Imagine Nation.

Developing. A Photographic Memory.

Wherever I go there are people with smartphones - festoons of small high powered cameras snapping at my heels. Really. I've seen images of my heels. I studied a bit of photography at college. I've forgotten it all. I love my Leica's and also my iPhone though. They go with me almost everywhere. I never forget them.

Automatic cameras seemed to take all the craft away - they made it possible for anyone to snap a great shot. Well maybe. That's not such a bad thing but it made it less intriguing for me. It stopped me from being that bothered for a long while. Now the buzz is back.

The whole world has gone visual.

I've become hooked on photography again. 

Perhaps as much because of what it teaches me about myself as much as it is a creative thing. To me the creative part is no longer the snapping bit – it's the observing bit. Coupled with the pressure bit. And now I'm a bit worried that there is an obsessive bit. It's all about the bits these days. A bit.

Link photography to sharing (Instagram/Extragram - building a bunch of folk who seem to appreciate it) - 'say cheese' - and you have a whole new way of communicating 'you'! If that's your thing of course.

Where this goes? - who knows. What's with the shares? - who cares.

All of this has reminded me about what I notice and what I don't. And what is intriguing and valuable in the litter of everything. In fact I can easily see art in the litter. Litterally.

I've always loved graffiti. I love what it represents. To me life and looking at everything is to observe the graffiti of life. That’s how I experience my life. The wabi-sabi, the mess, the chaos, the disarray of it all. That's what make it natural and vital. That's what drives me and makes me want to grab it.

Interesting thing - noticing. It's like a drug once it grabs hold. I've noticed.

Thing is it tricks you. Did I notice something that isn't there? Something that wasn't said? Well that's something else I think. That's projection of a kind. It's dangerous. Projection is wishful noticing. Projection is a big part of photography but only when you are proud of what you have and want to show it off.

Noticing is a special skill and brings responsibility. 

To notice is in some way to judge something and if recorded faithfully then that's a good thing right? I store it in my brain in chemical pixels. What I'm noticing is that an image is a tiny record of an experience that was in my mind - I wanted to grab hold of it in case I lost that thought. Or I thought that I wanted to share my thought with people who might like it. Or I could get back to it again as if it might spur me on to something else. The literal nucleus of an idea. That one dot - a single but nuclear power. A carousel of chemi-pixels. Mercurial. Gone.

I need to be sure my photographic memory is in good shape before I'm ready to publish an idea – a shot. I need to be happy with it. I need to make really good decisions about it. It always needs more work before it meets that projector.

It's also increased what I notice in language. I think I have increased what I notice when listening or reading. The meaning of a word or phrase is also an image to me because I represent it in my mind with those crazy atoms. The pictures are in a mad orbit - and my mind always wants to pick something from them. I mix them all up.

Mixellation.

That's a whole lot of pixels! Each pixel a time-bomb of stimulation. All likely to send a surge through my visual cortex without warning.

Watch out Cloud my memory is on its way.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

News Corpse. Balance Or Compromise?

What's that sound?

It's the thud, thud of grudges and scores being settled. 

It's an unpleasant and highly predictable pounding noise. Pound. Pound. A flurry of punches. A slurry of lunches. It's the pounding of flesh. The smell of sackcloth. The crispy underfoot crackling of ashes. Rotten stinking flesh. The political parties scoring points, the competitive press scoring points over each other. Everyone jockeying for the best place to crow from after the apocalyptic meltdown of the free press.

The blogosphere/mediaverse is having a field day trying to make sense and predicting an outcome of it all.

Dual standards at dawn anyone?

Well what do I know?

Clearly a very very small amount. If anything. Most of what I believe has to be an illusion anyway. It's all all so bloody deja vu. My fixed bias and sceptical mindset defends what I know while my conscious mind tells me to chill the fuck out and learn something!

I'm in a very strange place on all this right now. Like everyone in the UK I hear the daily chatter of political parties feeding on the body of News Corp with a sickening righteousness and hideous lack of grace. But actually it's really quite refreshing. Like somebody has taken the cork out of something. And yet I also hear the chess pieces slithering in the grasping hands of the evil Murdoch Empire. May your source be with you. Until your grave. 

I live near Wapping and I can hear the Pound. Pound, Pound of it all live. (Becoming less ker-ching, ker-ching, ker–ching.)

What is actually going on in my head – what do I really make of it all?

Well of course I loathe the dumbed down society that all of this industrial and political mediocrity has created. I see society continuously and insidiously fed and watered by a cynical media - one that grows fat from the lowest common denominator of celebrity trash talk - passing off as news. All in league with each other. Literally in each others pocket-phones.

I loathe the corrupted politics of our society which we all know is bloated and protected by the turkeys who hate Christmas. I am fatigued by even discussing the unfathomably complex systems/policies/traditions that keep us locked into this abominable condition.

My own take on all this sounds cynical - even to me. And I think we ain't seen nothing yet. Maybe we never will actually see it all - but surely we all know how this goes by now. Bribery, corruption, busted, scapegoats, nod, wink - situation normal again. 

How will this all get resolved? Do we want that normal again? Will it ever be resolved in societies favor?

So. A Question Of Balance?

We will see some new dynamics to be sure. Outrage by society has been measured by the amount of noise on the wires. Twitter, Blogosphere, the Zeitgeist all up in arms. Murdoch has flown in to put sparkling water on troubled oil. The media is cowed and backing off at speed in expectation that somethings been rumbled. 

