This cheered me right up today. Thank you Kris
From The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge:
Is it not a curious fact that in a world steeped in irrational hatreds which threaten civilization itself, men and women—old and young—detach themselves wholly or partly from the angry current of daily life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, to the extension of knowledge, to the cure of disease, to the amelioration of suffering…..?
The world has always been a sorry and confused sort of place—yet poets and artists and scientists have ignored the factors that would, if attended to, paralyze them.
From a practical point of view, intellectual and spiritual life is, on the surface, a useless form of activity, in which(people) indulge because they procure for themselves greater satisfactions than are otherwise obtainable.
I shall concern myself with the question of the extent to which the pursuit of these useless satisfactions proves unexpectedly the source from which undreamed-of utility is derived.
Filed under: 10 Questions for Strategists, Great Stuff, Innovation, The Rules
There’s no more common trope than marketers currently want to be ‘data driven story- tellers’.
Q: How does strategy help contribute to creative product?
While I think that there may as many definitions of strategy as there are strategists, it will aways help you if you can define where your skills and interests lie and how you can best help a team.
One of my favourite frames for understanding is to find where a strategist sits on the spectrum from Numbers to Narrative.
For many years the notion of ‘t-shaped talent’ which has broader skills and knowledge and learns by linking up different perspectives from different specialties, was a profile we all sought. You wanted to have a wide lens of expertise and a deep specialisation.
If you think in a linear fashion, you’d start at one end of the spectrum, where at one end you have data and at the other end the strategic narrative, to find where you might sit and then focus on developing your strength.
True Data Strategists that can identify both patterns in the noise and identify the human insight driving it are quite rare. I think we’re all discovering the growing and evolving value of data in crafting creative solutions. It won’t do you any harm to refine or build your ability to both build and read a spread sheet and design an information to be accessible and powerful.
Creative Strategists, or Comms Planners structure a messaging house to get stuff done. They carve up confusion and create clarity. They stand in the shoes of their audiences and babel- fish translate corporate propaganda so it has heart and meaning. They are word smiths, the architects of distributed sense and driven to find the compelling and the engaging and the cut through. Again- it’s super important to be able to have the skill to construct communication in a way that people want to listen, what to know what’s next and actually want to take action on what’s being said.
In between and aligned to these areas of expertise are the researchers, analysts, consultants, specialists, brand planners and the media planners and all the other job descriptions allocated to our roles.
In a t-shaped universe you only get one specialisation.
What may add depth to the metaphor is if you understand a spectrum as a wave and not a line:
Then you can explore the notion of how the disciplines might amplify each other, and how they generate more momentum when you put them together, how you can cover more ground if you have more than one….
My thoughts are that you don’t have to choose, that specialisation is for insects, that the better the base the stronger the building and so on.
But it is a good idea to know what skills you have, and where you have gaps and ensure you’re bringing rigour and research to whatever you do.
Just don’t forget that if you want people to do anything with what you find, you’ll need a good story.
PS:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Filed under: 10 Questions for Strategists, blast from the past, Experience, Get Friendly, Great Stuff, passion
2 of 10 QUESTIONS FOR STRATEGISTS
One of the key things you learn as you practice strategy is to size up the problem you’re addressing.
As you tackle business problems and marketing challenges and service design opportunities and consulting projects you start to understand the unique components that you need to address to get it done.
You start to build frameworks to organise the chaos. Matrices so that you can map out a messaging house. You build process to describe the journey you’ll take clients on. You work out what sells and how clients buy.
You craft your process into a practice. You make charts. Lots of charts that you can remix and reuse and refresh.
They say the only difference between a junior and a senior strategist is the amount of charts they have access to…
(Vegetarian warning….)
All tenure gives you is the experience to know what kind of beast you’re dealing with…and what you need to carve it up.
Charts are knives- they should cut through, they should help you break things down, and carve out the cuts in the carcass.
The more knives you have, the more tasks you can get done quickly.
You wouldn’t use the same knife to chop an onion that you would to fillet a fish.
So your charts need to be fit for purpose, many and various.
And above all- sharp.
Filed under: 10 Questions for Strategists, Experience, Great Stuff, passion
1 of 10 QUESTIONS FOR STRATEGISTS
I’ve been lucky enough to have a new audience for my nonsense in the Strategists Anonymous series of workshops put on by You’re Good, Get Better.
