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Square pegs + round holes = Brilliant Ideas
I saw Moonrise Kingdom over the weekend. LOVED IT. It’s a story about two intelligent, inventive, incorrigible young teenagers who fall in love, get torn apart, and ultimately wind up happy and...
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You don't need a business plan. You need a mental plan.
Left brained people, you might want to take some Advil or Pepto-Bismol before reading the next sentence. “I like doing things without having complete reasoning behind it,” he says, sounding unlike just...
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18 month olds are deciding your digital future.
The other day, a friend of mine and her son were leaving their house but the son wouldn’t walk out the door because he had misplaced his phone. Like you and me, he couldn’t imagine going anywhere...
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Michael Jordan, Gene Kranz, and harnessing the power of optimism to create...
Last year at Chicago Ideas Week, I hosted a panel titled “Is this economy killing creativity or inspiring it?” Five panelists discussed the challenges of staying fiercely creative in a...
View ArticleCan a monologue can stop a bullet?
Depends on how you look at the world.You can take the cynical stance and point out how ineffective Tony was, fancy feet aside, in preventing the Jets and Sharks from rumbling. Riff and Bernardo are...
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Want to create brilliant ideas? Go away.
Imagine living in a place where nothing exists except for what immediately surrounds you.Your property is on a dirt road, with neighbors pockmarked every half-mile or so. In winter, you have to plow...
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Why Labor Day could be the best and most meaningful holiday of the year (or...
Anyone out there know why we celebrate Labor Day?According to the United State Department of Labor website, it’s “…a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic...
View Article5 Ways to Make Writing Easier …Before You Even Start Writing
Today the Twist Blog can be found at this blog! Orbit Media is a web design and development company made up of very nice and very smart people who were kind enough to ask me to guest blog for them....
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Creativity, Collaboration, and Coffeehouses
This is starting to become familiar...Please check out another guest post, and this time, on not one but two terrific blogs: Groupon Grassroots, and Chicago Ideas Week.Not many places will you find...
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Everything I needed to know about product development, I learned from a...
Her name is Lily and her dad’s name is Joe Born. Melissa Harris wrote about them in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend. Joe is a successful lifelong inventor, which helps explain why Lily invents...
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Innovation in TV programming from the folks who brought you whammies and zonks
As our two Presidential hopefuls go toe to toe, most recently touting their own pro-female credentials, another gender-inequality barrier has been smashed, and none too soon:The Price is Right has...
View ArticleConsider your point of view as temporary
Not the advice Barack and Mitt are getting from their advisors as they prepare for tonight’s debate. But great advice Jeff Bezos gave to the folks at 37signals yesterday in a 90 minute visit.Jeff said...
View ArticleHow do you get to Trust? Drink your clients' Kool-Aid
In Forbes today a survey conducted by a marketing consulting firm tells us that advertisers continue to be frustrated with their agencies.A client of ours asked me today what I think the cause is.It...
View ArticleSix things to fear once the FOMO meme goes away
I’m assuming that by now you’ve heard of FOMO. FOMO, of course, stands for “Fear Of Missing Out,” a term coined by entrepreneur and blogger Caterina Fake last year, and was initially defined, in her...
View Article10 things Idea Creators can be thankful for
1. Aggregators. Impossible to overexpress my appreciation for people who collect and then redistribute wonderful things. Like Dave Pell and Maria Popova. The former collects 10 stories a day and...
View ArticleWelcome to SighBrrr™ Monday
Such a nice long holiday break.Sigh.Have to put on the down coats all week.Brrr.Back at work after extended amounts of time with the family.Sigh.It’s getting darker and colder earlier.Brrr.A week full...
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The virtues of going both ways
Manti Te’o and Charles Woodson have nothing in common.Actually, they both had spectacular college football careers, for two of the most storied football programs (and finest universities) in the world....
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What SHOWING UP looks like
Some people SHOW UP.Other people just show up.If you were born with a physical attribute that makes you clearly stand out, like tremendous height or size or beauty, or a halo hanging over your head at...
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Audacious creativity 101
Two items converged for me this week in a flash of audacious creativity.One: I went to see the Book of Mormon. Don’t see it if the sanctity of Mormonism is even remotely important to you or if you’d...
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Being duped by the doper: Why I still support Lance
He lied. And he lied again. And then some more.He lied over and over.All with the intended result of helping people who were unable to help themselves.He lifted them up. Infused them with pride and...
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