I have moved my blog again. From now on you can access it at http://jakestum.com
June 25, 2009
Collaborative Creativity For All!
This is an interesting video by Charles Leadbeater in which he explains that creativity/innovation isn’t secluded to a group of highly gifted, high level, professionals. It doesn’t happen in a “flash” and is immediately popular. Instead it happens through the collaboration of regular people who are working to solve some common problem. It happens through people who take their leisure very seriously. It seems that many people today think that creativity/innovation is only for certain gifted people. Leadbeater offers a different opinion.
June 25, 2009
Ethiopian Economics
Most of you know that our family has a deep concern for Ethiopia. It is where our youngest son is from and during our travel in Addis Abbaba we grew to love this country in Africa. They are currently in famine. The talk below is by an Ethiopian woman who has done extensive research on the economy in Ethiopia. She interestingly points out that 1 million people died in the 1984 famine not because of a lack of food, but because the people in the North were not able to access the abundance of food in the South. Eleni Gabre-Mandhin explains how she thinks the economy in Ethiopia could be changed. What struck me while watching this video is how much effort it will take to make a significant change in the Ethiopian market. Sometimes I talk about “changing the world” without realizing just how much strategy it takes to impact just one area of one country on one continent. This may not be the most exciting video, but it is great information that helps us understand how hunger and malnutrition continue to thrive in Africa.
June 25, 2009
TED talks
I am at home not feeling so great today. So I am going through some TED talks. This one is by a guy named Paul Collier who studied “the bottom billion.” These are the billion people who are trapped in poor and failing economies. I am going to post the video below, but it takes a lot of effort to hang with it the whole time. He says it takes two forces to change the world: (1) Compassion and (2) Enlightened Self-Interest. Compassion gets us started and ESI gets us serious. He does not place these in a Christian context, but they could be easily translated to a Christian worldview. Christ calls us to compassion and to become self-interested in a global mission to assist the suffering. In the video below, Mr. Collier offers some interesting perspective on assisting the “bottom billion.”
June 23, 2009
TED commandments
The TED conference is an, “annual conference that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” With this goal in mind they give their 10 commandments of a TED talk. These are great…
The TED Commandments – rules every speaker needs to know
1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.
I may have to elaborate on these eventually. These are great suggestions, especially for those of us who do a lot of “talks” in our profession.
June 18, 2009
Human Trafficking
Interesting report on human trafficking described below by Secretary Clinton..
“The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report sheds light on the faces of modern-day slavery and on new facets of this global problem. The human trafficking phenomenon affects virtually every country, including the United States. In acknowledging America’s own struggle with modern-day slavery and slavery-related practices, we offer partnership. We call on every government to join us in working to build consensus and leverage resources to eliminate all forms of human trafficking.”
–Secretary Clinton, June 16, 2009
June 14, 2009
The impressive girl vs. the druggie guy
Okay so, if you read the post below about my druggie buddy in the airport, this is an update. Right after he left a young girl came up and sat next to me. She is almost an identical description to the other guy: mid 20s, nice looking, very well spoken, etc… She graduated with a degree in linguistics and has been in Spain teaching kids English for the last nine months. She is capitalizing on her life. She is taking risks. She realizes that what she does now with her life makes a difference for her future. She has dreams to help people and make a difference. She doesn’t have time to waste on fruitless endeavors because she is on a mission.
For all my college peeps who read this—please be more like the girl than the guy in these two stories.
June 14, 2009
Practical Theory?
In my education we are constantly studying theory. Sometimes I wonder how in the world theory will practically help anyone. At this conference, Dr. Kirton made the following statement, “There is nothing as practical as a good theory.” We spent over 40 hours this week learning how to make his theory practical, and I am beginning to see why we have to have theory before we have practice. I am totally increasing my nerd factor.
