My Dad was a basketball coach. I remember him reading John Wooden books when I was growing up. John Wooden influenced a man’s character. Coach Wooden coaching style and discipline certainly influenced my father. And indeed that influenced me.

If you are not familiar with Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, please click here and read about on Coach Wooden’s site. It is just not success in basketball. It is about success in life.

Coach Wooden loved basketball, but he loved those he coached more. Jamaal Wilkes said that Coach Wooden valued love above all else. Love is what make a man great.

I have no doubt that Coach Wooden is resting in peace. God Bless Coach Wooden.

Vote for the Best Team Logo – and don’t be a homer.

You can make your own fun sets of mikon choices and “personality profiles” at www.MikonMixers.com.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Four Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

The twelve days of Christmas begins on December 25 and end just before Epiphany, that falls on January 6.

Click here to see more Mikons about the origin of the song 12 Days of Christmas !

Mayan calender symbol for monkey, Chuen(pronounced chew un). This symbol represents the creativity of the artist and craftsman. The Maya viewed such a creativity as a sacred gift. Blessed with the Chuen, the Maya believed they are co-creators of the world.

This is one of twenty Mayan Solar symbols of their celestial calender.  Which one resonates with you?

You can make your own symbols at Mikons.com - create and connect.

Mayan calendar symbol for night, Akbal (pronounced ok bol). Abkal symbolizes the  earthly dark spaces and those within our own minds. The Maya valued these places as both of spiritual and physical wealth.  Akbal is the regenerating power of the still and the dark – the place of rebirth and transformation – as in “Be Still and Know that I am God”.

This is one of twenty Mayan Solar symbols of their celestial gods.  Which one resonates with you?

You can make your own symbols at Mikons.com - create and connect.

That’s right the title says “Sex Symbols”.  Karen Krebs blogs on her site True Intimacies and is the author of “Intimacies: Secrets of Love, Sex & Romance”.   She has a set of icons that represent the title of her book chapters. 

Karen put this set of icons in Mikons. 

Here is what she writes about them in Mikons.com:

“These mikons are used in the Table of Contents of the book, Intimacies: Secrets of Love, Sex & Romance, by Karen Kreps. They represent chapters that involve: singles, couples, love and romance, issues of commitment, sex and sensuality, and money. See www.TrueIntimacies.com.”

I like these icons because they are simple and descriptive.  Karen is using Mikons among many other social strategies to spread the word about her passion and her contribution to the world. 

This is a facinating talk from the TED Confernce by Tom Wujec in Feburary 2009.   Although it is brief and basic, Tom points out the power and the opportunity of the visual image.   He describes how visual images create powerful connections in the brain.  To maximize that connection he says to: (1) Use images to clarify ideas, (2) Make the images interactive, and (3) Make the images persistant.

Many people still ask me, “Where the hell did you get the idea for Mikons?”

I am a cyclist, I am a hack, but I love it. While watching Lance Armstrong’s last year in the Tour De France (before he came back in 2009) I noticed that his  his time-trial bike’s disk wheel with small icons that represented his life journey. Lance then described the meaning of each of the icons.   Those symbols spoke something, even beyond the words that Lance used to describe them.