In this TED talk, Dr. William Li, President and Medical Director of The Angiogenesis Foundation discusses how cancer starts to develop in the body without a blood supply. As blood vessel growth begins to provide nutrients needed by the cancer cells, the cells begin to grow and this growth can rapidly get out of control.
Dr. Li suggests that if the blood vessel growth can be controlled, it might be possible to restrict the growth of cancer tumors. He also discusses how eating different foods affects the growth of cancer tumors.
This intriguing idea is called angiogenesis and it has potential to treat a wide range of other conditions and illnesses besides cancer. Visit The Angiogenesis Foundation website for more information.
In improvisational theatre, one of the cardinal principles is that you “accept every offer.” What this means in practice for improv performers is that they simply go with the situation they are given and work with it.
Imagine if Mina says to Zak, “The weather forecaster is calling for an overcast sky and a thirty percent chance of a world destroying meteorite for tonight and tomorrow.” To which Zak might reply, “I heard that. Fortunately, the temperature will be warming up with that meteorite. The high tomorrow should be 230 degrees.” Accepting this line, Mina might respond by saying, “It’s a good thing that we installed that central air and got the ice maker working.”
Of course, this is a silly exchange. The point of this example is to show that nothing is too silly to work with for improv performers using the “accept every offer” principle. How much harder would it have been for Mina and Zak to create a skit, if Zak had not taken up the path of Mina’s original statement. If he responded with “What a stupid forecast,” the exchange would have stopped right there.
Many times when we are having conversations, it is hard for us to restrain our desire to be critical (in the sense of evaluating what is being said against our own standards) and to disagree with a small or trivial point. When we do that, we often kill the discussion and shut off the flow of ideas and thoughts.
At Pixar, the animation studio that has brought out blockbuster computer animated movies such as Finding Nemo and the ground breaking Toy Story, they have adopted and refined the “accept every offer” concept in order to develop story ideas and keep the conversation and flights of imagination going during the creative process. Their version is referred to within the company as plussing. The refinement is that they tack an “and” on to the “accept every offer” technique.
As an example, consider the situation where a director is working with an animator on a scene. The director may not like much about the entire sequence. However, she will identify one aspect of the scene she does like (perhaps the movement of the main character) and then say “I like how Huck’s body twists as he swings the bat and what if he were to smile as he does that?” Now the animator has some feedback to build on. Notice that “and” does not imply judgment as the word “but” would have. Rather, “and” opens up the possibilities for discussing ideas and thoughts.
I believe this is a very powerful technique for encouraging the sharing of ideas and for allowing concepts to develop. In the initial stages, creative ideas are fragile and the individuals proposing them are very sensitive to judgment and criticism.
I will be trying this technique out at my office and I challenge you to try using it, too. Please share your thoughts on plussing and the results of using this technique in the comments section.
(This post borrows liberally from the section on plussing in the book Little Bets by Peter Sims. I would encourage you to read this book for some wonderful suggestions and techniques for developing great ideas in organizations.)
On Wednesdays, to get us through the middle of the week, I plan to provide a post that is funny and entertaining.
To kick things off, I present this video of William Shatner (who I think is an absolute hoot) discussing how to safely deep fry a turkey, With American Thanksgiving coming up next Thursday, this is a timely video. Canadians, of which I am one (and at one time so was Mr. Shatner), had our Thanksgiving back on Monday, October 11th.
State Farm is responsible for sponsoring and producing this video.
Be sure to watch for Mr. Shatner (couldn’t I just call him Bill?) to survive a computer generated fireball!
While I imagine that Bill was compensated in some form (an unlimited supply of turkey fryers, lifetime insurance on his singing voice?), there may be another reason why he would want to do this video. One Thanksgiving, he actually set himself on fire while trying to deep fry a turkey (and that isn’t funny).
Often, when we start an new project or decide to learn something new, we set our goal to be perfect. While it can be useful to set high standards and to be ambitious, there are times when the goal of perfection can and does work against us.
What can happen when we strive to be perfect, especially when we are doing something we have no experience with, is our doubts overcome our desire and our will. We can end up in analysis paralysis. A state where days and months are spent coming up with great ways to make the project perfect, while we never actually get started.
Here is a story that demonstrates my point:
A ceramics teacher announced on the first day of a pottery class that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weight the work of the quantity group: fifty pounds of pots rated an A, forty pounds of pots a B, and so on.
Those being graded on quality, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an A.
Well, came grading time a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the quantity group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little of note to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
My point is that by focusing on perfect we can get stuck and not make a start. I believe that’s it better to just get started and learn as I go along.