Standing up with the largest cup of coffee I can find the first question of the day is fired at me….
Q: So, what’s a strategist?
Being a strategist, I start contrary wise…
This is what I think we aren’t:
- We’re not ninjas
- We’re not wizards
- And we’re definitely not rockstars
So what are we?
- Curious
- Driven to hear the signal in the noise
- Keen to mix the elements we find and the ones that don’t exist yet into a cohesive score
Q: And what’s the process? How do you do that?
I love this story of Ray and Charles Eames:
Sell your expertise and you have a limited repertoire. Sell your ignorance and you have an unlimited repertoire. Sell ignorance and your desire to learn about a subject. The journey of not knowing to knowing is the work.
It’s from the documentary The Artist and the Painter, and it really is “an extraordinary and enjoyable history of how two people influenced so much of our thinking and surroundings today”. I couldn’t recommend it more highly..anyhoo
As strategists we’re incredibly fortunate to sell people our journey of not knowing to knowing. We get to take people on the ride with us. We get to keep what we learn and get better. And get paid for it. It’s a crazy good deal.
But it probably won’t shower you in glory.
I have 10 of these questions mapped out as a result of the crews who participated in the workshops. Thanks for the curiosity y’all- hope sharing these helps.
P.S. You’re unlikely to ever need more cowbell
Filed under: Great Stuff
I was fortunate enough to be in a creative session to hear a manifesto of an idea that literally gave me goosebumps.
It made me think of this:
“The truth of a thing is in the feel of it, not in the think of it.”
— Stanley Kubrick
I just love the simplicity and the power of a poem, the ‘feel of it’ of a manifesto.
It really is all rather fetching
Filed under: Great Stuff
Tsundoku is the condition of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.
“Tsundoku” originated as Japanese slang (積ん読) “tsun-doku”. 「積ん読」 came from 「積んでおく」 “tsunde-oku” (to pile things up ready for later and leave) and 「読書」 “dokusho” (reading books). 「積んどく」 “tsundoku” is a euphonic change of 「積んでおく」. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. As currently written, the word combines the characters for “pile up” (積) and the character for “read” (読).
A. Edward Newton is quoted as saying: “Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity … we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access reassurance.”
(thanks for the introduction Neil Perkin)
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.Leonard Cohen, Anthem
Kintsugi or Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
Part of service design is describing and inspiring people about the real challenges of change, the need to to fix things, to look at something broken and believe that not only can it be brought back to life but be both more beautiful and more valuable while retaining history and integrity.
I find it useful it to explore Mr Cohen’s insight that cracks provide illumination and how it intersects with this ceramic practice of renewal.
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated… a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin….Mushin is often literally translated as “no mind,” but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. …The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject.
—Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
Mostly what this notion can tell us is that it’s ok. It’s ok to break, to have cracks and weaknesses. It’s natural and part of life and growth and of interacting with people. Even more than that, when you pick up the pieces, you can transform into something stronger, more resilient, utterly unique and desirable.
Interesting to compare FastCo’s 25 Predictions of what marketing will look like in 2020 to the recent work by the The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Both spoke with marketing visionaries around the world and posed essentially the same question: “The world of marketers today has changed drastically from what it was ten years ago. What will it be like in 2020? And what do marketers need to forge a winning career path over the next five years?”
There is a bunch of great stuff in each report but I’m just looking at ‘what counts’ vs ‘what can be counted’.
FactCo’s short and sweet thought:
Metrics are all over the place. We had page views (which was essentially like tracking escalator use at a department store—i.e., how many times people had to do a thing that’s basically inconvenient), Facebook Likes (which are now of no lasting utility), video views (now an indicator primarily of paid investment), and click-through rates (which still fail to discern quality of traffic). None of them are good. Even engagement rates and dwell times are slippery. We are still yet to settle on a metric that is fit for purpose; one that is easily repeatable, undeniably valuable, demonstrably linked to ultimate effectiveness. I can’t help but feel that when we do, when we’re able to say, “Yes it achieved 19, and our benchmark is 12,” and we know for sure that means it worked, then we will be in a transformed place. Surely. Surely it’s going to happen soon.
