Harvest Art in Massachusetts

From graphic facilitator Kelvy Bird:

"Come enjoy the harvest!"

RECEPTION Friday, October 13, from 6-9 PM
Gallery at 38 Cameron, with Beth Galston and Lou Jones
38 Cameron Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Through December 29: Tues and Wed 12-5 or by appointment 617-492-2848

Preview | Exhibit | Map

Sacred Sense at The Nave Gallery
Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church, 155 Powderhouse Blvd., Somerville MA
Through October 15: Fri 5-8, Sat 1-5, Sun 1-3

Preview | Exhibit | Map

Malden Contemporary at the Gallery at Elm Street
First Parish in Malden - 2 Elm Street, Malden MA
Through November 12: Tues and Fri 10am-1pm, Sat 10am-2pm, Sun 10am-1pm

Preview | Exhibit | Map

Monkey Management

Being a primate isn't easy. Especially since, as one myself, I find other primates so unpredictable and silly. Not to mention, sneaky and overly scatological.

Brad Farris of Anchor Advisors in the Chicagoland area, sent us a link to serve as a helpful guide for those primates who have to manage the time and energy of their fellow simians: The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Kenneth Blanchard, William, Jr. Oncken, Hal Burrows.

(photo: Digger Digger Dogstar)

The scientific community has also begun to realize that primates really -- I know it's hard to believe -- can not be "managed". In the light-heartedly titled paper, Animal Behavior Research Findings Facilitate Comprehensive Captive Animal Care: The Birth of Behavioral Management, the authors describe the startling discovery:

It is clear that the major focus of current environmental enhancement programs is more than just providing supplemental toys for animals to manipulate. This is true regardless of whether animals are housed in a research laboratory or zoological collection. The concept of behavioral management addresses questions about animal behavior as a critical and integral component of the overall health and well-being of these animals.

So, is your work environment more like a research laboratory or a zoological collection? Has management (including yourself) tried to make the beasts more manageable by implementing "environmental enhancement programs" such as casual Fridays, office birthday parties, wacky furniture or (on the high-end of the enhancement program spectrum) a Foosball table? At corporate off-sites, are your breakout tables strewn with "supplemental toys for animals to manipulate"?

If so, beware! They may be making a stab at morphing your unwieldy, monkey-like tendancies into more malleable behavior that fits nicely into their matrixed structure.

From About-Goal-Setting.com:

So, effective management means 'monkey management'!

But just how can a manager be helpful to others while at the same time keeping the monkeys where they belong, fairly and squarely on the backs of the persons responsible for them?

The whole scenario just described and the way to manage monkeys is explained in "The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey".

This paperback is brilliant!

By using the Four Rules of Monkey Management, managers learn to become effective supervisors of time, energy, and talent - especially their own.

Achieve a balance between supervision and delegation.

Make sure your personal library has a copy of "The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey".

Rearranging the Human Family Tree

from Washingotn University in St. Louis:
Modern Humans, not Neandertals, may be evolution's "odd man out" By Neil Schoenherr

Sept. 7, 2006 -- Could it be that in the great evolutionary "family tree," it is we Modern Humans, not the brow-ridged, large-nosed Neandertals, who are the odd uncle out?

New research published in the August, 2006 journal Current Anthropology by Neandertal and early modern human expert, Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, suggests that rather than the standard straight line from chimps to early humans to us with Neandertals off on a side graph, it's equally valid, perhaps more valid based on the fossil record, that the line should extend from the common ancestor to the Neandertals, and Modern Humans should be the branch off that.

The most unusual characteristics throughout human anatomy occur in Modern Humans (right), argues Trinkaus, not in Neadertals (left).

Out of the Rubble

For the last five years, individuals and communities have been creating memorial images to both mourn and celebrate the lives lost on 9/11.

Fiber artist Nellie Durand describes the creation of "Out of the Rubble" a large quilt with every name of 9/11 victims that hung for several years in St. Paul's Chapel, located just east of where the Twin Towers stood.

