This post brought to you via the blog Generacion Y from award-winning Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez -

I have heard hundreds of times that the university – like a cemetery – could not be invaded by the demons of repression. I imagined them milling around the steps, without the power to enter this zone of letters and mathematical formulas where the students are sheltered. But this supposed immunity lived only in my fantasies, as Cuban history shows successive transgressions suffered by the universities in my country. Before the gaze of the statue of Pallas Athena, the ideological castigation has broken into these precincts dedicated to knowledge and scholarship countless times.

During the first half of the Twentieth Century, several student protests went so far as to demand the resignation of the president, bearing witness to the social force that emanated from the student desks. Painted on the walls around La Colina, where the University is located, you can still see the youthful nonconformity that later revolutionary purges reduced to apathy. The University Student Federation (FEU) has ceased to be a hotbed of ideas and actions that more than once shook the city, and become, to the students, a representation of power. Thus, the organization lost all its rebel character and its leaders are no longer elected for their charisma or popularity, but rather for their political reliability. The slogan, “The University is for Revolutionaries,” has contributed to imposing the mask as the safest way to achieve a diploma.

In these two years since Raul Castro came to power, expulsions for ideological reasons have continued – and are on an upward course – in the centers of higher education. When Sahily Navarro, daughter of a prisoner of the Black Spring, was prevented from returning to her classroom, I learned that the battered student league had gone from agony to necrosis. A few days after the headstone of sectarianism was placed over the remains of the FEU, Marta Bravo was expelled from her teacher training program for demanding reforms in the country. The notes of a requiem was composed by those who fired the teacher Darío Alejandro Paulino, after he opened a Facebook group to discuss issues with regards to the faculty of Social Communication. With these sad events, the federation – once led by Julio Antonio Mella – has confirmed its death at the hands of the dragons of dogmatism and intolerance, who now freely roam the university campus.

something to…

listen. learn. share. repeat.™

g.

This weekend I was doing a lot of research on Creativity, and the origins of… Well my search landed me on the TED site which I simply adore, and while there I was picking up on an overall theme that is really resonating with me… Collaborative Creativity. We talk about Social Media and how it’s disrupting virtually every industry – however; UNLESS you are doing your research, one would not think to equate the Ideation process into the fold of change. WELL things are changing, and for the better… Here is what I am thinking about…

1. The ability for people to connect and rally around a central cause is easier that it has ever been – spawning a new creative process for coming up with solution based ideas.
2. The collective mining of content is simplified. It’s much easier for individuals to share content, and it’s a LOT faster… This is critical to the “idea formation” process.
3. Corporations are going to have to be able tp take a different road to innovative greatness – Consumers are no longer waiting for industry to think of, produce, and distribute goods and services, they are taking the “bull by the horns” and doing it themselves…

So as Creative People, “Thinkers”, we have to begin to posture ourselves differently. In the very near future (if you own some type of creative, thinking, development company) the ideation process will not be reserved to a select few people… It will be “Open Source Ideation” – and the companies who can adapt to this will win.

listen. learn. share. repeat.™

g.

One More Shot At The Contest!! Message this.

Okay – so we have heard this phrase a couple of times over the past week or so. And Kevin Hall, author of Aspire! proclaimed it loud and clear for us:

Readers are leaders. Earners are learners.

Can't make it any more clear than that.

As you also know, I have been asked many times this week and over the past several weeks about what it takes to find your purpose. I spoke of the origin of the word coming from the Old French: prosperer, to take and to set in place.

Well I have found my purpose in general and that is to offer what I can to help other find their passion and intersect that with their talents and create a career or business. I reflect the world around me and us the tools such as social media and personal/professional focus to help emerging leaders, entrepreneurs and brands reach their potential. In a way I am the teacher I always played when we were kids. Except back then I was always the principal!!

Well today I am calling class to order and see how far the messages have translated from me and others to you and calling for a pop quiz. The grade is irrelevant, it's the measure of your ability to challenge yourself as a learner, earner, reader and leader. How bad do you want to find that purpose?

It is in you now, we just have to find what triggers it to bring it from an internal slumber to an external action.

So here's how this will work. There will be a series of quotes, statements, or belief statements. You need to match them with the correct thought leader listed below.

1. Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves.

2. Rather than ask, "Am I worthy of my goals?" we encourage you to reverse the question and ask, "Are my goals worthy of me?"

3. The cubicle is your temple, do not permit casual visitors.

4. Like caterpillars turning into butterflies prospects go through a 5 stage process: strangers, friends, customers, loyal customers, and former customers.

5. The way I treat myself reflects the way I treat others.

6. The genius of AND: Deep understanding AND incredible simplicity in leadership.

7. Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both like judo, camping or making your own sausage.

8. Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interest's first.

9. The leader must be clear about whom you are choosing to serve, because we, your followers require it of you.

10. I attract into my life that which I believe I am.

Associate one of these names to the numbers above.

John Assaraf, Marcus Buckingham,Bob Burg & John David Mann, Jim Collins, Stephen R. Covey, Timothy Ferriss, Seth Godin, Kevin Hall or David Sedaris.

If you email the answers into me (email is to the left of this post-comeone you can find it), the person with the most correct answers as of NOON on Monday May 18, 2009 will receive an autographed copy of the new limited-edition print of Aspire! by Kevin Hall and a Barnes & Noble gift certificate. In the event of a tie, my mother will draw names out of a hat. Trust me??

So can you take a message? This could be fun.

listen. learn. share. repeat