All of this to be balanced against the oh so predictable back-cloth. The so called 'we' are deeply 'disgusted' and yet oh so implicated. So after we have fed on it until we have sated our appetite for blood - it will probably all die down for a time - and then the primal urges of commercial reality will rise up again under new branding – and all of it under the name of reason. 

Will 'we' get the ultimate prize? A better society encouraged by a more intelligent press? A press less besotted by sleaze and trash and in turn driven less by 'marketers' seeking easy audiences who are (in turn(!)) attracted to read sleaze and trash alongside advertisements for their clients products (often also sleaze and trash)?

Or. A Question Of Compromise?

Will we get bored with it all and, as usual, shrug and forget - accept something somewhere in the middle. Will we just get fatigued by the feeding frenzy? Will we sigh and just let it all happen like we did with the Financial debacle of the economic crisis of 2008. (Our memory lasts 3 years?) I worry that we might. Will we get frustrated/confused by the clever language of the usual commentators? Will we be blinded by the bias and self-serving agendas of the players weaving deliberate confusion and fog back into all of this. Who will be the protector of truth in all this. Not the NOTW right?  

Making a decision seems a final thing. Making a balanced decision of this nature seems a bit far away. Making a compromise would be a massive missed opportunity. A compromise just rambles on and on – like this post.

Better the devils we know? Agitate to make it better? Hope that society wakes up and votes by not buying into any of this? So is that a question of balance or compromise?

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

I've got myself into a real Metz!

A good friend gave me an idea. Well it's her idea but I really want to steal it. I am stealing it! - 'Flash Mobs for learning.' Thanks Betty!

OK so I need a Flash Mob!

Learning is the operative word. It's an idea in its own right. We hear a lot about our individual learning styles and of course that's a big factor. We can only really ever speak personally - and for me I've never - ever considered what my learning style is. So I tried to figure it out.

Firstly I realised that I learn by trial and error, mostly error, but it's certain that unless I put my hands, eyes and attention onto the real thing, I find I haven't really learned it. I may have read the guidebook or seen the video but until I do the 'thing' - I don't think I ever really learn the thing.

So then I moved my thinking onto the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge.

Learning explicit knowledge (E.G: Reading text and diagrams in a book on how to tie your shoelaces.) is different to tacit knowledge (Actually knowing how to tie your shoelaces). The 'tool' of knowing how to tie my shoes has stood me in great stead. Now I know sheep shanks, bow-ties, windsor knots, reef knots, slip knots and nooses. Especially nooses!

Apply that idea of learning to how to use a fairly sophisticated flashgun!

A 150 page guide of explicit knowledge in 6 languages about a vast array of modes and settings, instruction and definition - not one element of which 'teaches' me what I want to know. Like really know. You know, like the key idea of how to balance the amount of light the gun produces with the available light in the room!

Learning for me is NOT to be done 'In Camera'!

Learning (for me) is the deep and meaningful application of what it is I can get to know - but in an applied and richly understood way. Practical, hands on and with someone who has been there before. Eyes and ears open. Able to interact freely with someone who doesn’t patronise me. In public if necessary.

So then I realised that I don't want a guidebook I want a coach/mentor or personal expert who can show me how it works but who I trust and probably respect too. That way I would learn. That's my learning style.

So how do we get to that level of support, teaching and learning so that I understand my new flashgun!!! 

Flashmob! Now for chrissakes!!!

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Is it possible to learn how to have ideas?

Initially let's just imagine that the idea is neither good nor bad - think about IDEA - the idea of that word even. The Idea of Idea.

Sit still and think about that for a minute. Think about what Albert said in one of the worlds best ever quotations!

“Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas. A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

How do the ideas you have even happen? Whether the idea was 'to go on holiday' or crack a complex business conundrum - the idea still has to emerge. Have you ever thought where and how that happened?

The mind is still mostly unknown to us humans - so we can only really use our current language and concepts to even have this discussion. But basically it 'drags' bits of 'data' into view - into the minds eye. Ergo the more input - the more stimulus - the better chance of successful ideas. Right? Hmm. Well I'm not so sure about that.

Other factors need to be considered I think. 

The quality of that input is certainly important - but also crucial is the value and relevance we ascribe to each chunk of that data. In addition there is a curious constant - a mercurial 'dynamic-ranking' process going on. Let's call that the 'context' for our decision making.

Depending on this context there is a bias, a lens applied to the way we think. The mind then 'games' the data against its own paradigm (frame of reference). This happens in a heartbeat. Suddenly the idea is there. Half formed or less. Sometimes it can't be grasped. It's often like a dream that disappears the moment you wake. The mind will base the 'idea' on all this stuff going on. But more importantly on what it feels is missing.

So an idea being birthed has to make it quite a long way but what sparked that initial explosion, that spark to occur? To me it is the void, the gap and a given need - these factors force me to 'think' and that draws on my mind to (almost) immediately pull on the resources it has - and in so doing come up with yet more creative 'ideas'.

The question though is can this process be learned (or indeed improved) in some way? (We are all born with the ability to think)

This intrigues me so I list the principles which are important for me. I think they are vital to the seeker of better ideation. Those who want to learn. I want to see if we can add or improve the pool of idea wizards!

1. Obsessive curiosity for everything. Everything that's relevant to your field of study and everything that potentially could be. That's everything!

2. A palpable consciousness that everything you currently know is merely context for what you didn't know. And when you know something new you are prepared to re-assess everything.

