Writing of her secret life as a prostitute, a blogger with the pseudonym Belle de Jour had a backstory worthy of a movie script. In fact it was turned into a Showtime TV series. She wanted to have a satisfying next chapter of her life story so she wrote about it. You see she’s “a respected specialist [...]

Even when shown circles, triangles and other geometric objects randomly moving about on a screen, we tend to turn them into familiar objects.  Then we instinctively attempt to determine what they mean, a study found.
Two examples:
1. “When asked what they had been watching, the subjects used words like ”chase” and ”capture.” They did not just see the [...]

Coincidences. Recently Daniel Johnson wrote about those in his life. Some were meaningful. Ironically I discovered his article by coincidence because he cited a story that involved my friend and how she met her husband at a party she had not intended to attend – in my village, Sausalito.  

Even today that story warms my heart and brought to [...]

Instead of standing on a stage, one comedian at a time, humorists were leaning over their computers, waiting with bated breath for quirky Brit Tiernan Douieb to say “Go!”  In this Twitter Comedy Club experiment, drawing a crowd of 6,000 each comedian had a 10 minute act. They madly delivered their best lines in 140-characters, one after the other. [...]

Like scent, humor has extremely offensive or captivating effects on us, depending on the kind.  In the past two posts I described two kinds, unifying and divisive. The third is humorless. Are you? 

Frank Tyger suggest that, “The ultimate test of whether you posses a sense of humor is your reaction when someone tells you you [...]

… and, in some cases, save lives.  Report Websites that appear to be blocked from access at Herdict. That’s the new tool launched by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.

In true crowdsourcing spirit Herdict is a combination of “herd” and “verdict.” Anyone with access to the Internet can help put global pressure on governments that attempt to censure news and information. The brain behind this

Sphere: Related [...]

Avoid the Confirming-Evidence Trap
We tend to see what we want to see, and are blind to the rest of the picture.  This trap leads us to seek out information to support our existing point of view while avoiding information that contradicts it.
This bias not only affects where we go to collect evidence to reinforce [...]

Be an opportunity maker – for and with others. Become invaluable in this time-starved, information-glutted and transient world by speaking to the sweet spot of mutual opportunity.  If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, consider attending a morning seminar I am leading for the San Francisco chapter of IABC, thanks to the remarkable transplanted Brit, Alison Harrison. (It was such fun at [...]

Here’s to living a greater life and accomplishing greater things together than we can on our own:
“It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own. “  ~ Joyce Carol Oates

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Attract a crowd to your event or brand by giving them bragging rights. Vicki Smith creates a post-event storyboarding experience where enthusiasts see almost moment-by-moment coverage of motorcycle events featuring the elegant Ducatis -  in a captioned sequence of photos. In short, what she dubs a “photo web story” is designed to tell the story of the event or weekend. More importantly it lets people that didn’t attend feel [...]