Now, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I believe that I should always do the best of which I’m capable; I’m only saying to let go of the idea of perfect. Or as Yoda advised Luke, “Do or do not . . . there is no try.”
Yesterday, I wrote about how using an Alberta public library is an efficient use of resources because of the sharing of items in the collection.
Using a library isn’t just efficient, it’s cost effective for you. Let’s look at a simple example. Instead of buying a DVD that you’re only going to watch once or twice and blowing $25, borrow it from the library. Do that just once a month for the year and you’ve saved $300, and who couldn’t use an extra 300 after-tax dollars in their pockets?
For an investment of $5 to $20, depending on the individual library, you can gain access to the entire collection of that public library and most of the collections of the other Alberta Public Libraries. Combined, the entire collection numbers in the millions. Included in the collections are eBooks, DVDs, MP3 music files, CDs, print and electronic magazines, print books, and electronic resources such as the Auto Repair Reference Center, Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center, and Mango Languages.
The potential savings are huge!
Not only can you save money on your entertainment expenses with a public library, you can learn new skills and solve costly problems around your home and in your life with the information you can get from the library for free!
Want to be able to speak enough Spanish (or French or German) to function on your next holiday? Try Mango Languages; it’s a great way to learn and practice a language right at home.
Trying to figure out the strange noise your car is making, without the consultation fee from your mechanic? Try the Auto Repair Reference Center. It explains vehicle problems in plain language. If you like to get your hands dirty, the Auto Repair Reference Center will even provide the information and diagrams necessary for you to make the repairs yourself.
In addition, public libraries love to hear from patrons, especially with requests for items that should be added to the collection. So, become a member and you can suggest that the library add that DVD you’ve been dying to watch.
Below is a Library Value Calculator. Plug in how many things (eBooks, magazines, movies, and print books) you borrow in a month, or a year, and see what kind of value you’re getting from your library.
Don’t use the library at all? Try entering the number of books, movies, magazines and other stuff that you buy, instead of borrow from the library, and see how much you could be saving.
There are groups of citizens who are encouraging all of us to reduce our environmental footprint. They want us to reduce, reuse and recycle. They encourage us to shop local; to avoid the the waste of resources that occurs when strawberries are shipped from half a world a way. I’m all in favour of being more efficient with the resources we all use everyday; from water to fuel to food.
Because I support these ideas, I also support public libraries. They are one of the best examples of ways to reduce and reuse. When a public library adds a DVD or an eBook to the collection, that one copy (or several copies depending the demand for the item) can serve a large audience. Instead of that DVD being watched just once or twelve times in a private collection, library patrons may view that DVD hundreds of times.
Then there is the low cost of using an Alberta public library. For a modest fee (generally in the range of $5 to $20, depending on the library), I can access everything in the collection (DVDs, CDs, magazines, eBooks, print books, audio books, and electronic resources) of that library and all the books, and often all of the DVDs and CDs too, from all the other libraries in the province. And don’t get me started writing about the great programs that libraries offer every night of the week.
Think about the last time you bought a print book; how many times did you read it? Once you finished the book, what did you do with it? Did you try to find someone to give it to?*
For the price of just one book, CD or DVD, you get access to hundreds of thousands of books, tens of thousands CDs and thousands of DVDs. The most recent best selling mystery or romance, the most evocative biography, books that will help you learn a new cooking style or a new skill to get a better, higher paying job. DVDs in library collections include not only current movies but also classic films, amazing documentaries, televisions shows, plus music or stage performances.
For me, the best part is that I get to listen, watch or read these wonderful things and then return them and take out more! I don’t have to look for a place to store them for longer than a couple of weeks, because they don’t have end up living with me forever.
So, a library card gives me a huge collection to explore and experience; it saves me money and it reduces clutter in my home.
If you haven’t been to a public library recently, you are missing out! Visit your nearest public library and see what they have for you.
* By the way if that book, DVD or CD is in good condition, your local library would likely be happy to take it off your hands.
The nature of work is changing and the types of jobs are changing, too. In a recent post on his blog, Thomas Frey, Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, listed 55 jobs of the future.
Credit: Justus Hayes (http://shoesonwires.com)
Here are some that appeal to me:
Augmented Reality Architects – Much like the paint we put on houses and the flavorings we add to food, the future will seem boring if our reality hasn’t been augmented in some way.
Seed Capitalists – In the startup business world there is a huge gulf between initial concept and fundable prototypes. This dearth of funding options will require an entirely new profession. Seed capitalists will specialize in high-risk startups. Counter to todays investment-world thinking, if they get more than 100% return on their investments, they will be docked for not taking enough risk.
