Clippings

Influence of the iPad

I guess this is the day to be amazed by news of how desirable and influential (and indispensable?) the iPad has become. First, I saw a message on Twitter about iPads becoming an essential part of shopping for school supplies and a New York Times article about a hotel in Paris that has alphabet-themed guest rooms with text translations available on the rooms' complimentary iPads. Reminded me that a while ago I saw another Times article about New York restaurants that are making their wine list available to customers on iPads. Twitter is full of messages about school systems that are requiring students to have iPads and this message just appeared in a Fast Company thread about ways to improve education

RT @civilque: #fixedu Put an ipad in the hands of every 9th grader and teach them how to write programs/apps that solve their problemSun Jan 23 17:25:07 via TweetDeckFast Company
fastcompany

MRI

One lesson I learned is from a phrase I picked up called M.R.I. It means the “most respectful interpretation” of what someone’s saying to you. I don’t need everyone to be best friends, but I need to have a team with M.R.I.

Q. Can you elaborate?

A. You can say anything to anyone, as long as you say it the right way.

Maybe you need to preface it with: “I’m just curious, and I want to understand what you’re saying better. Right now, my point of view is quite different. So can you help me understand why you don’t want to do this, or why you wanted to do this?”

If you get people talking and challenging each other, you’re going to have the ability to arrive at the right decision so much quicker and so much easier. I just make it so it’s a human environment. I’m not going to motivate by fear, but I’m going to motivate by saying: “Let’s win. This is going to be so much fun to figure out. Let’s figure it out together.” I guess my management style is very much about like imagining we’re all children and really vulnerable. Because we are.

via nytimes.com

Here's a powerful concept for communication introduced by Robin Domeniconi at the New York Times, Most Respectful Interpretation. Maybe the name is what captures my attention because I've been through more MRIs than I care to admit; more likely it's because you can see in it such a refreshing perspective on the current discussion of civility in polltics.

Help Plan the Session for VPMs at the next District 27 TLI

Going to TLI January 22? Help Mike Schultz prepare the session for VPMs. Here's the second cut of the class outline.

  • Review officer standards
  • Review Lifelines in District and Available Resources
  • Review Toastmasters Mission; Urge Officers to Review and Clarify their Personal and Club Motivation
  • Ways to Bring Guests In
  • Ways to Make Club Attractive to Guests and Make Them Want to Join
  • Ways to Keep Club a Vital and Successful Community

What do you need to hear about to be successful in the second half of the Toastmaster year?

From Denise Levertov: A Clearing

What lies at the end of enticing country driveways, curving off among trees? Often only a car graveyard, a house-trailer, a trashy bungalow. But this one, for once, brings you through the shade of its green tunnel to a paradise of cedars, of lawns mown but not too closely, of iris, moss, fern, rivers of stone rounded by sea or stream, of a wooden unassertive large-windowed house. The big trees enclose an expanse of sky, trees and sky together protect the clearing. One is sheltered here from the assaultive world as if escaped from it, and yet once arrived, is given (oneself and others being a part of that world) a generous welcome.                                   It's paradise as a paradigm for how to live on earth, how to be private and open quiet and richly eloquent. Everything man-made here was truly made by the hands of those who live here, of those who live with what they have made. It took time, and is growing still because it's alive. It is paradise, and paradise is a kind of poem; it has a poem's characteristics: inspiration; starting with the given; unexpected harmonies; revelations. It's rare among the worlds one finds at the end of enticing driveways.