Great management philosophy ("I miss the mob" video)

I miss the mob from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.

Khan Academy's TED Talk - a.k.a. technology improving (and humanizing) the classroom

I am serious when I say that I almost cried when I watched it - not because it is emotive, it is not at all, but because of the impact it brings.



I have been using the Khan Academy FOR FUN every night.

Car driver in Brazil decides to kill a bunch of bikers because they were blocking the street

*Sigh* When I have some free time, I visit Brazilian news websites. The news are always the same: some politician was caught pocketing public money (without being punished), some violent crime happened, some idiot reality show character did something, someone is striking/manifesting about something and some public tragedy happened with a lot of people complaining about their fates. Brazil in a nutshell. But last week I saw the most shocking thing I ever imagined, and it was in my home city, Porto Alegre.

Some bicyclists were all on the street in a kind of a protest  ("someone is striking/manifesting about something", remember?) and this one guy just gets tired of waiting for the bikers who are blocking the street and decides to kill all of them by storming past the middle of the cyclists.

Serious.

If you have the courage, watch the video bellow, but be warned it is strong:



For me this kind of sum up the Brazilian attitude that is the root of all evil in the country: Brazilians (in general, not all) have an absolute lack of respect for others. Politicians steal because it is "no body's money", criminality happens "because I don't have opportunities, so I am going to steal from others - but I am not limited to stealing, I can kill for a simple pair of shoes, because I don't care about others", people will cut the line because they find some friend in front (not caring about those before that were waiting longer), people will make a scandal if their rights are not respected (not caring if they themselves are disrespecting the rights of everyone around) and, of course, people will be completely insane in traffic, because "the only car that matter is mine".

I don't know the background of the video, but this is what I imagined happened (as per the traditional Brazilian behavior): bikers were on the street, mostly blocking the cars. Car driver gets pissed off and starts using the horn and shouting on the window to the bikers. Bikers get pissed off and start blocking more and more that one car and start screaming back, maybe even kicking and punching the car. Then the car driver tries to make a strike with the bikers.

Brazil (Brazilians) needs a culture shift towards respecting others. In this sense, Brazilians have a lot to learn from Norwegians. Norway just doesn't happen to be a rich country. It can be a point that Norway is rich because of the natural resources (oil), but we cannot forget that Brazil is rich in resources (including oil), so are several African countries. The secret? In my opinion it is respect for the society and for others. Instead of thinking about themselves (in this case, always the shareholders of big corporations), Norwegians thought about the society. Respect is just underrated, but it the basis for a healthy world: if people respected each other, how could there be war, terrorism or crime?

Brazil never fails to disappoint me. Shame of my country. *Sigh*

TED Talk - how to have an awesome life

From the lovely Happy Thursday blog.

TED Talk: The child-driven education

Can non-English speaking children in a village in India learn by themselves using a pc and only English instructions?



Via Sokanu

I Scientist - What education should be? What about work?

This is around 30min documentary about kids spending 5 days doing real science how it should be done: in practice and having fun. It's absolutely brilliant to see the kids coming in as students and then evolving into scientists to the point that they run the experiments while the adults become the "lab rats". So moments are so sublime that almost brought me a few tears, like for example one little girl that says it's the happiest thing on her life. If you are interested in education, you certainly will find it fascinating.


I Scientist film from Storymakers TV on Vimeo.


But to be sincere, if you are minimally interested in the subject of education, at this point of time you probably already realized that practical education, experimentation, facilitation, engagement, etc are the way to go to improve the education system. So, for me, for sure education should be like the video - no doubt about it. But what about work? In our knowledge society, shouldn't work be more like the video? If it should, more importantly, could it be done? How? Have you seen anything like this in any company?

(via Sokanu)

We all want to be young

A great movie made by Box 1824 (a Brazilian research center on youth consumer and behaviour trends) on what is to be young. If you are somehow involved in communication, advertising, marketing or even lead young people, that is a must see.


We All Want to Be Young (leg) from box1824 on Vimeo.

Gamefication 101 with Gabe Zichermann

It's not about games, but about using game-like mechanics to make things better (one old example of gamification is the "collect 10 coffee stamps, get one free" or similar). From Foursquare to Farmville and from Nike to the Navy, game mechanics like points, badges, levels, challenges, rewards and leaderboards are being used in ever greater numbers. But what does this mean for "traditional" marketing & UI/UX and how do you leverage this trend in your engagement strategy? Moreover, how do we measure success, and why will every company have a Chief Engagement Officer in the next few years? Find out more in this in-depth discussion with Gamification Expert, Gabe Zichermann - author of "Game-Based Marketing" and the Gamification.co blog, and Chair of the Gamification Summit.

7 ways games reward the brain (TED Talk)

Smart TED Talk that looks like is about videogames, but it is in fact about our brains and what are the most important game mechanics (such as leveling up and probability of reward) that could be applied to the real world in business, government, education, to fight global warming, etc.


Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain.

What would happen if you used game mechanics outside of games, such as in education and the business world? Can you imagine a game based workplace?

Changing Education Paradigms - AKA Sir Ken Robinson animated

Brilliant speech and brillent execution with cool stop-motion animations. It touches how schools serve only the industrial revolution model, how ADHD is not an epidemics, how scientists proved that most (98%) of kids are genius in being creative and how the same kids lose their edge after the educational system and much more cool stuff. Watch and learn:

Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education (Documentary)

Free to Learn is a 70 minute documentary that offers a "fly on the wall" perspective of the daily happenings at The Free School in Albany, New York. Like many of today's radical and democratic schools, The Free School expects children to decide for themselves how to spend their days.

The Free School, however, is unique in that it transcends obstacles that prevent similar schools from reaching a economically and racially diverse range of students and operates in the heart of an inner-city neighborhood.

For over thirty years in perhaps the most radical experiment in American education, this small inner-city alternative school has offered its students complete freedom over their learning. There are no mandatory classes, no grades, tests, or homework, and rules are generally avoided. As a last resort, rules are created democratically by students and teachers, often at the prompting of a student. At a time when our educators are mandated to march forward with no child left behind, the students of the Free School, many of whom would have fallen through the cracks of today's failing public school system, have managed to slip out of education's back door and have run away free.

Free to Learn follows a handful of these children courageously meeting the daily challenges of hope, acceptance, loss, friendship, conflict, and the difficult task of deciding, for themselves, what to do with each day.

Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education from Isaac Graves on Vimeo.
Via: Education Revolution

I would call The Free School a linchpin school, a place where there are no factory workers being raised, where influence is more important then authority and problem solving is the key to get an A+ (as if they had any grading system).

Linchpins any (every) where - including driving a bus

Great TEDx Stockholm video about a bus driver who change people's life. Why? Because he chose to. "I don't drive an airport bus, I give people a better day".



Via a friend called George.

Dancing Linchpin Stewardesses

You can use a audio or video recording to substitute the robotic stewardess that mumbles all those flight instructions, they are cogs in the machine - easily replaceable. The airline is pretty replaceable also, you just want to get to another place as cheap as you can. And someone can always make it cheaper somehow.

But you can't substitute true humanity, you can't substitute the true smile of that dancing stewardess:



True human connection, gift, art... linchpins win

Empathic civilization

Great, great thoughts on how technology (in fact a more connected world because of technology) can expand the perception of who is close to you beyond family, tribe, neighborhood or nationality into a world where everyone is closer, thus more empathic. And this is no theory, it's already happened and this video shows at least one clear example:

IDEO: 3 ideas about the future of books

Nihilists always announce the death of stuff when new stuff shows up. The radio was announced dead after the TV, but it just changes. Same thing about books, we won't get rid of them (thanks god!), but they will for sure evolve. How will the book evolve? Check out the amazing 3 ideas from IDEO's video:


The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.


I liked specially the last one, where we can turn books into interactive fiction. Imagine the appeal a Harry-Potter-like book would have in millions of children if you also would include game elements in it? Imagine the potential of interactive books can have in education (if of course our educational system evolves at all).

Crowd accelerated innovation

Brilliand TED talk by Chris Anderson (founder of TED), where he speaks about how web videos can power (and accelerate) innovation all around the world. Very inspiring, specially for me, when in the end he mentions (and shows) how crowds can actually improve everyone's life by learning and teaching.

Evoke - the game that is a crash-course in changing the world

Addendum to the previous post: Games can change the world.

Interview in CNN where Jane McGonigal talks about Evoke, the virtual game that teaches people how to create positive change in the real world:



And the promo video of Evoke:


EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

Games can save the world

I am passionate about education and I believe one day I will be involved in something around it. I am also a passionate gamer, so recently I've been flirting with the idea of introducing games in schools that would enhance children's learning. Please note that I am not talking about the unimaginative educational games, but real games and/or game mechanics applied to the classroom.

That's when I crossed paths with this amazing TED video:

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

There is also a HBR article about examples of how game mechanics can be (and are) applied to real life situations. And a complete list of game mechanics by the Google Gaming team (or the ridiculous name of SCVNGR).

Not to forget, of course, the Swedish VW example of the game theory in practice, one of the videos of The Fun Theory:

Care to share any insightful ideas after this? :)

How to make a Gantt chart on Excel video (brilliant!)

I am now responsible for taking care of the plan in my team (my previous and dear team will laugh at me), so I came up with an awesome way to plan using Excel:

Education that prepares you for life

It's funny how every video about improving education could be in the end an advertising to join AIESEC. That's exactly what we are doing - for 62 years. I've been really lucky to join this organization.