Alex Hesz, director of digital, adam&eveDDB FastCo’s 25 Predictions of what marketing will look like in 2020
The more indepth EIU:
1. It’s all about engagement
Seth Godin believes that marketers who are serious about engaging the customer recognise that the most valuable moments are when the customer is actually in touch with you: using your product, on the phone with you, reading your content. If you are able to address your customers’ needs during those moments—rather than put them on hold while telling them how important their call is—you’re going to get engagement.
2. Get your own house in order.
An asset is an investment that generates value in the form of return on investment (ROI). Engaged customers fit the definition of an asset, but marketers often complain that their CFOs resist the idea of engagement as an asset worth investing in.
In fact, these marketers are wrong: the problem is one of data, logic and presentation. Many marketers don’t fully understand what drives engagement—and therefore they can’t present it in a compelling way to the CFO. “If you can quantify engagement, any CFO in the world will pay attention,” says Jim Stengel. And not just pay attention, but jump in and ask, “How can I help?” Too many marketers don’t understand what makes their company preferred over others.
3. Harden the soft.
Of all the factors that drive engagement, the most important may be a culture of customer centricity. Culture is often mistakenly considered to be a soft concept. It is a big concept, but it is not a soft one: it can be broken down into a very specific set of values and activities that are mirrored in incentives, salaries and promotions. Customer engagement needs to play a central role in the organisation’s culture. Otherwise the business will not be sustainable.
4. Passion trumps everything
John Hagel argues that passion is the single element most critical to success in marketing. Passion enables executives to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and advocate for the customer inside the organisation. It is not always a comfortable role. It requires confidence and courage. But in the end, passion determines whether or not a marketer is successful.
“If you have a passionate commitment to make an impact on the customer by being more and more helpful to them, you will either develop the skills yourself or you will find ways to connect to the skills wherever they reside,” says Hagel. “It may be in other functions within the organisation. It may be in third parties. If you have the passion, you will find a way.”
This same team (The Economist Intelligence Unit) has written a cracking report about the urgent need to restructure marketing to better support business. There’s thirty pages of goodness- but I’m really just focussing on two of their identified trends that need urgent change and support:
A broader view of customer experience: positive customer experience across all touchpoints is increasingly seen as a company’s most valuable asset. And, more than any other function, marketing is responsible for managing it across the customer life cycle and across channels, from initial awareness through loyalty and advocacy.The customer experience is increasingly seen as a key to competitive advantage in every industry. Slightly more than one-third of marketers polled say they are responsible for managing the customer experience today. However, over the next three to five years, 75% of marketers say they will be responsible for the end-to-end experience over the customer’s lifetimeMetrics for revenue and engagement: Effectiveness trumps efficiency, especially in a time of rapid change. Metrics will become broader and more comprehensive, focusing on top-line revenue and overall engagement more than efficiency and brand awareness.
It feels like the mapping marketing landscape of the next 25 years or even the next 5 can be nothing more than trying to see a mythical realm. Even Sir Isaac Newton attributed his success to standing upon the shoulders of giants. I’d like to think that if we can help marketers move from counting beans to planting magic ones that the future may just be fantastical indeed.
Filed under: Digital Strategy, Experience, Get Friendly, Great Stuff, passion, Zeitgeist
It’s Festival time in Sydney. While I’m super excited about taking my inner child by the hand and having a bit of a frolic on Sacrilege, the true sized inflatable bouncy castle Stonehenge in Hyde Park’s Festival Village, I was interested to read this in The Australian
FESTIVAL organizers measure success in terms of ticket sales and economic impact, but a new cultural metric may be tweets and pictures on social media. Last year, an enormous yellow duck was a hit of the Sydney Festival, where 1.7 million people could not have missed seeing it at Darling Harbour. Some 14,000 images were posted on Instagram using festival hashtags.
Mmmm. ‘Cultural Metric’. Good notion. Loads of tension in it:
- What is culture?
- How might culture be measured?
- How do we value it?
The NSW Government is investing more than $5 million to ensure the success of the 2014 Festival,
“Last year the Sydney Festival attracted more than 500,000 people with more than 120,000 tickets sold to paid events, including more than 33,000 people who attended events in Western Sydney. In 2012, it injected almost $57 million into our economy“
From that perspective an arts investment looks like a pretty good return to the taxpayers hereabouts. I wonder how they’d value those tweets.
