Alphachimp Gets Down in Dubai

Streets of Dubai from Alphachimp Studio on Vimeo.

Whilst on assignment in the United Arab Emirates, team members take an adventurous day trip to haggle for brand name knock-offs, peruse backstreet markets, and convince a taxi driver to make a speedy stop at the world's tallest building.

[view the same footage sans music here.]

The Elephant and the Rider

Nonprofit Management and Making Change: Chip Heath

Great podcast on how to switch behaviors when change is hard from Social Innovation Conversations.

Those in nonprofit management constantly adapt to move their organizations forward.

In this audio lecture sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Chip Heath, Stanford professor and coauthor of the book Switch, provides a framework for change.

He demonstrates in case studies that three principles are involved in successful change, whether it be on the personal or societal front:

1. Convince the driver.
2. Motivate the elephant.
3. Shape the path.

Leaders in nonprofit management are called to attune to these principles when tackling change situations.

And Heath calls out examples from cleaning coach Flylady to unlocking secrets to protect kids in Vietnam from malnutrition.

Messiest Home: What the Heck?

This is my wife's worst nightmare: specifically, that I will cram our home so full of live monkeys and tools that a make-over show will arrive with cameras and snarky professional organizers to mock us.

Host of Clean House: Search for the Messiest Home in the Country, Ms. Niecy, arrives with her crew at The Monkey House.

If it is any consolation, they only let the little one sleep in the bed.

The 100th Chimp at Tacugama

Tompey arrives in the late evening at Tacugama

Bala Amarasekaran abandoned his original career as an accountant to establish Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in 1995. Together with the Government of Sierra Leone, he is working to secure the welfare and future of chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. Sadly 100 – Tacugama: The 100th chimp was rescued two days ago! A tiny girl. Hardly 1 year old. Arrived dehydrated, weak, with deep scars under her neck and hips caused by the ropes cutting through the poor girl’s flesh….and I have seen those “helpless”, “all lost” eyes many times before! An employer of the Sierra Rutile mines felt sorry for the baby and had bought it from a hunter. The little girl was called “Tompey” Learn more and how to help >>

MONTHLY: Feed a chimp: $20.00/mo

ONE TIME DONATIONS:
Adopt a Chimp: Guardian ($149.00)
Adopt a Chimp: Sponsor ($79.00)
Tacugama 2010 Calendar ($20.00) 

NPR : RADIOLAB : ANIMAL MINDS

Credit: Photo by Kelly CarmodyWhat do animals think? Feel? Believe? Why do we care? Well, most of us do. We really do.

WNYC - Radiolab: Animal Minds (April 02, 2010):

ANIMAL MINDS When we gaze into the eyes of our beloved pets, can we ever really know what they might be thinking? Is it naive to assume they're experiencing something close to human emotions? Or, on the contrary, is it ridiculous to assume that they AREN'T feeling something like that? In this hour of Radiolab, we explore what science can say about what goes on in the minds of animals.

FastCompany: Where the Jobs Will Be in 2018

Infographic of the Day

As part of a series looking at employment trends for the coming decade, NPR has created an interactive chart summarizing their findings.

Steve 'Woz' Wozniak on the Future of Computing: It's Human

From Fast Company's blog: 

When Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak drops by the office for a visit, it's guaranteed to generate at least one video-worthy moment, like the one below. He was visiting to pitch Fusion-io, a company that's engineered a solid-state storage solution that could radically alter the server farm landscape. (We're currently testing a Fusion-io product, but it's been slow going since, oddly, the hardware isn't compatible with Mac.)

FastCompany : Society6 Is Etsy for the Artsy, Crowds Curate

What happens if you take away the curator and leave everything up to your customers?

Society6 aims to find out. Its goals are greater than simply selling high-quality prints. By creating an accessible social network, Society6 has produced a collaborative community of artists and art enthusiasts, where art can be bought, sold, promoted, and created.

"We've sort of taken ourselves out of the equation," said Justin Cooper, who founded the site along with Justin Wills and Lucas Tirigall. "You don't have to get by our personal taste to make your art available for sale. "

Purchased artwork is printed on demand, with Society6 setting a base price to cover production costs and a small profit for the company. The artist (anyone can join) then chooses the mark up and sale price of the piece--giving Society6 a wide range of price points--and when sold, they keep 100 percent of those profits.

NOTE: Check out Etsy art by Peter Durand (http://www.etsy.com/shop/durandgallery
) and Diane Durand (http://www.etsy.com/shop/thislittlefish
).

Studio 360 : "Hominid" reenacts violence of chimpanzee colony

SOURCE: www.topnews.in

Homo-Thespian: A new play, "Hominid," reenacts a violent incident that took place in a chimpanzee colony. Primate expert Frans de Waal and the play's actors describe what it took to stage a chimpanzee drama with a very human story.

Substituting for murderous, hairy apes is a chorus of bright and shiny affluent cultural elites in sparkling tennis whites.

The story, however, ends the same, with suicide, murder and the overthrown of a beloved leader!

Click to read more ...

Psychology Today: Everyday Chimp Creativity

Look what made the cover of America's #1 publication on general pychology!

The tattoo artists throughout Russia's prison system have never had lessons in painting technique (nor, apparently, hygiene training). They don't have ink and tools at their disposal. And yet they create entire murals on one another's chests and backs: onion-domed cathedrals, intricate cobwebs, chilly grim reapers. And they're not just beautiful decorations—they are coded biographies, telling those in the know their bearer's history and affiliations.

One would be hard-pressed to find a tougher environment than the jails where these artists work. Their ink is made from soot shaved off their shoes and mixed with urine. It's injected via guitar strings attached to electric shavers. The tattoos are a brutal mafia ritual. But they're also a mark of determined resourcefulness and self-expression.

When we think of creativity, we think of Mozart, Picasso, Einstein—people with a seemingly fated convergence of talent and opportunity. It's too narrow a set of references, because the truth is that all sorts of people, possessing various levels of intelligence and natural ability, are capable of engaging in fulfilling creative processes. Just because you'll never be Brando or Balanchine doesn't mean that you can't harness your idea-generating powers and make your life your own masterpiece.