Following up yesterday's post on rules, here are some views on them, and lack thereof, from Calvin and Hobbes. Click the images to see them full size. I'll let you figure out for yourself how deep and meaningful you find their take on life, how valuable their freedom from constraints other people can't get around, and how much they enable you to behave as freely. Anyway, I consider them great works and relevant to yesterday's topic.
From my notes while I was there in April: North Korean performance art: technical perfection while appearing effortless ... emote wonder and hokey joy ... layer it on ... add difficulty. Zero subtlety. That just about describes it. I also noted the following. Something tells me that the technical perfection in North Korean arts reflects middling ability in its leadership to prove its self-worth. Maybe I extrapolated too far, but someone is driving their artistic and athletic direction. Since North Korea controls personal expression so much, they can't motivate their artists to express themselves how they want, so how can they promote something like art? They can promote easily quantifiable and measurable results. North Koreans can justifiably say they're better than nearly anyone else on…
The pictures below don't even approach showing the almost unbelievable performance ability of North Korean children. Joseph's pictures showcase their talent better. But no images can show the professionalism, dedication, and raw talent these kids have. The pictures below are from the Children's Palace, which trains children to perform and create art and puts on incredible performances. After their performance last time, my travel groupmate who was starting a school to train opera singers, reacted with disgust at the performance. As I understood, he saw their type of performance -- technical perfection that could only result from repeated drilling and repetition devoid of personal expression -- as destroying everything he valued about art -- personal expression and emotional exploration. He saw children whose artistic world…
Today's post in the series of genius business ideas may not be a sustainable business model, but it covers a product I think today's children would benefit from as adults. Market demand Parents want the best for their kids. They don't want them needlessly hurt, especially by going down paths they know will create unnecessary pain and hardship. A friend suggested to me that many people have problems in relationships because of overly rosy expectations. They envision that calling each other boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, will lead to them living happily ever after or riding off into the sunset. You can say people know life isn't that simple, but everyone I've talked to about it believes it to some degree despite themselves. Or at…
I just finished reading and enjoying an article on Bruce Springsteen in this week's New Yorker. I recommend it, especially if you like the long New Yorker articles. This one is over 15,000 words. I've mentioned Bruce before. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in Philadelphia you couldn't miss him. I remember a radio promotion on one of the stations I listened to quoting a fan yelling, I guess outside a Springsteen concert "He's the best. He's Bruce. He's the Boss!" Greetings from Asbury Park was one of the first cds I bought when the medium came out. And the older brother of the first love of my life -- my high school girlfriend -- was a huge fan, with cases of concert bootleg…
Following up a comment on my post on the What Works in X web page genius idea, I created a mind map as a rough outline for the site to illustrate it better. It's only a rough outline, but I think a good start. Copying from my response to the reader's comment I envision people at What Works in X sharing anecdotes of things they've done at a higher level, like how they got hired by doing something different or got into North Korea or things like that... available in any area. Of course, I put the idea up for others to do with it what they want. I'm as happy to inspire someone else's slightly different vision as for them to implement mine. Also,…
Society values originality and creativity in problem solving instead of getting the job done. I'll illustrate how. Imagine you have a problem you need solved. For concreteness let's say you need plumbing work done in your house, but it could apply to any problem, personal, professional, or otherwise. Say you ask two plumbers how they would fix the problem to decide whom to hire. The first plumber says "I have the most creative idea for how to solve your problem. No one has ever seen a solution like this one. I will get your plumbing to do things no plumbing has done before. You will marvel at the originality and creativity in your plumbing." The second plumber says "Oh, I've solved problems exactly like this…
Following up on yesterdays' genius business idea for a book series of successful solved problems in many fields, today let's look at a web page doing something similar. Instead of making it just like a book, let's take advantage of the web's interactivity and let users create content. It's based on the principles of the Art of What Works (the book I mentioned the other day) The product A web site of user-written anecdotes of successful things they did, categorized by field -- eventually, the global repository of solved problems in every field, free for anyone to access or contribute to. Once populated with content, the main use of the site would be for anyone with a problem to solve. They would log in, search…
For the first genius business idea (the series I mentioned a couple days ago) I propose a book series based on the principles of the Art of What Works (the book I mentioned yesterday). The product A series of books like the "for dummies" and "for complete idiot" series, all with the same dimensions, cover design and color scheme, tone, writing style, etc called "What works inX", like "What Works in Selling Your House", "What Works in Nursing", "What Works in Teaching High School", or "What Works in Starting Your Own Restaurant." Each book contains anecdotes of people achieving success in the field that you can learn from -- a series of solved problems you can use to solve your problems. The fundamental principle is…
