Achieving Childhood Dreams

[illustration above by: Vered Ronen]

If you haven’t seen Dr. Randy Pausch’s last lecture on “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” then I strongly suggest you watch it. It is moving and inspiring. He passed away today from cancer but leaves an honorable legacy behind him.

Cognitive Surplus

My Mother, a clinical psychologist, is making a strong case to put my entrepreneurial passions to work educating our next generation of kids. Her fear is that many children are mentally rotting away behind TV screens as they become alienated from society. And so she is advocating to utilize technology as a means of fostering the creativity and curiosity of children while providing a fun experience. It’s a great pitch and one that I have been exploring.

There is a positive transformation with the Internet already in the works that I believe will alleviate some of the problems my Mother is witnessing. Clay Shirky says it best with his theory of “Cognitive Surplus” but I will try to paraphrase. Media in the 20^th century was based on consumption. We passively laid back on our couches and watched TV during our spare time. The Internet has made a media paradigm shift. We are now actively leaning forward producing and sharing content. These two new dimensions (producing and sharing) have been added to our traditional dose of media consumption. This is a non trivial shift that is enabling our next generation to be far more proactive with their spare time than we were with ours.

We are just starting to experience a new wave of Internet initiatives that are filling our cognitive surplus (Wikipedia, Facebook, Rock Band). I agree with my Mother that we need to do a better job educating our kids. I also believe that this new generation is lucky to be growing into an environment of self media production and sharing that will stretch their creativity and curiosity far beyond the radio and TV that shadowed both my Mother and my childhoods. With our without me, we will see the formation of new educational tools for kids that result in magnified abilities of self expression, and growth.

[See Clay Shirky's presentation below (part 1 and 2) on Cognitive Surplus]

Question Reality

I have spent the last few weeks looking into alternative energy (also see post “World of Constraints“). I am invigorated by the amazing minds thinking about dramatically different and cleaner ways to solve our basic needs. Below are two very different short clips (2 and 6 minutes) that will rock your world. Enjoy.

[big thanks to Ari for sending this first clip. I suggest you watch it twice for full effect.]

What do you do?

I am thinking about printing the above business card. It might save me a lot of time answering the following question which I get at least four times a week;

“so, what are you doing now?”

Most people do not understand how I could leave an amazing job without having my next step completely planned out. What does one do in order to come up with an idea worth building a company around? There is no formula I know of nor do I know how long it will take. I just have the confidence that I have done it before and will do it again.

I spend most of my time learning about completely new areas and meeting interesting people. My laboratory takes on different environments from: walking in the park or on the beach, having coffee with a colleague, reading, surfing the Internet, interviewing folks, and attending conferences. I can’t really point to one activity that makes me most productive during this phase. But if you are able to put the fear of failure aside, then this phase of entrepreneurship is one of the most enjoyable.

So don’t be surprised if next time you ask me what I do, I respond with a business card that says goodLife.com.