In Chess and in Life, Make Every Move Count

I learned about an amazing, inspiring champion chess player, Orrin C. Hudson, who uses the game of chess to teach youth about life. I love the metaphor: making the right moves in chess is like making the right moves in life. His story, and the organization he has founded called "Be Someone" is one to be shared.

Orrin mentions that his organization "Be Someone" is less about chess and more about developing character, the key traits that are essential for success in life -- love, respect, honesty, responsibility, patience.

Orrin observes that, just like in chess, in life it's important to think strategically when making decisions, and "make every move count". Sometimes in chess you will lose. When this happens, you can still learn something from it if you keep an open mind. Hmm. An important lesson that can also be applied in Life.

What a cool and fun way to teach and learn these important values. Be inspired, and check out Be Someone.org, for more information about this wonderful organization and its founder, Orrin C. Hudson, a remarkable role model, teacher, and chess player who is using his love of chess to make a difference in the lives of youth.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Through a maze of links this morning, I somehow landed on the front door of The American Dream Project. Wow, pure inspiration!

It's been a bit crazy over the past week, and since I leave for Costa Rica tomorrow (yay! :-)), I'll have to come back to this cool project next week when I return.

Until then, I can say for sure that it's really cool to read someone else's words and discover that another's ideas and thoughts can resonate so closely with what's been bouncing around in my own mind for the past many months. Seeing these thoughts in writing is inspiring, and helps to clarify my own ideas in some ways. Nice. :-)

So, I'll dissect this more and come back to it again next week - stay tuned. Until then, read more at The American Dream Project. :-)

The essential ideal of America is to bring the greatest opportunity for happiness and the least suffering to the most people. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are more than words. This is the most noble human purpose any nation has yet seen conceived.

The American Dream Project is driven to change the way we work, live and lead. The inspiration for the American Dream Project started when I was thrust before audiences of 30 to 40 year-old leaders attending programs sponsored by the Graduates Club. Both my clients and the Graduate Club audience helped me see a new future.

Leaders of the future have a distinctly different agenda. I am amazed at their dreams. For many, ... what matters is meaning, great original ideas, innovation, family and honest-to-goodness improvement of the condition of everyone's lives, worldwide.

Today the American Dream Project is making films, publishing books, hosting video blogs and national webcasts, creating e-learning courses for high school and college students. We hold town halls and live local events to celebrate extraordinary Americans who use citizen enterprise, their own businesses, and their personal lives to do extraordinary good.

Will Marre
Leadership Consultant and Founder, The American Dream Project

DoGooder TV

These are exciting times. Technology, as we know, is changing the way we work, learn, and gain information. Today's tools enable us to create our own internet TV station, blog, radio station via podcast, etc, - and share our thoughts and message with people throughout the world.

I recently learned about this cool new internet TV portal called "DoGooder TV". What a great idea: it's an online community for people dedicated to nonprofit and socially oriented causes, projects, and organizations. Essentially, it serves as a kind of parking lot for causes and projects that strive to make our world a better place. Check it out, enjoy the inspiration :-)

DoGooderTV enables nonprofit organizations to present new videos and existing media assets to new audiences. Once site visitors see the compelling stories of nonprofits, DoGooderTV gives them a direct way to donate to the organization, join, volunteer or simply find out more information.

DoGooderTV is building on the success of sites such as MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and many others that allow users to create community and share content.

DoGooderTV is using nonprofit media as the hook to link individuals to causes, organizations and other individuals who share a passion for an issue.

The goal of DoGooderTV is to grow a new generation of interested, engaged and active philanthropists and volunteers using web tools that have already demonstrated tremendous power.

In addition to direct donations, site visitors can also create community around issues that are important to them, develop a giving circle, and easily connect their friends with the organizations they care about.

DoGooderTV is a project of See3 Communications, the leading provider of media services to nonprofit organizations.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation in K-12 Education on "iinnovate"

Hi lovely visitors! To follow up on yesterday's post on how you can enjoy (free) UC Berkeley online classes, here is another fantastic site - "iinnovate" where you can learn all about what is on the mind of top business leaders, technologists, social and business entrepreneurs.

iinnovate is a blog produced by students of Stanford University's Business and Design schools. The students interview respected academic and business leaders and post the podcast and videocasts of the interviews on their blog site, "Iinovate.blogspot.com".

You can sign up via Itunes to listen on-the-go or sign up for the iinnovate RSS feed so that you are alerted when new interviews are posted.

The videocast above is from iinovate's May 2007 panel discussion of leaders in the field of education. The first two minutes of this particular episode are the best. The short clip features students who participated in "BUILD"'s business plan competition for high school students. The students comment on their experience in creating a business plan for greeting cards. Enjoy :)

UCBerkeley on YouTube -- for free

Technology today is absolutely amazing. Every day I learn of something new in the world of tech that makes me feel like every day is my birthday, the first day of school, and New Year all rolled into one. Okay, I'm getting a little carried away. Let's just say this is all very exciting, ha!

I heard quite some time ago about universities offering free classes via the internet. A recent article in the Washington Post, "Internet Access is Only Prerequisite for More and More College Courses", reminded me of this amazing gift, which prompted me to revisit and check it all out.

In her article, journalist Susan Kinzie talks about how UC Berkeley and MIT and other top academic institutions are videotaping courses and university events and posting them for the world to enjoy - for free - on YouTube. Cool!

Given my interest in technology, I skipped the plethora of physics and chemistry videos on the site and did a search for technology-related topics instead. A really cool lecture on the UC Berkeley site popped up. It featured Google's co-founder Sergey Brin. Fantastic!

So, for a few minutes of viewing delight I was able to enjoy the same presentation via video as if I was part of UC Berkeley's class called "Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business". Brilliant!

Universities are well-known for being on the cutting edge of ideas and innovations. As such, the availability of this information to those of us in the world at large is extraordinary. It's a great way to participate in lifelong learning. Also, given the expense these days of university education, this access to such high-caliber information is one way to learn from the world's best - at the cost of an internet connection.

To check out these fantastic classes, please visit UC Berkeley or MIT.