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Many, many people have experienced difficulty reading the content of an email or off certain websites. Well now there is a solution to this problem. A new software programme called Readpal can as my colleagues and product inventors suggest, allow you to "read with ease.
Highlight the text, press the readpal icon and the information will be
displayed to you in a format that is both easier and faster to read.
One of its inventors, Dr Louis Crowe gives us an insight into the creative process:
"Inventing is easy. We do it all the time ... when we need to. We're never short of excuses when we have to come up with them. Inventing products is not so different. Many feel they are inadequately qualified, "I'm not an engineer", etc. Being qualified in an area may even be a disadvantage. Almost by definition your mind is narrowed and more set. If you are a consumer you have a need. If something really frustrates you come up with an answer. Just try it. Be playful. Play the numbers game. Try and get ten solutions from ten angles. Most will be awful – but so what, one might hit the button. I find people also tend to give up quickly. If you think of nothing else for a day you will almost always come up with a potential solution to any problem."
The Slendertone Belt is another of Dr Louis Crowe's inventions. When you speak to him about his dreams and ideas, you know you are in the company of a brilliant mind.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:44 AM
Einstein on:
Life Strategy:
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning."
Intuition:
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
Success v Service:
"It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service. "
Positive failure:
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
Living in the now:
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:53 AM
Delighted to see that entrepreneurial activity is significantly up in the period 2004-2005, as reported by the recent Global Entrepreneurial Monitor.
The number of people starting and planning new businesses increased from 7.7% in 2004 to 9.8% in 2005. This percentage equates to almost 250,000 - one in ten people aged between 18 and 64.
Overall a 27% increase year on year.
Entrepreneurship is certainly alive and kicking in Ireland which continues to close the gap on its OECD partners in terms of entrepreneurial activity.
This upturn is likely to continue when one considers the current cultural context for entrepreneurship in Ireland
It has the highest rating in this regard out of twenty five countries, including the US, Australia, Canada and the UK.
69% thought that entrepreneurship was a good career choice.
79% believed that successful entrepreneurs were held in high regard.
83% commented there are often stories in the public media about successful entrepreneurs.
A final interesting statistic highlighted by the report was that eventhough there has been a huge increase in activity, the numbers citing fear of failure as the reason stopping them from starting up increased.
This statistic always catches my eye. I wonder how many toddlers would cite potential failure as an obstacle. Learning how to walk and talk, children know there is no such thing as failure only feedback. Indeed "failure " brings you closer to your goal. All potential entrepreneur need to bring their child like wisdom with them, into their new adventures.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:59 AM
"If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
Anonymous
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:54 AM
On many occassions around the world, course participants have suggested that my ability to attract teachers, circumstances and events to help achieve my dreams was down to the "Luck factor."
My response has always been unequivocal in this context - I live life by design, not by luck.
A few months back, I read a book by Richard Wiseman called coincidentally "The Luck Factor." A fascinating read and one for your library.
In the book, he highlights four strategies of "Lucky" people.
1. "Lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their life."
2. "Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings."
3. "Lucky people's expectations about the future help them fulfil their dreams and ambitions."
4. "Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune."
Can you MAKE YOURSELF LUCKY?
I think so!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:05 AM
Motivated by a desire to entertain man's closest friend, a Thai entrepreneur has launched an Internet radio station for dogs this week.
Anupan Boonchuen, director of a dog grooming school in Bangkok, said he launched Dog Radio Thailand on Wednesday because noticed that dogs seem happier when he plays music as he grooms them.
Often while Anupan's students practice grooming for the first time, they do not know how to handle the dogs. So during class, he said he plays music because it "puts the dogs in a good mood and they're more willing to let the groomers handle them."
The programming mainly consists of Thai pop music, but Anupan also plans to air programs in which the DJ will "talk to the dogs in Thai!"
"If we play a slow song, we may have the DJ howl ... because dogs howl, too, when they hear sad sounds," Anupan said.
An entrepreneur who thinks outside the kennel?
SORRY-SAD JOKE!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:38 AM
Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University, reports that just the anticipation of the "mirthful laughter" involved in watching your favorite funny movie has some very surprising and significant neuroendocrine/hormone effects.
According to Berk: "The blood drawn from experimental subjects just before they watched the video had 27% more beta-endorphins and 87% more human growth hormone, compared to blood from the control group, which didn't anticipate the watching of a humorous video. Between blood pulls, the control group stayed in a waiting room and could choose from a wide variety of magazines," he explained.
