Indian Day Pow Wow 9/26/08

For all the PDX-Area Parents…

Tomorrow, Friday 9/26, at the Pioneer Courhouse Square, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NHAIHB) will celebrate American Indian Day by holding a powwow. This is from their announcement:

Portland, OR — The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) and other local area American Indian organizations will be hosting an American Indian Day Celebration at the Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland on Friday, September 26, 2008.  The event will be a celebration of American Indian cultures and is intended to raise the level of awareness concerning the challenges that American Indian people continue to face in this country. The event is free and open to the public. The event will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and will include Northwest Tribal leaders, Indian advocates, drum groups, dancers, and arts and crafts vendors who will share their talents and experiences with the Portland community.

Looks like it should be fun and informational, and there will be booths and a press conference for those of us who are politically active.

Follow The Shipping Box

Before becoming a stay-at-home-dad, I spent the last decade in the supply chain and logistics industry. I’ve worked as an export coordinator for a major supply chain solutions company, a freight forwarder for hazardous air cargo, and as an inbound logistics analyst for a global footwear company. Globalization, foreign affairs, politics, and all things international interest me.

BBC's "The Box"

That’s why I’m totally stoked about this project from the BBC. Quick synopsis:  BBC is running a news series on globalization. They’ve commissioned an export container to be painted red with their logo and website, and to be used in the general container pool. They give updates about where it’s at via GPS on the website, and ask for readers and viewers to take pictures / videos of the container if they see it. An interactive map shows its current location, and its previous path.

Looking Past the Future of Education and Communication

I started to see the fragmentation of the organized, linear brick-and-mortar educational environment back around 1992. It was my freshman year of college at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and one of my classes relied heavily on collaboration through the University’s VAX system. Pretty much the old-school granddaddy to today’s e-mail, IM, and virtual work-groups.

Back then, we still had to do the bulk of our research at the university’s library. You know: Dewey Decimal System, index cards, those tiny yellow pencils that were always too dull to write with? Some of our work was shared online with the professor a day prior to submission, so he could keep track of our progress. I could also see the proliferation of multi-users in a virtual setting as we geeks ran MUDs and MUSHs.

But, all that system work was clunky and left to basically the highly technically savvy. That doesn’t seem to be the case now.