Better late than never. 201 was quite a year with lots of risks, mistakes and challenges. A lot learned and it’s time to jump start 2012 and make it awesome. As I am not a big fun of sharing personal stuff and goals, let me share with you the best books, films and music I stumbled upon in 2011. Who knows, maybe you will finding something interesting for yourself as well. Or maybe I will caution you from something that is not all that great. So, what was worth spending time on this year?
Louis C.K. makes you laugh while expressing his view that the world is as awesome as never before but over demanding generation is still annoyingly dissatisfied:
I recently spent some time thinking what ad campaigns I would call my favorite. I think it would be Nike, Intel & Apple. See yourself.
Nike
Nike probably create the most motivational and vital commercials. Not only they motivate you to engage in sport but to to act and compete life in general. One of the best ones: “Nike Courage“.
Yes, we all love TED. They probably have the best collection of video presentations online with most of them being either inspirational or insightful. But is it all there is?
Actually, there are few places where you can find some edutainment videos for you dinner watching. Here are the main alternatives to TED I stumbled upon and some introductory videos that I personally liked that can help you get started.
1. PopTech
According to the website:
PopTechis a unique innovation network – a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges. We are known for our thriving community of thought-leaders, breakthrough innovation programs, visionary annual conferences and deep media and storytelling capabilities.
A good video to start from: Sebastian Seung’s Connectome.
2. Learning Without Frontiers
According to the website:
Learning Without Frontiers is a global platform for disruptive thinkers and practitioners from the education, digital media, technology and entertainment sectors who come together to explore how new disruptive technologies can drive radical efficiencies and improvements in learning whilst providing equality of access.
A good video to start from: Gordon Brown’s Pirate’s Dilemma.
Well, one might of course get an impression that I’m a fan of Conan O’Brien as this is the second video with him on this blog. But c’mon the man is charismatic and this commencement speech is probably the funniest one I’ve seen so far! And a little wise too
Looks like guys at Google feel that importance of posture for overall health. Here are 2 great lectures on the subject that aim to clarify what good posture is and how to improve yours.
Not a long time ago I wrote a post about My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. And during last couple of months I listened to and read 2 more: Brain Rules by John Medina and Your Brain at Work by David Rock. Unlike Jill, they don’t tell their own stories but try to give real life recommendations based on neuroscience research.
John focuses on general principles rules of brain functioning which he covers relatively briefly. David on the other hand provides more of a deep dive in various situations that we face daily, mostly at work but views them through the prism of our brain and its biochemistry. Social concepts, such as status, reward and others are explained through things like oxitocin, dopamin & epinephrin.
Those who find such topics interesting can find my notes below. Plus, a couple of great videos of authors’ talks and one fun Slideshare presentation.
1. Brain Rules by John Medina
I used the actual “brain rules” by John from his website as the basis for my notes and briefly tried to explain main idea of each one.
EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.
John recommends various kind of physical activity, especially aerobic one, including long walks. He states that if participants of business meetings walked on treadmills with 1.8 mile/hr speed, they would come up with much more creative ideas, not to mention increased memory and overall well-being. By the way, John takes his own medicine. It took him 15 minutes to adapt to replying to emails while walking.
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So, what was worth spending time on this year?
