When you’re happy, you can start a happiness virus through your social network, according to a Harvard and UC San Diego study.
So update your Twitter and Facebook status with good things and spread the love!
No conclusive info about when you’re down, although I know that’s as good a people repellant as B.O.
Entries for the 11th Annual USA Songwriting Competition are currently being accepted. Winning songs of the 2006 USA Songwriting Competition will receive airplay on a nationally syndicated radio program "Acoustic Café" as well as XM Satellite Radio. Entrants vie for a top prize of $50,000 worth cash and cool music gear from Sony, Ibanez Guitars, Audio-Technica, Peavey, IK Multimedia and more, plus airplay to the winning songs. For more information go to: http://www.songwriting.net.
Yesterday I had a party where 25 people wore stickers listing 5 of their goals. As you can see from the pic, some were goofy, some serious. But all of them got people chatting away!
Now I want to order a bunch of these stickers for people to use at parties. Or convert "My name is" stickers into a version where you can connect based on your goals! (Lots of people didn’t know what they wanted to do and after browsing SuperViva, they came up with cool ideas.) In fact at the party I came up with some new fun ideas (a pie throwing contest and typing event) I just added to my life list.
Just some of the things that came out of the party:
Thrilling feedback:
"The "Life-Storm" theme was a
nice twist. It was really interesting talking to everyone about
their different goals - I do think the conversations were more
personal and revealing than they might have been at another type of
party! It seems we all have things we’d like to work on, and it
helps to write them down and focus on what we’d really like to do
and where we’d really like to go with our lives, short or long
term. I know that some of the conversations that were started last night
will be continuing as we try to support each other in reaching our
goals! I hope we do this again sometime! "
"For myself, my daughter and I just came home from our second service together in a
row and yesterday I found out my sisters’ awesome
Dance is starting a Capoeira class this summer. There’s 2 of my 5 goals revealed within the weekend!! With the Yosemite trip in July, I am confident that
I’ll complete my list. It’s exciting to see the
Universe manifest your desires but I’m always tickled
when it happens so quickly. I hope everyone else has as much fun as I did."
"I thought something for my 4th line, See the
Grand Canyon and/or Hawaii!"
The innovators at Squid Labs make me smile as I browse descriptions of their useful, mind-bending inventions. And then Howtoons came to my attention.
"Howtoons are cartoons showing kids of all ages "How To" build things.
Each illustrated episode is a stand-alone fun adventure accessible to
all. Our Howtoons are designed to encourage children to be active
participants in discovering the world through Play-that-Matters — fun,
creative, and inventive — and to rely a lot less on mass-consumable
entertainment."
I mean - like this Underwater Viewer - made out of a plastic soda bottle. Any kid, anywhere, of any income level can feel good with this toony project.
Thank you Squid Labs for coming into this world! I love their tag line "We’re not a think tank. we’re a do tank." If only more think taks operated with that philosophy.
Often we (or I) assume people are a "certain way" from the context in which you know them. Nothing floors me more, in a good way, than when my perceptions completely change. Recently I heard an inspirational Hurricane Katrina heroism story from someone I know which did just that. When the hurricane hit, Jono dropped everything and, along with a couple of friends, set out to save people’s lives from thousands of miles away through dedication and clever use of technology.
He told me: "It’s definitely the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life up
to this point (and the thing that came closest to driving me into the
mental ward, post traumatic stress, etc.)."
Here is the story as he tells it. May his creative thinking and heroism inspire you should the occasion arise:
"I’m an Internet Security Analyst from San Francisco. Usually I help
protect people’s computers from bad things on the Internet, never did I
think I would be using the computer and Internet to help protect people
themselves — but that’s exactly what happened during Katrina.
After the flood, myself and two other people began sending reports of people trapped to a chopper pilot in
the 920th Rescue Wing, US Air Force who was flying rescue missions in
New Orleans. We were collecting reports of people trapped from
relatives who were posting the information in various locations on the
Internet (NOLA.com, craigslist.org, etc.).
The relatives
would get calls or cellular text messages from people trapped in New
Orleans and begin attempting to contact the authorities. However,
because the phone lines and communications systems in New Orleans were
so overtaxed or destroyed it was often hard for them to get through.
Also, they were often located in states far away, didn’t know the local
TV stations, etc. so they sometimes wouldn’t know who to call at all.
This caused many of these relatives to post information about their
trapped family member to the Internet — hoping someone could do something.
We began
taking this information and relaying it — first by phone, then by FAX
to the pilot in the 920th. He would provide the reports to his team,
they would confirm the victims location by contacting the relatives
(sometimes we would do this as well, but we wanted to ensure we didn’t
interfere with the authorities or make the relative think they could
stop attempting to report the person trapped). If the chopper pilot had
confirmation the person was still trapped, they would contact the
common Command and Control dispatch, report the location to the
dispatch and fly on it. Carlos Gonzales (the pilot) has many stories of
the Rescue Wing pulling people out of attics which were not visible at
all and hadn’t been extracted by other SAR teams.
One of these people was Clothide Mack, who later was written about in this article:
Widow, 85, waited for rescue but prepared for death
Carlos has many other stories of rescues they conducted using the
information we provided them — in fact, he told me they used the
addresses and GPS coordinates we provided to rescue at least 70 people
from the flood — some in very bad condition.
During this time, I created a website to take
"notes", obtain GPS coordinates, and map the people we were relaying to them. You can see the map and website here.
During this whole experience, I slept about 6 hours in 96 hours and
spent a total of probably 10 days in crisis mode, it was a very
difficult experience — even just being in California and using the
computer to assist — unlike the guys down there actually pulling
people out.
Here are some screen shots of Clothilde plotted on that map (entered a couple hours before she got picked up by Carlos):
http://biggins.networkcommand.com/Clothilde-map.JPG
http://biggins.networkcommand.com/Clothilde-SAT-SHOT-KATRINA.JPG
Here’s a picture of her the day they pulled her out (carlos didn’t put
her in the chopper, but rather had the boat come to the chopper cause
she was in bad shape and not wanting to get winched into the chopper)"
