Land Value Taxation

This video briefly explains an alternative concept for taxation. Setting the relative values of land would of course be a complex detail of such an idea, but no more complex than the underpinnings of our existing tax labyrinth. It would be a very big software model to test before delivering the news! Nonetheless, the central notion is very interesting and more details are available at the Earthsharing site.

Crowd-sourced copywriting

Last year I met a student named Asad Khan during a University of Toronto class where I volunteer.  Asad has graduated and started an interesting business that will operate a marketplace to match crowd-sourced copywriters with companies seeking creative ideas. If you think you are can compose the type of catchy phrase that can win an online competition (or you simply want to pretend you are on Mad Men) then you might want to sign-up to be notified when the service goes live. Naturally, Asad is seeking initial funding through a crowd-sourced funding site -- indiegogo.

MOOC discussion at Rensselaer

Below is an email I sent today to a few Rensselaer faculty and staff. If you are one of my RPI friends, please consider pushing a few buttons on campus as well and please cut and paste from my diatribe if you like. The first MOOC I used was at Cal Berkeley as I was preparing to go back to RPI in late 2006.  It is astonishing that RPI was a national leader in distance education in the 80's and they are now so far behind.

To: president@rpi.edi; edop@poly.rpi.edu;

Subject: Don't forget alumni in the MOOC discussion

For many, Rensselaer's April 10th Colloquium on Teaching & Learning will be about the pedagogy of MOOCs. But for everyone associated with RPI, it should first be about Rensselaer's brand -- our reputation. Understanding why this topic has far-reaching strategic value to Rensselaer is more important than tactical implementation considerations. At the heart of that strategic value is understanding how to leverage Institute resources to engage the imaginations of alumni who can uniquely influence RPI's reputation.

Before we arrived on campus as students, faculty or staff, we chose to invest our skills and our time at RPI because of some positive association or affinity we each had previously developed for this great Institute. With some reflection, I bet each one of us could identify that positive influence. Perhaps it was a friend or relative that spoke highly of the schools educational rigor. Perhaps you highly regarded a distinguished researcher. Perhaps a trusted professional colleague had graduated from the school or was an employee. That feeling and influence is the foundation of RPI's brand. Upon that foundation, faculty, staff and alumni frame their professional lives.

Unlike most faculty, tens of thousands of RPI alumni will only have one university affiliation. When asked in a professional or personal context where we chose to spend our formative undergrad years, we will proudly exclaim RPI !  Most alumni hope that everyone who has been associated with RPI will enthusiastically promote this school. But realistically we all know that some will not. Faculty and staff have their own alma mater and may advance their careers elsewhere. Some alumni secretly regret attending Rensselaer for various reasons.

Regardless of your passion or your loyalty to Rensselaer, if Rensselaer is on your resume then YOU NEED the school's reputation to be of the highest caliber. YOU BENEFIT when people within your professional life associate Rensselaer with greatness. You need that positive reputation to spread and grow. YOU GAIN when corporate executives, entrepreneurs, members of the press, academics, industry leaders, government bureaucrats and millions of casual professional colleagues understand the value -- respect the brand -- of Rensselaer.

Learning is the core business of any school and Rensselaer is no different. Research is learning. Getting a degree is learning. Advancing your professional life requires continuous learning. It is only in the most simplistic view that online course content could be viewed solely as a tool to help professors deliver content to students enrolled at RPI. A long pedagogical discussion about "residential students", "assessment", "asynchronous interactivity", etc etc fails to acknowledge reality. The Colloquium first needs to consider how to maintain relevant contact with 90,000 influential alumni.

Alumni represent the greatest collective power to influence the reputation of the school. We are the ones who can most effectively tell our friends, family and millions of professional associates about the great achievements being made at RPI and the value of an RPI affiliation. In the absence of RPI online content, RPI alumni will seek out content from other great schools such as those shaping Coursera and edX. Alumni can drive more prospective grants and dollars to the school or we can deliver those dollars elsewhere. It is a fiduciary responsibility of the Trustees to ensure that the Institute employees are sustaining and growing the reputation of Rensselaer. As a direct consequence, the Institute employees should be focused on delivering quality learning to both current students and alumni. Any business that disregards their existing customers will wither against competitive forces. Alumni are established customers. Without a proactively engaged alumni, RPI will wither.

If you are a distinguished or emerging academic at Rensselaer, I would imagine you want to attract industry funding and grants from governments and private foundations.  You probably want the most talented and creative grad-school candidates. Symmetrically, those same individuals and institutions want to work with the best possible researchers. Think of an online course as one of your tools for attracting unsolicited research projects and inspired students.

