You're Not Listening→

Last night's presidential debate reminded me of the "You're Not Listening" essay from the Rands In Repose blog and how most people's idea of what listening is, is incomplete. 

The problem starts with the word: listen. Of course you know how to listen. You sit there and let the words into your head. Perhaps your definition is more refined. Maybe your definition of listening involves hearing because you’re aware of that switch in your head that you must flip to really hear what a person is saying. It’s work, right? Pulling in all the words, sorting them in your head, and mapping them against the person who is speaking. That is listening, that is hearing, but if that’s all you’re doing and you’re a leader of people, then you’re still only halfway there.

You should read the whole essay. And remember: ​

“A good conversation is a bunch of words elegantly connected with listening.”

Banished Words

Linguists will tell us that words are simply strings of sounds, and that those sounds in no way determine the words’ legitimacy. An opera in Italian is not better than one in German because you dislike the supposedly “harsh,” guttural, deep-in-the-throat sound of German. Being put off by the soundscape of a language is a matter of taste, a subjective experience of its words, not an objective fact about them. The bickering such judgments foster leads nowhere, for every person’s experience is, finally, true. Still, it is interesting that we do more than see and hear words; we feel them. Language is embodied, not just a baked-in set of abstract principles. Words have physical impact, a texture, a sensation. They are visceral, and perhaps this helps explain linguistic conservatism: any change is felt, not simply noted.

Jerry DeNuccio takes a look at banishing words and the role of slang in the evolution of language. In the passage above he manages to make me consider something I had not before, the idea of words as food, that words like food have a taste, a texture and combinations that please us and nourish us. As such we then have the equivalent of words that are comfort food, words that are nutritionally sound and words that are special treats

Made by Hand: The Cigar Shop

In 1974, Dominican immigrant Don Antonio Martinez started a small shop in New York City selling hand rolled cigars. Thirty-eight years later his son, Jesus, carries on the tradition. The shop combines craftsmanship with community, mixing equal parts work and play.

A project from Bureau of Common Goods, Made by Hand is a new short film series celebrating the people who make things by hand—sustainably, locally, and with a love for their craft.

Previously on Made by Hand:
​The Beekeeper
​​​The Knife Maker
​The Distiller

Keep working, keep learning, any form of standing still is deadly

The truth is, if you want a decent job that will lead to a decent life today you have to work harder, regularly reinvent yourself, obtain at least some form of postsecondary education, make sure that you’re engaged in lifelong learning and play by the rules. That’s not a bumper sticker, but we terribly mislead people by saying otherwise.

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There is a quote attributed to the futurist Alvin Toffler that captures this new reality: In the future “illiteracy will not be defined by those who cannot read and write, but by those who cannot learn and relearn.” Any form of standing still is deadly.

Thomas Friedman's Op-Ed in The New York Times takes a look at education world wide and how the countries that are excelling are teaching programming, or considering it, as early as possible. In doing so he articulates a very simple truth, no matter what your socio-political point of view, in order to excel you have to  keep studying.

Paula Scher: Once you know what you're doing, it's not as good

Sometimes you have to ignore the brief, says renowned designer and artist Paula Scher. With a dry wit, Scher takes us behind-the-scenes on four landmark projects -- from revamping MoMA's identity to reinvigorating a Pittsburgh neighborhood through design -- to illustrate how asking questions, pushing into uncharted territory, and doing something you've never done before leads to great work.

​I love the work of Paula Scher. She has created some of my favorite arts marketing identities, including this poster that actually made me stop my hustled walk towards the subway so I could stare at it for a little while:

In this talk, from this year's 99u conference, ​she continues to explore themes she's shared before. In the talk, as in the past, she discusses failure, demonstrates those things that they don't teach you in design school and displays her love for typography. For more check out her TED Talk on serious play and how her career took off because she hated Helvetica.