Notes from the cloud by Eric Johnson
The Charlottesville farmers’ market was full of local berries this morning. Local peaches are just starting to come in. Lots of folks were out walking and on bikes, baskets filled with greens.
What we are encountering is a panicky, an almost hysterical, attempt to escape from the deadly anonymity of modern life… and the prime cause is not vanity… but the craving of people who feel their personality sinking lower and lower into the whirl of indistinguishable atoms to be lost in a mass civilization. – Henry Seidel Canby, 1926
Call me a news snob. I subscribe to The Economist. I read The Guardian’s RSS feed. I don’t have a TV (well, not one that can receive a signal anymore) On the road, I tend to tiptoe around the USA Todays that lurk outside my hotel room door.
Flickr combines the power of visual storytelling with the very nature of a social network - engagement and conversation. Three arts organizations (Houston Ballet, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Luce Foundation Center for American Art) are innovating ways to use Flickr creatively, and in the process offering backstage passes to the organization, amplifying programming, and engaging stakeholders in real decision-making.
The National Geographic Society, in addition to making a magazine, TV shows and website, also funds research and exploration. Once a year, they bring their grantees together for an Explorers’ Symposium in Washington, DC. I had a chance to attend some of the sessions.
