thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

The parliamentary elections in NZ last year will be remembered for having the lowest voter turnout since 1887

At the time a lot of commentators opined that this was the result of Labour Party voters staying away in droves because they knew they couldn’t beat John Key & the Nats.

“A total of 3,070,847 people were registered to vote in the election, with over 2.2 million votes cast and a turnout of 74.21%^[4] – the lowest turnout since 1887.^[5] The incumbent National Party, led by John Key, gained the plurality with 47.3% of the party vote and 59 seats, two seats short of holding a majority.”

Except that low voter turnout and “too close to call” elections are also happening in the UK, Australia and other places. Political parties now are so au fait with focus groups and polling that they have swapped a genuine passion for change and inclusive public policy thinking for facsimile results and so end up holding cardboard elections.

Many voters see through the card board characters and have lost faith in the voting process.

Somehow PM John Key has interpreted this as a big win* and is now proceeding on an idealogical path of asset stripping and other exploitation of natural resources.

Have a look at Partial privatisation numbers ‘don’t add up’

“Sustento director and economist Raf Manji said. It was admirable for the Government to lower debt, but the numbers around selling stakes in energy firms to do so did not add up, he said.

New Zealand debt servicing was at record lows and the energy firms were trading well, returning between 5 and 11 per cent, he said. It looked like the nation was heading into a prolonged period of low interest rates, he said.

“It’s never been so cheap for the Government to borrow money and the demand for Kiwi debt has never been higher. If the New Zealand Government was a business, there would be absolutely no reason why it would be selling.”

Diluting the public’s hold on the firms would risk lower investment in power generation infrastructure and higher prices, he said. No more important public good existed than energy, as it was essential to people and businesses, so it was dangerous to raise the firm’s focus on profits.”

Rafs Sustento website is over here and he is on twitter here @rafmanji

One Big Voice would be very useful in helping to change the governments mind about those asset sales. I’m old enough to remember Capital Markets and the BNZ fiasco / bailout.

Shortly after that the heroes scurried off to Switzerland to roll around in the cash they got from the NZ government. It is another story for another day but please excuse me when I say John Key is a former money market trader and a leopard does not changes its spots.

“1989: Government reduces its share to 51% by selling 34%; with 30% sold to Capital Markets Ltd, and the remainder to the general public”

It is time to make politicians accountable.

What to do about this?

A local Grey Lynn based project is helping to make it easier to to make your elected representative more transparent, accountable and responsive to you, the people that put them in power. It is called One Big Voice and it represents a new way for citizens to show politicians what we really care about.

“Have you ever felt you weren’t being listened to?

Governments have vast economic and political resources which means they set the agenda. The average citizen on the other hand has one vote, no real voice and few other ways to exert any influence over what goes on in the world. In short, if you don’t have the means to make yourself heard your needs are often overlooked or ignored altogether.

That just doesn’t seem fair to us so we’re on a mission to help place the power to shape the world back into the hands of the people. Yep, we know it’s a ridiculously grandiose ambition but we really want to help make the world a better place to be for everyone.

To get the ball rolling we’ve chosen to focus on improving the quality of communication between voters and their elected representatives.”

or you can watch the video below.

The team says

“We’ve researched our idea, figured out how to make it work and finally we’re at the stage where it’s ready to build. So far we’ve donated our time for free, that’s what you do with love projects, but to develop it further and start coding in earnest we need financial support.”

Pop on over the One Big Voice page on indiegogo and login with your Facebook id to get involved.

You can find OBV on twitter at  @oneBIGvoice or on http://www.facebook.com/oneBIGvoice

P.S Your question is- OBV looks just like Standup which is another excellent changemakers project They also would love your support as they need to find a new name for Standup.

“we believe we can come up with an even more descriptive and unique name for our organisation using ‘the power of the crowd’ Feeling creative? Suggest some other names for us>>> Help us choose a cool new name ”

What if David Attenborough could sing? How about Stephen Hawking? Brian Cox? Well thanks to John Boswell at Symphony of Science they can and the results are surprising, delightful, educational and musically inventive.

When my daughter was younger we watched hours of Attenborough to the point that she talked about David as if he were a member of the family. We replaced TV time with documentary time instead and we still watch plenty of docus today from TED and other sources.

Of course it would be just wrong not to watch Big Band Theory but we have the DVD’s right next to our Flight of the Conchords DVDs because they are very much mockumentaries in our world.

As brain researchers uncover more about the brain and learning we discover from Donald Ford in an article called How the Brain Learns”

“What does this neuroscience research suggest about learning?

We need to ensure that learning engages all the senses and taps the emotional side of the brain, through methods like humor, storytelling, group activities and games. Emphasis on the rational and logical alone does not produce powerful memories.

A third recent discovery at the University of Michigan’s Biopsychology Program confirmed that the brain behaves selectively about how it processes experiences that enter through our five senses. The brain is programmed to pay special attention to any experience that is novel or unusual. It does this by making comparisons between the new information brought through the senses and existing information stored in our brain’s long-term memory. When the brain finds a match, it will quickly eliminate the new memory as redundant.

When new information contradicts what’s already stored in memory, however, our brains go into overdrive, working hard to explain the discrepancy. If the new information proves useful to us, it becomes a permanent memory that can be retrieved later. If this new information does not seem useful or if we do not trust its source, we are likely to forget it or even reject it altogether, preferring to stick with the information we already possess.

