Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

I’m always amazed how much information I come along, by simply starting somewhere on the web and then just out of curiosity of the things that I read, end up with hours of reading material. Here is an example. Come on the trip with me, it’s interesting:

I started of on swiss-miss, one of my favorite design blogs and I found a video about Web 3.0.

Nova Spivack appeared in the video and I got curious about what he does. A quick google search reveal his wikipedia page and his home page. Very interesting guy, I could spend hours on his blog.

According to Wikipedia, Nova Spivack “is the grandson of Dr. Peter F. Drucker, widely considered “the father of modern management”” Wow, what is that? Lets check out Dr. Peter F. Druckers wikipedia page: He was a writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.” Also a very interesting guy. I have to read more about him.

What the heck is “social ecology”. Extremely interesting.

All this rev’s up my brain like crazy. Did you read what “Social Ecology” is? It pretty much explains why things aren’t really working out with the environment and the root of it: our political and social systems and the “grow-or-die philosophy”.

Now, where am I going to find enough time to read up on all of this?

Today’s Book Recommendation: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Excellent book, especially since a lot of people are worried these days. Very practical tips to not worry yourself to death – literally. You can pick a new one up for under $15 at Amazon, or a used one for under $5, or go to your local library and lend it for free.

A concept for a train that never stops showed up on youtube recently. A very interesting idea, since this would save a lot of energy to accelerate the train and time that is otherwise wasted for passengers to get on and off the train. Have a look:

It really looks like a reasonable idea, but definitely has its technological challenges.

And the following version is for laughs. The echo makes this one sound like a public address, perfect communist style.

As many of you might know, I follow the Dragons Den on CBC, a show in which business owners (or many times wanna-be’s) get to pitch their ideas to the “dragons”. I just noticed that Rob Grand went into the Den and actually got a deal with Arlene. He is a very hard working guy and has been working on his business – the Grassroots store in Toronto – for over 17 years. I can only imagine how much of an uphill battle that must have been for all these years.

I wish him all the best.

Here is the pitch (skip right to min. 5:22 to see it)

Here is the link to this blog post on the Grassroots Blog.

Why is this world racing at the speed of light – or so they tell us – yet strength lays in the calmness and endurance?

I read this post on swiss-miss this morning:

“Daddy, What’s a Brand?”

We live in The Age Of Everything. Why commit? There are 80 milllion Millennials aged 9-28 in the U.S. alone. Half are already in college or the workforce, and the women will be a tornado. They group around shared affinity more than shared nationality, they’re prosumers not consumers, and they care more about peer recommendation than corporate reputation. They grew up in a world where change is too fast to process, but they know one thing: if you wait a minute or two, something better is sure to be along. They live on an IV drip of real-time connection, and are fiercely interdependent. If you’re a company, failing to consider their preferences would be, in their own vernacular, WOMBAT–a waste of money, brains and time.

I don’t understand that things move so fast, but we generally don’t take the time off to renew ourselves, which truly lays in calmness and just letting time go by.

How do things like this time-piece fit in with the junkworld of Walmart products?

If you are an overachiever like me and need to get things done, you need to read this book which presents a really good method on how to keep on top of things.

“This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy” – Kerry Gleeson

I was just skipping through the pages of Today’s Parent (a promo copy, I didn’t buy it), and there was a little article about research that had been done on kids who were able to play in the dirt and how they had much better immune systems as adults.

Did we not already know this? Seriously, is this news to you? I always feel so empty after reading these magazines. So many pages filled with stuff that is rarely ever new and does not inspire me in the least.

As the editor of these magazines, you have to come out with a full magazine every month and keep people interested, no matter what, even if there is nothing new happening.

We consume so much media today, but so little of it is necessary. I want quality not quantity. I might actually buy a bi-yearly parenting magazine, that had only the best stories, the best reports, that is inspiring and informative. But I guess there is no money in that for big business, probably enough money in it though for “small business” (or smart business).

I think it’s time we reevaluate our media consumption. Lets hang out with friends and our kids more instead of beeing filled up with junk non-sense repetitive media.