Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

Wisdom of Patrick

"Knowledge cannot replace friendship. I'd rather be an idiot than lose you."
- Patrick to Spongebob

5 Creative Uses for Crowdsourcing

When Jeff Howe coined the term “crowdsourcing” in a 2006 Wired article his examples were mainly “labor markets for specialized talents,” like iStockphoto, iFilm, and InnoCentive. But the business model of outsourcing to the crowd has grown (as has Howe’s article — he publisheda book on the topic in 2008). As open-source software developers learned long ago, asking a pool of people to create something can be faster, cheaper, and more accurate than putting a project in the hands of individuals. These five start-ups are doing just that by using crowdsourcing in creative ways.

1. Maps and Traffic Information – Waze
2. Executive Recruiting –NotchUp
3. Web Usability Testing –UserTesting.com  & Feedback Army
4. Mutual Fund Management –Marketocracy
5. Fashion Design – Fashion Stake
source: mashable

America Speaking Out - How GOP tries to communicate via net

America deserves a Congress that respects the priorities of the people.
Unfortunately, Washington hasn't been listening. Let's change that.
America Speaking Out is your opportunity to change the way Congress
works by proposing ideas for a new policy agenda.

Link: americaspeakingout

How the U.S. Engages the World with Social Media

The perception of the U.S. abroad varies widely, and is subject to
many forces, including world events, media coverage, policy changes, and
presidential administrations. In response, the U.S. State Department,
America’s public relations branch, has been charged with the difficult
task of engaging in the dialogue surrounding the controversial policies
discussed in almost every corner of the world.Social media has
proven to be a valuable tool in this regard, and the State Department
has made impressive gains in their mission to turn conflict into
conversation. Cabinet officials, foreign dignitaries, and embassies are
experimenting with ways to inject America’s voice into the global
chatter. Some of their experiments are paying dividends that few
expected. Here’s a look at some of these efforts.

Link: Mashable

Five new business ideas for urban gardening http://ping.fm/x3LvY

Ping.fm

Ping.fm is a free social networking and micro-blogging web service that enables users to post to multiple social networks simultaneously.

Making an update on Ping.fm pushes the update to a number of different social websites at once. This allows individuals using multiple social networks to update their status only once, without having to update it in all their social media individually. Ping.fm groups services into three categories – status updates, blogs, and micro-blogs – and updates can be sent to each group separately.