makes you think ?

We did a posting recently on the thorny issue of when can one use photos garnered from the internet to spice up blog postings or presentations. You need to understand the concept of creative commons and once you have then here are 6 sites that we use to get free photos and artwork – admittedly with some conditions on some of them.

http://openphoto.net/
http://morguefile.com
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net  (you have to give acknowledgement of the site/photographer)
http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced (make sure to tick the creative commons box in advanced search)
http://www.rgbstock.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Hunting them down takes a lot longer than just reproducing something from Google or Bing images but if you do you are much more clearly protected.

Happy hunting. The one at the top here is from www.sxc.hu

Clay Shirky looks at “cognitive surplus” — the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we’re busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we’re building a better, more cooperative world.

We posted a video last work from Philip Zimbardo on the secret powers of time and commented on the highly original presentation put together by RSAnimate. Today we are posting another one of their superb presentations – this time to accompany Daniel Pink who is again discussing his new book Drive. We are indebted to our good friend Bruce Lynn who brought this to our attention. Those of you who have not read the book really should see what Dan has to say about motivation.

Fascinating talk from Professor Philip Zimbardo who conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Those of you who love innovative presentations will enjoy the medium as much as the message.

Katie and I are both great enthusiasts for Ken Robinson’s work and presentations and his writing. Katie interviewed him for this website last year. He has messages for all of us but we believe is especially appropriate to portfolio working. Portfolio workers usually choose this career pattern as it enables them to engage with most of their passions, to find meaning in the work they do and to have fun through learning and development. In this latest TED talk Ken discusses the tyranny of common sense and the importance of not living the linear life. Watch and enjoy – as he is also very funny as well as inspiring.

Simon Sinik  wrote Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. In this TED talk he discusses his ideas with an innovative presentation technique – a flip chart and a magic marker. Remember them!

hans rosling

In our portfolio careers book we talk about how the web changes everything. The way we work, think, create and communicate. We forget how life was just 15 yrs ago. No Youtube, Amazon, ebay, no GOOGLE even. Take a look at this fascinating series on BBC 2 ( and on iPlayer – oh yes that didn’t exist as well).