Today I’ve been invited to address the 800 students and teachers of the Senior School of St Michael’s Grammar School at The Astor Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne (a wonderful Art Deco theatre that the school recently purchased).

I ‘ve been asked to talk about “Diversity in Thinking”.

In 1983, School of Thinking originated the idea of ‘Six Thinking Hats’ to show that there is more than one way of thinking–logic. Today, after more than 25 years of teaching thinking and training teachers of thinking around the world, it is plain to me that there is a vast, virtually unlimited, number of ways of thinking (for example, see this Wikipedia list).

There are not just 6 thinking hats, nor 60 thinking hats nor even 600 thinking hats, there are in fact many, many more … at least 6 billion thinking hats on Planet Earth!

To get you started, here are over 100 THINKTIPS reprinted from my book THE X10 MEMEPLEX: Multiply Your Business By Ten! (Prentice Hall 2000):

ESCAPE: How can I escape?
“Help! I’m trapped. How can I escape?” This is the cry of the thinker. Why? Because THE most difficult feat of thinking is to escape from your point-of-view. All of us are trapped in the special world we create for ourselves in our brain, our own unique viewpoint, our CVS. Your world and my world are different. You are trapped in your CVS as surely as I am trapped in my CVS.

•• For the other 99 THINKTIPS click through to here …

PASADENA, Calif. — A NASA spacecraft today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars.

The images from NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander also provided a glimpse of the flat valley floor expected to have water-rich permafrost within reach of the lander’s robotic arm. The landing ends a 422-million-mile journey from Earth and begins a three-month mission that will use instruments to taste and sniff the northern polar site’s soil and ice.

“We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we saw from space, we don’t see ice on the surface, but we think we will see it beneath the surface. It looks great to me,” said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission.

Click through to NASA for more …

Yesterday, in Canberra, I was invited to work with a very interesting and unique group of leaders of leaders.

These were 24 men and women–Australia’s creme de la creme of the current generation of military leaders. All were recently promoted to General, Flag or Air rank (Generals and equivalent) rewarding outstanding Army/Navy/Air Force careers in war and in the field. They have been promoted to Canberra and will be leading Australia’s defence for the next decade.

What a dream class! They dived in without hesitation to the session and I was able to challenge them with stuff that one rarely gets the chance to use in even the most senior of business groups. I did have fun.

I asked an Iraq War veteran if he could explain succinctly what was the kind of warfare the coalition were up against in Iraq. Here he gave his ’25-words or less’ lesson in warfare. He said, “The enemy have 27 million targets. We have 1000 targets. That’s the problem we are working to solve”.

We all have our problems, of course, but that’s a REAL problem to have to solve!

What is a Mind Map?

Hrad to blveiee taht you cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht yor’ue rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan bairn, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, sowhs taht it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

..

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn biarn deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe ptatren. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and you awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Supernova remnant G1.9+0.3.

The most recent supernova in our galaxy has been discovered by tracking the rapid expansion of its remains. This result, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array, will help improve our understanding of how often supernovae explode in the Milky Way galaxy.

The supernova explosion occurred about 140 years ago, making it the most recent in the Milky Way. Previously, the last known supernova in our galaxy occurred around 1680, an estimate based on the expansion of its remnant, Cassiopeia A.

Click through to NASA for more …

• What are your own five top signature strengths?

• What if you could find out what they actually are?

• What if they were stronger than your astrological sign?

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Dr Martin Seligman is the founder of Positive Psychology, a new branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as mood management, happiness, positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.

Dr Seligman’s research has demonstrated that it is possible to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances.

Positive psychology interventions can also lastingly decrease depression symptoms. Authentic Happiness has almost 700,000 registered users around the world.

• He welcomes us to use all of the resources on his website for free.

• His VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire Measures 24 Character Strengths

PRINCETON, NJ — For the first time in nearly three weeks, the statistical tie between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Gallup Poll Daily tracking of national Democratic preferences has been broken, with Obama now ahead by seven percentage points, 50% to 43%.

Dan Gardner, author, RISK: the science and politics of fear.

Why do we so often get risk wrong?

The answer begins with the brain.

A fundamental insight of modern psychology is that our judgements are the product of not one mind, but two. There is the conscious mind, of course — the mind that ponders these words and understands how irrational it is to abandon planes for cars in the name of safety. The conscious mind perceives itself to be in sole control, but this is a cognitive illusion.

Most of the work done by the brain occurs beneath the level of consciousness and this unconscious mind is heavily involved in making judgements. The conclusions that issue from this mind do not emerge as articulate thoughts, however. We experience them instead as feelings and intuitions — something just seems right, for reasons we cannot express.

THE AGE: Click through for the full article …

NATURE: “It’s probably the most eagerly awaited genome since the chimp genome because platypuses are so weird,” said Professor Jenny Graves of the Australian National University in Canberra. She is one of the co-authors of the study published in the scientific journal Nature.

“There was a fork in the road and the platypus went one way and humans and other placental mammals went another”, says the research leader Jenny Graves.

More on this cover story in Nature …

SOT congratulates Professor Jenny Graves and her team on their outstanding achievment in the exciting field of genomic science. Scientists hope their findings will lead to a greater understanding of human DNA.

Professor Jenny Graves was also the 2007 recipient