3. Comfort with the antithesis. Get ready to embrace the unacceptable. Be cool with what you don't like or understand. Just because it's an alien concept to you doesn't mean there isn't a lesson in there somewhere.

4. Exercise your brain every day. Try to discipline your resident cynic, your sceptical demon, your default behaviours on certain things. Be prepared to widen your definitions on the words and phrases that you dish out every day.

5. Become conscious of your own ideation process. Try to sense when you are having an idea. The chances are it's not the right idea - yet - but if you follow it and let your mind free to explore where it went or came from then you might find a richer seam.

6. Learn to feel your brain 'thinking' - it comes from your whole body but the brain is the place all the adding up gets done.

7. Define the values that contribute to being an 'idea wizard'. Humility, Persistence, Curiosity, Humor, Eclecticism and so on... Figure out what drives your own version of these values and causes you to bring on better ideas.

8. Constant benchmarking. Ideas are a joyous thing. They are the raw material of life. They bring refreshment to conversation or solutions to the planet. Check in with them to see if you think they have value when compared to your benchmark of acceptability. Then raise it!

Any ideas?

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Jack in london

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Mountain Unpleasant.

What's going on? Are agency people just completely stupid? Or is it just greed for the cheque coming in?

Along with those pop-up ads that are long proven to not work, are in their death throes - but are still around - the lady running Royal Mail needs a yellow card. (Soccer term for warning - one more mistake and you are off)

I shouldn't really single her out but hey. It simply serves to make my point. Royal Mail delivered 18 Million fewer letters since last year - due to e-mail – they say. (Doh!) But actually doesn't that sound like a small reduction in this day and age? I haven't sent more than a dozen letters in 10 years.

Anyway incoming mail is a totally different story and it astonishes me. The waste and stupidity of it.

Well I added up my letters having been out of the country for 2 weeks and there were 29 items. 6 were statements/bills, 8 were imploring me to sell my flat. The rest were direct mail shots from insurance companies and garden furniture manufacturers. In addition to what Royal Mail delivered there was also half a dozen dodgy ethnic style home delivery food things.

The CEO earns over £600,000 a year for running a business that delivers at least 80% rubbish through my door each week. The fact that the 80% goes directly into the trash without even being opened means that the value of the business is already way below anything sane.

So if it sank by 18 Million last year it should really be forced to sink 80% more. That should be quite some incentive for us to lobby for Direct Mail in envelopes and Robotic Call-Center sales calls to be illegal. I have disconnected my phone and thrown it into the trash too.

The same figures occur on-line with one big difference. My auto-junk filter sends them straight to the bin so I don't have to see them. No trees or precious fuel consumed, no climate impacts to speak of, no precious time wasted.

One other thought I had was to redirect all of this junk back to the folk that encourage all this. FAO The CEO. Royal Mail Group Ltd, 100 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0HQ. D'ya reckon?

--------------------------------Losing Battle?-----------------------------

Facts:

• The Group made a £39 million (2009-10: £180 million) operating profit after modernisation costs. This was primarily due to a decline in revenues, offset by a reduction in operating costs.

• Total revenues declined to £9.2 billion mainly because of a 4% fall in core mail volumes, (2009-10: £9.3 billion). The profit margin, after modernisation costs, fell from 1.9% (2009-10) to 0.4%.

• The UK Letters & Parcels and International business lost £120 million in 2010-11, (2009-10: £20 million profit). Revenue decline was mainly driven by a fall in volumes. This is just over £2 million a week.

• Profits at the Post Office declined from £33 million to £21 million as a result of lower revenues from traditional business. The Post Office is embarking on a plan over the next four years based on the Government’s confirmed funding commitment of £1.34 billion.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Fun & Work?

And another thing.

So my idea of fun is clearly different to most people's it would seem. For me? Personal time shared with like minded folk. Plenty of sharp - then sharper comments on 'anything'. Well thought and well constructed observations on 'everything' - especially what can be improved about our world. Done with a high degree of humor and not a little sense of irony - acceptable of course. Quality conversations and events causing real laughter and release/relief.

A warm and friendly atmosphere with all round creativity, stimulus and freedom to have one's own place and space. Great surroundings. Well met expectation and great outcomes. If possible outperforming your idea of how good it could possibly be in every sense. All of this involving travel, toys, downtime, uptime, action and great food and whatever else!

I do this.

Fun right?

Well no apparently. We can't have fun - we are at work. Well that's what I do at work. But I can't ever call it fun - no-one would value that. 

Shame really.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Mission Impossible?

My head hurts. I don't know what I do!

Ernest Hemingway famously wrote a valid short story (that he could easily defend) in 6 words. "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn."

In the following post I think I've completely failed to improve on that. But got mine to 12 words. Oh and it's not really a short story. Hmm. 

What am I rambling on about? Well, we had one of those profound meetings the other day. One of those great meetings where we met a fellow crusader or two, and after 15 years the same question keeps on coming - "What do you really do?" - and it caused the same fumbling tail-spin of a reply.

Well I said the following - at the very least! And as I spoke I could feel the usual sense I get of missing on all cylinders.

"We use collaborative means, co-creative approaches to solving complex problems. We do this through logical and visual frameworks, changing the way business thinks and works. We are all about enabling the client to avoid solving the wrong problem really well. This delivers rapid innovation, creates visions, produces transformative roadmaps, develops better customer experiences! Blah, blah." - STOP!

At the same time we showed the results of our work with clients. Comprehensive rigorous visual 'calculations' that are developed in 'real-time' with senior folk. They are overpowering things to take in. 

