Design Observer: "Educating for a Future Within Our Sight"

Maria Popova, better known as Brainpicker her nom de plume for her popular blog, Brainpickings, has a nice new interview with Rita J. King on Change Observer, a blog about design and social innovation about the "Imagination: Creating the Future of Education and Work," project. It's by far one of the most perceptive interviews on the subject and a great read. Excerpt:

"Pluralism is always practical," famously declared Nabokov. By that measure, Rita J. King, journalist, nuclear expert, virtual worlds scholar, VP of business development at Science House and IBM Innovator-in-Residence — is a bastion of postmodern pragmatism. Her latest project, a collaboration with Joshua Fouts, is the product of more than two years of research, exploring the future of education and work through a concept King calls the Imagination Age — a fleeting period between the industrial era crumbling behind us and the technological hyper-reality glimmering ahead of us, in which we have the rare chance to reimagine our culture, our economy, our world and our place in it.

IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work explores how we can harness the unique opportunities of this new age and reshape the education system. The project offers a portal of resources for educators spanning a wide range of media, disciplines and potential applications. Maria Popova sat down with King to talk about the scope of the work, the role of imagination in academia and the cross-pollination of disciplines as a key enabler of creativity.

[Change Observer: Educating for a Future Within Our Sight, by Maria Popova]

"Brasília: Contradictions of a New City"

João Pelles Jr, who I call my "Brazilian Brother" because I lived with his family as a Rotary Exchange student in 1983, shared these two stunning old documentaries about the intent, design, construction and economic and cultural impact of creating Brazil's Capital city, Brasília, a work designed by famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and created in the middle of the jungle in just four years (from 1956-1960).

The videos are in Portuguese, but the images should be of interest to architecture and urban planning students everywhere.

The first video (above) describes how every piece of the city was designed intentionally. From restaurants and stores built in the apartment buildings with discreet entrances and exits to allow busy residents to both enjoy and socialize as well as manage busy lives.

The second video (below) offers a more dire take on the the construction. It features interviews with the many poor workers who helped build Brasília and moved there in hopes of finding employment. One dismayed new resident describes how he is desperate to leave since the work he thought he would find has not manifest.

The videos are a fascinating time-traveling snapshot to a window of time in Brazil that was both tumultuous and dizzying in its fervor to manifest a dream.



[Also see: TIME Mag's "Twitter in Brazil" Misses Key Points

Read other articles on The Imagination Age about Brazil and digital culture. ]

The Future of Facebook and Digital Graveyards

"The future lies in the creation of thriving small businesses"



The Future of Facebook Project, which we blogged about earlier when it was seeking funding on Kickstarter, made its funding goal and has begun to release longer videos of some of the interviews they conducted. Four of the first videos this week are of Rita J. King discussing what the next Facebook might be, the future of Facebook (above). And the role of Facebook as a sort of digital graveyard and what Rita J. King believes is a core issue for those in charge of Facebook(below).

Joi Ito to direct MIT Media Lab

In addition to being a global citizen and all that, Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab's new director, won my admiration with his constant, informative tweets about Fukushima--an impending disaster that he documented for ten years before the recent catastrophe.

I saw Joi Ito this summer at Foo Camp and I captured this video of DJ Patil showing him a chart of his social graph. Colored circles connect his network in Dubai, Japan and the United States, with other circles here and there, each representing the life of a person who has come to know Joi in some way:



Below is a short video from the trip to Foo Camp: random shots around town, egrets, art, the shadow of a palm on pavement, and of course the Death Star Watermelon by Noel Dickover (who loves carving pumpkins SO MUCH. Look at his Twitter avatar!)

Arabic Calligraffiti

Recent developments in the Middle East have given the "creative class" a chance to be more expressive in the streets. Calligraffiti: "traditional handwriting with a metropolitan attitude."

via @jhagel

What is Creativity?

Rita J. King has a thoughtful new piece up on the Science House blog exploring the role of creativity in imagination, work and science.

New ideas don’t just come from “thinking outside the box,” but rather understanding what the box (or the domain) is, how the people who have occupied it before you, or currently occupy it (the field) have worked within or around it, as well as what your own role as a link on the continuum might be. Creative ideas, then, are largely grounded in what you already know.

Simply doing things differently is not in and of itself creative. It’s a necessary characteristic in a rapidly changing world. True creativity, the way it’s defined by Csikszentmihalyi, leaves a lasting impression on the cultural matrix, with memes sticky enough to change the culture itself for the future people who occupy a particular field and become knowledgeable experts in a specific domain.

[Science House: What is Creativity? By Rita J. King]

"Sugar: The Bitter Truth"

The New York Times has a good write-up and review of Dr. Robert Lustig's 2009, viral video explaining the detrimental and misunderstood facts about sugar. By sugar, he elaborates, he means any kind from the much-demonized High Fructose Corn Syrup to the more common sucrose (aka sugar) we are told lately is the better form of sugar.

