What’s the point of direct funding to artists?
Diane Ragsdale has a fascinating article about the value of direct subsidies to artists. Although it’s about the American context, the points she makes are equally relevant in Europe. She references...
View ArticleEmotion in organizations – references
A number of people at the ICP Conference today and yesterday asked for some references on emotion in organizations so here are a number of books I have found useful – enjoy! CAMPBELL, D. 2000. The...
View ArticleSixty museums in search of a purpose
András Szántó’s analysis of the mission statements of 60 museums makes for interesting reading. The accompanying Wordle is a graphic account of the most commonly used words in mission statements...
View ArticleWhen what you are doing isn’t working…
I’ve been interested in Professor Michael Wesch’s teaching methods for some time and have followed his use of social media in the classroom (via social media naturally). So I was fascinated to read...
View ArticleOn art, psychoanalysis and insanity
This South Bank Show on art and insanity is really interesting and includes some fascinating insights from psychoanalyst Adam Phillips about the relationship between creativity and madness. Each part...
View ArticleHalf a million secrets
Secrets can remind us of the countless human dramas, of frailty and heroism playing out silently in the lives of people all around us. Frank Warren from Post Secret tells the story of over 500,000...
View Articleradio silence
Apologies for the radio silence the past few months. I put blogging on hold while I completed my doctoral thesis. My PhD was awarded at the end of May after a really engaging and interesting viva...
View ArticleBenjamin Zander on passion, purpose and strategy
I keep returning to this Benjamin Zander TED talk in which he uses Chopin to demonstrate the essential characteristics of leadership. Apart from being passionate about your subject or area of work,...
View ArticleYou can’t look round your emotions, you have to look through them
Your emotions are the lens through which we look at the world. You can’t look round your emotions, you have to look through them. This interview with Turner award winner Grayson Perry makes for...
View ArticleWhen hiring the wrong consultant is the right idea
Ever wondered why hiring the wrong consultant is very often the right decision for organisations? There may come a point when you know that the task you’ve been hired to do or facilitate simply isn’t...
View ArticleBecoming Freud
I recently finished reading Adam Phillips’ new book Becoming Freud. It’s ostensibly a ‘biography’ of Freud but Phillips begins by referencing Freud’s ambivalence about the whole idea of biography; he...
View ArticleOn being ordinary
I was at a very interesting lecture by Constance Deveraux in UCD recently during which the issue of ‘excellence’ (as it related to the arts) was raised. Achieving excellence has become a mainstream...
View ArticleThe psychology of your future self
A TED talk from Dan Gilbert on the Psychology of your Future Self
View ArticleUS student is rescued from giant vagina sculpture in Germany
From the Guardian: I can see this being used as a teaching tool on psychoanalytic training courses for years and years!
View ArticleSilicon Valley’s culture of failure
Most startups fail. However many entrepreneurs still overestimate the chances of success – and the cost of failure. This interesting piece front the Guardian focusses on the current reification of...
View ArticleThe value of conflict in organisations
I’ve been re-watching Margaret Heffernan’s TED talk on the value of conflict in organisations. I particularly like this quote So how do organizations think? Well, for the most part, they don’t. And...
View ArticleThe secret (emotional) language of food
This article from Dan Jurafsky (based on his book The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu) is fascinating. He researched restaurant reviews…that’s right…over 900,000 of them relating to 6.500...
View ArticleEntitlement
The Internet is what you make of it, obviously. And there are aspiring writers who use digital technology to read and research and seek the counsel of their peers. But the Internet has also been a...
View ArticleCrafting questions that matter
Financial Times journalist Jo Ellison in an article entitled Fear and Clothing reviews two books which argue the case for why clothes and fashion matter. Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi...
View ArticleWhat’s wrong with the political interview (and how to fix it)
Newsnight editor Ian Katz outlines what he believes is wrong about the TV political interview in this Financial Times article. In summary what’s wrong is that the interview has become a dance between...
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