Plenty folds

Plenty magazine (both the print and web editions) joins the list of magazines that have gone under due to rapid shifts in the economy and media landscape. I applaud Plenty's good intentions, and it's sad that those involved in the venture are losing their jobs. But I also take Plenty's bow as a sign -- even a positive one -- of where we are in our national and species-level focus on the environment.

While the short-term hype around green consumerism is fading, perhaps the long-term trend towards "bright green," long-term, systemic thinking and collective behavior is just getting going.

Seventeen hearts in seventeen mouths

Mark Hurst's Good Experience blog once again lives up to its name:

"A Kindle trick that changes the reading experience"

Note to self

Take responsibility.
Honor intuitions.
Respect everyone as an equal.
Give yourself a break.
Love.
Have patience.
Take risks.
Drop your guard.
Focus on the goal.
End what doesn't work.
Preserve what does work.
Create new things.

Mastery

If I had to choose a single slide to talk about the future of education, this might be it.

Four great books

I read some good books last year, but these four were marvelous. All have expanded and clarified how I see the world and approach my work on a daily basis. Shared in the hopes that you might enjoy them as well:

Nudge, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin

Why I haven't blogged in months

I've received a few "ahems" for not blogging in awhile. My explanation:

I've been busy with some fun and rewarding projects.

Along with so many others, I've found myself channeling much of my online energy into micro-blogging, which is simply more efficient for sharing quick thoughts and recommendations. In particular, I use my Google Reader stream to share the top 5% of what I'm reading and thinking about.

I'm interested in putting some more energy back into my blog, as a way to share not just what I'm thinking about, but what I'm thinking. So going forward, expect posts that are relatively infrequent, but potentially longer and more thoughtful. I am heading to Maine next week for Pop!Tech, which should be great brainfood, so expect at least one or two updates related to that.

The future is not here yet

On September 11, 2001, my mom called and woke me up to tell me what was happening. For some reason, likely shock, my first thought was to go to the web. It took over ten minutes of searching before I found a buried Yahoo! story referring to NYC's "once majestic skyline." At that point, I turned on the TV and like everyone else was there for the next several hours.

Since then, networked media has become personal, local, and ubiquitous. I've come to expect, as have many others, that citizen journalists will be the front line defense in flu outbreaks or terrorist attacks.

So I'm sad to report that at least today in San Francisco, one of the most networked cities in the world, old-school news sources still get there first, and slowly at that.

• I looked out the window about 30 minutes ago and saw a giant plume of yellowish grey smoke rising from the Mission.
  
• I went on Google News and did several searches for "San Francisco and fire" -- no updates
  
• I checked my local Facebook network, Outside.in, and SFist - no news
  
• After 20 minutes of occasional searching online, I heard news helicopters overhead -- I turned on the TV and saw the "breaking news" report from an SF local news station.
  

As expected, the cause was a big house fire, not a terrorist attack or "airborne toxic event." But it saddened me to realize how slow our media sources really are, or might be, the next time something more serious happens.

Nokia "Remade"

I'm surprised that Treehugger takes such a dim view of the new Nokia "Remade" phone.

Even though it's a prototype, as far as concept cars go, it's a pretty good one. Nokia or some other company could start using the ideas implicit in "Remade" to design the next generation of cradle-to-cradle personal electronics devices.

Admittedly, no one has made the business models here work yet, but given the importance of the task, and the number of people working on the problem, someone will eventually get this right.

Marketa Irglova acceptance speech

An inspiring moment from last night's Oscars ceremony.... Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova win best song for "Falling Slowly."

How to Be an Adult

A gem of a book -- insightful and immensely practical. I think it would be a better world if they taught more of this kind of information in college.

How Google innovates

A great summary of how Google pursues innovation, and why your company might want to think twice before following their lead. (From Nicholas Carr.)

A More Perfect Constitution

One of my college professors, Larry Sabato, has written a timely and engaging book, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country.

For me, the biggest surprise of the book was learning that Article V includes not one, but two processes for amending the Constitution. The process that has never been taken, and that Sabato discusses at length, is a Constitutional Convention, to be called once two-thirds of the states petition for it.

Sabato's specific proposals and the years of public debate that would go into a successful constitutional convention would not only increase our government's efficiency, but also bring many more people into the conversation about the kind of society and world we want to build. It's a thorough, moderate, and inspiring book.