How will young people remember these times?
May 20th, 2011 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Culture, Education, Public Leaders, Technology
LONGMONT, Colo. 05/20/2011 — Graduation speakers across America will be in a reflective mood over the next few weeks. It’s an annual ritual. Student speakers, in particular, reflect on the journey they’ve traveled and what the future might hold. I heard my first round of graduation speeches last night. The narratives included the usual mix of “we can change the world.” I enjoy the inherent sense of optimism expressed by young people. But, I heard something else last night that [...]
Read more...IBM Watson debuts on Jeopardy
February 8th, 2011 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Culture-Structure, Technology, Work
LONGMONT, Colo. — The IBM Watson supercomputer’s Valentine’s Day debut on Jeopardy brings to mind the old American folktale of John Henry. Do you remember John Henry? He was the “steel driving” man born with a hammer in his hand. In an effort to save the jobs of his railroad crew, he took on the steam-powered drill to see whether man or machine was faster at carving a tunnel through a mountain. John Henry won the battle, dying of exhaustion [...]
Read more...Political class in their own world
January 11th, 2011 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Public Values, Technology
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Anderson Cooper and CNN gave comedian Bill Maher more than twenty minutes, a third of the airtime on the special “The Terror in Tucson,” to pontificate about the socio-political reasons for the tragic shootings in Arizona. He’s a comedian, not an expert of any kind. Many of Mr. Maher’s comments were so over-the-top offensive they were laughable – that’s his comedic shtick. What a waste of airtime for a “news” show. If you’re going to do a special [...]
Read more...Dealing with the downside… and up
June 5th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Culture-Structure, Public Leaders, Technology
What do cell phones, the internet, and the pill have in common? They all are structural changes in our lives that changed our culture. And, they all have downsides… as well as upsides. A spring issue of Time Magazine reported on the 50th Anniversary of The Pill — the pharmaceutical contraceptive that has achieved the status of one name moniker enjoyed by icons such as Madonna, Pele and Lebron. It is hard to argue that The Pill transformed society. National [...]
Read more...Learning limits and self control.
May 29th, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Culture, Parenting, Social Media, Technology
Some rough thoughts to warm up on a Saturday morning… How do you teach your children self control? How do you help your children set limits so they don’t get “too much of a good thing?” If there is one thing that is more difficult for parents of this generation to instill in their children than previous generations, perhaps limits and self control are it. Setting limits on TV, computer, food, consumption in general is a daily issue now. Not [...]
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