Hanging around some smart, wonderful people

Last week (if Sunday is truly still part of a week's end) was quite remarkable in the people (who I normally don't see often in person) that I got to listen to for a bit.  Here they are in order of influence on my life so far:

4th + 3rd place, respectively - Stewart Brand & Wade Davis - On Wednesday night, Mary, Sam and I went to dinner at Greens and then to the Wade Davis conversation at the Long Now Foundation.

To be honest, I am just learning about Stewart Brand's thinking and influence. He's obviously quite intelligent, controversial and doing a fantastic job of bringing both attention to issues & amazing speakers to the SF area for a cheap ticket price to us. I look forward to exploring more about him. I definitely respect and understand his push to get out a picture of the whole earth; what a wonderful idea.

I was so thankful to hear Wade Davis talk about his new book/lecture series: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in a Modern World.

Quick note.  Um, how cool is the CBC Massey Lecture series? A week long lecture series hosted in Canada that is then converted into a book. Lovely idea. I want to start something like this.  Who's in? Anyway, you can hear some of the lecture streaming on the site. Although like the book, the podcast loses a bit of its impact by not having Davis' striking photography of the people and places he is discussing.

I first made note of Wade Davis when Boing Boing reported on his, "shit knife" story (which we heard told in-person at the event - I'm pretty sure that had a significant impact on Sam's impression of what lectures can be.) I greatly enjoyed reading both Light at the Edge of the World & Serpent and the Rainbow. He's really helped me in taking a more realistic world view.  I don't see human cultures as fragile as I did before, but I want to fight more aggressively for them. I have a better understanding of how to approach people and investigate human priorities.  Lastly, I am deeply curious about the collective non-technological intelligence that has built-up over the past centuries.

2nd place - Daniel Pink - Friday evening, we went to a @DanielPink book lecture here in Marin County. He totally got marin-countied (which means bombarded with distracting, single-minded questions-statements about government, politics and education from a bunch of Boomer hippies!) So I didn't get to hear him discuss the topic of his newest book (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us) as much as I would have liked; I wish I had gone to the Google lecture.  But it was good to see him on his first visit to Marin County, tell him thanks for helping us discover a vision for the program & putting us up on his blog and get a few signed copies of his books. I'm looking forward to reading Drive - and not that I needed encouragement, but one of my favorite thinkers agrees.

1st place - John Murphy - Dr. Murphy "Boss" was in town for the annual University of Texas Advertising student visit to San Francisco. I attended a nice reception at DDB which led to Dr. Murphy and I scheduling an early-morning breakfast later in the week which led to us scheduling a nice drive, beach walk, dinner with Mary & Sam and co-attendance to the Daniel Pink lecture.

Murphy taught me Introduction to Advertising (like he has to thousands.) As a "project-winner" I got to have lunch with him and we became quick friends. He offered me a T.A. position, where I was fortunate to actually spend some quality friend time with the fabulous Heather LeFevre. And he introduced me to Owen Hannay, who would offer me my first job in advertising (again thanks to an assist from Heather.)  He was also quite comforting in a troubled time for me.

Spending time with him is ALWAYS a joy.  We are hoping to colaborate on a few efforts this upcoming year. Good fun.

A great bunch of people that will have lasting impact on my thinking.

(Oh the picture ... Pablo and Kristie came up for a visit.  They wanted to spend New Years Eve somewhere besides Dallas.  We loved seeing them ... but they don't count on this list since that was weeks ago - but my blogging has been so slow lately!)