Alchemy calls on each of us to bring our expertise and experience to the world in times of crisis, of urgent human need. But so often, the specific skills and knowledge I carry into a situation are nearly useless because they are constructed on assumptions about the capabilities, resources and social infrastructure of my world of…
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Added by Gene Becker on February 10, 2010 at 11:32pm —
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In years of international aid endeavors we have found a few things that work and many things that DO NOT WORK when building bridges between communities. The list of 33 key tips includes this important point from Ethan Zuckerman:…
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Added by Evo on February 10, 2010 at 6:30pm —
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"If you want to make something 10 times cheaper, remove 90 percent of the material."
The secret to this secret is "material." For me, this does not mean physical mass. Objects can be heavy with cultural, intellectual or emotional material, top-heavy with assumptions. Social interactions, in particular: sometimes I find that just removing my ego makes them 10 times better.
Added by Ken Eklund on February 9, 2010 at 8:30pm —
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I love Ethan Zuckerman’s list of 7 tips for innovation success but was most struck by the first one:
1. Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.)
Earlier today I was having a discussion with a group of UK university students about the concept of developmental entrepreneurship - that is where developing nations utilise the power of…
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Added by Simon Brookes on February 9, 2010 at 7:26am —
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I've started to carry a notebook with me at all times. It's not a small and beautiful Moleskin that aspiring writers and artists tend to favour, but a simple, utilitarian black laboratory notebook that I picked up at the University bookstore. I'm trying to put a make a secret into a habit.
I'm trying to slow down and really, deeply look into the way things are. I'm going to make time to make observations before any next steps. I'm going to fight my own impatience and just. watch.…
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Added by Mita Williams on February 9, 2010 at 2:30am —
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"if somebody already invented it, you don’t have to"
Simple enough, right?
When I create digital games - inevitably - the moment I show it to a few friends one of them will say, "Oh it's sort of like [game I've never heard of]". Before you rush into full production with a new idea you try to search for games with similar mechanics, but there's no standardized way to do that. There's no hub or database. There's no universal lexicon for what mechanics or even GENRES of games…
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Added by Chelsea Howe on February 7, 2010 at 1:00pm —
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Before I finished reading the mission, I already knew who I was going to choose—Matt Flannery.
Matt is one of the cofounders of Kiva, a microlending/microcredit site. Kiva is one of the groups that really kicked off the microlending craze, at least on the internet, and his company has improved numerous lives for the better.
Why did I choose him? It goes back to my last blog post about simplicity. Microlending is one of those simple little…
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Added by Nathaniel Fruchter on February 6, 2010 at 12:00am —
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After reading through Exhibit A, one thing struck me—a lot of those secrets had something in common and mostly boil down to one key idea. Simplicity.
When you're developing something, whether it be for school, for sale on the wider market, or for empowering others, simplicity is one key element that I think that you must keep in mind. Why?
Well, let's take a look at a familiar example from the modern world. I bet you're reading this on a…
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Added by Nathaniel Fruchter on February 5, 2010 at 11:30pm —
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It's been ten years since I started flying to the remote regions of Peru as an advocate for equal access. The cyberwarfare threats were extreme in many parts of the world: China was blaming the United States and key innovations in Africa and the Middle East were being ignored. In Peru and India thieves stole cable, copper, anything we tried to put up to keep the internet alive. The private satellite companies have been helpful to some extent but there's only so much we can do to help this…
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Added by Evo on February 5, 2010 at 7:00pm —
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