VOICES is about listening. It is easy to hear but difficult to acknowledge the voices around us. We can experience the sounds but not always the meanings. This blog hopes to adjust our collective filters, stimulating questions and promoting conversation about ideas both professional and personal.
MacGyver was a Prophet
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. While this statement embodies the ethos of the action/adventure, secret agent/resourceful scientist of television’s MacGyver; the quote is from Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President. In MacGyver’s hands, a Swiss Army knife, a shoe lace and six inches of duct tape could avert a thermonuclear disaster. Today’s challenges require different tools — patience, ingenuity and tenacity to postpone layoffs, avoid bankruptcy or sustain a community.
Creativity: An Act of Will
Yes, Creativity is an act of will. It also demands practice, discipline and confidence.
“I don’t have a creative bone in my body” and “I couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler” are a few of the responses we hear when we explain our work. Most people assume that creativity is a gift, a talent you are either born with or not. This is both true and not at the same time.
Train of Thought
Except for the engine and the caboose, the arrangement of every freight train is unique. A train is prepared, assembled and scheduled in order to deliver the contents of each railroad car to a particular location on a predetermined date at a prescribed time. To do anything else could threaten the solvency of an industry and jeopardize every enterprise that depends on a “just-in-time” delivery.
Over several tall beers in a Frankfort biergarten, the American poet G. E. Murray explained to his dense friend what poetry is.
Bipartisanship is Not THE Answer
There is a tendency today in our “big D” Democracy / “small p” pluralistic society to insist on complete inclusion. Everyone has a voice and everyone should be heard. President Obama makes a significant effort to engage individuals, groups and countries in both conversation and participation in the critical discourse surrounding today’s complex issues. Current wisdom asserts that more voices produce a collective voice, therefore better ideas. Football referees regularly put their heads together to avoid making a “game-changing mistake.”
Mother May I?
Kate was a tomboy. Back then, boys had more choices and fewer rules than girls. She worked hard in school and excelled in all areas including “boy’s” subjects — math and science. Kate did well enough that in 1939 she earned a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City — usually not offered to girls.
Design is a Verb
“Inconceivable!” shrieks Vizzini.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” says Inigo Montoya.
Inigo’s point during that conversation from William Goldman’s screenplay The Princess Bride is that Vizzini can’t come to terms with reality: somehow what he is seeing doesn’t jibe with his expectations.
Caught So Many Fish the Boat Sank
During the regular 2007–2008 NFL football season the New England Patriots won every game they played yet had a failed season. They lost the Super Bowl to the New York Giants, the team with the worst regular season record to ever reach the Big Game. The Giants did what they needed to do: they put themselves in a position to win the Super Bowl and they did.
Do Not Recycle. Reprise!
On a self-guided walking tour of London, I discovered what the British Empire does with the Guardsmen that are too old and frail to continue providing security to the Crown. In a small neighborhood away from the palace and other tourist attractions is a cluster of older marble residences where those that once served the monarchy are retired in relative security. These old soldiers did their jobs, completed their service and earned the gratitude of their country.
Missives
Measured in multiples of 100 units, the picante of chili peppers finds itself at zero Scoville Heat Units for the basic green bell pepper, while the hottest of hot peppers, the Red Savina Habañero chili, ranks in at a whopping 350,000 SHU. We have developed and used a similar exponential process for delivering multiple design products and materials to multiple distribution points for diverse audiences simultaneously. This is the equivalent of having your chill and eating it too.
Noted & Notable
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
By Daniel Pink
Daniel Pink, the working man’s Malcolm Gladwell, has written a new book called DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Like his first book A Whole New Mind, Pink points out connections between the obscure and the obvious. His book pits the latest scientific discoveries about the mind against the outmoded wisdom that claims people can only be motivated by the hope of gain and the fear of loss. Pink packages ideas into applications providing employers and employees with the methods and the means to get more of what they want, the way they want it. Don’t let the cover design scare you off. This is career-changing stuff.
Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days
By Dr. Kevin Leman
In Dr. Kevin Leman’s book Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days, he insists that the only way to correct bad behavior in children is to change your reactions to their behavior. Anyone who has dealt with a strong-willed child knows that it is no easy task to turn bad behavior around. Bestselling author and psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman can help to make a difference. With his signature wit and encouragement, Dr. Leman offers hope and real, practical, doable strategies for regaining control and becoming the parents our children need. Not to say that badly behaved adults are like children but the application of Dr. Leman’s ideas to adult relationships with similar issues is a bonus.
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy
By Jane Leavy
You don’t need to be a fan of professional baseball to appreciate to a true professional. Jane Leavy’s book Sandy Koufax, A Lefty’s Legacy has more to do with the man and his choices that any game. Professional sports are all about the numbers. In his last four seasons Sandy Koufax’s numbers were the best ever. With a career half as long as the average pitcher, Koufax set a standard for performance that was twice as successful as any pitcher of his era. However, Koufax the person transcends the player by keeping the game he loved in perspective with who he was.
One example: In 1965, Sandy Koufax refused to pitch in Game One of the World Series because it was Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day. Koufax’s decision and his pitching brilliance remain a source of pride among devout American Jews, even those who aren’t baseball fans. Unable to sustain that same level of performance for health reasons, Sandy retired one year later at the peak of his career. He became the youngest player ever to be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. Sandy Koufax defined success on his own terms, using is own standards.
Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won
By Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
Much of what goes on in sports can be explained by incentives, fears and a desire for approval. You just have to know where to look. Scorecasting is the sports equivalent of Freakonomics. Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim have written the most important and fascinating sports book in years. Athletes and coaches are encouraged to challenge conventional strategies with calculated risks, producing unconventional results. Just like in life, a little risk is usually a very worthwhile thing.
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Toobin’s book, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, explains for the novice and explores for the devotee the mysteries behind the black robes. It articulates the rise of the conservative movement through the legal world and its acceleration in 2005 with the death of Justice Rehnquist and resignation of Justice O’Connor within a few months of each other. This is a fascinating story about complex and brilliant jurists who are equally spoiled and elevated by the human condition.
All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge
By Kee Malesky
What is plastic soup? How long is a New York minute? What building did Elvis leave last? Who were the Olmecs, and the Eight Immortals? Get the answers to these and many other vexing questions in NPR librarian Kee Malesky’s compendium of fascinating facts on subjects ranging from history to science to the arts. It’s the ideal gift for every inquiring mind that wants to know.
The Art of the Idea: And How it Can Change Your Life.
By John Hunt
John Hunt’s unassuming book is all about how to see, the art of observation and what we gain by taking the time to experience the everyday in new and unexpected ways. This is not a “feel good” book, something left over from the 60s, but a beautifully written and illustrated owner’s manual for our own senses. Instructive? Yes. Inventive and imaginative? For sure. Chapters like Lemmings Have Plans Too and Expediency is Not an Idea are but a few subjects worthy of your time.
A Fine Line: How design strategies are shaping the future of business
By Hartmut Esslinger / founder of Frog Design
After getting past Hartmut Esslinger's (Frog Design) sometimes condescending-sounding manner, he has a great deal to say worth hearing. Filled with process-driven strategies that are almost clairvoyant, reading the book is like hanging on to a bucking bronco. Sony, Apple and Lufthansa did and gained financially and culturally.
Outliers
By Malcolm Gladwell
The latest book from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink is the best of the three. Outliers focuses on identifying success and failure in all of their forms and conditions. His book is smart, fun and disturbing. Readers will discover that the distance between winners and losers is about 10,000 hours of work plus the luck of circumstances and your birthday. There are several Aha! moments that if applied might change your life.
A Whole New Mind
by Daniel H Pink
Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future is worth your time. Left-brain skills (logical, analytical, sequential), while still necessary, are becoming a commodity, Pink argues, while right-brain talents (artistic, empathic, more about context than content) will be at a premium in the future. Pink writes with charm and humor about subjects that heretofore were rarely, if ever, charming or funny.