Crime & Cities
Why Henry Ford was wrong: Declining Crime in American Cities.
US Crime Rates
Despite the current economy, crime is continuing its two decade slide and The Economist isn’t sure why. While I don’t have that answer either, let’s bust one myth right now.
When Henry Ford said “We shall solve the city problem by leaving the city” he hoped that the automobile would free the masses from the cities and introduce a suburban utopia. For Henry Ford, the farm boy, cities were the root of crime and corruption. Why is this a myth?
Objectified
I saw this at the UICA a while back. I again appreciate the work of simplicity.
Collaborating for Good
I thought I’d take a minute to recommend Parters Worldwide, where some friends have worked. It’s a nonprofit that’s more than a charity. Partners Worldwide is a distributed network that use partnerships, training, and mentoring to help eliminate poverty. They work to nurture relationships between global business people, whose improved businesses create more jobs. It’s a good model, check them out.
Entrepreneurs are the Anthropologists of market research.
Immediate and Qualitative —rather than— Removed and Quantitative.
U.S. Trade
Forbes has a wonderful interactive illustration of global trade by industry. It’s easy to see our trade deficit and how our dependence on foreign oil contributes half of our deficit. Here’s the interactive version
Chinese Dependence?
For a little rounding perspective: While the U.S. and many other countries are dependent upon imports from China for large portions of their household goods, few countries are dependent on exports to China. Even while China has grown to be a major market, Chinese sales make up relatively little of most countries GDPs. All this is to say, a Chinese economic disruption may cause shortages of certain goods, yet would not automatically mean a global crisis.
[source: The Economist]
Netflix Vs Cable Giants
I’m worried for Time Warner, not necessarily because of the Netflix. Rather, because if Jim Collins is right, and hubris is a sign of a company in danger, I’m not sure how you can get more hubristic than this quip about the Netflix threat:
“It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world?” said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, in an interview last week. “I don’t think so.”
[image: flickr jeffgunn]
Missing Education
In a world where kids start building their résumés as they start kindergarten, how can we not be missing something? Are we training perfect test takers at the expense of imbuing initiative learning? Is the race to accumulate good-grades, trophies, and “leadership activities” leaving youth ultimately disengaged and squandered? Obviously I think the answer is often Yes. And this is from a former ace test-taker!
In the shadow of the much hyped Waiting for Superman, indie documentary Race to Nowhere is a fascinating look at hyper-competitive education—or point accumulation. The film follows children juggling constant obligations and pressures in hope of building perfect college portfolios.
As a NY Times article notes, more and more student are accumulating AP credits, yet apparently only learning to the tests. The competitive University of California system requires remedial courses of half its incoming students. According to Stanford lecturer Daniel Pope this is despite outstanding high school grades. Leaders criticize Generation-Y for wanting constant recognition, perhaps this is merely a reflection of the accumulation mentality of their youth. Work for its intrinsic sake is foreign. If school was about constantly checking off achievements, why should work be any different?
Continue Reading →
Rural Poverty: A business perspective on International Development
Of the world’s extreme poor, 70% live in rural areas. The International Fund for Agricultural Development new report concludes that farmers need to be viewed and interacted with as business owners. The report’s theme is that increasing g rural subsistence farmers success and stability is the most effective way to break the cycle of poverty. Successful farms allow family members to pursue education, jobs, and entrepreneurial ventures. As Maslow’s hierarchy would suggest, families can pursue opportunities only when food & shelter are secure.
IFAD recommends that future efforts focus on managing risks, increasing production, increasing access to new markets, and increasing non-farm jobs. This is an empowering departure from viewing farmers as passive aid recipients.
Continue Reading →
Market-based Solutions
The Currystone Prize, a prize for developing and implementing a visionary design innovation, was just award to SHE: Sustainable Health Enterprizes. it’s founder, Elizabeth Scharpf, is spreading a method to make feminine pads from banana leaves. In Rwanda imported pads are expensive, and this unspoken problem has been keeping girls from school and women from work in many areas of the developing world. What I really admire is Elizabeth’s commitment to market-based solutions.