Early last year MoMA curator of Architecture and Design Paola Antonelli led a discussion about Culture and Metrics, (which I’ve entirely re cut below):
- why bother?
- the reality is that cultures come and go over time. If we don’t know what’s valuable about a particular culture, we run the risk of losing it forever.
- not all art is concerned with culture, and not all culture is arts-based
- it’s the best way to create a future that human beings want to inhabit.
- MoMA has been one of the most important cathedrals of the imagination in my life since childhood, and envisioning it as a driver of R&D across society at large is extremely exciting.
- measurement
- Kate Levin, the Commissioner of The Department of Cultural Affairs for New York City: measuring culture, is mostly about objectives and outcomes. She used The Gates as an example of a valuable, measurable project funded by the Department for Cultural Affairs. Four million visitors to this 16-day installation created $254 million in revenue for NYC.
- Measuring culture will require us to think of new ways to measure and share the story of a project’s insights and impact.
- culture and value
- “For me, The Gates was never about whether the saffron curtains and plastic frames were art. Some people argued that it was a hideous monstrosity while others loved it. Instead, I just felt lucky to be part of the flow of conversation and people as we passed together through The Gates on a beautiful blue and gold day. I felt lucky to be a New Yorker. And that’s the point of culture. It gives us a sense of place while at the same time evoking a deeply personal experience of the universal. “
- “For me, The Gates was never about whether the saffron curtains and plastic frames were art. Some people argued that it was a hideous monstrosity while others loved it. Instead, I just felt lucky to be part of the flow of conversation and people as we passed together through The Gates on a beautiful blue and gold day. I felt lucky to be a New Yorker. And that’s the point of culture. It gives us a sense of place while at the same time evoking a deeply personal experience of the universal. “
As Rita observed, and who was at the MoMA talk, it brings to life one of Andy Warhol’s statements:
- “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.”
Creating a deeply personal experience of an enterprise, creating a real and vibrant culture, feels like a bit of an art, and has the same kind of challenge:
Answer: With great difficulty.
Then again…. people are the only metric that really counts.
It’s hard. Really hard. Most companies can’t do it. The ones that can, make a fortune. Life is unfair.
I love it when you come across a sweeping statement that just takes your breath away.
In Australia there’s been a doozy this week- which you can follow here, particularly if you think that humor is a good way of addressing misogyny….
Anyhoo…and before I get well distracted….
I came across a notion that UX didn’t exist before digital – that the spirit utility, interaction and participation was ‘invented’ by introducing digital to brands.
A-hem.
It might be surprising that the discipline of mapping out optimal interactions between humans, machines and contexts has been around since the 1940’s. Participatory design’s been around since the ’60s.
I can’t help but agree with Jon Steel’s refutation of the statement
…these days everything has changed, planning has to change because advertising has changed, nothing is the way it used to be, everything is digital now and if you propose anything other than digital solutions then you’re old-fashioned and generally hopeless…you should drag your sorry old ass out of the business and work somewhere else.
I believe that’s completely wrong, because in the end in an analogue world, in a digital world the key to success is understanding the basics of human communication.
In order to most effectively influence a group of people “you don’t target them you engage them as willing accomplices”
I think the best brands have always inspired individuals to become willing accomplices…
Mr Steel also mentions the amazing work of Howard Gossage in the 1950s.
In short the example of Gossage has never been more possible to follow and more needed, particularly as dreary advertising drifts from our televisions to the places we spend time online, his idea that you should never confuse the product and the message becomes even more powerful. Howard would build his messages around something he thought would interest people and then weave the product into this story – the first international paper airplane competition for Scientific American being a brilliant example.
