Speaking of stumble upon, I just found out that there is a site called Stumble Upon which if you sign on for and personalize your specific interests, will take you to a random site or article that matches your interests whenever you feel like surfing.
An example of a little adventure before I actually learned about the stumble upon tool, started when I was reading about TED on Wikipedia. (For those naysayers of Wikipedia – I say, it’s a great baseline to begin learning more about something, not a one-stop shop).
And TED for those of you who are unfamiliar, stands for: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. TED is known for their “idea” conferences, for attracting attendees across sectors who can afford it (read: rich and famous people) to share thoughts and ideas on an array of topics, and for ridiculously interesting and often inspiring talks which are easily available to us commoners, online. TED’s excellent business model does a great job of keeping the event exclusive but making it accessible to everyone via the (yes, you got it): World Wide Web J The best part is that these talks are usually no longer than 20 minutes. I could go on and on but check it out if you want. One of my favorite talks so far is from Benjamin Zander on music and passion. You won’t be disappointed.
ANYWAY, so one of the founders of TED is Richard Saul Wurman. I clicked on his name and found out that he is a pretty cool guy. He is seventy-something and he is considered a pioneer in the practice of trying to make information understandable. Calls himself an information architect. Very neat. A few clicks later and I’m on his website.
A few more taps on the mouse pad and I was onto his latest project: 19,20,21. COOL STUFF!
I’ll let you explore but it is basically an effort to identify, map, and understand the 19 most populous cities in the world. Why? Because more than half of the people on earth live in what he calls super cities, and the trend is accelerating to where 2/3rds of the population will be concentrated in cities in the future. Wurman and his partners think that by understanding different issues in cities (eg. Health, transportation, demographics, economics, etc) and making that information available to policymakers, businesses, non-profits and others, we can better prepare for this trend ahead. And given his TED founding, and just the design of his website, I can’t wait to see how Wurman and his crew share this with the world! Did I mention that he is seventy something? That’s even more amazing to me.
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