Alicia Keys – We Are Here [Video]

Enjoy this new song by Alicia Keys with a humanitarian message. This is what she wrote on her Facebook page:

“A MESSAGE FROM “ALICIA KEYS” – The day I wrote this song, I was sitting in a circle of people of all ages and we were asked, “Why are you here.” Why am I here?? This really hit me on a deep level. I realized no one had ever asked me that question before.

As I prepare to give birth to a new child, I can’t help and think about the world I’m bringing my baby into. No matter where we come from, when we see the state of the world today, we can all feel the growing frustration and desire to make a difference. And we all have a voice – we just need to know how to make it heard.

I have a vision that I believe is more than a dream, that I know can be our reality.
I believe in an empowered world community built on the true meaning of equality – where we are all considered one people, regardless of race, religion, gender, zip code, belief system or sexual orientation.
I believe all of our voices should be heard, so that our representation reflects our population. We need our leadership to reflect an equal balance of the gifts that both men and women have to offer.
I believe in a world where every child born receives a quality education – where their unique gifts are nurtured so that they may be a beneficial presence in this world.
I believe in mutual respect and cooperation among all peoples and all nations. It is time to end all forms of racial injustice for our black brothers and sisters and all people of color.
I believe in an end to the prison industrial complex in America and a renewed justice system that is based on fairness and truth.
I believe in universal global health care based on Integrative Medicine, so that our bodies are acknowledged and treated as one system, and we can help control the spread of diseases like AIDS, Malaria, TB and Ebola.
I believe we have an ability to end poverty, oppression, and hopelessness that often breeds despair, terror, and violence.
I believe in common sense gun laws that serve to protect children and families and society from unnecessary violence.
I believe in Peace & Love & Unity.
I believe that this vision can be a reality.
And, it’s not about me. It’s about WE.
Together we can give birth to a kinder and more peaceful world for ALL children.
Our souls were brought together so that we can love each other sister, brother. We Are Here. We are here for all of us. That’s why #‎WeAreHere.

Sent with Light,
Alicia Keys

How Alicia Keys Wrote This Song

Image: "Alicia Keys at Madame Tussaud's New York" by InSapphoWeTrust.

August 31, 2014July 30, 2014

NEF Report ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ Identifies Important Role of Social Connections with Happiness

In the NEF’s report “Five Ways to Wellbeing: A report presented to the Foresight Project on communicating the evidence base for improving people’s well-being,” the factor stated to affect happiness the most is social connections.

In 2008, at the request of the British government and financed by the British Ministry of Science (New Economic Foundation – NEF), in cooperation with the University of Cambridge, a comprehensive project was carried out, summarizing and comparing studies, identifying which factors affect the citizens’ happiness. The most influential factor is social connections. Out of the 5 recommendations suggested, 2 of them are directly connected to social relationships.

Image: "Happy Monday" by Yasin Hassan.

August 30, 2014July 30, 2014

The Destructive Effect of Negative Emotions in the Workplace

In the article “Emotional Contagion Can Take Down Your Whole Team,” Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything, describes how negativity begins in an office setting by one person talking and passing negative emotions from one to the other, and how negative emotions in this setting have destructive effect.

Emotional contagion takes hold and as the negativity spreads, it drains the energy from the team and the company as a whole. The negative emotions temporarily overwhelm the capacity to assess the facts at hand.

“How much do emotions matter in the workplace? Walk into any Department of Motor Vehicles and you’ll feel the impact of the prevailing mood instantly — a dense fog of sourness, irritability, and listlessness. Walk into almost any Apple store and you’ll experience the opposite — a sense of aliveness and excitement that raises your energy.”

Schwartz tells a story of his personal experience with a senior executive, and lists some points that he had learned from the experience in the article.

Image: "Gossip Walk" by Ktoine.

August 29, 2014July 30, 2014

How Collaboration Has Made the Human Brain Bigger

How Collaboration Has Made the Brain Bigger

In this article “Collaboration Makes Our Brains Bigger,” Gaurav Bhalla references a TED talk by Dan Gilbert to mention how the human brain has grown significantly in size over the last 200,000 years due to its power of imagination.

