Alas, I took the typing test mentioned in this post again and failed again. I never really thought I would be able to change my decades old typing habits in 48 hours, but I did hold hope that I could slip past this crazy system artifact easily by just passing the test. But now I have to open my mouth a little wider.
It has been a crazy week of opposing emotions. There were the lows of friends being laid off in dire economic times, and leaving a tenuous and uncertain situation behind for everyone involved. There is my own bewildering flirt with a potentially awesome opportunity working with my alma mater's substitute system which I love so much, only to be served a rejection letter for failing an evaluation test for a skill that is not a significant(if at all) part of the job description. And of course the high high of Obama's landslide victory on Tuesday night. I'm still in complete awe as the weight and meaning of this sets in. I still get the chills thinking about it! There is a common theme here that I keep coming back to; change. We need it!

The stories of the lows exposes a system that is totally insensitive to human needs and well being, is blind to and buries human intuition, and has left the world and local economy in a hole so big, our children will have to overcome more than we can ever imagine to get out.
The story of the high high is the moment in history when Americans stood up to the party that champions this system, plunders the earth, and hordes wealth in it's ridiculously small community. It is a shining beacon of the prospect of change, equity and justness. Just like anyone who voted for this great man, Barack Obama, I harbor deep feelings of change and we all have our own ideas of what that change looks like. President Obama said, The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We are all at the bottom of the pit we have found ourselves in, and no one person can see what the landscape will look like when we find ourselves(or our children find themselves) pulling each other into the sunlight on even ground. That task is and should be reserved for the masses' executing ideas as freely as possible with the guidance of great leaders.
I am one who spews openly about ideas about change and ideas about why our current predicament has happened. Most importantly I have ideas about how we can change things, and since Tuesday I have more hope than ever that they can come true.
My focus is on building a business platform on evolving the existing systems of what I refer to as the foundational economy; education, health care, people care, housing, etc., into an open source web system. Anything can be done, and done better on a web system. The tough part of the sell is a matter of understanding the paradigm shift from ideals and functions of a closed, proprietary system to the new paradigm of openness that we are still realizing.
I believe education is one of the easier sells, especially K-8, because every one of the kids in K-8 today will live and work entirely within the realm of digital networks, and they are close already. One place where they don't is in school. This paradox needs to be resolved fast as the generation of lost and confused kids grows ever-larger. However it is no wonder that they do not have a working understanding of the systems they will inherit(or be slave to) simply because the system that delivers their education itself, does not yet have an up-to-date working understanding of digital networks.
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep.