25 Improv Tricks to Help Become Business Savvy

25 Improv Tricks to Help Become Business Savvy

For those looking for some advice about how to be a better business person, Business Schools Directory had some unique ideas taken from improv.  “At first glance, improv might seem like the direct opposite of the business world. It’s silly, raucous, and spontaneous. But improv actors are sharp professionals who have an incredible ability to pull from past dialogue, anticipate future scenes and relationships, and engage audiences in just moments.”

To learn how to be more business savvy, based on tactics gained from improve actors, including how to introduce yourself, how to use your body, and more click here:  25 tricks that work on stage and may just work in the business world.

CryoPreservation: Having Your Brain Preserved After You Die

Ted Williams help to bring to light cryogenics and the procedure of freezing a human head.  While preserving parts of us after we die may seem bazaar, there may be some things we can learn from brain preservation.

According to the Brain Preservation Organization, “Due to a series of recent scientific developments, human beings may soon have an inexpensive and reliable way to preserve their brains, including the molecular features that give rise to their memories and identities, in room-temperature storage after they die. This technology is called plastination (chemopreservation), or chemical fixation and embedding in plastic, and is a distant cousin of the process seen in such exhibits as Body Worlds. Today, “perfect” plastination is routinely done for very small amounts of brain tissue (one millimeter cubed), and soon it will be attempted for whole animal and human brains. Cryopreservation (involving very low temperature storage) is another, more expensive process that also deserves to be carefully evaluated for its ability to preserve the critical structures of our brains. Today, leading-edge neuroscience is identifying the synaptic structures that store and generate our unique memories and identity, and new imaging techniques are allowing us to verify when these special structures have been successfully preserved, starting with general synaptic connectivity all the way to the signal states of individual brain proteins.”

This organization is even offering a prize of $106,000 to those teams that can actually preserve a large animal brain.  Their hope is to preserve the human wisdom and diversity that dies with us along with our brains.

As one might guess, not everyone is thrilled with this idea.  For those with objections to such a project, this site has created a page for overcoming objections.

Their mission is to, “promote scientific research and services development in the field of whole brain preservation for long-term static storage. Through outreach to appropriate scientific communities, online activities, presentations and articles, directed research grants, challenge prizes, and other methods, we seek to explore the scientific hypothesis of whether a reliable surgical procedure exists that is capable of preserving the precise neural circuitry of the human brain at nanometer scale.”

For those interested in reading more about cryopreservation, chemical preservation or scanning and circuit mapping click here for more information.

Related Articles

• Top 10 Sentient Developments articles of 2010 (sentientdevelopments.com)
• Are Humans Getting Dumber As Our Brains Are Shrinking?

10 Sci-Fi Predicted Inventions That Actually Made it to Market

It’s hard to look at my flip phone without thinking of the communications device on Star Trek.  There are many examples of inventions that used to be thought of as just science fiction that have now become a reality.  The flip phone is just one of them.  Here are some of my favorite inventions that came from science fiction:

1. As mentioned, flip phones were very similar to the transporter on Star Trek.
2. TV video phones have been seen in a lot of different movies and shows. Back to the Future featured these as well as a lot of other inventions that made it to market.  Click here to see the others.  Remember Marty’s cool shoe laces?  Yep. . . they have arrived.
3. Earbud headphones were predicted in Fahrenheit 451.  Mashable has this example as well as many other very unusual things that have made it to market.  See that list of astounding prediction by clicking here.
4. The Jetsons had a number of product predictions come to fruition.  One of those things is the tanning bed.  Check out a techvert.com article by clicking here to see a list of some more Jetsons inspired inventions.
5. Remember the Jetsons’ robotic vacuum?  We now have the Roomba.
6. Virtual reality was seen in many movies including Tron and the Matrix.  Cracked.com includes virtual reality on their list of seemingly awesome inventions that came to light in not so awesome ways. 
7. Television surveillance was just a future possibility in Orwell’s 1984 classic.  Anyone who watches CSI knows that there are cameras keeping an eye on us from just about everywhere these days.
8. Online Newspapers were shown in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  With RSS feeds, we can create our own online newspapers tailored to our unique interests.
9. Credit Cards were envisioned in Edward Bellamy’s 1888 novel, Looking Backward.
10. H. G. Wells wrote about automatic doors in his 1899 novel, The Sleeper.

Related Articles

• Star Trek Computer Now a Reality (escapistmagazine.com)
• 11 Astounding Sci-Fi Predictions That Came True (mashable.com)

Do you Like the Old Spice Ads? Of Course You Do! But Have They Been Profitable?

It’s hard not to like the new Old Spice ads. I have to admit, when I think of Old Spice, I think of an older product that was around when I was a kid and associate it with older men or as a kind of cheaper product you’d find at drug stores.  Since I teach a lot of marketing classes, I was curious to see how those very fun and popular ads are affecting the sales of Old Spice.

As of July, Old Spice sales have increased 107%. 

In her new analysis of the Old Spice video push, Adweek’s Eleftheria Parpis has this summary: “According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body-wash products are up 11 percent in the last 12 months; up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent.”

For some fun short Old Spice clips, check out this compilation put together by adweek.blog. 

Also check out Mashable’s Top 10 Funniest Old Spice Guy Responses by clicking here.

Related Articles

• Hey Old Spice haters, sales are up 107% (adweek.blogs.com)

What is the difference between Vimeo and Youtube?

Youtube is always in the spotlight.  However, they do have some competition.  Vimeo is another site where users can upload, view and share videos.  As of March, 2010, they had over 3 million members.  Vimeo’s name comes from combining video and me together.  You won’t find any commercials on Vimeo.  I was doing some checking to see what people were saying about how they felt about the differences between Youtube and Vimeo . . .  here are some of the differences between the two sites:

Those who preferred Youtube, did so due to some of the following reasons: 

1. Quality
2. Links to Related Videos
3. Embedding
4. Larger Audience
5. Higher Possibility of Going Viral
6. Large File Size
7. Good Playback
8. Can have infomercials and self-promotion

Pocket-lint.com has an interesting article that explains some of the advantages they found for Vimeo.  Some of these things include:

1. Ownership
2. Content Allowed
3. Copyright Issues
4. Library
5. Video Quality
6. Uploading
7. Promotion/Humiliation
8. Community
9. Downloadable
10. Support
11. Purpose

To read the rest of the article and find out about each of these 11 areas, click here.