Monday Morning Mojo

There are many ways to get people involved besides coercion, putting someone in a tight spot, or otherwise using negative reinforcement. The most powerful kind of participation is that which generates enthusiasm and spreads of its own accord. At the core, with or without a mandate, voluntary involvement is necessary for the very best results. […]

What does it mean when a world-class university that is a globally recognized leader in innovation chooses a director who has not completed his college degree? It means true leadership exceeds academic rank, plain and simple. The MIT Media Lab has taken the bold move, announced today, to appoint Joichi Ito as its fourth director.

How do ideas spread rapidly? When people pick them up and run with them. What is the vehicle? Conversation. But, these days we have to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our idea of what a conversation is… Conversations are the informal exchange of ideas using words. So, today they include facebook, linked in, blogs, tweets, and so on. That

Cross your fingers behind your back and you know what you have done even though you cannot see it with your eyes. That’s because of proprioception, the ability to tell where our body parts are and what they are doing through the body’s internal feedback via muscles, joints, and tendons. It’s a physical phenomenon, but

Look in the rearview mirror and what do you see? Where you’ve been! Easy enough, but most people don’t realize this is what they’re seeing when they look at data or listen to experience. While certainly valuable, they are not an indicator of what is possible… simply what has been. Yet, when it comes to

Much has been written about the shadow side of our personalities, the part of ourselves we repress for whatever reason. Perhaps we pushed it down because we judged it to be insufficient, weak, or inappropriate. Whatever the cause, we tamp it down and cultivate other aspects of our personality. The result is that there are

Many people see large-scale change as the execution of a well-formed idea, a clear set of objectives that are carried out through a project. However, change is not that easy. A project plan is required, but that is only the road map and the map is not the territory. To drive change successfully you need

Friday, March 11, the largest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history wreaked devastation, registering 8.9 on the Richter scale and hitting the coast of the northern part of the country. Enormous tsunami waves wiped away entire coastal towns and caused havoc among nuclear plants which continues to this day including explosions, and dangerously high amounts of

From elementary through high school there are just about as many girls as boys taking the math and science courses that could prepare them for college, but women are much less likely than men to declare a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) major in college. Further, women’s representation in the workforce is also skewed,

John Tyndall, the Irish physicist, had a particular genius for making sound visible using mechanical means. He read poetry to observe the distinct flickering of flames in response to the vowels he uttered. He noted the effects of sound on water jets and shallow sand. And he reflected light from tuning forks onto moving paper