Tonight I watched a phenomenal TED Talk given by John Francis. A man who is a leader and role model in in the field of environmental activism. For seventeen years he did not speak, but rather spent time listening, thinking, and writing. His story is fantastic and a great reminder to all of us that sometimes the most important thing you can do is listen and try to understand other people.

I think that truly listening and paying attention to people’s ideas is something we all could do better.

The Image Fulgurator is a fantastic guerrilla messaging tool. The device is being patented by the artist Julius von Bismarck. It is a camera-looking device which projects hidden messages on walls and objects at the very instant a camera fires it’s flash.

Here are a few samples of how the Fulgurated images look. The Obama one is my favorite because of how subtle it is.
*credit to Fumi

The YouTube video does it some justice.

Apparently he is patenting the device to protect it from misuse by corporate interest…. ie.. guerrilla marketing.

I know that I’m not the only person that has those days where all your ideas just plain suck. Usually my favorite brainstorming technique for my not-so-creative days is to do rapid brainstorming. The key to this type of brainstorming is to set a goal of 100 ideas in 10 minutes and write down literally everything you can think of. Even if your mind starts to drift and you think about a dog that is outside your window, write it down. This way you free your mind from the normal line of thinking; If you write an idea about a dog, it may lead to a great idea – normally you would discount this thought all together.

One of the reasons this technique is my favorite when my brain is feeling “blah” is that it purges out all of those crappy ideas that keep circulating in my head. Typically if I set a goal of 100 ideas and time is winding down, I scrape to come up with new things I haven’t thought of. This way I’m breaking out of my normal train of thought which is key when thinking creatively.

Seems the good people at TorrentSpy have decided to stop letting US users search the TorrentSpy site due to uncertainty around US privacy laws. While I can certainly understand TorrentSpy’s position, I don’t like the fact that our country continues to try to apply laws which are out-dated. Like many out there when I’m told I can’t have something; it makes me want it more.

So I say, if you can’t search in the US, then just move to another country, virtually. Visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org) and download their TOR Onion router. If you follow their instructions the TOR Onion will route your internet connection through several random servers in various countries, thereby giving websites like TorrentSpy the appearance that you are in another country.

It’s a simple way to bypass the system. Better yet, donate to the EFF and help them protect our freedoms online.

Like many of you, I love whiteboards and the collaborative aspect of quickly jotting down ideas on what feels like a large napkin at breakfast. Recently, we moved into a new office and the whiteboard just didn’t look that nice on our new walls. We decided to opt for steel sheets rather then whiteboards.

The Home Depot sells 24 x 36 inch sheets for $7 a piece. They look better then whiteboards and they give you the added benefit of using magnets for posting material in a collaborative space.