Tony Schwartz: To Solve Big Problems, Change Your Process

In this 99U talk, bestselling author Tony Schwartz issues a challenge: The world is full of intractable problems like climate change that require new and creative thinking. So how can we use the creative process to take on some of the more serious obstacles of our lives and world? First, we need to be at the top of our collective creative games — and that means fully understanding the creative process.

Schwartz shares the five often counter-intuitive steps of the creative process. Most important, says Schwartz, is that we manage our energy and take time apart from our day-to-day to solve tough problems. As he says, “The place where you get your best ideas is not when you are trying to get the best ideas."

Joi Ito: Want to innovate? Deploy or die.

"Remember before the internet?" asks Joi Ito. "Remember when people used to try to predict the future?" In this engaging talk, the head of the MIT Media Lab skips the future predictions and instead shares a new approach to creating in the moment: building quickly and improving constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have the right idea. This kind of bottom-up innovation is seen in the most fascinating, futuristic projects emerging today, and it starts, he says, with being open and alert to what's going on around you right now. Don't be a futurist, he suggests: be a now-ist.

Being Digital: Nicholas Negroponte: A 30-year history of the future

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte takes you on a journey through the last 30 years of tech. The consummate predictor highlights interfaces and innovations he foresaw in the 1970s and 1980s that were scoffed at then but are ubiquitous today. And he leaves you with one last (absurd? brilliant?) prediction for the coming 30 years. If you haven't yet, you should read (or re-read) his classic "Being Digital."

Angela Ahrendts: Starting Anew

Angela Ahrendts discusses her start at Apple and what you should do when starting at new job, in a LinkedIn blog post: 

First: “Stay in your lane.” You’ve been hired because you bring a certain expertise to the team and the company. Try to resist putting additional or undue pressure on yourself trying to learn it all from day one. It's human nature to feel insecure about everything you "don't know". By staying focused on your core competencies you will be able to contribute much sooner, add greater value long term, and enjoy and have more peace especially in the early days.

I've been following the work of Angela Ahrendts at Burberry for a while. Working with Christopher Bailey they were doing really awe-inspiring work with technolovy, social and physical design at their retail stores. When it was announced that she had left the CEO position to join Apple I was surprised. I've been looking forward to seeing how her sensibilites and perspective will change Apple. Since WWDC this year we've begun to see Apple go through a transition into the next phase of the company. And now to see Ahrendts blog publicly discussing the company and her role in it is such an unexpected move from the secretive company. I am looking forward to the next Apple consumer event where they introduce new products and Ahrendts comes out to discuss the retail operation. It is an exciting time. 

In Modern Marketing, a Big Dose of Data in the Creative Juices

Claire Cain Miller, NY Times Bits Blog:

Computers are once again transforming the business of marketing, infusing the art with science. This time, though, the change is being driven by cloud computing and the processing of huge amounts of data about what customers do and what they desire.

Unlike the computer on “Mad Men,” which took up an entire room, the computers processing the data are not even in marketers’ offices but in far-off data centers. But just as in the fictional company depicted on “Mad Men,” the new technology is causing tensions among the quants, or quantitative data analysts, the artists and the information technologists.
...

For consumers, the result is personalized marketing.

...

Ideally, consumers do not notice the computing and data-crunching in the background and instead just see more relevant messages from brands, said Ian Schafer, chief executive and founder of Deep Focus, a digital agency. But when marketing is too personalized, it can feel creepy.