Since learning inherently requires acquisition of new information, our brains’ propensity to focus on the novel and forget the redundant makes it a natural learning ally.

In fact, our brains are hard wired to learn, from the moment we are born. Our native curiosity is driven by our brain’s inherent search for the unusual in our environment. “

Ok lets skip to the video now – so here you are…

“[David Attenborough]
All life is related
And it enables us to construct with confidence
The complex tree that represents the history of life

Our planet, the Earth, is as far as we know
Unique in the universe; it contains life
Here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers
That we still have not even named all the different species

Darwin’s great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world
We now understand why there are so many different species”

And so it goes.

We also like Physics so here is one called “The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)” Just so you can say you’ve seen Stephen Hawking sing. By the way almost no one read that book of his but it was the Harry Potter of it’s day and they did make a movie of it called “A Brief History of Time”.

Want to see Brian Cox & Morgan Freeman sing about “atoms and subatomic particles, the jiggly things that make up everything we see”. Try “Symphony of Science – the Quantum World!”

What do you think NZ teachers, musicians, educators and other creatives – should we be mashing up the curriculum into musical brain sized memes ?

Do check out the other Symphony of Science clips as well.

“The goal of the project is to bring scientific knowledge and philosophy to the public, in a novel way, through the medium of music. Science and music are two passions of mine that I aim to combine, in a way that is intended to bring a meaningful message to listeners, while simultaneously providing an enjoyable musical experience.”

Onward to the Edge! + Yoda – Feel the Force (Yoda Remixed)

Enjoy learning and “love the questions themsleves.”

Ever since Brian Sweeney and Remo Giuffre told me about TED back in the early 90′s or maybe before that (TED started in 1984) I have been a huge fan.

Brians 7×7 events in NZ were inspired by TED and they still resonate even though today we have TEDxSydney, TEDx Auckland, TEDxEQC Christchurch, TEDx Christchurch and other local TEDx events. (Disclaimer: I help out on the Auckland event)

My Architect is one of my favourite movies and that movie featured Richard Saul Wurman the TED founder - film makers documentary link here – Nathaniel Kahn.

For me the story of TED is very much like the story of My Architect.

It combines personal insights, amazing stories, incredible people and giant ideas – all things with the power to transform our lives and just like in “My Architect” we are taken on a journey through an amazing life as reflected by the buildings that Louis Kahn built and the people he knew.

People keep asking me to update my about page but really I work across a wide range of disciplines and projects and while I wear many hats my background job is always the same.

“In short I live to change everything for the better by thinking differently about ideas that matter for people I like. If your project excites me than I will move heaven & earth to get results you can’t pay for but they are the ones you really, really want. “ Go over to TED.com to see my full profile

Recently I completed organising the 4th WordCampNZ. Ostensibly it is focussed on WordPress and what a very fine bunch of WordPress users get up to but in my world if you have to explain a software interface it is not as good as it thinks it is.

WordPress back end usability is in my opinion the best out there but personally I’m far more interested in what the users (many subject matter specialists) are able to achieve as outcomes for their various causes and projects.

Besides architecture (& quite a few other subjects) I am very much still a musician at heart. I have a personal theory of music where   the universe is explored via music. Song-lines for navigation are very real for me. I love the way that music can take us to a different place and open us to new ideas and incredible serendipitous moments.

I love Daniel Levitins book “This is Your Brain on Music” and have written about that several times here. I also love Daniel Kahneman’s more recent book Thinking, fast and slow but I know that most of you won’t read the Kahneman book despite it deserving to be compulsory reading for all adults, all educators and anyone who is remotely curious at all.

I have watched hundreds of TED videos sometimes more than once. They are fun AND good for you. Civilisation as we know it is screwed – business as usual is over. Yet despite all of that of that I completely believe that we can still reinvent, remake, restore and rebuild and that starts with ideas and a willingness to change.

So where to start?

So what about if the first TED video you watched was the “remix version from 2012-Time for TED” see below.It has some great music and a few quotes. Wonder – insight, ideas. BTW – TEDx Sydney is on Saturday 28th of May. TEDx Auckland 2102 is coming in August  (watch this space.)

John Boswell, of the “Symphony of Science,” came to TED2012 and made this remix of the speakers onstage (and on TED.com). Symphony of Science is my new favourite website if you are a musician or an educator skip right on over there. I look after Science Media Centre and Sciblogs with about 60 bloggers but unfortunately none of them break into song or publish remixes.

Boswell has made a series of other clips that you might like. Here are some Q &A s with Boswell on how it was done.

“What software and tools did you use?

I am using Reason 6 to put together the music, then Adobe Premiere to edit the video. The song is done independently first, then the video editing once the song is finished.”

For the geeks out there – you know who you are – and of course I want to do this for some local events. Wouldn’t that be amazing. The future of music has long been video related but with crowd sourced (very selective) lyrics and great energy why wouldn’t you want one of these clips on high rotate at breakfast time.

Here is another one called ode to the brain – enjoy..

You may also enjoy the TED Blog Video channel over here

On a more sobering note – if you live in Auckland, New Zealand there is a documentary film called Finding Mercy that has a  Fundraiser Screening next Monday 14th May 7pm at the Bridgeway Theatre , Northcote Pt.

A heart-wrenching search for a childhood friend becomes a dramatic guided tour through Zimbabwe’s Mugabe era.

I worked on the website for this project a few weeks ago and I hope to be at the screening to hear from film makers Robyn Paterson and Leanne Pooley.