Brian Allain

HDTV and YouTube

From “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” by Steven Johnson Consider, as an alternate scenario, the story of Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of the online payment site PayPal, who decided in early 2005 the Web was ripe for an upgrade in the way it handled […]

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Changing Our Minds

From “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney What counts as dangerous ignorance or outdated dogma? What qualifies as a malignant tradition, defunct politics, or a misguided practice? What norms are so harmful, what beliefs are so incorrect that, once we know how to change minds, we should

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The Alphabet of Grace

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner LIFE ITSELF CAN BE thought of as an alphabet by which God graciously makes known his presence and purpose and power among us. Like the Hebrew alphabet, the alphabet of grace has no vowels, and in that sense his words to us

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What Trust is Like

From “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything” by Stephen M. R. Covey Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust – distrust – is suspicion. When you trust people, you have confidence in them, in their integrity and in their abilities. When you distrust, you are suspicious of them –

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Motivation

From “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon Frederick Herzberg, probably one of the most incisive writers on the topic of motivation theory, published a breakthrough article in the HBR… The theory distinguishes between two different types of factors: hygiene factors and motivation factors… Hygiene factors are

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Ordinary Mystics

From “What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman” by Lerita Coleman Brown My interest in spirituality had begun many years ago, during college. Over the years, I read Catholic mystics like St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross; dabbled in Thomas Merton; studied Quaker mystics George Fox, Thomas

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Let Your Life Speak

From “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation” by Parker J. Palmer I was in my early thirties when I began, literally, to wake up to questions about my vocation. By all appearances, things were going well, but the soul does not put much stock in appearances. Seeking a path more purposeful

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