Thursday, June 2, 2011

Seeing is believing

A friend of mine is village chief in the African country of Niger. He knows that a village granary is the only sustainable way for him to protect his people from famine, by storing seeds for future crops and by storing surpluses for lean times. Like many good ideas, if this one is to be realized it needs planning, funds, and hands on work.

Funds are hard to come by. And, most people feel better about funding something they can see and understand so I set off to make this granary in Niger more tangible through photos, videos, and stories.

I sent a Canon SX95 camera to my friend the Chief and he began snapping photos of traditional granaries, neighboring town's modern granaries, and local farms. He starting emailing me lots of photos at 640x480 in order to fit more photos into each email, but I really wanted to share compelling high quality photos with other folks who might want to join our effort.

Flickr vs Picasa? I think of Flickr as a feature rich publishing mechanism and I think of Picasa as more of an individual editing and sharing mechanism.

Please take a look at our Flickr site and tell me what you like or don't like.

How do you think I should go about sharing the photos that will reach people who will see this project and believe in it?


Friday, September 3, 2010



The 7 Habits by Steven Covey

Habit 1: Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Choice


Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Vision

Habit 3: Put First Things First: Principles of Integrity & Execution

Habit 4: Think Win/Win: Principles of Mutual Benefit

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood: Principles of Mutual Understanding

Habit 6: Synergize: Principles of Creative Cooperation

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Clock and the Compass



Stephen Covey's book First Things First decribes a common conflict that frustrates many people in our society. One half of the conflict is "The Clock" which drives us to accomplish more tasks with higher quality and less time. The other half of the conflict is "The Compass" which allows our personal values and life mission to guide us, to think long term. Ideally we reconcile this conflict and align our efforts to better serve both our short term and long term goals.

How have you resolved this conflict in your life?

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Online Storage Options



Each of the free or low cost online storage services for individuals and SMBs have their own strengths and weaknesses. Just when I think I have found the perfect compromise and am ready to settle down on one product, I find out more about what it can't do and also I find out more about what the other services can do!




I have an evolving list:



http://www.sugarsync.com/ backup and synchronization



http://www.dropbox.com/ backup and synchronization



http://www.mozy.com/ backup




http://www.live.com/ for MS Office docs and others



docs.google.com for Google docs and others



idisk.me.com for any docs



So, dropbox vs sugarsynch vs office live vs google docs vs idisk?

Am I missing your favorite tool or service?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Country Wisdom


A traveling salesman is walking down a country road, and passes a farm. In the middle of the field he sees a farmer, standing under an apple tree. The farmer holds a pig in his arms. The salesman stops and watches as the farmer walks around the tree with the pig, and holds it up so that the pig can eat about four apples in this manner.

“Mr. Farmer,” yells the salesman, “wouldn’t it take a lot less time if you just put the pig on the ground, and let him eat the apples that have fallen of of the tree?”

The farmer pauses in his work, turns to the salesman and says, “Well, maybe, but really, what’s time to a pig?

Friday, April 9, 2010


Kenya School Project Flourishes with Community Support
http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=6217&e=y


Kenya Help nonprofit
http://kenya-help.org/

[creative commons photo of D'Arnaud's Barbet at Lake Baringo, Kenya by aftab on Flickr]

Thursday, April 8, 2010