The Center for Graphic Facilitation

Good Coffee + GOOD Magazine = Great Graphics

The Good Sheet, which hits Starbucks (SBUX) counters each week leading up to the election, tackles one election topic per issue: energy, carbon emissions, health care, immigration, education, etc. Starbucks' goal is to get people talking about the issues that matter.

"We had been looking at ways to bring a little bit of those conversation-starters into the Starbucks environment," said Terry Davenport, the senior vice president for marketing at Starbucks. SOURCE

The long newsprint sheets fold down into a compact 5" x 5" square, but when unfurled they are packed with statistics and detail that illuminate the complexity within each topic.

The project brings together an innovative publication (100% of your subscription goes to a charity of your choice) and America's version of cafe culture (the proverbial "third place") in order to seed the conversations that will face the next US administration and congress.

View each GOOD sheet on-line at: http://good.is

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School

The brain is an amazing thing. Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know.

Dr. John Medina is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant. He is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University.

Medina's Brain Rules book, DVD and on-line tutorials make the complexity of our individually wired brains both understandable and fun. Lots of content also available on YouTube--including the location of the elusive Jennifer Aniston neuron!

clipped from www.brainrules.net EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power. SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too. WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently. ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things. SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember. LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat. SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well. STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way. SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses. VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses. GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different. EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

 

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity

from Fast Company article by Gregory Berns:

The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat. It doesn't want to waste energy. That's why there is a striking lack of imagination in most people's visualization of a beach sunset. It's an iconic image, so your brain simply takes the path of least resistance and reactivates neurons that have been optimized to process this sort of scene. If you imagine something that you have never actually seen, like a Pluto sunset, the possibilities for creative thinking become much greater because the brain can no longer rely on connections shaped by past experience." READ FULL ARTICLE >>