The Rensselaer faculty MUST begin this year to deliver openly available content or you force 90,000 graduates to look elsewhere for their intellectual curiosity and casual professional development. This is an issue of basic marketing -- maintain the loyalty of your existing customers so they become a source of future revenue. You will not find an easier group of people to attract to the RPI website. Many alumni are puzzled by the absence of content available from RPI. We look to innovative content projects such as edX and Coursera and feel disappointed and embarrassed that RPI is not represented. We search in vain on the RPI website for similar intellectually engaging content.

Please, do not ignore the influence of Rensselaer alumni.

Winter camping

Winter camping is one of those things that people seem to view from a very binary perspective. There are those who think winter should involve minimizing snow exposure and those who think sleeping outside in freezing weather sounds like fun. In March I spent a couple nights camped on Big Deer Lake north of my place on the Mag. The pulk sled I used in Killarney in 2010 is great for lake and open country travel, but I was expecting lots of bushwacking on this excursion so I used a backpack for all the gear. For the same reason, I used snowshoes rather than skis. Unfortunately the weather was a little too warm and the snow became soft, wet and sticky. On my return, every step plunged deep into the snow and heavy wet snow would fall onto the deck of the snowshoe. It was exhausting, but I really enjoy the winter -- it is the season when you get to see animal tracks and when you can reach places like the little river below that would be very difficult to reach in the other seasons.

Feb 14 = Generosity Day

Parker Mitchell has a good idea on his blog -- re-brand February 14th as Generosity Day. The idea seems to flow from Sasha Dicter and some of his friends.

Ernesto Sirolli

This is a really excellent commentary on international development. It includes one of the great phrases of business -- Shut up! And listen. Thanks to Margaret & Bob for the link.

Soupstock!

This sounds like fun.

----------
Sent from my BlackBerry

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From: David Suzuki Foundation <subscribers@davidsuzuki.org>

Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 03:26:47 -0700

To: Don McMurtry<donmcmurtry@gmail.com>

ReplyTo: David Suzuki Foundation <subscribers@davidsuzuki.org>

Subject: Raise a bowl with us at Soupstock!

Celebrate with over 160 chefs on Sunday October 21st The Canadian Chefs' Congress and David Suzuki Foundation invite you to join us for Soupstock in Toronto's Woodbine Park on October 21st. Soupstock is a sequel to last year's Foodstock event, where dozens of chefs, farmers and musical acts attracted 28,000 supporters of local food and farms to a forest in Melancthon Township, adjacent to the proposed Highland Companies Mega-Quarry. This year the event is coming to the city, and it is going to be huge. There will be more than 160 chefs, dozens of local farmers and a great homegrown musical lineup. We hope you and your family will join us to celebrate local food and support protecting prized Ontario farmland and our precious headwaters. Admission is free, and three bowls of gourmet soup will cost only $10! Beat the lineup by purchasing your soup tickets in advance. Please spread the word. We'll see you at Soupstock! Truly, Dr. Faisal Moola, director, David Suzuki Foundation and Chef Michael Stadtlander, Canadian Chefs' Congress P.S. To make our event as sustainable as possible, please bring your own bowl, spoon and reusable napkin. Parking is limited, so come by foot, bike or transit. All funds raised will go toward stopping the controversial Mega-Quarry, and other environmental and food-related issues.

David Suzuki Foundation - 219 - 2211 4 Ave W - Vancouver BC V6K 4S2 Canada To review our Privacy Policy. The email address for you is donmcmurtry@gmail.com If you no longer wish to receive email communication from David Suzuki Foundation you may unsubscribe

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Double Aeroplan points today

If you donate some of your Aeroplan points today the donation will be matched by Aeroplan. I donated a little over 5% of my points to Engineers Without Borders. Because one of their major costs is getting people to Africa, you would be making a very high value contribution to the organization. EWB was one of the first non-profits involved with Aeroplan's donation matching program.

Ashuapmushuan

Last week we finished an excellent 175 km trip paddling down the Ashuapmushuan River that flows into Lac St. Jean in Quebec. Three canoes for nine days with lots of long rapids -- some were simple and over a kilometer long, some were more complex and required careful scouting before we ran them and some required portage or lining.

The river was running at about 200 cubic meters per second which is low for the Ash; Michel Lessard, the guy who lead the trip, has paddled it at 400 and 800. We were told that the river has been low for three summers now and at 200 we only had a couple spots where we were forced to get out and haul the canoes through short shallow sections.

With the river pushing us along quickly we made camp by noon several days and that gave us some time to play without a fully loaded canoe. Here is a video clip showing Jean and I attempting, unsuccessfully, to surf a little wave and another as we thread our way through some ledges.

More malware

While I would like RIM to ship some new products -- on time -- I am not willing to move to an Android device where I will have the constant worry about viruses and trojan horse software. Note that I wrote a similar post a few months ago.