Before I forget, let me tell you about Remember The Milk.  It’s an online to-do list which I’ve been meaning to try out.  Remind me to let you know how useful I find it. 

There’s no use crying over the fact that I’ve not had time to find a decent virtual assistant this month.  One which comes highly recommended is the cryptically-named Online Personal Assistant, founded by Ed Dowding, who also comes highly praised.  If you beat me to sampling its wares, please do let me know how you get on, and I’ll do the same.  Perhaps someone should set up a temping service which specialises in finding PAs for people too busy to find PAs. (“If no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, PA Team”)

I’ve just remembered where I heard about Remember The Milk.  It was on marvellous Whitehall Webby, Jeremy Gould’s Twitter, and on Charlie Hoult’s excellent blog.   Twitter and blogs are good for things like that.  It’s like overhearing something which you can either choose to ignore, or let your curiosity get the better of you, and explore.  If you follow smart people, it’s a bit like meandering down a river bank peering into people’s nets, after a long day’s fishing.  Or talking to an interesting, metal-detecting wanderer on a beach, just as the sun’s going down.  Now where was I?

Talking about following people, I’ve been noticing how different people cross the road.  Some concentrate on waiting for the cars to slow down.  Some wait for the green man to tell them they can go.  Some wait for their fellow pedestrians to start moving.  There’s a final lot who interest me. You see, a select number turn a blind eye to the green man flashing.  Instead, they look for the red traffic light, which tells the cars to stop, then glance left before crossing.  This is what a trend-spotter would do.  The time saved may be seconds, but they’re over the other side faster than everyone else.

 

 

“Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.” Friedrich Nietzsche

It amazes me how many people and organisations who should know about each other, don’t.  Here are are ten good ones from this week’s inbox;

Open Gym is a great way to get fit in the great outdoors. It’s run by one of my all time favourite conspirators, Jo Hill, who was with the Make Your Mark campaign until recently.  Do you know anyone in Regents Park, Finsbury Park, Alexandra Palace, Telegraph Hill (New Cross) or Hilly Fields (Brockley) who would like to get involved?

The Nomads is a network for international people on the move. Run by new mum Andrea Zur Strassen, their events are great fun.  Certainly worth sharing with friends or colleagues who who are new to London.

Some money-raising schemes can lack imagination.  The Shoreditch Grand Prix is not one of them.  Organised by the legendary Alberto Nardelli of Unltd, competitors will race around the area on children’s play equipment. Could you or someone you know pull together one of the 30 teams?

You could be a quiz-show contestant’s lifeline.  If you fancy a seat in the audience of Who Wants to Be A Millionnaire, then Lost In TV has just the ticket.

Chain Reaction will be a fantastic, 2 day event in November.  It’s inspired by the Council on Social Action which I sit on, and I encourage you to check out the site, which has just launched.

Another upcoming event which catches my eye is Handheld Learning 2008, sponsored by Channel 4, taking place on October 13th-14th. This year’s conference will “explore the convergence between consumer electronics, entertainment software, educational technology and learning”.

The 2008 StartUp Awards are on their way, and the deadline for entries has just been extended until July 25th.  The annual event is well worth attending and this year’s should be no exception.

Miller’s Academy has some tempting speakers coming up, including General Sir Mike Jackson and Felix Dennis.   Iwas a founding member and wish I’d been along more often. The Academy’s aim is “to create an inspiring, informative yet relaxed environment where lecturers, members and their guests can enjoy a learning and social experience around a series of lectures and courses drawn from all areas of the arts and science”.

Wis.dm, the online community which I’m a small shareholder in has launched a host of new features which are well worth checking out.

Finally, Suzanne Aaronson of the excellent Suzanne’s Files has moved her first class ‘in-the-know insight’ over to Spire.com.  Share this with the person in your life who enjoys the finer things.

“Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.” Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Barack Obama is following me on Twitter. By coincidence, I’m also following him.  Technically we’re following each other.  Which, as anyone who’s been lost in the woods knows, is bound to lead to trouble.  Except that he’s one of 100 people following me, and I’m one of 46 thousand following him, so if he gets lost there really will be trouble. 

Senator Obama is in London this week and if there’s one question ‘close to home’ which I hope he’ll have time to ponder, it’s how to solve Brtiain’s most serious social problems.  As leading American psychologists are parachuted in on a weekly basis to share their latest thinking, I’ve spotted a gap in the ‘solutions’ market.

