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Can We Save Our Kids from Education’s Death Valley?

If you don’t know TED, then you really ought to let your mind out more.

I still remember when I first discovered TED about 3 years ago. It’s a conference devoted to ideas worth spreading, where people with a track record of having something to say, stand up, and give the talk of their lives. In 18 minutes or less.

For me, TED is an endless source of inspiration as well as a form of mentoring. It’s also free and just a click away.

The first TED talk I ever watched was about how schools are killing creativity in our kids, and what that means for them and for us. It was given in 2006 by the brilliant & funny Sir Ken Robinson, the British Creativity expert.

If like me, you have kids at school or you care in any way about the next generation then you owe it to yourself to give it a watch.

Sir Ken delivered a superb follow-up in 2010. It too has to be seen.

Our schools are doing a great job of preparing children for a world that no longer exists – especially the ‘best’ ones which also tend to be religious and/or fee-paying. (By ‘our’ I mean mostly Western but with notable exceptions like Finland.)

I was happy today, to notice that Sir Ken’s third TED Talk on this theme is now online. It’s called How to escape education’s death valley. Here it is.

Does Sir Ken’s message touch you? If so, what are you going to do about it?

It’s Not Just Startups That Need To Be Lean

2163825760_30a5a0e947‘As the boxer Mike Tyson once said about his opponents’ prefight strategies: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”’

This is a line from Steve Blank’s new article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR).

His point is that multi-year plans are now relevant only to Venture Capitalists and the late Soviet Union.

Steve is the godfather of the so-called lean approach to starting-up a business. Lean is de rigueur across The (Silicon) Valley, and increasingly beyond.

Last night I was at the London Google Campus for a talk by Steve…

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A Way For Artists & Creatives to Collaborate, Share & Build Influence?

How does an ‘emerging’ artist, designer, musician, photographer, film maker or fashion designer find fellow artists and creatives to collaborate with? How do you even get a shot at working with big established artists or brands? Is there a way to grow your audience and spread your art in the process of trying?

Talenthouse describe themselves as “the artistic home for creative talent… an influential online community where artists and creatives can express their passions, collaborate on unique projects with leading artists and brands, share their work and grow their influence.

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Bring Your Invention to Life – The Quirky Way

You have an idea for something new. An invention. Something that could change the world.

But where do you start? How do you know you’re not deluded? Blinded by your own enthusiasm.

How do you know if others will buy into your idea? Where to start with design, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, sales…

Enter Quirky, the brainchild of Ben Kaufman. The mission is to ‘Make invention accessible‘.

Quirky channels the power of the crowd to get your idea from concept to production to market in record time. And it’s worked for hundreds of new inventions so far.

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Are You & Your Company Going Through A Social Revolution?

Last week saw this years gathering, known as Dreamforce, of a large slice of the cloud community. The event is organised by Salesforce – the world’s largest cloud (‘no software’) software company.

At the keynote by Marc Benioff, chairman & CEO of Salesforce, he talks about the Social Revolution and what it means for business today. For non-Americans the first 6 minutes or so is pretty full-on but hey, it’s fun to watch.

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