Absolutely, totally, loving… wordle. (Try typing that without making it worlde). Tah Gra.

Click through for the big zappy version and make your own.

Give us a link in the comments so we can see what you make. So keen to see social media being more visual and creative.

As Claus Oldenberg put it so well..

“Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete of all communication.

Here are the dates for the next series of our Fresh Writing Classes at The Werks.

Tuesdays 10.30 – 12.30

1 April
CANCELLED DUE TO NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

22 April

6 May

20 May

Put them in your diaries now if you have a positive intention to come and learn / create / express / play.

More information about the classes here.

To celebrate the fresh new season – three top tips for improving your writing & blogging… and expanding your mind…

1. Watch your verbs

Verbs are (remember!?) “doing words”. They are the action of your sentences. If you want your writing to jump from the page, give it legs. Think about your verbs. Use new ones. Take risks, combine them in new ways with your nouns (”naming words”). Experiment. Wake people up. Surprise them.

Here is a list to play with, inspired by Spring…

Use them in unlikely ways and surprise yourself. Thaw those frozen fingers. Explode onto the page. Or just tweet a little.

2. Stay alert with new ideas

The wonders of modern tech. Register a Google Alert for a key word expression that relates to your work / passion / writing / life. One of mine is “authentic blogging”. I get sent blog posts from all around the world that use these two key words together. I am forever finding relevant, inspiring new material to write/blog about.

Give it a try. Register here and follow the prompts.

It’s easier than you think.

3. You Think, I Think, We Think (Better) Together

Last thing is… you just gotta watch this clip… if you are remotely interested in creativity and innovation. Yum.

http://authenticblogging.com/2008/03/26/you-think-i-think-we-think-better-together/

Better still, buy the book. “We Think” by Charles Leadbetter.

Reap what you sow.

Hope to see you some Tuesday.

Libby

PS – Happy to come into organisations and do affordable bespoke sessions.

Please forward to anyone interested, with many thanks

More posts on writing to help get your words flowing…

If anyone is trying to get their heads around Web 2.0, social media, new paradigm thinking and all that claptrap – get a look at this. Lovely simple animation. I’m going to use it at the beginning of all my courses. Free event coming up soon to give people a taste of it all. Watch this space.

Guardian review here (including Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky) which also looks reeal good.

Shame The Big Issue review isn’t available online. A different and very valid take on things.

No wonder most journalist’s I meet are annoyed with blogging and What’s Going On with we-think.

No wonder I am compelled to work in and support this space.

So glad Rosie Sherry is in it with me (thanks for the video).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo&hl=en]

Posting it here to open up the discussion.

Join in and help take it forward?

At a bare minimum, everyone in the world needs to read Peter’s article continuous-partial-attention-02-08.pdf.

“It is time we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship.”

Omar Bradley (1948) in Peter Pruyn (2007)

Seriously.

………………….

Dear unpluggers

Thanks for being in touch and many thanks to Mark Bittman for bringing us together, for me anyway.

Peter Pruyn’s paper is also excellent! See attached. A must read for unpluggers. Really puts the meta-ness of it all together.

David Levy has been in touch – his paper “No Time to Think” can be found, among others, on his site here.

52 Nights Unplugged is growing thanks to Ariel and the community.

We are making the domain www.everywhereisnowhere.com available to whoever wants to move the unplug meme out into the world. Synchronously the woman who coined the phrase “Constant Partial Attention”, Linda Stone, also said “We [are] everwhere except where we actually [are] physically” – which is a direct link to the Seneca quote that the domain references. An ancient dilemma.

Also keen for one of us to present at LIFT09 and others to attend as a “movement”. Free bloggers passes available and accommodation can be provided. I guess David or Peter would need to be on the stage to come, but perhaps that will happen. The community votes on who they want to speak, and I will be approaching the organisers directly about the unplug movement. I was asked to attend as a blogger this year. Influential space.. starting to be compared to TED talks.

A book you could all read, if you haven’t already, is “In Praise of Slow”.

Considering the climate emergency and reading in Peter’s paper “It is time that we steered by the stars, not the lights of each passing ship” – I am reminded to bring ecophilosopher Joanna Macy into the discussion. Her writing made it possible for me to attend the LIFT conference without being drained by the Technology as God types.

Tessy’s site http://thrivingtoo.typepad.com/ is another place for the meme to grow, and she is friends with Sir Ken Robinson. See his TED Talk on creativity, which has enormous traction, here.

And now, I am unplugging and hitting the bath – in the garden, with my daughter. Brrr. Spring not quite sprung. But lovely.

Please reply to all if you want to move this agenda forward. In that moment, a group exists. Together we are stronger.

Bestest

Libby

……….

Other posts on unplugging here.

We have so much to learn from children. We have such a need to protect their natural risk taking and creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson’s beautiful TED talk. If you haven’t seen it yet, you simply must. Creativity, education, the meaning of life… there’s something for everyone in this profound, short, very funny presentation.

Key points (of agreement)

- Creativity is as important as literacy (duh!…round of applause)

- We are educating children OUT of their creativity (so true). Clearly, we need to change this.

- Schools are still Victorian and basically work as very protracted preparation for university entrance.

- Professors, being the highest in the educational system, both lead and role model the system.

- They are heads on bodies, disconnected from the whole.

- We need to cultivate a fuller picture of what education is and can be.

- This must include the head and the heart and the body, even the spirit.

- The effective cultivation of creativity “adding value with original thinking” is essential to being human, at work, at play.

Three cheers for Ken. You are quite lovely and spot on with how you see things.