Month: September 2010

a letter to the house you grew up in

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This is really really cool. Last week Arcade Fire, Google and artist Chris Milk, launched “The Wilderness Downtown“, an interactive video set to the band’s melancholy track “We Used to Wait.” Basically you type in the address of the home you grew up in and then it uses Google Maps and Google Street View to mix images of your childhood house into the video. Below is an image from my childhood home. We did actually have a house, but it was in a constant state of being built. In the meantime, we spent a lot of time sitting in dirt.

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It also gets you to write a letter to your younger self, which is integrated into the clip, too.

It’s all a bit nerdy and is mostly about showcasing Google Chrome (which you download …free) and HTML5. Pundits are saying it’s The Future (man!) of music videos.

Whatever. I like the nostalgic nudge it provides.

The lyrics of the song that forms the soundtrack go like this:

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sunday life: in which I commit random acts of kindness

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This week I give away stuff… randomly.

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Have you been ROAK’d yet? I know four people who have in the past fortnight. My friend Kerrie was walking to the servo to buy toilet paper and a woman she didn’t know handed her a bunch of jonquils. Just like that. A reader on my blog wrote to tell me some guy in front of her in the cafe queue paid for her coffee last week. Another two had their parking meter topped up by a stranger. In all but one case, they were handed a little note or card that informed them they were recipients of a Random Act of Kindness and that encouraged them to do the same to someone else. To pay it forward.

Americans are all over this odd little practice of guerilla dumping niceness on random strangers. Oprah has her Kindness Chain project. Her fans are invited to do a kind deed and write it down in a little journal that has their name and address on it and a request for the journal to be returned when full. They then invite the receiver of their RAOK to pass on the love – and the journal – to others.

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In Line Behind Me is a Washington-based blog dedicated to people who’ve been shouted coffees by strangers. They’re slipped a card inviting them to post a heart-warming story about the RAOK on said blog. The “shouter” can then log on and read about their amazing altruism the next day. Which, I suppose, means it’s really a blog dedicated to people who want to read about themselves on blogs.

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The three “life better” tips that get the most chatter

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I’m in Bali on holidays… So I’m posting in advance a short best-of series. I hope you don’t mind. But it’s really something I need to practice, since I preach this kind of thing (shutting off, creating space), right? Part three is  mini-list of the tricks and tips that have grabbed people the most. It’s … Read more

The three best efficiency tips I’ve ever found

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So, this week I’ve packed up and racked off to Bali for “annual leave” (are such things relevant when you work for yourself?). I’ve vowed not to work. So I’m posting in advance a short best-of series. I’ve been on this experiment…trying different tricks and meeting various gurus for just over a year. Some work. … Read more

The three most authentic gurus I’ve met

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So, this week I’ve packed up and racked off to Bali for “annual leave”. I’m here with four boys – Jim, Sam, Jason and Karl (a little more handsome than the lot below). Boys are funny on holidays. They arrive at consensus in crazy cruisy ways. All cool, so long as they get a surf in.

Anyway. So I’m posting in advance a short best-of series. I’ve been on this experiment…trying different tricks and meeting various gurus for just over a year. Which have worked? I’ve narrowed my take down to a mini-list of three.

It’s also the first day of Spring. Sniff some wattle for me!

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1. Marketing guru Seth Godin. We chatted about giving art as a gift. The guy is very much the real deal. There are a lot of efficiency experts out there who preach only answering emails once a day and who – magically – reply to your correspondence within 5 seconds…. It kind of shits me. Or makes me have a little heart sink.

So how do we start giving gifts? How do we become remarkable? “The aim is to elevate connecting and sharing to the same level as breathing or eating lunch every day,” he says.  By which he means, we start giving and then give some more and eventually it becomes a way of life. Seth walks his talk. He makes money from public speaking and his books. Then he spends the rest of his time giving freely. He intentionally doesn’t monetise his blog or any online webinars he gives and he expends a lot of energy connecting and helping people. I can vouch for this personally. Read more here.

2. The Dalai Lama. Yep, met the guy and chatted about how to stop head chatter. He’s a man true to brief. But who has the common touch. He knows how to tell the Western world what they need to hear.

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