Somewhere in the space between that which exists and that which has yet to be imagined, sparks of Brilliance fly.
Happy end of the month (or is it beginning of the new month?)! Here are the Brilliant! posts from November.
BRILLIANT! A BLOG, A ONLINE MAG AND A MOOK: THREE BRILLIANT PUBLICATIONS
Brilliant ideas are all around us. The challenge today seems to be identifying those that can actually provide some insight into the questions or issues that we are facing.
To sort through the chaff, I find I will listen to the recommendations by colleagues, clients, family, friends and trusted interweb sources. They’ll often mention magazines, books, blogs, websites, events or simply ideas that are inspiring them.
Three of these little gems have really impressed me this year. … read more…
BRILLIANT! WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM
Finding innovative solutions to problems is a common challenge in work and in life.
In most circumstances the way to proceed is often clear or doesn’t take long to become clear through asking a few simple questions. But other times no matter how many lists of possibilities I roll through, the answer doesn’t appear.
A current situation for me is the naming of a new project. I am fairly clear in what I want the name to communicate but do you think I can find ‘the name’? The frustrating thing is that I know it exists, it’s just not existing in my view yet.
With this in mind, I watched the TED talk, above, by Steven Johnson (a different Steven Johnson from last month) entitled “Where good ideas come from” to see if I could crack my own good idea… read more …
AND, IN THE STUDIO THIS MONTH …
THE STUDIO: CLARITY AND DIRECTION WITH THE OMG! WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?! EBOOK
With the silly season fast approaching, I thought it might be timely to share with you my little all-in-one resource for those who may be scheduling some existential angst or career crisis over the coming months.
This 30-page ebook helps you work out what you want from life and how you can start making it happen.
To download your very own copy of OMG!WAIDWML (catchy, hey?)
THE STUDIO: CREATE A VIBRANT, COMPELLING VISION FOR YOUR LIFE WITH YOUR FUTURE LETTER : EXERCISE
WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?
This is one of the four basic questions I always ask someone who wants to change some part of their life or work. I find that we can be very good at detailing what’s wrong or what we don’t want or how things should be different, but very few people are clear about what they do want. So is it any surprise that we have difficulty making decisions when we have nothing to guide us? Today’s Studio treat is an exercise that is surprisingly simple and yet quite powerful… The Future Letter
Brilliant! Ideas For Work and Life is written and collated by Trish Weston. Everything in it is her opinion, with a smattering of facts to make it hold together. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to email trish AT worklifedesign DOT com DOT au
Brilliant ideas are all around us. The challenge today seems to be identifying those that can actually provide some insight into the questions or issues that we are facing.
To sort through the chaff, I find I will listen to the recommendations by colleagues, clients, family, friends and trusted interweb sources. They’ll often mention magazines, books, blogs, websites, events or simply ideas that are inspiring them.
Three of these little gems have really impressed me this year.
the design files
type blog
www.thedesignfiles.net
Caste your mind back to a time before the internet… drift … drift … drift … Did you ever cut out photos, ads, illustrations, products, etc from magazines and keep a file of your cherished desired items? No? Oh well, I’ve been a long time fan of The File and I love seeing what’s in Lucy Feagin’s File on all things designie. She interviews all sorts of creative types about their work and life and also features interiors of homes that are alive with their occupants’ obsessions, passions and personalities. One of my favourite posts this year has been on notebooks (you know, those things some of us still scribble in) but I’m just as taken by the furniture, fabrics and art of local makers. Lucy is truly gifted in finding the gorgeous and often simple objects that make our spaces full of wonder and beauty. [the design files: recommended by Kate James]
dumbo feather, pass it on
type mook
www.dumbofeather.com
I’m fairly new to the dumbo feather world but it is certainly a place that I intend to regularly visit. dumbo feather is a mook (sort of a magazine, sort of a book) and each quarterly issue features the stories of five ‘remarkable individuals’. There a side-articles within each feature which draw out some of the ideas touched on a little more. I find as I bounce from one article to the next, I keep being struck by a strange feeling. It’s the feeling that something very special is being said. It’s the feeling that this little mook is quite brilliant – not only in the people and ideas it gives space but how it does it. It looks and feels beautiful. [dumbo feather: recommended by Kate James]
fear.less
type online mag
www.fearlessstories.com
Fear is one of those things that most of us are well acquainted with. It holds us back, makes us do stupid things and usually oversteps its purpose of keeping us alive. So this magazine, that features the unique stories of people overcoming fear, is such a treasure. I like it because it has interviews with people I greatly admire such as Robert Thurman, Sharon Salzberg, Karen Armstron, Ben Zander and Howard Zinn as well as people I’ve never heard of who are just getting out there and living (as the blurb says) ‘remarkable lives’. fear.less is a free monthly online magazine that you can download or view online. [fear.less recommended by Christine McDougall]
How stories can help you remember what’s important
Sometimes I discover new ideas or designs or artists or writers through these publications, but mostly they help me remember.
