Gems & Notes #3

Learning and noticing lately.

I curated and wrote this post while listening to The Womack Sisters.

Table of Contents

On Lifestyle, Trees, Cities Futures & Creativity

“Extreme weather, narrow streets

In the 2024 study, University of Tokyo researcher and urban forestry expert Kinya Shiraishi found that canopy cover in central Tokyo fell to 7.3 percent in 2022 from 9.2 percent in 2013, a loss of 12 square kilometres.

By comparison, canopy cover in New York stands at around 23 percent, with the city aiming to raise it to 30 percent by 2040.

London aims for a 10 percent increase from its current 20 percent by 2050, while Paris also plans to boost coverage from about 18 percent.

“If we want to improve the quality of urban life, canopy cover is one of the key factors,” Shiraishi told AFP, adding that trees also lower flooding risks and can help city dwellers feel calmer.” — France 24

“How should we envision the African city of tomorrow? A city adapted to population growth and climate change, and freed from a colonial past that is still very much present in some places. Africa’s first pan-African architecture biennale, held this week in Kenya, is seeking to answer that question.” — France 24

Paris is for Introverts via Susan Cain

“So this is my Paris prescription, buy a book, find somewhere beautiful to sit with it, order something delicious, wander around for a while, and repeat. Paris is one of the best cities in the world for being alone in public, which is frankly the greatest luxury an introverted writer can ask for.”

The new cool of Phnom Penh

“For years, the Cambodian arts were largely associated with Apsara miniatures and Angkor Wat watercolours of the type sold at charity-run markets in Siem Reap. In Phnom Penh, there’s a small but concerted effort to evolve beyond that.”

“To me it seems that our modern lives are full of directed attention (doing our work, problem solving, focusing on the traffic as we drive) and rumination (…) and hard fascination (…). But what about the restorative effects of soft fascination – making time to stare into a fire, sit in a forest and listen to the sounds, watch the ocean? These feel like ‘wasting time’ but maybe that’s what our brains need to be more at peace, and make room for creativity.” — Viv McWaters

On the (Environmental Impact) of AI on Earth / ourselves, & our deliberated choices

“The AI boom could leave a trail of e-waste six times around the Earth.

The Basel Action Network, an e-waste watchdog, projects that the AI buildout will generate 395 to 617 million tons of electronic waste between 2025 and 2050 — enough to fill 15 to 23 million shipping containers. GPUs are only 13 percent of a data center’s equipment by weight; the rest is cooling systems, power gear, networking, and copper cabling. Servers and GPUs get replaced every two to three years, and no tech company or government has published a plan to handle the waste.” — IFTF Newsletter #24: Foresight in the Age of AI

“Whatever had changed in the room, the hosts had not ceased to be human. The guest had entered their language, their work and their relations, but it could not live their lives from within. They remained embodied, finite beings among others, exposed to what happens and answerable for how they meet it. An older question therefore remained. What does it mean to live well when life with artificial intelligence becomes an automated existence?” — Kenneth Mikkelsen

Never Forget… What? – by Rachel Happe

“Today, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 asks: will you contribute to humanity or allow it to wither?

In a world being taken over by machines and algorithms, the memory of 9/11 asks us to choose humanity.“

“Why is it crystal clear yet so muddy? I have a take. I think it’s because AI-generated content is missing the rhythm and texture of human writing. The light and the dark corners where our eyes can rest, and our brains can shut off.” — Taruna Goel

On the Futures of Content & the Nowness of Personal Knowledge Mastery

“Meaning emerges, it is in constant flux. and cannot always be contained in a single document. That’s why the future of content is not just more content. It is connected, contextual, reusable knowledge.” — Teodora Petkova

“If we want to become a society that believes in creativity as a raw material for progress and innovation, we need to recognize that we will only thrive if we start to cultivate ecosystems of questioning minds, where the exchange of ideas and the construction of knowledge constitute our most valuable asset.

In short, we need to take creativity seriously.” — Felipe Zamana

Our Outputs Are Not Us – by Marina Gorbis

“The human capacity to decide what’s worth doing where there are no written rules is precisely what a task specification required in algorithmic systems does not contain. You can write down an objective. You cannot write down judgment. Judgment lives in the repertoire; it is transmitted person to person, situation to situation, and it dies the moment you try to freeze it into an instruction set.“

“Before you block the next AI use case due to compliance or risk concerns, ask a different question: How exactly can the output be checked?” — Falk Uebernickel

“For me, throughout my career (and personal) development, I have done the same thing with information. I catch and release information. I have been called a “Master Pack Rat” and “Town Crier” – remembering projects, people, organizations, and events; collecting and archiving electronic and paper information; notetaking during conversations; and unconditionally sharing information.