Nellie writes in her blog:

At some point, it occurred to me that more than death and destruction resulted from that pile of rubble. All of the love, support, strength of spirit, and help that poured out from so very many people both literally and spiritually to the people of New York City was very much a part of this tragedy.

Nellie's work is simultaneously expansive and experimental while retaining a strong need for order and meaning. She saves every scrap of cloth and snippet of string. Every time she cleans a palette of leftover paint, the rag is saved, and--often times years later--it ends up being the perfect element to tie a composition together.

Two weekends after 9/11, I demonstrated a quilt piecing technique (Ricky Tims Harmonic Convergence) to my daughter-in-law, Jeanette, and niece-in-law, Diane. Four fabrics are required and Jeanette had brought red, white, blue, and a waving flag print to make a patriotic banner to hang from her porch in Oak Park, Illinois. She couldn't find a flag to buy. Every source was sold out. Seeing her result, I decided to make one for our cottage. The fabrics I chose were a hand-dyed red, a blue skyline print, a black/white graphic, and Jeanette's waving flag print.

In the process of piecing, the three buildings of the WTC that imploded appeared. Right then I knew this piece was not just a banner. I immediately replaced all the black/white graphic pieces with the other three fabrics in the area around the buildings.

About that time, someone observed that this skyline fabric depicted the buildings of New York City. I had purchased that fabric sometime ago on the chance that I just may need a city skyline for a piece I might make in the future.

Nellie Durand's work can be seen at Good Goods in Saugatuck, Michigan. She is a frequent finalist in the highly competitive TVA quilt show in Knoxville, Tennessee. She winters with her husband and world's greatest Elvis fan, Lee, in Farragut, Tennessee.

Seriykotik1970

America has some new money.

The government has been phasing new designs for the $20, $10 and $5. But it all pales in comparison with money of the rest of the world. Explore the beautiful engravings and watermarks of global banknotes through the lens of Seriykotik1970.

This photographer has dozens of intriguing sets on Flickr, all ethereal and filled with old world nostalgia.

From seriykotik1970:

Lyudmilla Konstantinovna was so captivated by the dashing young museum assistant's winning smile and eloquent if wordy compliments that she thought nothing of getting married and spending her honeymoon in the bone vaults of the St Petersburg Imperial Museum of Comparative Osteology.

Zach Warren breaks Unicycle World Record

Former Alphachimp intern and Coro Fellow, Zach Warren, has finally done it! He has set 2 World Records, each on a very large unicycle.

All this while working with kids in Kabul, Afghanistan and studying at Harvard's Divinity School.

Read his recent letter below and watch the video!

Dear Friends,

Phew.

As fall eats up the last morsels of summer, I write with two world records to report (more below). But the kids in Kabul have been busy with their own record setting. Lida juggled three clubs for just over 59 minutes. Rumal also set a boys record.

You can check out the video: http://www.afghanmmcc.org/pages/Record.htm

In this video, Hamid dons a "One Wheel, One World" t-shirt. When I returned to the circus in June, the kids had painted a picture of the Unicycle4Kids logo on the circus wall. I don't know about you, but this kind of stuff turns me all mushy inside.

What's so compelling about a world record in, or for, a war-torn country, anyway? Perhaps it's the patience, training, and discipline. Or perhaps it is the breaking of limits, the challenge of doing the (seemingly) impossible. For many kids, impossible is precisely what is required to survive and thrive, with little resources, poor education and no guarantee for a job. Or maybe it is simply a matter of relationships, of friendships and laughter that have always brought people closer, across cultures and since ancient times.

Hamid, I gave the unicycle record another shot.

On a cold Fargo morning last week, I set out on a flat stretch of prairie road to break two records on a 42-inch Semcycle unicycle. Accompanied by a sidewagon, two witnesses for Guinness World Records verification, and some prayer beads from Kabul, I knew it was going to be interesting. It was the second trial. The first, in April, was unsuccessful after I took a spill and a vital bolt on the unicycle broke.

