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Facilitator and "improvateur," Johnnie Moore, released his latest podcast on the "tyranny of the explicit," which I highly recommend. It's often important to approach a goal indirectly, and as you will hear in the brief podcast linked above, insisting on the numbers can get in the way of a better result.
Put another way: Because the creative process is very often not one of pinning down, but of loosening up, it's sometimes better to let some ideas announce themselves.
Joy can be a business strategy.
Wayne
Image credit: Thanks to everyone who registered for Friday's "Lunch with IF" at the Kentucky Center. We're now sold out!
One lucky attendee Friday will win an All-Access Pass to the IdeaFestival, September 29 - October 2.
Wayne
At the wonderful blog Museum 2.0, Nina Simon describes the power of idiosyncrasy in the museum experience, and contrasting it with the the natural desire in difficult times to find "proven strategies" to satisfy ownership and boards of directors, says it's important for organizations to find "their own way forward."
I understand why retail establishments benefit from becoming bigger, more homogeneous, and more distributed. People like to buy from chains because they know what they are going to get. But consistency should not be the number one value when it comes to providing visitors with educational, aesthetic, social, and hopefully transformative experiences. I'd argue that one of the top reasons people DON'T visit museums is that they think they already know what they are going to get. Especially when it comes to small museums with limited collections, a distinctive personality is often the best thing the institution has to offer. Trying to cover it up or smooth it out in favor of "best practices" does a disservice to the museum and the audience. It creates another forgettable museum.
For festival goers who take in Sean Carroll's views on time, or see Diavolo dance or hear Daniel Tammet describe his life as a prodigious savant, or listen to "Push" author Sapphire or Avatar co-producer Jon Landau discuss their lives and art, or see any of the accomplished individuals that will be in Louisville during the IdeaFestival in late September, the only constant will be lives bravely led. Each has found their way forward.
And so can you. The IdeaFestival never discriminates on the basis of ability.
Wayne
Image: Geoff Oliver Bugbee
On The End of Cyberspace blog, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang links to a great question: Could GPS create a world without signs?
As GPS and other location technologies (holography, anyone?) substitute virtual referent for physical reality, it raises questions about the role of context to knowledge, and whether, in the process of mapping everything, we add to or subtract from the understanding we get.
The Salon piece was strongly reminiscent of the ongoing debate over the place of books in public life.
Wayne
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anams/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
In contrast to the mesophiles - that would be you and me! - that live in the temperate climes that prevail over most of our world, what life forms may lie in the dark hidden lakes of the Antarctic? Nature:
Over the past 40 years, radar imagery has revealed around 150 freshwater lakes of various sizes and ages beneath the massive Antarctic ice sheet. Some have been isolated from the outside world for millions of years, raising the possibility that they hold unique life forms. The dark, nutrient-deprived environment of the lakes could resemble conditions on Jupiter's moon Europa, which is assumed to hold a large ocean beneath its frozen surface.
Three projects designed to carefully sample the lakes, at least one of which is as large as Lake Ontario, will happen beginning next year. Hat tip: Alan Boyle
Wayne
Wikipedia: extremophile
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30685567@N03/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Via Futurismic, "clear goals and fair incremental rewards" are a couple game design techniques that could make the transition from the one playing field to another.
Wayne
Are animals people too? Suggesting that the once bright line between human and animal cognition is blurring, Dave Munger picks up a recurring theme in his latest SEED piece.
Why do some discoveries leave us bewildered?
The Long Now Foundation links to a middle ground between "two sorts of facts," immutable ideas like the certainty that Kentucky is located north of Tennessee, and facts that constantly change in response to external factors. Today, the dollar has a new value in relation to the Euro. But "mesofacts" - "meso" means "middle" - are facts that change, but change slowly enough that the implications leave us between then and now, wondering when our reality fell out of date. Samuel Arbesman:
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