Wrote
- Time for yourself (2020-04-13).
- Nod to self, from a different orbit (2020-04-14).
- Don't narrow out the future (2020-04-16).
Read
- Rob Walker, Productivity and the Joy of Doing Things the Hard Way, Wired (2019-05-28). (notes) At some point you have to wonder if the thing we’re hacking away isn’t just annoyance or inefficiency, but potentially delightful serendipity. Or, you know, life itself.
- Tyson Bird, Author and Illustrator Edward Carey Shares the Story Behind His Quarantine Drawings, Texas Highways (2020-04-14). (notes) I draw now what people ask for (with the exception of a self-portrait on my fiftieth birthday), and I like that. It takes me somewhere different, and we all need to find new destinations during this time of shelter. I’ve no idea what drawings will follow, nor how many drawings will be stacked up by the end of this. I’m just taking it—like so many people around the globe—one day at a time. One drawing at a time. A drawing a day to keep the eye off the plague.
- Divya Gandhi and Anusua Mukherjee, Art for the Anthropocene, The Hindu (2019-12-28). (notes) Her unerring eye for detail began with a large coffee table book, Hummingbirds, she illustrated. “It lifted my art to another level. I had to follow a very specific protocol: each plate had to be to scale; each one had to depict both the male and female of the species. And each had to show one interesting behaviour trait of the hummingbird
- Gwen Moran, Now is a great time to make some mediocre art, Fast Company (2020-04-07). (notes) Creating things, especially in the face of uncertainty, fear, or other distressing and unsettling emotions, is an innate drive, she says. “It speaks to our own individual identity and our need to have a sense of agency and control over our lives and over our time,” Kaimal adds.
- Steve Blank, In a Crisis – An Opportunity For A More Meaningful Life, steveblank.com (2020-04-16). (notes) But every crisis brings an opportunity. In this case, to reassess one’s life and ask: How do I want to use my time when the world recovers? What I suggested was, that the economic disruption caused by the virus and the recession that will follow is one of those rare opportunities to consider a change, one that could make your own life more meaningful, allow you to make an impact, and gain more than just a salary from your work. Perhaps instead of working for the latest social media or ecommerce company or in retail or travel or hospitality, you might want to make people live healthier, longer and more productive lives.
Listened
- Managing Crises in the Short and Long Term, HBR IdeaCast (2020-04-14). (notes) [10:27] Taking a narrow view is another one of those traps and the human mind is hardwired when faced with a threat to narrow its perspective. You think back to our sort of prehistoric ancestors. When they heard a rustling in the bushes they had to really quickly figure out was that going to eat them, or were they going to eat it? And so this narrowing happens and you have to, if you’re going to lead, you have to pull back and see that bigger picture, not just the foreground, what’s happening now, but the mid-ground and the background, looking into the future. Because if you’re leading you've got to be thinking about not what has to happen right this second. Hopefully you’ve got competent people around you doing that. But what are we going to need in two weeks, two months, six months?
- Agility Robotics' Damion Shelton: "Legs over wheels", Danny in the Valley (2020-04-15). (notes) [18:23] We've been selling product early. So that was one of the lessons from my 3D scanner days was sell something as opposed to nothing as rapidly as you possibly can because you're going to learn an awful lot.
- Authenticity is a Double-Edged Sword, WorkLife with Adam Grant (2020-04-06). (notes) [35:48, Carmen Medina] You're not going to win those battles if you do a frontal assault every time. And sadly, for a lot of organizations, behaving in your authentic way can be perceived as a frontal attack. And I just think that's horrible, but that is still the world that we live in.
Watched
Guilty of Treeson, WORLD'S BEST TREE FELLING TUTORIAL! Way more information than you ever wanted on how to fell a tree!
Photo
garlic forest
Upcoming
- 2020-04-20: Self-Leadership During Change, Disruption, and Uncertainty, presented by Judy Shen-Filerman, Washington University in St. Louis (online)
- 2020-04-23: Lunar Surface Innovation: Technology for Sustainable Moon Operations, American Astronautical Society (online)
- 2020-04-28/2020-05-07: Collaborating and Communicating Agile Requirements, Washington University Technology & Leadership Center (online)
There might be additional links that didn't make the cut at notes.kirkkittell.com