FRANCISCO SARAIVA

I stumbled upon Guy Kawasaki’s new web site called Alltop. I think this is a real cool blog to start with. The Apple evangelist, author, venture capitalist and entrepreneur that he is, Guy is a genius! He never runs out of new ideas and putting them into very good use. I would describe the site as techy, trendy and really unique.

Alltop is launched by Nononina, another company by Guy Kawasaki. Nononina also owns another web site called Truemors. Together with friends, Will Mayall and Kathryn Henkens, Guy created Alltop. The objective of Alltop is to “enhance online reading” because you can see the stories from the sites you have visited and stories from the sites you are not aware of. Here you can find the recent news from various sites and blogs.

The first thing that captured my attention here is the “translucent banner”, as they refer to it which remains immovable or fixed in place. It is like a ruler on top of a page. This banner has Alltop’s tag line which is “all the top stories covered all the time”. As one clicks to other topics or headlines, the color and tag line of the translucent banner sometimes change.

Guy describes Alltop as a site that acts like a “feed aggregator” on a single web page. People can find topics at a glimpse. Arranged by different, interesting topics like Work, Living, Culture, Science and a lot more you can find sub topics under each. The latest news about these topics can be seen by clicking the topic itself. What’s really interesting is that when you place your cursor on a topic, you can read a part of that headline, so more or less you can decide if you want to go on and read it or go to another topic.

A collection of stories from all the top sites in the net, Alltop is worth a visit. Check it out: http://www.alltop.com

This 19:29 minute-video lecture by Sir Ken Robinson in 2006 is very informative and enlightening. He was able to clearly stress his point that creativity is as equally important in education as literacy, and as such should be treated equally.

The manner by which he conducted his lecture is very formal but with interjections of humor and personal experiences enticing interest from the audience. Mr. Robinson’s thrust in bringing education outside the four-walled classroom could be very well pictured with examples of true-to-life encounters of people he met.

According to Sir Ken Robinson there are three themes running through out the conference as evidenced by the speeches delivered in the different sessions of the conference. The first theme is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity as was shown by a little girl who was a guest at the conference the previous night.

The second is the unpredictability of the future but none the less we prepare for it through education and we expect our education to take us into the future we can not even grasp.

The third is the extraordinary capacity of children for innovation. Sir Ken Robinson stressed the fact that children are most innovative because they are not afraid to be wrong, and this is precisely what is wrong with our educational systems. According to him the biggest mistake one can make is to be wrong. He strongly believes that if one is afraid to be wrong one can not be creative.

Sir Ken Robinson believes that the hierarchy of subjects in the educational system everywhere in the world makes it difficult for us to recognize the real essence of education. He observes that schools tend to prioritize subjects like math, languages and the sciences over the arts which according to him are as important to the development of the students as the subjects on top of the hierarchy.

He believes that we give a second thought to the idea and essence our systems of education are predicated upon, with the view that intelligence is diverse [multiple intelligences], dynamic in the sense that is a product of the interactions of many factors, and it is distinct in that different people think in different ways.

Sir Ken Robinson ended his talk with a call to help our children discover their own capacities and prepare them for the future which they will live.

At the 1997 Mac World event in Boston, Steve Jobs was invited to present the Apple annual report to its audience.

The 38-minute video opened with a screen preview of the Apple products, sample press releases and the welcome address of Colin Crawford, Mac Publication’s President & CEO . While his speech was read, Mr. Crowford seemed uneasy and his discourse entailed a lot of word crutches, his saving grace came with the animated image of the Apple logo (3:20-3:23) and the video introduction of the next speaker whom he referred to as “the person who needs no further introduction”. True enough; the appearance of Steve Jobs in Macworld’s front cover earned a resounding accolade from the audience until he personally appeared on stage.

Steve Jobs’ presentation started with Apple’s status report. His expression was very relaxed and has a continuous flow of thought. He has full control of the wide screen which featured the topics the he will discuss. His speech established a business plan for Apple starting with the problems facing the company, from the management down to the customer service, its “core assets”, improving software and hardware features and other issues. The manner in which Steve introduced each member of the board was well put together thereby establishing the integrity of each individual. He featured insights from the board members as resource persons, presented new partners, injected humor in each topic, included satellite feeds from Microsoft main man, Bill Gates, thus sustaining the audience interest on each topic. His closing remarks left insights to the audience with a discreet marketing campaign for Apple which is very striking and inviting.

Jobs holding a MacBook Air at Macworld Conference & Expo 2008

Photo Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

In general, this video should be seen by people engaged in public speaking or are into speech-making. It is a very good example of communication because Steve Jobs presented it in a very light, casual, information packed and systematic manner. He was able to discuss and cover all the issues the audience needs to know about Apple. Indeed, this should be included in the top 10 speeches/presentations of Steve Jobs and emulated by all those who engage themselves in public speaking.

One of the most disturbing events of 1970 happened on May 4. It was the day of the Kent State Massacre. A shooting rampage was staged by the National Guardsmen of Ohio, leading to the death of four Kent State University students. The grueling act as initiated by then US President Richard Nixon was a response to the students’ protest against the expansion of the Vietnam War to Cambodia. This gave birth to the composition of the protest song “Ohio” penned by Neil Young and released shortly after the gruesome incident by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young.

Because of the song’s profound effect on the students and the Americans in general, it eventually became their anti Vietnam-war protest anthem. As such, numerous videos have been uploaded on the internet to demonstrate the severity of the situation at that time and how “Ohio” moved and inspired the people.

This moving video presents the news headline in New York Times and The Journal that fateful day in May 1970. Followed by series of photos of the four innocent victims, troops in heavy battle gear at gunfire position interspersed with images of people scampering for a place to hide and grieving for the lifeless bodies of the students (00:56-1:06), protesters and again the death squad (1:32-1:45).

The “OHIO” bi-line

“Gotta get down to it,

Soldiers are gunning us down,

Should have been done long ago”

up and under the images of the guardsmen. While the next few lines of the song goes

“What if you knew her and

Found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know”

Up and under the images of grieving people over the victims (1:51-1:59)

Right after the chorus in the interlude portion of the song, are images of protesters followed by “Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming:

We’re finally on our own” (2:19-2:24)

showing the troops and Nixon referring to the map of Cambodia. The song ends with the photos of the four student victims of the tragedy that befell America.

This footage presents to the public how a song can represent itself as an instrument to awaken socio-political awareness, which are also used as sources for public address. As such political rallies may be enlivened by songs and performances depicting current events and political concerns especially when it is based on true-to life experiences coupled by images of human atrocities.

Photo Source: http://www.alancanfora.com