Then came words of sheer profundity. "Don't tell people everything it can do. They won't believe you and it is too much to absorb."

Right! 100% right!

So what do I do now?!

What is it? What is the message about it? How do we answer that question! What is enough to tell? What will people get? So I started to rethink the thing. We have imagined everything. We have written what we do in countless ways, confusing even ourselves. So back to telling 'it' shortly, here goes

It Makes You Think. It Shows The Way. It Keeps You True.

It Makes You Think.

We've witnessed major problems with a large majority of people within enterprises today - they've lost the art of 'thinking critically'. It isn't that they don't want to think - but that there is no real process that encourages it.

The enterprise  needs far better thinking around every aspect of what it does. From how to perform to how to succeed. We tease this creativity and innovation out by stimulating thought in a fun yet subtly structured way.

It Shows The Way.

Visualising the journey, the vision, the way things should operate alongside precise measures and maths of success is a highly valuable tool for the whole enterprise. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well it's also 12x faster to convey any amount of information - and most people think visually. By working this way we align everyone, create simplicity and clarity and engage everyone with their own plan for getting to the future.

It Keeps You True.

Most strategy, transformation and change fails (or subsides over time) unless it is kept healthy. And that is a serious waste of resource and energy. It's also potentially fatal in an increasingly competitive world.

Co-creating value within the right tools and equipment is proven to be the best way to sustain any program. Without ownership and palpable belief in a new 'shared system' of change then it is highly likely to fail!

Think about that!

If you can help me get this more succinct and still tell the story then I would be eternally grateful!

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Fly. First Class

Marooned on the tarmac for the 4th time on as many flights. My companion, to my right, wasn't talkative at all. I thought to myself - "That's a dead fly trapped inside a triple glazed window on a plane that is."

My thoughts turned to how it got there.

If you know the little windows on an aircraft like I do then you will know every tedious inch of them intimately. There is no way in or out. They don't open and nobody gets to clean inside them. There is a tiny hole to level the pressures in the triple glazing and stop them from misting up but apart from that it is a walled vacuum separating wildly different worlds on either side. Freedom - Boredom.

The border of these two worlds now patrolled by a dead fly.

What to make of this? It was in many ways sad and in just as many ways intriguing. While it had lived it would have witnessed different (and often) very odd folk staring at its erratic activity - inside its cocoon. Many of them wondering how it had got there perhaps? Well maybe. All of them horrified at the proximity of a fly no doubt. And in Business Class too!

This stowaway would have seen much more of the planet, inner space, holding patterns, vast terrains and the insane external architecture of airport terminals and heard more lame excuses and announcements than most flys. And perhaps most people. It deserves the name 'fly'.

It would probably have been delayed more times than many flys. But probably not as many times as I. I'm no expert on flys and so I don't know how many flights it could have crammed in during its lifetime on board. But it made me think about that lifetime. It seems that it must have somehow got in via the little air hole. Far less than a millimetre in diameter. It would have been whatever they call a baby fly, maybe even an egg? It must have been a perfect roll in along that micro-vent. Clever.

It must then have found tiny fragments of food upon which to live. That must have come from outside as no quality food exists on the inner world.

So I Googled the life expectancy of a fly. 

Let's say it's 3 weeks. The route upon which I met my fly happens 4 times a day and is approximately a 2 hour flight and each1278.73 miles. Knowing how they run these devilish 'fly-ing machines' they could use the thing through the entire night too for all I know but let's say that's at least 107,413.32 miles and 84 astonished people. 30+ delays. 168 hours of flying while also flying – as a fly.

What then did it die of? Old age? Highly likely given the increased/exponential rate of decay travelling by air these days? Disease? Unlikely as it is a vacuum in there - unless air from the cabin could get in and then highly likely as an airline cabin is worse than a hospital in the league of least safe environments within which to live. Broken heart? Possible. It would have been summarily dismissed many times by deliberate blind pulling. People with no time for malingerers - definitely no ticket or valid documents for travel. Unless it had eaten it of course.  

Malicious attack? Hmm. Could be. The disgusting airport security system is so stupid that 'fly killers' and 'suicide moths' could get in easily. While they scan and pat down ordinary people and search us for land mines, AK 47's and lethal Kenny G albums it is highly encouraged that we get enough deadly substances on board to end it for a fly. All anyone need do is to put it in a little plastic bag and put it through the belt. Kaput! They even give us the bags. Genius

But no, my theory is they just lost its bags. It has no possibility of survival as its bags are in Albuquerque and me and the fly are now in Dallas. Oh it's gone again.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

When will we wake up to cause and effect?

Riddle me this Batman. Firstly Kelvin MacKenzie said this morning that "The Max Mosley ruling was excellent (especially all the noise around it)" because "It makes the media world go round and thank goodness for that!"

As if to put the other side of the case someone, whose name was lost to me - then argued violently (in response) that "Our British morality has changed?" - and - "All the gossip we spread about others moralities is just what the British Public like to do."

Are we really OK with this? Why don't we care more about this?

At that moment I reminded myself of Brian Wilson's immortal lyrics that I really wasn't born for these times. I asked myself - do we actually want this media world to go round? Oh and what causes this culture of petty gossip – and who is surprised that we are therefore in this ridiculous spiral of mediocrity in the first place? This 'culture' is the outcome we can expect if we allow everyone to be comfortable with these standards. The very thing that the media promotes is based on dual standards and we are supposed to accept that just so long as it makes the media world go around.

