A Day for Fun

Here are some bits and pieces that came in while I was away. FYI: the photo at the top is Glenorchy, an incredible place I stayed in New Zealand.

(You'll have to wait to the end of this post to learn why I posted a picture that has zero value to anyone but me.)

These are in no particular order:

How to kill creativity from Slowleadership. (Thanks to Metavitae's William Lamson for the link. By the way, Metavitae is an excellent health/fitness blog)

A marvelous optical illusion (thanks to my co-hort Eric Freeman for the pointer)

Moo Tube Kind of Web 2.0, but for cows. You'll just have to see it.

Blog of Macromedia's John Dowdell (I've been listening to this guy for the last decade)

Absolutely stunning interactive flash physics (thanks to Metafilter)

Why our brains love exploration from ScienceDaily. (One of the cognitive pleasures we discussed earlier, and something to keep in mind when designing user experiences!)

I gave a keynote at the Training Director's Forum a week ago, (where I took the Flamingo pic) and it was a fantastic experience for me. A thank-you to the wonderful folks from VNU (hi Julie!) for inviting me and hosting such a productive (and fun... wine-tasting-as-team-building-exercise rocked) event. If you're involved in the slightest way with adult--especially corporate--learning/training, you should consider attending the Training Conference they put on (I've been and it was so worth it).

A highlight for me was meeting a woman I deeply admire, Ann Herrmann from Herrmann International, developers of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. I'll say a lot more about that in a later post, but for now--I've been using the HBDI for the last ten years, and it's been the single most important tool for us when creating the Head First books. (I'll describe how and why in a later post.)

Jason posted about a quote by Douglas Coupland in Douglas Coupland agrees that meetings are toxic. This was especially funny for me because I started reading his latest book JPod, which has one of my all-time favorite lines (from a character sitting in a marketing meeting):
"John BlackBerried me: I CANT FEEL MY LEGS"

(and this gem from the cubicles: "we're having a contest--we're trying to see if there's any way to hold a knife and walk across a room and not look psycho.")

A couple of marketing blog I like:
MarketingProfs and the new one I'm really getting into: Make Marketing History.

The comments to my previous dog sign post are both interesting and funny (check out the gender discussion), but this one from DL got me:
"a future archaeologist might come up with the theory that the sign belonged to a temple in a dog worshipping society and that acolytes had to be accompanied by one or two dogs to proceed along the path."

One thing I'm learning from this "exercise" is that even a seemingly simple idea can become slippery once your past the first glance. In a new (and coincidental) twist, when I went out for my morning run (on that same trail) today, the rangers were posting a new sign with a dog on it, announcing that as of August 1, all dogs off-leash must be wearing a special tag. And how do you get the tag? You pay $15 to attend a little class and watch a video! Fortunately, your dog does not have to pass a voice-control test, or Clover and I would be screwed.

And finally, to test my theory that nobody reads to the end of my rambling, today is my birthday. And I got a very fun gift--this blog is mentioned (with a screen shot and everything) in my birthday (June 19) print issue of BusinessWeek magazine. It's mentioned in two places, one as a favorite blog by one of their Top 25 Innovators, Claudia Kotchka from P&G, and in a separate page about innovation blogs. We're honored. We're horrified.

Exactly one year ago, I was lying in the middle of a street 90% certain I was going to die. It's been an amazing year, although not the easiest--I had cancer surgery (not a big deal), some new brain complications, and made the very tough decision to go back on anti-seizure drugs (which thankfully have improved a lot since the last time I was in this spot).

Lessons?

1) Live with passion

2) If not the day you die, then not today

Thank you all for giving me such a wonderful year.

Oh yes, The reason I posted pictures for no benefit to you is because it's my birthday and I can do WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT ; ) Tomorrow, back to thinking about what's in it for you.