When I heard Bill Clinton’s 2007 TED presentation about health care systems, I thought he was seducing me. All the talk about equality, pricing, distribution, clean water, improved government services, sustainability. You can see what that would do to me.
Tag: video
The power of distribution: small-scale irrigation in Zimbabwe
MercyCorps works to build secure, productive, and just communities in some of the world’s toughest places like Somalia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Haiti. They recently shared a success story about small-scale irrigation in Zimbabwe that’s really a story about distribution.
Our social nature through trade, or when ideas have sex
This TED talk by Matt Ridley deftly summarizes the inherent power and benefit in our social nature and reinforces why we live in societies and perform public services for each other. I concede that his notion of ideas having sex seems odd and maybe needlessly provocative–until you hear his presentation. Then it makes total sense.Continue reading
Design, public space, and reclaiming suburbia
This 2007 talk by James Howard Kunstler on the awfulness of our public spaces, especially suburbia, confirmed the darker notions I’d thought or felt about U.S. public spaces. He graphically illustrates what happens when public entities like cities and counties design things and not systems.
Design, distribution, and education
I was prowling TED recently and came across Emily Pilloton’s talk about applying design to improve education in rural North Carolina. I liked her view of radically improving a public service like education through fresh application of design and distribution.
Park Avenue: A documentary of two cities
As Park Avenue stretches through Manhattan in New York City, it represents the wealthiest neighborhood in the U.S. Then, Park Avenue goes north across the Harlem River in the South Bronx, and enters the poorest Congressional district in the country. It’s hard to find a more convincing graphical, and geographically, depiction regarding the fairness debate in...Continue reading
The power of promotion: Radiators for Norway
Have you ever visited Norway? How much do you know about, or hear about, Norway? What if the only information you had about Norway was like that in this video–that people there were cold and needed help–how would that shape your perception of the country?
Fairness is Innate, Even for Capuchin Monkeys
Fairness is innate, emotional, a visceral reaction. We’ve all felt it. Your sister was the favorite child in the family. A person cuts in line in front of you. Your teammate on a project gets promoted over you. Sometimes we label our reaction as envy or jealousy, but we instinctively know when we’re being treated...Continue reading