The Ceausescu Moment I know I've posted this video before, but I've been thinking of it a lot lately. Watching our MPs in the wake of the expenses scandal has been like watching a minor version of Ceausescu moments. ...

Elegance I really enjoyed Matthew May's Change This manifesto, Mind of the Innovator: Taming the Traps of Traditional Thinking. So I was immediately drawn to his latest, Creative Elegance, The Power of Incomplete Ideas. I highly recommend it as a pleasant...

Going Leroy This video really makes me laugh. The humour might be lost on non-players of Warcraft, I don't know. It shows a group of players on a raid. One of them, Leroy Jenkins, takes a snack break while the rest strategise...

Not so dark? Doug Rushkoff writes:First off, the Dark Ages were not dark. The Late Middle Ages, in particular, were extremely prosperous. Population and wealth went up, work hours went down. Height and health went up, death and taxes went down. This is...

Hobby Economy Rob Horning has an interesting article speculating that much of the benefits of the networked economy aren't going to show up in conventional economic statistics. This makes sense to me....gains in productivity derived from things like the internet aren’t showing...

Stand by me, global edition I loved this video: a globalised version of Stand by Me. Stand By Me from David Johnson on Vimeo. Originally from RedWire Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan...

Unstoppable force, have you met Immovable Object? I've met Matt Weinstein several times at Improv conferences and always found him hilarious, engaging and unrelentlingly enthusiastic about life. So what happens when someone this positive is cheated of his entire life savings by Bernie Madoff? I'll let Matt...

Everyone's a trainer Dave Snowden is blogging a KM conference - the posts are an entertaining mix of the speakers ideas with Dave's sceptical sidenotes. I enjoyed reading about Eva Lo, who is Knowledge Manager at the Langham Place Hotel. I was a...

Model fatigue I'm suffering from model fatigue. It comes from attending too many talks/presentations/lectures in which experts explain the flaws of a prevailing model (often quite well), only to present some shiny new model as an alternative. Which to my sceptical eyes...

Another take on the recession Andrew Sullivan's compilation of different readers' views of the recession continues. I'm an American in my early 20s, the ink on my Ivy League diploma not yet dry, plunging into my first job. I'm writing to say that I am...

More inequality I liked Simon Jenkins' article challenging the way the Government has handled the Baby P affair. If you totally screw up a bank, a Labour minister will grant you a pension of £700,000 for life. If you screw up a...

Inequality I was startled, and glad, to read that leading Tory thinker Dave Willetts thinks this:The evidence has become stronger and stronger that inequality matters. That gradual accretion of the data shows that it is where you are relative to other...

Casablanca Just rambling around Youtube tonight, I came upon this wonderful scene from Casablanca. Nothing is more terrifying to established power than courageous authenticity. A message for our times, I think....

Another view... Andrew Sullivan has a series of posts based on his readers' varying perspectives on the recession. This one resonated for me. Here's a snippet: Though I am still worried about providing for my child in this dismal economy, I am...

Thank god for satire A few weeks ago, some of us were wondering if Jon Stewart could maintain his success after his favourite comic target left office. It looks like we needn't have worried. Here's his hilarious smackdown of CNBC and its laughable coverage...