We needed a lull in the wind. To meet USATF standards for nominal wind interference, the wind had to be less than 4.4 mph. We found it at 6 am on Tuesday morning, August 29. A lull for 2-3 hours only, so we had to be quick. And I mean quick.

Speed. We decided to abandon the one hour record and go for maximum speed, allowing repeat trials.

The result? After four trials, two new records:

1. Fastest Mile on a Unicycle -- 3:26.22 , with an avg. speed of 17.45 mph
2 Fastest Mile on a Unicycle, while Juggling! (my favorite of the two) -- 3:50.63, with an average pace of 15.61 mph

Phew. Joggling is one thing. But when riding several feel in the air while juggling, every crack, bump, wiggle and sag in the road becomes more difficult. You can check out my post-record interview on Canadian public radio, "As It Happens".

(See "Unicycle Record")

For a video of the unicycling: http://jollyjuggler.com/theaction.html

These records are in honor of MMCC kids, but also Dr. Jules Lodish, someone who breaks records by living fully and listening deeply. Jules has been living with ALS for 13 years, 11 years on a ventilator. And though he can't laugh or smile -- his muscles are too weak for movement -- he still keeps an upbeat attitude about life, something much deeper.

A BIG thanks is due to my sponsors: Island Park Cycles of Fargo, ND, Semcycle, and Unicycle.com . And especially to Brian Arnett, Tom, Kari, Izzy and Miranda Smith (you guys rock), to the Fargo school system, and to the Mortons for their hospitality.

To share the unicycling bug, I gave a few shows to local K-4 schools in Fargo. I'm in love with the look on children's faces when they see something difficult made to look easy. I think that kind of wonder is the basis for spiritual depth (and even faith) in a lot of religious traditions. Not that juggling is a religion, but it does have some pretty fanatic followers. Myself included.

This is it for my unicycle record-setting… Fargo has been good to me! Everyone who has donated is good to children in Kabul. And what else is good? This: if you donate more than $14 to the www.Unicycle4Kids.org campaign (no, it is not too late), you can download FREE MP3s from Afghan pop artist. Using your contribution receipt (which I email personally), you can download Afghan groove from http://www.shawm.info/ .

So what's next for me? These gumby uni-legs are taking a break. But not for long. I have been scheming with an extreme sports company for just one more record. It's a surprise. You'll just have to read my next email.

Mashallah (may God preserve you, in Arabic),

Zach

--
Zach Warren
Harvard Divinity School
Tel: 617-710-4121

"One Wheel, One World!"
www.Unicycle4Kids.org

MissingLink debuts at Idea-Round-Up in Pittsburgh

On September 9, MissingLink made its semi-public debut in housing the content produced during a massive civic enegagement forum in Pittsburgh. [see site]

Our team of three was able to photograph and archive ~350 flipcharts from 18 breakout groups and integrate the text documentation and photos using MissingLink. From start to finish, the post-production ran 12 hours. Normally, this would have taken 2-3 days!

At this one-day event, The Sprout Fund engaged creative young thinkers and regional leaders in a conversation that promotes new thinking about the topics that matter most to our community.Participants engaged in panel discussions and worked in small design groups to generate as many brain-busting ideas as possible. All ideas were welcome-the wacky, the way out, the logical, the needed, the necessary, the fun, and the futuristic.

Rather than a typical civic meeting, The Idea Round Up was a highly visual and highly interactive day with 20 local artists on hand to illustrate all the ideas generated.

The Sprout Fund announced plans to release $100,000 in funding to support projects that grow directly out of the ideas developed during this exciting collaborative design event.

• Idea archive on MissingLink
  
• Event photos on Flickr
  
• Slideshow

MissingLink was designed by a team of artists and facilitators
who have worked with collaborative teams focused on global strategies.
For years, we have been frustrated by the amount of work that seems to
evaporate as soon as a meeting concludes.MissingLink brings together
the power of browser-based software, file management, keyword tagging,
podcasting and even video broadcasting.

