All the way.  Double rainbow all the way

it’s so intense!

So this is the greatest video ever. Guaranteed to put a smile on. It gets kind of awkward at some points but you can’t help but feel happy for the guy.

What does it mean?

I’m in okay condition. I’ve spent most my life being active with sports, but after a few injuries, and mild love affair with beer, I’ve found myself getting farther away from that tip-top condition that I used to be when I found myself in a pool every morning. I tried the P90 Extreme, but found it too extreme. I just want to subsidize my daily routine with a little something that will get my body inshape, not shock therapy.

So I stumbled onto MensHealth.com and found Belly Off, a community and workplan which includes workouts, mealplans, and some weightloss tips. I’m finding it useful so far for the workouts. Since I don’t belong to a gym — I mostly rely on stuff I can do between my pull-up bar and my assorted weight rack and their workouts are good for just that, however they’re even better if you have a home gym type of machine.

You get started by choosing from one of 3 different workout tracks: Jumpstart, No-Gym Classic, and Dumbbell Blast. I’m starting with the No-Gym Classic. With each workout track they offer video for each days exercise and a short well designed pdf guide explaining the workout.

If you’re looking to tone up check it out. I’m sure it’s not going to be everything to everyone, but it looks to be perfect for my routine.

I’ve been working on a bit of a new side project in my spare time, yeah, like I have that. Here’s a little something that brewed up from this new adventure. I have no clue what to call this playlist – so Chill Tracks 1 it is…

The tracks will continue to autoplay once you hit play the first time. Crank it up!

TRACKS INCLUDE:

Following his 2006 TED presentation, Sir Ken Robinson, educator “creativity expert” (TED), talks about the need and importance for create a new “learning revolution,” one where creativity and diversity of talents is priority #1. He makes a compelling, and urgent, case for this new paradigm and way of looking at our talents (true gifts).

So what do you think?

Can we teach better? Where will the creative solutions, to our future problems, come from? What does that look like?

You gotta you love TED.

TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design is an annual conference showcasing presentations from some very innovative, imaginative, interesting, and pioneering folks. They truly do present Ideas worth spreading.

So if you can’t get enough of the videos, maybe this will quench your thirst. @TEDNews (on Twitter) has a great Twitter list with 41 (and counting) speakers from the 2010 conference. Not a bad bunch of folks to tune into if you ask me.

The KI (kee) is one of my clients at Earthsite. They’re set to launch a great sustainable lifestyle event August 27-29 in Alameda. On Wednesday, May 19th, they will be hosting a lead up event to the real deal. The event is dubbed ‘A Taste of KI’ and is taking place in Napa, CA. The event features the KI’s partners who range from eco-fashion designers, automotive companies, raw- and healthy organic foods, and more.

Some of the features of the event include: media drives and public rides in Tesla’s new Roadster, and Brammo & Zero Motorcycles. JE Models touting clothing designed by Bahar Shapar, Nau, and underwear from PACT. Presentations from the KI partners, and more.

I’ll be sure to post some photos after the event, and if your interested in attending, use the code “green“for 50% off ticket price.

http://theki.eventbrite.com

Man these guys can really tear it up!

I’m reading Five Minds for the Future, by Howard Gardner. One of those minds for the future is the “disciplined mind.” Not the go sit in a corner discipline, rather, the “systematic instruction” designed for a particular subject or field of study. So I thought I’d dive deeper into some of the more interesting topics to be explored in the sociology of social media.

Some context—why study it?

The study of sociology has much to offer public relations, marketing, and development. Not just for enterprise and profit, but for the benefit of societies everywhere, even offline. This happens when developers, community managers, and leaders come together for common purpose, to solve the needs of the group, and that happens through understanding what people want and need and why that is so, we can make better informed judgments and decisions as creators.

I remember sighing in relief when I read what PR/new media pro, Brian Solis, wrote in his book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations:

Today’s communication strategies can benefit from the social sciences such as sociology and anthropology… You must understand that technology supports the sociology of the network— it doesn’t replace it.

I studied sociology because I found it interesting, not because I thought it would lead to a great career— or even work (I went to graduate school for that).

Back to the disciplined mind… Gardner describes how to achieve a disciplined mind, the first being to, “Identify important topics and concepts within the discipline.” I’ve drawn some interesting points that I’d like to open up and do more discovery in. So here is my synthesis (Gardners 2nd mind for the future) with the sociology of social media:

• “Social media” is a vague term that attempts to describe something complex.
• Diffusion of the techno-social innovations among different groups of people.
  • Variable segmentation from group to group based (correlation difficult?)
  • Differences between those groups (demographic, cultural).
  • Interaction within & between them (language, norms).
• Macro and micro economic systems related to the social technologies.
  • Capitalism driven
• Organic and synthetic communities
  • Roles in the community.
  • Developing and addressing norms when boundaries are loosely drawn, or non existent

So there are a few ideas that I’m swimming with if you have any other ideas that you’d like me to add, let me know and I’ll put you and it on this list.

Good reads on this topic:

Five Minds for the Future, by Howard Gardner
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, by Brian Solis