I’ll be looking through the photos of someone’s home in The Design Files and remember that I really like a particular period of furniture design, or art, or fabric or the way light can be used to change the mood of a room. I remember how physical objects impact upon my space.
I’ll be looking at an issue of fear.less and remember that I really quite like the way Seth Godin formats his ebooks in landscape so you don’t have to scroll down and down and down and down. Or, I’ll remember that ebooks don’t have to look like books but can have their very own style which makes them easy to read and easy on the eye.
I’ll be looking at dumbo feather and remember that writing doesn’t have to be so minimalist. I’ll remember that stories that inspire don’t have to be “woo I’ve made it. I’m so cool.” but can have doubts and obstacles and heartache. In fact they are better if they do because they are more realistic and show the resilience and creativity of the human spirit. In the face of all this crap, this person continues.
It’s brilliant ideas like this that help me remember what’s important, and being aware of that makes all the difference in how I work and live.
You can receive a roundup of Brilliant! Ideas for Work and Life in your Inbox every month by subscribing to the Brilliant! newsletter here
Steven Johnson’s TEDtalk: Where do good ideas come from?
Finding innovative solutions to problems is a common challenge in work and in life.
I find in most circumstances the way to proceed is often clear or doesn’t take long to become clear through asking a few simple questions. But other times no matter how many lists of possibilities I roll through, the answer doesn’t appear.
A current situation for me is the naming of a new project. I am fairly clear in what I want the name to communicate but do you think I can find ‘the name’? The frustrating thing is that I know it exists, it’s just not existing in my view yet.
With this in mind, I watched the TED talk, above, by Steven Johnson (a different Steven Johnson from last month) entitled “Where good ideas come from”.
Johnson is interested in the environments that allow high levels of innovation. He believes that, contrary to popular thought, most good ideas aren’t lightbulb or eureka moments but instead, an idea is a network cobbled together from all the other ideas around it. Good ideas come from the ideas having a space to mature and, in his words, have sex with other ideas.
Johnson uses the example of the first British coffee houses’ influence on the Age of Enlightenment. The introduction of caffeine into a population used to alcohol as their beverage of choice, along with the space where these newly stimulated minds could come together and debate, argue and reason with each other, set forth a subculture of ideas that changed history.
Johnson is also keen on the concept of the slow hunch where an idea has a very long incubation period. As an example, he refers to Darwin’s evolutionary ideas, which existed in his writings well before he presented them as a clear theory.
So what’s this mean for us? How do we tap into these idea networks? Do we need to imbibe stimulants in the company of others to find our solutions?
While I’m quite fond of an occasional caffeinated beverage in a public house, I don’t think it’s necessary. For me, the key is asking the question and then being open to the ideas around me interacting with the original idea. So that might happen by having a conversation with a friend or colleague, reading a paper or a magazine, participating in an online forum, wandering through the library or just sitting on the beach.
It’s about creating the space for the idea to form.
Which is what I think Johnson is getting at – whether it’s a physical space, social space, mental space or temporal space.
