Ken MacLeod is the greatest living Trotskyist libertarian cyberpunk science-fiction humorist, and there’s a great interview with him here.
I’ve read most of his books, and they’re excellent. My favourite detail is a company that’s bought the ex-soviet nuclear arsenal, and use it to rent protection to countries that don’t have nuclear weapons – “You bomb our clients, and we will bomb you”.
The makers of this brilliant documentary got permission to follow the rise and decline of internet startup govworks.com VERY closely. We’re there as the idea slowly takes form. As the first rounds of financing are secured. We cheer as the company grows, and the future looks rosy. And we’re very much there as the whole thing goes wrong, and ends up costing the founders their friendship.
This is my favourite epitaph of the dotcom years. See it!
There are many different theories about learning, but not a single one of them states, that the best way to learn, is to sit passively on a chair, while a teacher talks about the subject in question. No theory ever in the history of the world has claimed it, and yet this is how schools, colleges, universities, business training and countless other learning concepts operate.
This book subtitled “Physical thinking for 21st century leadership” marks a departure from that school of thought and describes a way to ground learning in the body.
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I hear people everywhere saying that the trouble with our time is that we have no great leaders any more. If we look back, we always had them. But to me it seems that there is a very profound reason why there are no great leaders anymore. It is because they are no longer needed. The message is clear. We no longer want to be lead from the outside. Each of us must be our own leader. We know enough to follow the light that’s within ourselves, and through this light we will create a new community.
Red meat is weird, wacky, gruesome and black. Here are a few of my favourites: Ball bearings in the butter tub, the white-hot cure for sticky valves, drool string ukulele, apocalypso facto or the ebullient egg-sac of ennui.
I read about Pioneer Human Services in a book, and it blew me away. They operate a succesful company that employs among others ex-convicts and drug addicts – the people who most need jobs, but usually can’t get them. They also provide housing, training, counselling and other services. And most of this is paid for through the revenue that the company generates, instead of by public or private grants. There’s an excellent article in Fast Company about them.
And because they make their own money, they don’t need to spend much time or energy asking for grants – they can spend their time actually helping people who need it. I have the deepest respect for people who have the creativity to come up with such a vision and the determination to make it happen. Knowing that initiatives like this can succeed makes me feel good abour our common future.
Harrison Owen is the inventor of Open Space Technology, the most exciting and productive way of meeting with other people that I know of. In The power of spirit, how organizations transfrom he describes what an organization might look like, if it lived by the open space principles. And let me say this right away: If they’re hiring, I want to work there!
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I have a confession: A friend told me about this exercise, and I’m afraid that she heard about it on Oprah… But hey, It’s still good.
Anyway, it’s about creating a daily positive space for reflection. Try it!
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