Sunday, September 19, 2010 A Sanctuary in Transit  Every year, 18 million passengers make transfers through the Netherland's Schiphol Airport, Europe's fifth-busiest airport. With hustling businesspeople and bustling vacationers, the airport's new library provides a quiet sanctuary for travelers of all paths. With no internet connection or permanent library staff, the library welcomes tired travelers to retreat and unplug in a space of trust. And it has worked, with barely any books lost and many vanishing only temporarily, reappearing when travelers passed back through on their return journeys. In an age where almost nothing stands still, the Schiphol Airport library is a reminder to rest and renew ourselves, if only for a layover. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, September 18, 2010 See Yourself in Six Billion Others  From a Brazilian fisherman to a Chinese shopkeeper, from a German performer to an Afghan farmer, all answered the same questions about their fears, dreams, ordeals, hopes: "Who are you? What have you learned from your parents? What does love mean to you?" A project of "Earth From Above" photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand, 6 Billion Others weaves together video portraits of lives across the globe. Each face is strikingly different. Each answer is remarkably human. Emerging from Bertrand's quest "to learn to live together," these vignettes capture the stunning diversity of mankind while unleashing the universal nature of humanity. Read More >>
back to top Friday, September 17, 2010 Trespassing Snowmen  There is an elderly man who lives up the street from us. He has no one to shovel his driveway. he is a bit of a miser so most people aren't so inclined to help. One day, I don't know who did it, but someone used the snow on his driveway to make a whole bunch of smiling and waving snowmen on his lawn. As my son and I were walking by, I could hear him grumbling. "What's the problem?" I asked. He complained that someone had trespassed on his lawn and made a bunch of snowmen. My son, not knowing what 'trespass' meant, assumed it was a good thing. "Wow, sir, that's the biggest bestest present I've ever seen!" Innocently, he turned to me and asked, "Could we have someone 'trespass' on our lawn too?"... Read More >>
back to top Thursday, September 16, 2010 The Business of Giving  Recently divorced Mike Hannigan was in a grocery store looking for spaghetti sauce when he came across Newman's Own for the first time. Discovering that all the profits of the competitively priced brand were donated to charity made something to click for the office products company manager. "As a consumer I wasn't making any sacrifice," he says. "Use business as a tool to accomplish a community goal - it made perfect sense." Becoming philanthropic isn't just a nice thing to do when business is booming. Donating time and resources can be an essential part of a sustainable business strategy. Alyssa Danigelis offers insights on how to integrate nonprofit projects into your for-profit venture, and how doing so might just benefit everyone. Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Portraits of Compassion  In the exhibit hall of Washington D.C.'s U.S. State Department, there's a new art exhibit that paints foreign relations in a whole new light. The subjects are orphan children from Thailand. Ben Schumaker calls this "The Memory Project." What began in a spare bedroom at Shumaker's parent's house is now a full time venture that has delivered about 25,000 portraits to orphans in 31 different countries around the world. Most of these children have never had an image of themselves. And it's not just those orphans who've benefited. One viewer says the boy in the picture reminded her of her little brother. Another remarks, "You can just tell by looking at their faces what they've been through sometimes." They have learned compassion. To Ben, that's a word worth a thousand pictures. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, September 14, 2010 Embracing Imperfection  Sometimes, things need to be just so. Most of the time though, good (not great) is good enough. This doesn't mean you are settling for second best or short-changing yourself. You're being realistic, because people are imperfect. At the Association of Psychological Science Convention this year, one of the most compelling studies came from Prem Fry, PhD, professor of psychology at Trinity Western University. Her study of older adults found a 51 percent reduced life expectancy for perfectionists over non-perfectionists. Our worlds are fraught with imperfections, but instead of worrying over them, try embracing them instead!
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back to top Monday, September 13, 2010 How To Be Alone  What can we learn about ourselves when we let go of our fear of loneliness? With this fun, quirky video, filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis show us how to ease into loneliness- starting in easy places like the bathroom or coffee shop, turning off our cell phone security blankets, honoring the things we like to do by ourselves-as we learn to enjoy it and nurture ourselves with it. Read More >>
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After losing financial aid and student loans due to unit limitations, college student Brian Smith became homeless and took refuge, sleeping in the practice rooms of his music department.Throughout his struggle, he remained focused on his education by accumulating a 3.65 GPA at CSULB while balancing a heavy workload. His efforts were recognized Tuesday as he received $3,000 from the Hearst/CSU Trustees' award, which is given to 23 students - one from each CSU campus. [ 
Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. With this new meaning of progress, he introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised. [ 
These days, the city streets of Montreal, Paris, and Lyon are blooming with bicycles and bikers. Take one step out your door, and you'll spot a man in a suit riding with groceries from the corner market. German tourists yakking away while riding along the banks of the Rhone River. Students zipping by on their way to class, or to meet friends at a cafe. Cities in the U.S. are quickly following suit. Just a few days ago, Washington D.C. and Virginia's Arlington County debuted its Capital Bikeshare program. The largest bikeshare program in the United States, the initiative has distributed 1,100 bikes across 100 kiosks, with hopes to double the number in the next year. Even Washington's Mayor Adrian Fenty (pictured above) took a bike for a spin! [ 
Anyone who has worked in an office (or anywhere, really) for more than a day has made a mistake. While most people accept that slip-ups are unavoidable, no one likes to be responsible for them. The good news is that mistakes, even big ones, don't have to leave a permanent mark on your career. In fact, most contribute to organizational and personal learning; they are an essential part of experimentation and a prerequisite for innovation. Amy Gallo draws attention to a few guiding principles to turn blunders of all sizes into positive and constructive experiences. [ 
Allan Hall was seeking still moments. Somehow, he found himself at a London boys' school, where Headmaster David Boddy leads a period of quiet time at the start of each day. For ten minutes, three hundred boys sit in silence. Many close their eyes. All fidgeting ceases. It made Hall think. What do we get from stillness - those moments of reverie, of daydreaming, in an ever more noisy, busy, and stimulating world? "In the midst of the 10 minutes, you may get a couple of minutes of absolute inner quiet but the rest is sort of getting there," Boddy offers. With moments of stillness come opportunities for reflection, random association and creativity. The gift of "Doing Silence," as one author calls it, may just be the gift of tapping into and understanding ourselves. [ 
In a dry, windy canyon not far from San Francisco, California one landfill is curbing greenhouse gases by transforming its waste into fuel. "We own this big pile of trash, and we need to look at it and think, 'what can we do to get something out of it?'" said Ken Lewis, Director of Altamont Landfill Operations. With special technology, natural gas produced by decaying organic waste gets captured and used as fuel for the landfill's specially converted garbage trucks. This process eliminates the need for diesel fuel and will keep an estimated 30,000 tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere each year! "What's cool is you've got refuse trucks picking up waste, then fueling from garbage," says Steve Eckhardt. "It's a closed loop." [ 
