Nine Shift

Two FREE Nine Shift webinars Wed April 8

  If you have not heard the Nine Shift speeches, here's your chance! 

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of Nine Shift, we're giving two FREE webinars Wednesday, April 8.

THE CLASSIC ORIGINAL NINE SHIFT SPEECH.
The conference keynote we normally give.
How work, life and education is changing in the 21st century.
Noon Eastern Time (11 am Central, 10 am Mountain, 9 am Pacific)
To register (no cost) go to:   GoToMeetingClassicNineShift

ALL NEW! NINE SHIFT FOR 2009
An all new presentation that premiered at the LERN annual conference in San Francisco on the latest updates and changes.
3 pm Eastern Time (2 pm Central, 1 pm Mountain, Noon Pacific)
To register (free) go to:  NewNineShiftSpeech

Secretary LaHood: here's how to fund high-speed rail

Secretary LaHood:
   Here's how to allocate the $8 billion in high-speed rail money.
1. Half goes to California high-speed rail.
   As California goes, so goes the nation.  This is a premiere system, with trains going 200 mph, between two highly visible and populated metro areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco. 
   This line has to be the model.  Whether it is "shovel ready" or not, move this line towards reality.
   Pick two other projects based on this criteria:
2. Ridership will immediately make it a winner.
 It doesn't really matter what lines you fund, they just need to be "winners."  Then everyone else will get money for more trains. This is the all-important criteria. Pick a line that will be a winner quickly.
- One in the midwest, probably with Chicago at one end. 
3.  Make it "photo ready."
   Do not fund a train between Chicago and Detroit, for example. The photographers and reporters will not paint a pretty picture coming into Detroit, regardless of the ridership.  Connect two photo-ready cities that people will love to see in pictures.

 My picks: 
* Chicago to Minneapolis, going through 3 states and between two great cities.
* Atlanta to either Raleigh, NC or Birmingham, AL.  Send a message to the south that trains are for everybody, everywhere, not some elitist or socialist tax drain.  Get southerners on board.

Internet now a train!

In a stunning image and publicity defeat for automobiles, the Internet is no longer the "Information Superhighway" of the 1990s.  It is now a train.

If you watch the Comcast television ad closely, you will see the Internet is now a train.  As it should be.  Associating the web with the Horseless Carriage is so last-century.

Education: DIYbio major breakthrough

Well, the kids are amazing.  We never saw this coming.  It has to be one of the Top Ten Events of 2009.

A month or so ago DIYbio was founded.   DIY stands for Do Your Own.  And bio stands for - - yes! Biology.

Why should biology be limited to labs in colleges and corporations?  And why should only professionals and professors be engaged in biology? 

That's why Mac Cowell and his co-founder are advocating for citizen labs, on behalf of amateur biologists.

Immediately grown ups started worrying of course.  Muttering something about teenagers creating contagious diseases, or blowing up something.  NineShift of course is all for DIYbio, and whatever cures, inventions, and good it will bring in the coming century.     Photo: Mac Cowell, co-founder of DIYbio.

Should girls play with dolls or guns?

   It's the 50th anniversary of the Barbie doll, and some women are worrying about what kind of message Miss Barbie sends to their daughters.  Like 100 years ago, gender continues to be an issue in the first two decades of this century.

   What do you think?  Should girls play with dolls, or only certain kinds of dolls?  Or should they play with guns like boys and have a better chance to grow up and be an engineer? 

  

Photo: My grandmother's doll, circa 1890.  The doll is wearing a petticoat, the dress is next to it.  Underneath the petticoat is underwear that cannot be removed from the doll. 

Public ridership sets another new record

My brilliant co-author Julie Coates points out that the 2008 public transportation ridership record, the highest in 52 years,  is actually the FOURTH STRAIGHT YEAR of ridership records!

While this is news for grown-ups, it's starting to be old news for the kids, who are setting all the records.

It also means that the records started well before a) gas hit $4 a gallon; and b) the recession.

The 2008 record comes despite the fall in gas prices.  People in 2008 not only rode public transit more, they also drove less.   Car fanatics, the ones with the blinders on, will predict that autos will make a huge comeback after the recession.  They also predicted cars would make a huge comeback as gas prices fell.

While grown ups might drive more, and buy electric cars when they come out, it is also clear that Gen Y will continue to drive less, and will not be buying cars in any big way.  Thus, the auto continues to decline, the train continues to become more popular. 

Education: Proposed - - a GED for college

"The only thing college is good for is graduate school," remarked Willie last month. 

Grown ups can argue the point, but he's right of course about college being the prerequisite for graduate school.

Which, for society, is the main problem.  We don't have enough smart kids graduating from college for all the professional and scientific jobs that require a graduate degree.

There's at least 2 million smart kids wandering around out there without a college degree that test the same or even higher than the kids in college.  We're literally wasting about 14 million good jobs, according to Anthony Carnevale. 

Dr. James Rosser, in his new book "Playin to Win," says that about 80% of high school drop outs could pass high school exams.  I am going to suggest the same can be said about college: there's millions of smart kids who could pass college exams. 

While higher education figures out how to change to be functional in the 21st century, a "GED for college" would get smart kids into graduate school and good jobs.  Bottom line: with 14 million more professionals in good paying jobs, you could count on your retirement again.   (Photo: Dr. James Rosser)

The Futurist Manifesto

No, not today, but exactly 100 years ago, in 1909 the "Futurist Manifesto" was written by artist F.T. Marinetti. Here's an excerpt:

"We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace."

For more, see Wikipedia entry on it.    So here artists are embracing the new technology and century. A decade later (art historians please correct me here) other artists were finding fault with speed, the auto, and crass materialism of the 20th century.  So expect the same reactions among artists today to the web and all it is bringing. (Thanks to the BBC for airing its great story on the Futurist Manifesto)

Train ridership up, again

Record numbers of riders on public transportation, again. From Washington Post:

Despite job losses and falling gasoline prices, record numbers of Americans rode subways, buses and commuter rail last year, boosting public transportation ridership to its highest level in 52 years, according to a survey to be released today by the American Public Transportation Association.

The 10.7 billion transit trips Americans took last year amounted to a 4 percent increase over trips taken in 2007; at the same time, Americans drove measurably less, according to the Transportation Department.

The increase is significant because cheaper gas and job losses tend to drive transit ridership down. Almost 60 percent of transit riders go to work.

"It's not that hard to give up your car"

Seems like it is "Quote Week" on the NineShift blog!
Listening to a BBC reporter Justin Rowlatt recently, he was instructed by his bosses to cut his family's carbon footprint for a year.  Among other things, he gave up the family car.

"It's not that hard to give up your car"  he noted.  Now he might have been speaking about living in England, but he said it in Michigan and he was about to travel to California without using a car or plane.
Follow him on his blog.  And of course as trains start to proliferate, Americans can choose to live by trains as well.