“Only we can change ourselves…The only thing that can really destroy us is us.” -Colin Powell in Legacy of Ashes *
Categories: Organization
Posts tagged “Quotes”
“Everything you lay your hand upon serves a specific intent…” –Jonathan Ward, ICON *
Categories: Organization
Tagged: Alignment, Design, Jonathan Ward, Quotes
“Here is the natural instinct. And here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony. If you have one to the extreme, you’ll be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become all of a sudden a mechanical man. No longer a human being. So it is a successful combination of both. So therefore, it is not pure naturalness or unnaturalness. The ideal is unnatural naturalness or natural unnaturalness.” –Bruce Lee *
Categories: Career
Tagged: Bruce Lee, Nature, Philosophy, Quotes
As I look back on 2017, I notice the distinct absence of linearity. Progress comes in fits and starts. Certain decisions and certain moments have bigger impacts, just like certain periods in the stock market dramatically swing investment returns. Challenges and opportunities often arise in unpredictable ways. Like a sprinter in training, long months of unnoticed preparation can lead to a short visible accomplishment. The absence of linearity is exactly why recurring analysis and recurring improvement are so important to advancing in a changing ecosystem, and we all live in one. Let’s all make intentional progress in 2018, even if it’s not linear. “Design does not progress in a straight line. Design grows in response to the same essential forces of breaking down and building up that inform all innovation.” -Esperanza Emily Spalding *
Categories: Project Management
Tagged: Decisions, Design, Equilibrium, Linearity, Performance, Quotes
For five days in October, I seek inspiration among the galleries, museums, streets and tabletops in New York. I have plans to tour Don Judd’s 101 Spring Street and visit as many Dia locations as reasonable, otherwise I expect my days to fill up with whatever strikes my interest at the time. There is certainly no lack of things to do. Wednesday, October 18 On the day of arrival, my primary objective is to settle into the immediate environment. So after dropping luggage, I walk the High Line to the Chelsea Market for a late and leisurely lunch. Feeling refreshed on a nice afternoon, I spend the rest of the day flaneuring in parks, through Chelsea galleries, and in the book collection at Hauser & Wirth. Extra time on an efficient travel day always seems like a bonus, and…
Categories: Travel
Tagged: Art, Beacon, Chelsea, Cooper Hewitt, Design, Dia, Donald Judd, Joris Laarman, Nature, New York, Quotes, Rita McBride, Robert Irwin, Walter De Maria
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum sits on New York’s Upper East Side in a renovated Andrew Carnegie mansion. When Carnegie purchased the land in 1898, it was more than a mile north of what was then considered fashionable society and many levels removed from the deafening steel mills that accelerated his fortune. It seems he wanted space for a garden. On a sunny Sunday morning in October of this year, the Cooper Hewitt galleries are quiet with only a few visitors at such an early hour. I break the silence by tapping a few keys on a dot piano in the Designing with Sound exhibit. The notes present a stark reminder of how sound surrounds us, how sound influences us, and how sound is often most noticeable in its extremes – the overwhelming excess in its presence or…
Categories: Communication
Tagged: Aaron Day, Aki Onda, Cooper Hewitt, Design, Feature Article, Joel Beckerman, Max Neuhaus, Perception, Quotes, Senses, Sound, Times Square
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum I frequently recommend the Cooper Hewitt across age groups. In addition to the Designing with Sound exhibit during my October visit, I saw an excellent exhibit on Design in the Digital Age, and an interesting Virtue in Vice exhibit with objects categorized across the seven deadly sins. My previous visit to the Cooper Hewitt led to writing about Pixar. Notes on Max Neuhaus, Times Square Considering the foot traffic through Times Square, this is probably the most visited art installation in America. It just so happens the vast majority of visitors don’t realize they’ve visited. Neuhaus said, “I want at least fifty percent of the people to be able to walk through it without noticing, without hearing it.” By my observation across at least five visits,…
Categories: Communication
Tagged: Aki Onda, Cooper Hewitt, Field Notes, Joel Beckerman, Max Neuhaus, Mel Blanc, Quotes, Sound, Walter Murch