One of Columbia Business School's most popular courses in recent years has been in strategy, called Napoleon's Glance, named after a book by the instructor, Bill Duggan. Former students I've talked to rave about it. I was fortunate to do an independent study with him before his course exploded in popularity. Now it's so successful I doubt he could devote that kind of attention to a single student. Despite the course's immense popularity at one of the world's great business schools, I was more influenced by his book The Art of What Works. This excerpt from the back cover gets the gist of the book well for me, especially Jack Welch's quote: While every business situation you confront is unique, it is invariably made of…
Many people who dream of starting businesses tell me their greatest obstacle is having a great idea to start with. I call this belief my number one entrepreneurship myth and wrote about it and productive beliefs that can help more than the myth. Besides the productive alternative belief that a good idea plus listening to your market succeeds more than trying to make an idea perfect, another counter to this myth is that great ideas come easily when you know how. As a business school professor at Columbia said The idea of a lifetime comes once a month. I completely agree. What makes an idea "an idea of a lifetime" isn't its profitability or popularity but how much of your time you devote to it.…
The U.S. has "a dysfunctional patent system." Those aren't my words. They aren't the words of an ignorant person either. They are the words of U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner, one of the nation's most esteemed judges and faculty at University of Chicago. A patent dispute between Apple and Motorola prompted that description. Here's an article from a couple weeks ago -- Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system "dysfunctional" -- describing the case. Here's a recent article -- In bid for patent sanity, judge throws out entire Apple/Motorola case -- reporting that he threw out the case with prejudice. My thoughts I could write volumes on the problems with patents and copyright. The ideas have some merit and they probably once served widespread useful…
Business brought me to the lovely city of Xian, not that far from Shanghai. My hosts brought me to a central area they covered with LEDs, I guess for tourists. I couldn't help take pictures to post here. It was borderline garish, but just this side of too much. I don't know if the pictures capture it. It almost felt like daytime at night. The city lit up a whole area with statues, pillars (wrapped in LEDs I couldn't help by overexpose in the pictures), municipal and art buildings, etc. Lots of people were enjoying themselves. Anyway, if you are near Xian, visit. Tomorrow I'll post on the famous terra-cotta army, also not far away. A couple friends who visited here told me to visit…
I've meant to post this script for a long time. In business school I wrote a script that ended up in Follies, Columbia Business School's student-run sketch comedy and musical production at the end of each semester. In my time there, Follies produced some of the best sketch comedy and musicals, including Every Breath Bernanke Takes, which got us press and a letter from the White House. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipJTqCbETog[/youtube] The sketch I wrote ended up a very funny piece. Getting to be on stage for a piece I wrote, including a line or two that got the 500 people in the audience to laugh on cue, with the type of laugh -- I don't know of anything that made me feel better than those moments and…
I came across the online notes of a symposium mentioning me at the Tate Modern on "Pervasive Animation" by George Griffin, who lives around the corner from me and whom I met in person a couple years ago. Okay, he mentioned me only briefly, but it's the Tate Modern and he's important. So there!
I enjoyed a show by an artist named Xu Bing at the Shanghai Gallery of Art. He created a book using only symbols so that anyone could understand it, no matter what language they spoke. The show showed the book and the four-year process he took to create it. The simple, blocky images telling a story suggested to me that taking simple, direct pictures of them would tell the story of the show. I hope I achieved my goal. I hope you'll forgive my making the images a bit too big for the blog design, but I wanted to show more of the art. Hovering over the image pauses the slide show, which I recommend doing when you see individual pages of his work (clicking…
Math and science to me are beautiful -- about the most beautiful things in the world. I hope some of that comes across when I write on them. After a couple posts on a physicist's perspective on our impact on the world -- about an awesome blog (called Do The Math, but it has a science perspective) and an awesome video presentation by the blogger, here's something on math. When I started graduate school in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, I thought I could still study some math on the side. It turns out physics grad school takes all your time (I was also playing Ultimate Frisbee), but I had time to establish a relationship with a professor in the math department. He suggested…
Leaders in Software and Art posted their interview of me at my solo show at Crossing Art Gallery last June. I thought Isabel did great camera work with a medium that's hard to capture on video (EDIT: see comment below, where Isabel pointed out Jeff Becker did the camera work). http://vimeo.com/39370221 I'm in Beijing, where the government blocks video-sharing sites, so I can't see how the above video renders. Here's the direct link to the site if it doesn't come out -- http://vimeo.com/39370221.