Urban Agriculturalists – Why ship food all the way around the world when it can be grown next door. Next generation produce-growing operations will be located underground, often below the grocery stores where the produce will be sold directly to customers. More details here.
Business Colony Managers – The average person that turns 30 years old in the U.S. today has worked 11 different jobs. In just 10 years, the average person who turns 30 will have worked 200-300 different projects. Business colonies are an evolving new kind of organizational structure designed around matching talent with pending work projects. The operation will revolve around some combination of resident people based in a physical facility and a non-resident virtual workforce, with some opting to forgo the cost of the physical facility entirely. People who can effectively manage this type of operation will be in high demand. More details here.
Competition Producers – One of the hottest new trends will be to design incentive-based competitions to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Paving the way has been X-Prize Foundation’s Pete Diamandis and the success of the Ansari X-Prize. In the future, every major corporation will have their name on a major prize competition. Similar to buying the naming rights to a stadium, a well-orchestrated competition has far-reaching branding potential.
3D Printing Engineers – Classes in 3D printing are already being introduced into high schools and the demand for printer-produced products will skyrocket. The trend will be for these worker-less workshops to enter virtually every field of manufacturing, stemming the tide of outsourcing, at the same time, driving the need for competent technicians and engineers to design and maintain the next wave of this technology.
Book-to-App Converters – Over the coming months we will begin to see a form of competition brewing between books and apps. With both being information products that we interface with differently, we will begin to see a large scale effort to convert existing books and literature into an interactive app, similar to the current effort to convert popular literature from print to audiobooks. More details here.
Which of these 55 appeal to you? Are there other upcoming careers that haven’t made this list? Please add your thoughts by posting a comment.
In Canada, November 11th is Remembrance Day. A day when Canadians are to reflect on the men and women who have served, and continue to serve, in the Canadian military in times of conflict and in times of peace. This is a day that is observed in other Commonwealth countries as well.
At 11:00 AM local time, Canadians are asked to mark a minute of silence to think about those who fell in the many wars, conflicts and peace keeping missions where Canada sent personnel. When I was a boy, those thoughts turned to those lost in World War I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. Today, our thoughts also include those killed and injured in more recent missions in Cyprus, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and other hot spots around the world.
The date and time of 11:00 AM on November 11th is historically significant. For on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, an armistice was signed that brought an end to World War I, at least on the Western Front.
As my way of remembering those who faced the horrors of war and acted as barriers between combatants to keep a fragile peace, let me share this video of a young Belgium boy saluting a platoon of Canadian soldiers. Know that in my mind, I too am standing on the curb saluting the troops as they march past.
Once you develop a plan and put it into action, you’re not finished. In fact, if you want to succeed, you’re never finished. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. But that’s okay.
My experience tells me that this statement is true. There have been times that I have failed, miserably, only to find the seeds of success in the failure. This is not looking for the ‘silver lining,’ nor is it ‘turning lemons into lemonade.’ Rather, this is about learning from the failure; taking away a lesson that will help you become successful.
To provide an example, I failed the training to be an Air Traffic Controller (along with two-thirds of my class). On the first day of class the instructor told us to “look to your right, now look to your left. Two of the three of you will not be here at the end of this training course.”
At the beginning of the course, I was absolutely lost. I didn’t have a clue about any of the material I was being taught. However, I persevered, studied and worked and slowly the material and information began to make sense. I started to use the knowledge appropriately in the simulations. Even so, my efforts weren’t enough and I failed. Yet, my experience with this course showed that I was a much better student than I thought I was. This realization put me on the path to earning an undergraduate degree in Business and a Masters degree.
This blog is about sharing ideas and thoughts that may help us to become better. Better at working with change. Better at finding opportunities. Better at simply improving our lives and the lives of others.
I invite you to be a part of this process. I welcome your thoughts, ideas and suggestions, along with your complaints and criticisms. At all times, please be polite and respectful.
Thank you for reading this blog and for passing onto friends, family and co-workers, posts that you find interesting or useful.
Chances are when you were taught how to tie your shoes, you were taught the common bow knot.
The bow knot is perfectly acceptable; it’s easy to tie and works well in most situations. However, the version that most of us use is the ‘weak form’ of the knot. The weak form has one major disadvantage. It can come undone as you walk. At best it’s an inconvenience; at worst it’s a hazard – you might step on the untied lace, stumble and fall.
In the TED Talks video below, Terry Moore talks about and demonstrates a better version of the bow knot; the ‘strong form,’ which is just as easy to tie. It just works better!
I have been using the strong form of this knot for more than three months, now, and it has yet to come loose while I’m out walking.
Do you have other tips for tying shoes? Share them in the comments section below.
