Explore. Dream. Discover
Oct 17, 2007 Moved from Blogger
Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to by RSS, or by Email. And if there's anything else I can do for you, feel free to drop me a line.
What can you explore, dream and discover today?
Image via Karl Blog: The Thing You Didn’t Do
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
Caring Compassion Charity
Oct 16, 2007 Moved from Blogger
Seems like there’s been a lot of activity about good causes lately. First, Chris Brogan pointed out Stand Up Speak Out. Second was Blog Action Day yesterday. And now, I’ve been tagged by Jean Browman from Cheerful Monk to take part in the Caring Compassion Charity project. I think it’s really good that bloggers and the social network are trying to make a difference. If nothing else, it will help raise awareness, and that can only be a good thing.
Anyway, back to the Caring Compassion Charity project. Basically, I’m supposed to write about a cause that I’m passionate about. For more details, you can read the official rules as written by Alex Shalman.
So, my cause. This blog is all about trying to get people to start thinking in new, creative ways. So, it’s understandable that the cause I’m passionate about is education-related (I’ve blogged about education so many times).
I mentioned before that 50% of the donations I receive from this blog will go to Global Nomads Group (GNG).
Here’s a bit more information on GNG, from their website:
[?]Founded in 1998, the Global Nomads Group (GNG) is a non-profit organization dedicated to heightening children’s understanding and appreciation for the world and its people.
Using interactive technologies such as videoconferencing, GNG brings young people together face-to-face to meet across cultural and national boundaries to discuss their differences & similarities, and the world issues that affect them.
Global Nomads Group programs aim to:
- Increase young people’s knowledge of the world and its people
- Increase collaboration and dialogue between students of different cultures and nationalities
- Highlight critical world issues ranging from HIV/AIDS to global warming, to war
- Provide an educational framework in which students can become active leaders in their own education
It’s about connecting youths, in order to help their education. It’s about empowering youths. That’s the cause I’m passionate about (though as a youth, I might be biased). To me, the most important thing is education. And not just “schooling”, but all forms of education. There are other organizations worth noting as well, GNG is just one of them. Youth Ventures is another example.
But they all revolve around one thing - developing youths and empowering them. I think that’s a really fundamental issue. Yes, issues such as poverty and hunger and the environment are good causes and very worthwhile. But personally, I think that if you empower the young, if you train them well, that’s the best way to solve all these other problems in the long run. Providing aid and all is useful, but it’s only a short term solution. To truly change the world in the long term, we need to educate and empower our youths.
That’s why I support organizations such as GNG.
What about you? What cause are you compassionate about? If you want to take part in this, just consider yourself tagged by me.
For my part, I would like to tag: Sarah Deutsch, Tom O’Leary, Chris Brogan and Kevin Carroll. And a few of personal friends from Singapore (these are personal diary blogs of my friends, I’m just kind of interested to see what they write): Lynn Ng, Sherry Goh, Li Hsia and Cindy.
Tags: Moved from Blogger
Intense Debate: New Comments System
Oct 16, 2007 Moved from Blogger
I just installed a new commenting system - Intense Debate. Thanks to Josh Morgan for his help, and for willing to let me use the system.
Hope you guys like the new system. I think it’s a great system, that will (hopefully) encourage more conversation. Looking forward to hearing more from you guys, with the new system.
edit: Apparently it doesn’t appear correctly in IE. Any ideas?
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
Change Your Thoughts about the Environment
Oct 15, 2007 Moved from Blogger
Today is Blog Action Day. It’s an attempt to bring together bloggers from all over the world, on one day, to blog about one issue. This year, that issue is the environment. They’ve got over 15,000 bloggers worldwide taking part, and I think it’s a great movement. At the very least, it will raise awareness worldwide.
For my post, I’m not going to talk about ways to save the environment or anything. I’m not going to tell you to turn off more lights, or to recycle more or anything like that. You’ve heard enough of that, I’m sure. If you want to read about that, you can check out these Blog Action Day posts, or just Google for it. You’ll find lots of hits.
