Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
McLuhan's assertion that we are all crew on spaceship earth reminds me of Wavy Gravy's reminder that we're "all bozos on this bus". Spaceship earth did not come with an operating manual and we're all learning to fly it together. Here's some samples of what we're learning that I fished out of the digital firehose this week.
Happy Friday.
Personal Development
"Let us consider the lessons Bowie offers..."
Jim Carroll recently watched the "splendid" (his word) film about David Bowie by Brett Morgen, ‘Moonage Daydream’ (2022).
"It’s not a conventional biographical documentary. Rather it is a cinematic tapestry woven from sequences of Bowie in performance, in interviews and on his travels; with news footage of the time, and imagery that suggests the themes that interested him: isolation, marginalisation and change; fragmented modern living, a world in chaos and space travel.
"You get a real understanding of Bowie’s personal and artistic odyssey; his considerable intelligence, wit and charisma."
Carroll plucked 14 lessons from Bowie's life and work that are relevant to all creative people, starting with "1. Escape and Get Out" and ending with "14. Keep Searching".
Article: Setting Sail for Uncharted Waters: Creative Counsel from David Bowie
Strategy, Creative Process
"10. Everyone has access to the same consumers. What does the brand have access to that nobody else does?"
Alex Morris says that he is "just a clown looking for a circus." He publishes a great letter called STRAT_SCRAPS, which he describes as "curated (stolen) bits and pieces adjacent to advertising. Sometimes accompanied by an original thought. More frequently an opinion or complaint. Also, monsters. There will almost certainly be typos."
Recently he shared a Google Doc called /// 100 Questions ///. It's a list of 100 questions that anyone writing, designing or otherwise creating anything should ask. It's a great cheat sheet. Here's just a few question to re-set your brain:
" 51. What changes if you write it as a letter?
52. What are your hobbies?
53. What is your vision for the future
54. What choices are yours alone?
55. Imagine you’re an investigative journalist. How would you do your research?"
Google Doc: 100 Questions
Economy, Ownership
"We are in the midst of the most creative period of economic innovation since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution."
“This is a book about deep change. It’s about hope. It’s about the real possibility that a fundamentally new kind of economy can be built, that this work is further along than we suppose, and that it does deeper than we would dare to dream. It’s about economic change that is fundamental and enduring: not greenwash or all the other false hopes flung in our faces for too long. The experiments I’m talking about are not silver bullets that will solve all our problems. They have flaws and limitations. But they nonetheless represent change that is fundamental and enduring because it involves ownership. That is to say, what’s at work is not the legislative or presidential whims of a particular hour, but a permanent shift in the underlying architecture of economic power.” - Marjorie Kelly
Publishers Webpage: Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution. Journeys to a Generative Economy.
Futures Thinking
"If efficiency is no longer our guiding principle, how should we address the future?"
"The more we rely on technology to make us efficient, the fewer skills we have to confront the unexpected, says writer and entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan. She shares why we need less tech and more messy human skills -- imagination, humility, bravery -- to solve problems in business, government and life in an unpredictable age. 'We are brave enough to invent things we've never seen before,' she says. 'We can make any future we choose.'"
TedTalk: The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World
Design Thinking, AI
"AI tools like ChatGPT can be used to enhance the design thinking process by providing new ways to gather and analyze data, generate ideas, and validate prototypes."
"...(T)he intersection of design thinking and AI provides a powerful approach for developing user-centered solutions that meet the needs of users. By using ChatGPT and other AI tools, we can gather and analyze data, generate ideas, and validate prototypes in new and innovative ways. The result is a more efficient and effective design process that results in better solutions for users." - Vincent Hunt
Article: Design Thinking and AI: Enhancing User-Centered Design with ChatGPT
Personal Productivity
A recipe to harness the natural need for distraction
"Frankly, I’m not sure we’re designed to focus on only one thing for eight or ten hours in a row. I’ve always found that it’s useful to have something else to be doing when you’re too burnt out to face the next thing on your list. That way, flipping back and forth between the two projects prevents focus fatigue.
"Now, the most important thing is to make sure your other project isn’t 'browsing on YouTube' or 'catching up on Facebook.' Make it a project that forces you to learn, because you want to.