In a riveting 1 hour and 29 minutes Lustig takes us through the chemistry of how sugar is broken down (or, in this case not broken down) by our bodies. The case he makes is a serious one: In our zeal to remove fat from foods and make them taste good, we have replaced fats with sugars. The only problem is, sugars are not better than fat and the volume and pervasiveness of sugar as a central ingredient to almost all foods makes it much more dangerous.

It's an important piece to watch.

Also see:
[The New York Times: Is Sugar Toxic?]

Projected Path of Japan's Radioactive Cesium 137 Cloud Over the United States

The Norwegian Institute for Air Research has an animated map of the projected path of the Radioactive cloud of Cesium 137 from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan and it's anticipated course over the United States. See their Fukushima page for more detailed maps of the entire planet.

Also see: [Rita J. King in Scientific American: Failure of imagination can be deadly: Fukushima is a warning]


Via SciTechHeretic

WIRED: 7 Science-Education Battlegrounds of 2011

Wired's Dave Mosher has a great visual and textual article highlighting how top 7 science-education battlegrounds in the United States. It's pretty shocking to consider that the US has an increasing number of regressive policies with regard to science education. The article cites bills in 11 states including Tennessee, the state that held the famed "Scopes Monkey Trial," which is now introducing legislation to reverse it 85 years later. It's a sobering and important read.


[WIRED: 7 Science-Education Battlegrounds of 2011]

Battle Power for Boys, Perfect Love for Girls

Check out this fascinating blog post about language in commercial toy marketing to boys contrasted with language used to market to girls.

I was the kind of girl who walked around with a plastic pistol in a shoulder holster, but I also loved dolls.

Sparking the Creative Imagination

"Sparking the Cosmic Imagination," is a graphic essay I wrote for The Atlantic about the 50th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's voyage into space. The amazing Zea Barker did a spectacular job with the illustrations, which are meant to be viewed vertically, as shown below:

Young Girl Prefers Sith Academy

So many wonderful things about this video. Not the least of which is the young girl who breaks script from Disney's everyone-wants-to-be-a-Jedi storyline and pledges her fealty to Lord Vader. Say what you will, this girl's got spunk.

(via @AndreaKuszewski)

World Bank: $3 Billion Virtual Economy Provides Jobs in Developing Countries

Source: World Bank

The World Bank has just released a new report by Virtual Worlds researcher Vili Lehdonvirta which reveals some stunning figures about the economic impact of virtual goods (that is earnings made from sale of virtual goods often accrued by so-called "gold farming") on the economy and livelihood of individuals, especially in developing countries.

On his blog, the author offers a cautionary note about the positives in this report:

It is well known that gold farming provides income to many people in developing countries. In this report we estimate that it may employ as many as 100,000 full-time equivalent game laborers. For the first time, we also examine the full value chain through which gold farmers' services are brought to Western players: everything from advertising to account hacking. We call all of these functions together the "third-party gaming services industry", of which actual gold farming is only a small part. The total revenues of the industry are estimated at 3.0 billion USD.

But the future development potential of the third-party gaming services industry does not look good. It is threatened by game publishers' decision to start selling virtual goods to players directly. Moreover, its services often bring harm to other players and game publishers, meaning that their net social value may often be negative.

In contrast, another sector of the virtual economy represents an unequivocally positive contribution to society: the market for microwork, or small tasks such as tagging an image or trascribing a snippet of hand-written text. E-commerce sites and other companies need such work. With suitable technology, this demand translates to income opportunities for digitally connected individuals in developing countries.

[Virtual Economy Research Network: WORLD BANK VIRTUAL ECONOMY REPORT: SECONDARY MARKETS WORTH $3 BILLION]

[World Bank Report: Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy]

Brand Hacking: Smartly Integrating Cultural Zeitgeist Storytelling in Subdued Brand

Nike Amsterdam Destroyer from Paul Geusebroek on Vimeo.

Dutch film director Paul Geusebroek has been pushing boundaries in the television commercial space in ways that are provocative and a good direction for the industry. One of the big mistakes of the advertising industry has been the fear of not being literal enough. Brands force their name and design down our throats multiple times during a commercial to make sure they don't miss an opportunity to instill their name into our long term memory (as if repetition is the only way to ensure people remember brands).

Geusebroek video's lure us in by immersive storytelling. Brands like Nike, in the above commercial, have taken notice. Storytelling is recognized as one of the best ways to instill and retain memory. It's the reason that mythologies are so well-preserved. They are compelling stories that humans learn, remember, and pass on to one another through time.

This collection of Geusebroek's video commercials puts us in a place and time that is very much a part of the zeitgeist of today. Locating his commercials in Amsterdam invokes a deep-seated cultural message of transformation. No matter what people say about Amsterdam, be it negative or positive, I think everyone can agree that a core theme is their exacting ability to embrace, or at least favor, transformation. There are plenty of meta counter-narratives, such as The Netherland's adherence and protection of their Calvinist roots (every window into every dining room on the canals of Amsterdam is kept meticulously open and decidedly modest inside). But no one can deny that the Dutch have repeatedly, certainly in the last 100 years, embraced perceived high risk policy decisions in the culture policy realm. And that makes Geusebroek's commercial settings uniquely powerful.

Blend Magazine in the Netherlands has a great interview with Geusebroek.