So where does that leave me with my project name? Well, I’ve been asking lots of questions of lots of people lately but it’s all come back to “Here’s my dilemma. What do you think?” The answers have been diverse and sometimes unexpected.
While I still don’t have “the name”, the process has been excellent for helping me clarify the boundaries as well as the possibilities for the project.
Perhaps all I now need to accept is that this project may need a slow incubation.
Or a lot more caffeine.
Or mindfulness.
Or trips to the beach.
Or…
You can receive a roundup of Brilliant! Ideas for Work and Life in your Inbox every month by subscribing to the Brilliant! newsletter here
Get on your bike! Pedal-powered Ridgefield Fitness Club photo by Green Revolution
It all started with the 1973 dystopian science fiction film, Soylent Green. Most people who see this film remember the food stuff of the title but I remember scene with the bicycle-powered electricity. For years after watching the film I wondered how you could rig a bike to generate enough electricity to run a small appliance such as a tv or a computer.
I know the idea of people power is not new. History-textbook images easily spring to mind of roman galleons powered by oar-wielding humans and huge stones being dragged up a pyramid by, yes, humans. And, indeed, in our contemporary lives we still have humans behind most actions, slavishly pushing those keys on the keyboard or maneouvring those hulking great mining dump trucks.
But much work today has been automated to minimise human energy required and maximise the use of our treasured energy resources. While the smart and savvy are exploring alternative sources of energy (such as the sun, the wind or some other thing we’d need to dig out of the ground), I wonder where could we passively harness human energy and convert it to electricity?
Football fields? Dance floors? City streets?
StepperWash by Stephen M Johnson
Steven M Johnson has also spent a lot of time contemplating the question of harnessing human power. His illustrations of human-powered appliances are brilliant. The Pedal Wash, Stepper Wash, Wash Cycle and Vanity Cycle may not have contemporary apple-styling but I love the way Steven has imagined the possibilities. Okay, the Exervac is somewhat disturbing but I think that’s more to do with the 80s-style leotard.
During some of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent sweating it out on a bike or rowing machine at the gym I’ve often thought it would be great to harness some of this. When a gym manager was telling me how he was addressing the gym’s skyrocketing electricity costs by turning off all lights when they weren’t needed, I had a hunch that the idea of the people-powered gym might become a reality. I looked at the banks of bikes, steppers, and rowing machines and thought, “That’s where your electricity could be coming from”. Energy in, energy out and where’s it going? Nowhere.
Well, I’m happy to tell you that the people-powered gym is now a reality. A number of gyms around the world are tapping the energy of their members and it seems that it’s win-win-win all round. Less fossil-fuel electricity is used, the energy generated by the members is used to run the machines and lights of the gym, and in some cases, the members get credits for energy they’ve contributed to the system. It a beautiful whole-system approach to business, fitness and the environment.
It’s also heartening to see some of these gyms promoting their human power globally. The more people who see that it’s possible then the more it will be adopted or adapted. Perhaps even my friend the gym owner, who recently refurbed his entire gym with brand new energy-guzzling, tv-on-every-machine equipment might even see its potential.
You might ask, how important is it to reduce the energy consumption of the gymnasiums of the wealthy? Well, every little bit helps but really this is about the development and promotion of the ideas.
When this little butterfly of an idea flaps its wings, it takes very little for it to become a pedal-powered water pump that dramatically changes the lives of a community in India or a remote area of Australia.
You never know where a brilliant, life-saving idea will come from.
Somewhere in the space between that which exists and that which has yet to be imagined, sparks of Brilliance fly. Some of the ideas you’ll find here will be able to be applied immediately, some will be not-quite-ready and some will be wild imaginings.
Enjoy!
Trish
SOMETIMES THE SOLUTION IS RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE. LITERALLY.
The brilliance of mindfulness
Today’s brilliant! idea is to breathe. I know, you’re thinking I’ve gone all new age, woo-woo, bumper sticker (“Remember to breathe!”) but beyond the butterflies and dolphins there really is something in this one.
