WNYC - Mapping New York City's Cultural Landscape

My morning routine, is to click onto the WNYC website and listen to their live streaming news. Today when I clicked on the WNYC link I was greeted by the top image - a bright colorful graphic, that caught my attention right away.

After reading and going through their website, http://culture.wnyc.org - I thought, "WOW! what a great idea." Not only are they mapping New York City's cultural landscape but it's another great way to interact with their listeners and even gain new listeners.

Below is their mission statement and what they are trying to achieve.

This site is devoted to capturing the best of the present--and looking ahead to see what's next. You’ll provide the local knowledge to fill out the map of the city's cultural landscape, from music to food to theater and visual arts and more. We'll suggest some places to pull over and take a look around. But you’re in charge of plotting the way to places unknown. Look down the alleys and around the corners where the next big thing may be developing, or hiding in plain sight. Experience the joys of serendipity. Then tell us, and each other, what you've found.

But there’s one thing to do before we head out. Every territory needs a name, and that's your first assignment: help us name this place. A name makes a difference, and we want you to be part of the difference, right from the start. Leave your suggestions in the comments section below, and we'll set out on our trek together.

Multi-Tasking old fashioned idea now it's Switch-Tasking

This past Friday I was listening to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, he was live from the Aspen Idea Festival. The topic was, Being Human in a Digital World - His guests were, Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, John Palfrey, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Will Wright, creator of Spore and Sim City and Brooke Gladstone from On the Media.

They brought up alot of interesting topics, such as: how the digital media affects your thinking, how you process information and how this new digital media takes you away from other activities in your life.

But what really caught my attention was when John Palfrey stated that this new digital landscape has also created a new way of working, Switch-Tasking -working on multiple tasks but switching through them quickly. I found that very interesting because we all do this seamlessly throughout the day. We all move through our email, facebook page, twitter, digg, stumble upon, wordpress, blogger, flickr and any other social/digital website we participate in. Great topic that gets you thinking about how this new digital world really is affecting you as an individual.

If you want to listen to the broadcast click here: Being Human in a Digital World