I spend a good bit of time trying to understand how creative cultures organically grow within business organizations. Many argue that creative organizations never grow inside entrenched non-innovative environments, but I don’t accept that conclusion. CEO’s are not antagonistic as they once were, and many are genuine proponents. The [...]
OnTheShelf
Where my ideas play.
Tag Archives: Opinion
A Musing about Muses
Of all of her five years of life, perhaps the last thirty minutes had been the longest for her to live through. Frustration had begun half an hour earlier and had been slowly building. Now the the frustration had risen to the level of a pressure cooker, evidencing itself by the pained look on her [...]
Cannabis use among seniors goes up as boomers age
Chuck Burton / AP
Perry Parks, 67, takes a puff of marijuana at his home in Rockingham, N.C. The retired Army pilot suffered crippling pain from degenerative disc disease and arthritis before turning to marijuana.
MIAMI, Florida – In her 88 years, Florence Siegel has learned how to relax: A glass of wine. A copy of The [...]
Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds
For those who are visual/pictorial thinkers (as I am) this is a fascinating and very personal presentation. For those of whom who wonder where frequently odd and occasionally wonderfully innovative ideas come from, this should provide some interesting insights. Ms. Grandin has a disinct cattle-country style about her, so if needed take a minute to [...]
The Burden of Genius? | Author Elizabeth Gilbert
We have all known parents who describe their children as a “genius” – but do we as society place untenable burdens on those who are correctly or incorrectly adorned with the genius label? Author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical historical idea that, instead of [...]
Exchanging Signs of Life
Did you know there was a universal sign for choking? There is, at least according to one of my former college professors. Early one morning in a class on emergency medicine he contended if you put your hands around your own neck, ostensibly chocking yourself, anyone in the world (perhaps the universe) would know you [...]
The Memory Collector
I have a hobby; I’m a collector of memories. I really enjoy remembering times and situations from my past which were meaningful to me. Now in my forties, twenty years with my wife, and a child living an active and all too-quickly approaching pre-teen life, my memories have exceed my ability to…remember. Like the breadcrumb [...]
Fits and Snarks
I’m a huge fan of dark chocolate, the darker and less traditional the better. Milk chocolate is just too boring for me; banally sweet, with little distinction from one sampling to the next. By contrast the complexity of the flavor of dark chocolate rarely ceases to amaze me and I actually look forward to being [...]
Design Innovation, Interesting Ideas, Leadership, Leading Teams, Learning and Teaching, Random Ramblings
Underestimating our Users
From both within and outside software development companies it has been a theme of mine for years that we designers and engineers tend to underestimate our users. I have raised this point in both positive and negative contexts. By way of some examples I have argued that we can never underestimate the level of effort [...]
Rising Above the Weeds
I was in the weeds this week. All I could see was what seemed like hundreds of tasks that I needed to make progress on, and at some point it seemed like a good idea to use a machete and my full force to hack them all down. As you might expect, that wasn’t a [...]