This is a part of the painting 'The Allegory of Good and Bad Government' (approximately from around the year 1338, 1339) made by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. It's about the effects of good government on town and country.
I was inspired by this painting thanks to Carolyn Steel's TEDtalk about how food shapes our cities. She shows this painting when she's talking about the balance between cities and country. What would Ambrogio have painted if he lived right now? Watch it here.
'TrendRede 2013 outlines negative vision of the future' was one of the headlines I read in the Dutch paper 'de Spits' when I was traveling to the 'TrendRede 2013' (which means Trendspeech 2013) itself. 'De Spits' was pretty early with this anouncement and seemed to find this sentence enough to summarize the speech and its already published version. But I must say that, after I heared the TrendRede live, I was far more positive than this 'de Spits' headline.
The TrendRede 2013 celebrates what we can achieve by joining forces at a local level, firstly zooming in and then zoom out. We shouldn't depend on big companies but get to work ourselves. Young people seem to take this step easier than adults. Their entrepreneurship, dedication and their ability to adapt easily to the multidimensional reality is something adults can really learn from.
Here are the three trends from the TrendRede 2013 in which young people are the absolut precursor, and the rest will follow.
1. Dividing lines disappear
The TrendRede 2013 tells us that we are exploring the different dimensions of reality. This means that we need to look at problems and chances from different angles, which will make the dividing lines between them disappear.
Youth already lives in this multidimensional world and are perfectly comfortable with it.
Conversations at school blend smoothly into answering a whatsapp message and then they continue to chat on Facebook, either on their smartphone or the tablet or PC. Youth doesn't seem to worry about the blurring lines between individual and 'virtividual'. What we mean by 'virtividual' is: the human being who sees the virtual world as a real world where he can develop himself and chase its dreams. These worlds are already so far blended with eachother that youth lives in a combination of both worlds.
2. Dedicated attention
There is a need for craftsmen who can work from the core of their profession. Dedicated creators, such as the TrendRede describes them. An example of one in the TrendRede is Epke Zonderland. He is the living proof that the combination of talent and dedicated attention can lead to a new level of craftsmanship. Boundaries are invisible by shifting this combination and make the impossible possible.
Click here to view the winning gymnastics performance that Epke did at the Olympics of 2012 in London.
What you don't hear in this clip is that commentator Hans van Zetten afterwards said something in order to encourage every little boy in the Netherlands to chase their dreams: 'Boys of the Netherlands, it is possible! Even if you live in the Netherlands, so go to work! Set a goal!'
A boy who achieved his dream thanks to dedicated attention is the 9 year-old Caine from Los Angeles. He built, entirely out of cardboard, his own arcade. Unfortanetely there were few pedestrians who passed the spot where he built the arcade, so the only thing missing were the customers. But one day one customer came into the arcade and that customer made Caine's greatest wish come true.
3. The data gold rush
Because of technology, knowledge, communications and capital becomes widely available for everyone, but really everyone. Young people have grown up with this and are able to distinguish relevant from not relevant. For example, the 15 year-old Jack Andraka developed a cheap and effective test by using Google during his biology classes. And with this information in his mind he started experimenting. With this he won the most prestigious science award for high school students.
Last I week I went to the Amsterdam International Fashion week to on the latest fahion trends for Science of the Time and Code Magazine. I saw a lot of shows, f.e. Bas Kosters. Here's my photo overview of last week.
One year ago I was there. The first time the Netherlands were the place to be for the International Iceskating World Championship 'Redbull Crashed Ice' on the Cauberg in Valkenburg. There were about 35000 people who wanted to see the ice skaters skate as fast as they could down the big Cauberg. And this year on the 4th of february it's coming back.
The special thing about 'Redbull Crashed Ice' is that it's accessible for everyone. Not only to come and see the ice skaters but also to enter the competition. Everyone can join in and give the spectacular ice rink a try.
I think this sport is a sport for the next generation. It's not only more spectacular but also much more of an event. It's fun for everyone because of the whole atmosphere. It all fits with the Redbull concept: nice and trendy music, nice food, nice entertainment. All energetic, dynamic and full of fun. It really feels like sort of a festival with instead of artists, ice skaters.
I think this will eventually grow into a much bigger event as this is just the second edition of it. And as you can see it also provides a VIP party this year. In ten years there will not only be much more space, much more people and much more contesters, but also more entertainment like live music if this event will keep on growing.
Since a few months we have a new vintage shop in the town where my parents live (and where I officially still live). It sells furniture, clothing old school cameras, tableware... you name it and they have it.
And this bag is what I bought there. It's a small real leather backpack from Manfield. And I bought it for only €2,50. Can't do wrong with that!
It's a very light weighed bag, great to use when you're going shopping.
Yesterday I went to the 'fashion loves art' exhibition in the 'gemeentelijke museum' in Den Haag. And because I've always been interested in art and fashion and especially the combination of the two I was very curious.
I've never had a complete overview about artists who inspired big haute couture brands, although I knew that designers were inspired by several artists as Mondriaan and by several forms of art as surrealism and kubism. Somehow I never got to manage to remember which artist inspired which brand, but at the fashion loves art exhibition you get to see which artist or art form inspired which designer and brand in chronological order. Because of this the exhibition was very clear and I really think I learned something. Unlike other museums there wasn't a large piece of text, but just the most important things you want to know. And to see the original Yves Saint Lauren dresses inspired by Mondriaan and a lot of other original pieces it was interesting during the whole exhibition.
Next week the Atrium hospital (Heerlen, the Netherlands) is starting consulting hours through Twitter. This is just a test to find out if this is an easy and a good way to replace normal consulting hours. If this is going to be a success the other doctors in the hopsital are also going to use this as a way to keep in touch with their patients.
This is the future because it saves a lot of time because a doctor can help a lot of patients at the same time. But I do think this has a downside, because I can imagine that a lot of patients are scared to lose the face-to-face contact with their doctor.
Of course this is just a substitution for short visits or it is going to be used as a help desk for short questions of the patients.
What do you think? Is this a good replacement for the normal consulting hours?
And is Twitter going to be used more in the future for health checks? Send me a message (click on Any Questions) to tell me what you think.
