Shaw on True Joy

 

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one… the being a force of Nature…”

–George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Irish writer

Think about your work (contribution).

Whether you feel lucky or not with what you’ve been given (or earned) as your opportunity to work, you’re ultimately just a steward of it for a relatively brief period in time.

It will be handed off to someone else at some point (your territory, your team, your customers).

If you thought of that work as being put in a box to be given to someone else, what would you want the recipient to think when they opened it up?

Wouldn’t you want it to be something that’s difficult to improve on?

Wouldn’t you want them to crack open that box… look in… smile… and say… “Wow. That’s great work.”

Statewide SketchUp Pro for K-12 schools

K-12 schools all over the world are using SketchUp. Ask any 7th grader if they’ve heard of it and they’ll say something along the lines of “SketchUp is awesome!” Shining examples of student work abound; take a look at Eric Yam’s space colony or Andrew Nathanson’s workshop presentation if you’re looking for inspiration. We made this short video to highlight other great SketchUp work in K-12 education.

Though lots of schools use the free version of SketchUp, we’d prefer that they get SketchUp Pro 8—there’s lots in the professional version that students and educators can use. To that end, we offer a special, no-cost license grant to U.S. states (and Canadian provinces) that want to install SketchUp Pro in every single one of their K-12 schools. There are currently 20 states in the program; collectively, they represent over 250,000 seats. Visit the SketchUp Pro Statewide K-12 Licence Grant website for information about signing up. Spreading the SketchUp love makes us happy. We invite your state (or provincial) technology director to apply.

We’re in the process of exploring a means of rolling out this program internationally, too. If you represent a state, province or other territory in a country other than the U.S. or Canada, and you’re interested in implementing something similar, please drop us a line at sketchupforeducation@google.com.