A blog by

A blog by

Saturday 30 May 2015

The cliché of wanting to change the world

So you're not a kid any more but you've held onto a deep seated desire for what you to do to have meaning. If you're feeling super comfortable you might even tell someone you'd love to change the world. 



Not in a major way, I mean you're not delusional! But you've done some reading and come to the conclusion you're firmly in the 50% of people who, want what they do, to have meaning.

The placebo effect has been shown to have positive benefits for peoples health. I wonder then if we get enough people imagining the world the way it can be. Sustainable, safe, equitable, fair. If we all shared that vision, then the actions to support that vision will have no choice but to follow.

Actions (or reactions) follow belief. So what if we were all to follow in the steps of Steve Jobs and create the 'reality distortion field' not around a product or service but to define the future we want.

What do you believe it should look like? 

Thursday 21 May 2015

Blunting creativity

Children are born with the most incredible aptitude for learning, ingenuity and creativity. They are not limited by which concepts should and should not be used together (eg. physics and jewellery!?) or where the boundaries of one concepts starts or stops and the next one begins. 

Engineers are taught to operate to the black and white ‘truths’ of mathematics and the laws of physics. In business  Within these boundaries and many more placed on a designer by the forces exerted on a project we tweak and pull, push and prod until we have a design that doesn’t impinge on any one boundary more than another.

But what if this way of teaching and thinking is fundamentally flawed. What if it is limiting to the point that we will never make the leaps of faith that Newton, Einstein and others made. For they did not know these boundaries and as such they were able to define their own boundaries.

By working with people, directly with people, and with their needs I believe we can see past and challenge the barriers we are taught to view as limiting. It its as if by talking about the solution and focussing on that we can see through the panes of glass that stand between us and it. And by working collectively, creatively and collaboratively I believe we can step around these panes of glass to achieve things like Tesla has with its electric car and battery.

So I challenge you to view the boundaries we have been taught are limiting as panes of glass. Through which the future can be glimpsed and around which if we are creative and audacious enough we can step.

This type of thinking is what has attracted me to the not for profit and purpose driven world of social enterprise.