The software was developed by the team of Gradient Labs LLC and Alphachimp Studio Inc.

For more information, take a tour, get pricing or sign-up for a free trial.

Want to Know What's Best in Life? Ask Arnold!

You have to admit, the man has a lot going on: athlete, actor, activist, oh, and governor of the richest state in the United States.

To understand the complexity broiling inside, however, one needs to thoroughly explore Arnold's website, which is a true case study in personal brand-building.

Schwarzenegger.com has many useful items for Arnoldophiles. For example, if you are having a tough time deciding what to do with your life, and want to receive advice from the Governator, himself, simply click on Ask Arnold. Here, according to the site, one can "learn what is best in life."

The most recent question posted, dated April 2003, comes from Phillip L.:

I have a question about the movie Batman and Robin. When they did your make-up (which I understand took 3 1/2 hrs.), how did they do your hair? I noticed you were bald.

Enter article here.

A Wolf in Poodle's Clothing

Leah Silverman's family has a problem.

Usually, I would never saddle an entire family unit like this, but I'm serious... they need help. Everyone seems to own a member of the same litter of standard poodles. These are the big, black, Doberman Pincher-sized poodles.

Fortunately, Leah's poodle, Max, hasn't suffered the horrific genetic diseases plaguing his siblings (baldness, incontinence, dementia). However, he is, how should I say, frisky. And strong. And has sharp toenails. And likes me. Alot. If you know what I mean.

So now I have a plan to defend myself and perhaps to get a little even with Max. I mean, he tries to skip first base, skip to third, and rush to fourth--all without even taking me to dinner!

The answer to my dilemma comes from Mrs. Silverman herself: a Poodle disguise for Dobermans.

So, watch out Max! Next time we meet, I'll introduce you to your new "friend".

Kit includes;

- Fake fur pieces (4 leg pieces, one body piece, and head piece)
- Black face paint (safe for dogs)
- Safe suit fitting method statement and instructions.

(items sold seperately)
- Under harness

From Australia, attackchi.org.au:

Are you sick of people looking at your breed of dog in fear because politicians and the media are saying things like;

"We want to breed these dogs out of existence,"

"They are killing machines on a leash."

"These breeds don't belong in our community"

Well worry no longer, attackchi will be making disguises for all the so called 'dangerous breeds'. Now you can go to the park with your kids and your dog (like you have been doing for years), without the worry of people thinking you are a bad parent.

Only in Texas: Dust Art

A couple of weeks ago, I made the profoundly silly decision to take our 2-year-old to the Fort Worth Zoo. Don't get me wrong; it is a stunningly well designed environment (especially the monkey house!). But the day we attended, the temperatures hit 106 degrees. Because of low attendance, the zoo decided not to open any ice cream stands. Let's say that it was a viscous cycle, with parents and children melting down.

Which led me to wonder aloud: what do people do in Texas in the summertime! Nellie Durand passed this along, original article in the Austin Statesman.

When the dust gets thick on the back window of his Mini Cooper, Scott Wade uses it as a canvas to create temporary works of art. Among his creations was a copy of C.M. Coolidge's 'A Friend in Need,' better known as dogs playing poker; an homage to Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' and Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa.'

Wade lives off the unpaved Roadrunner Road north of San Marcos, which dusts the back windows of his car and gives him the canvases to create his own works of art. A portrait of Kinky Friedman on the back of the Mazda driven by Wade's wife, Robin Wood, was featured on the gubernatorial candidate's Web site.

A collage of wildlife decorates the Mini Cooper's window. Wade's creations attract admirers wherever he goes. Who needs a frost-covered window when you've got road dust to create a Christmas scene? Local columinist John Kelso was the subject of one window portrait. Besides his finger, Wade uses traditional art tools, such as paintbrushes, and unconventional ones, like a chewed popsicle stick, to make his drawings. Wade takes pride in his creations, but he knows that with one good shower, his work will just wash away.