How do you collect information? What information do you choose to share with people? Do you have communities of practice?” — Shirley F. Rivera

Analysis of the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2026 list x Jane Hart, 7 September 2026

“In fact, many of the big heavy-weight tools are off this year’s list or have slipped down it.

“Feedly has dropped off the list (…)

WordPress has dropped down to No 38 – a big difference from its heyday pre-2020 when it was consistently in the top 10.”

I am still using Feedly with Raindrop and WordPress for seeking and sensemaking. OpenClassrooms and Mastodon for learning and sharing in addition to in-person communities of practice.

You?

The algorithms powering our social feeds

“In a 2025 survey of over 6,000 people in six countries, only one in five said they would switch off personalised recommendations if they could, she noted.

“The algorithm is good at its job, and the minority who do opt out will find a feed of friends and creators feels quieter than the one they left.”

Hence navigating deliberately at our own pace the fediverse and the RSS feeds feel quieter and more meaningful, methinks.

On Innovation & Learning

“More people getting the chance to discover. That could change where discovery happens, who sees themselves as capable of doing it, and how early someone can begin pursuing an idea without waiting for the right institution, job title, or facility to give them permission.” — Mark Bryan

What I am nudging & teaching in the innnovation workshops I host each year per cohort of apprentices.

“MVPs were also no longer reliable evidence of customer discovery, critical thinking, hypothesis testing, product/market fit or even commitment. This meant two of the 10 class design elements were obsolete. So much so that we will now label Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) as Initial Untested Products (IUPs.)” — Steve Blank

“When you grow up without a clear roadmap, you learn to navigate ambiguity. You learn to ask questions. You learn to figure things out. You learn to move forward even when certainty isn’t available.” — Dany DeGrave

“Each step you take provides evidence of your capability, which increases your confidence and makes it easier to keep going. Think of it as a self-reinforcing loop: small actions create evidence, evidence of competence strengthens confidence, and confidence makes further action more likely.” — Connie Malamed

“Constraints show you what’s possible. The workshop gave us physical boundaries and deliberate limits on how we could move. I usually think of constraints as something that narrows what I can do. The invitation here was to treat them starting points for creativity. That was a good reminder to refresh my attitude about the limitations I see right now.” — Jaya Ramchandani

“Perhaps that is another lesson in craft: knowing what to include, what to leave out, and how to make something meaningful within the constraints you have. #pechakucha #designvancouverfestival #design #makers” — Taruna Goel

“Yet I also see how, just as we standardize the outputs of hard skills via acceptance criteria, we can do the same for soft skills. For example, we could use a rubric to assess whether a communicator explained the what, the so what, and the now what; and whether a provider of feedback clarified the situation, described the behavior observed, and explained the impact. In this way, we “harden” the skill across the board.” — Ryan Tracey

On Teaching, Facilitation & Teams Dynamics

What a fellow teacher & moi have noticed over a lunch earlier today. Not so far from our table:

“On ne peut rien enseigner à autrui. On ne peut que l’aider à le découvrir lui-même.” ― Galilée

“We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” ― Galileo Galilei

A good reminder for ourselves before we visited the new campus of a school and the back to school that was on last September 2026.

“Cézanne does not merely show us another collection of objects. He changes how we see. That movement from accepting a finished appearance to understanding the process through which it has been formed is, I think, central to education.“

(…) “The educated person becomes both answerable to the larger process and an author within it, both shaped and shaping, listening and responding. Education enables us to become more fully conscious participants in the dialogue through which both we and the world continue to be formed.” ― Rupert Wegerif

“Now, Keith McCandless and Nancy Wright White have released the Liberating Structures Fieldbook (2026): 43 structures. Deeper principles. And guidance that feels closer to the realities of how we work today, both online and in the room. What excites me most is that this doesn’t feel like simply another book of activities. It feels like an invitation to rethink what facilitation can make possible.” ― Praveen Kumar Naidu

I will dig this resource in the context of next facilitation of workshops for this academic year: 2026-2027.

“Days like this are a great reminder that strong teams are built on more than skills and delivery. They’re built on relationships, trust, understanding and a willingness to learn and adapt together.” — Claire Bicknell

On Death & Life

Hills are necessary x Matthew McConaughey

Which hills did you climb and came back from lately?

“You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.” — Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“Rivers, of course, represent the flow of time, and boundaries between worlds, and thresholds from one state of being to another.” — Susan Cain

“I was not a happy person last year; but this year I think I learn a lot. The biggest thing I learn is that life comes from you, not at you. And that good things take time and just be patient about it.” — Yin Ruoning holds off Kim Hyo-joo to win sixth LPGA title, end title drought

“Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.” – Paul Cezanne.

Image: Study of a Bather, Paul Cezanne, 1880-1890 via Meredith Lewis