Think Creatively

The mentor moment: think creatively
By John Bittleston

The article is published on today's My Paper, 16 Dec 2009, page A6

I like the article and the way he expanded the concept of creativity.

Instead of cutting the paper and keep it, I thought it will be nice to have an e-copy to share with like-minded. I was thrilled to find the article on terrificmentors.com, the bonus of reading it online is, you have the choice of reading the text or listening to the audio:

http://www.terrificmentors.com/2009/12/11/think-creatively/

I like many of his thought and here are some that I would like to quote and share:


"Everyone thinks they are creative; very few people actually are."

"If we can get over the fear of failure we can think creatively. "

'The four Nobel Prize winners who discovered penicillin did not have financial accounts or Key Performance Indicators."

"Of the seven rules for being creative observation, ... is the first."

"Creativity is the ability to perceive relationships."

'You perceive only when you are alert"

"We score an “A” for focus and a “Z” for peripheral vision."

'Sensitivity is the most difficult of the creative tools."

"Insensitive people cause most of the accidents in the world. They don’t have their antennae tuned to danger. It can be fatal."

"Reflection is the tool that is hardest to define. It is part analysis, part interpretation, part projection."

"Humour is, to me, the most important of all the tools, and the most neglected."

"If creativity is the ability to perceive relationships, humour is the ability to create them."

"Vision and foresight are ways of describing imagination."

"Imagination is itself creativity, so not an ingredient."

"To achieve foresight we must forecast."

"Every decision in life is based on forecast."

"Foresight is extrapolating what we know. Vision is seeing what we cannot see. Together they form a vital element of creativity."

"Problem solving means overcoming an unresolved obstacle in order to achieve a desired objective."

"Problems are a mixture of trouble (sometimes potentially disastrous), inconvenience, emotional upset, irritation and opportunity."

"Unfortunately, we often let the emotional aspects of a problem cloud the usually simple solution."

"If we approached each problem with the question ‘what do I want to achieve?’ and forgot all the side issues we should see the solution quickly."

"With easy access to data why do we need memory?"

"The very speed of today’s communication determines what we must be able to call up without delay – or miss an opportunity that may not present itself again."

"The rule for modern memory is relevance. Where in the past showing off knowledge was often a way to command respect we now need to demonstrate that the knowledge we are displaying is relevant to the subject and, even more important, to the moment."

"My rule is to try to remember the future, not the past."

"Stories – and exercises – are the best way to learn creativity"

"What of the educational needs for creativity? We admire teachers and those educating the young. They are hugely important. But they are stuck in knowledge-based formula teaching quite unsuitable for our present needs."

"Today we must have a new, broader-based form of education encompassing the 98% of the brain we are not using."

"Such education is not about fact and experience but about imagination and creativity."

"I am what I eat; I become what I think; I will be what I decide."

I like the article very much and read it again and again!

Listening to the audio when I write this blog make me reflect on my understanding, you may like to do the same and get the full text or audio from:

http://www.terrificmentors.com/2009/12/11/think-creatively/

Second shot - precision heritage photography

I visited the Second shot blog today and like to recommend it:

http://2ndshot.blogspot.com/search/label/2nd%20Shot

Here is the words from the author of the blog:

"This blog is my attempt at second shot - precision heritage photography - and my search for little nuggets of Singapore history and heritage. When free, I can be found wandering along the streets and elsewhere, trying to uncover our geographical past."

If you like to link the present to the past, you would not like to miss this blog and the photos of the "then and now" taken in Singapore!

Dexterine Ho

U.S. Academic Libraries Today: Challenges and Opportunities

This morning, I attended the following talk hosted by NUS Libraries:

U.S. Academic Libraries Today: Challenges and Opportunities

Speaker: Dr Wendy Simmons, Information Resource Officer, US Embassy, Thailand
Date: Wednesday 9 December 2009
Time: 10.00am – 12.00pm
Venue: Theatrette 2, Central Library, NUS Libraries

About the talk:

Technology, increased demands for accountability, and a changing student population over recent years have posed major challenges to academic libraries in the US.

This talk describes how American librarians have responded, by designing new physical structures and entering the social networking world, to reach out in new ways to students and continue in their role as the heart of their institution.

