Good on ya, but I’m still not contributing to that ridiculous endowment. Original article: Harvard Univ. to buy power from Maine wind farm – Yahoo! News -
Education Leads to Stable Democracies
Why has Argentina been unable to sustain a democracy? Why has establishing Iraq’s been particularly dicey? According to the Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, it comes down to schools. If we want stable democracies, he writes, we need to invest in education. Being a numbers guy, though, he doesn’t just argue the case philosophically. He’s got data to back him up. What kind of data? The kind that shows that the more educated a country is, the… -
Schools not Troops?
In case you missed it, Nicholas Kristof had an interesting piece about Afghanistan late last week where he posits that instead of a doomed-to-fail attempt at counterinsurgency, we should spend the money on education instead. Why? Because “for the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.” He builds the argument well, citing awesome organizations that have successfully built and maintained schools in the country—none of which get… -
re:active billboard project with Design Ignites Change
re:activekicked off our billboard design project with Design Ignites Change here in Portland, OR on Saturday. We are very excited to use the space typically available to corporations (the billboard) and use it for the purpose of getting youth voices out in the world. These are important voices and the chosen theme for the project is “Tolerance”. We feel that it touches everyone in some way and that it is open enough to allow for many approaches… -
Ideas for Cities: Talent Recruiters
Talent Recruiters
As a reminder to citizens, cities would staff a team of talent developers who invite “people at risk” to adopt a learning program and work with them to design a curriculum and apprenticeship program. Learning would be accessible, ample, and affordable; these recruiters get people to join in. This is part three of a continuing brainstorm on the future of cities, inaugurated at the Velocity conference in September 2009. We’ll post a new idea each day until…
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Education
How can we make sure that everyone can learn the things that will allow them to improve their lives, and the lives of those around them?
