Soap boxes at the ready

It’s all too easy to sit back and knock ideas, so when I heard about the Davos Question, I thought it merited a second look and a tip of the cap.

Bringing together the who’s who of leaders from business, government, the media, academia, the arts and society, the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos this week isn’t just your average tea party. As with topics like the environment, economic development, and energy security topping the bill, the guys really have their work cut out to secure public buy-in on decisions impacting both local and global issues. Not only that, but as with anything like the WEF, there is always the danger of it being perceived as distant and unrepresentative of the real issues, which is exactly why the whole Davos Question concept caught my eye.

Teaming with YouTube, the organizers have laid down the big one – What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008? – and asked people to post video responses, the best of which will be shared with the attendees. Now I know not everyone has the access or technology needed to get involved, but never the less, it’s a good move by the WEF big wigs. 

Been having a look through myself and watched videos on everything from setting up a think tank exploring a moneyless society to focusing on buying mosquito nets. Granted there were some weird ones, and with people like the Neotoy, there were certainly a few strange contributors, but by in large, I came away with the impression that people had really thought about it. What did you think, any good ones?

As I haven’t entered a video, I can’t see how the voting’s going – guess they didn’t get everything right – but lets keep an eye out later this week to see which ones get picked and whether it will be mosquito nets for all.

Word abuse

Ever thought about the number of words we use?

We all certainly have our favourite ones, whether at work or out with our friends, and there are certain words that just seem to crop up more than others. In my job, it’s all about “leading”, with every technology vendor under the sun “leading” something or another. Begs the question who they are leading, but let’s not dwell on that.

Outside of work, the word that seems to be flavour of the month is “like”. Again, this is used rather carelessly and scattered across everything and anything people are saying. Like what? You may well ask, but you are not going to get very far, as it’s like everything. Glad we cleared that one up.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to profess any kind of exceptional grasp of languages as while I probably know a word or two more than the average Joe Smoe, I only speak English and certainly haven’t swallowed a dictionary.  In fact, people like that just annoy me and I couldn’t help but feel the arrogance pouring out of this piece in the Guardian.

Anyway, I digress. To the original point, there are actually almost 1 million words in the English language – the good people at Language Monitor are actually counting down to the one millionth one – which is far more than any other language on earth.

But how many of these are actually used? I did a little couch-based investigation and came across this site, which states that an average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 of them a week. Not bad, but seems only the tip of the iceberg and makes me wonder how this compares to the “non” average. Well, good old Mr Shakespeare used 24,000 words, which considering the number of new words since then; isn’t too shabby. On the other side of the scales is Basic English, a made up language that maybe a few too many people subscribe to, consisting of only 850 words.

Now, there isn’t going to be any great epiphany here as ultimately, it is what it is, but next time someone keeps abusing the same word over and over again, like Hillary among others did recently in Iowa (if you missed it, check this out), this might make you smile as you think just how many other words there are to chose from.

You don’t say

It has been said many times before, but the more I think about it, the more apparent it becomes; in today’s world it is not what is actually said, but what isn’t that really counts. 

Slightly drunken conversation last night got me thinking about this a little more. Since I moved to the US, I have been fascinated by the way people communicate with each other. Now I am not going to go down the usual well-trodden stereotype route, partly because I now live here and partly because there are always exceptions, but all the little differences have caught my attention and made me think again about what is lurking between the lines.    

 

It’s funny really, as often the most pertinent points are left out. We all probably know people that are experts at this, but the closer you look, the more it manifests itself in almost every interaction you have. Whether at work, home or anywhere and everywhere in between, the information that people chose not to convey can be very telling.

As this post is straying into the deep end, I am not going to go too much further down this path. Instead, I am going to ask you to help me keep an eye out in a “Where’s Wally” kind of a fashion for what’s not being said, and see if we cant fill in some of the missing gaps on future posts – think quote of the week, or something along those lines.

