Category: Uncategorized
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Just ship it!
Sometimes we can get overwhelmed and bogged down in trying to make an idea perfect – so much so that great ideas never make their way to reality. Seth Godin talks about how shipping – the art of getting something out the door and into the real world – separates the “ok” from the great. And it’s…
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Know what you stand for, and make it accessible
What does your organization or department stand for? What do you stand for? Clearly defining our core values is one of the most difficult and most important things we can do. We’re going to make decisions daily. We can either make them with pre-established guidelines that reflect what we truly value, or we can make them…
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Does social media contribute to or distract from your main thing?
John Mayer spoke to students at Berklee College of Music this summer, and one thing he talked about was the impact social media had on his creativity. While it helped him connect with his fans (millions of followers on Twitter), it robbed him of creative power for his main thing – music: “The tweets are getting shorter,…
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The Wednesday List
It’s been busy around here (hello August!), but here are a few things that have caught my eye. This TED presentation by Salman Kahn, founder and teacher for the Kahn Academy, deserves a post of its own. The implications for how we teach and learn are huge. But for now, just watch the video and see…
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The Wednesday List
TED curator Chris Anderson has a list of new principles (rules?) for email. I’m on board. (David Pogue has a few more suggestions) I don’t trust any zoo that would allow me to ride the lion. If I had about $100 million in my bank account, I don’t think I’d leave my ATM receipts lying around. Sleeping…
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Stop it! Rework it! Reclaim time and sanity by cutting things that don’t matter.
Sometimes we get it all wrong. In order to achieve a better life we feel like we have to have more, do more and accomplish more. Sometimes more helps, but most of the time “better” is about doing the right things, not more things. Sometimes when we’re feeling behind and overwhelmed we need to SIMPLIFY,…
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The Wednesday List
We’re moving about 200 yards down the street today, so wish us luck! That’s a lot of packing for a short distance! Think you have to create what you’re doing from scratch? Watch the first two episodes of this online series and remember that Everything is a Remix. Saying someone has too much time on…
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Good sources for free, quality fonts
There are a lot of places where you can download free fonts out there, but as a design person, I’ve found a lot of them require you to weed through piles of less-than-useful fonts to find something that looks professional but different – you know, the quality stuff. Here are a few sites I’ve appreciated…
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Get started early. Let your mind get to work.
Fred Wilson shares profound advice from his father about problem solving and subconscious information processing: “He explained that I should start working on a project as soon as it was assigned. An hour or so would do fine, he told me. He told me to come back to the project every day for at least…
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Fewer cowboys, more pit crews
Atul Gawande, in his commencement address at Harvard Medical School, talked about needing more pit crews and fewer cowboys in hospitals. It’s a great analogy for the medical field, but it also fits most anywhere else. Two million patients pick up infections in American hospitals, most because someone didn’t follow basic antiseptic precautions. Forty per…
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Putting “10,000 hours” to the test
Our last post mentioned the 10,000-hour rule – a theory by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, and made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Well, it’s an interesting concept. In observations, becoming an expert is less about talent and more about intentional practice. So anyone should be…
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Success and mastery take work
“Almost nothing worthwhile is easy, and it’s hard to just jump in and be good at something difficult right off the bat. Think, say, of Twitter, whose business plan, such that it is, has always been something along the lines of “Get big and popular, then just flip the switch and start making money when…
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Simplifying solves problems.
“The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex. The solution for a lot of the world’s problems may be to turn around and take a forward step. You can’t just keep trying to make a flawed system work.” – Yvon Chouinard
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Working on a project? Listen to the owners.
In “The math of action” we talked about how action matters as much as creativity for impact. One way to apply this is to filter others’ input through the lens of action and ownership. We often celebrate ideas, but ideas are cheap – implementation makes the difference. In brainstorming sessions, it’s good to hear a wide…
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The math of action
How many times have you sat in a meeting where hundreds of great ideas are tossed around, but in the end, not much happens? In his book Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky repeats the adage that creativity (or productivity, progress in our projects, and growth in relationships) is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration. He looks further…
Jon Sampson 