Moreover, the development of the kind of imagination was mentioned as well, i.e. that

We moved from imagining, “How big is the universe?” to imagining, “How do we work together to build a spaceship to get to the moon?”

So, collaboration seems to be one of the main reasons we developed imagination. In other words, we became Homo Sapiens because we had a better brain that could imagine how to collaborate, and because we could imagine how to collaborate we became better Homo Sapiens. And the more we learn to collaborate — and that includes the list of things like co-creation, value creation, open innovation, collaborative innovation, collective innovation, and continuous innovation — the more our brains will grow.

Image: "Education" by Sean MacEntee.

August 28, 2014July 30, 2014

Managerial Case Study Shows How Bringing People Together for a Common Meeting Gets Things Done Better than Holding Multiple Individual Meetings

In the article “Don’t Neglect Your Power to Bring People Together,” Ron Ashkenas describes a situation where a manager first tried fulfilling a certain task according to common managerial lines, of “calling meetings for their own direct staff and those who report to them.” However, although everyone agreed and got to work, little of the task’s goals were fulfilled.

In frustration, the manager grouped all parties together for a common meeting, through which all the obstacles were discussed together, and after which the task’s goal became fulfilled to much greater effect.

Then, Ashkenas continued to look into the reasons why managers don’t take steps initially to call common meetings outside their own staff and people who report directly to them, if the results of such meetings can be more effective. Some of the reasons Ashkenas mentioned included fears and anxieties in making sure no one is left out, preparing convincing cases as to why this is important for each member attending the meeting, the possibility of some or many of the invitees refusing to attend, as well as other fears.

However, in conclusion, Ashkenas encourages managers to overcome these fears in order to convene people together since “bringing the right people together from across the organization (and even including suppliers and customers) is often the best way to get things done quickly.”

Image: "Skype Reverie" by Steve Jurvetson.

August 27, 2014July 30, 2014

Research into a Healthier Way to Cope with Social Rejection: ‘Tend and Befriend’ Vs. ‘Fight or Flight’

Investigating Healthy Ways to Cope with Social Rejection

Mark Ellenbogen and Christopher Cardoso, researchers in Concordia’s Centre for Research in Human Development are taking a closer look at oxytocin, a hormone traditionally studied for its role in childbirth and breastfeeding, and more recently for its effect on social behaviour. Their latest study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, shows that oxytocin can increase a person’s trust in others following social rejection.

Explains Ellenbogen, “that means that instead of the traditional ‘fight or flight’ response to social conflict where people get revved up to respond to a challenge or run away from it, oxytocin may promote the ‘tend and befriend’ response where people reach out to others for support after a stressful event. That can, in turn, strengthen social bonds and may be a healthier way to cope.”

In a double-blind experiment, 100 students were administered either oxytocin or a placebo via a nasal spray, then subjected to social rejection. In a conversation that was staged to simulate real life, researchers posing as students disagreed with, interrupted and ignored the unsuspecting participants. Using mood and personality questionnaires, the data showed that participants who were particularly distressed after being snubbed by the researchers reported greater trust in other people if they sniffed oxytocin prior to the event, but not if they sniffed the placebo. In contrast, oxytocin had no effect on trust in those who were not emotionally affected by social rejection.

–Taken from the article “Feeling stressed? Oxytocin could help you reach out to others for support” by Concordia University, in Science Daily.

Image: "Hello, Is This Shaniqua?" by Cubmundo.

August 26, 2014July 30, 2014

Social Science Investigates Evolution to a Compassionate and Collaborative Human Society

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it “survival of the kindest.”

“Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others,” said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct.”

–Taken from the article, “Social scientists build case for ‘survival of the kindest’,” based on materials provided by University of California, Berkeley. The original article was written by Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations.

Image: "His Compassions are Unfailing - Lamentations 3:22 HD Desktop" by canonfather.

