Category: Uncategorized
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Lyman Museum – Hilo; Hawai’i
The Lyman Museum captured my attention since planning our trip to Hawai’i. As presented in its website, it began as the Lyman Mission House, originally built for New England missionaries David and Sarah Lyman in 1839. Nearly one hundred years later, in 1931, the Museum was established by their descendants. Nowadays, the restored Mission House…
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Fort Santiago – Manila, Philippines 🇵🇭
Fort Santiago is one of the oldest fortifications in Manila built by the Spaniards in 1571 from what was once a palisaded structure of logs and earth built by Rajah Soliman on the native settlement called Maynila. The colonizers recognized that the tongue of land where the Pasig River flowed into the Manila Bay was a…
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Belarusian National Arts Museum 🇧🇾
We visited this museum during some days we spent working remotely while visiting my in laws. We spent a weekend in Minsk and took advantage to visit it. The Museum is considered to be the largest art museum in Belarus. It comprises more than thirty thousands works of art, which make up various collections organized in…
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Mayan World Museum of Mérida, Mexico 🇲🇽
We visited this museum while spending some vacation days and New Year’s Eve in Mérida, Mexico, in December 2023. The museum is aimed to celebrate the Maya culture and it houses a permanent collection of more than 1100 remarkably well-preserved artifacts, including a reclining chac-mool sculpture from Chichén Itzá and a cool underworld figure unearthed…
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Batumi Botanical Garden – Batumi, Georgia 🇬🇪
After spending a couple of days in Batumi, Georgia, we initiated a road trip throughout this country and stopped in Batumi’s Botanical Garden on our way out of the city. The Garden is located 9 kilometers from the center of Batumi and is considered to be one of the oldest, biggest and more important plant…
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The National Library of Belarus – Minsk, Belarus 🇧🇾
After arriving to Belarus to spend a couple of weeks with my in-laws and work remotely from their place, we decided to spend a weekend in Minsk. In addition to visiting friends in this city, one of the reasons to spend the weekend there was to visit the National Library of Belarus. The National Library…
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Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War – Minsk, Belarus 🇧🇾
After arriving to Belarus to spend a couple of weeks with my in-laws and work remotely from there, we decided to spend a weekend in Minsk. One of the reasons to come to the country’s capital was to visit the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War which, as presented in…
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Book Review: El Conejo en la Cara de la Luna – Ensayos sobre la mitología de la tradición mesoamericana
Decidí comprar este libro durante una visita rápida a la librería del Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) en Toluca, mi ciudad natal. El título y descripción general del libro atrajeron mi atención, al ilustrar aspectos interesantes de tradiciones mesoamericanas. El libro está escrito por Alfredo López Austin, quien es considerado uno de los más destacados…
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The Joseph Stalin Museum – Gori, Georgia 🇬🇪
After spending a couple of days in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, we continued our road trip throughout this country and drove towards the country’s capital, Tbilisi. We decided to stop for one night in the small city of Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, since it has a memorial museum devoted to him. This…
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Book Review: The New Learning Economy
The book is written by Martin Betts and Michael Rosemann. Martin is Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, having served as Deputy Vice Chancellor of Engagement until 2020. He leads the higher education sector with experience from seven universities in three continents. He is co-founder of HEDx, impacting higher education through a podcast, advisory services, and…
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Book Review: Learning Planetizen Manifesto – Together Tackling the Challenges of the 21st Century
The book is written by Franciois Taddei, who is based in France and who I met during a visit he made to Arizona State University (ASU) to explore collaboration opportunities. He gave me the book as a present by the end of our conversation. The image below presents a brief message he included to summarize…
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Mauna Kea Observatories – Hawai’i
During our visit to the Big Island in Hawai’i, we went to the Mauna Kea Observatories. This is one of the most impressive hikes we have ever made. The Maunakea Observatories are a collaboration of nonprofit independent institutions with telescopes located on Maunakea on the island of Hawai‘i and managed by organizations and countries such…
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Book Review: The Fifth Wave – The Evolution of American Higher Education
The book is written by Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University. Malcolm Gladwell describes President Crow and this book as follows: “In a perfect world, we would clone Michael Crow, so every university would have the same advantage as Arizona State University. Until that happens, The Fifth Wave is our next best option.” Robert…
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Haleakala National Park – Maui; Hawai’i
Haleakalā National Park is located in the island of Maui and, as presented in its official website, is a superb example of the Hawai’ian Islands’ native ecosystems. The Park preserves the outstanding volcanic landscape of the upper slopes of Haleakalā and protects the unique and fragile ecosystems of Kipahulu Valley, the scenic pools along Oheo…
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Garden of Eden – Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Maui; Hawai’i
We visited the Garden of Eden during our stay in Maui Island. We decided to devote a full day to drive through the entire loop of the Hana Road and make selected stops, being the Garden of Eden one of them. We arrived early in the morning, around 8:30am, right after we opened, and were…
