HI's Youth Exchange Program: Spend two weeks in France, all costs paid!

Want to spend two weeks in France, all expenses paid, with a group of fun people from around the world?? Read on...

A lot of people ask me how I started my crazy world traveling. The truth is that I grew up very sheltered like a lot of other people. I had very open-minded parents and that helped a lot. But they didn't know a lot about these types of things. The opportunities were things that I just jumped on, and lucked out with the rest of it.

One of the opportunities that started it all off was my youth hostelling experience at 22. I was a young, inexperienced traveler; all my life, I'd read and been very taken with British literature (I come from an ex-colonial country and it still has significant remnants of colonialism). So my sister and I went to England for a month, with our bookbags as our backpacks, newspaper articles as our guides, and a couple hundred dollars in our pockets. We stayed at youth hostels, particularly the ones run by Hostelling International (HI). They opened my world up. I met people from all over and exchanged stories. I got traveling tips, made friends, and became a travel addict. It all started there.

A year later, I got a wind of their wonderful exchange programs and did one to France. I'm still in touch with the people I met then. I've visited them, they've visited me. We're all family. It was wonderful, and just bolstered my travel itch.

Now I want you to have that experience too. HI's France exchange program just opened up. APPLY, APPLY, APPLY! Spend two weeks in France, ALL costs paid. Just FYI, you must be between 18-23 years of age. So spread the word...

Innovating through negation

Part of good innovation is knowing when to say "no." That 's equally, if not more important than saying 'yes.' In a recent article, Google Senior VP Jeff Huber gave insight into their process for turning things down, and how they are still able to wow the world with their innovative products.

I suggest that you read the article, but here is my take on Google's process:

a. Diligent consumer testing: Know your audience and give them what they want. Any product that repeatedly fails consumer tests is immediately ditched.

b. Diligent listening: Google purposely puts out less than perfect products and then hones them around customer suggestions through their active product blogs.

b. Getting the fans and making the buck: If a new product won't generate ad revenue, the product is dropped. The bottom-line, particularly in this economy, is it should have a lot of fans. By Seth Godin's definition, a fan is someone (in this case a user) who will proselytize on your behalf. Getting more fans gets more ad revenue, which keeps the company growing.

Google's first-line of testing is their large and phenomenally brilliant employee base. If a product doesn't create a fan base among their employees, it probably won't make it in the "real world." Its what the googlers call "eating your own dog-food."

The Magic of Letters

One of my favorite blogs that I subscribe to is the NPR series called "This I Believe" that outlines the thoughts and lessons of remarkable men and women from around the world.

Inspired by the "This I Believe" podcast in the United States, a local radio station in Nepal is doing a version of their own "Mero Jindagi" (literally translated to "My Life", but meant to convey the same sentiment as "This I believe").

This week, Chameli Waiba gave her beautiful and powerful story titled "The Magic of Letters." Chameli lives in a rural village in Nepal, was a child bride at 15, and didn't learn to read until she was 21. Learning the alphabet, and later, how to read opened up her world. Today, she heads social and environmental movements in the village she lives in, as well those surrounding hers. In her essay, she talks about the power of letters.

Listen to it here.

India makes a new laptop

At TED2009 a couple of weeks ago, Nicholas Negroponte strode atop the TED stage yet again (he somehow seems to keep getting time on that stage!), and threw a couple of his OLPCs about the floor (heck, I would have done that years ago for free!). He also announced that he is finally releasing or open-sourcing all the hardware from the OLPC (wow...and this took only how many years!!).

In the meantime, India has plans to release its own version of a laptop of sorts (not sure if it'll be a laptop or something better!). BBC has the story.

India says it is planning to produce a low cost gadget intended for use by school children and students.

The storage device has been developed as part of a broader national plan to update the technology used by Indian colleges and schools.

Details are scant, but it is planned to use wireless to connect and have 2GB of memory onboard. Reports of the cost vary from $10 to $100.

[read more]

Amazing Time Magazine Photoessays

Time Magazine photographers have outdone themselves again. In the past couple of weeks, they've put out some powerful photoessays on a range of interesting topics. Here are some:

1. Can Change Come to Congo? By amazing photographer James Nachtway.

2. Happy 200th Birthday Darwin. A collection of photographs of Darwin and his work.

3. Spiritual Healing Around the World.

4. Portraits of Abraham Lincoln.

5. Slumdog Entrepreneurs. Real life entrepreneurs in the same slums (Dharavi) that the move was shot in (see picture above; photo credit: Daniel Beheruhak).

6. Healthcare in Tehran.

Favorite TED Moments: Conversations with Barry Schwartz

(photo host)

My first post on the series "my favorite TED moments" is up on the Fellows blog.

Among my many favorite memories is talking to Barry before his talk, following up with him after his talk, and then finding out the story behind his talk. Allow me to share this.

[read more]

Links I liked

1. The Harvard Admission Process: How Harvard gets its Best and Brightest

2. Outside of Romeo Dulaire, Alison Des Forges was the Rwandan Genocide's most outspoken critic. A wonderful role model for journalists. Read Slate Magazine's beautiful tribute to her.

3. 17 Career Lessons from IDEO's David Kelley.

4. Big Boys Do Cry: the Tears of Grown Men.

5. Is pub culture really destroying the Indian Fabric?? You may not know this but this past valentine's day brought this topic to the front. Hindu extremists are turning increasingly hostile towards the "modernization" of India and what it brings with it. This piece was in response to that.