May 2013
4 posts
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Quote No. 063
In the modern world of information overload, you must manage your energy wisely. Otherwise you will slide into a state of reactionary workflow, (where you act impulsively rather then proactively), and simply try to stay afloat.
Scott Belsky, Founder/CEO of Behance
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Rumination No. 033
More systems, less stuff.
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Scout's Honour
Ongoing research for future work has led me to re-discover the history of General Baden-Powell’s Scout Law which was originally published in the 1908 volume Scouting for Boys. For more than a century, Scouts and Guides around the world have taken this oath to live up to the ideals of the movement. It’s wonderful in it’s simplicity and timelessness. [[MORE]]
At the lab, we...
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Quote No. 062
Suppose as you went to preschool and school, teachers were telling you that there were two kinds of businesses, one to make money for yourself, another to solve the problems we see around ourselves. And you can use your creative power either way. So you would have grown up with the idea that there are two kinds of businesses. You would make your decision what kind of business you would like to get...
April 2013
17 posts
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Quote No. 061
The way that education can lock us into careers, or at least substantially direct the route we travel, would not be so problematic if we were excellent judges of our future interests and characters. But we are not. When you were 16, or even in your early twenties, how much did you know about what kind of career would stimulate your mind and offer a meaningful vocation? Did you even know the range...
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Rumination No. 032
Frustration fuels creativity. Usually.
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Quote No. 060
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself, therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
– George Bernard Shaw
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A Disruptive Education...
The always enlightening Thomas Friedman interviews Harvard Education Specialist Tony Wagner in this important NY TImes Op-Ed. Wagner posits that our K-12 and college tracks are “not consistently adding the value and teaching the skills that matter most in the marketplace.” It’s not a new conversation, but one that is indeed becoming more frequent.
What you know matters far less...
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Quote No. 059
Mostly people will tell you it’s a really bad idea… That’s when you know it’s really good.
– Ari Weinzweig - Zingermans Co-founder
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Time for Change.
At the studio, we have a rule: Give away everything except your time. This is a lesson we remind ourselves often, particularly during periods when work schedules get twisted into a seemingly unmanageable tangle of chaos. Lately, knots in the timetables are becoming harder to unravel.[[MORE]] I go to bed with a heavy mind and awake with a racing one. I find myself canceling plans to accommodate...
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Educating the Future
I recently had the good fortune of dining amongst a great crew of individuals, most of whom are working on social design and entrepreneurship initiatives throughout the city of Detroit. The gathering was hosted by Juliette LaMontagne of Project Breaker and Susie Wise, K12 Lab Director at the D.School.
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Breaker is a design-led social entrepreneurship program for 18-24 year olds. Young...
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Rumination No. 031
Teach/lead/empower…without imposing answers.
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March 2013
16 posts
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Progress on the Frontlines
Alright. Finally a step in the right direction. John Cary, the founder of Public Interest Design (a blog documenting the growing movement at the intersection of design and service) has curated a glossary of social impact design terminology. While the practice of “social design” has been in existence for quite some time, we, as both educators and practitioners, have long-lacked a...
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Don't Call it Social Design
I continue to ride the fence on whether or not I believe American designers should be working on “90%” work, that is design for those working on less than $2 a day, in places far from home, in cultures we ourselves will never inhabit, etc, etc. I really don’t know and remain indifferent. But be that as it may, I have long been an admirer of Frog Design, largely for their...
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Rumination No. 030
What you do is (in the long run) usually not as important as who you do it with. Or so I’m learning…
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Quote No. 058
If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: you can become better yourself.
– (Wise Wise Man) Tolstoy
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Quote No. 057
What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born.
– Henry Miller, the greater writer and painter
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Quote No. 056
Learn, both from your teachers and from the books you read, only those things which you really need and which you really want to know.
–(Count Lev Nikolayevich) Tolstoy
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Quote No. 055
Fail, fail again, fail better.
-Samuel Beckett
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Quote No. 054
The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces … I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.
–Sherwood Anderson
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Rumination No. 029
If you don’t have anything to say, why be a designer?
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Quote No. 053
Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.
–Writer, Ann Patchett
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Quote No. 052
I don’t want to inspire people…because inspiration wears off.
–James Victore
February 2013
15 posts
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Quote No. 051
My work is to produce; to explore, research and make things in the world. I’ll figure out how it all relates or what it all means together later.
-Bruce Mau
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Quote No. 050
Success is the reward of those who spurn delights and live laborious days. We learn to do things by doing them. One of the great secrets of success is “pegging away.”
No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.
– British Novelist, Amelia E. Barr
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Quote No. 049
Hungry people need posters and campaigns far less than they need food to eat.
–John Thackera, from this Doors of Perception post
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Regarding the Social Designer
If you can overlook the use of the word “synergies” throughout the first paragraph, there is some interesting fodder here from Frog Design’s Robert Fabricant. Fabricant discusses the value in working across sectors (public/private, social/commercial), the problems with labeling oneself a “social designer,” among other things.
Thanks to Amanda for sharing.
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Quote No. 048
Embrace what’s eccentric about your community.
– John Waters
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Quote No. 047
Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time is power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.
– British novelist Amelia E. Barr
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Rumination No. 028
At the Lab, we often use the term radically practical, exploring solutions that achieve this balance between totally game-changing and actually feasible. To be radically practical, one must allow their brain to ping-pong equally between the knowledge experience gives us and the genuine, raw curiosity, reserved for the most eager.
But in an era obsessed with productivity and efficiency, making...
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140+ Characters of Impact
I will be anxious to see whether or not this new app grows a fast following. I have a feeling it will, largely because I think all the do-gooding millennials out there have finally realized that ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ actually have very little to do with impact. Thank God. Amen.
