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Today on Word of Mouth, stop paying attention! Researchers are starting to discover the benefits of daydreaming. Plus, young Africans are overcoming violence and corruption, starting businesses, and creating a powerful world market. And we’ll meet a woman who started her own successful retail business on the outskirts of Johannesburg. We’ll also take a look at some of the greatest buildings by New England architects. And, birdwatching for the iPod generation.

(Photo by Michael Mistretta)

The news we get from Africa tends to focus on the negative. From Algeria to Zimbabwe, Africa is a continent of great diversity. But the Western media tends to focus on Africa’s big problems - wars fought by child soldiers bearing AK-47s, AIDS and other diseases on the rise and going untreated, famines, and political corruption and dictatorship blocking prospects for a solution. But, there are other stories to consider.

Business school professor Vijay Mahajan presents a very uplifting vision of Africa’s economic prospects in his new book, Africa Rising: How 900 Million African Consumers Offer More Than You Think.

But he wasn't always so optimistic. Before the book he writes that he "saw Africa more as a charity case than a market opportunity." But spending three years travelling across Africa changed his mind. Africa is one of the youngest markets in the world - of its 900 million people, 41 percent are under the age of 15.

Rather than speaking with politicans and World Bank officials, he interviewed young people - entrepreneurs who balance local traditions with global trends, and who are reshaping Africa into a growing economic market. Vijay Mahajan holds a chair in business at the University of Texas in Austin, and he joins us from KUT in Austin.

We also get to see the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit in South Africa. Despite daunting unemployment in the continent’s strongest economy, many make their living in the informal sector. Independent producer Christopher Werth brings us the story of a woman living in a dense, rural township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She started a small food retail business, and turned it into a vibrant fixture of the community.

(Photo by Tim & Annette Gulick)

There are a handful of famous architects that most Americans could name, Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry being among the the most recognizable. We live in and walk past the work of architects every day, some celebrated in their field, but the majority are unknown and rarely celebrated outside of the trade.

Architect and professor Roger K. Lewis wrote about his frustrations with this anonymity in a Washington Post column. He says Americans are pragmatists who put utilitarian concerns ahead of aesthetics, and that we celebrate people who entertain, not those who create imaginative, creative works of public architecture.

Lewis’ frustrations are shared by Donald Kreis, Word of Mouth architecture commentator and assistant director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. Donald wants to give credit where credit is due, so he joins us to tell us about four of his favorite architects from New England - one from New Hampshire, and the others from Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine - to better appreciate their work when we see it.

Read more on Donald Kreis' architecture picks

C. Stuart White of Banwell Architects in Lebanon, NH
Carol A. Wilson of Falmouth, Maine
John Anderson of Burlington, Vermont
Charles Rose of Boston, MA

(Photo of the Currier Arts Center at the Putney School courtesy of Charles Rose of Boston)

Here’s some good news for every parent who worries that their child daydreams too much - and encouragement for all of us who find our minds wandering aimlessly when we should be paying attention.

Research shows that a healthy dose of daydreaming is good for our minds, and our creative process. The man who invented sticky-notes, for example, came up with the idea while daydreaming during a sermon in church.

Jonah Lehrer wrote about him and the new research into daydreams for the "Ideas" section of The Boston Globe. He's editor-at-large at Seed Magazine and author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist, and he frequently joins Word of Mouth to talk about our brains.

Read Jonah's article about the new research into daydreams

(Photo by Thomas Høyrup Christensen)

Congressman Carol Shea Porter's campaign officials say former Congressman Jeb Bradley has distorted her record in charges he has made against her.

New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.