ThoughtSpurs (again-the sequal)

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switerzland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."

Orson Welles in The Third Man

I like this quote. Not only because it's smart and funny but because it get's me thinking about the role of conflict in creativity and innovation.

When I was working with the team at Idealog on prototyping our baby there was an occasion I have sworn never to talk about in detail. So I won't. But it involved conflict with a contributor who felt so passionately about her work that she…well I can't tell you what she did. But, needless to say I will never forget it. I have worked in hotbeds of creativity before but I have never had any body (deleted) me before.

I loved it. Inspite of the shock. Why?… For crying out loud she cared!
(About the wrong thing, I have to say- "That took me an hour,…I did what was asked of me… so you should love it...")

Don't be afraid of conflict.
Don't suppress it.
Don't (supressed, …becasue I said i wouldn't ever reveal it) though.
Enjoy the fact that other people think different to you.
Embrace it.
Otherwise you'll simply live a template,what other people think you should do,…not an authentic life.

Comments

Go figure

Took my daughter shopping tonight. We had dinner out. Got back home late. She laid her new clothes out in neat rows so she could choose what to wear for tomorrow. She's 5. I see her just every second weekend. How can such incredible errors of judgement (marrying my daughter's mother) result in such a wonderful little human being? Go figure

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

ThoughtSpurs

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