Douglas Rushkoff is just too smart, too convincing, and too damn ahead of his time. In this video he provides a snippet of how we have lost the beauty of storytelling (with a prime example of the girl with the zit to illustrate).
Tags: Behavioral Change, Creative, Digital, Idea Sharing
MIT Medial Lab are certainly living in the future. The thinking is that Resilience, RIsk, and a Good Compass are key to flourishing in today’s world. Here are The Principles broken down:
Resilience instead of strength, which means you want to yield and allow failure and you bounce back instead of trying to resist failure.
That means you pull the resources from the network as you need them, as opposed to centrally stocking them and controlling them.
You want to take risk instead of focusing on safety.
You want to focus on the system instead of objects.
You want to have good compasses not maps.
You want to work on practice instead of theory. Because sometimes you don’t why it works, but what is important is that it is working, not that you have some theory around it.
It disobedience instead of compliance. You don’t get a Nobel Prize for doing what you are told. Too much of school is about obedience, we should really be celebrating disobedience.
It’s the crowd instead of experts.
And my favourite…It’s a focus on learning instead of education..
Source: Wired.com
Tags: Behavioral Change, Creative, Culture, Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation
It’s been over 25 years since Michael Jackson’s Bad, his seventh studio release picking up where he left off with Thriller five years prior.
In Spike Lee’s celebratory documentary, Michael Jackson BAD 25, the antidotes and story behind each album track are explored – and the presence of Jackson (after death, as in life) is nothing short of AWE-some.
The film delights by providing insights into Jackson’s career-long collaboration key with Quincy Jones, as well as capturing personal stories from folks like Questlove, Bruce Swedien an Martin Scrorsese.
..And perhaps the best footage is Jackson performing live in concert. Over a quarter of a century ago, as a hysteric crowd at Wembley arena is treated to Another Part of Me and Man in the Mirror, it is clear that on stage is where Jackson felt most at home.
Tags: collaboration, Music
In his latest instalment To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink makes it clear as day that we are all in sales now. Exploring a range of research studies, an ongoing narrative of the Fuller Brush Man, and so many more wonderful antidotes on ‘Moving People’ - here are just 3 themes that pop out (assuming you just want the coles notes):
1. Balancing the positive with a splash of negative. Translating the work of Barbara Fredrickson from the University of Northern Carolina into a sales context, there are two competing pulls at work: Levity and Gravity. Positive emotions tend to broadens people’s ideas about possible actions (the rising feeling of floating) while negative ones evolve to narrow people’s vision (the grounding attributes of practicality). Summed up succinctly:
“Levity is that unforeseen force that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward…when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant.”
2. Problem Finding. Examining the work of Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the case for optimising creativity relies not on solving a problem as much as it does finding and framing the right problem:
“Good sales people, we’ve long been told, are skilled problem solvers…but today when information is abundant and democratic rather than limited and privileged, it matters relatively less. The services of others are far more valuable when [one] is mistaken, confused, or completely clueless about [her] true problem. In those situations, the ability to move others hinges less on problem solving than on problem finding.”
3. The Pixar Equation. One of the highlights of the book is the insight into the unparalled success of Pixar. This includes the untraditional design of its workspace to encourage serendipity and a coffee machine culture as well as the consistent practice of ensuring computer technologists are sat alongside graphic illustrators. Most of all, it is the formulaic pixar narrative, or perfect pitch, which can always be relied upon:
Once upon a time..
Every day..
One day..
Because of that..
Because of that..
Until finally..
Take any story in the world and plug it to this model and you may be surprised, well, that is just works.
Tags: Business, Education, Entrepreneurship, Marketing
Came across this and it just rang a bell. Almost as good as “When you have to start compromising yourself or your morals for the people around you, it’s time to change the people around you.” - Someone
Tags: Behavioral Change, Creative, Social Innovation
I’ve always been amazed at how Sir George Martin fused together the epic 16-minute medley for Abbey Road. The Re-thinking, Re-working, and Re-assembling of leftover scraps intended for the White Album never cease to dazzle and delight – each time coaxing us into a dream-like state.
Mysteriously, the very words on this screen have simply disappeared on multiple occasions. It would seem as if they came into life when being written and just as quickly decided they would be better off if they leapt off the computer – perhaps onto another web, or more aptly into the physical universe. I sure as hell don’t blame them: They dreamed a better dream.
And the point? – well that’s the thing: When you daydream there doesn’t need to be, a point. The luxury is in not having to be concerned in achieving a specific outcome, but in the unfettered freedom of enjoying the process. And when we do concern ourselves with the end results, whether in business, sport, integrative thinking, or cooking – we can begin to bring our dreams into focus. After all, if we don’t exercise the choice to paint our own masterpieces, we mine as well let George Martin conduct our orchestra.
Tags: Creative, Culture, Music
..There certainly were no jet airplanes over our heads, no honking horns from commuters with road rage, no quirky beeps of microwaves in kitchens, no retro sounding rings from iPhones. And there assuredly were no phantom vibrations in our crotches (At least once per week smartphone users feel a vibration in their pocket when there is none, and 40% of those feel this vibration when in fact their smartphone is IN the palm of their hand).
If only we could suspend it all (for just a moment of course), in exchange for a type of blissful silence. A return to The Garden. The wind is ruffling through the trees and the soothing sounds of the sea saturate our senses. Of course we could do without the seductive slur of the snake and the permanent pain in the ass form predators. But until such time, let us laugh in unison:
Tags: Behavioral Change, Culture, Wellbeing
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