Apple's Got INTENTIONS

I am totally fascinated with this ad.

Apple wins again. They take an inspirational design philosophy and somehow turn it into an inspirational life philosophy... so, naturally, I must buy this thing (or things, I suppose) and cling to these ideals.

if everyone is busy making everything

busy... it's like a dirty word. And, yes... my attention is really divided among so many things...

how can anyone perfect anything?

what am I doing with my life?

we start to confuse convenience with joy

Holy crap. Am I happy? Did a buddhist monk write this ad?

abundance with choice

yes.... ok. I've been to the Cheesecake Factory. I've tried to order from their 20 page menu. Abundance is not always a good thing.

designing something requires focus.

eeek. I need to focus. What do I want in life?

delight

yes...

surprise

want...

love

need...

connection

I suddenly feel like I need a hug

then we begin to craft around our intention

that's a word that seems lost in our culture. It sounds so serious... and... intentional.

it takes time

I'm so impatient... I should work on that.

there are a thousand no's for every yes

O_O

simplify

I need to clean out my closet

we perfect

I want to perfect something

start over

life is so hard sometimes

until everything we touch

where's that hug?

enhances each life it touches

I want to change the world

only then do we sign our work.

Oh, right. This is an ad. But I have so many feelings now. What do I do now? Buy the new Mac Pro? Maybe...

Want

I've got some news. Three weeks from today I will be leaving my full-time event planning gig. It has been a really interesting experience and I have learned a lot, particularly about management - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am very excited to see what happens next in my career and I'm sure big things lie ahead of me. But, I will definately take what I've learned here along with me wherever I go.

This train of thought was sparked by this article from inc.com: 10 Things Employees Want Most. You tell me, if you got all of the things on this list from your workplace, would you ever leave?

1. Employees want purpose.
2. Employees want goals.
3. Employees want responsibility.
4. Employees want autonomy.
5. Employees want flexibility.
6. Employees want attention.
7. Employees want opportunities for innovation.
8. Employees want open-mindedness.
9. Employees want transparency.
10. Employees want compensation.

After years of management classes in business school, I think this sums everything up very well. When it comes time for me to be a manager of my staff, I plan to post this prominently on my office wall.

Post 101...

... and I'm ready to hit the road.

New goal: Save up enough money to quit everything and take my life on the road for at least 3 months.

Jennifer O'Keefe has lived my dream. See her pictures of The Great American Road Trip.

Listening to: The Helio Sequence

Growth By the Numbers

Apparently, I love lists... so here's another one! This is Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth." His ideas are simple yet brilliant, perfect for your business - no matter what kind of business you're in.

There are a few personal favorites of mine:

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces – what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference – the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals – but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.


After reading so many lists like this (my other favorite belongs to Stefan Sagmeister) I think I need to make a list of my own. I think this might call for a new notebook.

Thinking Cap

I have this horrible habit of buying many many journals because I think they are cute. I also like what they represent: ideas, creativity, art, stories, brainstorming, memories, etc. Of course, what makes this habit horrible is that I have a tendency of holding everything in my head. It works most of the time. When I got my first Moleskine notebook I was immediately attached. I love that thing. Maybe it's the leather. Or that little rubber band that holds it all together. It's like magic.
I'll be using it to brainstorm ideas for this competition. A lifetime supply of Moleskines... a LIFETIME!
My Moleskine 2.0 Competition