People want answers, and fast.  Solutions, on demand.  The trouble is that one politican’s swift solution is another’s quick fix. Come to think of it,  that ‘Fast Acting Remedy’ i’ve just bought in Boots may be nothing more than Tixylix-flavoured gimmickry.  No, anything that works too quickly must, it seems, be flimsy and weak.  And so the cry goes out – for Long Terms Solutions.  That’s the ticket, a humdinger of an idea which will sort out the root cause once and for all.  But there’s a catch.  Your ‘Long Term’ is almost certainly their ‘Too Far Off’.  We haven’t got years to wait for this all to kick in you know!  We need results, fast.  But not that fast. 

Which is where my Big Idea comes in.  There is only one answer to the dilemma I have described; 

The Medium Term Solution (MTS). 

You heard it hear first, reader.  Too well-thought-through to be dismissed as a ‘gimmick’, yet tangible enough to show results within months rather than years. 

I’ll be raising this ground-breaking idea at the IPPR this week at an audience with Richard Thaler, author of ‘most-wanted’, Nudge.  I bought it this morning.  Of course I did.  It’s an STS (Short Term Solution) you see. Buy the most buzzed business book of the moment and feel instantly smarter and more tuned into the world.    An MTS would be to organise four book-club-style events over the coming year which discussed the book in a meaningful way and looked for ways to implement its ideas in the guests’ daily lives.  Reading a WHOLE business book?  Acting on it?  Whatever next?  

As the school holidays approach, you may have spotted a piece in the Sunday Times this week which revealed that over half of the British Public back a nationwide 9pm curfew for 10-16 year olds.  The fact that the article hasn’t bothered to quote even one person who might think this to be an outrageous plan speaks volumes about the way in which young people are treated by the main stream media.  So what’s the alternative? “Where’s the MTS?”, I hear you shout. Well,  instead of punishing the majority of innocent young people, why not let the children roam free and experiment with locking their wayward parents indoors with a good book.  You never know, it might just work.

What we need is a fresh new way for Britain to identify, share, rate and replicate Stuff That Works.  The ideas are out there, in the hands of individuals and organisations around the country.  We can’t rely on the traditional media to share their stories so we’ve got to take action ourselves.  A Twitter stream of social action success.  Now who wouldn’t want to follow that?     

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin

Over the past year, 3 of my closest friends (Mike, Paddy and Toby) have left the UK, for Thailand, Pakistan and Singapore.  You might tell me that it’s time to get the hint.  Instead, I got Skype. In doing so, I was all too aware that most of the civilised world had made this leap already, and that, at least in Britain, we are a nation of Skypers?  Or are we?

Well, imagine my relief to discover that, here in the UK, only 12% of adults have used a Voice over IP service (like Skype) at home.  This compares, by the way, to 20%  of us who have used an online social network.  These stats are actually more interesting than they first appear, you know.  In total, 65% of us have the internet at home, although word reaches me that this compares to 77% of the Swedes.  But then it is VERY cold up there. 

Having established that 88% of us haven’t used VoIP yet, you have to wonder why, don’t you?  It’s not especially tricky, and it’s free for goodness sake.   

Listen to me.  6 minutes chatting to Thailand and I’m standing, catching my breath, looking back down the hill behind me shouting ‘come on you lot’ in a loud smug voice…

Sort-of-Seriously though, In the week when US presidential candidate John McCain mentioned that, unlike 246 million Americans, he doesn’t ‘yet’ go online personally, you have to ask, when it comes to easy-to-use and money-saving Skype, why hasn’t the bush telegraph spread the word quicker and farther?

Answers on an E-postcard.

 

“What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster?  Is it a monster?”

The Automatic

Today’s top five most-wished-for business books on Amazon’s UK site are;

Nudge (Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness)

The Black Swan (The impact of the highly improbable)

Predictably irrational (The hidden forces that shape our decisions)

The Shock Doctrine (The rise of disaster capitalism)

Flat Earth News (an award-winning reporter exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global news media)

“Dark and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their well-earned repose. The water’s own noises, too, were more apparent than by day, its gurglings and “cloops” more unexpected and near at hand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from an actual articulate voice.”
The Wind in the Willows
Ch. 7.