new orleans pelicans

would you rather learn about the bird than the basketball team? travel here to national geographic.

could this be a new orleans pelican?

get the name of the dog

i've been listening to the podcast version of Roy Peter Clark's "Writing Tools". first, i recommend you give the time to these short podcasts. i think you'll find that these tools will work for your public speaking and storytelling (which should describe your public speaking method).

thought I would comment a bit on the tip titled "get the name of the dog". your story comes alive when you use describe in detail the color of the rotary phone on the wall, the color, model, and year of the car, the exact weather of the moment. notice this in the next news article you read. i think you will discover journalists usually give "the name of the dog" even in a story of just a few hundred words.

so, the next time you tell a story; describe some element of the plot in some combination of brief but significant detail. see if you can win that "my story is better than your story" conversation exchange that characterizes most adult interactions.

why does attention improve at the end of the talk?

it is what it is

this is such a defeatist idea and cliche. i hope most of us realize it is a cliche. a trite meaningless expression. something that lets us connect and commiserate with each other.

first lets consider what is negative in this phrase. and then as i plan to do in all cases, lets consider the power for good such sad statements can effect in our lives

ok. what's negative. this "it is" speaks of surrender to me. some may suggest that the comment merely resigns to the past and the unalterable. i suggest that thinking this way also colors our future. and the colors are gray and black and beige. (you know boring, austere colors. don't get me wrong the black and gray are my colors of choice. i always look slightly dressed up. good for my image.)

if my filters to the past color my perspective hopeless, don't you suppose that same filter blinds my sight to hopes, opportunities, and possibilities ahead.

the positives. "it is" because i can do more. i can look at the past and accept my chance for improvement. "it is what it is" this is my chance to create deliberative future actions that shapes the "it" to my vision for life, hope, and happiness. sure something went badly or horribly wrong. redefine the past to terms that positively effect the future. sure these trite platitudes i spout may annoy you. but come on you folks with the half full glasses love this stuff. we all should. emotional response is a choice for most of us. make yours a choice you can live with in your "what it is" present".

a graphic i decided fits my post

contemplating zero

i think that most of us are afraid. we are afraid we make the wrong choice for a major. we are afraid we'll choose the wrong career. the wrong second job. the wrong go back to school degree. the wrong mortgage.

you get the idea

it seems to me advice experts want you to see opportunity in failure. a new sun rising over the mountain brightening a day of hope and possibility.

you know what failure is just what we should think it is

it means our idea was bad. our plan was bad. our widget was a disaster

failure is not the hope of the new. it is the reasonable abandonment of a stupid choice. a terrible decision.

own your failure. reject it. and forget about. get back on the horse. stand after your fall. dust yourself off. start over. embrace the emotional or physical pain of your mistake. make it a part of who you are

and please don't do something stupid twice. some single actions won't offer you any recovery. if i can't say dumb things on my own blog, then why have it.

john cleese on creativity

take the time to watch a master improvisor discuss invention and innovation.

thinking about childish behavior

today's post inspired by some foot stomping i overheard round the corner from where i am sitting.

the matter leading to the tantrum carries no importance. i just wanted to type and think about the incident for a bit.

imagine the last time you didn't get your way. how did you respond? there was a pout on your face. you had to surpress it. only children pout. you alomst stomped your foot. you had to hold your self still. only children stomp their feet.

i think that these behaviors never really leave our lives. we just modify them. now instead of body language which sends a clear communication. and offers the possibility for real discussion, we engage in "grown-up" behaviors. passive aggressive actions. saying and not doing. nodding our heads while we both ignore what is said and plan to undermine the other person.

the withhold of relevant emotional and intellectual information is a damaging practice. those who lead find themselves resented and disrepected for such practices. those who follow find they kick against brick unable to advance there cause or intentions

i imagine most of us would initially become tired of a workplace that fills up with phrase like: "that makes me feel sad" "how do you feel about this" and so on.

yet in a workplace that encourages and does not punish such discussion, i suspect many of us would grow to love and expect this culture. eventually finding that we cannot work in any other such environment. is conflict and its resolution encouraged wher you work? or suppressed?

welcome the opportunity to say what you really feel. find some freedom. and please prepare your thoughts and offer solutions. complaining without answers is just whining.

top reasons people quit

a post about concrete: walls are cool

Check this out. Maybe we can grow vegetables up walls. Give college dorm residents an excuse for mold in the showers. Tell people our house is supposed to look overrun and dirty.

your house is nature. and it is alive. if we forget to water it how long will it take our house to die? all of this fron fastcoexist.com

social impact bonds

i want to introduce readers to social impact bonds. this article is at fastcompany.com

this is something i learned about only last year while reading the economist.

the concept is gaining gound among investors. as you can imagine this is a high risk investment. but the possible problems solved in such an instrument are limitless. you just need backing. perhaps one among us could create a venture capital firm for social impact investment.

and if you already know about these and are offended that i would think you don't know what they are: read a different post.

what? i have to wait 10 seconds! i'm gone!

if you want to know what the goldfish are about, just read the last bit of the post.

i saw an article suggest we would tolerate 2 seconds of delay for a video. the idea is if we have to wait 2 seconds we pick another video. that seemed a ridiculous assertion to me. so i waded through the paper a bit. it will take a lot more than then ten minutes i just gave it. so after you click the link don't bother reading the article. none of us are smart enough to get it.

here's a quote:

Viewers watching videos on a better connected computer or device have less patience for startup delay and so abandon sooner. For instance, a viewer with fiber broadband connectivity is 38.25% more likely to abandon sooner during startup than a similar viewer with mobile connectivity.

so if were on the old Galaxy, Nexus, iPhone or whatever we'll wait.

if were on fiberoptic cable internet we have the attention span of a goldfish (really, really short).

atomic typos

atomic typos. unintentional letter switching. the switched letters produce a legitimate word. and you don't notice. there are two posts at datagentics. link at the right. this is a link to the post with the word puzzle quiz.

waste some time. and get smarter.