See-Click-Fix

I heard about a website on NPR a few days ago called SeeClickFix. The premise of the website is to have us (you and me) be able to document infrastructure issues, and then have them fixed by our local government. What a fabulous idea! Here is the very first sentence on their "about us" page:

"SeeClickFix encourages residents to become citizens by participating in taking care of and improving their neighborhoods."

With this being all about advanced citizenship, how can I not get behind this?

I'm going to give it a shot by documenting and submitting a deteriorating seam between two streets near me. As the saying goes... the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I will let you know how it turns out.

Generation M

I stumble upon something most every day that makes me stop and think. This next link was today's lightning bolt. It is called the "Generation M Manifesto," by Mr. Umair Haque. It is a very quick read, and I highly recommend it. It succinctly captures a great deal of how I have been feeling since before the slide into our current recession.

I hope you have been enjoying your summer. I have seen a great deal in the papers lately about each party picking their slate for November, the Manchester Redevelopment Agency's plan for Broad street, the proposed $8 Million bond referendum, and pots calling kettles black. I haven't been snoozing, just enjoying as much of our short New England summer as possible. "Doing meaningful stuff that matters the most."

I'm Very Thankful...

...To live in a country where I can post my thoughts on this blog, and not fear retribution from our government. I am thankful that the worst of my problems with local, state or federal government mainly deals with taxes or partisan bickering.

Please read this article from the NY Times: Stark Images, Uploaded to the World

"Responsible Capitalism" Gaining Traction

I'm seeing the glimmer of a positive shift in business news. It is nice to see that people are realizing once again that we are all in this together.

A Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality - NYTimes.com

Creative Thinking In Education

Another website that I enjoy frequenting is TED. It is part of that wealth of knowledge available to us on the web. I view TED as being able to attend a lecture series of some of the most creative and brilliant minds of our time - and it is free. (As all knowledge should be.)

With all the current debate on education in Manchester, specifically education spending, this recent lecture that I watched struck a chord. I ask you to spend twenty minutes and watch this:

I'm not implying that we need to scrap our entire education system in Manchester, nor that we should build a bunch of Montessori or charter schools. The fact is that most of our public education system is set at the state and federal levels, and this can be frustrating when dealing at the local level with the cards our children are dealt. Maybe we do need to think differently about the challenges that seem to recur year after year around budget discussions.

The chord that this lecture struck for me is that I am concerned that the very programs that our children will need to creatively compete with this quickly changing world will be moved to the bottom tiers of educational spending. We have some serious challenges facing us in both the near and long term. Now is the time for some creative thinking.

Are We Preparing Our Kids For Tomorrow?

What does it all mean? That depends on you.

What this means to me: how can we even think about cutting any technology education? Especially at the sixth grade level.

From The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman:

So if the flattening of the world is largely (but not entirely)unstoppable, and holds out the potential to be as beneficial to American society as a whole as past market evolutions have been, how does an individual get the best out of it? What do we tell our kids?

There is only one message: You have to constantly upgrade your skills. There will be plenty of good jobs out there in the flat world for people with the knowledge and ideas to seize them.

I am not suggesting this will be simple. It will not be. There will be a lot of other people out there also trying to get smarter. It was never good to be mediocre in your job, but in a world of walls, mediocrity could still earn you a decent wage. In a flatter world, you really do not want to be mediocre. You don't want to find yourself in the shoes of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, when his son Biff dispels his idea that the Loman family is special by declaring, "Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!" An angry Willy retorts, "I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!"

I don't care to have that conversation with my girls, so my advice to them in this flat world is very brief and very blunt: "Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your dinner --- people in China and India are starving." My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework --- people in China and India are starving for your jobs."

This is the world I work and compete in everyday. We can't throw money at this problem either. It's time to put aside petty differences. Our education system in Manchester has to become more efficient, and provide a better value. Not just a better value for our tax dollars, but more importantly a better value for our children's future. We have to help our children compete in tomorrow's world. It's hard enough to compete today.

Predictions for 2009

During my lunch, I read business management and leadership blogs. There is an untold wealth of free information and wisdom from some very innovative business people. The spectrum ranges from current and former CEO's of fortune 500 companies, to published business gurus, captains of industry, budding entrepreneurs, all the way to everyday people who are no more known than I am. Today's lunchtime reading included this jewel from Tom Asacker, a corporate branding guru:

Nine Predictions for 2009

I encourage you to read it, and then by all means share it with everyone you know. The media seems to be hammering on gloom and doom. We need grass roots efforts, like Tom Asaker's, to keep our chin up, keep things in perspective, and doing what American's do best: work hard and innovate.