Berk said the results of this "anticipatory mirthful laughter experience, which is a kind of eustress or 'positive/good stress' event, builds on our earlier work and may constitute a real construct for what is the 'biology of hope.'" Earlier experiments showed that viewing a favorite funny video can offset symptoms of chronic stress, which can suppress various components of the immune responses, particularly those related to anti-viral and anti-tumor defenses.
"Mirthful laughter diminishes the secretion of cortisol and epinephrine, while enhancing immune reactivity. In addition, mirthful laughter boosts secretion of growth hormone, an enhancer of these same key immune responses. The physiological effects of a single one-hour session viewing a humorous video has appeared to last up to 12 to 24 hours in some individuals," Berk noted, " while other studies of daily 30-minute exposure produces profound and long-lasting changes in these measures.
This of course links in with Einstein's belief that imagination was more important than knowledge. Currently your mind doesn't know the difference between a real and imagined experience. This allows you to impring your desired reality with belief into your subconscious. In time this will help to manifest your dream in the "real world" or at minimum bring you to a better place.
Cultivate your imagination, dare to dream, anticipate the best, have a laugh and enjoy.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 02:50 PM
"I feel that Ireland's challenge is now to change that knowledge economy into an innovation economy. Knowledge will soon be available everywhere - I call it the googlisation of globalisation. It's not what you know anymore, it's how you use it. You have to be a pace setter."
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum
(As reported on the Irish Times.)
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 02:13 PM
How happy are you?
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 01:19 PM
"You've got to do something while you're hanging around waiting to die."
Barefoot Doctor
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:44 AM
A new report published by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Workplace Health Connect has highlighted increased anger and loss of humour amongst people in the workplace as two of the knock-on effects that businesses now have to deal with due to poor workplace health.
The "Quality of Working Life" survey questioned 1,541 managers in the UK Worryingly only fifty per cent of the interviewees believed they are currently in 'good' health.
43 per cent admitted to feeling or becoming angry with others too easily and nearly a third confessed to a loss of humour creating workplace pressures.
Physical aches and pains, frequent headaches, constant tiredness and insomnia were the order of the day for over fifty per cent of the sample.
Based on these statistics clearly levels of productivity and creativity will be seriously hampered.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:54 AM
A study published by Ulf Dimberg of the University of Uppsala, Finland has shown that our natural tendency is to mirror other human beings.
He discovered that when volunteers were asked to mirror certain facial expressions, the task was completed with effortless ease.
When on the other hand, the volunteers were asked to mismatch or provide the opposite expression to what they were seeing, for example, to frown when the other person was smiling, their muscles continued to try to produce a smile.
The ability to mirror, to walk in someone shoe's, a fantastic rapport tool; appears to be a natural ability, if we allow it to flow!
In a past entry, we discussed the existence of mirror neurons which tends to back up this new research.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 11:12 AM
Read with fascination the latest potential innovations within the medical field as highlighted on a recent Sunday Times:
Intelligent Clothes 2010 - Lifeshirts fitted with microsensors that beam vital stats back to your doctor. The hope is that these clothes of the future will be able to release drugs directly into the skin one day.
Anti- Cancer Breathalyser 2011 - Michigan University scientists are developing an otc kits that can detect breast cancer from molecules in your breath.
Drug Pushers 2014 - A capsule inserted underneath the skin monitors changes in the body's chemistry and releases the correct dose of the drug.
Amazing.
Meanwhile, two Chinese entrepreneurs are offering a very unique, but I believe marketable service - they will listen to you rant and rave or just talk for a minimum fee around $10.
Don't believe it is a runner?
For the next week or so, note how many times when you are speaking to someone about a certain subject , how they start talking about something totally different.
Listening is becoming a rare art and so people who truly engage in this powerful rapport tool will have many fans!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 11:38 AM
Two children, one an optimist, the other a pessimist, are set a challenge.
The first child is put into a room full of horse manure, the other into a room of toys.
After a while, the monitors checked in on their subjects.
The pessimistic child appeared quite sad - the interviewer enquired why this was the case:
"Sooner or later, all these toys are going to be broken and I will have nothing with which to play," he said.
Surprisingly the other child appeared very upbeat as he tossed the manure around the room.
Again the interviewer investigated the cause of the child's upbeat humour.
"With all this horse manure around, there has got to be a horse somewhere," he said!
A good friend of mine who is definately of the "glass half full " brigade was recently moaning about his lack of work. After acquiring another business some time later , he was at it again. Now, he was moaning about his lack of time off! Now he is looking at the possibility of recruiting some help for his busy season.
Prediction: Within a few days he will be moaning about how much they cost!
As I write this blog, the following poster has caught my attention:
Always set the trail, never follow the path.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 02:07 PM