Voices, Visions, Quotes

Writing:

"Dedicate (donate, give all) your life to something larger than yourself and pleasure--to the largest thing you can:to God, to relieving suffering, to contributing to knowledge, to adding to literature, or something else. happiness lies this way, and it beats pleasure hollow."
 Annie Dillard, Notes for young writers, in The Best of Creative Nonfiction

Early Action/Early Decision Deadlines.
  
"Loaded questions, apparently, can be either coercive or (worse?) damning, putting the respondent in a position that is both pre-scripted and prescriptive. But what distinguishes these utterances from others? We could say that all questions are loaded questions in that they anticipate some kind of reply. “Would you like to take a walk?” may sound like an open question, but try it on (a) your dog, (b) a hothead in a bar, or (c) the person to whom you are about to propose marriage, and see how “loaded” this simple query can become. And loaded words? It’s true that words like scare and infection are often scary and infectious."
  Loaded Words by Marjorie Garber



The Need for the Inclusion of Visuals on Common Application Essays.

"We are now a culture that thrives on learning and sharing—much of this is facilitated by the increasing ubiquity of social media. This influx of information needs to be consumed and processed, which requires new methods of communication. Infographics, in many different forms, are at the forefront of this new way of thinking. The visualization of information is enabling us to gain insight and understanding quickly and efficiently, utilizing the incredible processing power of the human visual system. Accessing and harnessing this power is not only valuable, but necessary, as we navigate the vast amounts of data presented to us."
 Infographics: The Power of Visual Storytelling by Jason Lankow


 "This brief book explains how a simple question—who do you want your customers to become?—transforms strategic, marketing, and innovation insights. This question—what I’ll call “The Ask”—successfully provokes managers and entrepreneurs into reimagining, redefining, and redesigning their customers’ future. Whether you’re in professional services, business-to-business, or consumer products, understanding what innovations ask customers to become fundamentally changes how to invest to create new value. The Ask is central for any serious business strategist, marketer, or innovator."
 Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? by Michael Schrage

Political 

"I want our legal system to work better. I want it to be streamlined. I want it to be clearer. I don't think you have to -- shouldn't have to hire a lawyer to figure out how to get into this country legally. I also think that we should give visas to people -- green cards, rather, to people who graduate with skills that we need. People around the world with accredited degrees in science and math get a green card stapled to their diploma, come to the U.S. of A. We should make sure our legal system works." Romney debate quote. Do the math, over 200,000 internationals studying math/sci. H-1 work visas limited to 50,000. Impossible, and it means anyone studying business, the largest major for international students, and the hope for our economic future, will be sent home with their education and innovative ideas. Off-shored  unless he really commits to providing more places for best and brightest of the world in all majors and career fields. Every MBA program and business school should be holding an emergency meeting today. If Romney wins and follows through on promise, then these schools, who depend on the huge amount of money these students bring, may be forced to close. Are they too big to fail? I don't think so.

Mitt Romney, Presidential Debate, October 16, 2012, and follow up comment by Parke Muth

"Of the fifteen job categories projected to grow the most in the United States over the next decade, twelve are occupied primarily by women. Indeed, the US economy is becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: Professional women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill. Our vast and struggling middle class, where the disparities between men and women are the greatest, is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the workforce and from home, and women making all the decisions."

 The End of Men: And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin

The  Endless Conversation Vs. Silence

"So Galileo took breeze again. Perhaps the choir was right, perhaps the soul is just a guest in the dark palace of the brain, a guest who only spends a few nights there, a wanderer who does not wish to settle, but like a gypsy roams without constraint, free soul with a free will, not subject to the mechanism of matter."
  Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi

"We’ve stopped apologizing for our obsession with asking how and why, and we’re starting to stand up for ourselves instead. Drawn together by the social networking power of the internet, geeks have begun to realize that we aren’t alone in our world view, but that it’s shared by millions. Through vibrant blogs and online forums such as Twitter and Facebook, and through the success of increasingly high-profile figures such as Singh, Brian Cox and Ben Goldacre, we’ve begun to fight for the value we place on science and evidence-based thinking.
 The Geek Manifesto by Mark Henderson 

 "The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein 

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein