Staying awake difficult for workers

clipped from www.cnn.com Asleep on the job Speaking of nodding off, turns out American's aren't so good at keeping their eyes open in the workplace. A whopping 50 percent of those surveyed say they've caught someone sleeping at work, not to mention the 28 percent who admit they've fallen asleep at work themselves. Little-known-fact: Auto mechanics (65 percent) have the highest rate of self-admitted snoozing on the job, followed by 51 percent of government workers. Having trouble staying awake? Follow these pointers from "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Work," by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht, on how to cover if you're caught sleeping at your desk. Blame work. Say, "I'm so exhausted; I was here until midnight last night!" Do not attempt this if your boss works late and you do not.

The Most Innovative Ways to Nap

My favorite activity synergized with funky furniture and gadgetry!

clipped from www.fastcompany.com With increasing awareness about the health benefits of sleep, napping is becoming both more popular and more acceptable -- not just on college campuses. The opportunity to cater to this trend has caught the attention of entrepreneurs, and in recent years, there has been a slew of new products and services that facilitate napping. Here are some of the most interesting ways to catch a few reinvigorating minutes of rest when you can’t just jump into bed.

One of the technologies, is a iTunes-like music streamer that uses an algorithm to combine music, words and rhythms.

pzizz is a mac and windows software application that generates random soundtracks which help you regain your energy. pzizz currently sports two modules: energizer and sleep. The service uses Neuro Linguistic Programming to achieve optimal brainwave action.

Neuro Linguistic Programming is defined as the influence of language patterns on the brain. It shows us how language patterns program our minds and form our views.

NLP is a system in which the brain is viewed as a computer that can be reprogrammed to think and feel in a way that helps people achieve specific goals.

The New Psychology of Leadership

clipped from www.sciam.com In recent years, however, a new picture of leadership has emerged, one that better accounts for leadership performance. In this alternative view, effective leaders must work to understand the values and opinions of their followers—rather than assuming absolute authority—to enable a productive dialogue with followers about what the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act. By leadership, we mean the ability to shape what followers actually want to do, not the act of enforcing compliance using rewards and punishments.

Food vs. Service: Shift Labor Forces

See slideshow: "Life in Nanning"

clipped from news.yahoo.com For the first time in human history, more people are laboring in service trades than in food production, according to data gathered by the International Labor Organization (ILO), an agency affiliated with the United Nations. As recently as 1996, agriculture accounted for 42 percent of world employment, with another 21 percent of workers in goods-producing industries and 37 percent in services. By last year, the ILO says in a report released over the weekend, 42 percent were in services, 37 percent in agriculture, and 22 percent in industry.

FastCompany: Design Thinking... What is That?

by Mark Dziersk

The methodology commonly referred to as design thinking is a proven and repeatable problem-solving protocol that any business or profession can employ to achieve extraordinary results.

Although Design is most often used to describe an object or end result, Design in its most effective form is a process, an action, a verb not a noun. A protocol for solving problems and discovering new opportunities. Techniques and tools differ and their effectiveness are arguable but the core of the process stays the same. It's taken years of slogging through Design = high style to bring us full circle to the simple truth about design thinking. That it is a most powerful tool and when used effectively, can be the foundation for driving a brand or business forward.

Basically Design thinking consists of four key elements:

1: Define the problem
2: Create and consider many options
3: Refine selected directions
4: Pick the winner, execute

Read full article>>

Tiny Showcase Art Prints

From Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools:

Keeping tabs on the art world is tough and time-consuming. Being a collector is tougher -- and downright expensive. This site does all the work for you and allows you to amass your own hip, limited edition prints for cheap. Sign up for the newsletter and once a week you'll receive a heads up about the artist whose work will be available later that day for $20 a pop. They usually make only 100-200 prints and it's first come, first serve. The first piece I bought on a lark sold out in less than 15 minutes! I discovered the site nine months ago when a friend gave me a gift certificate.
Although I've already spent my gifted wad, I still check the newsletter religiously, almost obsessively. Stumbling on amazing art(ists) is wonderful. Decorating our home with little, unique prints is very satisfying. And part of every purchase is donated to a charity chosen by the artist, too. -- Steven Leckart

Tiny Showcase
$20/print
Available at TinyShowcase.com
http://tinyshowcase.com/

Radio Lab: Emergence

A great audio exploration of organization from chaos, order from the accidental: ants, cities, fireflies and life itself.

clipped from www.wnyc.org What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. How? We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains. Featured: author Steven Johnson, fire-flyologists John and Elizabeth Buck, biologist E.O. Wilson, Ant expert Debra Gordon, mathematician Steve Strogatz, economist James Surowiecki, and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch.

U-S-A NUMBER ONE! (In guns.)

clipped from www.reuters.com GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said. "There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said. On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, Iraq with 39 and Serbia with 38.

Iron Attitude

A good friend just completed, at age 47, his third Iron Man competition (way to go Ed!).

However, the NYC-based Hipster Olympics seems much more arduous and, well, uh, hip.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Godbey Works: Big Idea Part Deux

Mack Miles is a guest blogger for godbeyworks.com. He describes his column and himself:

My column Look and Feel is just that. Stories about how things look and feel — usually with a business twist. I rant, I rave, I give advice and most importantly, I look at things and react to them. After spending thirty years in the field of the visual arts I have assumed this as my calling. It's what I get hired to do. I love it and am very passionate about it.

clipped from www.godbeyworks.com This article is going to be an update to the August 2006 article BIG IDEA. Since preparing that story I have run across several more examples of big ideas, but these have a twist. They are all very heavy on the big idea and light on the budget (although as you will see, some do spend money). They feature the product (or their talent) in a clever way - presenting the use - theatrically, stressing the advantage creatively or coupling the product with something from everyday life in such a way as to make it stand out, endear you to it and promote it. These last few are a different approach and as I found, the web offers up a multitude of examples of very creative ideas on small budgets. Just do a Google search for that! One woman used the top of her refrigerator http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com like a dry erase board to create a website promoting her book. It is very creative, has a surprise, makes you laugh and I wanted to read every page.