[Paul Geusebroek's Avante Garde commercials.]

(Via TheInspiration.com)

A Different Take on the Internet Boom of the 2000s

Image credit: @ChristyDena

Lately I've been reading back-issues of Ben Horowitz's blog. Ben Horowitz, for those who don't know, is the venture capital partner of Marc Andreessen the famed and now fabulously wealthy founder of Netscape.

Horowitz argues compellingly that the current surge in Internet investment is not a bubble like the bubble of the 1990s, which resulted in such a catastrophic collapse of so many companies. In a March 24, 2011 post, Horowitz argues that the current surge is not even remotely comparable to the previous one because the volume of people is quantitatively different. In 1995, the best Netscape could hope for in terms of audience reach was around 55 million people. Today, that number is in the billions. Humans have a hard time understanding the true meaning of numbers that exceed, say, 100,000. When we get into the millions, our capacity to grasp the scope of the numbers is diluted further. In the billions, it's really not a conceptual reality.

So, why, one would ask, in an era of global economic collapse, is this Internet boom not bound for a bust? Simple: Because more people are using the Internet. The economy around the world may be failing, but discretionary entertainment income even in the micro levels will still amount to massive profits for organizations who only need a penny per person, especially if those people are measured in the billions.

Horowitz doesn't say this explicitly in his posts. But it's there, in between the lines. And it's worth paying attention to. Or, as Horowitz puts it, "any company that simultaneously saves Charlie Sheen’s career and starts a revolution in Egypt may be on to something."

Why you should read Ben Horowitz.

Beautiful Timelapse Video of New York City

new york city. from James Ogle on Vimeo.

Time Lapse Photographer James Ogle just posted the above video tribute to New York City, which includes some nice odes to the particularly strong winter weather of 2011. From his post:

This is a recent time lapse piece I did on New York City. Many of the shots were specific for this project but some were recycled from previous projects but I loved them too much to not reuse them.

It's a great view.

News Release: DIP Releases, “IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education & Work”

NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Rita J. King
Dancing Ink Productions, LLC
info@dancinginkproductions.com

DIP Releases: “IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education & Work”

18-month-long study identifies essential skills and challenges at the intersection of technology, education and 21st Century workforce preparedness.

New York, NY April 8, 2011 -- Dancing Ink Productions (DIP), a digital media strategy firm, today unveils a new report, “IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work,” an 18-month-long research project exploring how technology and education are integrating to prepare tomorrow’s workers for a 21st Century workforce. The project was funded by a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation with support from ManpowerGroup and IBM. The entire set of findings can be read online at http://creatingthefuturetoday.com

The story begins in Lafayette, Louisiana at GameCamp! a game design retreat for high school students designed by Spencer Zuzolo, an education entrepreneur and game developer. IMAGINATION follows students, educators, policymakers and employers across the US from Louisiana to Iowa to New York and beyond as they struggle to overcome the challenge of dealing with shifts in the field, preparing students for the workforce in a fast-changing world and still teaching proficiency and mastery of core subjects.

"It is essential that the next generation of learners appreciate the impact engineering innovation has and will have on society,” said Robert Lindberg, President and Executive Director of the National Institute of Aerospace. “The Scientific Method and the Engineering Design Process, the "black boxes" of science and engineering respectively, help illuminate the separate and unique contributions made by scientists and engineers. I was delighted to collaborate on expanding these ideas as part of IMAGINATION."

The report identifies key areas of focus for educators, students, employers and policymakers and presents them in a web-friendly, easy-to-digest, interactive format specifically designed to help busy educators and members of business enterprise groups get the information they need quickly and implement it today. “Imagination, creativity and agility are critical skills that needs to be integrated at all levels,” said Rita J. King, who co-directed the project with Joshua Fouts. “Training and empowering the next generation of scientists, artists and engineers to work collaboratively will help our society level up as we create a new global economy and culture in the Imagination Age.”

“Manpower is thrilled to support IMAGINATION, “ said Tammy Johns, ManpowerGroup Senior Vice President, Innovation & Workforce Solutions. “The future of work is about talent, will, human potential, and imagination. People have more power to move the world forward than ever before. This interactive project offers tangible, pragmatic steps to help the US education and job training infrastructure at a time when a new global labor market is emerging.”

“IMAGINATION is the future,” said Dr. David Abshire, President of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, which provided the core funding for the report. “The Lounsbery Foundation believes in the fundamental importance of science education in transforming our society and we are delighted and impressed with the 21st Century findings and recommendations in this report.”

###

About Dancing Ink Productions
For more information visit: http://dancinginkproductions.com

About ManpowerGroup Inc.
For more information visit: http://www.manpowergroup.com.

About the Lounsbery Foundation
For more information visit: http://rlounsbery.org

A New Website for a New Season

A new website for a new season. In addition to a sneak preview of our newest report, "IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work," we've just re-launched the Dancing Ink Productions website. It's a streamlined look and feel with simplified descriptions of our work and explanations what we can do for our clients. Many thanks to Mark Plattner Design for the production assist.

We welcome your thoughts and reactions.

[New Dancing Ink Productions website]