Are we really this bloody stupid?

This all came at the same time as the super injunction/Twitter story. Whilst I don't agree with spreading untruths or salacious gossip (under any circumstances) this had better not be the thin end of a worrying wedge. Any restriction to free speech has to be resisted!

Is it any wonder that people feel it necessary to speak out? Intelligent people are sick of double standards that's what's at issue here. Whether what he says is true or not and whether we like it or not - the guy got 50,000 followers in a split second and this became news and the Government is spooked.

The sinister thing (and maybe I am alone in thinking this) is that the UK Government/Media (Command & Control System) seems shaken enough to tackle free speech on Twitter. There are now mutterings over the threat from Twitter and the Super Injunctions - and OUR ability to say what we want. How many standards is this? Way more than double right?

I sense our out of touch and institutionally cracked system is feeling threatened by the reality of society and the human state that it has encouraged. A 'society' - now deeply conditioned by a cult of celebrity and the dual/triple standards of our politicians and media - atop an education situation that's allowed to decay - increasing yet more generational issues. Our only hope being generations coming through so dismayed by such stench – hopefully about to kick some disgraceful butt!

Anyway ending on a more optimistic note. Imagine if WE could turn these insights into something really valuable and actually deal with the causes of this within our failing society.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Love To Hate Information Graphics

Firstly let me state up front that I absolutely love Information Graphics. Secondly I absolutely loathe Information Graphics.

I'm sorry but the idea was interesting at first and it wasn't just the novelty. It was that designers, with flair and style, could take complex topics and tell a real story with creative/smart intelligent design.

What on Earth happens? What was a great start, and caught a lot of everyone's attention then turns to turgid and deeply unhelpful mediocrity. Well we know. The bandwagon gets jumped by a few thousand wannabees and hey presto. Desktop Publishing all over again.

To whom it may concern. 

Please don't fill a 4 x 30+ height page with 20 dumb Power Point Slides. Don't pour your kitchen sink of fonts and clip-art effects onto a badly thought through story. Please don't hijack a powerful new platform for genuine communication with lazy, not smart/unthoughtful stuff that can be communicated better by other means. 

Please!

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Transformation - Boot Camp!

One of my all time favorite thoughts of all time is as follows - 

"The reason we don't find solutions to our problems is because the answers to our questions interfere with our concepts".

In my experience this maxim is at the core of why change (at any level) is so tough. We hear the lament that change is always hard because none of us like change. Well I don't like 'not to change'. When everything changes around me I find myself more rather than less frustrated by my lack of change.

My inability to change something seems rooted in a preference for what 'is/was' rather than what 'might be'. In my case, when I realise that, it makes me react strongly and I begin to work really hard at changing as much as I can! People don't like that.

Transformation requires a fresh and obsessive intention. Nothing will remain the same.

It will require a dogged determination and utter application. You will have to do different things and perform unusual activities. Some people around you will start to distance themselves from you. Everything you have done up until now has to be reviewed. The language you use will start to get questioned. Some of the moves you used to make will not work anymore - and the new ones you will need to make will be uncomfortable. Your ideas will be constantly challenged.

For transformation to work it requires a complete change to your intention. All the team and everyone around will undergo dramatic surgery.

Intention is a small word but a massively interesting idea.

If we intend to really change we have to commit to actually wanting transformation of our world. If we do then clearly we have to review and alter everything we do - our behaviour and attitude must be different.

I observe several dimensions, many of which don't get discussed, that need to be present for transformation to get done. Get your boots on because these are just some of them.

Different Language: A common language must be developed - together with agreement on the meaning of key terms. This language needs to be developed together as the transformation is planned. This language needs to be markedly (deliberately) different from that being used today.

Stop Using Slides: Removal of slides and lengthy written tomes from the process. Stop expecting the people you are trying to encourage to change with anonymous, meaningless Power Point decks and docs. Start engaging them within the conversations about the transformation. Treat them with respect and collaborate with purpose and passion. Face to face.

Complexity Is Real: Overcome the cliche's and easy claptrap around simplicity. It is not simple. Anyone in a transformation program has to understand that complexity is the daily diet. Get used to that. Simplicity may well be required (in the way it gets applied) but stop confusing complexity with the hard work required.

Beyond The List: Don't try to manage transformation with lists and best practices that are not 'felt'. If we attempt transformation with templates and panaceas it will fail. Passion for the hard work of transformation has to be close to the emotion felt by a sportsman (and team) approaching the big game!

Intimacy And Leadership: Deep respect and understanding for the team you build and work with. This means leadership of the real kind, transmitted with authenticity and integrity across everything. The tools and techniques that create the vision, the metrics, the roadmap and everything involved, will have to be built by these people. Living together for long periods of time will demand the ability to become intimate with everything and everybody to develop shared energy for the challenge.

Delight In Disappointment. When something didn't go to plan it now spurs you on to greater things. Mistakes become opportunities to re-double effort, creativity and ingenuity. Being knocked back means returning with greater effect because of the lesson. Adversity is the mother of new intention.

Embrace Terror: Ignore the terrorists by becoming closer to them. Your enemy is actually your best chance of success. By working more closely with detractors you get to your objectives quicker. By working with them you achieve many things. Everyone sees that you are more determined than ever to win. You will learn to tell your story better. They will be confused by your overtures. They will either change your mind because they are right and you missed it or they will become your biggest ambassador. Or they will leave the picture - in some way(!).

