Author Archives: jason

Robot Heart Stories: An experiment in high concept experiential learning

Written by jason. Posted on October 22, 2011. Filed under Children & Youth, inspiration. Comments Off.

This is really interesting:

Robot Hearts Stories is an experiential learning project that uses collaboration and creative problem solving to put education directly in the hands of students. This fall, two classrooms, a continent apart, will work together to get a lost robot home, and they will need your help…

Visit the blog page on the site to get a better sense of how “educational” content/learning is being weaved into the experience.

RockHealth Report: A glimpse into the state of digital healthcare entrepreneurship

Written by jason. Posted on October 10, 2011. Filed under Business Thoughts, Entrepreneurship. Tagged . Comments Off.

The first start-up I joined was an ehealth company called MCard Inc. It was 1995 and we were attempting to bring consumer medical records to the smartcard. We were a bunch of young Stanford grads with big dreams of making a difference. An exciting time. Obviously, our company didn’t survive as the personal health record business was many many years away from becoming a reality. It’s great to see a new generation of entrepreneurs attempting to tackle this challenge and others in the digital health arena. The RockHealth report is a short read that provides some insight into today’s challenges, opportunities and attitudes.

Rock Report: State of Digital Health
View more presentations from Rock Health

A Steve Jobs quote that resonates

Written by jason. Posted on October 6, 2011. Filed under inspiration. Comments Off.

As the retrospectives fill the airwaves and online, I’m kind of surprised that the quote that has captured the media’s mindshare is on death. (okay, well not really considering Steve Jobs passed away). That said, I think the following is one of his stronger quotes from Stanford’s 2005 Commencement (man, I wish he gave our speech when I was there). RIP Steve Jobs – thank you for not settling.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Heads up: ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge

Written by jason. Posted on September 15, 2011. Filed under Competitions. Comments Off.

climatespark logoJust received this:

Up to $500,000 in Funding for Projects that can Help our City (Toronto) and our Climate!

The ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge is a new experiment in open innovation. The Challenge is open to any social venture that includes at least one nonprofit partner and that can demonstrate a financially viable solution to reducing Toronto’s climate impact.

More info here

Heads Up: UNICEF State of the World’s Youth Exhibit and Report Launch Date (Sept 8th)

Written by jason. Posted on August 16, 2011. Filed under Latest News. Tagged , . Comments Off.

After nearly 8 months of planning and designing, our latest project with UNICEF NY is set to launch in September (the 6th 8th specifically). Proofs of the publication have come back and they look brilliant! There’s still some work to do on the exhibit but I can’t wait to see the pieces mounted in the Dan Kaye Center with links to the UNICEF Voices of Youth website. The exhibit will continue for a couple of months so please do stop by if you are in NYC.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to upload some teaser images in the coming weeks.

Jason

Heads Up: $50K Grants Available for Next-Generation Children’s Media Projects in Canada

Written by jason. Posted on February 16, 2011. Filed under Children & Youth, Competitions. Comments Off.

An old friend of mine just hipped me to this competition.

The Centre for Creative Communications, Centennial College, is seeking innovative and forward-thinking proposals from Canadian media, interactive, creative, technology, business and social entrepreneurs for the next wave of children’s media and multi-platform projects to qualify for $50K federal development grants. The new kidsmediacentre, an industry and creative content think tank at Centennial College, will hold an Information Session to interested developers, on:

Thursday, Feb 24 at 5:30 p.m., at The Centre for Creative Communications, located at 951 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto.

‘Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd’ – excerpts

Written by jason. Posted on February 8, 2011. Filed under Business Thoughts, inspiration. Comments Off.

book coverI’m nearly at the end of Youngme Moon’s, Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. It’s been a fairly good read so far. She’s been able to make even the most obvious of business ideas seem fresh.

There are a number of ideas/quotes that have stuck with me that I plan on sharing with you. To start:

Great ideas, novel ideas, original ideas…are tenuous at birth. And the reason for this is that, early on, they are often indistinguishable from crazy, impractical ideas.
…if we want innovation to happen, we need to suspend our disbelief enough to let it happen.

I’m a firm believer in this statement. I’m sure you are too having encountered the naysayers within your organization. The challenge – whether you be a start-up or struggling not-for-profit – is to create an environment, an organizational culture if you will, that is at minimum non-hostile to new ideas. Once you’ve established this type of environment, the next step is to create a culture of support. This is when fledgling ideas really take root, grow and proliferate.

What steps are you taking to change your organizational culture to be supportive of new ideas? I’d love to know.

Crowdsourcing – Where Good Ideas Come From?

Written by jason. Posted on January 20, 2011. Filed under Business Thoughts. Tagged . Comments Off.

Upon watching this video, I’m drawn to Steven’s comment about how “hunches” aka “partial ideas” need to collide with each other in order to become fully formed ideas. He goes on to say that coffee houses and salons used to be the engines of creativity. I wonder if crowdsourcing is the new coffee house in our interconnected world? It will be really interesting to see if any significant ideas come out of this trend. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

We’ve tried that before

Written by jason. Posted on January 2, 2011. Filed under Business Thoughts. Tagged . Comments Off.

In Seth Godin’s post “That’s not the way we do things around here“, Seth posits that these words stifle innovation. Let me add a few additional words, “We’ve tried that before.”

Maybe you have. But consider this: Imagine if Steve Jobs said to chief Apple designer, Jonathan Ivey, “Mobile computing? We’ve tried that before. Remember the Newton?” Would we have the iPhone?

Innovation is about iteration. It’s about tweaking ideas to adapt to changing conditions. Just because an idea failed once, doesn’t mean it was a bad idea. Reassess, retool and try again.