When we’re shocked by a systemic problem, it’s more familiar to solve the problem in a way we’re familiar with. In this case, we might start a charity, and raise funds to distribute western sanitary pads in areas of need. And we’d have the best of intentions. Yet we would serve better by stepping back and thinking systemically. What can I do that will be sustainable? What can I set in motion so this problem has a chance of fixing itself?
Continue Reading →
Is that a Pigeon at the Poker Table?
A paper examining human-like gambling habits demonstrated in… pigeons
Abstract
Consistent with human gambling behaviour but contrary to optimal foraging theory, pigeons showed maladaptive choice behaviour in experiment 1 by choosing an alternative that provided on average two food pellets over an alternative that provided a certain three food pellets. On 20 per cent of the trials, choice of the two-pellet alternative resulted in a stimulus that always predicted ten food pellets; on the remaining 80 per cent of the trials, the two-pellet alternative resulted in a different stimulus that always predicted zero food pellets. Choice of the three-pellet alternative always resulted in three food pellets.
Continue Reading →
Missing Cognitive Surplus
At Fast Company Graham Button explores ways to deal with information overload, he’s got some good tips. Here’s the part that caught my attention:
“Google CEO Eric Schmidt said this. “Innovation is something that comes when you’re not under the gun. So it’s important that, even if you don’t have balance in your life, you have some time for reflection – The creative parts of one’s mind are not on schedule.”
Yet another confirmation that our always on information stream is robbing our cognitive surplus – and thus our ability to create.
Internationalization of Humanity
The Faces of Tomorrow
How will globalization change the way we look? The project Face Of Tomorrow composites sets of young adults to presage the melding that is occurring in cities across the globe.
Brooklyn Superhero Supply
Brooklyn Superhero Supply. It’s everything the ten-year-old inside you loves, and it’s all to raise money for an organization called 826NYC that uses creative writting to improve childhood literacy and imagination. Brooklyn Superhero Supply
photo: Zantony
Saul Griffith
Makani Power Kite
Power generating kites, Continue Reading →
inexpensive eyeglases
howtoons
kiteboarding
Instuctables.com… one of the best sites ever.
This guy is doing things:
Saul Griffin BusinessWeek profile
New Venture Capitalism
Continue Reading →
I’m always skeptical of VC firms that claim to be nurturing, because in the end they are expecting massive and possibly unsustainable growth. So many times I’ve seen great services, that do one thing really well, end up running into the ground chasing growth or revenue. I can only assume that the money behind them wasn’t satisfied with a moderately successful niche site. It’s going to be interesting to watch Fred Wilson and Union Square Ventures, I think his aproach could be the future of internet venture capital.
Rebranding Michigan
As the recession is hitting Michigan hard, I often hear how Michiganders have become complacent, lulled into false security by decades of good jobs that didn’t require a college education. Now we’re learning about stagnation the hard way. Yet,
Do we realized how a steady employer environment has been influencing our college grads?
Jeff Schox, a technology attorney, tells this story:
“Sitting in a downtown Ann Arbor coffee shop recently, the technology attorney told a story about a class he occasionally teaches at Stanford University and U-M. The course, a one-credit patent class for engineering students, generally hosts students whose entrepreneurial aspirations are encouraging, he said.
Five years ago when he was teaching the class, his Stanford students were taking the course because they wanted to know how to protect their own inventions. His U-M students were asking questions about what they had to know to get a job at Toyota.”
It’s going to take time to shift from employer security mindset to a responsible risk-taking mindset. When Michigan’s leaders encourage higher education as a path back to success, I hope they consider how higher education must be re-branded as a path to independence and innovation rather than just an opportunity for better job security. And, as a chance to educate in opportunity-seeking rather than mere problem-solving.
[image: schoxplc]