Unlearn At All Costs: Learn how to unlearn fast. In unlearning we see new things hitherto lost to us. This brings incredible riches. Walls break, new knowledge floods in, our new stories shock people into listening to us. We can support the transformation from many more perspectives. We can support it because we can see the possibility from fresh points of view.

Fine Tune Your Acuity: Developing an engineers eye for the vision. The ability to dismantle, reassemble and use the vision under water and blindfolded with both arms tied. Draw it, speak it and defend it from every single angle while listening intently for clues about how to improve it. Be able to do the same with the roadmap and all organizational models and implications.

Integrative Thinking: Cultivate both your brains. For every visionary leader there is the numeric luddite. Be ready to prove the math. For every well defended business case there is a disruptive upstart that doesn't give a damn about your numbers. Become a better visionary.

Learn From Celebrity: Love it or loathe it this era is epitomised by the power of celebrity. Someone has to be on stage. Transformation works when there is someone being the pied piper. This person is just as involved with all of the above as can be. To not be totally immersed is certain death. Everyone will smell it. 

Just a figurehead, a token? Then you are doomed!

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Kill The Lists!!

I'm a bit angry today. I am depressed about my own field.

I've been in a couple of sessions recently where I've seen the result of the dreaded check-list being used as a panacea for problem solving and all future thinking. I was forced to politely disagree.

I see clients stuck in situations where they can only fail because of the conditioning that advisors and articles have created around their damned lists. They can only continue to fail if we can't get them out of that. They have been sold simple templates to solve problems. A list!. They are told that everything needs to be made simple. A list. So they are fed easy to populate templates and scorecards. The devilish 4-square/quadrant models. Sure - and they can draw hundreds of them on flip–charts to great applause. 

Well they don't work.

Sadly the industries desire to make things simple have led to a feeling that there is something bad about complexity and that everything can be reduced to simple lists. "The 7 things we need to know about this, that or the other." - "The 5 big ideas that will save your business." - "The 16 dimensions of becoming a great leader." - "The 8 principles for the perfect business model." Arghhh!! Stop!!! 

To get my own back I have produced a list.

1. Re-think the meaning behind the check-list.
2. Never believe check-lists that guarantee results.
3. Lists that remove the investigation into the fields they describe must be banned.
4. Complexity in business is a fact – it cannot be simplified into a list
5. Lists are guns in the hands of three-year olds
6. Lists must be challenged if they end at the 6th bullet
7. I prefer 7 things in a list

I get that we need to get to simple ways of thinking about things. 

I understand the idea of list and they have a place. But people need to understand that they only go so far. We need to analyse the exponential growth of things that need to get thought about these days but the list will not do it. The problem isn't with what is in the list – it is because it is a list. All too often it is just a check list. It suggest that all we need to do is to tick the box.

OK I am being extreme but I worry that the more we simply break things into lists the more they are superficially learned by rote and so the thinking stops. The calculation of what goes on between the items in the list is often missed. The opportunity for cleverness with what the lists don't yet show or might get surface is ignored. The meaning of the patterns that are involved within the descriptions get side-lined and we don't explore the unknowns or the finer aspects that were missed by the structure of lists. The important things that aren't on the list are just not on the list.

Dealing with complex enterprise and constantly moving situations is complex. That is what complexity is. Complex. It cannot be reduced to lists. Lists are OK to categorise areas of investigation but not at the expense of the investigation. Let's re-think the list. 

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Drawing. I Think.

I'm lucky I guess. 

I've always been able to draw. It is a total luxury and I'm blessed to be able to do it. It's amazing, not because I feel I'm especially good at it, but because it is how I get to think about things. It is a  kind of a media – a platform.  For me it is an act of making things come true (making decisions) and how I process my inner ideas (thinking)

It also allows an inner calm. 

That calm begins with total fear. Fear of the enormity of the empty page and the empty conclusion of the task. I hear people talk about creativity being the challenge of the blank canvas. I get that when the challenge is art. But for me the challenge is to divine/define/design an answer from empty space - where I know the 4 sides are soon the boundaries to my expression. The framework.

To be able to do this is pure adrenalin mixed with responsibility and privilege. That anyone would value the act is my motivation. Underneath all this a drive to develop better craft with every mark and each detail.

I worry that obsessive attention to seeming tiny dimensions or aspects of this is approaching obsession. It is. And I like that now, after all the years of doing it and explaining it and defending it, now I just do it and that is a kind of peace at last. I was delighted then to see this incredible program about John Kascht. He gives you a behind the scenes look at the creation of his portrait of Conan O' Brien, explaining his artistic process and approach to caricature. 

The way he thinks, works, collects, curates and then builds IS the process of thinking. And being creative and…

A summary from the National Portrait Gallery.

No red-carpet stalker has observed celebrities more closely than caricature artist John Kascht. Conan O’Brien, Eminem, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger, and Donald Trump are just a handful of the famous faces he has scrutinized, deconstructed, and reimagined for our delight. All appear in his video Funny Bones: Anatomy of a Celebrity Caricature(above), done recently for the National Portrait Gallery’s Gallery360 series.

Fifteen years ago, when I started collecting Kascht’s work for the National Portrait Gallery, we began a series of conversations about how to draw, “getting” a likeness, the nature of celebrity, and the art of caricature.

Inevitably, Kascht, with his unusual combination of wicked humor and thoughtful insight, made unique contributions to those challenging subjects, all of which interest the students, teachers, artists, and general public who make up the Portrait Gallery’s diverse audiences. So the idea of a sharing Kascht’s drawing process through a video has been a long-term dream.

