The slaying of twelve people, many of them journalists, at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French newspaper in Paris, has come as a psychic sucker punch to me this week. It is hard enough for writers and artists to fight the general negativity of society and their own self doubts in order to find their voices and speak their truths within their work. The threat of violence, let alone actual violence, can be…
Fast Company is my new favorite business-y blog. The article I’m reading on the site this evening is about finding meaning in your work, indicating that companies that figure out how to make their missions and jobs meaningful to employees will typically see greater productivity and gains in income. If their employees are engaged and feeling full of purpose, companies will do better in general. While that is useful information, it feels a bit “duh”…
In case you haven’t heard, Sony Picture’s computer system has been hacked due to the imminent no longer imminent release of the new movie “The Interview,” which features a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. With the hack attack, Snapchat’s emails were leaked, revealing strategic business maneuvers the company was making. Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel was upset about the release of this sensitive information and he released a letter regarding how he felt. What’s…
Do you ever get so taken with a song that you have to listen to it ad nauseum until you burn it into your brain? That’s the way I feel about Tim Minchin’s “The Fence”. Minchin is a musical comedian or comedic musician (one of those Creative Hyphenates that belong to the World Creative Hyphenate Club … and if there isn’t such a club, there ought to be). He’s smart as a whip. I kinda…
I ran across an interesting article the other day. It’s from Bloomberg Businessweek and is called Bohemian Today, High-Rent Tomorrow. It discusses the phenomenon of artists moving into low-rent districts, fixing them up and making them cool, which then leads to more economic development, which then makes the districts high-rent, forcing out the artists who brought them back to life. I’ve seen this written about many times and I’m not sure why more communities aren’t…