If you haven’t the slightest clue what all the fuss is about ….it would not be an exaggeration to say that Howard Gossage:
1) Invented interactive advertising (as opposed to direct response advertising) in which the audience is invited to get involved with the brand’s life and participate in its activities
2) Invented the idea of creating communities of interest around topics and then galvanizing those people into action through advertising
3) Invented the PR stunt as a marketing tool using advertising to catalyse and popularise the activity
4) Created the fee based remuneration model in place of the widely used but utterly discredited commission system
5) Invented the independent media planning agency with the Kick Back agency
6) Discovered Marshall McLuan and made him a household name in ‘60s America, a man who predicted the rise of the connected global village that we all live in today
7) Saved the Grand Canyon from flooding with advertising that changed the way that environmental campaigning forever
8) Helped create the modern environmental organisation and both named and housed the Friends of the Earth
9)Helped start the anti-globalisation movement
10) And almost won independence for Anguilla
And so to wrap up this rather long rant:
- If a brand wants want people to play with (and they do)
- Think
- What do we need people to do?
- Why would they do it?
- What are we going to make or do that will enable them to do it?
Filed under: Great Stuff
I renewed my complete crush on Jay Smooth’s smart styling hip-hop video blog Ill Doctrine today, which started for me waaaaay back in 2008 when I asked
Is he talking about politics, rap or the nature of masculinity? Or all three?
and today I saw this piece about Sexist Gamer Dudes passed around by blokes I like, respect and admire.
It reminded me what a talent Jay is- and kicking around his ‘allow me to reintroduce myself‘ section he demonstrated over and over again that we’re not alone:
and then I remembered:
procrastination is a lot like masturbation a lot of fun until the moment you realize you’re just fucking yourself
and got back to work.
We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe…. If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal. Ray Bradbury Speech to National School Board Association (1995)
Ray Bradbury died today. I love his work: his defense of books, his fight against censorship, and above all the notions of the miraculous future that would unfold before my eyes as I grew. He was one of the writers that made me excited about the future, made me more conscious of the dark dehumanizing side of technology, one of the architects of the “What Ifs” that still guide my daily creative explorations and the provider of some of the more accessible componentry of my moral compass.
Here’s one of my favourites, I posted this to David Gillespie just the other day: Doing is Being
Doing is being.
To have done’s not enough.
To stuff yourself with doing — that’s the game.
To name yourself each hour by what’s done,
To tabulate your time at sunset’s gun
And find yourself in acts
You could not know before the facts
You wooed from secret self, which much needs wooing,
So doing brings it out,
Kills doubt by simply jumping, rushing, running
Forth to be
The new-discovered me.
To not do is to die,
Or lie about and lie about the things
You just might do some day.
Away with that!
Tomorrow empty stays
If no man plays it into being
With his motioned way of seeing.
Let your body lead your mind –
Blood the guide dog to the blind;
So then practice and rehearse
To find heart-soul’s universe,
Knowing that by moving/seeing
Proves for all time: Doing’s being!
Over on Seth’s blog today was this morsel
A good employee says, “I know that this is a serious problem, it’s hurting our customers and we can do better, but I can’t do a thing about it because it’s run by a different department.”
A version of this might conclude with, “And I don’t even know the name of the person who’s responsible.”
This is a sure sign of systemic failure as well as a CEO who is not doing the job she should be. When smart people who care get frustrated, something is wrong.
There’s an intesection here and a paper that Deloitte relased yesterday:
Based on a global study of investment bankers, private equity companies, and financial analysts, the paper, The Leadership Premium: How companies win the confidence of investors, puts a hard metric on the “intangible asset” of leadership, revealing that, in some sectors, good leaders can account for more than one-fifth of equity value.
The gap between the value of an effectively-led and ineffectively-led company could, says the paper, be as much as 35.5 percent.
It’s a pretty good read, and one that full of steal able insights about the core components of value building leadership and the importance of leaders taking their teams along for the ride:
“All employees should have the same goal and process in mind… the same direction”
Investment analyst, US
Here are my notes:
Many major corporations have found that orthodox management practices and organizational principles are not well suited to the modern era. Our view is that current conditions don’t demand a revolution so much as a renewed focus on the fundamentals of leadership
Three value delivering components
- Strategic Clarity
- Successful execution
- A culture of innovation
Strategic Clarity
Organizations need to decide on where and on what basis they will compete. e.g
- Virgin Media’s decision to focus on it’s network as its core strategic asset was the beginning of an impressive corporate turnaround
- Southwest Airlines’ early use of the internet and online booking and check-ins has helped consolidate its positions as a low cost, low fares carrier.