August 25, 2014July 30, 2014

The Importance of Empathy and Quality Personal Interaction in the Future of Employment

What’s the crucial career strength that employers everywhere are seeking — even though hardly anyone is talking about it? A great way to find out is by studying this list of fast-growing occupations, as compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Sports coaches and fitness trainers. Massage therapists, registered nurses and physical therapists. School psychologists, music tutors, preschool teachers and speech-language pathologists. Personal financial planners, chauffeurs and private detectives. These are among the fields expected to employ at least 20% more people in the U.S. by 2020.

Did you notice the common thread? Every one of these jobs is all about empathy.

In our fast-paced digital world, there’s lots of hand-wringing about the ways that automation and computer technology are taking away the kinds of jobs that kept our parents and grandparents employed. Walk through a modern factory, and you’ll be stunned by how few humans are needed to tend the machines. Similarly, travel agents, video editors and many other white-collar employees have been pushed to the sidelines by the digital revolution’s faster and cheaper methods.

But there’s no substitute for the magic of a face-to-face interaction with someone else who cares. Even the most ingenious machine-based attempts to mimic human conversation (hello, Siri) can’t match the emotional richness of a real conversation with a real person.

Visit a health club, and you’ll see the best personal trainers don’t just march their clients through a preset run of exercises. They chat about the stresses and rewards of getting back in shape. They tease, they flatter — maybe they even flirt a little. They connect with their clients in a way that builds people’s motivation. Before long, clients keep coming back to the gym because they want to spend time with a friend, and to do something extra to win his or her respect.

It’s the same story in health care or education. Technology can monitor an adult’s glucose levels or a young child’s counting skills quite precisely. Data by itself, though, is just a tool. The real magic happens when a borderline diabetic or a shy preschooler develops enough faith and trust in another person to embark on a new path. What the BLS data tells us is that even in a rapidly automating world, we can’t automate empathy.

–Taken from the article “The Number One Job Skill in 2020” by George Anders.

August 24, 2014July 30, 2014

Can Air Pollution in the US and Europe Affect Drought in Africa?

Humanity’s and nature’s interconnectedness and interdependence is exemplified in the article “Coal-Burning in the U.S. and Europe Caused a Massive African Drought” by Olga Khazan, which suggests that a major drought that caused great famine from the 1960s to the 1980s in North Africa was not caused by bad farming practices, as was originally thought, but by air pollution emanating from the United States and Europe…

A famine ravaged North Africa’s Sahel region from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s, killing 100,000 people and leaving 750,000 more dependent on food aid. Between 1972 and 1974, the U.S. shipped 600,000 tons of grain to the region, which accounted for about half of the total relief at the time. But even as they worked to save Africans from starvation, what Westerners at the time didn’t know is that the United States and Europe played a big role in the drought itself.

New research from the University of Washington shows that air pollution from the Northern Hemisphere indirectly caused reduced rainfall over Africa’s largely arid Sahel region, causing Lake Chad, a major local water source, to dry up, and leading to widespread crop failures.

Originally, the drought was blamed on overgrazing and poor land management, but a forthcoming study in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the environmental catastrophe was partly the result of factory emissions in the Western world. As the University of Washington puts it:

Aerosols emanating from coal-burning factories in the United States and Europe during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere, shifting tropical rain bands south. Rains no longer reached the Sahel region, a band that spans the African continent just below the Sahara desert.

Image: "Drought" by Bert Kaufmann.

August 23, 2014July 30, 2014

Study Shows How Social Relationships Need to be Taken as a Point of Assessment in Evaluating Health Promotion and Health Risks

“Growing evidence suggests that the quality and patterns of one’s social relationships may be linked with a variety of health outcomes, including heart disease,” says Thomas Kamarck, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

“The contribution of this study is in showing that these sorts of links may be observed even during the earliest stages of plaque development (in the carotid artery) and that these observations may be rooted not just in the way that we evaluate our relationships in general, but in the quality of specific social interactions with our partners as they unfold during our daily lives.”

Given the size of the effect in the study and the relationship between carotid artery plaque and disease, the findings indicate that those with marital interactions light on the positive may have an 8.5 percent greater risk of suffering heart attack or stroke than those with a surfeit of good feelings.

Taken from the article “Lack of Wedded Bliss Linked to Heart Attack Risk” by Joe Miksch-Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh.

Image: "Marriage Train" by Angie Chung.