About the speaker:

Dr Wendy Simmons is the Information Resource Office for the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.

She provides professional guidance and assistance to the Information Resource Centers and American Corners in US embassies in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam, as well as in Thailand.

Prior to joining USIA, she lived for eight years overseas, and worked in academic, government and non-profit libraries and archives, in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.

LAS Professional Development Scheme (PDS):

Participant can earn 46 points under Industry Knowledge Development – Participate in library related talks, forums, discussion sessions and business meetings organized by LAS or other libraries (category ID1)

Source of information: email dated 30 Nov 2009 from lassec@las.org.sg

Finding the Best of the Internet

The Programmes & Social Committee, LAS have the following talk for LAS members:

Topic: "Finding the Best of the Internet"
Speaker: Dr Wendy Simmons, Information Resource Officer, US Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand
Date: Wednesday 9 December 2009
Time: 3.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: Theatrette 2, Central Library, NUS Libraries

About the talk

This presentation is intended for librarians and information seekers who want better results from their web searching. It offers a guide for searchers to develop a strategy to find quality information online and then using it in appropriately. Basic reference tools, Internet searching, advanced use of Google, citation builders and copyright issues are discussed.

About the speaker

Dr Wendy Simmons is the Information Resource Office for the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. She provides professional guidance and assistance to the Information Resource Centers and American Corners in US embassies in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore and Viet Nam, as well as in Thailand.

Prior to joining USIA, she lived for eight years overseas, and worked in academic, government and non-profit libraries and archives, in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.

LAS Professional Development Scheme (PDS):

Participant can earn 46 points under Industry Knowledge Development – Participate in library related talks, forums, discussion sessions and business meetings organized by LAS or other libraries (category ID1)

The Concept of Property in Virtual Worlds and Online Spaces

As I subscribe to Singapore Law Watch Daily Update, I was alerted to the following seminar and just attended it this afternoon.

Seminar on "The Concept of Property in Virtual Worlds and Online Spaces"

Date: Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Time: 12.15 p.m. - 1.30 p.m.

Venue: Conference Room, Level 1

Oei Tiong Ham Building
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259772


SYNOPSIS

The rise of virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games has brought with it an understanding of how people treat property in online spaces.

This, coupled with the rise of social media games, has seen the emergence of a billion dollar market for assets that don't exist.

This presentation maps out what we know about virtual property, and present some theories about what this means for the nature of online markets, intellectual property systems in Asia and the rest of the world, and the way that humans will live in a computer-mediated future.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dan Hunter is an expert in internet law, intellectual property, and artificial intelligence & cognitive science models of law. He holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University on the nature of legal reasoning, as well as computer science and law degrees from Monash University (Australia) and a Master in Laws from the University of Melbourne.

Before joining New York Law School, he held a chair in law at the University of Melbourne, was a tenured professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and taught on the law faculty at Cambridge University...

Source of the above information:

http://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/legal/ln2/rss/legaledu/64949.pdf?utm_source=email%20subscription&utm_medium=email&title=The%20Concept%20of%20Property%20in%20Virtual%20Worlds%20and%20Online%20Space%2C%20NUS%2C%208%20Dec&notShowClose=y

I find the topic relevant to information and library world, yet I am the only Library Professional at the seminar.

I learnt about the orginal of private property law:

* Ownership of property is not just about control and security for individaul, but is also for better management of property for the country and society.

* If property are all common property, everyone will exploit it without caring for it.

* Private property is the transfer of right: common right to private right

* All ownership come with responsibility, and private property owner have the responsiblilty to take care of what is being possessed.

If we look at virtual property (all the objects/elements in Second life, World War Craft or Games in Facebook etc...) as a record in database, or an entry in the computer, it is created by someone, and maybe common or private in ownership depending of the intention of the creator.

In the library world, MARC record is created by cataloguer and have the same nature. Some are free for downloading, yet some are owned by database vendors.

I find it enlightening to look at the database vendor from this perspective. It is the ownership that make records accessible. It is the care of the record owner that create systematic and searchable field that increase the accessibility.

With that mindset, I search on the net and find some good read on "Property", here are two that I would like to recommend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/11/property-ownership/