M is for Monkey, T is for Threadless

Brandy Agerbeck of Loosetooth sends us this coveted design from Threadless:

This unique t-shirt print biz incorporates all the stellar bells-n-whistles of a Web 2.0 innovator: blogs, community-driven design process, user-based ranking systems, associate programs and great art.

Designers submit artwork and members vote on which images make it on to shirts. Folks can also submit slogans to be incorporated into designs.

Join the 12 month club to receive a new shirt with a winning design sent to your home throughout the year.

Threadless was created by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart. They came up with the idea after Jake Nickell won the NMUF London tee shirt competition. It felt good to win a tee shirt competition and we thought it'd be cool to extend that to the level that Threadless has become.

The two Threadless Jakes met on dreamless.org a while back. They both are web developers who live in Chicago and love tee shirts and posters.

Engage Pittsburgh 2006: The Idea Round-Up

Alphachimp Studio Inc. will be herding cats and roping ideers as lead facilitators of the Idea Round-Up.

Roll up your sleeves and be a part of community change at a day-long collaborative design event on September 9th.

Saturday, September 9, 2006
CAPA High School, Downtown (link)
9 AM - 4 PM
$10 (includes lunch!)
Space limited to 400 persons
Register Here

At this one-day event, The Sprout Fund will engage creative young thinkers and regional leaders in a conversation that promotes new thinking about the topics that matter most to our community.

Learn what's going on nationally in other cities, engage in panel discussions with regional leaders, and work in small design groups to generate as many brain-busting ideas as possible. All ideas will be welcome-the wacky, the way out, the logical, the needed, the necessary, the fun, and the futuristic.

Rather than a typical civic meeting, The Idea Round Up promises to be a highly visual and highly interactive day with 20 local artists on hand to illustrate all the ideas generated.

Sprout will announce plans to release $100,000 in funding to support projects that grow directly out of the ideas developed during this exciting collaborative design event.

Engage Pittsburgh 2006

The Idea Round Up is the launch event for The Sprout Fund's Engage Pittsburgh 2006 initiative.

Engage Pittsburgh 2006 will produce a community blueprint and involve citizens in developing ideas and implementing projects that will achieve positive regional change and broad-based community goals.

By combining dialogue with dedicated funding projects, Engage Pittsburgh 2006 promises to be like no other civic initiative to date.

Lead support for Engage Pittsburgh 2006 is provided by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

Paintings on display at Beleza

On view through August....
Paintings by Peter Durand (Works from 1995-2005)

Beleza Community Coffee House
1501 Buena Vista St., North Side
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

photos of exhibit>

This wonderful coffee shop was started by 7 graduates from Hope College in Michigan, who decided to "change the world" through establishing this new venture.

Boom and buzz: Can a coffeehouse save the neighborhood?
by Diana Nelson Jones
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

East vs. East: China's Anti-Japan Posters

EastSouthNorthWest has been documenting the Chinese graphic design focused on reminding the populace of Japanese humiliations during World War II and encouraging citizens to "castrate Japanese" through boycotting their goods and services.

Translation of poster at right:

Everyone loves the country
Don't forget the national shame
Boycott Japanese goods
Beginning with myself

See more posters.

Ann Marie Healy of Z Plus Partners interviews Jonathan Spence, one of the foremost scholars of Chinese civilization from the 16th century to the present and Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, about the historical context behind these most recent eruptions of anti-Japanese fervor.

Read interview.

Mucha Lucha Libre

You would think that the genre of crime-fighting masked men wouldn't be so odd. There's Batman and Robin and Daredevil... and the Blue Demon.

Wait.

The Blue Demon? Why that is not a member of the Hall of Justice! No. he is a member of the pantheon of Mexican wrestling (Lucha Libre) and suave personality.