- Apple’s relentless focus on ‘insanely great’ products allowed it to transform consumer electronics
- FedEx Ground’s emphasis on service and its early use of tracking systems (as RPS in the 1980s) enabled it to challenge UPS
Strategic clarity involves delivering a vision of what the organization needs to achieve
- and a framework that leaves enough room for people to create the future
- with consistency and commitment
Successful Execution
Common to organisations is the belief that the only long term differentiator they have is their people. The priority for an organisation has to be getting the best out of its people by ensuring that they are willing and able to fulfil its aims
- Believe: compelling reasons, communication and bulid commitment
- Belong: leaders need to articulate a long term purpose beyond just making money
- Behave: adaptive, value driven, team building, respectful,
- Able: capabilities, resources infrastructure
A Culture of Innovation
Great ideas are generated and developed through interaction.
- Commitment to enterprise; an environment for ideas
- Collaboration culture
- The freedom to experiment (and fail)
- It’s not about hiring new radical thinkers
- It’s about realizing the potential of the thinkers you’ve got
I liked this check list:
Effective leadership characteristics
- Capabilities
- Driving competitiveness and innovation
- Providing direction and purpose
- Making effective decisions
- Inspiring others to act
- Developing people
- Building high performing teams
- Personal qualities
- Integrity, probity and humility
- Moral courage
Filed under: Great Stuff
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell;
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam.
… freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.
– from “The Poet’s Obligation” Pablo Neruda
Filed under: Great Stuff
The sound sculptures and installations of Zimoun are graceful, mechanized works of playful poetry, an interplay between the artificial and the organic. This piece is a study of complex behaviors in sound and motion, examining the creation and degeneration of patterns.
I love that it’s cardboard and dime store electronics. I love the shadows. I like that you can walk around it, get inside it and that the sound changes depending on where you stand. It’s remarkably simple but it gives you a contemplation of complexity.
And it sounds like rain.
Filed under: Great Stuff
The best video you will watch all day, no doubt.
And if that’s not diverting enough there’s hours of awesomness to be had on Flickr with Lunchbreath
Filed under: Great Stuff
British designer Samuel Wilkinson and product design company Hulger, have won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2011 for their stunning redesign of the low energy light bulb.
Low-energy light bulbs have never been regarded as a stylish product but the Plumen addresses this by creating an aesthetic bulb which works just like any low-energy bulb. Announced yesterday at the Design Museum, Stephen Bayley, the 2011 Jury Chair said of the winning entry ‘The Plumen light bulb is a good example of the ordinary thing done extraordinarily well, bringing a small measure of delight to an everyday product.’
Hell yeah- that’s a mantra:
Do an ordinary thing done extraordinarily well,
Bring a small measure of delight the everyday
Filed under: Great Stuff
This Kinetic Typography project was created by Jacob Gilbreath from the dialogue of Conan O’Brien’s final episode of The Tonight Show on NBC. In this farewell address, he describes his feelings towards the situation at hand, promoting positivity and humor, hard work and kindness.
Filed under: Great Stuff
Lovely message, relevant to us all from Sebastián Baptista
We are starting the new year with some new projects, new goals and new challenges.
Whatever you do, always try to be the best you can be. Spread the word.Good luck!
Filed under: Great Stuff
It’s funny how we can only associate growing with pain. Take a couple of minutes to watch Jesse Rosten‘s lovely piece above. Maybe if we all took things a little more slowly…..
Philosophy helps. From Thinking Aloud:
Philosophy, as the great American philosopher Stanley Cavell puts it, is the education of grownups.
It is my view that philosophy must form part of the life of a culture. It must engage the public and influence how a culture converses with itself, understands itself, talks to other cultures and seeks to understand them. It has been enormously gratifying to see this pursuit flourishing in today’s agora — the virtual one — confronting, engaging and even embracing the fluid, ambiguous and frenetic nature of the electronic public realm.
But more importantly, this paragraph reminds me of meals around my family table growing up:
… philosophy is a shared activity, it is dialogue. And dialogue is not the simple exchange of opinions, where I have my faith, my politics and my God and you have yours. That is parallel monologue. One of the goals of dialogue is to have our opinions rationally challenged in such a way that we might change our minds. True dialogue is changing one’s mind.
And growing.
Get Shouty 