What I do want to do, as always, is to get you thinking (in new ways, hopefully). And to set that up, I want to share with you another TED presentation. This time, it’s by John Doerr. It’ll take less than 20 minutes of your time to watch it. And you really should.
I think John Doerr makes a great point. What we need to do is reevaluate our ideas on saving the environment. The four stories that he shared are prime examples of this. Walmart, a database entrepreneur, a developing country, and scientists trying to cure malaria. They are helping to resolve the issue. Not in traditional ways, mind you. By approaching the issue in a completely different way.
And if you think about it, it illustrates Seth Godin’s point about the “mediocre middle”. Walmart is huge, they can afford to take the risk and make that kind of innovative change. Brazil, a developing country, doesn’t really have as much to lose as compared to America, for example (no offense to any Brazilians out there). A database entrepreneur has nothing much to lose in passing a legislation. Same goes for the scientists, because it wasn’t their main problem.
But back to the point about the environment. To really save the environment, we need to rethink the whole issue. We need to make going green something profitable, something valuable. We need to approach this innovatively. That’s the best way. Businessmen will tell you that to really win in business, you need to leap to the next curve, not just be more productive in your current curve. The difference is tremendous. And the same goes for this. Yes, the small daily actions make a difference. But to really change the world, you need to be innovative, you need to cause a paradigm shift.
A speaker at Hillsong Conference said, “These are not our greatest problems, these are our greatest opportunities.” Learn to not look at it as a problem to be solved. Look at it as an opportunity. An opportunity to become more profitable (as Walmart did), for example. And creatively look for ways to make the most of the opportunities.
Doerr fears that everything that is currently happening might not be enough. And I do agree with him, to an extent. Only when we change our mindset about the environment - then and only then - will it be enough.
How can you make use of your unique abilities and talents in a creative way in order to help save the environment?
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
How YOU deal with failure/change
Oct 14, 2007 Moved from Blogger
This blog is as much about you as it is about me. So I thought I’d make today all about you guys. The previous post was about getting your feedback about this blog, and now I just want to get some of your thoughts.
I want to make this your post. I blog often about accepting failure and being willing to accept change, but I’m no expert on it either. Personally I do struggle, especially when it’s something important to me. And it’s something I’ve been struggling a lot with lately.
So today, I want to hear from you guys. How do YOU deal with failure or change? You can comment here, or take it back to your blog (and link here so I know). Interpret it in any way you want. What are your suggestions on how to respond when things don’t go the way you want?
Looking forward to hearing from you guys.
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
Your thoughts
Oct 14, 2007 Moved from Blogger
This blog has been up for a while now (about 5 months, and slightly over 300 posts), and it’s been getting more publicity lately (a big thank you to all you guys who’ve helped in that aspect - Chris Brogan, Peter Haslam, Sarah Deutsch, Tom O’Leary, Kevin Carroll, Peter C, Priscilla Palmer, and all the others who have linked here).
Anyway, I just thought I’d take the time to get feedback from all of you, my readers. What do you think of this blog so far? What does it mean to you - what value does it provide to you, etc? And most importantly, what do you want to see more (or less) of?
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
Waving the White Flag
Oct 13, 2007 Moved from Blogger
Waving the white flag is an international sign of surrender. You guys probably all already know that. The purists will say that it’s a symbol of truce, not surrender. But most of the time, the person waving it is the weaker party, and as such it’s become accepted as an international symbol of surrender.
Its meaning is “the symbol itself, not the flag”, as Word Flags 101 puts it. We’ve seen white “flags” made out of a whole variety of things.
What strikes me is the color of the flag. White. White normally represents purity or cleanliness. To me personally, white represents something of a fresh start. Like a blank white piece of paper, on which anything can be written.
Don’t see waving the white flag (surrendering) as giving up. It’s a way to start afresh. And sometimes to start afresh, you need to surrender to whatever has already happened. Instead of constantly trying to fight a battle you can’t win, sometimes it’s better to surrender and start afresh, in a new battle. One that you can win.
What situations are you in now where you would be better off waving the white flag?
[?]Tags: Moved from Blogger