A.S. Hamrah of the Boston Globe sums it up with gusto in his June 11 article, Fight Club.

If the new Jack Black comedy ``Nacho Libre," from ``Napoleon Dynamite" director Jared Hess, does nothing else, it will serve to remind moviegoers that bulky heroes once walked the earth, at least south of the border.

These noble men fought evil, which appeared to them in the form of vampires, mummies, and mad scientists. They fought this evil wearing masks. And tights. And sometimes capes. They spoke Spanish, except when their voices were dubbed into English.

Whichever language they spoke, their real language was the Esperanto of flying kicks and choke holds. In Mexico it's called ``lucha libre." Lucha: fight, struggle, strife -- wrestling. Libre: loose, brash -- free.

I wasn't fully initiated until I spotted a gem of a DVD while in the checkout line of a Wal-Mart in New Braunsfeld, Texas. This thriller titled, El Castillo de las Momias de Guanajuato, has it all: wrestling, midgets, zombies, a red VW van, science, the occult, babes in bondage and wrestling. Did I mention wrestling?

The plot is very complex. From the review on Amazon:

Dr. Tanner, who was expelled from the medical association long ago, is planning revenge. However, he needs a heart transplant first, and commands his midget servants to kidnap Dr. Simmons, his old enemy. Chaos ensues! Who will win? Good or evil???

Mentos Bellagio Fountains

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments:

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane.

The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes.

It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the mad scientists at EepyBird.com.

Pittsburgh Business Times: Getting Down to Graphics

Tracy Carbasho of the Pittsburgh Business Times did a great job of turning our excited ramblings into a cohesive story about what we do (see article).

"It's not your old corporate meetings where employees listen to the same person drone on,'' said Tim Zak, CEO of the South Side-based Social Innovation Accelerator, a private foundation that supports innovative nonprofit organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania. "Time goes by faster because the events are more engaging with auditory, visual, mental and physical stimulation through team-building exercises, so participants get more involved, more ideas are developed and this results in more productivity.''

We paid him to say that! The photo op in our garden was especially fun--even though the paper chose not to print my awesome karate kicks captured by photographer Joe Wojcik.

(Diane took this during the photo shoot, but it doesn't match the perfect
Bruce-Lee-meets-Nacho-Libre image captured by Joe!)

Super Seventies Stereophonics

From Leah Silverman:

This is a fun article from CreativePro.com that brings me back to 1975 when I bought my very first own turntable and stereo with all my summer earnings. I can't remember if it had a cassette deck in it -- I know I still had an eight track player back then because there was one in my '62 Cadillac!

Launch of Social Innovation Conversations

As series producer for Globeshakers, with host Tim Zak, I am excited to introduce you to the Conversations Network's new podcast channel: Social Innovation Conversations.

Our goal is to create a popular channel on the Web, a place that provides an engaging and provocative dialogue about the most effective ways we can improve society and the environment. We'll do this by recording conferences, speeches, and interviews from around the world, to bring you the voices of those at the forefront of creating social change.

The Conversations Network has grown out of the explosive response to Doug Kaye's IT Conversations, which now continues as a channel on the Network.

Social Innovation Conversations is made possible by the concerted efforts of the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School of Business, and the Pittsburgh Social Innovation Accelerator... three organizations dedicated to improving society and the environment. To become a member is free and it's easy to register.

As part of the launch, we've chosen to re-broadcast two conversations with Tim Zak host of Globeshakers...

Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Ethan Zuckerman addresses the direct question: "Why should we care about Africa?" As a technologist, Ethan has spent much time on the ground working with the new generation of African entrepreneurs, programmers, organizers, and young people who are hooking up the continent to the web. These new netizens are changing the way that villagers and urban dwellers learn, organize, network, and face the challenges of poverty, AIDS, political strife and making a living.

David Bornstein - How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.
An accomplished journalists, David is a leading expert in the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we even care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?

