Scenius

The communal form of the concept of genius is the meaning of the word Scenius. Developed by Brian Eno to describe genius embedded in a scene rather than in genes, the concept is spoken to in the The October, 2010 edition of Wired magazine. The article is "Where Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson on pages 120-124.

"Ideas aren't self contained things; they're more like ecologies and networks; they travel in clusters."  Johnson contends that technologies desire diversity and creative environments "that allow for repeated failure."  A metaphor of special interest is that of a Coral Reef which allows for just enough disorder to mix information and produce innovation.

Certain business settings, college campuses and think tanks come to mind as places where Scenius occurs. Does it take an elite gathering of people for this to happen or can a random gathering of people embody the same experience? How can such Coral Reefs of creativity be encouraged in a multitude of locations for the good of a society? 

Holy Innocents Remembered December 28

Christians observe December 28 as a day for remembrance of all children of the world who are being, at this moment, forced into military service, sex slavery, hard labor preventing education, and violent oppression of many sorts.
This observance does not relate easily with the commercial spirit of Christmas and New Years. All the better reason to temper happiness of some in order to raise to consciousness the terror of many.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a global effort to not only raise consciousness but to affect the real life situation of many children in many world regions. Child as Citizen is the title of a collection of papers on this issue and makes up the January, 2011 edition of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
People of all religions or of no religion can join in this observance and share efforts to raise awareness as well as change legislation and practices across the globe.