Being the holiday season, the December newsletter contains links to stories on both faith and foolishness. Within them, many questions are raised...

How do you design a spacecraft to explore the rings of Saturn? How would it be possible to get every child in the world a laptop? How did an architect build a house that redefined water?

How do you take a job as the president of Afghanistan? What happens to the flock when a preacher stops believing in hell? If I send this gift basket, will clients love me and give me their business?

May this holiday season be a time to reflect upon what is important to you, to your family and to the world. May the New Year bring you the strength and courage to make your visions come true!

It takes courage to follow your own path. To quote Lou Reed: "It takes a busload of faith to get by."
SHOUT OUTS

• Jonathan F-P, South Africa
• Tony 7Digit
• J. Kelly
• Christine of VisualSpeak
• Betty at Alidade

ALPHACHIMP NEWS
Sita Magnusan wins some special prize for long-distant scribe jobs. Last spring, she scribed for Hamid Karzai in Kabul. This Fall, she traveled to Dehli from her home in Massachusetts to provide graphic facilitation to emerging tech companies.

MissingLink, our specially designed software for managing and archiving facilitated sessions, is now commercially available. We have been working on a series of on-line tutorials to explain how to take advantage of all the fabulous features we've crammed into this browser-based software: image uploading, keyword tags, password protection, calendar creation, breakout team management and videocasting.

THE CENTER FOR GRAPHIC FACILITATION
http://www.graphicfacilitation.com/

Delta 7 on BBC Two
On December 5, we conducted a survey our community of graphic recorders and facilitators how they explain the value of their service. Julian Burton of Delta 7 in London was fortunate enough to have the national news service explain the value for him. In this video segment broadcast on BBC 2, Julian's work is profiled and the reporter also interviews one of his clients, BAE Systems Regional Aircraft.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/12/delta_7_on_bbc_.html

The Business Side of Creativity
For excellent advice on the business of the business of creativity, there is no better place to turn than... CreativeBusiness.com! Cameron Foote is founder and editor and has forty years of industry experience including stints at small and large agencies, as creative director for a Fortune 500 firm, and running his own business.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/12/the_business_si.html

Flock: The Blogger's Browser
There have been a whole gaggle of new browsers nipping at Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari. Barely a year after Mozilla's Firefox began creeping into the mainstream, some of its developer broke off on a new browser project, Flock. This is the blogger's browser; it make the rapid integration of blog posts with photo integration extremely easy.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/11/flock_the_blogg.html

Premium Whiteboards and Tackboards
PolyVision's Premium whiteboards and tackboards are designed for today's office and work environments. All whiteboard writing surfaces feature PolyVision's new e3 environmental ceramicsteel™ surface, the first and only ecologically intelligent whiteboard surface to be Cradle to Cradle™ Silver certified.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/11/premium_whitebo.html


Buzan's iMindMap
Mindmapping software ain't the newest squid on the dock. Packages such as MindJet, Mind Manager and Inspiration have been around for years. New players like MindApp and OminGraffle (for Mac) are crowding the playing field. But here is a package from the Grandaddy of MindMapLand: Tony Buzan.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/11/buzans_imindmap.html

Be an Authentic Communicator
Most of us dread speaking in public because we think we have to be someone we're not. When we operate from our authentic selves we discover connections to our audience and ourselves, and we express ourselves effortlessly. When you can agree to each of the following 10 questions, then public speaking will become one of your greatest joys.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/12/above_neuland_w.html

Graphic Designer Cage Match
What a great idea! This is part poetry-slam, part Survivor, part designer cat-fight. Cut & Paste, held at Crobar in Chicago, eight digital designers went head-to-head to see who could come up with the most intriguing concepts under a tight deadline and in front of a rowdy audience. Representatives from Coudal, Threadless, No Pattern, Red Car and Leo Burnett served as judge and jury.
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2006/12/graphic_designe.html

COOL TOOLS

True Films 2.0
This is the second version of Kevin Kelly's review of the best documentaries and "factuals" available. This time he reviews 150 of the best true films and list two dozen others which he deems only "good." For each film Kevin presents 4 or 5 screen shots, and captions, snagged from the film to give you some idea of their texture.
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/12/kevin-kellys-true-films-20.html