Throughout

 Funny Bones, we have the illusion of peering over the artist’s shoulder as he draws. The video starts with the seductive sound of charcoal scratching on paper. Using a broad vocabulary of graphic marks in various media, Kascht experiments with lines, squiggles, blotches, tracings, and washes, moving ever closer to his final concept.

“Getting” the likeness is a more particular skill. It is “all about noticing,” he tells us. You realize how little most of us see in our daily interactions with people. Kascht’s scrutiny is relentless. The taut mouth, fidgeting hands, tapping feet, wrinkled face, belly laugh—beautifully filmed here by A. Greg Raymond—all tell him something about a person.

No doubt Kascht is right that “you wear your life,” but it takes his keen eye to observe it. Since his subjects are famous, he also studies multiple photographs and available moving footage, adding to his information. By the time he is done, he knows the structure and facets of each face intimately, along with its characteristic expressions, as well as which single feature might force our recognition.

But there are challenges to focusing on the famous, with their agents, handlers, and stylists. With comedian Conan O’Brien as his case study, Kascht explains the difficulty of trying to catch a celebrity’s unguarded moment or figuring out the authentic look disguised by makeup and the public persona. He considers comportment, behavior, and body language; he loves finding pictures of his subjects when they were children.

It is a tricky balancing act. The preened and polished version of the star is, after all, what we recognize. Some of that familiar artifice might have to remain. All that digging and observing nonetheless helps capture the essence of the individual, any portraitist’s goal.

Finally, once Kascht understands how to create a likeness, he can move that portrayal into caricature. It isn’t mere exaggeration in his view but an intensification of characteristic attributes.

In one sequence, he morphs Abraham Lincoln, Luciano Pavarotti, Barbra Streisand, and Mick Jagger from photographic reality into caricatural magnification of their actual features. He has to really know that likeness before he can start to mess with it. Sometimes he finds that it helps to mimic his subject, compare someone’s hair to soft-serve ice cream, or make a likeness out of cheese doodles. It is all part of learning the face and pushing toward “the life at the center of it all.”

For those of us who have enjoyed long lunches learning about portraiture through Kascht’s enhanced eyes, it is a delight to share Funny Bones with our Portrait Gallery audience.

Wendy Wick Reaves, Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Portrait Gallery

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Said Detective Colombo to the CEO...!

Ah, sorry to bother you Mr. CEO, Sir… 

Excuse me Mr. CEO, Sir? Um . . I know you're busy, and important and stuff. I mean, running the business is very important and - ah - I hate to bother you, Sir. I will only take a minute. Ok, Sir? See, I have these missing pieces that are holding me up, and I was wondering, Sir, if you could take time out of your busy schedule and help me out. 

You know, no big deal, just some loose ends and things. Hey, you have a nice place here! The wife sees houses like this on TV all the time and says, boy, she wishes she had digs like this, you know? Is that painting real? Really? Wow! I saw something like that in a museum once.

Oh, sorry Sir. I didn't mean to get off the track. So if you could just help me out a minute and give me some details, I will get right out of your way. I want to close this case and maybe take the wife Coney Island or something. Ever been to Coney Island Sir? No? I didn't think so...

Well, listen, anyway, I can't seem to get some information I need to wrap this up. These things seem to either be "Not known", "Not clear" or "Not understood"  I'm sure it's just an oversight or glitch or something, so if you could you tell me where these things are I have them written down here somewhere - oh wait. I'll just read it to you.  

Could you please help me find these things, Sir?

• What are you are aiming to achieve? The outcome of it all? This business of yours? Sir…?
• The measures that might tell you that you are getting there? Where are they?
• And Sir? - what's the actual need you are trying to fulfil?
• What is your vision exactly?
• Does the world actually actually need what you are aiming to do?
• The story. What's the story really Sir?
• And your strategy? No-one seems to know what that is. 
• The people in the business don't seem to care Sir? Why should they?
• The road map you say you have? Where is that?
• The alignment. Where is that Sir?
• And the things that differentiate the business from all the others? Can you tell me that Sir?

Oh and one more thing Mr CEO Sir, I can't seem to find the criteria you used for any of this. Can you explain that to me, Sir? but hey - listen! I know you're busy! If this is too much for you right now  - I mean - tell you what. I'll come back tomorrow. Give you some time to get these things together, you know? I mean, I know you're busy. I'll just let myself out. I'll be back tomorrow. And the day after. 

What's that Sir? 

Who wants to know these  things? Well the people in your business, the customers and partners who rely on you Sir. You know, the ones that keep you alive?

Posted via email from Just Thinking!

Truffles

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Innovation? - An Egyptian Pyramid Of A Definition.

Innovating requires a fine kind alchemy - a mischievous blend of three things -1. Making countless mistakes. 2. An ironic sense of humour and 3. Obsessive creative endeavour. These three dimensions form a kind of diabolical tension. A triangle that becomes a circular and perpetual crusade in my brain. A vicious circle.

1. Mistakes need to be utterly soul destroying - becoming triggers for the next idea. Ideas come from our thoughts so having our minds challenged refreshes the spirit and forces us to fix the aching void of failure. Of course this takes a masochism of an unenviable type.

2. Irony seems to force the best kind of comedy from me. That comedy translates into a creativity which in turn comes from the deep depths of I know not where. I know irony is not to everyone's taste and which is why it suits me and probably confirms my endless joy from it. I like to leverage the heady mix of adrenalin and disruptive energy shocks and provokes so much.