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Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden – Big Island, Hawai’i
The Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden is a 40-acre natural garden of tropical plants and, as presented in several blogs and reviews, a nature lover’s paradise located in the Onomea Valley about 5 miles North of Hilo, Hawai’i. The Garden is home to over 2,000 plant species, representing more than 125 families and 750 genera…
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Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park
During our Holiday 2022 vacations we spent some days in Hawai’i visiting the Big Island and Maui. While being in the Big Island, we went to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park which, as presented in its website, protects some of the most unique geological, biological, and cherished cultural landscapes in the world. Extending from sea level…
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Book Review: Failure to Disrupt – Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education
The book is written by Justin Reich, who serves as Professor of Comparative Media Studies and Director of the Teaching Lab Systems at MIT. Overall, the book aims to present an argument against the overestimation of the power of technology to profoundly alter the ways educational institutions operate and how students learn. The author aims…
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Book Review: What We Owe The Future, by William MacAskill
This book is written by William MacAskill, who is an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. I decided to read the book after Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, suggested it during one of the university’s senior teams meeting. As presented by the author, this book is about longtermism: the idea…
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Book Review: Managing Your Boss – Harvard Business Review Classics
In this popular Harvard Business Review book, John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter provide valuable guidelines for building this essential relationship – including tips for communicating mutual expectations and tactics for negotiating priorities. The fifteen main takeaways I got out of this book are outlined below: Because two people can on occasion be psychologically…
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Book Review: The Innovators – how a group of hackers, geniuses and geeks created the digital revolution.
The book is written by Walter Isaacson and aims to outline the story of the innovations that created the digital age, including many strands within them. While the ten top takeaways that I got out of this book are outlined below, I could say that the main one, as presented by the author, is that…
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Museum of Belarusian Polesye – Pinsk, Brest Region. Belarus
We visited this Museum during Summer 2022, while spending some weeks in Eastern Europe and working remotely from there. The museum was founded in 1924 and opened in 1936, just prior to the Second World War. In 1940, it was established as the Pinsk Local History and Folk Museum, and from 1954 it was the…
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Museum of Nature; Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park – Belarus
The Nature Museum of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park is the largest natural history museum in the Republic of Belarus in terms of its design and collection. It is also, as presented in its website, the one with the greatest amount of visitors per year: around 150 thousand. We visited this Museum during Summer 2022…
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Küçüksu Pavilion – Istanbul, Turkey
During our Summer trip to Europe we spent some days in Istanbul, Turkey. Among other places, we visited the Küçüksu Pavilion, which is situated in the Küçüksu neighborhood of Beykoz district on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus between Anadoluhisari and the Fatih Sulyan Mehmet Bridge. The pavilion was used by Ottoman sultans for short…
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The Great Palace Mosaic Museum – Istanbul, Turkey
This is another Museum we visited in Istanbul, Turkey, over Summer 2022. Some highlights, out of the information presented in the museum, and photos are outlined below:
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Morgan Library and Museum – NYC
I had a chance to visit the Morgan Library and Museum during a May 2022 trip to New York. As presented in its website, this is a museum and independent research library that began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. As early as 1890 Morgan had begun to assemble…
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The Musical Instruments Museum – United States and Canada section. Scottsdale – AZ
We decided to visit the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) again in late April 2023, before our yearly membership would be over. As shared in my previous blog posts about this museum and presented in its website, the MIM began with a vision to create a musical instrument museum that would be truly global, which I…
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Book Review: HBR’s 10 Must Reads – On Lifelong Learning
This book is part of Harvard Business Review’s (HBR) series and presents a collection of articles on lifelong learning. The ten main takeaways I got out of them are presented below: 1. Learning to Learn. Organizations today are in constant flux. Industries are consolidating, new business models are emerging, new technologies are being developed, and…
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The Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) – Special Exhibition (Treasures): Asia and Latin America sections. Scottsdale – AZ
After almost ten months living in the Phoenix area, my wife and I had a chance to visit the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). As presented in its website, MIM began with a vision to create a musical instrument museum that would be truly global, which I think they have really accomplished. MIM’s founder Bob Ulrich…
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Book Review: Competing in the Age of AI – Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World
The book, written by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani, shows how reinventing a firm around data, analytics and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, their research shows how Al-driven processes are vastly more scalable…
Marco Serrato 