But good too! There's a Doing IT for Good group on LinkedIn. And Crisis Camp (a Crisis Commons initiative to organize help for Haiti): Continuing the momentum of civic hacking for Haiti.

And software that rocks!!

Well, we're going to a Woody Guthrie show tonight. It's fun having a bluegrassy/folk singing mandolin player in the house. It's not a genre I've spent a lot of time with, but I'm liking what our boy is drawing us into--"old time music--roots with the dirt still on." Ryan's bluegrass band (Ryan and his friend on mandolin, a friend on keyboard, friend's sister on fiddle, and Ryan's mando teacher on guitar, with Ryan on vocals--really cute!) is slotted to play two pieces at Max's Place. And Ryan is getting into recording and mixing using Audacity--he's a veritable one boy band! It is a whole different world for 11 year olds! So, how 'bout that Audacity? Open source that delights.

"I write what I see,
I write what I've seen,
I write things that I just hope to see"

-- Woody Guthrie, Apr 4, 1948

2/6/10 Woody Guthrie--the gritty voice recording an era in the becoming of America

• Woody Guthrie performing: ♫Ranger's Command☼; ♫John Henry☼

• A young (1985) Bruce Springstein doing ♫This Land is Our Land☼, and a little bit older (2006) Springstein doing ♫John Henry☼

• Woody Guthrie's ♫This Land is Our Land☼

• And what better venue to celebrate and remember Woody Guthrie writing a chapter in the history of this great land: Springstein and Seeger at the Obama inaugural: ♫This Land is Our Land☼

Aside from just listening, I love doing comparative listening, investigating the unique character of different interpretations, voices, times... :-)

Ryan taught me again a lesson he'd taught me before. The winter storm that we'd been promised was at last producing sticking snow, which made it slow going and we arrived across town shortly before the show started. The venue was pretty packed, so the only 4 seats together were in the back row. Dana went to sit down--in the back row--and Ryan crabbed dramatically. I took him to look for two seats closer to the front. We found some about 4 rows back. Ryan crabbed some more. Then he saw 2 seats in the front row. We went and asked--and they weren't taken!!! Sara wanted me to sit with her; Dana got the front row seat with Ryan.

The lesson? Don't settle. Most everyone settles. There's probably a seat, or two, in the front row! If you didn't feel dissatisfied, didn't ask, you wouldn't know. (And if you don't want to take the lesson from a kid via a mom (gasp!), Randy Pausch relayed much the same lesson: "All you have to do is ask" in chapterlet 55 of The Last Lecture.)

No, this has nothing to do with architecture--except the "don't settle" lesson. Skip the ungracious crabbing. But hold out for a higher standard.

There's also this: What Woody Guthrie did was write the words and experiences of the people he met and observed closely. The architect does that also--write what I see, what I've seen, what I hope to see. Architecture is very much about taking what we are seeing and have seen/experienced/learned, and formulating and expressing what we hope to see. That is intentional architecting with an evolutionary flavor, and evolutionary architecture with an intentional flavor. Not either or. But and.

Abraham Lincoln looked for analogies and to precedent to draw on as he formulated his course leading up to his inauguration and taking the reigns of power at a time when the country was being rent asunder. So, I think there is great precedent for looking to analogies. :-)

"I want to put a ding in the universe." -- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs said it, and he surely is doing it, holding to a standard of innovation and design excellence that raises the bar (rumors aside; grin). And Woody Guthrie did; he put a ding in the universe so loud my ears ring even now!! He was not highly educated or refined, except by life and by a keen aesthetic tuning to enduring human truth--and a sense of what conveys and should endure. It certainly is a reminder not to be arrogant and superior, for those who etch themselves in history come in all manner of shades of education and "accomplishment." Lincoln wanted to leave a mark on the mind of man, to be remembered beyond his life. He did. He put a timeless ding in the universe, too. And there is a lot that was accidental, as well as so much that was very intentional, with deft strategic maneuvering and careful observation, listening and learning.  

2/6/10 More Books (I'm Gonna Need Another Life!! Can I get that on Amazon (yet)??)

• The Checklist Manifesto (2009) looks interesting.

• As does Outliers: The Story of Success.

• We have Blink on audio, but I want it in text too (too bad I have to pay twice).

• Then there's this (by way of NOOP): Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity

2/7/10 Good Things Geeks Do!

In the category of geeks doing good, here's something really cool: Geek's Dream Lab Could Create Jobs In Michigan and thegeekgroup.org.

The Geek Group is such a great concept, located in a community that needs to reinvent itself. This is probably something you ought to bring to the attention of your corporate philanthropy group, in addition to considering lending personal support. Seriously, we're all worried about how to get kids interested in STEM, and these folk are doing that and more--taking innovation and education to the people in a seriously charged way!!  :-) A place to do "open source" research and development is going to challenge the status quo, but I can see this thing becoming a franchise! I wish they were in our town!

"The Geek Group gives them [geeks] a physical place to band together, pool their resources, and together accomplish more than any one of them can separately. We are a Force Multiplier for genius. In addition to that by providing large-scale tools than none of them could reasonably own on their own, like giant CNC equipment, robots, and millions of dollars in materials and parts we allow them to take their creativity to staggering new levels." -- The Geek Group

2/7/10 Superbowl Fever... Somewhere

Naturally Bloomington "owns" the Colts, so Superbowl fever is big in our town. Well, the family and boy guests will just have to call me for the commercials, because I'm working... (Woody Guthrie's American Song aside.) ;-) 

Hey, some things are life-shaping important. The thing about Woody Guthrie is that he still makes one think about the world we live in and what's important. That's what folk music is all about--in Guthrie's estimation, and mine. I identify so much with his sense that he borrowed words from the people he watched and listened to: "I borrowed my life from the works of your life."

"I think back through my life . . . to everybody that I owe. The amount that we owe is all that we have. And the only way I can pay back all of you good walkers and talkers is to work." -- Woody Guthrie

While I identify with these words, I'm not so tall that my feet don't touch the ground--not by a long shot. (Guthrie was institutionalized for the last year's of his life, as eulogized by Bob Dylan.)

When they were little, the kids had a biography of Abraham Lincoln wherein it was reported that, asked how tall a man should be, Lincoln responded: "A man should be tall enough so that his feet touch the ground." Funny what details one remembers!