Monthly Archives: September 2013

DESIGN THINKING to Improve Your Life, Your Work, & Our Society – Sep 19

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Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross

Thursday, September 19th, 4:00 – 5:15 pm

Gottesman Library, Teachers College, Columbia University 525 West 120th St. Room 104b Russell Hall NOTE: Not our usual meeting space – different floor in the same building. (bet. Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. North side of 120th Street.) (#1 train to 116th St.) Please bring a photo ID required for entry to the building.

RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/124333282/

There will be a display of relevant books. Light refreshments will be available. Coffee and other beverages available downstairs as you enter the building.

Design Thinking has produced some of the most successful innovations in our lives and organizations, in realms ranging from technology to social change. In this Conversation we will explore what DT can mean for each of us, personally and professionally. You are already a Designer in your life and work – if you use your creativity, resourcefulness, and initiative to make changes in yourself and your environment. But you can become an even better Designer by enlarging your repertoire of techniques and strategies. We’ll get acquainted with the DT Toolkit for being creative-with-a-purpose, ranging from brain-storming, mind-mapping, and creative problem-solving, to the 5 whys, the systems approach, and failing fast through proto-typing. DT harnesses both creativity and rationality – it inspires, but crunches! It fosters empathy for people — but also encourages awareness of the systemic context. It strives to meld theory and practice. It is knowledge-based — but solution-focused, rather than purely academic. It has a "bias towards action". Indeed, we practice DT each time we gather for one of these Conversations, which are collaborative, free-flowing, egalitarian, culturally diverse, inter-disciplinary, critical, exploratory, and open-ended. Please join us to experience Design Thinking yourself if you haven’t already (or share your experiences with some of the strategies), and discuss how this approach can add to your strength.

To benefit from and contribute to this session, please spend 15 minutes watching the short (2-minute) videos at www.designthinkingforeducators.com and, if you like, download the FREE (but long) Handbook

Next session: Thursday, 10/24, Topic, TBA For more information about the Socratic Conversations: www.SocratesWay.com/join.html

Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety – Sep 11

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Money Talks – Profits Before Patient Safety
(Hosted by DOCUMENTARY WATCHERS & CNY)

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

6:30 PM to 9:15 PM, Kips Bay, New York

Please RSVP at Conversations New York http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/116947002/ and at Documentary Watchers. http://www.meetup.com/documentary/events/129399402 Thank you.

Dr. Jerome Hoffman, UCLA Medical School, “The relationship between physicians and the drug industry…begins the day you hit medical school…establishing relationship, establishing good feelings, and a dependency, and a sense of entitlement, that I work really really hard and no one is else is really nice to me, but these guys are really nice to me, and at the same time the notion that we are all in
this together…We are all on the same side. The side fighting against disease.”

Jeanne Lenzer, Investigative Medical Journalist, “…doctors started to telling me these stories about drug and therapies that they were prescribing,…they were horrified…they would find out that these therapies, one after another was actually causing more harm than good…in some instances killing patients…increasingly, of course, it shows pharmaceutical influence.”

Join us for food, drinks, and discussion.
Short social before start
Greet old friends and meet new ones.

6:30pm Social
6:45 Showing
7:45 Small group and large group discussions
9:15+ Continue discussion on your own.

Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety – The Film Drug Companies Don’t Want You to See

Money Talks exposes the questionable tactics that big drug companies use to make record profits by playing with the safety of our family’s health care. Using misleading advertising, attractive drug reps who wine and dine doctors and other unethical practices, the drug industry makes billions of dollars every year selling us unsafe, unnecessary and overpriced drugs.

There are over 80,000 pharmaceutical sales people employed in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States alone. My understanding is that that is about 1 for every 4 doctors. Their job is to sell drugs. Their job is not to educate doctors. Their job is not to provide medical information. They have one job and one job only: to push their product particularly against other competing products. Doctors should not trust them to give them unbiased and accurate information about their drugs, and frankly, doctors shouldn’t let them in their offices.

If you want to protect the people you love from their dangerous practices that compromise the safety and quality of our health care, Money Talks is a must-see film.

RESOURCE:

Consumer Reports
Best Buy Drugs
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/best-buy-drugs/index.htm

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Stone Creek would greatly appreciate your patronage as they are providing us their private party room and big screen TV absolutely free unlike the public libraries. http://stonecreeknyc.com/