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11 Feb 09

“BREAKING NEWS”: Why the New York Times and Harvard Should Merge « What’s the Big Idea?

"The business model – which is another way of saying the underlying purpose – of just about everything is changing right now, and that includes the university and the newspaper."

bobmassie.wordpress.com/...times-and-harvard-should-merge - Preview

bob_massie newspapers ideas harvard business_model

The HBR List 2009 - "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009"

QUOTE
This year’s HBR List includes ideas that we think are more useful than fanciful, more immediately practicable than speculative. Although we began compiling and winnowing contenders many months ago, we nonetheless did our best to anticipate the context in which you now read them. Thus some of the articles you’ll find here comment directly on the economic crisis, but most of them address other matters that business leaders must contend with: strategic decision making, tapping new markets, finding and keeping top talent, harnessing network effects, dealing with disruptive technologies and business models.
UNQUOTE

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harvard_business innovation ideas 2009

20 Nov 08

"Create Your Own Magnetic Prototype" (adaptive path » blog » Alexa Andrzejewski »)

File this under "great idea!" Get printable magnetic sheets, print out your design elements, and move them around on a magnetic whiteboard.

www.adaptivepath.com/...magneticprototyping - Preview

adaptive_path ideas design reference

08 Feb 08

The Artful Manager: What's ''authentic''?

Read the entry, "What's 'authentic'?," by Andrew Taylor, but then read the first comment that follows, by Bill Ivey. Taylor, writing from an arts manager perspective, observes: "Since arts organizations are often perceived (or perceive themselves) as havens of authentic expression, it might be worth a moment to define, exactly, what that means." Ivey, donning his "folklorist" hat, contrasts the "authentic" barn-raising, say, with the construction of a pre-fab barn -- or "authentic" blue jeans and their history of being workwear, with the "brand" of "authentic" designer jeans. Apples & oranges, and the oranges, it seems, are watery -- or "thin," as Ivey puts it: they offer "the illusion of purchasable membership in networks defined by exactly the history and shared values that in modern society are available to very, very few."

www.artsjournal.com/...079959.php - Preview

authenticity branding culture culture_industry folklore ideas ideology marketing

  • Since much of modern mass or popular culture is of the pre-fab barn variety, it's not difficult to identify a longing for heritage-defined, community-based products or performances as a significant element of our overarching ethos. There are many thousands of examples of the way th marketplace has exploited this idea. Blue jeans connect with the "authentic" idea of real men doing real work; a Ralph Lauren shooting jacket invokes the "authentic" world of entitled patrician ease; a faux-antique farm table links consumers with the sturdy values of an agrarian past.



    This, to me, is the sense of authenticity that pervades mass culture today. It is an idea that is particularly potent in our "thin" consumerist society, offering, as it does, the illusion of purchasable membership in networks defined by exactly the history and shared values that in modern society are available to very, very few.

21 Jan 08

“I am eternally optimistic; I am Chinese” - The Art Newspaper

First time I've tagged something under "gunpowder," but Cai Guo Qiang's art deserves its own tag and niche. I love this guy's work (although, admittedly, I haven't had a chance to see it in person, even though it was displayed at the Seattle Art Museum). Just to give an idea of this man's thinking:
"Gunpowder is a spontaneous, unpredictable and uncontrollable medium. The more you learn to control it, the more obsessed you become with the material. It is like making love with your husband or wife. The outcome is unpredictable and the same results are never guaranteed. Furthermore, in using gunpowder I can explore all my concerns: the relation to notions of spirituality as well as an interest in spectacle and entertainment, and the transformation of certain energies—such as violent explosions—into beauty and a kind of poetry. An artist should be like an alchemist using poison against poison, which is very much a philosophy from Chinese medicine. Turning something bad into something good…countering the force. It’s the whole idea of the alchemist, using dirt, dust, and getting gold out of it. From gunpowder, from its very essence, you can see so much of the power of the universe—how we came to be. You can express these grand ideas about the cosmos."

This is philosophy and art, not just tired old ideology and art. Brilliant stuff, truly.

On the Olympics -- a salient topic for us, in BC, given that next-door Vancouver will host the Winter Games in 2010 -- Cai Guo Qiang notes:
"The Olympics combine the entire country’s efforts, and can do a lot of previously unimaginable things. You can display your work in front of an audience of billions, but at the same time it can feel like you’re making the work for yourself. Through this event, one can contemplate and better understand what “Chinese culture” is. One needs to think about the past, present, and future of China and its relationship with the world."

That makes me think it's the most significant statement yet (for the non-athlete) on the Olympics: time to step

www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp - Preview

art cai_guo_qiang gunpowder ideas sculpture

  • I understood quickly the value of the underground. I was always very unwilling to align myself to any particular group.
  • When I was a child, the Chinese government did not allow citizens to buy flowers because it was a very bourgeois thing, but since my hometown of Guangzhou was far from the capital, I could buy flowers from farmers and go home and paint them. I associated this bourgeois act with being an artist. I didn’t want a nine-to-five job. I wanted to live freely.
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09 Jan 08

seven for 2007 | varnelis.net

I've had this open in a browser tab for days, wanting to bookmark it, but hesitating because I found it impossible to describe, tag, or in any way categorize. So, let's just say it's "wow" and one of the best recaps-cum-predictions amongst the blogs. Read it.

varnelis.net/...seven_for_2007 - Preview

architecture cities cloud_computing creatives economics ideas predictions privacy reference wow

12 Jun 06

INTERVIEW - ROBERT THEOBALD

  • The main message appears to
    be that maximum economic growth coupled with all the steps necessary to achieve
    international competitiveness provides a desirable route into the future. The
    problem is that this strategy has either resulted in a huge increase in
    inequality or unemployment throughout the developed world.
    • Ever since Adam Smith we have known that business requires:


      • social cohesion,
      • predictability, often premised on law but really based on the
        prevalence of a set of cultural norms,
      • a basically level playing field without excessive bribery or
        bureaucratic interference.

      Up to the present time business has assumed that these are basically
      "free goods." Trends throughout the world suggest that they are all under
      challenge. It is in the narrow self-interest of business to become involved in
      maintaining the cultural and political pre-conditions for its activities.

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