No Gift Baskets, Please.
Last year, the NYC office of Z Plus Partners in DUMBO (located down under the Brooklyn Bridge) was inundated with holiday gift baskets. While they definitely enjoyed the treats, it got them thinking-- there is a lot of cost associated with sending these items -- money that could be more meaningfully spent. So they came up with a website for the holiday season that offers up some gift alternatives.
http://www.NoBasketsPlease.com

One Laptop Per Child
After the coming holiday season, the US will have ostensibly reached the point of one iPod per child. It may be time to focus on the goal of One Laptop per Child. The founder of OLPC is Nicholas Negroponte, a civil architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/11/one-laptop-per-child.html

MONKEY BUSINESS

Poodle... Sphinx... Milkshake, Yo!
The mid-term election is over. We're still in Iraq, the sun still shines and my daughter still loves Polly Pockets. So! Back to business. Monkey business, that is. Leah Silverman send us this link that makes as much sense as anything else going on in the media. From Zap2It...
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/11/poodle-sphinx-milkshake-yo.html

Sterling Spime and the Golden Rooster
In his 2002 book, Tomorrow Now, Bruce Sterling dedicates a rollicking chapter to the evolution of modern narco-terrorism that morphs as the connected economy meets the societal dissolution of former empires. Here is a dispatch from closer to home in the US. Of course, we still kick it Old School, Capone-style, along the Mexican-American border. But, come on! Killing cock-crowing crooners?
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/11/sterling-spime-and-golden-rooster.html

Epic 2014
In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline, the Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? Watch this for a glimpse of the devolution of the mediascape into the Google grid, in which everyone creates and consumes.
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/11/epic-2014.html

Saturn's Shadow
Carolyn Porco was 13 years old when she experienced her first ‘cosmic connection’. She was on a rooftop in the Bronx, of all the unlikely places, peering through a friend’s telescope when she caught her first glimpse of Saturn.



Today, Carolyn heads up Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS (CICLOPS) part of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The humbling and mysterious photos that her team is collecting of Saturn and his moons are redefining what we know about the universe.
http://www.alphachimp.com/clients/2006/11/saturns-shadow.html

PODCASTS

NPR's Great Gadgets
NPR's daily All Things Considered program has a small segment where gadget experts rave about their own favorites. Called "Great Gadgets" it lets various gadget aficionados rave about their favorite things. You can listen to those segments online.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6583778

Studio 360's American Icons: Fallingwater
In the year 2000, the American Institute of Architects asked its members to look back on the last 100 years and select the best American building of the 20th Century. They didn't pick a skyscraper, but chose an extraordinary house in the woods about 70 miles outside of Pittsburgh. The house is called Fallingwater and it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright said he wanted his client — department store owner Edgar Kaufman— to be as close to nature as possible.
http://www.studio360.org/americanicons/episodes/2006/08/25

On the Media: God No!
No longer content to silently disavow religion, the so-called New Atheists are on the offensive. Borrowing tactics from the faithful, nonbelievers have taken to proselytizing in books and in the media. And yes, they’re even in foxholes. Sam Harris is one of the most vocal spokesmen for the so-called New Atheists, along with Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. They wield logic like a bludgeon – so much so that even Comedy Central's South Park, a series that has savaged Scientology, Christian fundamentalism and the Mormons, got out the knifes.
http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2006/12/15/01

This American Life: Heretics
Carlton Pearson's church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the Reverend. He didn't have an affair. He didn't embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse ... he stopped believing in hell.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/05/304.html

Graphic Icon Milton Glaser
Throughout his 50-year career, the graphic designer Milton Glaser has broken ground with his ads, album covers, and magazine design work, but he's probably best-known for creating the iconic "I LOVE NY" logo. Glaser believes that design is about more than looking good—it should also do good. He talks with Kurt about his career and his new book The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics, which he co-authored with Mirko Ilic.
http://studio360.org/stream/ram.py?file=studio/studio121506e.mp3

• Milton Glaser's Website
• Short documentary film on Glaser
• Buy The Design of Dissent

Labels: faith, holidays

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