Category:Education

From the PSFK Conference NYC, Clay Shirky shares what's he learned about creativity by watching creatives (about 26 minutes long).

I love how he describes the program at ITP where he's an associate professor:

It's an interdisciplinary program. It's about half engineers and techies who care about human factors. It's about half artists and designers who aren't afraid of machines.

If I was entering college right now, this would totally be where I'd be going.

Startups, this is how design works.

A guide for non-designers by Wells Riley.

via Shane Guiter

In light of my last post, this news about This American Life retracting their episode on Apple's suppliers is interesting.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Madison teachers will soon be handing out Apples to students.

The School District for the first time plans to buy more than 600 iPads for use in the majority of schools this spring. Another 800 iPads are expected to be in classrooms by next fall, all paid for with money from a state settlement with Microsoft.

Microsoft better get over those Windows 8 tablet hurdles.

Via The Loop

Tom Ford tells AnOther Magazine how to be a gentleman (via Om Malik):

1. You should put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other people around you.

2. A gentleman today has to work. People who do not work are so boring and are usually bored. You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world.

3. Manners are very important and actually knowing when things are appropriate. I always open doors for women, I carry their coat, I make sure that they're walking on the inside of the street. Stand up when people arrive at and leave the dinner table.

4. Don't be pretentious or racist or sexist or judge people by their background.

5. A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

Great list.

Especially #5 - guys with the flip flops, you have to cut that shit out. Ladies too, but I'll save that for another post.

The Awl: Wikipedia And The Death Of The Expert

Experts, geniuses, authorities, "authors"--we were taught to believe that these should be questioned, but until now have not often been given a way to do so, to seek out and test for ourselves the exact means by which they reached their conclusions. So long as we believe that there is such a thing as an expert rather than a fellow-investigator, then that person's views just by magic will be worth more than our own, no matter how much or how often actual events have shown this not to be the case. For us to have this magic thinking about "individualism" then is pernicious politically, intellectually, in every way. That is not to say that we don't value those who can lead the conversation. We'll need them more and more, those "who are able to marshal the wisdom of the network," to use Bob Stein's words. But they might be more like DJs, assembling new ways of looking at things from a huge variety of elements, than like than judges whose processes are secret, and whose opinions are sacred.

I think about this idea of experts, DJs and curation in relation to current events in technology like Drudge Report's continued success (on page of curated links) and GroupOn (curated products and events with quality writeups).

I learned a new word this morning:

All these years of living and I'm still surprised to see Q come before R, S, and T. Q should be hangin with V, W and X. I'm sure of it.

via my brother on Twitter