POLYFEST 2013, Manukau – Samoan Group, St Paul’s College, Ponsonby, Auckland. Credit to Facebook S T Timoteo.
Pride beaming from their faces before they stepped onto the stage. One of them is my nephew, who, along with these fine young men, performed at Polyfest today. They’re representing St Paul’s Samoan Group and obviously they won. An all boys school, St Paul Samoan Group were the overall boys schools winner.
It’s incredible to think how far Polyfest has come since its early days. Nowadays it’s regarded as the largest Maori and Pasifika cultural festival in the world. Who would have imagined that back in its early days? This secondary schools cultural festival began in 1976 at Southside’s Hillary College after a 16-year-old Otara student named Michael Rollo came up with the idea. Staff, students and parents supported the idea and off they went. The aim of the Festival was to show pride in cultural identity, heritage and bring schools together to share this. What was the catalyst for his idea? Where is Michael Rollo now? That’s what I wonder when I consider that the Festival has been going for over 36 years.
Meanwhile, this post is my way of celebrating my nephew for giving his all and doing his part to make their group a winning one. He’s usually on the sports field and this was the first cultural group he’s ever joined to compete in Polyfest.
Young man, keep giving 110 percent, and then some, be it on stage, in classroom and on the sports field. I like it!
Two years ago, someone asked me to write down our Family Tree. Ignoring my spare writing-to-do list waiting to be done, and always a long queue past my kitchen door, I went on a long search for my enigmatic ancestors. I have interviewed and quizzed family and strangers galore on family history, so intensely and persistently, this year.
There’s still a few unanswered questions buzzing around in my head. Like, what did they look like in the 1800s and 1900s? What did they think about during their travels? Why did they go where they went? Is there any chance that I might have seen them in historical un-named photos?
When I face the ever-present reality of gaps in undocumented knowledge, I write down entire question lines that come to mind. Yes, I recommend buying yourself a large book that you can record all your notes, thoughts, and findings. I record every question, every line of enquiry, every possible scenario that comes to mind.
Those questions, and moreso the answers that come out of it, have helped sharpen lines of enquiries. I could call myself a scientist with my hypothesis. My questions have tested long-held assumptions about family information. It has helped me correct information especially when I come across primary source evidence.
At this very moment, there’s nothing more thrilling in this chase than finding reliable information that verify my Family Tree.
Interested in family history? Click on the above link and watch that episode of the American version of Who Do You Think You Are. It features Rosie O’Donnell, the US comedian, with family stories that just grabbed me. O’Donnell’s family history episode, unexpectedly, kept my eyes clued to the screen. I have a newfound respect for O’Donnell and her ancestors. It also has some useful tips on records to check (other than Census, birth and death records). Part 2 and 3 of this episode are on Youtube.
It’s a beautiful thing to come across data presented in the language of the eye. After attending #ProjectRevolution the last two days, I’ve noticed that even more. Presenting data visually, if you can, helps an audience to see patterns, relationships and their impact. It compresses loads of data into an easily digestible form, most of the time.
New York Times graphic. Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data. Edward Segel, Jeffrey Heer. IEEE Trans. Visualization & Comp. Graphics (Proc. InfoVis), 2010 PDF (1.4 MB)
There are plenty of data visualisation experts to learn from. Take a look at the Stanford Visualisation Group from which the New York Times graphic was plucked. If you prefer to watch video, David McCandless, a data journalist, has a TED Talk on the beauty of data and how to present it in more engaging ways.
For example, look at your Facebook feed and the unsolicited data set of information coming through as people update their statuses. That’s data. Scary huh? In the TED talk, McCandless shows a graph computed from more than 10,000 Facebook status updates that identify trends each year when people tend to post about breaking up. And you thought your Facebook updates could never be scientifically analysed? He does far more than analyse your social media conversations.
So without further ado, here’s the TED talk with David McCandless. Visual data really is a beautiful thing!
David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.
He draws beautiful conclusions from complex datasets — thus revealing unexpected insights into our world
This exciting topic on data takes me back, years ago, to an infant mental health conference I attended at the University of Sydney. A clinical psychologist was asked how she was able to convince authorities to fund a programme for traumatised and abused children. Her answer was very simple and I learned a lot from what she said.
“I had the data”, she said. That was good enough for them.
By the way, I am still working on my series of posts on my learnings from the digital technology conference. Will post my first one soon… sorry, I’m still on my social media hiatus. Back before Christmas.
CALMNESS of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought. …Yes, humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him
Written by James Allen (1864 – 1912) in his 1902 book As a Man Thinketh
Fantastic news on the TED blog. I have a life long interest in learning and education and this looks like the big beginnings of an education revolution… Coursera.org
It would cost you a minimum of $37,000 to enroll for a year at one of the top 10 schools in the United States, according to the U.S. News & World Report. However, anyone with a computer will now be able to take courses from half of those schools … for free.
At TEDGlobal 2012, Stanford University professor Daphne Koller introduced us to Coursera.org, an effort to bring rigorous college courses online to anyone who wants them. At the time, Coursera offered classes from Princeton University, the University of Michigan, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. However, today, Coursera announced partnerships with seven more top colleges in the United States: California Institute of Technology, Duke University, Georgia Tech, the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Rice University, the University of California San Francisco, the University of Washington, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
At the same time, Caltech and the University of Pennsylvania have extended a combined $3.7 million investment in the site. And three international schools — the University of Edinburgh, the University of Toronto and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne — have also signed agreements with Coursera.
When Koller spoke at TEDGlobal in late June, Coursera’s stats read as such: 680,000 students from 190 countries viewing 14 million videos and taking 6 million quizzes in 1.6 million course enrollments across 43 courses. However, with this new infusion, Coursera will now be offering about 111 classes.
