Today I’m heading to NYC and DC for a two week trip, and I’m hoping you can help me make the most of it. Sure, I’ve got some work to do while I’m over there – meetings planned for my work with GetUp etc., but I want to squeeze the most out of my trip. I’m attempting to ‘crowd source’ part of my itinerary by asking my network to advise me on who I should with over the next fortnight.

In short, I’m going to America to have a few coffees with interesting people – and I’d like you to help make sure I fall in with the right crowd.

To give you a hint of what I’m looking for, I am passionate about innovation. To me, answering the question “Is there a better way?” is one of the most important tasks we have as humans. I’m dedicating this trip to meeting with innovators – people who dare to seek the better ways of doing things -  in the fields of media, communication, activism, business – actually, really, any field at all!

But maybe ‘innovators’ is the wrong word? Maybe change-agents, activists, philosophers, thought-leaders, speakers, futurists, rabble-rousers, culture jammers or thinkers would be better words?

If you know (or know of) someone based in NYC or DC that you admire/love/respect/think would be cool to meet, recommend them! I’d like you to please name them in the comments section below, forward this post to them, or email me – tim @ timlonghurst.com.

I’ve got a great feeling about this trip. Naturally, even if you’re nowhere near NYC/DC you’ll be included – I’ll save the best quotes and anecdotes from all of this fun for the blog – I promise! Thanks in advance for your help, Tim

I remember thinking I was so urban and edgy when I discovered US-based Threadless. Now they’re a recognised brand with co-promotions with Google and doing tie-ins with Basecamp I think the word is really out on that great site. My favourite aspect of Threadless is that they offer American Apparel, suppliers of fair trade products. Well guess what? There’s a french company that also has great prints on AA t-shirts – lafraise. And according to the very scientific “Googlefight” for every one mention of Lafraise there are two of Threadless. So here’s my tip – whilst Lafraise isn’t exactly underground, you may well be half as likely to catch someone in the same t-shirt as you if you shop from the Frenchies rather than the Americans in this instance.

Of course, finding a local designer who uses fair trade T’s for their prints is also a good option!

Thanks to my pal Pierre at Tangler.com for the Lafraise tip.

I haven’t posted for a while, so I have a quick present for those keen beans that show up here to see what I’ve posted recently. Check out Alarm Clock – spend an hour at that site and you’ll be as up to date as anyone in your IT department – at least for a few minutes.

I am not a lawyer, I don’t offer legal advice, but since this information might be helpful to some people, I’m adding it to my site. Check your facts before you go around quoting this website (and that goes for always, not just with this article!).

If you live in NSW, Australia, and you get ripped off by a business, keep this line in mind:

“I will be lodging a claim against you in the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal and you will be ordered by law to attend the Tribunal hearing without legal representation and you will be legally bound by the decision of the tribunal.”

And you won’t be all talk. It turns out that if you lodge an application in the “General Division”, for $31 and a bit of stuffing around, justice may prevail.

I discovered this magical phrase some time ago during a phone call to the NSW Department of Fair Trading. Apparently the process isn’t all that painful and often businesses often back down and do the right thing if you start sounding like you know your rights and how to get the law involved.

There is power in the simplicity of a diagram or model. I remember first reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits and reading about his Four Quadrants, and later, attending a course at Tamkang University in Taipei, being introduced to the Futures Triangle.

Four Quadrants

Stephen Covey believes that any minute of the day your activities fit into one of four quadrants:

• Important and Urgent (Quadrant 1)
• Important but Not Urgent (Quadrant 2)
• Urgent but Not Important (Quadrant 3); or,
• Not Urgent and Not Important (Quadrant 4)

Covey believes the most effective people live the majority of their lives in Quadrant 2, looking after those aspects of their lives that are important but not yet urgent.
Covey elaborates in his book, but I think the model can still be employed as a way of thinking about your time management without reading the whole book.

Futures Triangle

I was introduced to this tool at Tamkang University in Taipei. This model can be applied to any issue. I can easily apply it to the issue of Australia becoming a republic. The ‘Pull’ is the vision: Australia becoming an independent nation with its own head of state. The ‘Push’ is what’s pushing Australia toward that vision, for example, a greater sense of national independence. The ‘weights’ hold us back from the ‘pulls’ and the ‘pushes’.

In this example, the weights would include a sense of tradition and Australia’s identity as a European colony. Somewhere inside that triangle is a possible future. The relative strengths of the pulls, pushes and weights will influence where inside the futures triangle we will end up. For example, will the weight of tradition overcome the sense of independence some Australians feel, or will the vision of an independent Republic of Australia triumph over the weight of Australia’s European history?

The Futures Triangle can be a useful tool in teasing out key issues in futures and even communication campaigns.

So what are your ‘hot models’?

I am particularly interested in assembling a collection of ‘hot models’ that can be applied in a variety of situations, whether they be at a personal or planetary level. If you have a model you like to use, I’d love to hear about it. Please contact me, even if it’s with a one-line recommendation!