How Creativity is Helped by Failure

BBC News Magazine Viewpoint:

"Dare to fail" is a powerful slogan. It doesn't mean we should aim at failure - rather it hints at the paradox that creativity is a journey that involves taking wrong turns along the way. Organisations like Google, Apple, Dyson and Pixar have developed cultures that, in their different ways, create the conditions for empowering failure. They have become living ecosystems of the imagination, fired by the courage to test ideas, to see their flaws, and to be triggered into new associations and insights.

Anil Dash: Share Your Values and You'll Share Success

Anil Dash, co-founder of ThinkUp, in this 99u talk explained how even the smallest details of our work shape not only our businesses, but the culture around us. This presents us with a unique opportunity, as he said, “When we say ‘somebody ought to do something,’ here’s a chance for us to show our values.”

Have You Met John Goodenough? The Father Of The Lithium Ion Battery

Daniela Hernandez writing for Fusion, introduces us to John Goodenough. He is responsible for "the invisible device that powers everything you do":

The Nobel Prize for chemistry was announced earlier this month: three scientists shared the almost $1 million award for their work on how cells repair DNA.

Once again it did not go to John Goodenough, the 93-year-old physicist regarded as the father of the lithium ion battery. You probably haven’t heard of him, but for years, pundits have predicted that Goodenough would win science’s highest honor. And for good reason. His work transformed society. His is possibly the most revolutionary invention yet not to win the prize. What’s it to you? Well, your life wouldn’t be the same without his work.

The Fracking of Attention

Martin Weigel, Head of Planning at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, has written a keenly observed essay on the role we play everyday in, well, fracking people's attentions: 

So attention is personal – what we attend to defines our reality.

Attention is finite – it is a scarce and thus valuable resource – not just to those who wish to monetise it, but to those to whom it belongs.

And attention is hackable – the world is overpopulated with those skilled in the art of capturing and redirecting attention for their own purposes.

Surely then, we have a responsibility – dare one say, an ethical duty – to the audience.

And to the attention we see to hack.

Casey Gerald: Don’t Wait for Permission

After graduating from Yale, Casey Gerald and his friends wondered what would happen if, instead of “marching off in pinstripe suits to slave away in a cubicle,” they set out to the heart of America to put their MBAs to work helping entrepreneurs. The result is MBAs Across America, whose message is simple but vital: There’s a new way of changing the world, and each of us has a part to play. In this 99u talk, Gerald shares his story and gives us the three aspects of this “New Playbook of Change.”