Coursera is wonderful news given those cost barriers. Today’s news reminds me of this thought-provoking TED presentation on education by Sir Kenneth Robinson.
I have just heard the sad news that Dr Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has died. Published in 1989, he sold more than 20 million books in 38 languages so it would be safe to say that Dr Covey must have helped millions of people from leaders and captains of industry to young people starting out in the workplace. He taught principle-centred leadership at a time when, as far as I was aware, no-one else was talking about it. And his work has stood the test of time.
He taught people to reframe our thinking and how to view a dhastly situation, problem or setback differently. The paradigm shift. That’s what it was.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®
Stephen R. Covey‘s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, has been a top-seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. Celebrating its fifteenth year of helping people solve personal and professional problems, this special anniversary edition includes a new foreword and afterword written by Covey exploring the question of whether the 7 Habits are still relevant and answering some of the most common questions he has received over the past 15 years.
The fact that Dr Covey was a consultant to Fortune 500 companies didn’t stop his work from being relevant to parents at home and young people searching for practical answers on living a life that feels great and true to oneself.
I believe conflicting and diverse viewpoints are a gift…What I mean is thoughtful people will always differ from each other. If they care enough to express their differences with passion, that’s an offering that ought to be accepted eagerly. Diversity of viewpoint, background, position. These make for a much more robust solution than if everyone thinks alike. If I am a third alternative thinker, I am fascinated, not threatened, by the gap between us.
I thought I’d share the 7 Habits here, in brief. It taught me things that I thought I already knew and lived by. It sharpened my saw, so to speak.
Habit 1 : Be Proactive
Your life doesn’t just “happen.” Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours… Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life…Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” …
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
So, what do you want to be when you grow up? That question may appear a little trite, but think about it for a moment. ..Habit 2 is based on imagination–the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. ..If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
To live a more balanced existence, you have to recognize that not doing everything that comes along is okay. There’s no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it’s all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win (love this)
Think Win-Win isn’t about being nice, nor is it a quick-fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration…Win-win is a frame of mind and heart.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being?
Habit 6: Synergize
To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.”…It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw (my favourite)
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you.
So there you have it. I love how he has translated age old wisdom and reshaped it into modern day words that are easily digestible. Rest In Peace Dr Covey and thank you so very much for sharing your gifts and talents with people like me.
Use the apostrophe to indicate possession and to mark omitted letters in contractions. Writers often misuse apostrophes when forming plurals and possessives.
The poor apostrophe. Today after seeing one more misplaced apostrophe, I thought that’s it. My cup runneth over. How often must it be misused and abused for all to see? I cannot believe it. Is it carelessness? Maybe not. If not, what does it say about our education system? Maybe it wasn’t taught? My heart sinks down to my toes when I see the apostrophe used incorrectly. It makes me want to reach out through my computer screen and just erase the apostrophe for them.
I thought I’d post one or two to show examples of the wrong use of the apostrophe and why it needs to be correctly used. I’m using examples other people have posted rather than ones that have prompted this post. Because it turns out there’s a huge queue of people online who have something to say about this very topic and they’ve dedicated websites to it. I won’t go that far. One post is enough for me.
Pretty colours. So what’s the problem with the use of the apostrophe on Kid’s Sports, Kid’s Slippers and Kid’s School? Using the apostrophe between the word “kid” and “s” refers to one kid only. And? Well, this is a store so it is meant to be for all kids right? Yes. Kids, plural, doesn’t need an apostrophe here.
Again, this fatal mistake of using an apostrophe. There’s no need for the apostrophe because the reference isn’t a possessive or a contraction. It kills what would otherwise be an awesome message.
Incorrect choose your word’s wisely
Correct choose your words wisely
Even journalists with bachelor degrees commit the cardinal sin of apostrophe abuse. But they’re not alone. So, too, do postgraduate students, entrepreneurs, writers, communications advisors and six-figure turnover commercial companies.
With all this attention, you’d think the apostrophe would be better used and more appreciated. That’s why I say, give the apostrophe a hug. Something’s gotta change.
This is something I fell into years ago in large part due to how I work with people. What does successful community relations and engagement look like? When working on behalf of a company or an organisation, one of my first questions is: what are the needs of the community? Information and facts. Answer top of mind questions and anticipate the rest.
Successful community engagement depends on the issues on the table, the warmth of the relationships between people, what else is at stake and the level of risk for each partner. If there has been a history of mistrust or conflict, it takes time to rebuild trust and create more willingness to accept opportunities for goodwill. When working in bicultural and multicultural communities, there are added cultural considerations but essentially the principles are the same.
This video courtesy of Knight Foundation provides a shortcut to more discussion and worthwhile insights on community engagement and community relations.
I’m researching aspects of my family history and have been, off and on, for years. My desire is to record family stories before time and death take them away. Fortunate are those for whom there are ample records that provide a paper trail for researchers. But when a culture has lived by an oral history for decades, using elders, songs and dances to tell those stories, it presents challenges and lost treasures. When memories fail, when people don’t share the history, when the stories, songs and dances are no longer passed on, it presents a significant loss of treasures at this end.
Tonight, I took a break from researching to watch this story filled with archival film history of another era and another people. Ellis Island, dubbed the Island of Tears, is a remarkable American immigration story. Historians estimate that almost half of all Americans today can trace their family history back to the Port of New York at Ellis Island. It was the port of entry for millions of European immigrants from 1892 to 1954. With them came their dreams, hopes, sorrows, whatever they could to make a fresh start in a land of freedom. At some point in every family’s history, there is a story of immigration from one country to another. This might be yours.