To lighten things up a little, lets take our hats off to the master, as lets be honest, no one has a way with words quite like him

P.S. To get us started, try out the word search and let me know how many countries you can find…

Mobile phones cause world hunger

A little sensational maybe, but it seems to me that mobile phone use gets more than its fair share of bad press.

Have been muddling over this for a while, but a recent study by the “experts” at the University of Utah linking traffic problems with mobile use kind of pushes it over the edge. At face value, which was how even Time Magazine took it, the study makes sense, you are slightly distracted and that will ultimately impact your focus on driving. But as ever, taking a step back gives a whole new perspective.

The ever-cynical Register hit the nail on the head when it reminded us that this report comes from the same professor who seems to have somewhat of a grudge against mobile use. Back in 2003, he went as far as to claim that “cell phone users where driving blind” and look out older readers, as in 2005 he claimed it made people “drive like 70-year-olds”. Somewhere along the line this guy and the mobile industry fell out, perhaps he got a big bill, but you have to wonder what conclusions his next piece of objective research will draw.

Everything has its knockers and while the jury is certainly still out on more serious concerns, I for one can put up with traffic moving 2 Mph slower for one of the few technologies that can genuinely claim to have changed the way we live our lives.

High-fliers

Nice good news story today that included an interesting list of the world’s high-fliers.

The Guinness Book of records probably has it covered, but to save you sifting through its website, I have added it below with a little commentary of my own.

• They don’t build them like they used to – Flight attendant Vesna Vulovic holds the world record for surviving a fall, dropping 33,316ft (10,160m) inside part of a Yugoslav DC9 that was destroyed mid-air by a bomb in 1972
• Fire in the belly – RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade survived an 18,000ft jump from a blazing Lancaster bomber in 1944
• New hire shop needed – Skydiver Michael Holmes fell 15,000ft when his main chute tangled and his reserve failed
• Plain clumsy – Chris Saggers escaped with a broken elbow after falling 22 floors from a UK tower block

Of course, if you can beat or match any of these, drop me a line and I will get the beers in…

You have to marvel at the logic

Sometimes it’s difficult to believe what you read in the news. 

On the BBC website today I came across the headline “Can Spiderman help UN beat evil?” and had to take a closer look. Turns out that the UN has recently announced a union with comic book company, Marvel with the aim of getting Spiderman’s help to improve its reputation.

Positive endorsements where clearly hard for the BBC to find, with the co-owner of a New York Comic store being seen as a credible source to comment on the actions of a global association of governments. Detractors weren’t quite so hard to find, with the former US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, calling it an “act of desperation”. Guess he was impressed.

After reading the article I wondered what else had been written about the UN today. Top of my trusty search engine pops up an article on the UN’s reluctance to even consider looking into the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, despite calls from just about everyone you could imagine. Strange really given its potential global significance, but guess with Spiderman on board, we don’t have too much to worry about.

Even the best of intentions

As final drops were drained out of champagne bottles, cigarettes distinguished and needles cast to one side, thoughts turned to the New Year and resolutions that will make 2008 different.

 

New Year’s resolutions are somewhat of an optimistic tradition and how many of us can say we have seen them through to February, let alone still remember them come March. This woeful commitment was picked up in research conducted in the UK, which found that while 52 per cent were confident of success, only 12 per cent actually achieved their goals.

As ever, quitting smoking topped the list and while this is one of the harder ones, it may have just become easier for the “good people” of France. Despite the traditional coffee shop culture, fags of the flammable type are now a thing of the past in “friendly” Parisian bars, restaurants and watering holes.

While resolutions may be difficult to keep, it’s amazing what people end up doing that they didn’t even know about at the start of the year. The phenonmenal growth of social networking and in particular Facebook in 2007 was a testimaony to the domino link effect of peer pressure. As one of the few regular Internet users under the age of 30 with less than 100 friends, I have to sit back and laugh while looking at how the site may turn out in the future.