Jan 24 2008
Glossary
The GLOSSARY is alive and evolving - your input requested.
RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE GLOSSARY:
Entrepreneurial transparency: The practice of making available for public view one’s actions in business. May include financial transparency, ethical choices, affiliate relationships, outcomes of meetings, and future plans. Under considerable debate as to the usefulness, inevitability, and possible harm of this practice.
Digital immigrant: n. Those of us who were not born into the digital world, but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology. Digital immigrants (like all immigrants) retain, to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot in the past. Examples of the accent can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first. A digital native would call a digital camera “my new camera,” while a digital immigrant would refer to it as “my new digital camera.”(Definition derived from Marc Prensky.)
Digital Native: n. Person born in the mid 1990s, with immediate exposure to multi-media. Neural pathways may be physically changed. “… wired different, paved to an on-ramp to the Information Super Highway,” according to a handful of neuroscientists. Coined by futurist Marc Prensky.
Internet Hero: n. Regular person using technology to engage a larger community with more focused material.
Integration session: n. - A period of time during which the brain reconstitutes itself, builds neural connections, and strengthens its cells, commonly known as a “nap.”
Speakie: - n. A “Speakie” is a spoken blog, recorded by the blogger or other human voice, and stored as a retrievable audio file to be easily accessed by sight-impaired Internet users.
BABS: n. A group of bloggers and blog-interested fellows, located for the most part (but by no means exclusively) in the San Francisco Bay area. Blog-interested fellows include voice actors to record material for audio, website owners, and individuals in all industries peripheral to blogging.
BABS exists to further the access of blog content to the sight-impaired community. BABS supports its members in creating audio versions of blogs, creating a readily available bank of material for the sight-impaired, and educating the Internet-using public on tools to make websites more useful to the sight-impaired. See more at the BABS page.
Cloverleaf: - n. An active interface, such as a social project, which pulls the onground world and the online world together. Examples of cloverleafs are educational projects, associations, outreach programs, and guides to the Internet.
Widget: -n. A portable snippet of HTML code which can be plucked from one place on the web and easily embedded in another website. A widget adds content that is not static (instead it is portable, easily transported). To the user, a widget may provide a mode of organizing website material, a way of changing appearance, or a way to include a piece of functionality on a website. Advertising banners were early forms of widgets. Very common in blogs, widgets are often used to facilitate syndication of material.
NOTE: This glossary is intended to expand the language we use to discuss brain health, creativity, and innovation. We adapt language to clarify social and cultural issues, and increase our capacity for innovation. In the Glossary we have terms related to technology, earth stewardship, and culture, among others. Participate by suggesting new words or new meanings. We are thrilled to give you full credit for your input!
Activate: - v. To set in motion the sequences which result in brain growth.
Active thinker: -n. any person who engages her or his brain with a particular enthusiasm which allows for the free flow of information, scrutiny of conclusions, playful arriving and departing from areas of the brain, and articulating to others in some way.
Adaptation: -n. 1. The changes made in the brain’s chemistry when initially confronted with new information. 2. The foundation of innovation and creative thought. 3. The sum of our evolution in the moment of transformation.
Adaptability quotient: -n. The answer to the question, “What are you fit for?” Or, for some, “For what are you fit?” 2. Your capacity, or how to tell if you can use these tools. Are you adaptable?
Advanced creativity moment: -n. The moment when brilliance arises recognizably out of the fog.
All Systems Go: Describes healthy life support systems. This happens easily when you’ve performed some activity in each of the seven areas of brain fitness. (It only gets better from here.)
Biscriptics: - n. Writing with both hands at the same time, in mirror image with the right hand. A brain stimulator, biscriptic writing can cause apoplectic responses in audiences. Try this at home on the sliding glass door. Developed in the late 70s, performed by Bell, only at the Ask Dr. Hal Show, 12 Galaxies, San Francisco, U.S.A.
Blogiography -n. The blogger’s blog timeline. What was your first blog experience?
Brain activators: -n. Actions which result in brain growth, causing dendrites to stretch. Among the adaptations which foster healthy brains, brain activators include community outreach, advanced learning, striving to understand anything foreign, and meditation.
Carbon stain: -n. The indelible mark humans leave on the planet. Replaces the term “carbon footprint,” which is a candy-coating that sounds nice, like footprints on the beach, which are gently erased with the tide. Western-world humans make a particularly dark stain. The goal is to lighten the stain, by any incremental proportion. I first saw this term being used by Chicken John Rinaldi.
Cascade: -n. the effects created by thought patterns, also known as brain wiring. An example of a cascade is hearing a siren and having an elevated heart and respiration rate, followed by memories of past disasters involving sirens. Alternatively, seeing a dog or cat and responding with the feelings of love and comfort that your own pet arouse.
Creative thought: -n. 1. Using meditative tools to engage the imagination. 2. Steering thoughts into new brain territory, triggering brain growth. 3. Remodeling the brain’s pathways to further an outcome. e.