Think of what you want in life -- from work, play, relationships, etc. Now think of what you already have in those areas. Many people evaluate their lives by what they have. Great. What you have doesn't tell you as much as what you can create. What you have describes the culmination of a past you can't change. The ingredients to create -- usually skills more than material possessions -- describes your future and suggests how to live now. More important questions for improving your life is do you have the ingredients to create what you want and how do you get them. Since no one will create your future or live your present for you, only you can take responsibility for creating what you…
Yesterday I suggested ways to improve your storytelling skills through practice. Performing in public can be daunting, so today I'll tell about my first experience telling a story in front of hundreds of people, being judged. First, despite my anxiety before going up, I loved the experience, learned a lot, and without a doubt will do it again. I recommend it to anyone, especially if you're scared, like I was. Here I am, telling my story: The storytelling began with my friend David, with whom I swam across the Hudson River, originally told me about the Moth years ago, suggesting telling our Hudson River swim story when he heard the theme for Monday's event was sports. We planned to do something perhaps for the first…
Want to improve one of the most important skills for any field, almost free? Want to hook and engage anyone you communicate with? Tell a story. Everyone knows it, but it bears repeating. All communication can benefit from having it tell a story. Whether you're pitching a product, pitching your company, answering a question in a job interview, talking to a friend, flirting on a date, or anything, humans love stories. I posted earlier on how to structure stories effectively (I only need to remember "CCSG"). Besides structure, you need to tell the story. Your voice, body language, pacing, and so on matter. How do you tell better stories? The same way you do anything better. Practice! How do you practice? One simple, free way…
Like most American kids of my generation, I learned This Land Is Your Land as a children's song, never thinking much of its meaning. A decade or two later, I heard Bruce Springsteen's version of it on his Live 75-85 set. His introduction first got me thinking about its meaning, especially in contrast to God Bless America. I didn't know Woodie Guthrie wrote This Land Is Your Land as an angry song. Springsteen's version on the album sounds mournful but then rousing and inclusive. On the Live 75-85 album I have, he introduced it as follows. There's a book out right now. It's called Woodie Guthrie, A Life. It's by this fellow called Joe Klein. And it's really a great book. This song was originally…
I find this picture of the Eiffel Tower beautiful. A guy named Tristan Nitot took the picture and posted it for people to share and enjoy in a post called "This photograph is free." He posted it in response to some other guy whose name I don't know who posted a picture he took entitled "This photograph is not free." I won't link to him because I'm afraid he might attack me and if he doesn't like sharing I won't share. Because I like beautiful photographs and people sharing, I'm sharing his beautiful photograph. I commented on his site I find your picture beautiful and your act to share it adds to its beauty. You made the other guy's picture (the not free one) and motivations…
To follow up the talk I organized for Srikumar Rao, Srikumar's business manager offered deep discounts (almost half price) for members of the Columbia Business School alumni club (anyone can join, whether they went there or not) to take the New York session of his course, Creativity and Personal Mastery (CPM). Having taken it about four years ago, I recommend the course without reservation. Click here for a pdf with more information on dates, logistics, costs, and an overview. Quoting from the brochure: Dates are as follows for the New York Spring 2012 CPM Class Session #1: January 27th, 28th and 29th, 2012 Session #2: March 2nd 3rd and 4th, 2012 Session #3: March 30th, 31st and April 1st, 2012 Reserve Dates: April 13th, 14th…
Please join us for a special viewing of Elements Artwork by Joshua Spodek at District 36 If you missed my show at Crossing Art Gallery in June, this will be your first chance to see my new series. If you've only seen my public pieces Union Square and Bryant Park, this series is on a whole other level. Plus we can have wine here. If you haven't seen it since Crobar, you've never seen anything like these pieces. RSVP to me or District 36 (at 212-244-3636). District 36 is at 29 West 36th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Stay to hear Sharam, of the Grammy-award winning duo, Deep Dish, play after. See you Saturday, December 10 at 8!