Guerilla Gardener Plants Joy in Potholes
They're the bane of cyclists and motorists alike, but one urban gardener has grown a fondness for potholes after deciding to spruce up cities around Europe by filling them up with miniature flower arrangements. Australian Steve Wheen, 34, who lives in London, has been using flowers and small-scale objects to transform urban potholes for the last three years. The self-styled 'guerrilla gardener' ha... posted on Aug 08 2012, 11,374 reads

Who Are You Really Mad At?
A father yells at his son who then hits his sister. A boss gets upset at a manager who then yells at their employees. In both obvious and subtle forms, people often do or say something to someone when it's really intended for someone else. In this honest self-reflection, leadership expert Peter Bregman looks more deeply at his own behaviour to discover freedom from habits and the choice of more th... posted on Aug 07 2012, 23,379 reads

A Brief History of Timekeeping
"For millennia, humans have sought to make sense of time, to visualize it, to ride its arrow, to hack it, to understand biological connection to it. 'Time is the very foundation of conscious experience,' writes Dan Falk in 'In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time.' And yet that awareness has a long history of friction -- to mark and measure the passage of time has proven re... posted on Aug 06 2012, 10,543 reads

Freed: Cat With Head Trapped in Jar for 6 Days
"I feel like I have experienced a truly blessed event. A member of my feral colony, usually one of the friendlier cats, got a plastic jar stuck on his head. His entire head enveloped in hard plastic, he was completely unable to eat or drink. I first saw him this way on a Saturday night. I spent hours trying to get him to trust me to get close enough so that I could remove the jar. But, completely ... posted on Aug 05 2012, 23,236 reads

A Conspiracy of Love: Stanford Graduation Speech
In these video excerpts, charismatic Newark Mayor, Cory Booker, reminds Stanford graduates that their success is the product of a vast "conspiracy of love," and challenges all of us to engage in the conspiratorial caring that makes our society safe, strong, and ennobling. A clear and compelling message, and one of the most articulate and inspired commencement speeches of recent times.... posted on Aug 04 2012, 5,500 reads

Why Creative Thinking is Inclusive Thinking
"Albert Einstein was once asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He said that if you asked the average person to find a needle in the haystack, the person would stop when he or she found a needle. He, on the other hand, would tear through the entire haystack looking for all the possible needles. With creative thinking, one generates as many alternative approaches as one ... posted on Aug 03 2012, 101,812 reads

The Story of Change
"I've come to see that we have two parts to ourselves; it's almost like two muscles -- a consumer muscle and a citizen muscle. Our consumer muscle, which is fed and exercised constantly, has grown strong: So strong that "consumer" has become our primary identity, our reason for being. We're told so often that we're a nation of consumers that we don't blink when the media use "consumer" and "perso... posted on Aug 02 2012, 14,546 reads

Life Through A Camera Lens
"'I couldn't believe how beautiful the ocean was,' he commented. 'I've never seen an ocean before, and then to get to see palm trees in person, and to even touch them. It was just amazing.' He began thumbing through a series of photographs on his phone, each displaying an image of a palm tree." Though she'd seen many palm trees before, the writer describing this encounter realized in that moment t... posted on Aug 01 2012, 13,958 reads

Servant Leadership: Helping People Come Alive
"It's a powerful perspective on work -- holding within it a value for collaboration, agency, creativity, and meaning. What if we all could see what we do in that way? What if our organizations supported us in holding that perspective, and to go one step further, how can we create institutions that release these core values? In his seminal 1970 essay 'The Servant as Leader,' Robert Greenleaf coined... posted on Jul 31 2012, 21,554 reads

Giving Wings to Little Prisoners
2012 CNN Hero Pushpa Basnet found her calling when she was still a student in social work in Nepal. While visiting a women's prison as an assignment for one of her classes, she felt a tug on her shawl and a little girl smiled at her from behind bars -- a child living with her mother in prison. That image haunted Pushpa until she graduated, and she started a daycare in the morning for children aged... posted on Jul 30 2012, 3,301 reads