3. Creativity is the result and forces the crusade to finish building the pyramids of idea in my head. Ideas so outrageous but that will fix the problem and answer the brief. The fix needs to be breathtaking and when it isn't it's just another another soul destroying mistake. 

I laugh ironically.

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Structured Visual Thinking

Taken at Starbucks

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Apple - Please Make Pens!

Forget Afghanistan, Lybia and the Middle East. What in the world is going on in the pathetic dry-erase pen manufacturing world?

The 'dry-erase' marker market! A mouthful? Well cop this! Did they invent that term because of the fact that there is no ink in them - or were they being ironic about their supply of quality product? The Writing Is On The Wall - Badly!

If the pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword then I'm about to become history. Exploitation of artists was supposed to have been eradicated years ago. I should grow up and stop being so naïve.

Q: Why have the world's manufacturers of dry erase markers (whiteboard pens) gone stark raving mad and stopped making yellow? Indeed why have the same 'baboon-brained' manufacturers also stopped making decent pens - at all. I don't mean to insult baboons. They won't even speak to us about it. I can only assume they don't give a flying chisel-tip about any of this.

The perfect pen was this. 

(Paper Mate or EXPO – now owned by Sanford – all owned now - by Newell Rubbermaid.) 

I could hold them in my hands all day. They were rubberized, shaped correctly and grippable. Each one had an eraser on it. They were well built and initially had excellent ink coverage.

Now they have stopped making them. The supply chain dried up along with their remaining pens. They choose to leave us stuck with badly designed equipment, low quality ink, ugly and painful to hold pens -  cheaply made unhelpful and crass rubbish that is unfit for the task! We buy boxes of them that just don't work, they are already dry straight out of the box. We are suckered.

I know why.

This is the main tool of my trade so I would be pissed wouldn't I - but it's become an analog for so much tack out there in the world. To me this is the pursuit of profit at all cost. It is the standard cynical abuse by manufacturers in any market when they gain a monopoly.

I've written before about the typical lousy state of meeting room tackle - that’s why I take all my own. The countless badly abused flip charts that are wobbling their way to their graves, shocking and rubbish markers with no ink - products that everyone hates. Countless pens get thrown to the floor by irritated executives who can't get the lid off or on - and when they do they don't work. All of this bollox is contributing to low standards of execution and worse it is ultimately resulting in squalid thinking.

Well WTF!!!

Do something you lousy, lazy, cheapskate, userous dry-erase manufacturing bastards!

Can anyone point me to a quality chisel-tip dry-erase marker with a spectrum of colors (including yellow) that I can call a professional product and that I can actually buy during my lifetime?

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If Apple Made Cars?

I will never rent a Citroen C5 again. 

I can't imagine why a motor manufacturer would name a car after Sir Clive Sinclair's failed electric folly but there you have it. The centre of the steering wheel is large, ugly and square, the bit you hold is round. The bit in the middle stays put when you turn the wheel. So if, like me, you hold various parts of the wheel in different ways as you maneouver hairpin bends at 100mph you will break your wrist and fingers with guaranteed and crushing whelps of pain!

Utterly ridiculous design. Think about it.

If Apple built a car - oh my goodness. You would be able to see behind and in front of you at the same time. Sideways too. Everyone would marvel as it docked with a shoosh in your house or (with the mobile dock) anywhere the hell you damn well please.

The Sat Nav system is a full HD wind-screen with anti-glare lick my face super gloss device. Angry Birds would be swiped (or pinched) off with a very satisfying flick of your little finger as they hit your screen. There would be a delicious schloop sound. Stephen Fry tweets curious sites of historic or general interest at you - as you wish.

In an iCar you don't need to concentrate on the road, that's handled by the on board magic mouse. You are left free to download apps of your choice and arrive at your destination refreshed and ahead of the pack. You often don't need to travel though because - with Total Surround Screen Technology (TSST) and Telepresence (T) the inside of the iCar is a fully equipped conference venue fully integrated with social media and augmented reality.

There's an app for giving you the impression of driving to the office as fast as Lewis Hamilton - with all the effects but the iCar manages you within the sedate traffic outside via the Slow Leopard OS feature.

You can choose whatever weather you would like to be displayed through the sun-roof display. You are adding automatically to Google Earth as you go. Foursquare and Gowalla are in fact sponsoring your fuel - Apple Juice.

It's impossible to get a ticket because the body of iCar is so aerodynamic as to ensure they can't be stuck to it. Traffic wardens are PC anyway so they are completely incompatible anyway.

Traffic jams become enjoyable with the right music for the road conditions. Road movies are unlimited and free.

"We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it" - Blues Brothers

Auditorium quality sound is played through the seats and directly connected via your Apple 'BodyPad' driving suit. Designed in California - Black Cru Neck and Denim ensemble - BUT - here's the scoop - it's actually a total immersion, multi-media touch sensitive interface to iCar. This comes as standard on the iCar CoupeAir.

All current versions allow you to configure your own dashboards and select your own background colors.

All your devices - wife, husband and kids would fit and operate seamlessly without further configuration. A Ski rack comes as standard and you would get nearly 60 MP3. That's awesome.

The only queues you will meet from now on will be those other folk queuing get their hands on one. Although V.1.0 doesn't allow it, the plan is for future versions to neatly fold away into your shirt pocket and recharge from the heat of your body.

Yes the batteries only last 40 minutes at the moment.

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