The particular approach to reconnecting with our breath I’m talking about is called Mindfulness. It’s a pretty hot area at the moment with what seems to be every therapist and their cat is incorporating it into their practice… READ MORE …
DANCE WITH SOMEONE ON SKYPE
This week, another idea jumped out at me from a blog’s comments section.
Over at the Herman Miller Lifework blog, they have a column called The Playlist where they interview people about the music that inspires them as they work.
Recently, they interviewed gallerist/artist/curator/writer, Annie Wharton, and she provided an eclectic playlist of tunes that work for her – from Duran Duran and Lady Gaga to Peaches and The Normal. However, it was in a parenthesied side-note to Lady Gaga’s Alejandro that she revealed her Brilliant! idea …. READ MORE …
FIVE MINUTE RULE TO OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION
Sometimes Brilliant! Ideas come from the most unexpected places
I found the following Five Minute Rule to overcome procrastination from Page Lambert in the comments section of a blog about escaping from the slow death of an office job.
“My father, Loren Dunton (internationally recognized Father of Financial Planning) used to have what he called his Five Minute Rule to help overcome procrastination so that he was ACTING rather than AVOIDING. He knew that the hardest thing to overcome in terms of getting any project started, was INERTIA. So he played a game with himself: “Dunton,” he’d say, “you don’t have to write the ENTIRE article today…” READ MORE …
WAIT TILL YOU HEAR THIS!
*Snow White Macbook vinyl decal
The most Brilliant podcast/radio ever: The I Wish Song
My favouritest radio show/podcast in the world, This American Life, did one of the most amazing introductions I’ve ever heard in this week’s (replayed) episode, Promised Land.
The host, Ira Glass, recounts how upon watching the 1937 Disney classic Snow White recently, he noticed how it has almost an operatic feeling with each of the main characters entering the story with a song. When he mentions this to his sister (who works for Disney) she informs him that what he’s seeing is the “I Wish” song in action. It’s a common storytelling technique that’s used in musicals where the character declares exactly what they want in that first song.
As Ira lists through all the musicals (classic and contemporary) that have I Wish Songs, I’m gobsmacked to hear how common it is. Think, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” starts off The Wizard of Oz, or, the Britney Spears’ film Crossroads which begins with her singing Madonna’s “Open Your Heart”. The Little Mermaid. Fiddler on the Roof. Funny Girl. All begin with the main character’s I Wish song.
What makes this intro so brilliant though is what happens next… READ MORE …
This week I’m sharing one of my personal worksheets. This is what I use to stay focused and to minimise those 3.00am eyes-bolt-open, oh-my-god-what-am-I-doing moments.
I don’t use the Wheel of Life much these days (as most of my work with client’s is work-focused) but when I do, I’m always blown away by how effective it is. After this simple 10 minute exercise, a client often has new insight into their lives, clarity about their life and work direction, and renewed energy. It’s pretty neat… which is why I share it with you now. Enjoy!
Taking some time-out on Monday mornings to organise my week is essential. I’ve found that I need to move beyond a to-do list of things that need my urgent attention and check in with what’s important (goals and priorities), what I need to do to realise these priorities and scheduling it into my calendar.
What’s happening?
Spring Clean Your Life! To celebrate the beginning of Spring in the southern hemisphere (yay!), I’m running special spring clean sessions so you can clear the clutter, chaos and confusion from your life and work. More details here…
Business Action Groups New BAGs are starting in Noosa and Brisbane in October. If you’re a solo business owner who’d like a bit of support, inspiration and action in your venture then join us for our innovative business peer support program. More details here …
Do a friend a favour … If you’ve found Brilliant! entertaining, informative or worthy distraction from work, then please forward on to friends and colleagues who may be interested.
Brilliant! Ideas For Work and Life is written and collated by Trish Weston. Everything in it is her opinion, with a smattering of facts to make it hold together. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to email trish AT worklifedesign DOT com DOT au
