This weeks blog post on www.innovationexcellence.com is on crowdsourcing. I am immediately drawn into the article is it on something near and dear to me LEGOS. Prior to this program I was teaching children Engineering Principles through Pneumatics/Legos, and my son loves them. The article talks about how once 10,000 supporters like a design it is rewarded and commercialized than goes onto talk about how netflix and many other companies are now crowdsourcing innovation. As well as having sort of little exchanges, and almost mini-X prizes to inspire innovation across platforms. programs and groups.
Zenhabits.net this week the first post is A Month Without TV or Video, this comes at a perfect time and is sort of ironic as I mostly only watch the videos that are for school(I guess they are out). Seriously, recently I was given free cable (involved with my the new place I live) and I have yet to figure it out or turn it on. But I bought the first tv I have had in at least ten years so I guess consumerism won if you give me cable(why I felt I needed one, or most use the service I have yet to turn on ?).
So this should be rather easy as I occasionally only watch movies with my son on netflix but can forgo that and do more work. The article sort of talks about the social norms his family had of watching tv together, their guilt on slipping up and isolating his family and sitting out on watching his daughters favorite movie on her birthday I have very different values here as my son comes first and experiments and personal whims second, on a birthday?). But the author read more and limited their movie watching which all seems good and a positive change. They played more board games, as I spent 3 hours yesterday playing Operation I am not sure this is a win and am often woke up at the crack of dawn for Mouse Trap or the like.
This sort of rolled into a month without sugar, which was not really defined but skipping syrup and pancakes and waffles, sort made me assume all sweeteners. I do not eat sweets and other then some naturally in my vanilla yogurt (which has a little natural sweetener in it, but I can drop back to plain) will take this on as well. These seem like positive things that allot of society embraces I am not really into sweets or tv as am sort of down with, or in full support of this post.
Today is a post on buying something, then as a motivational or sales tool they give you a giftcard or coupon that has to be used in a finite period of time. This is sort of a old trick or a dressed up coupon, to lure you into the store to use the free coupon and buy other stuff while you are their. I am sort of a anti- consumer where I only buy the exact thing I am expecting and or the quality I want (which generally makes coupons useless to me) and do not shop for the sake of shopping. If I need a book for this class I order it online and shopping is done if food, and I can not grab it from a garden I am watching than I go in buy my list and am done. I understand how this tactic is a motivational tactic but personally if a another purchase from the same place was not needed in this period of time I would like it expire and throw it away. I often encounter this in purchasing as I am the buyer for two restaurants wine, beer and liquor, and there are constant specials from 20 different venders and rarely do they offer something I want more of as a incentive but rather a inferior product as a bonus for a larger purchase and a way to gain a new placement in your bar/restaurant. This wastes allot of time for other buyers/managers but most venders know me and skip the call unless it is a personally favorite or the .
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