Do you want to be famous or good? This question is crossing more minds today. Including mine. Social media makes it too easy to get noticed for very little. Being good at something is a stubborn exercise. It’s also a long road, with winding turns you learn to drive right over. But you know you’re […]
Get reinventing
Originally published in April 2013 in Blog
This is, perhaps, the best unspoken rule of reinvention I’ve seen lately: “Surround yourself with people making mistakes and surviving.” It’s by Penelope Trunk. She says, “The reason entrepreneurs hang out with each other is because it’s inspiring to watch people work on problem after problem.” So to all you indie entrepreneurs (writers, illustrators, visual […]
Good work
Originally published in March 2013 in Blog
I love Betsy Bauer’s Google Doodle today celebrating International Women’s Day. Bauer has only been with Google six weeks. But, as Rebecca Jarvis of CBS This Morning noted, this opportunity is typical of Google where good work trumps hierarchy. Here is Betsy’s first Doodle posted on February 5th in honour of Mary Leakey’s 100th birthday. And […]
Spilled milk
Originally published in January 2013 in Blog
UPDATED: January 30, 2013 Yesterday, The Globe & Mail, “Canada’s national newspaper,” fired took its literary editors, the crusty and intelligent team of Martin Levin and Jack Kirchhoff, off Books. I pounded my fist on the desk when I read this. Then I let out a cry in my condo that was heard only by the dogs […]
Blogging rules
Originally published in November 2012 in Blog
Hot off the press
Originally published in August 2012 in Blog
The lines in this drawing are actually clumps of pulled wool caught in fishing line. Drawing stares Despite itself, the computer age has given rise to a more intense engagement with objects. Miles Davis on vinyl, homemade scrapbooks assembled with a medieval attention to detail, and libraries of real books stacked in such unexpected places as abandoned phone booths […]
In conversation with Google’s Robert Wong
Originally published in July 2012 in Blog
I recently sat down with Robert Wong, the co-founder and Executive Creative Director of the Google Creative Lab. You may not know about the lab, but its products are unforgettable. Take “Parisian Love,” a 52-second video the lab produced that’s all about “search” and the serendipity of finding true love through the internet. This video […]
In conversation with Erin Cooper Gay
Originally published in May 2012 in Blog
“In Conversation” is a popular Q&A Segment on “Society Pages” that features interviews with creative risk takers. So far, I’ve profiled Bruce Mau, an industrial designer turned global thinker, Maureen Judge, a Genie Award-winning filmmaker whose real life docs focus on family dynamics, and Evan Jones, a pioneer in Alternate Reality Games. Evan’s computer feats have […]