Alex Lindsay - The Next Generation of Digital Craftsman
As "Chief Architect" of PixelCorps, Alex Lindsay merges the very old idea of a guild system made up of independent craftsman with the demands of mastering new and emerging media. PixelCorps serves as "a guild for the next generation of craftsmen--digital craftsmen." They are currently transfering skills in digital imaging and animation to regions in the developing world, so that those citizens can capitalize on the coming media revolution.

Zach Warren - Laughter in a Time of War
In the Fall of 2005, Zach set the World's Record for running the Philadelphia marathon--while juggling! In 2006, he is gunning to set another world's record for the fastest100miles on a unicycle--a record that has stood for almost 20 years. In the summer of 2005, Zack Warren, a native of West Virginia, traveled to Afghanistan to work with children as part of the Afghan Mobile Mini Circus for Children. All this while a student at Harvard Divinity School.

Bill Strickland - Manchester Craftsmans Guild
As one of the world's great social innovators, Bill Strickland is head of both the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the Bidwell Training Center, located on Pittsburgh's gritty north side just down the street from where he grew up. Strickland has created a youth development and adult training center like no other, in approach and results. Over nearly 40 years, he has melded an environment surrounded by stunning art, the sounds of jazz, beautiful orchids, and brilliant architecture with programs that get kids into college and adults a job with a future.

Please share this news with anyone in your network who may find value in these conversations.

Piggly Wiggly Goes Biometrically

Should you find yourself shopping for bacon at the Piggly Wiggly on Hilton Head Island (South Carolina) and to your dismay, you should also find yourself sans wallet (but slathered in sunscreen), do not, Gentle Reader, be afraid.

Many things have evolved at this grocery chain which stands tall as the quintessential store synonymous for both its cheerful porcine mascot (Mr. Pig loves kids!) and democratic selection of Southern food (ribs, anyone?).

Namely, the chain now offers the option to purchase your pork rinds using only your index finger and a smile. Biometrics have broken the bargain shopper barrier.

Since June 2005, Piggly Wiggly shoppers across Georgia and South Carolina have been able to pay for groceries with the touch of a finger.

When I ran across the contraption whilst vacationing, I conducted an impromptu interview with the store owner and his longest-employed cashier. Neither one could quite remember when they started using the technology. However, the cashier summed up the ROI for the IT biometric device: "The old people really seem to like it. And there are a lot of them down here. You know, retired people and stuff."

According to Biometrics.com, the Piggly Wiggly chain has been using the Pay By Touch system in Georgia and South Carolina since June of 2005.

"We tested Pay By Touch at four stores in South Carolina and found that our guests loved paying for their groceries with a quick finger-scan because of the convenience of not having to fumble with wallets at check-out," said Rich Farrell, vice president of information services at Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. "We also found that frequent Pay By Touch users saw Piggly Wiggly as more dedicated to providing better customer service -- and that is very important to us."

"Pay By Touch is making great strides in changing the way we pay for things today and in the future," said John Rogers, founder, chairman, and CEO of Pay By Touch. "This is an exciting time for stores like Piggly Wiggly, whose customers have already seen the value in using Pay By Touch. We're helping to provide customers with a highly secure way to pay while also making shopping easier and faster."

The one-time Pay By Touch enrollment is simple and takes just a couple of minutes. Shoppers can enroll at Piggly Wiggly stores at the guest services counter, or by visiting http://www.paybytouch.com/. Shoppers select the accounts they want to enroll in a finger-accessed electronic Pay By Touch wallet. These accounts include Express Checking, which is a direct electronic withdrawal from an existing checking account, and/or any existing major credit cards, plus their PFC PFC/GREENBAX rewards card.

Once you complete your speedy and biometrically-facilitated purchase of sundry items, you may exit the store, turn left, traverse the parking lot's broiling tarmac, hop the split-rail fence, and enter into the peaceful shade of Live Oaks and Spanish Moss, where a peaceful cemetery of handcarved slate headstones reminds you of a simpler time. [see slideshow]