"Always have a learning project in mind. For me, it’s typically learning some new tool, some new math, some new physics, or some new programming skill. It doesn’t really matter what it is, just have something on the back burner." - Goli Mohammadi
Article: The Art of Productive Procrastination
Naming, Brand Identity, Self Promotion
An unlikely collaboration between a Fortune 500 company and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet makes a terrific holiday greeting.
"In 1955, the marketing department of the Ford Motor Company tried unsuccessfully for months to name their newest car. In desperation, they turned to an unusual source: the celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore. What Moore lacked in corporate nomenclature experience, she made up for in enthusiasm and imagination: she submitted over two dozen names for consideration, each one more delightful—and unlikely—than the last. In the end, the poet’s suggestions were rejected and the company’s chairman himself named the vehicle. Thus was born the notorious car known as the Edsel.
"Pentagram’s 2022 holiday greeting celebrate(d) this unlikely encounter between art and commerce by reprinting in full the rarely seen correspondence between Moore and the Ford Marketing Research Department. The illustrator Seymour Chwast was commissioned to bring Moore’s names to life, imagining what automobiles named 'The Intelligent Whale,' 'The Dearborn Diamante' and 'The Utopian Turtletop' might actually look like." - Pentagram website
Article: ‘May I Submit Utopian Turtletop?’
One-liners
Article: Yes, You Can Catch Insanity.
Article: The Irrational Mathematics of Grading - of Measuring, Ranking, and Rating - Have Distorted the Value of Stuff, Work, People—Everything.
Article: Collectively, Second Life, Minecraft and Roblox Have Taught More People To Code Than America’s Top Universities.
Playlist
“'I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses,' said Allison Russell during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band’s harmoniousness in the year she’s been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child, which tells the singer’s life story, from her childhood escaping abuse through an itinerant adolescence and young adulthood anchored, finally, by the love and community she’s found as a feminist and a music-maker. This group — three string players, two guitarists, a drummer and Russell on her banjo and clarinet — embodies healing community, and its interplay and gospelized group vocals turbo-charged every song." - Ann Powers
This is an inspiring and uplifting concert. She introduces the last number, You're Not Alone, with this poem:
“We are not alone.
We are not what we have lost.
We are more than the sum of our scars.
We are the dust of the stars.
We are the arc of art,
we are the love in our hearts.
We lift each other up,
and we are as a beloved community
every single time we choose to be.
I believe what Alice Walker wrote:
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
And I hope that all of you who can will exercise
your precious, powerful, tenuous, hard-fought,
hard-won right to vote.
And I hope you’ll lead with empathy,
and I hope you’ll lead with love.
Because they are not weaknesses,
they are superpowers.”
Tiny Desk Concert: Allison Russell
Mitch the editor in his a new role as Mitch the DJ
A mix-tape inspired by the music and spirt of Allison Russell
This is the sixth post in my new weekly series of mix-tapes, Big Sounds from a Small Planet.
Mix-Tape: You're Not Alone
Image of the Week
Copyright © Latoya Okuneye, 2023, from the photo essay FOURTEEN
“'Fourteen' is a visual exploration of the bittersweet human experiences of black girlhood in the UK. I wanted to explore the adultification of working class girls in London, their ability to hold on to their youths and navigate the ever changing and inconstant pressures of the world around them. ‘Fourteen' can be seen as a memory-like visual diary, from images that pay homage to the innocent moments of teenagehood, perhaps the simpler times as we see images of teenagers playing and enjoying the softness of friendships, connection, self expression and beauty in mundanity.
"To bring the project to life I collaborated with some teenagers in London under the supervision of their siblings/parents. I also collaborated with some of the youths from 'Milk honey bees', an organisation founded by Ebinehita Iyere in 2017 which offers a safe space for young black girls through 1:1 sessions and creative group projects. It was important to me to not only tell my own story through these images but to amplify the voices and experiences of young black girls today- it was interesting seeing how similar our experiences were." - Latoya Okuneye
Article: ‘FOURTEEN’ photo essay.
What's Love & Work?
Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.
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