Kristy Tillman: Inviting Yourself to the Table

Have you ever had an idea that you wanted to execute or be involved in, but it never quite happened for you? For Kristy Tillman, this was not only true for her, but at times it felt like the defining sentiment of her career. While we live in a world of interconnection, it's still so easy to feel like we're not making the impact that we'd like or taking advantage of all of our opportunities. However, instead of asking for permission or waiting for life to happen to us, Kristy urges us to invite ourselves to the table. 

In this 99u talk, Kristy challenges us to "restate the problem: How might [you] begin to make [your] own opportunities? By inviting yourself to the table."

Ryan Carson: Begin With the End In Mind

In this 99u talk, Ryan Carson, founder and CEO of Treehouse, charges us to hyper-focus, so we can spend less time working (while still finishing our biggest projects.) "I spend 20 minutes first thing each Monday making a list of what I want to achieve each week," explains Carson, who typically works 32 hours a week so he can spend more time with his family. "Then I take out the things that aren't happening." Carson's approach allows him to devote his time to what he really needs to accomplish over the next four days. "My initial reaction was that there was too much work to do," he said of shrinking his workweek. "But there is no rule that you have to work 40 hours a week to be successful."

Why Can't We Stop Having Meetings?

"They’re boring. They’re useless. Everyone hates them. So why can’t we stop having meetings?" asks Virginia Heffernan in The New York Times:

‘‘Meetings’’: The very word is enervating. With the freedom to peaceably assemble so high up on America’s founding priority list, you’d think that the workers of the free world would gather with more patriotic vigor, just as we speak, bear arms and pursue trials by jury. Instead, the spirit in which we come together, almost hourly in some professions, is something closer to despondency. Fifteen percent of an organization’s time is spent in meetings, and every day, the transcontinental conference room known as the white-collar United States plays host to 11 million meetings, according to research collated by Fuze, the telecommunications company (which might have a stake in publicizing research designed to stoke meeting fatigue). One study mysteriously calculates that the nation wastes more than $37 billion in ‘‘unproductive meetings.’’ The statistics seemed borne out by the several meeting-besotted companies I’ve advised, and I began to wonder if the Manager’s schedule suited anyone but tireless extroverts and PowerPoint connoisseurs.

And yet we persist. Meetings must be scratching some kind of itch, if only for fellowship and a reprieve from deskbound loneliness. And what an itch: Meetings are not just considered indispensable to many professions; they are almost coextensive with them. You can make a whole career of planning, holding and attending meetings and never dare contemplate the possibility of your being exempt. They can’t be avoided, but maybe they can be made bearable. I set out to see if anyone had a bright idea.

25 Years: How the Web began

25 years ago there was the Internet, but there was no Web. Then, Tim Berners-Lee proposed creating an Internet-based hypertext system and the Web was on its way. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols revisits the history: 

In 25 years we've gone from the Web being little more than a thought experiment to where we keep up with our friends on Facebook, where we get all our news, and we sit down in front of our Internet-connected TVs every night to watch Netflix movies. Indeed, had I dreamed where the Web would take us today in the early 90s I too would never have believed it.

Paola Antonelli: Rejection Is a Sign You’re Onto Something New

For more than 21 years, Paola Antonelli has been a curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Her career has been devoted to putting together provocative exhibits that spark new ways of thinking, and that often draws criticism. 

In this talk, Antonelli shares why failure and rejection are two feelings creative people should not only become familiar with, but should learn to embrace. “[Our work] can be weapons to really help people understand how to be better citizens,” she said. “But only if we will be allowed to do exhibitions that shock, disgust, and sometimes, even fail.”