Deactivation: The state in which the brain is being turned off. Brain cells are deprived of some critical nutrient, or stress hormones are overwhelming the constitution. Deactivation can occur through neglecting to take a break. So take a break.
Dump - n. A large area of earth where people dump their garbage. Sometimes called a landfill, however, we don’t have any land that needs filling with garbage, so calling it a dump is more descriptive.
Dump - v. An error largely confined to the activities of humans, to “dump” is akin to forgetting. The act of dumping has consequences for numerous systems.
Garbage - n. 1. Stuff we have forgotten to love. 2. One of our richest resources for creating viable culture. 3. What everything will eventually be made out of
Global brain: n. The vast interconnected web of interactive thought which is allowed to emerge through technology, in particular, the Internet. Term brought to us by Peter Russell, in his work “The Global Brain.”
Green adaptation: Any activity in positive response to the planet’s health issues. The green adaptation could be in the form of learning a new concept, growing a plant that bees like, figuring out how to manage your waste, reclamation, remediation, and … what are you thinking now? Share your ideas for green adaptations.
Hacking: The inevitable contribution of unemployed - or unacknowledged - brilliance, applied to technology.
Innovation: 1. The introduction of something new. 2. What comes after adaptation, when properly fostered, and may come before and after integration. 3. The convergence of intelligence, curiosity, culture, and necessity.
Integration: Blending into a unified or cohesive whole.
Interface: n. 1. The juncture where two cultures have interplay. 2. An energetic crossroads of two worlds. 3. The discovery point, bearing some similarity to the synaptic gap.
Legacy - n. The lifelong accumulation of a human’s garbage, related to the carbon stain. Picture an adult person walking down the street. Following behind is every piece of plastic, paper, aluminum, or other non-compostable which this person chose to acquire (via consumerism) in their entire life. If the person is an American citizen, the legacy may extend for miles. If someone would like to quantify this, I’ll add the value to this definition. (You’ll have to show your math, however).
Neurotopia - n. A culture in which the passing of years is celebrated as exponentially compounding brain capacity. The state of neurotopia includes a high degree of connectivity, sophisticated communication, and appreciation of elders as natural leaders, innovators, and creative resources.
Onground: The world we walk around on. Bricks-and-mortar. The electronically-unaided full-sensory fleshy world. As opposed to “online.” Also referred to as “offline,” however, the onground world does not exist strictly within the definition of the online world. A traveler in the outback, for example, does not have to be described as “offline,” while she likely is also not online.
Online Communication: The exchange of ideas and information through all digital means including email, blogs, forums, audio broadcasts, video, and texting. Online communication could be said to be the most pervasive and powerful cultural change of our times, and its exponential nature may be the most striking difference in the brains and behaviors of “digital natives” (those born into the age of digital multimedia) as compared to “digital immigrants” (those who have engaged technology as adults).
Online: The electronically accessed data known as the Internet and metaphorically referred to as the cyberworld. The worlds accessed through digitally coded, electronically transmitted data. Commonly understood as opposed to “offline.” In this glossary, as opposed to “onground.”
Planetary price: The price of a purchase when all impacts are taken into consideration, including the type of labor involved in producing it, the waste its manufacture produced, the item’s longevity, its viability as a re-sourceable item, and the toxicity of its components as they degrade. (From “Little Shifts,” Sourcebooks, 2004)
Radical act: Any act, especially a very small act, which fundamentally changes the current course and begins to redefine the status quo. Examples from Little Shifts: Breathing, Using Intuition, Imaginative Play, Optimism, and Remediation. (From “Little Shifts,” Sourcebooks, 2004)
Reclamation Arts: This term defines the movement which embraces re-use. Reclamation Arts include salvage companies, thrift stores, artists, craftspeople, innovators and many others. (From “Reclamation Arts Association, a Proposal,” Suzanna Stinnett, 2006.)
Senior moment : The moment of “aha” when yet another innovation comes together as a result of our activated brains. When a senior citizen provides an integration of concepts, a brilliant innovation, or makes some connection that no one else could think of. The product of an experienced brain which is functioning at a high level. Only people who have been around the sun fifty times or so are capable of these moments. (That’s why it’s so important to keep our brains fit.)
Web 55.0: The name for the particular socio-cultural effects of Baby Boomers on the Internet and the entire technology-based universe as they enter, populate, and make use of the Internet. Conceived by Suzanna Stinnett in May 2008 as a response to the Web 2.-whatever iterations, and as a device to activate a higher level of participation from Baby Boomers. (The URL is web55pointoh).
Widget: -n. A portable snippet of HTML code which can be plucked from one place on the web and easily embedded in another website. A widget adds content that is not static (instead it is portable, easily transported). To the user, a widget may provide a mode of organizing website material, a way of changing appearance, or a way to include a piece of functionality on a website. Advertising banners were early forms of widgets. Very common in blogs, widgets are often used to facilitate syndication of material.
